Fears: Both Irrational and Unfounded

Let's talk about a serious and a not so serious fear of mine today, shall we?

Ever since I was fairly young I've had a serious aversion to certain patterns, especially a regular, repeating pattern of small holes.  The first couple times I really remember noticing them were once on a plane, when I saw a pattern in the fields below, and another time with these awful shoes that were popular.  They were shitty adidas sandals with the rubber pegs that massage the bottoms of your feet, and we wore socks with them *shudder*.  Anyway, sock lint would accumulate in the bottoms and you could pull it out, but there would be holes in the lint block in the pattern of those pegs and it freaked me the fuck out.  Later, I saw an anime in which a villian had a beehive in his back, and an X-Files episode in which someone thought they had roaches crawling under their skin.  So, know, when I see these patterns, I think of maggots, roaches, bees, or other living creatures burrowing out and making these patterns in my flesh.  Fun stuff.  BUT, until today, I had no idea there was a word for it and that it was fairly common!  Trypophobia--but don't google it too much, lest you catch it--because I warn you, looking at enough images of patterns of holes in skin (photoshopped or not) will cause you to become revulsed.

On to the next--not being smart enough to finish this whole school shit I've started.  Seriously, pretty much every day since I started I have felt that I was the worst student in the class, that I couldn't keep up, that I lacked the basic knowledge that everyone else seemed to have.  But yet....I'm doing it!  I've had a few downs, but they are always followed by bad assery.  Yep, got a B and then a C (C is failing in grad school in case you didn't know) in Molecular Biology, but then followed that by A's in both Cell Bio classes (my major, so I better...).  And this semester, we only had one course.  A killer fucking course that was strangely organized and a fucking bitch to study for.  I worked my ass off.  One of our Halloween movie nights was spent with me hearing everyone drunkenly laughing in the other room while I went over and over and over the Wnt, Notch, and Hedgehog pathways.  I spent days (literally, probably around 70 hours) in the library for this last test, not even counting all the time I spent studying at work and at home.  And sure, a lot of that was spent going back and forth between my book and my Facebook....but--that shit PAID off!  89.6 in the class, which rounds up to a god damn A, bitches!

And so, I look toward my general exams next semester....the ones that gave me such horrid anxiety every time I thought of them, the ones that seemed so insurmountable and unpassable...and I think...holy shit, I can do this.

Ass Burgers

Its no secret that I have difficulty processing strong emotions. They either overwhelm me, or I shut them off. Its funny, there are a lot of psychologists now that believe this is what is wrong with many children on the autism spectrum, especially those with Aspberger's: they feel emotion too strongly from a young age, it is too intense for them, and so they turn it off. Ok, I digress. I'm cycling right now. I'm doing a lot of unhealthy avoidance (not calling my father back even though I had like 6 missed calls from him). I'm very upset, then I'm very content, then I'm completely numb. Yesterday was a lovely day, truly, it was very relaxing and comforting and fun. But underneath the entire day ran a little river of anxiety. I've found in the past 2 weeks that it is manifesting itself by a little prickle at the back of my neck. My neck feels hot, or itchy, or just strange. Its like a little reminder that no matter how much I'm enjoying that minute, there's still so much to fret about. Christmas break should be interesting. I'm not looking forward to most of it, but I am glad to get to see my brothers. And my lovely sisters-in-law. But I don't want to explain anything. I don't want to talk about any of it. I don't know who should know what, and how much to divulge, and what will be said. I feel like the emotional parts of my brain are atrophying. I'm killing them with lack of oxygen. A large part of me would like that, a constant numbness. But I know that's silly, and I need to start the process of cultivating feelings again. It will be painful, it is all so raw and it hurts to even look at it, much less dig around to try to mend it. Plus I have made myself so alone in this--I have people I can talk to about aspects of my life, but not one person right now that I'm fully honest with about everything. I've lost that, and I need to find a way to trust someone enough to gain it back. We'll see.

Clarification

I don't know that I made myself fully clear in the last post. I did not leave my husband for my boyfriend. I was determined that the only reason I would leave him was because I didn't think we could make it work. And this is what happened. It wasn't choosing one over the other, it was realizing that the second one happened because of how bad the first relationship was for me. No one can replace my husband in my heart--no one. He was my first love, my best friend half of my life, and all of my adult life. We went through so fucking much together I don't know how we aren't more broken than we are. I will always be in debt to him for how much he has given me and done for me.

The Story

Look let's lay it all out, even though I don't know who actually reads this and what good if any it will do. I was in a very long term relationship. He is my family, my longest friend. I love him still and I always will, that is for certain. But things were falling apart, slowly but surely even though we didn't see it. I had decided that I was going to spend the rest of my life with this person. I meant that. But in the midst of all my unhappiness, my strong, long-held belief that everything in the relationship that was bad was my fault, and my awful self-esteem I started to yearn for something else. I started noticing that other people noticed me. It started with some fucking fast food guy who flirted with me and called me beautiful when I checked out. Really? Someone could think of me that way? It was stupid but I let myself go a little bit. But then I realized I was being stupid and pulled back before anything happened...this guy was gross. It happened several more times; people talking to me, flirting with me. I have never, ever been the kind of person that gets hit on. Or at least not that I ever noticed. So, it was a very new feeling for me. I had been feeling so miserable and so down on myself that any of it just made my day, my week. So, then there was a guy that was flirting with me who I actually thought was cute, and sweet. It started out fairly innocent but turned after a bit. I started deluding myself, thinking I could lead these two lives. I split my mind, and my personality, to an extent. I wouldn't even talk to my counselor about the other life, he was a part of one and not the other. But I still loved my fiancee. And so I married him, thinking I could keep leading this other life for a while and then figure it out later. By this point, my new relationship had serious feelings involved with it, and so, even though he didn't say anything, I hurt him immensely when I got married. But he did not say anything, even when asked, because he wanted me to do what I wanted and needed to do, without any pushing from him either way. And so, stupidly, I got married while engaging in an affair. It is awful and fairly unforgivable. It is embarrassing and shameful. It ended up hurting so many people. I loved my wedding. It was the best night of my life. I have never felt so surrounded by love, and I have never had so much fun. When I said my vows that day I fully believed every word. I love that man, I really do. But love is not enough, sometimes. Things add up, make this giant pile of bullshit. And suddenly, you find yourself unable to carry on with a relationship that makes you feel like a piece of shit. It wasn't his fault, it wasn't my fault, it was our fault. It was made of up misunderstandings, not knowing ourselves, blindness, ignorance, and apathy. I moved in with "the other man". This was an asshole move, but really, I have nowhere else to go, other than crashing on a succession of friends' couches, which--with school right now--would make me fall apart. Plus, he and I truly do care about each other. We make it work. We compromise, we fight and then make up, we enjoy each other's company. I'm in a new relationship, and yes, all this may pass. We may grow tired of each other, we may not work out. But I've figured out that being alone is not the end of the world. It is far better than staying in a toxic marriage that will make me miserable for the rest of my life. I'm sorry to those that I have hurt, especially my soon to be ex-husband. He is in a lot of pain, and that is killing me. The friends that I know I am losing will leave a hole in my heart. I hate that his family and mine are saddened by all of this. But I just want you to know that although I made awful mistakes, and this all should have gone down completely differently, I do think that where I am now will be a better place than where I was before. And if I'm wrong? I now know that I do have the strength to figure it out and do what is right for me. I will be happy. As for other things, when my husband found out about my affair, I told him things to make him feel better. I didn't realized some of these falsehoods would come back to bite me in the ass so bad. This new man is not a horrible person. He treats me well and with respect. He feels bad for being with me when I was taken. Ok, I've been sleeping poorly, so I hope this conveys what I intended it to. I hope we can all get past this and get to our happy place. I'm an asshole and I'm sorry that others are in pain because I couldn't get my shit together.

Brave Face

Haha, I kid myself. I'm not really that ok.....

Breaking up is a strange thing. People always say that the ripples are felt much further than you thought they would be, but jesus christ, some of this I did not expect. I am the bad guy in all of this, I'm fine with playing that part. I don't want to air my side of the story to anyone. He needs to, and he needs to do what he needs to do, but I am not going to go around defending myself and letting people know what he did wrong versus what I did wrong. If you want to blame me, go ahead. Everyone needs a scapegoat, and I am more than willing. If you decide that, based solely on the way that my relationship turned out, you no longer want to be in my life, that is your decision. I am not going to come after you and tell you about how fucked up my short lived marriage was. I made mistakes---huge mistakes. We will leave it at that. As for me, I'm swinging back and forth between fairly happy and fairly numb. Finals are over and I'm jumping right into massive lab work and preparing for the craziness of next semester. I'm trying, so hard, to deal with the massive amount of shit everyone is throwing my direction (some of it on purpose, others completely without knowing) when it comes to this breakup. So, I start to feel a little overwhelmed and my body reacts by either completely shutting down and feeling major apathy, or completely shoving away everything that makes me upset. So, I'm caught either emotionlessly reading papers for work and drudging through the day, or filling my time with frivolity and ignoring my phone while watching Christmas movies and bad TV. But I'm ok. When I get close to the edge of depression or despair, I've been able to pull back and find a happy place. I have goals that I want to reach, and they keep me in focus enough that I don't fall apart. The only problem is keeping up with anyone. Because of my mind's tendency to run from emotion, I do NOT want to talk to anyone seriously about anything right now, and so I'm mostly ignoring anyone I feel is going to bug me in that way. My plan for now is just to take them one at a time. So, just patiently wait your turn, I guess. :D That's all. I thought writing this might make me feel a little better, but it has succeeded in making me feel a little worse.