tumbling toward insanity...

Every single relationship I've been in has involved manipulation. Either me being manipulated or being the manipulator. The former before the latter. I don't really like looking back at relationships and thinking that manipulated people into them, nor do I like reflecting on how fucked I've become from being manipulated. But it's necessary.

I can't let people in any more. The reason I can't sleep is that I've realised that the last person who tried to get behind my walls, to pry open the locks so she could *help me* was pushed away by me because I could sense the manipulation and the scars wouldn't let me take down the walls even if it might help.

K, R, and H have done a fantastic job of fucking me up - whether they meant to or not. They've set me up to believe relationships can only lead to betrayal and hurt even when I have demonstrable evidence to the contrary.

I don't know why I'm posting this here. Just so I've posted it somewhere, I guess. I need to get it out of my head so that I can process it and maybe move past it.

Eventually it might stop hurting. Eventually I might be able to consider the idea that I can be in a relationship without it ending in pain and suffering. Eventually I might be able to trust that I can trust someone that deeply without it turning out *again* that they were just manipulating me to get what they wanted.

I don't know that I've ever had a healthy relationship with anyone.

K used me for a place to stay and a hot water bottle.

R told me she had schizophrenia and MPD so that I'd drop everything to be with her when she was having an "episode" and wouldn't ever leave her. She disliked every female friend I had and hated the idea of me role-playing being in a relationship with them - but it was fine for her to actually be with other guys whether I knew about them or not.

H drew me in when I was vulnerable and had me betray friendships before another xe abused showed me what was actually going on.

J was probably a mistake on both our parts. No regrets other than how we went about it.

With the other M, I was exploring and while he is wonderful, I couldn't get past previous traumas.

My relationship with E wasn't particularly healthy and was mostly about the sex, but my scars there are from the pregnancy and abortion. I feel like I fucked up how I handled that and I've never felt right about it.

With M, there was distance and that complicated things and I don't really remember why that ended up not working out. That bothers me.

Which reminds me of the other R. A man I try very hard to forget, who manipulated and pressured me into playing with his cock and letting him suck mine when I was still a teenager who didn't know better. The only good thing about R was he taught me how to give massages. That was twenty years ago and he was older then than I am now, and that night scarred me for a long long time.

There's the other E, and a V, and a C, and another K, and yet another R who started with some online roleplay and ended up with various types of RL play but they each petered out for their own reasons. Mostly due to me not actually knowing how to have a healthy relationship. Amazing how when your early relationships are nothing but scars and trauma it doesn't set you up to know how to have healthy relationships later in life.

And then there's B who was honest and cared and only wanted to help and I just couldn't let her in because everything else had scarred me so much that I couldn't take another wound. I pushed her away rather than risk being hurt.

Which leaves me at today where I classify myself as asexual rather than demisexual because being ace means I'm not looking for it and can't be hurt by it; where I say I'm aromantic rather than admit I might just be terrified of being hurt again. I've been pushing everything away - even the concepts of desire regarding these things - because I can't be hurt if I don't participate.

I don't even know if I do want something. I know I miss it. I miss having a companion, someone to talk to without it feeling like an imposition; someone to cuddle, to hold. Sex I can do without; it feels like work at worst, and I take more pleasure in how they feel than how I feel in any case. Not sure how much of that is further scarring - I certainly used to be quite enthusiastic about sex but I also used to be a teenager with hormones.

The more I write, the more nervous I get about posting this. This handle isn't exactly anonymous and some people may be able to figure out who in talking about. But then, do I really care about protecting those who've fucked me up? Hell, I've posted about some of this before - I just can't remember if I did it under this handle.

Fuck it. I've written it, I'm posting it. If you actually know me, you have permission to talk to me about this if you want. If you don't, I'll take commiseration. I don't know whether I want advice - I might need some.