I didn’t know until 33…

Healing Out Loud - Step 2 - Removing the gender roles typed over an asexual pride flag background.

I feel like I’ve always had to figure out life on my own, so this WHOLE journey is really hopefully a completion of that cycle for me. Most people start life asking questions and in time grow confident about things. They eventually might reach a point where they stop listening. They know what they are talking about, they are right, so they don’t need to hear what you have to say. They definitely don’t want to ever look like they didn’t know something.

I feel like I was almost born this way. Not in the sense that I thought I know everything. ABSOLUTELY NOT I’m cluelessly flailing my way through life everyday just doing my best. But with the fear of looking like I didn’t understand… or looking “stupid”. For as long as I can remember I wanted to understand without asking questions. I don’t know if I was just scared to even talk, or if I didn’t know when to "interrupt" to ask.

Because just talking often feels like interrupting even to this day.

I used the context around words I didn’t know to try to and figure them out before I even understood that concept. The day I got google in my pocket my world changed! I had answers to everything at my fingertips. I didn’t understand why everyone didn’t just ask google. Unfortunately this missed most of my teen years though. I had to figure things out for myself for too long.

I started out describing myself as shy. Then anxious, specifically socially. Now audhd, but mostly just ME.

I couldn’t speak unless spoken to.

The dream child… fighting a war inside her head everyday no one else could ever seem to see. The initiation of conversation was my first brick wall that I remember having to break through.

That wall is in my mind of course…invisible to anyone else… the embodiment of executive dysfunction. I knew what I wanted to say… I knew HOW to say the words… I just had to walk up to whoever and open my mouth and make the noises…

Why was I shaking? Why did I want to run away and hide in the corner? I’m literally just trying to say, “hello”, why do I need to disappear now?

I used to hide behind my parents' legs as a toddler. I didn’t want to be seen as soon as I could walk… and boy was I rewarded.

“Oh what a cute shy little boy!”

It got to the point, they say, that I would step out from behind the their legs and yell,

“I AM NOT A BOY!”

Then go back to hiding. So that built an insecurity in me about looking like a boy from too young of an age to be worrying about that shit.

Of course, I was also born a hard headed rebel so… I embraced that shit and went full tom boy for a long time until I found my home in the Rock/Alt Community. Given the choice I’d rather have been playing basketball at the park with the boys than tanning at the pool with the girls talking about the boys, makeup, or boy bands. I watched Little Rascals and wanted to be in the He-Man-Woman-Haters Club but knew they’d hate me because I was a girl. Why were girls so “girly”? It felt like all they cared about was boys and looking cute. As a girl I was turned against my own kind by the way girly things were vilified combined with my disinterest. I made friends with the girls who’d play in the mud with me. I was in gymnastics until I was 11 so all of these feelings were also reinforced by that atmosphere, even though it was my first lost love.

Now there’s a lot of trauma tied into that last sentence that we will get to.

But for now I want to stay on the topic of BOYS and GIRLS and the trauma the divide between them can cause.  We all have crossing interests and the mixing of them should be embraced, not forced to the extremes. Not forced into “roles”. Yes some girls will never give a shit about make up, but there’s probably more boys that LOVE it. Neither should have to feel any shame about that in their life just because YOU don’t get it. The same goes the other way with cars. Or anything that's for “girls” or for “boys”. We should be able to get whatever job we want and not be shamed. A guy who becomes a nurse should be celebrated because they are NEEDED. And if a girl can change a tire faster than you’re brother, WHY DO YOU CARE, that’s less work for you to do?! TF?

Who gives a shit?

WHY ARE WE GATE KEEPING EXISTING HAPPILY?!?!

What good does this do us to shame someone for finding something that brings them joy?

All it does is waste our own precious energy on things that ultimately DO NOT MATTER.

I spent my whole life feeling like something was wrong with me because I didn’t want to talk about boys the way the other girls did. I’d rather play in the dirt with toy trucks than dolls… I tended to cut all the hair off of those. But I liked those spiny fairy things! So I was usually able to find SOMETHING to connect over. Everything was fine enough until about 9th grade probably. I made varsity soccer my freshman year and I was NOT prepared for the talk on the bus rides home with the juniors and seniors.

Why was everyone on the edge of their seats wanting to know more about her experiences? It sounded so awkward… and uncomfortable… and gross quite frankly.

Welp, turns out I’m asexual…

I just had to mask myself straight and convince myself my anxiety and discomfort was “butterflies” for 15+ years before I could figure that out I guess. It didn’t help that I am not aromantic. 

For those unfamiliar with these terms, or even if you are, you know it’s a spectrum, so FOR ME this means… I have no interest in sexual acts of any kind really. Reading about them, seeing them portrayed, or hearing about them all make me very uncomfortable. However I do have interest in a romantic relationship. I want a partner to live this life with and support each other in every way possible for a couple outside of sexually. I don’t mind, and can even enjoy, physical touch like hugging, cuddling, or kissing though. I am open to my body's wants and needs changing in time but as of now this is where I stand proudly even if most won’t understand. 

HAPPY PRIDE MONTH!!!

Kay back to the past…

After that rude awakening of what my future held I tried to prepare… it was awful.

I did research and tried experimenting and was just left more confused and uncomfortable.

I decided the only path forward then… was to get it over with. 

Life had shown me consistently by then that things might be hard for me that weren’t for everyone else… but I just needed to suck it up and power through. That’s what it meant to exist. I didn’t know I had the option not to participate.

So I picked the star of the soccer team that I thought was cute and made an effort to befriend him.

Unfortunately, he had a girlfriend in another town who did not like this. I didn’t understand why she cared so much. I do now, and I’m so sorry to everyone involved.

But I sure did a great job of putting myself into a situation to reinforce my own feelings of discomfort and wrongness that I had about the whole thing. I would continue to do this throughout the rest of my teenage years, not with guys in relationships. Just emotionally unavailable interests only. Constantly feeling like there was something wrong with me. Like I wasn’t enough for them and never could be. BECAUSE IT WAS TRUE. If I had EVER gotten what I “wanted” with any of those guys it surely would have ended in more misery for myself and them probably.

I moved to Texas at 19 after having to drop out of college because my mom decided to go back…

Again we’ll get to that…

There I found my first “love”. I put it in parenthesis, not because it wasn’t real, but because it wasn’t ME.

We were together for like 3 years, moved together multiple times. I thought he was the one even though we had plenty of issues and the trust had already been broken. Then he had an accident, almost died, and realized I was just his best friend. Which obviously I agreed with that assessment after thinking about it so we went our separate ways. I moved to Nebraska to stay with my mom for a bit. Wrote a book over a summer to cope. Then to moved Lincoln to try being on my own again.

I had another period of wanting the unattainable.

Found my bar, and started to find myself, and people more like me.

Then I met the love that changed me.

I have lots of trauma from both of these relationships that I am going to try and tackle in a combo post so no one can know who did what between the two of them for their sake if this gets popular and I reveal my identity. But I haven’t figured out how to do that yet so for now I’ll just say this.

There was a year of my life that felt like I was living in HELL. But I needed to be pushed there to finally put my face to the heat and SEE how much I was lying to myself. It was so far buried in the sand that I needed to be retraumatized to get it out. So I don’t hold any of it against him. It was hell for him too. We hurt each other the whole time just trying to stay together while fighting to figure out WHO WE WERE.

I have a lot of self betrayal to work through about this still. My body definitely needs to learn it can trust me again. But that will come with time and patience. Some things can’t be rushed or written through. To be clear I have enjoyed these acts in the right circumstances of relationships but never in my life have I WANTED to initiate them or felt comfortable while doing so.

I regret the lies that lived between us in my relationships. I wasn’t aware of them at the time, so I am working toward forgiving myself for this too. Because I was lying to myself more than anyone, and it was a protective mask that I built to save myself from the world around me.

Even though it grew to hurt me, it also saved me so much pain during the days when the world was less accepting.

Why are we sliding backwards now, when we’ve made so much progress?

To my exes, I was just doing what I thought I was “supposed to” my whole life. I’m sorry if it ever made you feel unwanted or unloved at any point. It wasn’t your lacking, it was my lack of natural desire that we both had to suffer through. I’m sorry that my story included hurting you in all the ways I know, and all the ones I don’t. I hope you can use the wounds to learn the lessons life was trying to teach you, like I am now trying to do myself.

For this blog I ask the reader for this… 

When you go out into the world and see someone experiencing joy, either ignore them or join them. Give a smile and go about your day.

Enough with the negativity please, there’s enough of that around us every day we don’t need to give it our energy too.

And think about the things you enjoy that you may feel shame about. Is the shame really worth not having that joy in your life?

Why don’t you forgive yourself for it? It’s okay to like things that other people don’t understand. And it’s okay to like things that EVERYONE likes just because. It’s also okay to want nothing to do with those things. But why do we need to HATE it? Like I’ve said before, and I’ll say it many times again… We’re all just trying to exist here, damn.

I hope no one else ever makes it to 33 or farther not knowing something as fundamental as this about themselves.

You are perfect just the way you are.

Even if it seems like NO ONE else will ever understand.