tiredofvampires

allowing for someone else to say some things you find really ugh!! and not getting panties in a bunch about just letting them feel like they said something really awesome. lol.

I'm sorry to say this, but I'm never going to pretend that what someone said is really awesome when it's "ugh!!". There may be an exception to that rule, but I can't think of it. If I disagree, I am not going to sit there yes-manning anyone, if we are assuming this is a two-way conversation, where both our views matter. The only situation I do that in is in company where I'm not close to the people involved and it would just create unnecessary friction. I don't have to share my view at all costs, when I'm not talking to receptive or interested other parties. But with someone intimate to me? I need to let them know how their ideas register with me. And I would ask nothing less of them. I don't want anyone yes-manning me either, just to avoid a conflict of opinion.

What you do with that disagreement is where the rubber meets the road. I think it's fine to debate, but when it gets to the point where they've fully explained their stand and why they have it, and you've done the same, and no one's budging to the other side, it comes to "agree to disagree." It's annoying as hell, lol, but that's when "not getting your panties in a bunch" matters. And you have to let go.

Easier said than done, I know your pain!

Of course, this somewhat depends on what kind of issue is being discussed. Very serious issues you can't just "agree to disagree" on, if a decision has to be made and you're going in opposite directions. Or if this is a value you hold so strongly, that someone thinking otherwise and not sharing that with you is a dealbreaker. That's why it's important for people to couple with those whose views are more similar than not -- people say opposites attract, but I believe the way couples survive if they are opposite is in the minutiae of life, or the individual personality quirks that don't affect mass tracts of the relationship, not the larger issues, values, and orientations. Those need to be aligned in my opinion.

.that my personal growth is still my first priority. I want it to be with him BUT after all this work... If it came down to it, I have to come first. It's the stage I'm at , and I know this will lessen, as I'm getting stronger all the time .

I get what you're saying...but at the same time, how are you separating "personal growth" and "me" from your progression with him? When you say "I have to come first"...I still see everything in your life and your relationship to it as an extension of that "I". I'm wondering what you are compartmentalizing.

From the things you've written, he seems to be very much integral to your personal growth. Learning to trust yourself, learning to trust another, learning where your growing edges are, learning how much time you need alone vs. with a love partner, etc. He is one of your teachers (in that you learn from him about yourself and your potential, and expand as a result), as I see it, so the relationship between yourself and yourself-with-him is symbiotic.

I certainly would love that, IAG. I'm sure it would be amazing (and who better to show me around it?)

I know my psyche is often dark, but this stuff is real. It is part of our human experience. We have to remember to love each other. I'm sorry, guys.

Right with you there, IAG. It IS dark...but it's also real, and I never want to lose touch with reality, mine or anyone else's. I don't feel I'm separate from this. For those of us who can relate, who have experienced those images in any concrete or symbolic way, in waking or in sleep, there is the precious recognition of our shared humanity.

I really appreciated the video -- the intent and the significance. And of course this is your journal and you don't have to apologize. Matter of fact, if I'd known about it, I might have posted it in mine, so I get it.

I don't avert my eyes because I feel that it's partly my role as a citizen of the earth to know. And on a really personal note, I don't feel this has to be just depressing and morbid; for me, it always inspires action and resolve, in whatever capacity that can manifest.

I've never celebrated Christmas, myself -- raised in the tradition prone to "Christmas envy", haha -- but I enjoy all of what it feels like vicariously. I wish I lived in a snowy place, and always feel I can taste the snowflakes and the twinkles of lights everywhere. I love seeing the strands of lights like stars in so many windows and making everything in the city glow that much more brightly. I love the trees and the bright colors. I think I must have some very, very early memory, pre-verbal...of seeing a red Christmas ball with some frosty texture, and it just stuck with me as mesmerizing, because some ornaments have this powerful effect on me of feeling swept with pleasure -- it's like this excited feeling that I can't even describe or connect with a moment in time.

So I sort of "vibe" off other people's Christmas peaks and valleys...and am glad that you, IAG, are in a place of opening to your life. I hope this will be a beautiful Christmas and coming year for you.

I have limited sculpting experience, but when I used to sculpt I used epoxy putties (often called "green stuff" or "white stuff", and often sold by specialist hobby miniature stores, or sometimes marketed as plumbing compounds). They have a long curing time, and when mixed they have a relatively tough consistency, while staying pliable for hours, allowing you to spend time perfecting details.

I've never looked into that but it sounds really cool.

Is it non-toxic? Does it emit a strong odor (I got extremely sensitive to art material vapors)?

This is quite good for a first sculpture, actually.

How was it working with Sculpey? I've wanted to experiment with that but fear it might not allow for enough detail work.

I agree with the previous poster about avoiding cliche, so this is more of a conceptual than a technical critique. Like, I'm going more for the screws than the imagery of a bandage and the teardrop on the face. The more you can create the emotion you want without having to announce it with very literal and common associations (this is a tear, so the figure is sad; this is a bandage, because the heart is mending) the more powerful it will be. Rather than just thinking, "oh, that's about sadness", you want the viewer to have a visceral pang of their own.

I think that the way you've distorted the face and its texture conveys the pain much more effectively than the teardrop, which is redundant and overly-stated.

I also rather like that I can't quite make out what those other marks are on the heart -- it leaves my imagination to wonder how it's been marred.

What did you use in the mold to release the clay?

TOV. I've read that post a few times already. I wanted to tell you how much I appreciated you taking the time and thought to write it. I will, I do anyways!, check out your journal. I want to read an update about the interesting man, is he the bastard? or who is the bastard?, btw.

Thank you, about keeping an eye out for me. Yes, I do have to catch up with my own journal, haha -- to continue the story about the interesting man, which I thought had been concluded, but then it took a couple of other turns. And so it seems to be ongoing, though with an uneventfulness that defies most reasonable predictions of survival.

But no, he's not the bastard. That's someone I've been hesitant to post about here, because his role in my life has flickered in and out. Lately, he's had a significant role, but in the scheme of things, he's quite a peripheral bit part. He's like a character in a play who only appears for one scene, and only says a few lines, but when he's on, he's the only one talking onstage, so he's got full reign for a brief moment. And it would be hard to explain what my connection with him is about without going into some pretty gnarly things I wrestle with. I'm not trying to be mysterious, and sorry that sounds so cryptic, lol, but to explain why I haven't dropped him from my life would require some clarification that would be hard to put in a context readily relatable...but basically, he's someone who became a friend about 3 years ago, and since then we've had on-again-off-again contact, mostly off because he narrowed his interests to just a physical relationship. I'm clear on his limitations and peculiarities, and why I'm still engaging with him at all. But the other day, he responded to me in a way that blew me away for how self-centered he was. He hit a new and astonishing level of incapable, in my eyes. Very sobering. Thus the post.

I was thinking about how you talk to yourself today. How you described acknowledging to yourself that you are reliving, in the reptilian part of your brain, the trauma when you get triggered. It's something I know. But something about the way you wrote it. Hmm, it's odd. Brought me closer to my own experience with it somehow. When that happens to me, I become detached from that part of me. It IS like one part of me, fighting the other. The two parts need to make peace. The reptilian part needs more understanding, and love. Love. Is that so crazy?! It helped me stay sane in a time when it was not so easy to be me. It did a job. It did dirty work. Now I resent it for doing what it did? For helping me survive? It gave me some new thoughts on this. I have not betrayed myself. I did not fail myself. I did exactly what I needed to do, when I needed to do it. If that part hadn't been there, what would have happened?! I don't know - maybe I would have been like the lady I saw who tried to throw herself out a window and cut herself up. I didn't do things like that. I just detached, zombied out. I survived to be there for the people I care about, and to have a life after.

Exactly!! And no, it's not crazy, that's what I'm saying -- that I realized I'd somehow lost a feeling of unification with myself, and it's come down to loving that part of your body/mind (they are integrated, of course, in the brain) that was on the front lines, as a first responder. How much it's gone through, and done heroically, and yet, somehow I think we've come to feel like it's the enemy. But it's very much friend not foe, and somehow re-integrating myself with this part of my psyche feels critically important. It's a kind of all-consuming tenderness that I want to achieve when I apprehend this part of myself. I mean, it's easy to confuse it with an enemy -- it's the part of my brain that makes me feel trapped in automatic feelings and fears, makes me feel unsafe. But instead of going to war with it, I want to make it part of my team, to feel it as an indispensable friend that was only doing its job, doing it's finest work for me, doing exactly what it was put there to do. So that's a feeling of self-acceptance that works its way into a larger sense of self-acceptance. Let no part be disowned. They are all parts of me.

This all really became much clearer recently when I was listening to a guided visualization/meditation and when the voice recited a bit about how I was my best friend, always working for my highest good, I burst into tears...I felt the estrangement that was there, without my being so cognizant of it. And I realized how much more work I still had to do on this. Feeling safe in my own self, my own body, and trusting it.

This sounds so bizarre, but I had an almost mystical experience of seeing my brain on an MRI scan (several times throughout my life, since I was 17 or so). I think everyone should see their brain on an MRI film at some point. Because there's something so non-physical about the emotions that arise, so intangible being in an everyday experience of our brains, we take so much for granted about how much a chunk of matter can conjure up. When you actually see your own physical brain...realizing if you held it, it would only be about 3 pounds...you realize that this is the factory where all your hopes and dreams, your talents before they emerge into the world, come from. This nut of convolutions and flickering electricity has brought buildings and symphonies and paintings and languages into being. It's also brought the most private of pains to each person, and somehow seeing my very own brain on film gave me a feeling of having in my possession something precious and miraculous. How could any part of it be anything but a masterpiece? And with this kind of reverence, I think we have to regard and respect its evolutionary wisdom and genius. I don't think this directly addresses something like an anxiety disorder, but it indirectly affects the way I am oriented to the relationship with my body/mind. It's one of growing beneficence, like re-friending someone that I've mistrusted way too long. And like any love, it's not something you feel in the head. It's something you feel in the heart and viscera. Your heart and your brain have to not just work side by side, they have to have a love affair. If that doesn't sound crazy!

I might have to paste some of this into my own journal, at some point. Because it feels like an major part of my focus these days, with my healing. I have both a chronic pain disorder (actually two chronic pain diagnoses) and a traumatic disorder (so far, I have not been diagnosed with PTSD, but I believe that's over a stupid technicality). Either one is too much for a person. But both together?

There's no way out but to be more loving towards myself, to keep finding new levels where I'm holding back on that. And they keep surprising me, the places where I still reject, because I want to be different than I am, to not have certain challenges. It's really a process of radically being willing to welcome and open the door. Sometimes I take for granted that if I'm being self-protective, I'm loving myself. I think self-protection is a survival mechanism, but self-love is more like a sense of allowing, appreciation, and grace. So they're not quite the same.

By the way, for those who are interested in info about benzos: I was at my neurologist's today and I asked him how often I could take a slightly higher dose (which is still very small) of Klonopin without needing that new amount, and getting habituated to it. He told me that I could get away with taking an extra bit 2-3 times PER MONTH, as needed. More than every 10 days or so, and you'll be hooked, he said. That's how fast and easily the brain gets locked into this stuff.

I was on 1 mg. each night and taking another half or whole mg. a couple of times a week, for the last couple of months due to my extreme increases in anxiety. I thought spaced a few days apart, and only for a limited time, this would be okay. Looks like I'm going to have to stop doing that asap. And I'm going to have to titrate down, now that I've started doing this practice. Take one half mg. less each week, until I return to my usual constant dose of 1 mg./day, even though this is so recent and such a small increase, and I was using intermittently "as needed".

I just wanted to put in, about the shaming and stigmatizing, that I've come to realize that what brings that up for me the most is that when I'm in the midst of anxiety, it's a reliving of the feeling of victimization -- of having no control, of something larger than me taking over and being helpless. And there is a huge societal mantra that if you give into feeling like a victim, you're weak. Everyone wants to see a hero who says, "I never let myself believe I was a victim", rather than a nightmare-consumed, tachycardia-driven adrenaline machine re-experiencing some piece of that familiar feeling of being helpless and broken.

I respect the concept, and it can be inspiring -- but it can also shame people, I believe. I WAS victimized, and I'm angry that anyone would try to diminish my toughness and resiliency by suggesting that I'd be oh-so much more heroic had I just gone on like this didn't happen to me, and I wasn't going to "let it" get me. There's a place for that thought -- but it's got to be applied with surgical precision, at the right time of healing, and only in moments where it can be grasped. It's not for all people and all moments. In moments where I feel overpowered, I don't want to feel ashamed on top of everything else for being weak.

That's why I think it's important for me to focus on redirecting that energy into accepting messages, rather than aversive ones. To not reject any part of me when those moments happen. Those resistant responses are a kind of disowning what happened and what's happening, for me. If I look at those states of mind as something that is entirely natural, given the way my brain has had to adapt and protect me, something that's happening so that I can cope with whatever is triggering it, and use self-talk like, "It's okay, we're going to be okay, you're safe right now, it's okay to be scared but you're safe" then I am actually just being a comforting and composed loving parent figure for myself rather than a troubled doctor trying to fix what's "broken." I'm not bludgeoning it to death saying, GO AWAY!!!! It just feels a lot more nurturing to talk with care to it. In those moments, it's okay to just understand that I was once helpless and that's why I feel this way. It's not some crazy reaction to life.

There are still too many people who would have us saying it's not okay to cry. Cry, as in, any vulnerable reaction. Anxiety attacks are the peak of vulnerable.

I don't believe the brain can ever erase what happened and return to its pristine state before the trauma hit. But I also believe it's possible to heal to the extent that whatever is permanent is something like a guard standing duty but never moving to act. A quiet and peaceful warrior that doesn't have to fight, and knows it doesn't. I study so much about neuroplasticity and the brain, and the nervous system, and it boggles the mind how incredibly adaptive it is. I can't help but think -- these parts of my brain were trained to act like this. My brain learned all this -- this way of coping. So how is it that it can't learn something different and new? I won't say "unlearn" -- you can't UNlearn a reaction any more than you can UNlearn how to spell, once you've learned. But you can learn a new language, with new words spelled as they are spelled. And the more you use those words and speak in that language, the more your brain uses that tongue, the easier it comes...and after enough time, the old language starts to grow some moss. The brain is constantly upgrading the system, and even though the higher brain does all the rational thinking, the lower brain does receive messages from there, as well.

That's why I think clear, simple mantras like the ones I mentioned -- and I keep experimenting with ones that feel most effective -- are important. I think we can talk to our amygdalas, our limbic systems. Those organs pick up on anything on the airwaves that warns us of danger -- and likewise, they pick up on anything that says the danger is past. So we can affect our own nervous system's processing by the things we hear, including our own voices. I am working with talking to my own amygdala, haha. Seeing it in my head, as a precious friend who has helped me but is overworked. And I tell it that we're doing good, we're okay right now. Sometimes I talk to it in first person, sometimes second person (usually), sometimes plural, sometimes singular. But I try to achieve the feeling that we're a team, we are working together, we are not at odds with eachother or in a battle of some kind -- we are in this together and are in control of the situation. Sometimes, "I am your friend, I'm here" is all I need to say.

I do this kind of silent inner talk while taking deep, slow inhalations, and VERY SLOW, long exhalations, picturing my bellying filling like a balloon and then decompressing. This kind of breathing automatically switches your nervous system from sympathetic (fight-flight-freeze) mode to parasympathetic, which is your rest and digest mode. Which is what you want. Anything you can do to reduce the sympathetic nervous tone will help kick in the parasympathetic.

So yeah, there is no reasoning oneself out of anxiety funks, but there are measures one can take using one's mind -- and that self-regulation is very empowering. As are the visualizations you're doing of the lake. That's lovely. I listen to a lot of guided visualization stuff, and it has been helping, because sometimes it's hard for me to call up the good stuff on my own. I'm very visual so these things register where images and associations are processed, and that's more primitive.

I do believe we have enormous power to recreate, and I bring my mind back to that often.

There are many modalities besides meds, which I am looking into myself. If I post about them in my own journal, I'll let you know.

Congrats on the new doc. That's always a relief.

Incidentally, a medication worth trying in lieu of benzos, which has helped me enormously during panic/anxiety episodes, is a beta blocker. I take propranolol. That stops adrenaline from attaching to adrenaline receptors, particularly calming palpitations and rapid heartbeat. A psychiatrist introduced me to that in college, when I told him I had performance anxiety/panic, and I've found it has helped calm me down even better than benzos. Part of what fuels panic and strong anxiety is the visceral heartrate reaction, that then signals your brain that you're in danger. So if you shut that whole fight or flight process down, your brain responds with less alarm. And it's got a low side-effect profile and is completely non-habituating. So you never have to worry about weaning off, you can use a beta blocker as needed. Very safe.

I do not think benzos taken regularly for an extended period of time are a good solution to chronic anxiety.

That is basically the point I was making.

And I wasn't sure when you said you were considering benzos, IAG, what that meant. If you are taking it infrequently for a really bad episode, you are not likely to become hooked.

But I do not consider the stories of successful weaning more meaningful than the horror stories. This is real -- a real medical phenomenon, not just "horror stories you hear on the internet":

And it has happened to me. I was on Xanax for probably less than a year in my youth (late teens, early twenties), and stopped suddenly because I felt that each time it left my system, I had such a horrible rebound of palpitations and panic, I had to take some more just to counter that. That scared the crap out of me, and so I stopped cold turkey (I had no idea about weaning, and I was just reacting impulsively). I got through that without anything terribly memorable, but that's probably because I was younger and more adaptable. Looking back, I was really lucky. (Xanax is also the worst of the offenders, as its half-life is so short -- if you do take a benzo, the ones with longer half-lives aren't as severe to get off of.)

Now I'm on Klonopin (longer half-life). I've kept a nearly constant dose of 1 mg. since I was in my 20's. I only raised it once (until very recently), by .5 mg a few years into it. It was the only thing that could help me sleep, without making me feel disoriented, zombied out, or have tachycardia. I had zero side effects, and the neurologist who prescribed it (for sleep, not anxiety, even though I did and do have anxiety) said that as long as I was not using it to get a "high" of relaxation, my body would not become "addicted." And he was right to an extent -- technically, addicted means you need more and more of the drug. Well I stayed on that dose more or less all this time, and yet I am "habituated" which means that now, weaning off is next to impossible. I guess this would count as just another "horror story", but it's mine -- that when I try to cut down by even a crumb of the medication (and I'm on a very small dose, which should make it easier), within 2 days, I feel that I'm going to tear my own skin off, that I'm going insane, that my heart is going to leap out of my chest, that I'm going to do something rash, with a wild panic racing through me, and the sweats and the nightmares are cinema-worthy.

I'm by no means saying this will happen to everyone/anyone/you, and clearly, it doesn't happen to a lot of people. But it's not an ideosyncratic reation, either. The "horror stories" are told by doctors too, not just patients. And they have a patchwork of different experiences, too. My more current neurologist (a retired army doc) said that he has vets wean off in 2 weeks. My ex-psychiatrist told me it would take upwards of a year to wean off. But both said it was going to be gruelling. And every single acupuncturist I've been to said that they have protocols for helping people to wean off, but even then, it's a lot of hard hand-holding along the way, that there's a certain amount of toughing out the storm you just have to endure. I have every intention of going through this, but it's not like quitting smoking -- nicotine is out of your system in 3 days, and then it's purely a psychological craving (not to minimize that difficulty though). This is a physiological NEED that your receptors have, it's your heart, your nervous system -- your body has become DEPENDENT on it, and that physiologic dependency lasts for a long time in prone individuals. Months as opposed to days with nicotine. In that wikipedia article, you'll also see that if you're having an especially bad spell and up your dose while weaning off, your brain sees that as being back to square one.

This drug has helped me stay asleep at night were I would have been waking all night long, so it served me. And it's also robbed Peter to pay Paul. I would give anything to be off of it now, and I intend some day to start again with the "project", but I need everything else to be so stable, and reliable, that so far, that's still just a long-range wish. In fact, I've been so traumatized in the last couple of years, I've taken another half mg. to full mg. at night just to get by, which is going in the wrong direction, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and I understand that too because I'm living it. To be honest, when I take a little more klonopin to get by, as pragmatic of a person as I am, I feel I'm chipping off a little bit of my soul to sell to the devil because I've seen how insidious it can be (it also after a while actually paradoxically makes your sleep of poorer quality -- though, that's over continued use, and your body getting used to having it around). My experience of it (partly based on others I know who use it) is that if you have chronic, unresolved anxiety, it becomes easier and easier for it to become a go-to, even if you don't have the strong physical dependence factor I have. So psychologically, it becomes more of a dependency.

It's definitely up to you how you want to weigh these stories -- the good stories and the bad. Chronic, daily dosing is certainly a different story than taking it erratically and infrequently. The risk/benefit assessment is up to you. As long as you're informed. (some doctors won't even give you an ongoing prescription, btw, because they feel so strongly about this risk, which is now more widely understood than when I was in my 20's. but you can certainly find docs who will give you what you're asking for.)

But I would say that if you have any other strategies that work, or well enough to get you through the occasional rough spell, use those. If you can afford Chinese medicine, that is by far one of the most effective kinds of treatments I've ever had. With the right practitioner, I walk out of there so sleepy and stoned, I just want to go to bed and sleep, and I do. I've gone in in the middle of panic, and come out feeling calm and dazed (the ear points are used for PTSD). These methods do what drugs do -- they change your brain chemistry. Acupuncture is costly on a regular basis, but if you can afford it -- and especially if it's done as needed, when you're in the throes of something -- you might be able to never pop a single pill. And then there is herbal therapy, so you're taking medicinal substances.

I do believe that there is something so urgent about physiological panic/anxiety that it can become completely overwhelming. But over the years, I have refined my tools. I have a sleep disorder which feels beyond my control (and I don't know what I'd do about that if I get off klonopin), but in my waking time, I have better tools than I ever did for becoming more centered in the middle of a storm. I have more in my kit even for hurricanes.

I would just use it (a benzo) as a last, last resort and only on the very odd occasion, if you ever do. You simply don't know how it would react in YOUR body, to be taking it regularly, or even as needed, as your body comes to recognize it. Once your brain sees something as a "fix", it's never quite the same.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that even if 100 of us weighed in, you should not make your decision based on any of our stories, good or bad. You should make your decision about benzos based on what can happen in a worst case and best case scenario, per the medical information, and how well you can find other substitutes to get you through.

I'm rambling again but really, it is so lonely there. So lonely. To feel trapped in your own psyche like that. Just a few days of slipping into fatigue and semi withdrawing, and I feel horrible. And I know how that feels. It's soo familiar. There is no comfort in that place for me anymore. I do not want it on any level. I do not want the torture. And that is what it feels like. Private torture.

I know that feeling so well.

Just wanted you to know I relate...all too well.

And the only way to treat it when it comes along is to not fight it so much -- as long as it's there, the resistance will only make it worse. It's such hard work to be able to treat the most unpleasant states with equal interest and acceptance. It's easy to love what feels good -- such a challenge, but a fascinating one, I find, to go, "Okay, let's do this then" when you're feeling all the things you want to run from. Tight chest, tight breath, feeling crazy, feeling like running out of my brain to get to a happy place. And letting that all just BE, swirl around as it will. I've watched that before and it's funny but that somehow feels like a gift to myself. Because I'm not disowning anything about myself in those moments.

And there's nothing crazy about wanting that mom's chicken dinner!! There is nothing that comes close to my mom's chicken and salad dinners for comfort.

I'm glad it seems you're pulling out of this funk you've been in, and on the upswing.

I was wondering about this, though:

What is appropriate to share, what is needed so he isn't in the dark, and what is too much? I always shared too much of these things with my partners in the past.

what is "too much" in your view? What made you feel you shared "too much" in the past?

I guess I feel that with a close partner, there really is nothing that should be considered "too much" to share. Just as long as you don't expect them to fix it all. But to just listen? To understand and care? I know I wouldn't want my partner to keep to themselves the things you've shared here.

I have to wonder, if they can't handle it...is that my problem or theirs? I don't have a clear answer myself on that, just what I'd like to believe is true.

On another note, I would strongly advise against anti-anxiety medications. I've gone on about it before on this forum, but they are not meant to be taken for more than an acute episode, and unfortunately, most docs will just put people on them for however long. But they are highly habituating, more addictive than heroin. And it doesn't take long, either -- two weeks is the outer limit, where you're playing with that fire, and often people get hooked sooner than that. Given that you're trying to kick addiction with coffee -- yeay!! for you -- you don't need this, too. I don't mean to scare you, just give you the facts. I'm in the situation of having started on one many years ago, and now it's a blight on me and when I try to wean myself off, it's a nightmare. If you're on it for a very brief stint, it could be life-saving, but for what you're experiencing you're proposing something more extended. So yeah, just don't go there.

There are all kinds of natural substances to deal with anxiety. Kava kava herb, chamomile (strong tea), skullcap herb...just to name a few that have helped me.

And deep, deep breathing, with slow exhalations to calming music. Lately I've been listening to guided healing meditations on youtube while lying in bed, and they are very calming.

That's great that you have come so far, IAG, in knowing your own worth and honoring your needs. It sounds like something that should come so naturally...but how many are the ways some of us are tasked to climb our way back to that which we forgot so long ago.

I'm finding the slow-cook method of gingerly poking my head out to date feels a bit like trying on my new "me". You're right -- it kind of places your buttons out to be pushed front and center, and challenges you to see where you're at now. Kind of a gauge. I'm finding I still have some work yet to do on this one:

It's also the first time where I truly feel and understand that there isn't something basically wrong with me.

It's such a new feeling for me, like an alien mindset to think that there's actually nothing fundamentally *wrong* with me (even if I do have things I still want to keep working on and improving). I'm just ME, and I'm not everyone's cup of tea and that's actually a good thing. There should be some people who don't see eye to eye with me, or I'm in trouble. Recently I joked with a guy I was bantering with on a dating site, "I'm a bit like cilantro. You either like me or can't stand me." (and even venturing to say that to someone felt super refreshing!) Okay, maybe I'm not that completely polarizing, but it's kind of accurate anyways.

But it does bring up some of the old insecurities and fears, that's for sure. Things that are still a part of me, and that's sometimes hard to see clearly through, when the dance music has abruptly stopped, with our arms askew, and I don't know who stepped on whose foot, but we're both ambling/hobbling our separate ways off the dance floor...leaving me with my own thoughts again.

Yes, pretty much everyone on my late father's side of the family is or was (when alive) a violinist. My dad, his father, my uncle, and my cousins, who are professional violinists/musicians now (my generation). It kinda runs in the bloodline, though, as Eastern European transplants. Think "Fiddler on the Roof."

And also yep, I was classically trained, but on the piano (by my father, which is an immense and heavy story). I wouldn't say I "play an instrument", though, because it was so long ago that I stopped playing. I can still sit down and play/read, but it's quite an effort with how rusty I am. Every day I sat down to practice as a kid though, I dreamed of the day I'd pick up my guitar to play, which is what I really wanted more than anything in the whole world (I was not allowed to have lessons other than piano). It's a dream yet to be fulfilled.

Though I have often thought that if I could somehow buy a used cello, that might be a toss-up. I had one professor in art school who was just starting to learn cello, and I'd hear him scraping out these notes late in the evening in his office, when no one else was in the halls and his door was open. And somehow, it wasn't the screechy nails-on-chalkboard dissonance of newbie violinists...it was this quirky, lyrical, rough-around-the-edges timbre that had it's own beauty. Even when not played well, with baby beginner notes and a hoarse voice, that thing could sing.

So maybe. Someday...

There are still some piano songs that break me down, though, to wish I could sit down and play them.

That IS a beautiful song. On one of my favorite instruments...some say the violin comes closest to the human voice (at least all the violinists in my family do). But I think it's the cello. So soulful. Thanks for that. It's on a frequency that works for me, too, right now.

I would probably feel as you do about the tempo of being ready for a second date the very next day after a first one. I don't just think it's something about you needing gallons of space. I don't think there are any hard-and-fast rules about what's "appropriate", as it's true that this might be the right pace for some other woman. But in my own experience, there's something a bit frantic about that kind of sense of urgency...and it doesn't bode too well. To be honest, I'm not sure it bodes well for anyone, even if some may enjoy that excitement and stepped-up momentum. I think pacing is an important component of building a rapport, and there may be such a thing as universally "rushing" along.

It's really such a fine dance. To build something that you find yourself looking forward to, but not to kill it with haste. To do so without any contrivance, even though you're bringing awareness to your process.

I know what you mean about feeling "invisible." When I was with someone who lavished attention on me early on, I wondered if there was something wrong with me that I wasn't eating it up sideways, but instead feeling less and less seen. It was almost like, I could have been anyone.

I want someone to give me a chance to show them what they love about me.

I've got to church at times to please people in my life, and I just can't do that anymore. It would be simply to please.

 

Would that be such a bad thing to do?

If you're not anti-religious, and it doesn't push major buttons for you to be in a church...it seems to me that in all relationships, sometimes we do things with the other person because they like it more than we do, and we're along for the ride, to enjoy being present for something they enjoy. No doubt if your relationship is a long and serious one, there will be times he's doing something more because it's important to you than him. The connection being the important thing, not the place you're going itself.

I wouldn't want someone to go with me somewhere JUST to please me (checking his watch discreetly because he can't wait until it's over), but if I knew that he took pleasure in doing so for the reason that he's sharing in my enjoyment, and was adaptable and easy-going enough to go with the flow, it would be quite a turn-on (especially if we had a vibe where we could openly express our feelings/critiques at the end).

Does anyone else feel that way? Indebted to people even with something as simple as having a 3 hour conversation about cheese? That's my thing. That's why I'd rather live like a monk(for lack of a better description).

If it was 3 hours and about cheese, yeah, I'd feel indebted. I'm not even sure if I could get that far, or if I did, that person would not be someone I'd seek out in the future for conversation (unless this was a rare instance buttressed by other types of conversations.)

If it was a 3-hour conversation weaving relevant social issues and observations, philosophy, cultural references, and humorous personal anecdotes together, that time could easily fly. And that would not make me feel indebted or drained.

But I do know what you mean, and because my energy reserves are low lately, and I'm dealing with a lot of life turmoil, a lot of times I feel that friendships can start to develop strains of "obligatoriness" when the other person is expecting a certain quota of my time/energy. So no matter how good the connection, if it can't be flexible or someone's keeping tabs on how often we interact as a barometer of the quality of the friendship, or what a good friend I am, that dynamic can sour anything.

Sorry to be running off at the "mouth", IAG!

Maybe the operative word here, PTH, is "typical". I guess I don't want "a typical exclusive relationship".

I don't agree with that sentence in bold. And that's because you can't dissect and remove the parts of a "typical exclusive relationship" and throw away some, keep others, and end up with the same "gestalt". If you gut a relationship of the parts, you gut it of the whole which is greater than its parts.

To make a very imperfect analogy (but it's the best I can come up with at the moment), if you want to enjoy an authentic New York hotdog, you can always try to go out and buy a package of Oscar Meyers from the grocery store, a bag of buns, and a few jars and bottles of condiments. You can go to your apartment and fry the hotdog and sit in your basement and put the hotdog in the bun and slather on the condiments, and sit there and consume it. But it's not the same as it would be with the aroma of the vendor's truck, being served with it piping hot by a pro who's gotten the proportions of the condiments just right, all wrapped in special paper to catch the juices, going to the park and people-watching while you munch away, and feeling that you're HAVING AN EXPERIENCE, not just EATING A HOTDOG.

I think it really comes down to what you're looking for, in a total package, and how total you want it to be -- and you said that in YOUR package, love and intimacy would not be there. So some things would be MISSING in your experience, and you then can't call it an interchangeable or parallel experience anymore. It's something else, and that something else lacks. (And if you don't see a loss in that lack, well, there's not much that can be said about that. To me, it's like a deaf person who thinks they're missing nothing, because there's always sign language [not that I don't greatly admire/respect people with disabilities who overcome them!])

Anyone can have witty conversation, if you've got two equally-matched minds. Anyone can have sex, if you've got two bodies. But neither of these requires intimacy or love, and in fact, each could be highly impersonal. No one here would say that sex with a prostitute is intimate in any way. It's about as intimate as scratching an itch.

Your way, you can have impersonal sex and impersonal conversation. But you can't have personal sex and personal conversation, witty and otherwise.

So there are a lot of things people could do with others that amount to stimulating an area to scratch an itch, and while that may feel relieving or pleasant, it only goes so far. My experience with witty conversation (and to a lesser extent, sex that's just physically driven) is that there's a superficial quality to the enjoyment, and sometimes it even feels like it's lacking something more essential.

The question really becomes, what are you missing out on without love and intimacy? I think the answer is going to be different for everyone, but probably there's also a lot of universality/overlap in the answer. Not speaking for anyone but myself, the root of intimacy for me is a feeling like we "get" each other. That there's a deep sense of knowing that binds us, because we understand each other. And that's because in some way, you've let down your guard, and have mutually become vulnerable enough to see each other's weak sides, or fearful sides, or soft spots, or areas of uncertainty. You have learned something of each other's history, the conflicts and struggles that have made the person what they are. And you not only understand those and feel some solidarity with them, but because this person is someone you relate to, you care about all these things.

A big part of intimacy for me -- and wanting to have a partner -- is wanting a "partner in crime", which has become something of a cliche. But essentially, I want someone to share a vision, a goal, or shared goals and visions. For me, liking a person's personality isn't enough. The heart and soul of a relationship to me is a commitment to a life of excellence together, where we are striving in a similar way in the world and sharing its journey. The poet Khalil Gibran likened it to two pillars holding up a temple -- separate, but standing together. Otherwise, for me a relationship is just "there", to have someone around to have someone around, and that's where it loses its appeal to me. I don't need someone JUST to keep me company on this road. But someone to keep me company who is a fellow traveller, moving towards something he values for himself, where we can enhance, benefit, support, and edify each other's progress/process? Where we are two players on the same team? That's meaningful to me, as a bond.

And that goes way beyond witty conversation or sex, though those are part and parcel of the total experience. And those become GREATLY enhanced by the intimacy and love that is produced from sharing in the way I've described. It's like, all of these components are made richer and more potent with love and intimacy as a driver. All these things potentiate each other.

Love and intimacy act as "performance enhancers", lend continuity, and deepen the levels to which you can venture to go. The longer and better and closer you know someone, the more multi-dimensional the parts and their sum become.

So I don't really think you can have your cake and eat it too, in the sense of having a full-bodied relationship (or even a facsimile with disjointed ala carte pieces), without intimacy and love. You will miss so much of the depth and richness.

Love itself is essential IMO to not leading a fully self-centered life, where it's become solely about scratching your own various itches.

There needs to be give and take, reciprocity, sacrifice and compromise, to be whole and balanced as a person and have a whole relationship. And you really can't get to that if you don't care enough about any one person (love) or understand them enough (intimacy) to want to be a part of that.

Otherwise you're just skittering on the surface of pleasant interactions.

I can't tell you how many times I've felt enlivened with witty conversation, but at some point, it felt like diminishing returns with a given person. Because it was impersonal and in the end, I do need both "levels" of operation.

So I'm just thinking that if you're a loner, you've got more parts that crave solitude and space but that doesn't preclude wanting to experience and enjoy the wealth of what comes with a love/intimacy connection as well. Just because I love my alone time doesn't mean I don't want the full monty of depth and superficiality bound together in the right proportions at other times.

That would be having my cake and eating it, too. And that's seeming like too much to ask.

"So what you want is to be alone together? Whateverrrrrrrs....good luck to you!!" they say. Yeah, you got that right. And also wrong. You just don't get it, really GET it.

So since I can't have my cake and eat it, too, I'm seeing dating now a bit as something I'm doing to explore the limits of what's possible. The way it's all set up, I now feel the limits to be akin to chainmail. It's an open question I'm exploring. How much further I want to hamper my movements with this garb, or whether there is any alternative way to the cake that allows me a freedom I'm not finding yet, I'll know when I know.

See, I don't agree with me personally not being ready to commit/afraid of intimacy. I think it's a balancing act of kind of wanting a relationship, but also knowing chances are realistically slim, because as you said, (in my case, women) aren't exactly lining up to be with someone who is ok being alone or attached. So it's kind of like, "Well, better be ok with being alone." It kind of becomes self-fulfilling, I think.

 

I mean during the week, my life is like, work, then gym, then home to read and/or watch a movie and/or play PS4.

 

Does that make me a loser? Probably. Do I still think it's better than sitting in some loud, crowded bar (or whatever) with a bunch of people I don't know and feeling weird and nervous? Definitely.

I'm with you on all this -- and I'm sure there are men like you in the woodwork (good balance of capable of intimacy/commitment but also need their individuality and alone time), I just haven't encountered them, lol. It's never been balanced, in my own encounters.

Maybe since they're fine with their alone time (as I am), THEREFORE, they're tucked away at home or in their routine being fine with themselves (as I am), which is why I don't get to find them! lol

So the zen koan here is, do loners ever meet one another?

Totally agreed that it's better to opt for these ways of spending time than being in the wrong places to find connection for the sake of just having people around. I don't think that makes you (or I) a loser...but I do think getting out to see people at venues that provide quality opportunities to meet people is somewhat important, if meeting someone is a goal. I do know I'm not going to meet anyone in my own living room, haha.

I really related to this paragraph.

I've gotten to know someone recently, who has presenting himself as very needy. He's done a lot of work on himself over his life and says he's learned "to express his own needs more" -- and that seems to include demanding a certain quota of time from me, to show that I'm attentive and care about our connection. It's hard for me, because it's being presented as "these are my needs, and I am standing strong in you honoring them" -- which I'd always want to encourage and support. It just so happens that his needs are that I not have as much space as he would give to me, so what about my needs?

In the end, I sense that his holding on to me in this way is really not about him understanding or liking ME -- it's about me being some kind of symbol for him. I feel like a symbol for closeness, with WHO I am being completely secondary. It's almost like I'm not here -- I'm just present.

I don't feel this is real closeness, it's just two people trying to "have something", and nothing feels good about it, even though we have a lot to give each in our own ways. It feels sad.

I even started to believe there was something really wrong with me if he was so uncomfortable with the level of engagement I was prepared to give at any given time.

I honestly still struggle with this one. Well, I struggle with it all, because I have a simultaneous strong empathy for loneliness or need in someone else (I know I'm not above it), and the fear of losing (not above that, either)...alongside a feeling of "this is not right for me, I need my own rhythm." I simultaneously want to reassure someone, and run. And then I end up confused about myself -- their needs would seem to trump mine, each time. And then I'm feeling both guilty and resentful about this dynamic. It seems to by default be falling to me to make this dynamic feel more whole and "loving", by compromising something within myself. Why has it always felt to me that my rhythm is the *wrong* one? That his being uncomfortable with the pace and level of engagement was a referendum on how "available" I was and how healthy, even though when I give, I know I really do give to something/someone?

Sometimes I think there's a subtext in society that if you're not pining for someone right out the front gate, YOU REALLY AREN'T READY TO COMMIT, or to give full love, or you have some hang-up. Being able to be alone and treasure your space is turning out to be more of a liability -- it doesn't compute to others, and it gets perceived as distant, like Superman said, or else that you have a lack of real desire to invest. Nothing positive, anyway. All the ostensible fanfare about being okay with your own company, about being okay with being alone that is touted as the healthy, sane way to live is really undermined by how you're perceived when you actually start to live that way. Society endorses the idea in theory, but in practice, places you on the periphery where you can enjoy your aloneness all you damn well please.

I'm feeling resentful these days that there's so little appreciation for the quality of steadiness with oneself - -that there's an aspect of having that marginalized.

I also find that men who enjoy their aloneness are at the end of the spectrum where they're still avoiding intimacy in some way. It's really a great cover for that.

I don't know where I can possibly find someone who enjoys life no less when I'm not there, but equally joyfully anticipates my being with him, and in both cases, holds me deep in his heart as someone he feels unified with on all levels. Who does not conflate intimacy with "being with me physically and talking and doing stuff", even if that's part of it at times.

I feel suffocated by most men's expectations (and it's not just a male issue). Which are all considered to be "normal", so that makes me the "not normal one," right? I'm often feeling these days that it's a good thing I enjoy being alone because that's how I'm going to have to remain.

I do believe we are "all alone" in the end. I've felt more lonely in a roomful of people than by myself, walking around the park and enjoying the more diffuse awareness of humanity buzzing around me. I think that needing other people in our lives is healthy, but deceiving oneself into thinking we are in some way safe from harm, death, change, loss, etc. because they are there -- in other words, that they shield us from the existential solitariness we share side by side, not conjoined -- is folly. And so easy to lapse into.

Being separate but together in the web as well...is I think the model of our reality, and so one I'd like to see mirrored in a relationship.

Just so you're aware, you can always ask a mod to put your journal into the "solo" journal section, if you so choose.

I don't follow many of the journals here...and the ones I follow regularly, I can count on less than half a hand. I've noticed that some people don't want advice in their journals, and others do welcome it. I tend to gravitate towards the ones that do, because my own affinities are towards growth and questioning, not just chronicling daily events. I got the sense from your writing that you might be more in that latter category of journal-keepers here, as you seem to be keen to probe your troubles and issues, and also don't seem to need a lot of buttering up, but dually noted that you'd prefer not to get "advice" per se. Consider this post a last such submission.

On the free will issue, I wasn't there to hear how your boss said it, so I only took your post where you strongly rejected her view to mean you really do believe in it and think the idea of "determinism" is a bunch of malarchy. That's how it came accross. I would agree as a non-religious person that there's no one out there who "cares", and if that's how she said it, well, I'd disagree with that framework, too. It sounds like you think more like I do where you say you don't REALLY believe in free will, but have to live by that illusion. That, as I said, I believe. It's an illusion for the most part, but I also believe there is an observer-phenomenon, cause-effect interactive process that goes on (also proven in physics) that means we are shaping the next event in some dynamic way. The universe is rife with paradoxes...so beautiful and harmoniously contradictory.

For me though, it's not a problem to be tackling on a daily basis. Because it's of no use (and I'm part pragmatist -- a big part! Equal parts romantic, idealist, and pragmatist, is how I'd describe myself.) So I think it's absolutely viable to say, "Life is what you make of it." I say that to other people, and silently to myself when I need to call that up, in dark moments. To me though, that's not contradictory to determinism, and I don't need to figure out if it's I I I I I I that is making life what it is. All I need to know is that my *apparent* ability to make choices is being harnessed by my conscious awareness as much as possible. "I" harness my consciousness to direct it as "I" would like, and that's my work cut out for me. The wherefore and the why is really a footnote.

The rest of what I have to say feels....rather pointless or not terribly useful, because you've made it clear that it's not where your thinking is at. Kind of wondering if I even should submit it, as it's sort of personal, too. But I'm going to throw it out there anyway. Just to toss around.

The most important thing in MY life is freedom. (I could easily, EASILY say love as well, but I'd say in terms of driving forces that stand above all other drives and frame them, it would be freedom.) If you were to have a peek into my history, you'd see that theme played out everywhere. Intellectual freedom, social freedom on a large scale, social freedom in my personal network and with those close to me, freedom of expression, freedom from the tyranny of what others demand as social convention when it makes no sense to me, or is harmful. Freedom from conformity just to conform. So all these ways one can be free in the civilized world, as an individual.

The deeper levels of this for me involve spiritual freedom, and this is where your experience vs. mine may produce a disconnect. Unlike you, from an early age, I've had it so much harder than the average person. I can't say, like you, that I've always had it easy. Completely and savagely the opposite (and in ways that WEREN'T me being the driver behind the wheel and having choices.) Things have not fallen into my lap fortuitously, with ease, and most of the things that I have wanted in my life the most have felt elusive. Major pillars of what one comes to enjoy and expect in this sensual, earthly, material existence have been smashed to bits, causing me life-threatening, life-altering anguish, loss and grief. And I am a natural denizen of the sensual realms to know. So I don't really expect some of what I say to resonate here, our realities are so different, but here goes.

The pearl that has grown out of the mud of all this is a deep realization, one that has conferred so much strength to me that I wouldn't trade it in. We are all very much chained by what we feel we need to be happy. NEEEEEEEEED in order to be happy on this earth. It is amazing how we cling to so many things for our breath and self-definition, self-identification. Of course, it's all very human, and no doubt, a lot of being human feels oh-so-delicious -- but it's equally problematic. Truth is, none of us are free -- that is, until we are actually able to imagine losing everything and still going on (not that anyone does that...it happens and then people get interested). If you're about freedom...this is the mother of all freedoms, the big one. And the fact of the matter is, until or unless you have some great loss in your life and your chains then cut into your flesh so that you feeling you're dying...they're not worrisome at all. They're even fun, as you say. It's interesting that you speak of the people at work as possibly being so used to their cage that they don't see the bars. In fact, maybe they love their bars, because look at all the rewards those cages and chains and bars provide them! You say these people are not free -- whereas you are. Then in the next post, you say you're a slave to love and are loving the chains. They're a slave to work. You're a slave to this love/person. So you're not free either in the sense that if your husband is your life, nothing of you exists independently without him. That's what you said -- that you couldn't live without him. And we see this a lot...visit the grief and bereavement forum. There are people who have lost the loves of their lives and for a good long while, their chains sear and sever and burn and lacerate their soul, their flesh, their spirit. The pain there is so palpable, intolerable for them...and no one's loving and reveling in those chains anymore. Those chains now FEEL like the chains that they are.

These attachments have cost people their very lives. Chains of love, now chains of death. (I'm sure this is starting to sound even better, as melodramatic romanticism goes, ha...)

So I believe it's very dangerous to "love your chains", whatever they are. That's just something I felt was worth saying. Your intact body, your job, your health, your family, your partner, your possessions...whatever you chain your life and its meaning to, it's seriously scary. You're no freer than those who feel their job and desk define them. They just have a type of chain that you find alien.

I'm not trying to bring you down, rain on your parade as I said earlier, be sermon-y, or bring a cynical worldview to your freespiritedness. Through none of what I've endured, have I stopped being a freespirit or a cautious optimist. But it's with so much more perspective and flexibility. Freedom is not just "I do whatever the hell I please". Freedom is the ability to not depend on any person, situation, idea, or thing to determine your life. I'm not even advocating you try to avoid risk of pain. I'm just saying, if you're going to the casino of life to gamble, don't ever take all the money you have to your name with you.

This is coming from someone who is not inexperienced in love. Yes, I've known love as you have. I have not been married, much less on a first shot out of my teens. You're fortunate. I'm not suggesting that you try to replace your husband or consider him interchangeable with sewing class or helping the homeless (you really did trivialize the suggestion of volunteer work, I see). I'm just saying that there's a way to fully love and be present in the world and take everything from it, without feeling that "XYZ" is "my lifeline," my air. It's precarious. It's not grounded. (but who asked me, right? sorry, almost done here..) One needs to be as self-reliant as they are able to love.

Likewise, you don't have to choose between "being grown up" and being a child. You don't have to regard this job as being dishonest. You don't have to tell yourself you like it, to honestly DECIDE that for now, you are doing it for these other reasons. So what's the conflict there? You're not trying to be something you're not, and you're not tricking yourself, deceiving yourself. So it's the adult thing to do something you don't particularly like for delayed gratification purposes. You don't LOSE being a childlike freespirit by GAINING greater maturity/responsibility. You CAN straddle both. And that's empowering.

My mistake if I misunderstood anything in your writing about having a problem with not knowing what you're good at and where you belong. I thought that was part of your struggle.

Anyway, I wish you well in the balancing acts.

And I will also add that I think you should stick it out at least 1 YEAR at your job, because then at least if you hate it, it'll look more respectable on your resume. A year looks at least like you put in some time -- whereas a few months reads as "quitter." So if you're going to end up not liking it, at least make it count for something, make it worth your while.

Admittedly, I did not follow the run-up to your getting this job, so I'm just tuning in as of your latest post.

I agree with a great deal of what chickadeedee has said. And her advice.

I do think that there are a lot of people stuck in being "married to their job" and for whom money becomes an endpoint, not a means, which is quite precarious in terms of the soul's deepest needs and desires. But I also think that you're resisting the work so much, you're liable to pass by whatever you can get out of this. Your desire to run may be as much a product of insecurity about not being competent as it is about the kind of duties you're being asked to do. I see this as a fear-driven response, based on your other posts and if you leave a job it should be because you have something better in the works to leap to, and know that you simply do not like this kind of work enough to stay. You should not be leaving because after a few days of the novelty, you're scared out of your britches over your own abilities or lacks. I think you tend to like the novelty of all things fine and exquisite, but there's a kind of fairyland fantasy girlish element about it that just hops over the "this is what it actually takes" part.

One way you can think of this challenge is -- you're not happy when you avoid responsibilities or challenges, either. For all the gratitude you feel for "playing the part of wifey", there's still that negative connotation even you give to it. I have seen you express guilt over it, lots of concern that you aren't really grown up and self-reliant, fearfulness that you won't find something you're good at, and so you comfort yourself with your husband. There are things that he can't do for you -- things that are comforting in an enduring way that another person's love can't bring. Deep down, your knowledge of your own self-insufficiency "in the real world" makes you very unhappy. So even if you avoid this unpleasant work environment and quit, you're not really going back to satisfaction. You're going back to a lot of dissatisfaction in yourself and your life, and possibly even more because instead of sticking it out to prove to yourself you could do things, you'll reinforce your sense of failure and inability. A very FAMILIAR dissatisfaction, which feels easier to tolerate than this new, unfamiliar one...but it's not like your life has been making you happy the way it's been. There are a few lovely and fortunate props and crutches in it that make it good in ways...but are you happy with the way you are, as you are? No. I don't see you as complacent, which is a good thing. But that means you have to do something to change the status quo to find another way of being, if you want to fill in the parts of yourself that even love from a beloved can't supply you with.

I agree that this level of dependency on your partner is kind of like building your house on a glacier. It's solid...until or unless the polar caps melt. Whoever thought they were going anywhere? But now, with our climate changes...they are.

I'm not trying to rain on your parade with love being the most important thing in life. I do think it is. But I think love should be not solely about a love object. Love for doing a job well-done; love for a project seen through; an idea that involves creativity manifested; a person you help who is in need...there are so many versions and forms of love that I believe are part of a full heart and life. So love has been a bit narrowed down for you, and as I suggest to many people on here (I know I'm an ENA broken record on this), I think finding a cause you're interested in and volunteering will give you a place to focus your attention and care on something other than the person who sleeps with you every night. He should be a complement to your life, which is full...not a liferaft, emotionally and practically, so that when he leaves, you're depressed, aimless, and lonely. Engage proactively in the world and you'll have less time for these emotions to set in, or they may not set in at all. You might even find yourself looking forward to your "me" time -- and when he returns, it will feel all that much more rewarding to reconnect.

There are endless ways to be involved in projects that make use of your smarts and whatever subjects you're interested in that would keep you busy so that next time he leaves town, you're doing your own thing rather than waiting at the window until his car pulls up. That's the way it should be.

No matter how strong your relationship is, it should not be a crutch or a bandaid.

As far as what your boss said about your whole life being already determined for you, that is actually a scientifically valid position, which classical Newtonian physics tends to support. It's nowhere near astrology or claptrap New Age baloney. I am not a physicist, but I've read enough about it (because it fascinates me) to know that the notion of the universe being driven by completely predictable outcomes is actually the way Einstein described our universe. Quantum physics takes a slightly different approach involving more seeming randomness (which always bugged Einstein, and which he could not reconcile himself with), but physicists have been arguing over how much predictability and therefore determinism runs the show for literally thousands of years, and it's clear from more modern research that the debate comes down to probabilities and degrees of that. So this idea is not without actual philosophical and physical objectivity, having nothing to do with emotional appeal or mythology or astrology or personal belief systems. I mean, it might be for your boss -- it may be just her opinion based on her lived experience and layperson's preferred model. But if you were to get into the cosmological and ontological study of it, you'd find reams of material to back it up. And you're right, the universe doesn't care much (let's make that AT ALL) about any given one of us (if you're taking a non-religious viewpoint), but it's not about whether the universe "cares" about your fate. It's about how the universe operates, whether that depresses you or not.

Of course, the part where it gets juicy for those of us who came to this kind of study through the door of metaphysics and philosophy, the question is, how do we live our lives knowing that we "apparently" have choices but it's possible all those choices are only "apparent" ones? To that, I answer: IT DOESN'T MATTER. What does it matter if you're under an illusion that you have free will? The point is, to exercise your apparent will and use your mind and heart to the best of your capability. My dad used to say (and he was also going on "personal theory" rather than professional astrophysical background), "We really don't have any choices at all. Every single thing we're doing, now, every time I move my finger, was predestined. I just THINK I'm deciding to move it now. But we have to PRETEND, to LIVE like we have that choice." I tended to agree with him then...and now even moreso I agree. He said a lot of wrong things, but that was one of the right ones, I believe.

Here's a link of this, and an excerpt that's good:

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Other proponents of emergentist or generative philosophy, cognitive sciences and evolutionary psychology, argue that determinism is true.[46][47][48][49] They suggest instead that an illusion of free will is experienced due to the generation of infinite behaviour from the interaction of finite-deterministic set of rules and parameters. Thus the unpredictability of the emerging behaviour from deterministic processes leads to a perception of free will, even though free will as an ontological entity does not exist.[46][47][48][49] Certain experiments looking at the neuroscience of free will can be said to support this possibility.[citation needed]

In Conway's Game of Life, the interaction of just four simple rules creates patterns that seem somehow "alive".

As an illustration, the strategy board-games chess and Go have rigorous rules in which no information (such as cards' face-values) is hidden from either player and no random events (such as dice-rolling) happen within the game. Yet, chess and especially Go with its extremely simple deterministic rules, can still have an extremely large number of unpredictable moves. When chess is simplified to 7 or fewer pieces, however, there are endgame tables available which dictate which moves to play to achieve a perfect game. The implication of this is that given a less complex environment (with the original 32 pieces reduced to 7 or fewer pieces), a perfectly predictable game of chess is possible to achieve. In this scenario, the winning player would be able to announce a checkmate happening in at most a given number of moves assuming a perfect defense by the losing player, or less moves if the defending player chooses sub-optimal moves as the game progresses into its inevitable, predicted conclusion. By this analogy, it is suggested, the experience of free will emerges from the interaction of finite rules and deterministic parameters that generate nearly infinite and practically unpredictable behaviourial responses. In theory, if all these events could be accounted for, and there were a known way to evaluate these events, the seemingly unpredictable behaviour would become predictable.[46][47][48][49]

And another:

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This is a huge topic of scientific debate, as you can see, and it's not a simple answer either, because a lot of the answers depend on how you define relative things about reality.

So what does this mean for your life?

Absolutely nothing, is what I'm saying. It's exciting and stimulating to contemplate and try to understand, and I'm glad someone is investigating those things with rigor. But it doesn't have to depress me or alter what I do in any way. It doesn't matter if someone could calculate -- given the right instruments and methodology -- whether your fate is x or y. The point is, are you living by your values? Are you even clear what your values are? Do you believe you're doing something to grow and progress as an individual? Are you pushing your envelope of comfort to gain in skills, ability, and to reveal your potentials? Are you doing things that you know you can look back on with satisfaction and taking pride? Are you treating the people around you well, and with awareness? Are you striving to be the best you you can be?

You don't need to know what the shenanigans of the universe are for proceeding. You do your part, and let the universe do its.

Actually, on second thought, I can think of some professions that I don't believe there are a place for in this world. But those topics are somewhat verboten on here, lol. And beside the point.

That was a pretty good read.

Yeah, the club(s) that I have been to are not high class gentleman's clubs. You're right about that. They were your average hole-in-the-brick joint with flashing neon signs outside, "Girls," that are on every block in my current neighborhood (though my experiences were many years ago, in my 20's.) And I would say that those kinds of strip joints probably outnumber the elite men's clubs by a large margin, if you were to count up all the exotic dance establishments in the country, in all the backwater little towns and congested cities like mine taken together.

So what you say might be quite true for the types of women and men that work in or patronize the places you're referring to. But nor am I convinced that that experience typifies the average exotic dancer's work life and scene. Nor do I get a sense that YOU are typical for the world of exotic dance. Of course, there is so much I don't know about this world, and I'm not going to speak as someone who knows its ins and outs, especially when as you've concurred, the quality of the establishment and who it attracts for work or patronage is the difference between a seedy dump and glamorous fantasy for all involved. I'm just saying that the reality I've experienced, which probably represents a majority chunk of the industry, left me feeling quite alienated in a kind of sympathetically attuned way that was very disquieting, to say the least.

I'm by no means saying that's the only experience, and clearly, as I said, yours was different, owing to a different environment and life history.

My main connection for a time to this scene was a woman I knew from other spheres -- she was the local chapter president of the National Organization for Women, getting her master's degree in Women's Studies. So, hardly anti-feminist. I would hardly stereotype anyone doing what she did (stripping) as being stupid or ditzy. She was one smart, confident, vocal cookie. And sure she was interesting. But would I call her "warm"? Hell no. In fact, the word "hard" is probably the best over-riding word I could find for her and everyone else in that circle I was briefly introduced to. In a funny, ironic way, their world almost seemed one of female chauvinism. I remember driving her and her roommate (probably also her sometime lover) home from one gig in particular, and the centerpiece of the conversation was how this or that customer or client was a joke, in some way or other. Their mockery was so tangible it made my flesh crawl. At one point, they went into a discussion of their personal escapades, and had quite a laugh over how one of them had so well-exercised her crotch, she was able to bruise a guy in the "vice", causing him to howl in pain during sex. I'm not entirely sure if they were in some ways trying me out on the shock value, but either way, it didn't come out making them look like the kinds of people who get kicks the way I do. Yet the whole time, they spoke about how liberating it was to be so confident. Something there didn't wash for me. (And I think I'd like to add...in service of total honesty, I think feeling "empowered" and "validated" by men is inseparable from enjoying the feelings of being a sex goddess and providing a fantasy. If it wasn't empowering and validating, it wouldn't be the high that it is, as I sense it. Feeling sexy is empowering and validating, whatever your relationship status or emotional constitution otherwise.)

On an odd incidental side note, I knew another girl who I'd call more of a friend, whom I had much longer and greater contact with, who at one point got into stripping partly to fund school, partly just for the novelty. She actually was a principal dancer in a major "legit" dance company that is widely celebrated here. This was her secret double-life for a while...and she was a petite redhead with freckles as well. Very much with the slight, pale-skinned physique you describe of yourself. I never saw her perform, but I heard that her act included lots of red lipstick and doll-like clothing. She was one of the most creative, quirky, fascinating, independent, bright, sensitive, well-read, artistic girls I've ever known. But she was equally emotionally unreliable, capricious, and enigmatic. I wonder where she is today and sometimes think about her. She was such a character, it's hard to imagine her living a stable life even to this day. So...even though she wasn't hardened like the other girls I'd encountered, there was an element of remoteness and disconnection about her.

I'm just relating my own experiences, and clearly they are different from the world you've be working in. I think we agree that the quality of the venue has everything to do with the experience. I wouldn't quarrel with any of the myth-busting you've laid out for us here (and yes, I've seen older strippers -- even ones not in the best shape. As you know, they're the exception, not the rule, but they're out there -- the lucky ones.) I was talking more to what I feel is probably a very common and pervasive alternate experience.

I'm glad you've managed to avoid these pitfalls, and have found it to be a positive experience, for the most part. There's a place for every profession in this world, and who knows, maybe this really is your "calling". Some people do this (or even prostitution) for years, then write memoirs, making wads of money in the doing. Given your apparent flair for writing, maybe that would be in your future at some point.

I was just offering some alternative ideas, which I think are viable, classy, and make use of your assets.

I was thinking this might provide some of the stimulation you're after without the downsides I've witnessed, but if what you're doing has no major downsides and is more lucrative and enjoyable, to each his/her own.