Why I Came Back (for a minute) | I Believe Community is Important
I wrote about why I left my favorite place and the small, tightknit, community associated with it. The place where I had felt seen and accepted for the first time in a long time, maybe ever, because now I was coming in with a better understanding of who I was and how I was different. I tried to articulate how devastating - and familiar - it was to feel the need to distance myself when I had big emotions.
After I wrote that, and the steps I had taken for “healing” the old stuff, talking about the tools I had curated for more self-awareness and the processes I was developing for the moments when I get re-triggered, I took some time and then realized I needed to go back.
There were some incidents that were the catalysts to this - both internal & external, but ultimately I am trying, for now, to just be. Be me. In this space full of humans being them.
First, the main catalytic external event involved my son at the end of his school year, but to get there, I need to circle back on another life changing event that happened earlier. For you see, in January, my Dad died. I got to be present at that moment, he was surrounded at home by his family. But that, plus the aftermath that included a very public and well-attended funeral made it “easy” to withdraw. From everything. Especially the high-trigger world of polyamory.
For in my journey away from this space in question, this community I loved, I had been quietly dating someone I met on the apps. He wasn’t in the “scene”, but was experienced. We were enthusiastic about each other, we understood each other's life commitments, and yet, on December 20, he broke up with me via text after 6 months of dating. On December 21, the winter solstice, I saw my father alive and conscious for the last time.
Fortunately, I had learned lessons about my nervous system and its reactions, so when the text came in, I thanked him for his time and let go.
I had spent years chasing unavailable men. I had learned the reason why was because of my emotionally unavailable (to us) father. Kink, specifically D/s Daddy, helped me heal some of this, enough so that I could delete this person’s number so that I wouldn’t be tempted to reach out. I told my other partner I would be sad and need processing time alone and away from children periodically. And, when I did see my Dad that last time, though I didn’t know it would be the last, I was able to hear him - my actual father, my childhood savior - and just be. There were moments that day when I was sad, and I excused myself to walk and cry, then returned to be.
I got through the subsequent months by drawing my closest circle in and asking for their help, which was hard for me. I also took a lot, a lot of solo walks in the woods. In silence. Watching the world turn from the winter to the summer, in between the solstices.
I let myself feel it all in real time, except, I tried to dip into the grief slowly, feeling that if I went too deep, too soon, I would drown in their swirling eddies. Relying on disassociation and denial - our brains being our biggest gaslighters - to get through moments where the worst came up and I still had to function.
And I thought I didn’t need community. I thought I was fine - and safe! - on my own. No one likes big emotions, and this was the biggest of all, so WHY would I come back to that nest of drama? What could they do except hurt me more?
I went to therapy. I worked more on the origin of how I learned falsely that love needed to be earned. How avoidant men reminded me of the man that had just died. That it felt like he loved me so much when I was younger, but clearly (said that little inner child) I had done something to make him leave. Leave long before he died. And if I was “good enough” he would “come back”. That these patterns played out over and over in my life.
I recognized that letting the little me out to play in Kink in the year before had helped me to recognize these emotions and be at this place, this place where I was semi-functioning despite this loss. But also, how could I go back when the stakes were so high? The loss was so real.
I learned that I had both anxious and avoidant tendencies in me. I listened to affirmations about worthiness and self-love. I was very comfortable being alone, that ache for community fading into the background.
But, then I was so comfortable being alone, that I realized the pendulum has swung to another extreme. The thought of being with people in community was now as unpalatable as the thought of being without them had been months before.
But I was ok, right? I didn’t need anyone! I liked my life! I was fine.
And then, as it happens, (I like to think the universe intervened) and the moment changed.
My son, also ND, and with big emotions - emotions I had recognized and had worked hard at getting help to give him tools to learn to manage them - with the school, with outside therapists - he was set to graduate elementary school in a few days.
This actual child (vs my inner child) had lost his step-grandfather figure in September, and his actual grandfather in January. He had bravely spoken at my Dad’s funeral in front of hundreds, then played hide-and-seek with his cousins, where I found him, feet sticking out under that same podium convinced he couldn’t be seen. He watched the people he loved the most grieve, outwardly and inwardly.
And, he had feelings about leaving the only school he had ever known. “Mom”, he said to me as we walked somewhere, side-by-side, “I’ve spent HALF of my schooling life here.”
And. He was right. He articulated that the 6 out of 12 years he would be in school was in THIS school, and leaving it meant something. He was scared AND excited to go.
So, in those last few days before his graduation, we got a call from the principal’s office. My husband - my nesting partner and co-parent - and I were called in because my son had made some girls “uncomfortable”.
We found out there had been some name-calling at recess, and an incident where the ownership of some 4-square balls had been called into question, and he physically tried to get “his” ball back from them, after they had promised he could have it once they gave him theirs, which he had.
My first reaction to this silly incident and what felt like the exaggerated response from the other side was that I wanted to pull him from this place full of dangerous people, but I realized I didn’t want him to have the same fears I did. About groups, about people, about being left out, ostracized, betrayed, cheated, over and over.
I wanted him to have a different relationship with other people than I did. But how could I give that to him if I didn’t know how to do that myself?
So we worked with the school to give him a transition plan that included helping his beloved first-grade teacher pack up her classroom instead of going out to the Lord of the Flies unsupervised recess, and instead of pulling him out entirely in those last few days.
Then, after it was over, he (now in the front seat because he’s almost as tall as I am), looked over at me and said: “Mom, do you know what the rumor was about me?” And I said no, internally curious about where this was going to go. And he said his buddy, his ultimate male frenemy, had said: “You touched their…” and indicated his chest area.
“Boobs?” I (helpfully, haha) prompted.
“Well, that wasn’t the word he used…” he paused. “It sounded like tips, or ticks…”
“TITS!” I exclaimed, then immediately thought internally - calm down, champ, he’s 11. Then I spelled it “T - I - T - S”, cause my OCD mouth had a mind of its own. 🤦♀️
As I tried to wrestle my internal dialogue and just LISTEN, he asked, looking over at me with sweet, big, blue eyes, “What does that mean?” And my heart broke a little.
He was being accused of a sexualized act, when he didn’t even know the words.
So I told him it was a slang term for people with boobs. And I said, because we talk a lot about consent, It’s really not an area you can touch - on ANYONE - without asking their permission.
And he said, on the defensive, “I didn’t! I was trying to get my ball back!”
And I was able to assure him that everyone knew that - all of the adults understood what had happened after interviewing all of the children, but I reiterated, again, you still can’t touch people without their permission.
“Even if they touch me first? Or if they are threatening me with food?” he asked (referring to his life-threatening allergies and bullying in the past).
“Even then”, I said sadly, just as scared as he was, maybe more. “You need to go find an adult. A mediator. Take the time out to do your deep breaths.”
“But that would make me look weak!” He exclaimed. And I paused, wondering where that belief had come from. It wasn’t what we articulated at home.
“Well”, I said to my actual child. “You’ve tried to do it on your own, and it didn’t go so well, so well, maybe let’s try asking for help and see if the outcome is different.”
In the aftermath of that, as I processed and wrote, back to the drawing board though I had written that blog about leaving the space only a few weeks earlier. For I knew I was trying to live an alternative lifestyle. And there were challenges to that, just in the doing.
I knew I had “help” - wonderful professional support, and a loving partner and friends who I could be open with. I could be grateful that ethical non-monogamy had given me so much. It allowed my best male friend (who I love very deeply, which is unimaginable in a monogamous, heterosexual marriage), he could - and did - come to my father’s funeral. And we could honor our 20 years of friendship in front of my most judgmental extended family. It gave my husband and me the language to co-parent without divorce.
But I was afraid, without community, without knowing other people who were out there trying too, that my choices could ricochet on my sweet child.
So, I came back.
To community. To knowing I would be triggered a lot, but also knowing that time - over a year at this point - had helped. Therapy, awareness, and all of the intellectual pursuits I had done had value. Now I just had to feel. To be. To own my feelings and not project them on anyone else, especially when I am hidden behind a computer screen in these online forums.
To accountability. I now have self-rule and boundaries about when and what I could post and knew I will have to continue to release outcomes about other people. Knowing everyone has their own shit going on. And my most polarized feelings - the big black and what, THIS IS FOREVER moments, are not usually true. They are usually the opposite - false feelings, instead moments where I need to figure out why this feeling is so big, understanding that it’s probably (almost always) about me and not the other person at all. And my brain weasels, the ones in my head that exist to “gaslight” me to keep me “safe” aren’t able to see the whole truth.
Instead of thinking any other person can make the big feelings better (or worse), I need to sit and just FEEL, alone, before I reply to anything, or at all.
But it is important to STAY - with my boundaries and honoring the boundaries of others.
And it won’t be perfect, I won’t be perfect. But it will be worth it.
Because maybe, just maybe, my actual child will be able to have a different experience with relationships and humans. Maybe, just maybe, some of the trauma that was passed down from parent to child will be broken so that maybe his relationship with me (and his dad) won’t be as complicated as my relationship with my own father was.
And maybe I’ll be surprised by keeping an open mind and learning from others in a community space. I had, to this point, already learned so much from it!
And maybe, because I’m not new to this anymore, and have worked hard to build a few key relationships that have Venn diagram overlaps to here and other places, ones that exist in meat (meet) spaces, that I’ll be able to be and stay in these virtual spaces with less distress. By asking for help.
I’ll be able to stay and be, before the natural goodbyes we eventually have to say to everyone happen, even if we love them the most, because life is too short, and none of us are getting out alive.
ETA: 7/26/23 - lasted about a month! Jumped off because of trans-girl vs. cis-girl booby drama, and the subsequent public witch-hunt of the cis-girl EVEN AFTER SHE APOLOGIZED.
So I had to come off to not flame everyone on the discord and have it ricochet back on me. 😂🤦♀️
But I’m proud of myself for facing a lot of triggers and sitting with them! And, actually, based on this time, pretty solid in the knowledge that I have “my” people. It may not be everyone, but I am grateful for each and every one of them. And that’s enough for now. 🤷♀️ The rest I’ll process through as it comes up, and I’ll leave open for change. ❤️
Photo by Shane Rounce on Unsplash
