Sleep is so important to my mental health, I’ve been going to bed just as soon as the sun goes down in the sky. These summer days that’s me going to bed at ten when the yawns become unending around nine. So this morning when I couldn’t go back to sleep after an hour of waiting I had to take an Ativan and then I dove into nightmares.
I dreamt of someone I reconnected with – an old college friend over a year ago. A guy I had dated for a few weeks but was friends with for much longer. To me our friendship was a testament to choosing platonic affection over something trivial like a sexual relationship. I was proud that we backtracked to friend status. To me one has always been a higher priority and indeed necessary to engage in something like a sexual relationship being demisexual and all.
Memories resurfaced around the end of our short lived attempt at dating and I directly asked him if a rumor I heard was true and he denied it was. I apologized for any misunderstanding on my part and explained what memories lead me to believe this had happened. This is all really neutrally stated of course, the exact conversation was way more heated. I’m the kind of person who is willing to admit when they are wrong when I’m presented with evidence that I am, but he said that yes he did breach my trust but that it didn’t matter because the person involved already knew the information. I think people would remember the three of us as a little trio and his statements would make sense.
Then out of nowhere he starts talking about the person I dated after him who was known by our friend group and how humiliating it was to see me “brag” about how he “fucked me like a real man” to everybody we knew.
The sinking feeling in the center of every AFAB person reading that is so familiar to us all. It’s why we choose the bear.
Here I had been opening up to someone about my current life and current serious relationship and it was suddenly revealed to me that what this person remembered was humiliation because I moved on to someone who was compatible with me. I brought up something related to the relationship we had and that was taken as an opportunity to slut shame me.
This man obviously hasn’t absorbed the kind of person I am in the time that we have been talking. I guess I should have spoken up more about the misogynistic red flags I saw regarding his ex but really who has time to get into these things? Who wants to be the one to say “Don’t you think it might be a little out of left field to expect this level of effort from your co-parent? These are girlfriend expectations.”
Would you want to? If you had felt the little twinges of “he didn’t get it then and doesn’t get it now” would you want to stare at a screen and argue with someone who had just slut shamed you? Part of healing is deciding, no, there are consequences to speaking to me like that.
Just like there are consequences to those who seek a relationship with me who have done wrong to me. Like my parents. Well, that would be if any of them were seeking a relationship with me. One openly told me I’m a threat to his “new life,” one has dropped off the face of the earth once my mom dropped him off at a homeless shelter, one uses her victimhood to dodge all responsibility for what has happened in my life.
She shows up now in my dreams and just screams at me. Screams the awful things she said to me in my face while I try and express something to her. How many people can recall this kind of vivid memory of their mother howling and screaming at them like an animal just to scare them, just to make them cry in terror? This is why it feels completely pointless to try and reach out to her. I haven’t directly communicated with her for almost a year. When somebody waits six months to follow up with you about if you’re going to be in their life they’re kind of making it clear they couldn’t care less what the answer to that question is. When it is completely up to somebody to make the repair to a relationship and they can’t even send an email saying they’re working on it – message received.
It is awful that I’m having these nightmares. I think it’s also timely considering that I’m going to be making my way back to the working world soon. I’m able to do things like chores and getting out of the house and so I think it might be time to try working again. I want my life to line up to the pulse and throb of the world again. I yearn for the courage to leave the house. Pride is coming and it’s one of the few times I feel like maybe I can leave the house and not be afraid.
It’s something I don’t talk about alot – this constant fear of how I don’t fit a binary. How I can be exposed at any time for not being cisgender and having done something about it. My flat chest makes me feel beautiful even if the facial hair no longer does. In my mind all it takes is one person who is going to make an issue out of what I have chosen to do with my body.
Some days I think that’s all my fears and obstacles boil down to. The fears that inspire the hiding. In my mind at night those fears are so big. In the day I reach for the hopes that bring me out into the sun. Last night it was an extra walk in the park and bathing our dog. Today it is going to be going to this Pride kickoff party goddess bless it all. Sending you all my love and accepting yours in return.
Queer Pandemic 