Emilya Wicked

Disclaimer: I am not an expert and the words and opinions stated in this post are just that, my opinion presented to you based on off research conducted by myself. These views do not reflect that of anyone else or the scientific community even though scientific references will be made.

     What makes the perfect romantic relationship? My answer, nothing and everything. Now you may think that answer is contradicting, and you would be right, to an extent. So, what do I mean nothing and everything? Well, when it comes to who we love and are attracted to there really is not a perfect relationship, no one size fits all approach. However, the aspects of your relationship may make it perfect for you. Now to properly answer this question about the makings of a perfect relationship, we need to know what goes into making a relationship. To do this, lets address a few things, how does attraction start, what exactly is love, and what makes a relationship work?

Every relationship starts with some form of interaction and attraction. For example, you are at a café drinking your coffee and a someone bumps into your chair making you spill your coffee on your lap. The person who bumped you apologizes and hands you some napkins. You notice that their eyes are a particularly pleasant shade of hazel and you strike up a conversation. This is the beginnings of attraction. Now more goes into it than just pretty eyes. People determine what is attractive based on a few different factors. The first is as simple as our need to reproduce healthy, strong offspring. This is our biological response, we seek out strong health individuals with good genetics to ensure species survival. The second is society, so what does society tell us is attractive and desirable. This will vary depending on your geological location because what is attractive in American may not be in south Africa. Examples of this social standard could be someone’s income, or upbringing, professional success, or popularity. And finally, personal preference, this is the most abstract kind of attraction. Everyone has a different opinion of what is attractive loosely based on the other two factors but still very much their own. For example, I am not particularly attracted muscular gentlemen even though a vast number of women find that desirable. I prefer a man a little more on the fluffier side, not unhealthy but overly fit. Now attraction sometimes leads to love, so what exactly is love?

When people fall in love the brain reacts by releasing a few hormones into the body giving us all those fuzzy happy feelings. Serotonin is the chemical that makes us feel like we belong, a sense of well-being. Endorphins are natural pain killers and release feelings of euphoria. Dopamine is the brains natural happy drug, the release of this hormone while in the presence of the person you attracted to teaches the brain to associate that person with happiness. So, the feeling of love can be broken down into a chemical reaction in the brain, so is love forever? In a sense love can be long term however the chemical reactions are not. After some time, known as the honeymoon phase, the chemical release slows and although you can still experience the euphoric feelings from early in the relationship they are not as strong. Then why do we desire to remain with that person hopefully for the rest of our lives. Well that has a lot to do with that happiness association I mentioned earlier. We feel happy and safe with that person and we develop a desire to remain in those emotional states.

Now even though these first two factors are very important and often have a very strong influence on the building blocks of a relationship they can not sustain one. Why not? These two factors tend to dwindle overtime and stop having such a powerful influence on how strong your relationship. So how do we maintain a strong relationship? Has humans we decide to remain with the person we love, and we must put in the effort to make things work. If you tell me that you have a perfect relationship with your SO, that you never fight and have been together for years, you like and dislike the same things and you get along with all their family and vice versa, I will call you a liar. First, no one absolutely agrees or disagrees on the same things all the time. You may have things in common but nit everything and their will be fights. This is not a bad thing unless the fighting is constant, a little disagreement can be good for a relationship. It allows you to express a difference in opinion and sometimes it can get out of had nut it is how you handle the after math that counts. Second no one likes every member of the other persons family and they will not like you, that is normal and expected.

Now in your mind your relationship may be perfect, nut only by your standards. My relationship is not perfect by social standards but its perfect for me, we love each other, and our children and we work hard to build each other up and that is what is important. Be honest and do not be afraid to fight because if you are not disagreeing on something then someone is sacrificing their feelings, thoughts and beliefs to avoid conflict and that is not fair to either party. Now sex is always something I hear about when a relationship ends after a long period of time. He wasn’t attracted to me anymore, we hadn’t had sex in a while and so on, well this is not out of the ordinary either. You will not desire sex from your SO all the time for the rest of your life, it just doesn’t work that way. One study showed that around the 2 year mark the sex life slows down and you should not be afraid of this. Just be aware of it and make attempts to rekindle your spark. Get a hotel room or schedule romantic dinners, go on a vacation.

So just know that even though you started out with this attraction and chemical love that these things don’t make the relationship perfect and there is no white picked fence with two kinds and a dog that has a story book ending. Life is hard, and relationships are harder and if you are willing to support your SO and they support you and you put in the effort, then your relationship can be perfect for you.

       References  

Hoyt, A. (2018). Why do we fall in love?  Retrieved from How Stuff works:  https://health.howstuffworks.com/relationships/love/why-do-we-fall-in-love.htm

So, this is my first blog and I know that there are a ton of things like this on many social media sites, but there is no one size fits all on any subject let alone peoples experience with mental health issues. I want to share a little bit about my history for my first blog post and then throughout the week I will post blogs of how I am feeling and my thoughts.

I have been fighting depression since I was in my teen years and it started after my mother died when I was 13.  For a long time, I dealt with fears and thoughts of inadequacy and I blamed it on the world around me. Not once did I try to get help, and I knew for a while that I was depressed I just thought it will pass. It didn’t pass. Throughout the years it became harder to move past my feelings of sadness and soon my sleep patterns were affected.

The insomnia started when I was about 21 or so and it still hasn’t subsided, I now take medication to help me sleep and we will get into that in a little bit. My depression has caused many fights between myself and my family and it had a negative impact on my relationship with my father for a very long time. After my daughter was born things got worse and that’s when the insomnia kicked in, for about four years or so I was living off about 2-4 hours of sleep a night on a good day. There were times when I just didn’t sleep for days and that didn’t make for a very productive day.

At one point I tried going to college, I was studying Cultural Anthropology and I really enjoyed the class, but I was not motivated to do anything, and my grades suffered. I ended up failing the class because my father and I had a massive fight, after which I stopped going to class.

I also found that I had a hard time maintaining relationships. Not because I didn’t like the guys I was with but because I lost interest very easily. That’s one of the things that gets people, the lack of interest. Its not just a lack of interest in cleaning or socializing but no interest in eating or falling in love or even in things like going out to eat or the beach, no interest in living. By this I don’t mean suicide or wanting to die, its more like when your child makes you a macaroni heart that say, “I LUV YOO MOMMY” and you can’t even fake a smile. So, because of this lack of interest I couldn’t stand people for long periods of time, my longest relationship was 5 months.

Then I met my current boyfriend in December of 2015, and for once I thought that maybe I could make this one world. Fast forward a year and a half later and we went through a very stressful time. His ex-wife allowed her boyfriend to physically abuse her children. Two little girls aged 2 and 3 who couldn’t hurt a fly and she let him beat them. I had this feeling something was wrong because things the girls would say when they would come home, and I tried to get my boyfriend to keep them from her until we knew what was going on, but he wouldn’t listen. He defended her constantly even after we found out the her and her boyfriend were on drugs.

Well one day the girls’ grandmother calls us and asked about some bruising on the 2-year-old that were not there two days ago when we sent them to stay with their mother and a statement from the 3-year-old had us calling to cops and sending them to the hospital with their grandmother. Now we lived in a city almost three hours away and we had to drive to pick the girls up. The police brought charges against them both and we took the girls home. This put both my self and my boyfriend under a lot of stress and we sort of stopped communicating. It was devastating because our relationship was falling apart before my eyes and I couldn’t fix it. Long story short we had a fight and he started talking to his first ex-wife and told me he did it because he had no one else to talk to. They had also had a conversation about wanting to get back together and I lost faith. I felt like I was going to lose everything and ended up attempting suicide. Well my boyfriend and I worked things out and were ok for a while and I started going to school for Psychology.

After a while though it was like he disconnected again, and things went south. I felt alone and like I was the only one trying to take care of myself and the kids. He expected me to take my meds and be ok and I felt like I needed counseling, but I wasn’t getting it. We fought again, and I ended up back in the hospital. He broke up with me. A week later and he was back with his first ex-wife. I told him it was a bad idea and he didn’t listen, she dumped him a month and a half later. He and I decided to try again and its been 5 months. We had one major fight recently but through my counseling and us communicating we are doing fine.

My girls’ bio mother and her bf took a plea deal and I am not happy about it but there is nothing I can do about it. I work hard on my schooling and go to my appointments, but I still have good and bad days.

The thing about depression is that it doesn’t just go away on its own so please if you feel like you need help call someone. There are hot lines and you can always go to your local ER or even talk to your primary care physician, but don’t just ignore it.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

Aries: i’m fine. yeah, aside from the not sleeping, the jumpiness, the constant overwhelming crushing fear that something terrible is about to happen.

Taurus: well i shouldn’t say i told you so, because it’s not strong enough. how about i’m always right, and you should listen to whatever i have to say, and never disagree ever, ever, for the sake of your wolvlihood

Gemini: i’m 147 pounds of pale skin and fragile bones. sarcasm is my only defense

Cancer: i’m straight up losing my mind

Leo: i’m happy and proud… of myself

Virgo: my nerves are wracked, they’re severely wracked

Libra: personally, i’m a fan of ignoring a problem until it eventually goes away

Scorpio: am i not attractive to gay guys?

Sagittarius: i don’t want to be robin all the time

Capricorn: you never take me to dinner and a movie

Aquarius: matt’s head. i sit behind him in history. he’s got a very distinct cranium