#bespectacledbibliophile

[bespectacledbibliophile]

What’s Up With Me: The Complicated Stuff

So... it’s been a while since I wrote anything about my for-realsies life. I should do that. This one’s going to be less happy, but I’m going to be writing another one soon about the good stuff.

Anyway.

I think one of the reasons I have been so quiet is that I have had to take some time to figure out how to handle some of the stuff that happened to me before my ex and I broke up two years back. Things in my relationship got... really bad. Like sexual coercion and gaslighting bad. I won’t go into all of the details, but I feel like I should talk about some of it because I was silent for way too long.

Feel free to tap out here if you need to. I understand.

I think it says a lot that when my ex said he wanted to end the relationship my response was “fine.” There was just nothing left in me.

I’m still realizing, day to day, the kind of impact that my previous relationship had on me. It took me months to get back some of the memories I blocked out, and I’m still not sure whether to be happy that I got back the memories of coercion or sexual advances in uncomfortable and inappropriate settings. Sometimes I still have memories come back, but I’m better at handling them.

I’m still working on making sense of some of my emotions, especially since there were a lot of times when I was told how I should feel or pushed toward feeling poorly about my day so that I could be rescued from those negative emotions. For a long time it was hard to differentiate “not miserable” from “happy,” and it’s taken a long time to get back in touch of my emotions enough to articulate them in a more nuanced way. It’s only recently that I stopped trying to write off the fact that I had months on end where I cried every day without those tears being consciously linked to an event or emotion. I’ve finally gotten to a point where being happy doesn’t come accompanied with the sinking feeling that my being happy is just a sign that the pressure is going to start again or that I’m going to suddenly be told that I’m not living up to a standard that I wasn’t even aware of.

And, honestly, with taking back control of my emotional life I feel like I’ve gotten myself back.

I got bicycling back, too. It’s amazing how much more riding I got done when I didn’t have someone telling me that a half an hour ride was just proof that I had enough time to spend the night with them instead.

And I addressed some of this with my ex. Not all, and if I’m being honest I talked to him about the sexual misconduct stuff instead of the emotional stuff because I’ve dealt with sexual misconduct before. It’s easier to say “you touched me in a way that I didn’t like” than to say “you made me feel like the only emotions I was allowed to have were the ones you decided I should have at any given moment.” But he apologized without equivocation or excuses, and that was more than I was ready to hope for.

I don’t think he’s a bad person, mind you. He made bad decisions, but I think most of those bad decisions were the result of him trying to avoid making himself vulnerable. He acted a lot on fear or insecurity or anger. I have to believe that he can and will move forward and make better ones, though.

I also don’t think I’m perfect, not by a long shot. I got passive-aggressive, mostly. I was sick and tired all the time without being in touch with my emotions enough to say why. I got secretive and quiet because I didn’t know what would cause a blowup.

Sometimes I still get mad about the time I lost. I spent so long being exhausted all the time, emotionally and physically, that I can’t help but wonder what I would have done if I hadn’t been slowly going dead inside. But then I remind myself that every day is another opportunity to do it better.

And, really, I’m doing it better. And there’s another post coming about that.

[bespectacledbibliophile]

I’ve mentioned before that I apparently have an invisible “COME OUT TO THIS ONE” sign visible primarily to teenagers, and apparently that sign was on full display this past weekend.

My friend introduced me and another friend of ours to a young man who works with her, and he felt comfortable coming out to us having known us less than an hour. I don’t want to include too much detail for it’s-his-business-and-not-mine reasons, but even with my friend there to vouch for me that’s kind of amazing.

I am still not over how readily teenagers seem to trust me with this sort of information; more and more of them seem to come out to me after relatively short acquaintance or trust me with some pretty private conflicts. Hell, I’m still surprised how many people my own age trusted me in college with the subjects they keep close to their hearts. I have very intentionally tried to make myself into the kind of person I needed when I was younger, someone who will listen and be kind and try to understand, but I might always be a little surprised that it has actually worked.

[bespectacledbibliophile]

Today, I got to listen to a teenager talk about her family and friend frustrations, her sexuality, and dogs. I was sewing costumes backstage at practice for the local HS and we just started chatting.

When she apologized for taking up so much of my time, I laughed a little and said that it happens all the time (which it does, most often with LGBTQ+ teens going through some things). She said, “Well, you just seem like a good listener.” I guess a good listener was just what she needed right then.

I don’t know what it is about me--if I have some sort of invisible sign marking me as the mom one or if it’s just a feature of my face--but I’m totally okay with it. When I was in college (after struggling through high school and the first couple of years of college with a lot of personal challenges) I decided that one of the goals of my adulthood was to become the person I needed when I was younger but didn’t have.

I think I’ve succeeded.

[bespectacledbibliophile]

Pride Thoughts Part the Third: On Being In The Closet For Someone Else

So I’ve mentioned that I’m not out to my family in part because I don’t have a word, and as a result I’m somewhat stuck as to the way to explain myself. It’s an odd thing for an English major and professional writer to say, I know.

But more odd is that I’m also in the closet for the sake of my cousins.

I love my family. I do. But a good chunk of my extended family is conservative. When I say that, I mean a particular variety of conservative. I mean that a few of my uncles are pantsuit-bashing, Trump-extolling, outright racist, making-jokes-about-pretending-to-be-trans-and-sexually-assaulting-women-in-bathrooms-while-their-sexual-assault-survivor-niece-is-in-the-passenger-seat-of-the-Subaru conservative.

I’m highly aware that coming out to my immediate family would bring with it the very good chance that I would end up being outed to my extended family. That would damage the web of relationships within my family.

If I’m outed, if that network is damaged and I stop being invited to every family gathering, I might be unable to properly act as my cousins’ ally if they need me to, and that I dread more than any broken relationships of my own. I love my cousins, and I have enough of them that there’s a chance—and probably a good chance—that I’m not the only one who’s not a Kinsey 0. I’m the oldest girl on one side of the family, and that brings with it some measure of responsibility.

I’ve already quietly built up my role as the liberal cousin, particularly among my younger cousins. I’m the one who talks about feminism and literary representation. I’m the one with a close muslim friend. I’m the one who quietly passes my cousins copies of books about bisexual POC superheroes or television shows with gay characters in the main cast. As much as this is just a part of who I am, the LGBTQ+ representation is also my small way of giving them a message: it’s okay, and I love you, and I am here if you need it.

I’ve also kept a mental list of relatives’ various stated beliefs. The aunt who said that she raised her children to “know better” than to be LGBTQ+. The uncle who made a comment about “curing” lesbianism. The ones who were open to varied gender presentation. I know who would be safest—and least safe—to come out to, and I’ve been keeping that list for more than 10 years.

But none of that does any good if I damage those relationships. As strange as it is to say that I am hesitant to come out for the safety of someone else, as long as my relationship status doesn’t push the issue I’d rather do what I can to keep those lines of communication open, to keep them safe.

Just in case.

[bespectacledbibliophile]

Pride Thoughts Part the First: On Not Having A Word

Finding myself single just before Pride Month has had me thinking a lot about me and my sexuality. So I’m going to write about it, I guess. I’m labeling this the first part because I’m genuinely unsure how many thinks I’m going to have this month.

So. Me.

At this point, I know I’m not straight. Where exactly I fit is somewhere in the gray-asexuall/bisexual nebula, but I’m not sure if any of those labels actually feel like they fit me properly. I’m mostly attracted to people with whom I have a strong emotional bond, occasionally men and occasionally women. But not particularly often. Demisexual works, but it’s still not a great fit.

I’m also at a point in my life where I’m out (inasfar as I can come out as “idk, but not a Kinsey 0”) to most of my close friends, but I am in the closet when it comes to my family. Not even getting into the extended family, my parents think strongly in binaries, and while they might accept me they will definitely have trouble with the ambiguous nature of this thing. Having a word would be helpful. Having a word would give them a framework on which to hang an understanding.

I've heard about other people finding a word and having it just click for them. I’ve heard of others who know what they are and then find out there’s a word, that feeling of relief and of things clicking into place. If there’s a word, there are other people who are experiencing the same thing. If there is a word, then you’re not alone.

I would love to have a word that fit like a glove, but I don’t at the moment.

 And I know full well that not having a word is okay, that I am not alone even if I never find a word for whatever the hell is going on in me. I’ve talked to other people about this weird process of figuring themselves out, but, for some reason, I’m having a tough time accepting that ambiguity in myself.

[bespectacledbibliophile]

Pride Thoughts Part the Second: On Biphobia and Relationship Bullshit

You know, I wasn’t expecting to write anything so soon, but then a casually bisexual centurion on Doctor Who knocked my brain back onto that particular course.

Biphobia is one of those things that I became more aware of when I started to become more aware of myself. I suppose that’s only natural, to be more aware of a thing in the wider world as you become more aware of it in your own life, but that’s human nature for you.

 One of the things that hurt the most about my breakup was that my now-ex made an issue of my sexuality where it didn’t need to be an issue. By telling me that he was fairly sure that I will eventually end up with a woman — and doubling down on that assertion even as he was apologizing for muddying the waters with it the first time — he not only continued a pattern of telling me what I am thinking and feeling instead of letting me define it for myself but also cast a few of his previous comments in a much uglier light.

Notably, while we were talking about a book that I love a few months back, he told me that, at this point, it was incumbent on me to prove that I actually am attracted to men. He meant it as a joke, and I know that, but it feels so very ugly in retrospect. Of all the times he decided that he knew better than I did what was in my head—and there were more than I like to think about—these little moments of erasure were honestly the worst.

I have to listen to that every day. I have to be polite to my coworkers when they say “Oh, she used to be a lesbian, but now she’s straight—she’s a hasbian!” I have to hold my tongue when my uncle talks about how someone he knows “can’t decide if he’s straight or gay”. And then I had to hold my tongue when the person I was dating did it, too, this stupid thing where people work so hard to shove bisexual people (or pansexual, or ace, or bisexual-ish) into these narrow little boxes.

I’ve done a lot of healing in the past month, but that still feels like an open wound.

[bespectacledbibliophile]

I need a hug.

I need a LOT of hugs.

I also maybe need to throw things?

But mostly I need hugs.

[bespectacledbibliophile]

A note for the universe: acting like you know more about somebody else’s sexuality than they do is a shitty thing to do, and it’s a significantly shittier thing to do when you’re breaking up.