Safe Sex

Various conversations and readings in the last few days have me thinking about sexual trauma. It's a given (depending on who you talk to) that being a partner to a sex addict causes relational trauma, but I feel sexually traumatized too.

Before SA I was comfortable with my sexuality, I think as comfortable as anyone can feel in such a confused culture. I was comfortable with what I liked and what I didn't, and didn't think about or particularly care about what others were up to.

After SA, I see sickness and confusion everywhere.

The Escape Artist

It occurred to me today as I was relaying my recent mind hijacking to therapist that Roi is an escape artist. He has made a life art out of escaping accountability and keeping responsibility to a bare minimum. Don't get me wrong, that took effort and intelligence and I sometimes envy him. 

But that's what it is. Roi's primary orientation is about escape. This should not come as a surprise to anyone in relationship with a sex addict, or in relationship with just about any type of addict. Except Roi isn't seeking to escape just bad feelings, he seeks to escape something much more fundamental. 

Liz had two things to say about my hijacking anxiety episode. One, she validated that my thinking is clear and my orientation and motivations are in the right directions, but my nervous system is responding outside of my control. Not like I needed to be told, but I won't lie, it's always a relief when Liz confirms what I feel like is happening. 

Then she proposed the idea that Roi probably takes his escapism too far, and at the expense of others around him, but I could myself go ahead and adopt (for now) a similar orientation. That I can allow myself as long as I need to not do much of anything. 

She didn't realize I am already doing that and when I allow myself to "drop in" to that feeling, that orientation, it feels right. But the hijacking, once triggered, throws me way the fuck off and because that state is a hell realm, I'm walking around in a constant state of low grade anxiety in anticipation of the next episode. 

She decided we need to add a neurofeedback protocol that works directly on calming the amygdala so that my nervous system can take a break long enough to drop this pattern. I only got a brief shot of it today so it's too early to feel a difference but I'm hopeful.

Will it Change

Just watched Another Year which I found to be utterly depressing. A few critics found it simply boring, but I thought it was brilliantly written and acted. And it was the brilliance with which the message was delivered that made it so damn depressing. 

The message being, more or less, that happy people stay happy, and the rest of us stay miserable. 

My biggest fear in all of this recovery business is that I'll find at the end of it that what was set in motion in my life will simply continue to play out. And that thought is just depressing, isn't it? That whatever neurotic tendencies I have now, I've had in the past (which led me to the decisions I made), and I will have in the future.  For many years I had this believe that striving and trying and working would get me over some hill, and once crested I'd get to coast for a while. 

After I graduated from college (as a returning student) and met Roi, I really really thought, here it is, here is the crest of the hill. Foot of the pedal now, I can coast. The downward slope turned out to have an entirely different meaning. It meant momentum without brakes and crashing into a broken pile at the bottom. And somewhere on that ride my thinking shifted to this idea that no matter how hard I tried, it would always keep coming to this. 

And I suppose that's when I got depressed. First there was frantic back-pedaling, but then it just seemed like too much effort. So when a film-maker creates such a disturbingly accurate portrayal of "the more things change, the more they stay the same", it's hard to not resign to it. 

Therapy tomorrow. Amen.

Embodying the Goddess of Never Not Broken

I came across this article today about the Hindu Goddess Akhilandeshvari (I know, I can't pronounce it either). 

There's this: 

But look, Akhilanda says, now you get to make a choice. In pieces, in a pile on the floor, with no idea how to go forward, your expectations of the future are meaningless. Your stories about the past do not apply. You are in flux, you are changing, you are flowing in a new way, and this is an incredibly powerful opportunity to become new again: to choose how you want to put yourself back together. Confusion can be an incredible teacher—how could you ever learn if you already had it all figured out?

And this: 

So now is the time, this time of confusion and brokenness and fear and sadness, to get up on that fear, ride it down to the river, dip into the waves, and let yourself break. Become a prism. 

And more. Go read it. If you're here at this blog it's probably because you are lying on the floor broken into pieces (literally or figuratively) because of sex addiction, or drug addiction, or alcohol addiction, or maybe something else but you're searching for a little light, a little hope, some answers, some understanding -- probably mostly not to feel so alone as you pick up the pieces of your shattered dreams, your shattered self. 

So you could probably use a little Akhilandeshvari, the Goddess of "Never Not Broken" in your life.