The Only Time I Feel Alive

Well, you can tell that I’m very bad at updating these things on time.  I really need to get back into the habit of writing things. 

I’ve been in an extremely odd mood recently, as in the recent month and a half.  Adjusting to having an ACTUAL boyfriend (not just a friendly fuck) along with school, work and trying to edit the current manuscript was causing me a great deal of internal angst.  I’ve gotten around to figuring out the work/study/school/boyfriend/editing/exercising/free time into a more streamlined schedule.  I’m beginning to feel more like myself all over again.

So this week, starting Sunday the 27th, the boyfriend has been staying over here at my place.  We’re doing an experiment.  As he would say–“Put on your lab coats, there’s bits of science flying around”.  He’s staying here until this Friday (the 2nd) to see how we interact and react to each others presence near-constantly. 

That being said, it is not even close to being constant.  I have work, he has work, I have school, he has school.  We both have a social life and hobbies that do not involve each other (and some hobbies and outings that DO), so we do not see each other all the time.  Still, it is an interesting thing to be sleeping next to someone every night.

This morning I was having a little bit of a hard time though.  It is my general prerogative to wake up and take care of business, if you catch my drift.  Well, with another man-person around, taking care of business has been fairly hard to do.  This usually puts me into a pretty bad mood, even if I’m having semi-regular sexual gratification through the man-person in question.  There is something comforting and enjoying that I only get out of taking care of business on my own. 

So this morning I was very much wrapped up in the idea of the business, and I decided to try and pounce the man-person before he had to go to school and I had to go to work.  He was just in the mood to play however, so we wrestled for about half an hour, in which I was poked (VERY HARD) in the eye… with his fingers (it was an accident). 

I don’t know.  My immediate reaction to being hurt in any physical way is very deep emotional pain, mostly because of the horrible way that my mother treated me when I was a kid.  I know that he did not mean it, and that it was an accident, and that I should realize if I’m wrestling the boy-person then this is a risk I’m taking… getting accidentally hurt, that is.  Still I had this immediate reaction of wanting to hit him back, just as hard or harder, and when I suppressed that, all I wanted to do was cry, and I wanted him to go away.  It was about ten minutes before he did, and as soon as he was half way down the stairs I started to cry, and let it go pretty well when I heard the door lock.

My counselor and I are going through the whole, “Why are you so afraid to cry in front of other people?” psycho-bullshit.  I want to explain to her that every time I show vulnerability in front of people, it has been proven to me time and time again that those people look at me differently from then on.  They see me as some fragile fucking doll that needs protection. 

I want an actual relationship with the boyfriend.  I don’t want him feeling like he has to be careful not to break me or tip me off, but at the same time I do tip off really easily, and I’m extremely sensitive to the most idiotic things–like getting accidentally poked in the eye and denied my morning business. 

I took care of the business a few minutes ago, which is why I’m finally in the proper frame of mind.  I wish I could talk to my counselor about these problems when they are actually arising, instead of on a day that I’m generally in a good mood (payday).  It seems like I always forget to tell her the most important things.

When I got hurt there was a voice inside of me saying, “You think you can handle another round of change?  Do you really think that you are worthy or even ready to take on living with someone you barely know?  You really think you love him?  Give me a fucking break!”  Another part was crying inside, another part was just saying, “Calm down, calm down, you’re okay, just calm down until he leaves.” 

My counselor told me this last time I was there that she and another counselor were reviewing my tapes and they think that I have multiple-personality schizophrenia.  She says that because I was faced with so much trauma when I was young, parts of my personality and my mind split so that I could properly handle the pain without fully shutting down.  She says that it would take a lot of effort to make me whole again, and that there was little chance of success seeing as I’ve incorporated this into my everyday life in a way neither she or her collegue have ever seen.

I have to say that there is some glamour in saying these things, almost like I should be a subject of one of those touchy-feely films or a best-selling book or something.  It’s almost unbelievable that I could be those things if I had not already accepted it in a way. 

I’ve admitted to myself that my form of working things through and just going through life is different then other people describe their own journeys.  I have several representations of myself, and though I’ve never counted them, I know that there are a few.  I know that when I’m trying to decide something it is almost like holding a counsel, even when I’m just deciding on something as simple as groceries.  I know that there are some voices, or personalities or whatever, that go away for a long time and then come back unannounced, usually when they’re needed.  I know that the person that I am with my mother is different then the person I am with my boyfriend, which is different then the person I am with my father, which is different then the person I am with my uncle.

My counselor said it’s like being an actress, that I can take on many different personalities, traits, emotions without actually feeling them.  That it is not me that is feeling them, it is this other part of me, which explains why I’ve had this constant, almost complete feeling of detachment from the world and the people around me, even the people I love and care about.

But I always ask myself this question:  “Are you okay with who you are?  Would you change?  How would you change?  What would it affect?  Would it really be any better?”

I think for the purposes I’ve given myself in life, to be an artist and a writer, to be a musician, a student, and a professional woman, that this “disorder” is actually pretty handy.  I don’t want to change. 

But I also realize that there are limitations, like the incident this morning.  Despite knowing we were only playing around, a part of me wanted to reject the boyfriend for hurting me, a part that is still screaming now for his dismissal.

…

I don’t know how to talk about this with him, I don’t know if he’ll just turn tail and fucking run.  I can explain it exactly as I just have and he’ll probably tell me I need help.  I admit that I’m afraid of him rejecting me, of leaving me like so many countless people have.

If life has shown me anything, it is that you cannot trust anyone but yourself.  Everyone leaves you.

So can I live with him?  Maybe.  I know that I’m going to have to talk to him about the hard stuff and give him real-life demonstration and see how he reacts, or it will be like a cloudy shadow over our relationship that only I can see.  I don’t want to keep things from him, but at the same time I feel like he’s not ready to accept what, who, I really am.  He’s had a very normal life, and I’ve had a very abnormal life.  A lot of the time–I’d say 98% of the time–despite saying “I want something different!” people with a normal life want to continue that normal life.

So is this boyfriend, this man-person, part of the 2%? 

I guess I’m scared.  Another part of me is resolute.  I want to just get it over with and say, “Yeah, welcome to ME, all of me, love it or leave it.”  If he leaves it then, well, I’m just back where I started, and where I started from wasn’t all that bad.  Not bad at all.

I’m still scared.

-Della Drago-