#navel gazing

littleblackstar5002:

I’m always looking for an excuse to get iddy! And then this.

“The moderators are fully supportive of kink and do not condone purity culture or censorship. However, we have enacted certain content restrictions for this bang. The following content will not be accepted for this bang: Explicit Underage Content, Incest, NSFL (necrophilia, snuff, extremely graphic nonconsensual torture). If you have any questions regarding the content restrictions, please contact a moderator.”

Hate to break it to you, mods, but what you’re doing is exactly condoning purity culture and censorship. So my question regarding the restrictions is: why even run a fandom kink event, in the Supernatural fandom in this, the year of our lord 2022, and disallow not only one of the major ships, but canoodling with unliving bodies (which likely includes just about every vessel and meatsuit an angel or demon has commandeered)? If a mod is squeamish, hey, I get it. I’ve run a ton of events and I don’t groove on everything that’s submitted. People are complicated and sometimes pretty damaged critters, and that’s a heart-breaker. Which is why we require tags for filtering, or get different mods to shepherd those fics that might be an issue for someone. There are plenty of solutions that don’t involve banning some pretty ridiculously common SPN fandom stuff. There seems to be ulterior motives at work here…   

Thank Astraea that I missed the deadline to sign up as an author, to save me from being a fly in their ointment. Sign-ups for artists are still open, but ha ha ha haaaaaa, NOPE

With greater and greater frequency, new events are banning not only ships, but shippers. Not because an event is focused on a particular ship (therefore excluding others, which yeah of course) but because of some flavor of mandating what a good, virtuous fan looks like, and what they’re permitted to create. Despite all the excellent ways we’ve formulated to organize and search/filter our fandom experiences, we’ve still managed to become more judgmental and less inclusive in ways that earnestly make very little sense and don’t bode well for the future of fandom. Fandom is becoming more and more mainstream and toothless, to placate the masses. Seriously, make it make sense.

Friendly reminder: if not for a Wincest shipper, there would be no AO3 right now. If not for a J2 shipper, there’d be no A/B/O. YKINMKATO is an awesome thing and paved the way for all kinds of safe, fun, experimental shit, not to mention the realization for a lot of us that we may not be as arrow straight as we thought we were. What’s current fandom so afraid of? Not being enough of an activist in their fictional adventures? CHARACTERS ARE NOT REAL HUMANS, Y’ALL. Fiction, in broad strokes, can influence the mainstream (for example: the popularity of slash fiction contributed to the realization that queer stories actually had an audience), but if fiction alone could make us better people, we wouldn’t need therapists. If it made bigger villains, more D&D players would be a serial killers. My level 16 half-orc cleric would be appalled, okay?  

The right way to be introspective (yes, there’s a wrong way)

“So when it comes to developing internal self-awareness, I like to use a simple tool that I call What Not Why. Why questions can draw us to our limitations; what questions help us see our potential. Why questions stir up negative emotions; what questions keep us curious. Why questions trap us in our past; what questions help us create a better future. In addition to helping us gain insight, asking what instead of why can be used to help us better understand and manage our emotions.”

I guess one of the things about my politics is that I’m a principled pluralist in basically every regard, and as far as I can tell this isn’t something that’s in vogue anywhere on the political spectrum right now. I run up against nationalists by believing in the value of diversity-for-diversity’s-sake; I run up against “wokeness” for believing this extends not just to a narrow and rigid selection of identity categories, but to all aspects of the human condition, including ones that might be considered rather ugly; I run up against technocrats of all sorts (leftist, liberal, rightist) for actively opposing the desire to build a socially optimized society, in favor of one that accommodates a wide range of people and things and communities. I just like the world, I think it’s beautiful and awe-inspiring and amazing in all its chaos, and I fundamentally don’t want to destroy that. I feel like I’m constantly repeating this on here because somehow it seems like deeply held pluralist values are just really rare.

On the other hand, I’m conscious of the ethical burden this sort of thing places on society. There are, in fact, things I am fully against—various forms of violence and suffering and so on—things I truly believe have no place in the world. And this leaves me conflicted! A truly pluralistic society would, at some level, have to accommodate these things too. But of course pluralism isn’t my only value, it’s tempered by many others, and in the end there are some things I don’t want society to accommodate. But deciding precisely what these things are is hard: from a utilitarian perspective, everything that isn’t ruthless optimization for the Good is, in some sense, evil. I am actively opposed to taking things that far, but if I have any ethics at all (which I do), the line must be drawn somewhere. I think that precisely where to draw it is the single biggest philosophical struggle that I have, politically speaking.

Anyway, just trying to articulate this again. I feel very… unusual in looking at things this way.

Navel-gazing intensifies.

My roommate, Sunny, is dating/repeatedly hanging out with Boy Genius, The Unknown Quantity, and The Violinist.

First, I want to say that I’m happy for her that she has people. She has a lot of not great stuff in her life, so I’m glad that there are people she can spend time with and rely on.

But. I’m envious. Because she’s getting all of this play with different people, yes. But more than that, these are three people I used to have some sort of relationship with, either dating or play. And with each person, it ended because I wasn’t interested enough/didn’t give them enough priority, and not even necessarily out of an actual lack of interest, or at least not a long-lasting lack of interest.

Honestly, it was starting to date Reaction Junkie, combined with my spiral into depression, that ended each of those relationships. Plus some individual/specific things with each person. And I regret it.

With Boy Genius, Reaction Junkie didn’t like him for various reasons. He never told me to stop spending time with or playing with Boy Genius, but his opinion influenced my opinion and my actions, and I started doing less and less with Boy Genius. Reaction Junkie has since changed his opinion, and I did make an attempt to start playing with Boy Genius again a few months ago, but didn’t keep up with it. To be honest, that’s partially because, while I enjoy the play we did, he’s not quite as mean as I prefer. But it’s also because I spiraled into depression further.

With The Unknown Quantity, we played at events a bunch and I went to his place once. Then I guess I stopped going out as much because of depression and spending all my time with Reaction Junkie, and we didn’t play for a while. We attempted to get together again at one point, but by then neither of us was prioritizing the other. I was okay with that since it was equal. But more recently, I’ve made several attempts to play with him at events. I texted him beforehand expressing an interest in playing, but I never even got a response or an acknowledgement that I’d said anything. That really sucks. Being rejected, and being ignored. A month or so ago, I was at dinner with him and a few other people, including Sunny. At the end of the night, she asked The Unknown Quantity if he wanted to get together. He said yes, and that he was busy, but that he had time for her the next week. After they made their plans, I went up to him and asked if he wanted to get together. He said he was busy and didn’t have any time for the next month and a half. Well, fuck you, too. That really hurt, to see him make time for someone, and then the next moment to have him brush me off.

With The Violinist, I was the shittiest. We were dating for a few months, at least. We actually started dating not long after I started seeing Reaction Junkie. Which was not long before I started getting super depressed. Those things in combination meant that I didn’t treat The Violinist very well. I wasn’t doing poly well. Part of that was depression, yes, but part of it was me just not giving The Violinist the time and attention I should have. I kept canceling on him and didn’t make plans with I’m enough or spend enough time with him when we did get together. We actually got quite close. He knew all about my jealousy problems, and he talked them through with me. We spent a lot of good times together, but I wasn’t in a place where I could truly appreciate him. It took me far, far too long to realize that I shouldn’t have been dating someone else while in the throws of NRE and depression. We had a few conversations about our relationship, including one where we talked about spending less time together, but I really regret not figuring things out more quickly, and not having the guts to be as open and upfront as I should have been. I wish that I had told him I wanted to end things for the time being because I knew I wasn’t giving him the time and attention he deserved, and that I hoped that, once I was doing better, we could try again. I really, truly regret not having told him that.

I wish I could fix things with these people for a couple reasons. The primary one is, I admit, quite self-centered. I want more people to play with at happy hour and at events, both because I like playing with different people and because I know that when I play with other people and have fun, I have a much much easier time dealing with it when Reaction Junkie does things with other people. I’ve been hanging out with a couple of really awesome people lately (Not A Tumblr Dom and a great guy from okc/happy hour who has yet to be nicknamed), but they don’t come to happy hour, at least not regularly, and they don’t really come to events. Between Boy Genius and The Violinist, they come to happy hour pretty much every week, and The Unknown Quantity goes to a lot of events.

Besides just wanting more people to play with in general, I also miss playing with these people specifically. Even besides play, I don’t really interact with these people much any more, probably mostly because I feel awkward around them. I know that I have very compatible play interests with The Violinist and The Unknown Quantity. They both do mean rope (and are good at it) and they’re sadistic. I always really enjoyed the play I did with them; it’s exactly the kind of play I’m looking for. Even with Boy Genius, be is quite good at rope, and I had fun when I played with him, even if it didn’t exactly scratch my itch for pain.

Outside of play, these are all great people. I like talking with them and I really did enjoy spending time with them, and I miss it. Especially with The Violinist. We spent more time together than I did with anyone else except Reaction Junkie, and we had a lot of good times.

I get really envious of Sunny and the time she gets to spend with these people and the play she does with them. It makes me feel shitty about myself because I want to get more play and want to be wanted AND it reminds me of the fact that I wasn’t a good friend/play partner/partner to them. I want to ask them to play, but I think I’ll get rejected, and, honestly, I can’t blame them, especially The Violinist. I think I will try talking to them, especially Boy Genius and The Violinist, more at happy hour, though. Maybe I can start repairing the friendships/relationships I had with them.

Yesterday Reaction Junkie helped me go to my first therapy session with my new therapist. He came in at first, helping me get over my sudden desire to simply curl up and cry. We talked with the therapist for a while, and then I told Reaction Junkie that he should go enjoy happy hour. He got up and gave me a kiss. I told him, “Tell people I said ‘Hi.’” and he headed out.

I started talking to my therapist and he mostly listened quietly, but actively. I felt uncomfortable, a little awkward at first, but eventually settled in and opened up. I talked about work first, then talked about how being depressed has caused issues with social anxiety and made dealing with any poly issues more difficult.

During the conversation about poly, I mentioned what happened at the con Reaction Junkie and I went to about a month ago, and that’s when the tears came. I talked about how upset I’d been, and we got into my thoughts and feelings about poly, jealousy, how you’re “supposed” to do poly, and how I shame myself when I feel like I’m not doing poly “right.” (Obviously there isn’t one way to do poly, but my jerkbrain likes to convince me there is.) I could tell that dealing with poly and jealousy feelings is going to be a theme in my sessions with this therapist.

I brought up the fact that I’ve been having more issues with social anxiety in the past month or so, not being able to talk to new people, not wanting to go to social events, and the like. I said that I feel like I can’t think of things to say to people, and, while in the past couple months prior to this upswing in my depression, I would just shrug off an unsuccessful interaction, and move on, now I feel as though it’s the end of the world.

I talked about how how I compare myself to more outgoing partners and feel bad about the fact that I’m not. Partially because I feel like I should be/have a habit of negatively comparing myself to others, but also because I wish I was more extroverted and comfortable with new people. It would make life easier, and would make finding new partners easier.

That led to a discussion of the fact that when I don’t find new partners as easily or often as a partner, especially if that partner is my only partner and/or someone who is a primary or primary-esque, it makes me feel bad. Besides the fact that new people are fun (At least they used to be for me. Not so much lately, with the depression and all.), I feel vulnerable, like there’s a differential investment in the relationship, like they have more options, so they aren’t as concerned with me. That happened with MLAM. I <i>know</i> with Reaction Junkie that isn’t the case. For fuck’s sake, we’re talking about living together and our future and we spend a lot of time together and I can just tell from how he talks and treats me and acts with me that he is just as invested in our relationship as I am. But that doesn’t stop my depression brain from making me worry about him finding someone who is more interesting, more fun, a better rope bottom, toppier, less needy, etc. and deciding that I’m not worth that time and effort anymore.

We moved on to a more general discussion of me not being kind to myself, having negative self-talk, and beating myself up for things. I told him that within the last month or so, I’ve been having an issue where, when someone says something like “X is the best at <activity>” or “Z is so much fun to play with” what I hear is “You’re not good at <activity> and no one wants to do <activity> with you/you’re nowhere near as fun to play with. I said I knew that was silly, and my therapist replied, "Well, that’s depressed thinking.” Self-esteem (or lack thereof) and insecurity are also going to be big themes, I think.

As we discussed things, I connected the work stress, the poly difficulties, and a resurgence in my social anxiety. They’re all related in a harmful negative feedback loop, each causing the others to get worse. The work stress means that I use up all my emotional and mental energy at work. That makes dealing with any issues at home, especially with jealousy or other poly things, much harder. That upsets me and brings me down. Then I start being meaner to myself and being more insecure. That makes being at kink events more challenging, since I’ll do more negative comparisons to other people, hear negative things about me when people are actually just saying positive things about others, and struggle more with partners playing with other people. Then that makes me feel shitty about myself and worry that I can’t “do poly.” Social anxiety gets worse, as well, especially as I get more into a depressed mindset. And that, of course, feeds back into the poly insecurities about not finding new partners and differential investment. I get distracted and less productive at work, need to stay more and stay up later to get things done, and feel more rushed when deadlines approach. And then the whole damn thing begins again.

I compare how I am now with how I was the past few months before this, and I miss feeling excited about things, meeting new partners and friends, doing more play with more different people, finding it comparatively easy to counter negative self-talk, and being more resilient with social or other failures. I miss that old LFB and worry that she’s gone. I feel like my depression will continue indefinitely, that my friends and partners will be less interested in spending time with me because they’ll get annoyed by how I bring things down and get tired of dealing with my sadness. And then, of course, I feel even more upset about the loss of pre-depressive episode LFB and the life I was living.

Talking about everything and making connections and saying things out loud that I hesitate to verbalize was hard and sad and uncomfortable and made me cry. But it also made me feel better. That past LFB isn’t gone. The problems I’m having with countering negative-self talk and insecurities, with finding managing jealousy very difficult, and with social anxiety aren’t problems I’ve always had, at least not to this life-disrupting extreme. They started to get worse with added work stress, lack of sleep, and maybe even with some particularly bad PMS that all added together to start this awful negative feedback loop. And since those problems haven’t always be there in the same way, since I can start to see what might be causing them to get worse, that means I can figure out a way to deal with them. All is not lost. I won’t be like this from here on out. I can, and will, get through this and come out just as, if not more, capable of disrupting negative self-talk, brushing off things that are now pushing insecurity buttons, managing with jealousy, being more outgoing and extroverted, and dealing everything else that depression is fucking with.

I went into the session feeling despondent, and I came out feeling hopeful.