The thrill is gone
Jul. 5th, 2015 23:19![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
torquillLife used to have an edge to it that's gone now. That's not actually a bad thing -- the edge was usually anxiety, or pain, or the brittle edge that flavors happiness which comes too seldom and could vanish in an instant.
It means the highs are less exciting, but I think that's okay. I occasionally get an uneasy feeling that I've lost something important, but I traded it for peace and a contentment that I didn't have before. Occasionally I miss the thrill, but I wouldn't trade back.
There's a bunch of stuff I have to re-learn, now that my emotional responses are different. Crushes, for example. I realized I'll never again have one of those debilitating, insane, terrifying, exhilarating crushes that I used to have. People used to ask what was wrong with having a crush -- for me, what was wrong was how much it hurt, and how much I lost my mind. Infatuation is fine, a little obsession, the nerves that come with not knowing how it'll turn out... but mine were far beyond that. They were blinding and damaged my health. I know now why they were that bad: I was seeking someone, anyone, who could ease my pain and give me peace. That hunger is gone. Thus, so are the crushes, and good riddance.
I can still have regular crushes, though, and those are new to me. I could kind of extrapolate what they would feel like, so I'm not totally lost when I have one, but they're a far gentler creature than I'm used to. They're kind of cute, actually.
I fell off the edge of myself the other day when I realized that my references for how to love someone were all out of date. I recognize love -- I'm fortunate to have someone nearby whom I love very much -- but how I interpret those feelings is not something I had examined. What's the significance of being in love? How should I act on it? What should I expect from myself and the other person? What needs of mine can it meet, and to what degree? What should my boundaries be?
All of these are questions which each person has to answer for themselves, but I found that the answers I had were causing me distress because they were obsolete. Once I discovered why I was in pain, I traced the lines of reasoning around love and marked large swaths for replacement. Mark them with spray paint, tag them with ubiquitin, flag them for revision... whatever. It doesn't change the fact that I don't have anything to replace them with on the spot, as I have no models I can adapt for this; what it means is that whenever I get into that territory, the tags remind me that this is no longer relevant, and I automatically spend a few cycles working out the puzzle of what I want to have instead. Meanwhile, I'm not blindly reacting to a mode of thinking which doesn't serve me well. "Oh, right, it's that old thing again, ha ha."
The next morning I had to rebuild myself, of course. The day after I step off the edge is always worse. I keep thinking there has to be some technique I can use the night before, to re-center myself before my dreaming mind grabs the run in my mental fabric and unravels it further. I'm still working on what I need in order to re-center at all, though, so nothing is immediately presenting itself. It's not like I can go google up suggestions -- most people don't go through one identity crisis, let alone battle with it on a regular basis. And the notion of finding a therapist to talk to at this point is both dismaying and laughable: I got told years ago (by a professional therapist) that I almost needed a sounding board rather than advice, and that could only be more true now.
I do think occasionally about how much of myself I've replaced. It's renovation, not whittling away, but somewhere in the back of my mind I feel like someday I'll toss something out only to find that there's almost nothing left. I will have thrown away everything that makes me who I am. In my saner moments I don't believe it, of course, as I'm more me than I've ever been -- but little nightmare voices don't listen to reason.
I turned down an offer to play in a LARP. I haven't done live-action in about twelve years, but I remember it fondly. I thought about it -- an easy-to-learn system, run by good friends, and even though the setting wasn't one I'm big on I could probably manage -- and then said no. I don't think my sense of identity is solid enough to manage layering another person on top, even for a few hours. Maybe in a year or so, when it's more ingrained and reflexive, and I know the bounds well enough to say what is me and what isn't.
Identity is a strange thing. Like gender, you don't question what it's made of until it's thrown into question. It's difficult for me to say how I know when I'm centered in myself and when I'm not, and how it feels different now than it did when I was centered in myself before. Most people have never had the unnerving sense that they've lost who they are, even briefly; they can't imagine what it's like, even the creative and imaginative people I know. That's a blessing for them, I suppose, but it means that only about two people in my life have any idea what I'm talking about when I have identity issues. Even the transgender folk I've spoken with have just had the sense that they were finally revealing who they've been all along -- there's no radical restructuring involved.
It's a reasonably transient issue, at least. I'm seeking out new environments enough that the renovation process is pretty much constant right now, but it'll level off after a while. I'm learning more coping strategies. And eventually it'll all stop looking new and weird to me, and just be the place that I live. In the meantime, excuse my dust.
It means the highs are less exciting, but I think that's okay. I occasionally get an uneasy feeling that I've lost something important, but I traded it for peace and a contentment that I didn't have before. Occasionally I miss the thrill, but I wouldn't trade back.
There's a bunch of stuff I have to re-learn, now that my emotional responses are different. Crushes, for example. I realized I'll never again have one of those debilitating, insane, terrifying, exhilarating crushes that I used to have. People used to ask what was wrong with having a crush -- for me, what was wrong was how much it hurt, and how much I lost my mind. Infatuation is fine, a little obsession, the nerves that come with not knowing how it'll turn out... but mine were far beyond that. They were blinding and damaged my health. I know now why they were that bad: I was seeking someone, anyone, who could ease my pain and give me peace. That hunger is gone. Thus, so are the crushes, and good riddance.
I can still have regular crushes, though, and those are new to me. I could kind of extrapolate what they would feel like, so I'm not totally lost when I have one, but they're a far gentler creature than I'm used to. They're kind of cute, actually.
I fell off the edge of myself the other day when I realized that my references for how to love someone were all out of date. I recognize love -- I'm fortunate to have someone nearby whom I love very much -- but how I interpret those feelings is not something I had examined. What's the significance of being in love? How should I act on it? What should I expect from myself and the other person? What needs of mine can it meet, and to what degree? What should my boundaries be?
All of these are questions which each person has to answer for themselves, but I found that the answers I had were causing me distress because they were obsolete. Once I discovered why I was in pain, I traced the lines of reasoning around love and marked large swaths for replacement. Mark them with spray paint, tag them with ubiquitin, flag them for revision... whatever. It doesn't change the fact that I don't have anything to replace them with on the spot, as I have no models I can adapt for this; what it means is that whenever I get into that territory, the tags remind me that this is no longer relevant, and I automatically spend a few cycles working out the puzzle of what I want to have instead. Meanwhile, I'm not blindly reacting to a mode of thinking which doesn't serve me well. "Oh, right, it's that old thing again, ha ha."
The next morning I had to rebuild myself, of course. The day after I step off the edge is always worse. I keep thinking there has to be some technique I can use the night before, to re-center myself before my dreaming mind grabs the run in my mental fabric and unravels it further. I'm still working on what I need in order to re-center at all, though, so nothing is immediately presenting itself. It's not like I can go google up suggestions -- most people don't go through one identity crisis, let alone battle with it on a regular basis. And the notion of finding a therapist to talk to at this point is both dismaying and laughable: I got told years ago (by a professional therapist) that I almost needed a sounding board rather than advice, and that could only be more true now.
I do think occasionally about how much of myself I've replaced. It's renovation, not whittling away, but somewhere in the back of my mind I feel like someday I'll toss something out only to find that there's almost nothing left. I will have thrown away everything that makes me who I am. In my saner moments I don't believe it, of course, as I'm more me than I've ever been -- but little nightmare voices don't listen to reason.
I turned down an offer to play in a LARP. I haven't done live-action in about twelve years, but I remember it fondly. I thought about it -- an easy-to-learn system, run by good friends, and even though the setting wasn't one I'm big on I could probably manage -- and then said no. I don't think my sense of identity is solid enough to manage layering another person on top, even for a few hours. Maybe in a year or so, when it's more ingrained and reflexive, and I know the bounds well enough to say what is me and what isn't.
Identity is a strange thing. Like gender, you don't question what it's made of until it's thrown into question. It's difficult for me to say how I know when I'm centered in myself and when I'm not, and how it feels different now than it did when I was centered in myself before. Most people have never had the unnerving sense that they've lost who they are, even briefly; they can't imagine what it's like, even the creative and imaginative people I know. That's a blessing for them, I suppose, but it means that only about two people in my life have any idea what I'm talking about when I have identity issues. Even the transgender folk I've spoken with have just had the sense that they were finally revealing who they've been all along -- there's no radical restructuring involved.
It's a reasonably transient issue, at least. I'm seeking out new environments enough that the renovation process is pretty much constant right now, but it'll level off after a while. I'm learning more coping strategies. And eventually it'll all stop looking new and weird to me, and just be the place that I live. In the meantime, excuse my dust.
no subject
Date: 2015-07-06 18:10 (UTC)I did. ;) Clearly not in the way you meant... And really, you're the one who did all the work. It's been awesome to watch.
no subject
Date: 2015-07-06 19:22 (UTC)It seems trite to say that I'd been looking for you my whole life, but that is, in essence, the case.