wispfox

I do not get enough cuddling in my life. Currently, it's basically only metahacker. jasra and I are working on it, on our end. The fact that I will tend to forget to be cuddly with people if I've not been doing enough cuddling does not help.

One of the best things about the wedding I just attended was feeling comfortable saying to a couple of women I had just met that I would like to be cuddling them. And then, we did so. One was more comfortable with cuddling than the other, I suspect due purely to experience with it. But. Cuddles. Cuddles with no purpose beyond simple touch.

Also, fabulous dog whose purpose in life is to be cuddly (literally, that's what she's being trained for). :)

I really, really miss contexts in which the cultural norm of 'touch must be sexual or at least have a sexual overtone' has been subverted. I mean, I don't tend to be cuddly with people if I'm not attracted to them somehow or another ("attracted" as in "drawn to" or "fascinated by" or "want to know better" - no specific goal beyond that), but it feels like a world of difference between "hey, you're nifty" and "My only purpose for touching you is because I want to get into your pants at the earliest possible opportunity". The attendees at this weekend's wedding, thankfully basically free of that cultural norm. So, I actually let hugs last as long as they would naturally do so. And didn't feel uncomfortable at random back massages as part of hugs (and indeed gave such as part of hugs myself). I am not trying to suggest that there was no interest, just that it wasn't the point of the touch.

I'm also _utterly_ delighted by the fact that, unlike usual, one of the women there was first to suggest the idea of trading contact information. It can get very, very tiring to always be the one asking for more interaction with interesting women, y'know? (I'm typically not as drawn to lengthen interactions with men, and the fact that I'm acutely aware of not dating any women appears to only have increased this trend more toward finding women more interesting) I think the last woman who was first to suggest more interactions (or perhaps mutual of said) after our first interaction was jasra. (and before that was the_xtina)

I can never tell if that's because they are shy to suggest more interaction, there is not sufficiently strong mutual fascination, or what. And I often feel like I come on too strong when I find someone fascinating, which rarely helps when interacting with a woman.

Unintentional childhood lessons on not talking about things important to me have turned up in new and interesting ways relating to my difficulty with letting out negative emotions.

I do, now, reasonably with speaking up when things are being problematic for me, and not letting them fester in that particular way.

OK, I suppose the 'speaking up' previously mentioned is actually more frequently emailing. At least it's not always emailing anymore! I think it's usually due to processing delays. I'm not sure if it's also because it's easier to keep typing when crying (as I do when frustrated, as well as upset/sad/hurt), because it's another form of distance, or... dunno. Not clear if it has a direct effect on either my distancing.

I do _not_, however, do a very good job at actually letting myself experience the emotions, nor - as I've come to realize - getting past the workaround I set up so that I _could_ successfully communicate problems aloud, where so as to not cry I distance myself from it enough to stay able to talk (note: only recently a thing I was consciously aware of doing).

While yes, this is a useful workaround so as to prevent not talking about things at all and allow me to explain things, I am still missing the step past that one, where the issues are known to be understood and thus I stop distancing myself from the emotional reaction to them while trying to discuss/comprehend/work through/with them. Because even if the problems are explained and understood, whether or not they are things which can be prevented (some can, some cannot), there is still going to be a pile of emotional reaction there that I will need to let myself feel and work through. Both on my own, and with anyone else involved who is trying to work through it with me.

Distancing in that case? No longer helpful. Hurtful, because it can easily parse as distancing from anyone trying to talk with you about it, apologize for any part in it, and/or help heal the wound (in you, in them, in any relevent relationship(s)).

So clearly I have a new Thing to Work On. On the plus side, I have enough brain to see that it's there to work on, and am likely to be able to do so. Slowly. With help.

Lots of emotional whiplash and complex conversations later, transition state did get resolved and not by me giving up. Now I just need to get my brain to adjust. :)

Also, click here if you like Whitesnake, folk music, tiny rooms, or xylophones from a locked post. Also, cookies. And silliness.

And Who's on first, shakespeare via chaiya

I dislike the fact that, because of my delays for processing on things, it's _much_ too frequent that I want to talk to people about stuff after I am no longer with them, generally after a day or two has passed. (This can be interesting in the case of me living with someone, because I tend to have to pay more attention to determine if there are things I need to be processing on but haven't due to not having a natural break in interaction - I don't count work as a useful break, since I can't really do intensive processing at work. On the other hand, with someone I live with, it's generally easier to find time for conversing)

This is really annoying to me, because it means I use either email - which isn't real-time but which I can write any time I want - or phone - which is real-time, is currently a low-level annoyance (more so with no warning, unless I happen to not be doing _anything_ right then), and is something for which I have to manage to remember what I wanted to say during the time I'm actually on the phone.

Hmm. I think this may at least partly be annoying me because I'm grumpy, and not the other way around. I think this because, for many things, email is still my preferred medium (because writing & reading are lower effort for me than speaking or listening, and most of the time I don't feel any particular urgency for my conversations). I think I'm actually especially annoyed by this aspect of myself because I'm overreacting to not having anyone _home_ with me to talk to, so want other ways to talk to people I'm close to.

Huh. Fascinating.

This is actually a part of a post that I posted to alt.poly recently, which I decided I should post here, too. It's attempting to explain a frequent separation I have between input, processing, and actually having the information contained in that initial input. Slightly modified from the original post so it makes sense on its own.

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( cut for length )

Introspection without any external stimulus is dangerous. I know this in my gut, but sometimes it bears repeating. It's too easy to get stuck in spirals or similar.

It's also often useful to point out that people need to _do_ stuff, and not just think. Otherwise, what do you think about, and how do you avoid going in circles? (doing stuff, in my head, should include both talking to other people and being physically active. I am, however, fairly bad about the latter unless there is some reason other than getting excercise to be active)

Some people are, in fact, able to get by quite well without lots of introspection. This fascinates the hell out of me. I am currently of the opinion that this may be due to a number of things, some of which include the ability to figure unexpected/new things out on the fly (which I cannot do, at least right now), and/or a sufficient level of constant awareness that they know what they need to know about themseves when they need to know it (rather than needing time to figure out what's in their heads if there is a change, like me). It is also, I suspect, very important for both one's self and those to whom one is close to know how one works in that regard.

Doing new things scares me, but once I do them I often find I enjoy them and/or learn something about myself. Doing something new also makes it not new the next time, thereby reducing the number of totally new things that I might run into and get tripped up by. (note: entirely new situations have a tendancy to make me freeze up. Especially if I am doing them alone. But the more such situations I experience, the more available exprience I have to draw upon. And similar experiences count, in terms of my ability to use the info to make a new situation less scary)

Doing new things also greatly increases my need to process both the input I receive, and my internal reactions to that input. Hey! I think I just found a new, more descriptive, way to describe what I'm doing when I'm investingating the inside of my head. "Checking my internal reactions to additional input."

[edit: I'm _much_ better about being physically active if people whose company I enjoy want to do something physically active with me. Pleasant company helps, a _lot_, and makes me much less likely to have 'but there's so many _other_ things I could be doing' feelings. Besides, for most of the physically active things I like to do and for which company makes sense, I can be nattering with the person!]

The most damaging thing I learned while growing up was this:

"Don't talk about things that are very important to you, especially if the topic is a difficult one. It'll be twisted around as your fault, changed to be about the other person and not you, or twisted so that you're not sure if it really happened the way you remember. The more important the subject, the stronger the emotional attachment, the worse the reaction. Keep quiet. It's safer."

Those who have been reading me a while may notice something really interesting about this. I need to talk about things. _Especially_ when they are difficult for me. Especially with people I'm close to. And... my natural state is to be trusting, not wary. Yes, it's safer to not be as trusting as I was as a child. But... being taught by actions to go in the complete opposite direction isn't helpful, and makes it just as difficult to find a good balance point.

It's also not helpful to have been taught to doubt one's perceptions, because how, then, does one know who to trust? At least I've pretty much managed to get beyond that - I trust my perceptions now, mostly. (I don't think I _want_ to trust them completely - because then I might start buying into the belief that only my perceptions are accurate, no one else's. And that's just bad...)

To have been taught something so completely against who I am, regardless of the fact that it was not an intentional lesson, has been something I've been struggling to work through ever since. I _know_ it ties into my my reduced, but still existing, difficulty with forcing myself to talk about things when I am afraid of the reaction. I suspect it ties into my expectation for people to whom I have strong emotional ties to leave and/or hurt me. Leaving me, BTW, _is_ hurting me, for people I am close to - possibly the worst anyone can hurt me and still have me wanting them in my life. Even if there are good reasons. Reasons will help, though, if I can understand and agree with them.

Part of this is, almost certainly, the fact that I was a _very_ sensitive, open child.

And I continue to fight my demons...

Now I know why my mind was being so insistent about my need to process on the weekend. My life apparently has entirely too much in flux right now, and very little opportunity for things to be in a known, reasonably stable state (both in my job and socially).

I believe this because I'm in a much more stable mental state today than I have been in a while, and it feels like it's related to having had _something_ resolve, even if it was in my character's life and not my own. I don't quite know what to do with this knowledge, but it feels important.


For at least the past three or four days, every time I've thought to check what the music playing in my head was, it has been Magic, the song I have known for much of my life, and which I sang in this phone post. Another thing which feels important, but I don't know why.

My brain isn't doing a very good job with putting puzzle pieces together today...