Mixed Feelings

So I already talked about what happened March 31 2023 in the last blog that I wrote a year ago. Today I want to talk about how much has changed in the last 3 years. ☝I have learned a lot about why my brain does the things that it does. I have learned to short circuit it before it causes me lots of pain. I have learned to see some of the warning signs that I am making poor choices. Now… I'm still a HOT MESS sometimes. But I am also a lot of other things. I have learned to share my feelings. And that sharing my feelings would not result in being iced out or harmed.😐 I have learned you can have a disagreement without a hole ending up in the wall behind your head!  I have learned that men get loud for so many reasons and they are joyous reasons. Singing, laughing, hooting, hollering! (I still shrink when there's a loud sudden noise especially a male voice, but it's less often.) I learned that other people care about me JUST as much as I care about other people. This is somethi...

I don't know what to do with you. You betray me. You hold so much in until things go wrong and it all comes sliding out. You tell me I'm wrong. You tell me everyone hates me! You lie and lie. You get so excited for things, then they fail, and you're sure it's my fault. Not just life, not just coincidence... not just how things are. You tell me it's literally something we did. You tell me people are giving up. You're just a convenience. You and me, brain — we are not friends! I don't know how to win against you. I thought I was getting stronger, but maybe you were too! We tussle. Most of the time I win — I thought I did. I thought I won most of the time... But when I needed you — yesterday, yesterday I needed you — you gave up. You let all the worry and pain and stress out. I didn't deserve that. He didn't deserve that. No one deserved that. It was a great night, you little crazy.  Then you shut down and sleep....That is not a good coping mechanism!  ...

Tonight, a simple traffic light brought back a wave of fear I thought I had left behind. I remembered the terrifying feeling of trying to drive my husband to the doctor—how every turn, every lane choice, felt like a test I couldn’t afford to fail. Even something as small as picking the wrong lane would send panic crashing through my chest, because I knew a mistake like that would trigger his anger. He didn’t need to yell right away; the tension, the heavy silence, the way his presence filled the car with pressure—it was enough to make me feel like I couldn’t breathe. That memory still lives in my body, in my heartbeat, in the way I flinch at moments that should be harmless.

I once dated someone I referred to as an emotional sadist. And if emotional sadists are a thing, then emotional masochists must be too… right? Because sometimes, I catch myself leaning into the emotional burn on purpose. Like part of me wants to jump into the boiling water just to feel it—to finally release everything I’ve been holding in. My brain turns into a pressure cooker, and when it builds up too much, I need the steam to escape somehow. Sometimes that means letting myself hurt, just to get it out. Maybe this is what spanking feels like for some of y’all. A sharp little zap, a thud many thuds. Until you cry. Then the amazing aftercare that feels so good. I wish I was less of a baby about pain.    I’m sure a therapist would trace it back to the marriage I spent my early emotional years in. The slow, steady kind of damage—the little things and the medium things that added up over time. The fights, the tears, the aftermath. And then the weird high that came after, when att...

Every serious relationship I’ve had has taught me something—sometimes gently, sometimes the hard way. I’ve grown a little more each time, even when it hurt. Right now I’m really trying to focus on the good things I learned from each one… the ways I’ve changed, the ways I’ve softened or gotten stronger.  My marriage was hard—damaging in more ways than I can count. But when he took away the choice to work through things, I had no option but to sink or swim… and I swam. I learned I’m stronger than I ever thought. I did the damn thing, even when it hurt. First, there was the long-distance guy… The care and passion we had made me brave enough to do something wild—like drive super far, on the actual highway, all by myself. That might sound small, but back then it was huge. He made me feel bold and wanted, and I’ll always remember that. There was a man who helped me rediscover something I didn’t even know I’d lost—my connection to intimacy, to touch, to pleasure. With him, I learned that ...

Recently Rockman wrote me a beautiful message about how simple it is for him to be an amazing man.  Giving credit to his parents his upbringing so on.  I've told him a lot about my life and he wrote me this beautiful comparison to being cold forged steel.  It was beautiful. I won't share the whole thing but I have to share this part, because it is so very me.  "Yet there you are... After all the hits, the hurts, the abuse, the neglect... There you are... There.  You.  Are.  I think that you are akin to some incredibly intricately and delicately-wrought long stemmed rose of iron (which still has well-earned and very well-forged thorns)." The lengthy writing that he wrote went directly into my compliment's bank.