The Great Experiment

- Cry myself to sleep

- Practice ceasing to breathe

- Lay on the ground and feel like garbage

- Eat nothing

On the one hand, he does help me overcome them. He gives me reality checks when I’m worrying about things that are way off base or totally implausible. He tends to give me more information when I’m beginning to panic about not knowing what to do. He reassures me and speaks quietly and calmly, or more sternly when needed to get me to calm down.

On the other hand, he’s told me he thinks it’s cute when I’m all stressed and worried about stuff. That I’m constantly processing information and trying to judge which is the “right” thing to do even in totally trivial decisions like what to eat or wear. I threatened to call his ADHD symptoms cute, except that I don’t think they are, and it felt mean to do that. But maybe sometimes he could use a dose of his own medicine. Or like... actual medicine.

I apparently now have the focus/motivation to work on comic updates again.

I’m on like the minimal dose of everything and I just started the new medication which is Zoloft. Half of the smallest dose. But I’m all like “OMG WHAT I FEEL DIZZY I CAN’T FEEL MY HANDS” *waves hands around randomly*

Like I feel there’s some kind of dissociation between my mind and my body. Like I’m this nebulous being in the middle and there are hands sticking out and feet and they’re doing stuff but I don’t really know.

I think in part this is probably due to the fact that I finally forced myself to get past my stupid mental fear of physical affection. I like affection. A lot. Some subconscious mental process of mine makes me afraid of physical and emotional closeness to someone. (Whether this is because of the influence of my parents, my prior religion, past bad experiences or what, I don’t know and it doesn’t really matter anymore.) What caused the shift here? I think it’s because I finally stopped judging/condemning myself for my own feelings.

Anyway, I think I previously underestimated the importance of physical affection in romantic relationships. It seems like the physical closeness has drawn me into more emotional and mental closeness with this person. It has allowed/encouraged me to spend more time with him and therefore I’ve gotten to know him better in the past week than I knew almost anyone else I’ve dated. I guess it helped that we were friends and spent a lot of time around each other already before we started dating. It’s just so comforting to spend time with him. It’s definitely better than being alone, which is something that I as an introvert cannot frequently say.

I think it’s also because I trust him. He has proven to be polite and respectful in all our interactions and that is something I absolutely treasure. I used to shy away from any sort of intimacy, and I think it was because I was afraid of “crossing the line” no matter where I started. But I’ve discussed this with him and we have established our boundaries. I trust him to keep his word or I wouldn’t continue the relationship. One of the things I like about him and I think is absolutely necessary, at least for me, is being open and communicative at all times. Keeping misgivings about any of our plans or activities a secret would be the start of serious problems. He told me he believes physical affection should always be voluntary, and I think that’s a marvelous thing.

I honestly have to admit that I find the presence of other women somewhat unnerving. Since I am a nerd and always have been kind of eccentric, it could be that memories of how other girls and women have treated me in the past -- their expectations of me, their ridiculous amounts of drama, the subtle power-play that goes on beneath every word -- are all subconsciously affecting my desire to be around them. Maybe it’s because they remind me of my mother and my sister, who have been at times very unkind to me, and whose emotional outbursts I have a lot of trouble dealing with. But I’m definitely much more at ease in the presence of men than women...unless they’re chauvinistic or something. (I hope this is not too ironically sexist of me to say.) 

I find that men tend to be more direct in their communications. If there’s a problem, they will tend to let you know, instead of holding all the emotion inside and unleashing it all at some seemingly innocuous trigger. And at least I’ve found that they typically don’t try to surreptitiously control my life or guilt trip me into doing things. On the other hand, I’ve met significant outliers in both groups, so I don’t really know if I can make this generalization. But I speak mostly from my experience in real life. If there are more women I have to work with, I find myself subconsciously avoiding them if at all possible. Is it that I see them as competition? Perhaps it’s a personal problem. At least in programming it’s not something I have to worry about a whole lot.

I just want to be normal. Normal-for-me maybe would be fine, as long as I’m not going to die from stress. I am so tired of trying to be normal. I am so tired of trying to do the things I want to do and the things other people want me to do and trying to figure out which of those to pick when they’re in conflict. I’m not always right but I guess I’m not always wrong either. Second-guessing myself? I need someone to give me a reality check. I need someone to tell me when I’m freaking out needlessly or blowing things out or proportion, to remind me that there’s something outside myself that I can depend on (objective reality) and live for.