What’s real is so different from what can get me off. Sometimes what can get me off the best is Wrong. Sometimes I want to masturbate imagining being fucked by someone inappropriate, like someone who was hurtful to me.
It’s a no judgment zone–what can get me off is ok, whatever ideas I need. It’s only a struggle if part of me gets emotional about the other part of me. Part of me is very happy, moving toward orgasm, and then another part of me is feeling heartbreak, and grief is welling up. It can create some intense inner situations, the juxtaposition.
dissociation
Fantasizing about sex throughout the day, not just while masturbating, is a helpful coping strategy. It’s a way I allow myself to dissociate. Taking a break from mundane reality to imagine sexual bliss is important to my mental health.
I was telling my spouse the other day–if I’m going to successfully move on from the harmful house guest, I need other people and things to fantasize about. Imaging sex with him was something I returned to for more than a year–it provided comfort.
Of course, it wasn’t him providing comfort, or about the actual person at all–the man I was thinking about did nothing. It was my own mind doing all that, about him, with zero participation.
porn
I had a close friend who lived with a long term girlfriend, but they only had sex once in a blue moon. He would rather use porn every day than do the emotional vulnerability of having sex with her.
Seemed sad. Sexual energy was destructive in his life, related to anger. He’d been institutionalized for an episode of violence toward a woman he wanted to have sex with. He went on psych meds that harmed his libido, which seemed like chemical castration.
I don’t want to demonize porn, and I have all respect for sex workers and porn makers who don’t exploit. But a lot of people use porn to try to be sexually self-sufficient and not need to be vulnerable to other people who love them. It’s always felt wasteful to me, when it’s used to avoid being real.
avoidant
Yes, the avoidant house guest was coming out of five years of domestic violence. His experience with happy adult relationships was nil. I could provide him honesty, care, safety, gentleness, unconditional love. I could give and give, but his bucket has a huge hole in it. He doesn’t know how to be vulnerable and love, and he never asked me for help learning.
His central nervous system is fried. He’s addicted to conflict/resolution cycles, and he needs drama or he’ll feel bored. Deception is his norm. He has few healthy relationship skills, and it would take way more than a week being cared for by me and my spouse to heal that.
He’d have to acknowledge all that and want to heal it, first. When I’ve ask him if he wants to try learning to communicate, he ignores the question.
abuse
He’s going to go back to his abuser, or find a workable replacement who will abuse him similarly, is my fear. It was hard to even talk about that, because he can barely have a conversation. He’s been so traumatized that being real with people is almost impossible. I see energy and a glimmer of light inside him, but I can’t sacrifice my well-being, hurt by him as I encourage the glimmer.
Many people see the glimmer and love him for that, like I did. I called it the light of God shining out of him. He enjoyed how I saw him; I adored him. But reciprocity is not a skill he cultivated.
bite
He reminds me of some fucked up abused dog who doesn’t know how to do love. He’s a pretty dog and has been nurtured to physical wellness, but he has intense anxiety issues and bites people. Some supportive therapeutic foster home for fucked up dogs sounds nice, but I only have so many fingers. I need them.
It’s not his fault he was abused so has poor impulse control, deception is his norm, he uses everyone, has no communication skills, and nil emotional regulation skills. Drugs can only do so much, to substitute for emotional regulation skills. But a lot of people see this gorgeous brilliant joker full of potential and would like to help.
It’s better, the people who engage him in the shallow was he prefers. When I fell in love with him, that was a dangerous thing for me to do. It meant he could get things from me that he couldn’t get from other people. I became especially subject to harm through his poor follow through, lack of accountability, and lack of empathy. He would make huge decisions and inform me coldly, decisions that had huge impact on my life, and I was not supposed to have a reaction.
My emotional well-being was never something he enjoyed caring for, as I enjoyed caring for his. My painful emotions were problems for him–helping me was resource management for him, not love. He wasn’t showing up with authenticity for another human being.
If he hurt me, I don’t think he cared. My pain and panic were not important–he just needed to manipulate me or wait as I returned to baseline. He kept me attached enough to keep supporting him.
done
Love isn’t fun for him; it was stupid for me to try to get that. I’m done now, but as you notice, still talking about him. Thank you for your patience. What can get me off is important, but it needs to be balanced with the rest of my needs.
