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This is killing me.

This is tearing me apart.

But in three hours I’m at least consistent. I’m at least the same sort of failure I was last year. Another year, another Na-No-You-can’t-be-a-part-of-this. Two years ago I fell in love with someone and I . . . now I can’t – in good conscience – do the things I want to do, go the places I want to go, be the person I want to be, without being threatened, branded a stalker, a rapist, and other things I am not. I cannot participate in NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month – because there’s two things to it, writing novels (which I do a bit here and a bit there, as time and energy and ideas come to me) and the community of other people all working together, going through the same thing at the same time with the same goals and the same deadline. And that second part is the difference between … the rest of the year … and NaNo–November. And that second part is the part I can’t do. Not here. Not now.

So for me, there’s no community, except a community I’m afraid of even having my digital account admit to being in the same region as, for fear it is a perceived threat. And there’s no one doing the same thing as me, because … it’s out of sight, out of mind, isn’t it? There’s this website, these people I can’t talk to, these gatherings I can’t attend, and it’s like I’m alone in the universe. And that’s a horrible feeling. No goals, no different goals anyway, from the goals I have all the time. (Actually, it’s almost easier than usual, because in November it’s supposed to be “write a novel” and the rest of the year I’ve got a few too many projects on my mind; three books and all those blank canvases and two or three unused domains and which hosting plan should I buy when the free runs out in a couple of weeks? November is cake.)

And the deadline? Midnight tonight? Is fast approaching. Is faster eating a hole in me. Tuesday I determined mathematically that even at the fastest rate I could type (assuming a fugue state took over me) for every hour not at work between then and midnight tonight (which assumes I don’t sleep at all – a feat not easily accomplished in this draught with no modafinil), I could not write enough words to meet this arbitrary deadline. Between that and not knowing what comes next in my story – not to mention needing a break from continuous activity in recent weeks and months and weekends – I didn’t write at all, last night or today. I went to bed at a reasonable hour, I slept in, I took my time, I played computer games and later watched a movie, then I went to class (only the final class left – that’s a whole other stressor) and now I’m at a coffee shop… writing. Writing this. Not writing a novel.

…and now I’m at a coffee shop… because I checked the list at the beginning of the month, and most of the coffee shops in town became off limits to me for the rest of the month, but this one didn’t make the cut somehow. It’s 45 minutes from where I live (90 minutes from work, on account of traffic on my old schedule), but at least I didn’t have to worry about … violating the terrible restraining threats that hang over me … about seeing anyone I recognize at all and wondering if they’re going to start spouting death threats.

Continue reading This is not me.

I am not emotionally stable.

Not right now, and not for a long time.

It is easy, too easy, for things to dramatically shift in me. On edge. All the time. Nowhere to go but down. It hasn’t been this bad in a long time, but it’s been this bad for an increasingly long time. Little comments can be like weights, pulling me down. I know intellectually that they’re supposed to be flippant, or sometimes that the people speaking don’t see farther than the words coming out of their mouths, but my mind looks forward, extrapolates, and sees a future I don’t want to have to try to survive, implied by their words, their sentiment.

So many of my decisions are made to sabotage my own willingness to try (for the first real time since ’99) to end all this. Maybe whatever it was I was supposed to do is done by now, maybe the last 7 years were enough, and now I can go home. The only ways I’ve found to stop myself is by making myself a terrible burden to leave behind, by making future plans, by sabotaging the ease of it – the psychological and emotional impact I have always been able to abide, but measurable difficulties like financial burden on my family and unfulfilled promises are things I worry about, things that hold me back.

Things that often make it harder and harder each day, every day, to go on.

Things that work against the tiny amount of balance I’ve worked out.

I’m not stable here, and I can’t see a safe way down.

(The following is adapted from an email I sent to one of the many people who have asked me this recently, and I figured it wouldn’t hurt to post.)

Well, I’ve begun admitting it, so I’ll post it on my online journal, too: While there’s not a lot I haven’t already seen or read about that goes on between people of this lifestyle, and while I’ve been ‘involved’ in it off and on for over four years, I basically have no personal or ‘hands on’ experience with … almost any of it. There were two main reasons and one excuse why I didn’t dive into the lifestyle when I really began dipping my toes into it in 2001 and 2002.

The excuse I’ve always given is that in 2002 I moved to Pine, AZ, which is 100 miles from Phoenix, to take care of my grandparents; it’s true, but it’s not a good reason, since it takes almost as long to get from central Phoenix to Mesa during rush hour (ie: to get to a TNG coffee at Coffee Talk after work, for example) as it does to get from Pine to Mesa (or Scottsdale, and not much longer for the rest of GMPhoenix.) And I came ‘down the hill’ to PHX several times a year; it makes for a good-sounding excuse, but it isn’t really a reason.

The first real reason is that I’ve been single since early 1998 (except for a couple weeks in 2000 and about a week this year), and I know that without a meaningful trusting relationship, there is no one to ‘practice’ the lifestyle with… and so seeing DEMOs, meeting couples, hearing about other people doing things I wanted to try but couldn’t because I’m alone, the whole scene became a reminder of my alone-ness. Alone-ness amplified by living in a tiny town nestled among the mountains and the trees where the only people I know well are my family, the librarians, and a couple of the people who rented out retail space on our property. So that was (is) a factor.

The other real reason is like a sort of catch-22; I have not gotten myself involved, have not experienced these things because … I haven’t experienced these things and am not entirely sure what I like, dislike, or desire. People keep asking me if I’m a top, a bottom, a switch, and I can’t honestly answer. (Based on everything else about me, I’m most likely to believe that none of those is the best description for me, but I doubt I can avoid being pigeon-holed and labeled by some.) People ask me if I like knife play, and I can’t honestly say; I’ve never personally been involved in it. Or flogging. Or wax play. Or blood play. Or piercing. Or single tail. Et cetera. I have some ideas, but I’m sure I need to explore each thing, each combination, and with different partners and in different settings, more than once. And because of the first reason I gave, and the way I’ve reacted to both reasons, I haven’t got the experience.

Which, it is my impression, the community -unintentionally or not- holds against me. So much is assumed, so much is taken for granted as common knowledge, so much that … I might understand, but don’t know I do yet; that I might have a really good answer for in two months or in six months or a year that I don’t know now… but that I feel people expect me to know already. A lot of people seem to be balls-to-bones Doms or Subs or know like they know they like chocolate that they like being tied up or beaten or whatever, and I just don’t yet. Some things don’t appeal to me at all, but most of it just seems… perhaps passe to me, or … like BDSM seems vanilla to me and specific fetishes may be like colored sprinkles, but I have the feeling I’m looking for the chocolate with fudge ripples, truffles and brownies compared to this. Or that maybe I just feel that way about watching other people do it, and I’ll really love it once I try it.

Anyway, that’s the ‘short version’ of why I ‘got out of’ the lifestyle. As to why I’m getting in now? I think in part I’m trying to find a way to break that catch-22 and answer all those questions I’m not qualified to answer about myself, yet.

I remember when being depressed meant more posts, longer posts, intense posts…

I remember when other people’s belief in privacy was not a stumbling block, when other people’s demands for me to not post about this, not post about that, not mention them at all on the blog did not come up at all, or came up so seldom that it didn’t impact me… the way I am impacted now.

I’ve basically stopped posting altogether anymore. I’ve almost entirely stopped telling people about my site, except to try to sell books, or art. Things I’ve never actually made sales of through the website, it turns out.

I’m working on going through and updating all the pricing on my art, trying to get to a price point where it starts moving again. I’ve been taking this Art Marketing class, and while I’m learning a lot about art marketing, it’s also largely depressing. For every two details I learn that might be useful for building my art into a profitable business, a third detail points out a new reason to believe that I have no business making and/or selling my art. I’m not making it for the right reasons, my techniques and vision are immature, my art is ego-centric, and on and on and this is part of why I haven’t created much new art in the last year or two: I’m conflicted, torn between wanting to create art for my own reasons, in my own way, and wanting to create art I can sell, and to change the way I create art to be compatible with the “realities of the marketplace” — and it’s frozen my brush.

Continue reading I remember when I used to post.

I am in a sort of … protracted battle.

I am so…

I can feel stress as the chemicals it leaves behind, eating me alive from the inside. I can feel this… There’s exhaustion, a burning, a sort of chemical burning in all my muscles and blood vessels and as a waiting charge of shocking sensation just under my skin that jostles me greatly at the slightest touch.

I’ve just seen a promo for a documentary about a woman who has hugged over 26 million people worldwide. I fully expect that if I hugged even 26 people right now, I might not survive the shock.

I am experiencing so much stress, anxiety, tension, that it is physically painful to be alive.