Hello Coco : A diary

Tag: Therapy

  • Healing My Inner Child and Still Choosing Heartbreak

    I think the last time I was this attracted to someone it was my first girlfriend back in 2014-2015. [We’ll call her Meredith] She was this magical unicorn of a person that when I saw for the first time, I instantly gravitated toward her. The energy of her attention was all-consuming and every type of analogy that touched on anything to do with the stomach, heart and lack of vocabulary when I saw her was disgustingly true. She made me feel special and motivated me to communicate more, taught me what the truest sting of jealousy felt like and eventually broke up with me because she emotionally cheated with someone else.


    That was only a 6-month relationship, but it took me almost two years to completely get over her. This love was uncontrollable, volatile and so very fucking exciting. It was like a drug, so much that we would spend every night together even if it meant driving home to gather all my things and making the drive to hers after work spontaneously.


    I look back now and realize that a lot of red flags had gone unnoticed or ignored just for the sake of keeping the big feelings alive. She manipulated me and told me we couldn’t be girlfriends until I officially classified myself as a lesbian as being bisexual wasn’t good enough. She would force communication from me even if I wasn’t ready to talk. She held my past against me and sometimes downright bullied me for personal details. She loved to make me jealous with talk of her ex-girlfriend and all the things they’d do together – while that ex fed into it and was most definitely still in love with her. She played us both.


    I haven’t had that electric feelings about anyone until very recently meeting a man on Hinge who was searching for a poly add-on per say. That’s probably not the healthiest way to describe it, but it feels that way a little – not intentionally. He gets his cup filled mostly by his wife, I would be the a-la-carte option of a ‘fun, outgoing emotional connection’. He’s looking for an emotional connection that can go deep and of course the physical.


    When I started getting back into the dating apps I was purely looking for sex and found that putting out that energy attracted dirt bags and all of them ended up hurting my feelings for different reasons. Then he came along and spoke of emotional support, consistency, romance and safe boundaries. All things the men prior would have probably run away from should I have brought it up as part of the arrangement.


    This man texts me daily and gives me positive affirmations when he senses I need a little reassurance or even unprompted. He can read a room very well and picks up on shifts in energy- It helps that he is a therapist. He talks deep and asks me deep questions. On top of all that he is incredibly sexy and our desires and libido align beautifully.


    He’s fucking trouble is what he is.


    I am starting to feel those feelings that I had with Meredith back 9 years ago; electricity that I can’t ignore or subdue. Though this time I’m not concerned about an exorbitant amount of red flags, but the fact that he is poly and moving next year.


    First off, I feel shame around the fact that I just exited a five-and-a-half-year long relationship just this past December, though it was dead in the water for a while, lacking any romantic connections for most of the last year, I feel guilty for even considering any level of relationship with anyone. I feel like a child that can’t be alone, but I also can’t ignore these feelings and stick to my boundary of staying completely single until I move next April. That’s right I am moving too!


    It’s a little contradictory pre-grieving over a relationship that is doomed to end when I knew that getting into it. I came into this with boundaries and voiced them from the start, as did he – but now I feel I’m setting myself up to get my feelings hurt in 11 months because I know these feelings have a strong potential to get deeper.


    I wonder how he would feel if I had another partner on the side – I know obviously supportive, but how would he feel about it? Maybe having another partner on the side will help me distance a bit, split my emotional ties so it doesn’t feel too strong with him especially since he has an entire other person involved. Part of me hopes he’d feel sad about it and not want to share me with anyone – a hybrid of my monogamous conditioning and the feelings that are developing too quickly for comfort. Maybe I’m thinking about that additional partner because of my avoidant attachment style from an emotionless upbringing; not getting too connected as to not be let down.

    It’s hard not to develop these feelings when he is so freely being vulnerable with me about his. He tells me how he won’t go anywhere as long as I want him to stay. He’s telling me that he has the best of intentions and wants to offer me all of these things, “Romance, Fun, Containment [whatever that means], Connection, Curiosity, Exploration, Adventure.” And then, “There’s more. You’ll see.”

    You says the sweetest things that I honestly have never heard before in my relationships (bitter fucking sweet note there).

    “I got lucky finding you. You meet so many needs already. I appreciate that so much.”


    “I’m protective of you.” And the “Please, let me know when you get home”s.

    And what takes the cake:


    “I feel really lucky that you gave me a chance. I have lots of love and lots of fun to give and I genuinely want you to have it. I want you to know that I came into this relationship with so much intention even before we met. So, I’m here and I’m not going anywhere, ok? So as far and long as you want to hold me – sound good? Just stay being honest and authentic and I promise you the same.”

    Uhm okay, so accept me for exactly how I am and you won’t leave me? Motherfuck-How do I not get connected deeply to this?

    Here are some of his sexy messages that put me in an upward dopamine spiral for days:

    “Good because if you didn’t notice, I also like kissing your neck. We can do things like just touch, no penetration and try to get you to come that way is totally something I am up for when you want. I certainly don’y have to cum every time. I’d rather you climax first anyways.
    I can do all those things [of which I listed in my prior text]. I love all of it. What gets me going is eye contact. If you are moaning while looking in my eyes I melt. You’re also going to have to call me papi [yes you’re reading that right] when you are cuming while I’m inside of you, ok?”

    And:

    “I really like the build up. I’m really big on foreplan but before that I really want to make sure to be slow and intentional. I’m talking like ASMR slow. Gives me time to figure out your sweet spots and where you like being kissed and touched. I’m excited for when we see each other naked for the first time. I’m excited to go down on you (my personal fave). I really like the initial slow and gently approach to understand each other better, then getting freakier and progressing into being less gentle as time goes on.”

    So now you see what I have going on. Unfortunately, this is the healthiest of approaches I’ve ever received coming from my family background and perpetuating the patterns I learned from that – including my last relationship. With that being said all of these romantic and comforting affirmations, consistency and follow-through feel like crack. I’m getting a dopamine high off them and it’s making the connection deeper, and faster.

    My therapist says that’s it is okay to let my inner child have this, to learn and grow from it for as long as I can. To experience true and genuine emotional connection. My heart is scared to see where it will be next year. I’m by no means ‘doing this for the plot’ as kids say, more so hoping that it will give me the opportunity to revise some of the beliefs I learned from my past.


    Relating it back to my first girlfriend and pulling this altogether – the depth of the connection that I established in that relationship was based off of being heard and learning crucial foundational elements of strong communication. Even with how toxic that relationship was, I developed my first skills into establishing emotional grounding within myself. I was able to experience feelings and talk about them in complexity, break them down and have them be really heard and validated – even if sometimes she brutally forced it. Being in a woman loving woman relationship as well created even deeper understanding of my ‘mommy problems’. I let her teach me about my body and embrace my femininity.


    I know these two relationships are very different, though they share some very big elements. We’ve got the learning and growth of course, but the knowing that this relationship will break my heart just like she did just in a different way. I’m okay with it. I believe that sacrificing a whole heart for a while when this is done will be worth the experience of having a grounded, real and accepting relationship. Feeling wholly accepted for who I am and how I show up, being truly heard and validated, encouraged to share and experience depth below the surface…I can’t pass that up for anything.

    My heart has been sad for so long taking in cheap connection, both emotionally and physical. I want to breathe in my own skin and have another person be there to witness and support it. I want to experience emotional safety and feel easy to hold. I want all these things more than not wanting the heartbreak that will come from it. I’m willing to take the leap, and I guess we’ll just see how it goes from here.

  • Partnering with my ‘Parts’ [IFS] to Experience True Attachment

    I’ve lived a life being comfortable with emotional malnutrition.

    When my mother texts me asking for a check in on how my life is going, sometimes I do give it to her – feelings and all, only to be met with ‘Good! Xoxo’. No acknowledgement, validation or deeper questioning. That pretty much sums up my experience growing up with both of my parents under the same roof and feeling big feelings live in the moment.

    This type of development has made me really dependent on myself, low maintenance, easily influenced, and surface level in deeper relationships with others. My prior relationship of almost six years ended specifically because I allowed myself to date my parents and coasted on without fully realizing it until repressed anger, resentment, and anxiety bubbled up which blew it all up – for the very best.

    I’ve been experiencing micro-relationships with men since then that have enabled that ‘low maintenance’ vibe of being purely physical and it has been liberating in a lot of ways, but triggering as well. It’s re-opened discomfort in lack of communication and emotional connection for the ability to experiment with these partners.

    Though I wouldn’t change anything about any of it, it’s brought a lot of repressed feelings up to the surface that I am now dealing with head-on. Feelings of not being heard, validated, or valued. The exiles in my parts (Internal Family Systems reference) tells me it’s my fault because I allowed it, that I let my younger self down again by allowing myself to accept more behavior like that especially after exiting a relationship that was perpetuating those patterns as well.

    I took a step back and removed those men from my life, only to be found by someone who is the complete opposite of everyone else – emotionally intelligent and self-aware, courteous, patience, considerate, affirming, asks deeper questions, asks for my likes and dislikes, checks in, is consistent, apologizes and says thank you, etc;

    My ‘Manager’ tells me to make sure I have control over how much I allow to be shared, how vulnerable I can be and maintain distance for the fear that he may let me down once again. She tells me things like “you don’t know this man yet,” “He could change his mind – be prepared for that.” “He might change his mind if you tell him something that makes him uncomfortable.”

    My manager is on high alert even more so because those men I experimented with did all of those things back-to-back and it’s still fresh after a vulnerable break-up. I shared some vulnerable feelings with them, minor ones mind you, and the second a small lick of complexity came about they bailed.

    One guy asked for something sexually that I wasn’t sure how to do – asked him for flexibility and he said I was too complicated. I asked one man to be more considerate of my schedule and to communicate, then he bailed. Another one I told that I felt our sex was one-sided and that I would prefer if he would listen to me when I communicated that I wanted something and actually follow through – he got defensive and bailed.

    So, of course I get to this man and my Manager is adulting me in ways to try and keep me safe. My Firefighters are distracting me in my day-to-day life so I won’t think about him and make me feel even more dependent on him. My Exiles are reminding me that I could get hurt from him even if so far all he is showing is green flags.

    Both my anxious and avoidant attachment styles are coming up to the surface, and on higher defense to ensure that this next dive is as safe as it can possibly be considering where my heart has been recently.

    When I ground into my ‘Core’ self, I feel appreciated and affirmed by him. He tells me that he wants to see me. When he senses a mood shift, he asks about it and validates my feelings. He lets me ask questions and he answers transparently and openly without hesitation. When we have sex he asks what I like and follows through. He checks in unprompted and gives details, stories, and personal information that will let me learn more about him before following up with asking me questions on the same topics.

    As I write all of these things down my Exile can’t help but to say, “those things should always be expected. These are bare minimum traits.” and in turn makes me feel a little shame for allowing myself to not have them sooner – for settling for people who couldn’t give me the basic emotional nutrition that he is providing to me.

    My Core self tells my Exile that it’s okay that I’m just now experiencing it. That experiencing it now and learning from it is better than never at all. That it is not my fault that I’ve slipped into patterns as long as I recognize them now and do what I can to deviate. That my inner child can trust that I’m doing the work to make her feel secure and protected. I’m doing my very best.

    My Manager is there for me when I need her and so is my Firefighter. So long as there is balance between my parts and acknowledging their purpose, I can move forward and learn to experience what this feels like. I can learn that living in lack does not need to be forever and given the opportunity to care for someone who is giving me stable attachment is such a big deal!

    It is okay if I have not experienced it before. It is okay to let myself experience it now and give in to the beautiful feelings that come up from it. It is okay to nourish myself in vulnerability and emotional connection. It is okay if I stumble through it and it’s a little messy. It is okay to give him trust. It is okay to go beyond the surface and let myself feel, emote, share and receive all of these things back.

    It is okay if this doesn’t work out too.

    My Manager might feel scared to lose control for the fear that this nourishment will be short-lived. My Exile might want me to hold on for dear life that I never lose it again, fear that I will mess it up and then I will once again be without it. My Firefighter might want me to distract myself from him so that I can find distance and distraction from my exiles or pull away altogether so that I won’t let him let me down.

    I think for this to really work out and let myself experience this type of emotional connection then I need to balance out my parts and allow myself to think about ways to monitor the mindset of ‘lack’.

    If it doesn’t work out with him there will be others that can give me these needs.

    If it doesn’t work out with him at least I was able to experience something truly positive and affirming for my healing journey.

    If it doesn’t work out with him then I have my Parts to help me navigate through it. I have a support system, therapy and my writing to walk myself through any possible triggers and things I’ve learned or perhaps things that I realized I want to work on or unlearn.

    If it doesn’t work out that is okay. I can catch myself.

    If everything ends up being okay, then I will have experienced very beautiful things. I will have experienced what genuine connection, and vulnerability can feel like in a secure attachment. I will have learned about myself from a different frame of light and heal elements of my inner child. I will know what it is I truly want and need and build a foundation from that to grow upon.

    It’s worth the dive, and I tell my Parts to let me try.

  • The Dynamics of Jealousy in Non-Monogamous Relationships

    Me being on a sexually explorative journey these last now four months, I’ve now found myself exploring polyamory with a man (let’s call him Seth) I met just two or so weeks ago.

    He’s married and has a kid. His wife has a long-term boyfriend that seth has never met before. His wife would never meet me as per the arrangement, nor hear about anything sexual that happens between him and I and vice versa.

    The context is that they got married for the baby that they had shortly after just starting to date. Later they found out that they weren’t completely compatible which opened up their marriage into ‘Ethical Non-Monogamy’ or ENM for short. A term I had never heard before I swiped right on his Hinge profile.

    The first time we met, Seth and I, we discussed all sorts of deep topics one of which being his jealousy. He told me that he still struggled with it, regarding his wife going out and dating this other guy even though he’s still completely supportive of it.

    It started to really make me feel about my own patterns of jealousy, but now a few weeks later I’m starting to experience some.

    I felt it when he told me that him and his wife were going to watch some TV together one night. Another time when he told me he massages her to sleep most night.

    It’s not that I’m jealous that he has her, but I think more that, that was something I used to have a long time ago and feel deprived of now. Seth has been checking every single box of mine since I met him, so the emotional connection has been connecting. Between that and the jealousy it was hard to pinpoint what exactly was going on beneath the surface since my initial intentions were to be more casual.

    I’m starting to believe that Seth is so great that I’m creating an anxious attachment from the realization that I have been lacking this type of intimacy for a long while now. It’s like overcompensating for the relationship I just got out of 5 months ago – I have a taste of something genuine, safe and intimate and now I’m addicted to it, or so that’s how I think I feel.

    With the other guys I’ve been with these last 4 months, I didn’t have this issue at all. Maybe a little bit with one guy because he made feel some type of way with our PDA and physical touch that it sparked up something in me that wanted that connection more – it let to a small emotional tether that was then snapped off because he wasn’t in a good space.

    I have had these boundaries though. I was only searching for casual, fun and enlightening as it relates to learning more about my body and preferences. Then I meet Seth who is emotionally intelligent, smart, caring, considerate, and of course sexy. He texts me every day and considers my feelings each time regardless of what we’re talking about. He asks me questions and is attentive. He’s strong and feels safe. He’s present and hears me when I talk.

    These are all things that weren’t present in the last year of my prior relationship. I grew avoidant, smoked lots of pot, acted impulsively, didn’t take care of my body or mind, and slept a lot. I wore sweatpants everywhere.

    Getting out of that relationship was one battle won but now interpreting how my heart and mind repair and act when given those needs once deprived feels accessible… it’s eye-opening and scary like I’m a little bit out of control.

    Why? Because I feel I am developing an anxious attachment out of prolonged feelings of lack. Maybe the ‘lack’ is what I need to work on to walk through this. Maybe it’s finding his qualities in friendships so that I can diversify it, not holding it so heavy with one person – as it should be.

    I don’t really know what I’m doing or how all of this will pan out – the relationship and my mental health – but I’m excited to try and be vulnerable doing it.

  • “Short-Term Relationship”: How it has fucked me good and bad.

    If you haven’t seen my prior posts then the skinny is that I just ended a 6-year long relationship with a woman (I am a woman) in December and began casually hooking up with men in February to explore my sexuality again. I have now slept with 5 guys in a 2-month span.

    Over the course of all this time, I have learned quite a lot about my body (Hello, having to worry about STDs and pregnancy all over again) and what it’s like to experience men in my 30’s after my last run-in being when I was 23.

    I have been exploring the then and now comparisons and how age plays a part, my sexual needs from men compared to women, and most of all how to communicate with this entire other species after having it easy for 6 years with a woman who knew the ins and outs of my whole life and could relate to me on so many different levels men just can’t.

    Starting this journey, I looked up hook-up culture on TikTok to see what the girlies were up to and how they were approaching it. I was shocked to see that all the girls were swearing against it and harshly. Some of the comments on each were forgiving where women were saying “friends with benefits can be great and healthy and yada yada”, but the actual content was all against.

    I was shocked because I assumed that there would be tons of women out there posting about their fulfilling hook-ups, situationships and friends with benefits that I could really benefit listening to stories, but no – it was quite the opposite.

    I remember messaging my best friend telling her that I feel like hook-ups can be super healthy (I was in the midst of guy number 4 – see below- and in a sexual daze before I realized who he was outside of bed). I was telling her, “These girls are all against, but if there isn’t a risk for catching feelings why can’t sex be a healthy thing amongst friends who are on the same page?”

    As I started to move through guy number 3,4,5 – it all started to make more sense to me.

    Out of these 5 men:

    • 3 provided me with really great sexual experiences.
    • 3 were defensive regularly
    • 2 walked me to my car/home after hanging out.
    • 1 came prepared with his own condom.
    • All 5 need to go to therapy before considering long-term relationships.
    • & all 5 made me cry at least once.

    I’m writing because guy #5, the only one left up until tonight, was the last straw. It took me five guys to start to ask myself – ‘is hook-up culture for me?’

    The first guy, I had hooked up with a few times and it was easily the best sex I had ever had. Everything was great, that is until he no showed one night even after texting me up to the last 30-mintues telling me he was on his way (after being hours late already) and updating me on how far he was out. He decided to take a spontaneous detour to get stoned at his friend’s house and fell asleep. I had cleaned my entire apartment, put on makeup, and waited for way too long for this man until I realized he wasn’t coming. When I told him I was upset, he gave a weak apology followed with an excuse.

    The second guy would breadcrumb me (just learned that terminology – thanks Tik Tok) and then ghost me when I would ask ‘what time?’ to his ‘let’s hang out today’ texts. When he did end up showing up, we had the best time – I really loved being around him, but when I called him out on his lack of time management and poor communication (gently asking him to respect my time) he snapped at me so loudly and harsh that at that point I knew I couldn’t see him again.

    The third guy fucked me really well, asked me to do something a little advanced the following day over text and when I confided that I would need to take it a little slower he said that it was now ‘too complicated’ and bid me farewell.

    The fourth guy was my most consistent because it was *chefs kiss* and he played into all my fantasies…but the first time we spent real time together outside of my apartment he picked me up in his truck and when I hopped in he said, “Oh god, I’m going to have to check my suspension – you just moved the whole truck jumping in.” He proceeded to nit-pick me the entire night until I snapped at him to shut up or he wouldn’t get laid (I was really horny-don’t judge me for staying lol). He then turned inward, got defensive and pouty saying, “this is just my personality, but I guess you can’t handle it”.

    Then the fifth guy. In bed I would ask for different positions that made me feel good – he would do them for *literally* 5 seconds before he would change back into a position he enjoyed more. The time before, I told him I was about to cum and then he came two seconds later, walked away to grab a towel before plopping down on my bed and telling me how tired he was. I called him out on all of this and instead of acknowledging or apologizing he said, “I thought you came (referring to both nights). I didn’t realize you’ve been having such an unpleasant time.” Words I didn’t use, but ones he felt appropriate to deflect on what I was actually saying – genuine communication around what I need.

    I did in turn explain to him what the cues are for a woman’s orgasm as a little nugget of passively condescending advice that I genuinely think he needed to hear from someone – because how the fuck could he have thought I came either one of those times.

    My pussy swiped left so hard – bye bye.

    In summation, my feelings had become deprioritized for their comfortability.

    So tonight, after getting into my car (he did not walk me there and a homeless man jumped out of a bush and scared the shit out of me – so cherry on top), I cried so hard I had a panic attack. I then proceeded to scream in intervals on the way home.

    Scream for the rage I had built up over the course of these two months feeling like I had signed up to be used by these men all because I put “short-term relationship” on my dating profile.

    Regardless, I think I’ve experienced enough sex and am ready to put my feelings in a jar for someone who can take care of them the right way.

    …

    I feel sad.

    I feel a twinge in my gut for all the confrontation I had during the ‘break-ups’, for lack of better words, that I aimed to be cordial, but took turns into uncomfortable territory.

    I feel uncertain because some of these boys were really good at gaslighting my feelings and making me feel as if I was in the wrong.

    I feel scared that perhaps this is just what the dating world is like, regardless of my relationship request status.

    I feel sad.

    I feel sad.

    I feel sad.

  • Exploring Hook-Ups: Casual to Primal Needs

    For the last two months since having intentional short flings & hook-ups with various men, I’ve started to melt toward more levels of connection. Maslow’s 3rd level of need is love and belonging and although I couldn’t really ask that of these men formally, nor would I want to, I found myself leaning toward that direction like a plant to sunlight.

    I’ve been in this studio apartment for three months now and it’s the first time I’ve lived alone in quite a few years. I’ve always prided myself on my independence and lack of need for other people to fill my cup, but I was ignorant from the comfortability of being fulfilled in other ways and not realizing all that I had been missing.

    I am officially in this ‘hoe phase’, as people like to call it, with the expectation of seeking after the physical elements of what a man can bring since being with a woman these last six years. The expectation being sex and only sex.

    After time went on with having these guys in my bed, I realized that I began to crave hugs, being squished, and face-on-skin contact. I would bury myself in their arms and neck, pulling myself closer into them as much as I could. When cuddling wouldn’t happen, I’d feel robbed even though it technically fulfilled my ask.

    I got confused for a moment because I thought perhaps that need surfaced from feelings bubbling up, but after some time really thinking about it I truly didn’t/don’t have romantic feelings for any of these men. I would never seriously consider dating any of them.

    I realize that just as sex is important, physical touch is essential for me to feel regulated and emotionally fulfilled.

    I love the relaxation of noticing my heart rate decrease with slow deep sighs. The softness of his bicep under my cheek as I pull his arm into me in a hug, or when he grabs me in a small burst of tightness before releasing.

    I’d flip around eventually and tuck my face in the space between his collarbone and neck, nuzzling in as I wrap my legs between his and pull in tighter letting any extra excitement writhe beneath the surface as I press myself into him.

    We would talk a little bit about easy things, sharing perspectives on light topics and laughing. We were comfortably warm and found the perfect position. I realized after this that this was exactly what I needed, sometimes even more so than sex.

    Now that I’ve been experiencing a lot of new things, things that I now crave even more, it’s been making the need feel more primal. Instead of just wanting it, I feel I need it. With that need a new feeling bubbled up – fear. Fear of not having it, not being able to obtain it, a lack mentality.

    It was something I had always needed, but only just realized.

    In the beginning of this entire journey, I began to go to Swing Dance classes. I think originally it was because I just like to dance and try new things, but over time I would find myself seeking out classes when I was feeling lonely or sad. Of course, the conversations that would come from this community were fulfilling in their own way, but it was the craving of physical touch that I started to realize was prevalent every time I asked myself why I would gravitate toward it. The holding hands and being close to someone in an almost a hug.

    I guess I didn’t want to admit it because it sounds fucking sad, but after time I’m just beginning to come to peace that this is what being a human feels like when you don’t have a long-term committed person in your life to fulfill these needs when you want them. My prior relationship didn’t actually offer a lot of this, it was primarily a friendship for the last year or so, so now that I’m back into it, I feel as though every need is heightened after getting a taste of it.

    It’s as if it’s brand new. Like it’s my first time. Like I had been so hungry for so long and I hadn’t realized it because I frankly just got used to it.

    As I move through my days, I feel this perpetual want. I’m always wanting. For the last two months since the first time, I’ve been with a guy it’s been a tidal wave of feeling unsatiated, even when I’m completely satisfied in the moment. It’s ongoing and almost endless.

    With the sex and now this physical intimacy, I’m just feral for the connection.

  • Being Mean: A Coping Mechanism in My Relationships

    When I was young, my parents would take bets on my relationships to see how long they would last. Rude right? It was because they said I was so mean to the boys. It hurt my feelings at the time because I felt like it meant that something was wrong with me.

    I took pride for a little while that I was mean to them because it made me feel superior. My dad even egged it on, probably because he was nervous about me dating as dads are. Also boys at that age were fucking idiots and I felt like I had to be mean to get my point across.

    Over the years the meanness had persisted in different ways/degrees. I’ve gone to therapy, have talked about it and tried to understand it without it actually going anywhere. My last relationship suffered quite a bit from it, but she would call it my ‘night spicy-ness’ as at the end of every day I would get pointy. It impacted our sex life and her overall comfortability around me. In the last year of our relationship, it reached an all-time high. I still remember lying in bed hearing her say,

    “I know my girlfriend is somewhere in there, I’m just waiting for her.”

    I think that level of meanness in the last year was triggered from internal dissonance. I wasn’t doing what I felt I needed to in my soul and instead working against it to try to be more ‘comfortable’ in that relationship. This was all happening on the back end though and I wasn’t ready to face it, which I feel made it even worse.

    The meanness of when I was younger I feel was triggered from not feeling like I can be authentic because I was emotionally stunted.

    Now that I am experiencing guys all over again, ass-deep in therapy, and having mini-realizations about how guys repress their feelings and have a hard time emoting/opening up, I’ve been practicing being gentler with myself and them- look at me go!

    With that gentleness, I’ve been filtering my thoughts through an extra layer of ‘how would they interpret what I am about to say?’ or ‘how would I feel if they said this to me?’ 8 times out of 10, I rework the words in my mind or forego it altogether. It makes me feel bad when I realize how many times, I actually do that and how long I’ve been going without the filter. Getting out of that negative mindset is a new obstacle for me. I should be celebrating the self-awareness, but it’s making me nervous at how far I’ve come without it and how I’ve been perceived.

    So, I’ve been doing this work and then in comes fucking Carter.

    The first time we met we had drinks, talked about our sexual preferences and hooked up in the same night. The second time he just came over and we fucked. This time, he came to pick me up to go out to a few bars in the area. The plan was that we would go out, he would use my panty vibrator and then we’d fool around in his car until we got back to my place. It was a solid, well-thought-out plan in my books. We are so sexually in-sync that I didn’t see any flaw to it.

    I jumped into his car, and he immediately made a comment about my swaying the car, cracking a joke about his suspension. I asked what these lights were on his car, and he gave me a passive, dick-ish answer. The rest of the next hour went just like that – being poked and prodded by every question and answer I’d give until he started making comments about girl friend groups and how there is always a ‘D.U.F.F’ and then proceeded to ask if I was one. I slapped him with my purse and told him if he planned on getting laid he should shut his fucking mouth.

    What happened next was the most interesting part. He shut up, started playing around on his phone, and sat on the opposite side of the booth. He made me work to turn the night back around as I persuaded him to come join me on my side. He apologized for being so mean, but I knew there was something else going on behind the scenes I wasn’t seeing. I asked him about it and he said he genuinely feels like this was his personality and I felt that. I felt that unsettling feeling of permanence as I’ve felt it thinking about how I’ve always struggled with it.

    Although the night went exactly as planned sexually & logistically, I began to realize that I couldn’t quite get comfortable, and he picked up on it. I couldn’t quite relax enough to truly just enjoy the sex and the foreplay beforehand. I became self-conscious of my razor-burn, how I looked on top, my facial expressions…everything because I knew how mean he could be that perhaps he had internal thoughts about them.

    Then it clicked this morning when I woke up, Carter is a lesson for me. Perhaps a little Karma too.

    What I am beginning to learn:

    1. Other people struggle with keeping ‘nice-ness’ in the forefront of their brain when interacting with partners of any degree (I just hadn’t met anyone else like this until Carter).
    2. Whether it’s a personality trait is actually a mystery, but I feel mine are from triggers, communication struggles and learned patterns that I believe can be helped. Maybe it’s time I dig into it further.
    3. Even if you are emotionally detached from the person you are sleeping with, what they do/say will impact the quality of sex. That is perhaps a reason why my sex life with my prior person was such shit.

  • Breaking the Cycle: Compassion for Men, Mental Health & Intimacy

    I took a 7 year break from men. From the ages 23 – 30, I dated women and tried my best to forget men existed for all the hurt I felt from high school and college. It wasn’t their fault, we were all just figuring things out at that age, but it was my first impression of intimacy, and it stained me.

    The sex that felt transactional, harshly pornographic, and hasty made me feel like I was just a body – that I couldn’t have a deep romantic relationship with them.

    Experiencing men now, I’ve began to realize that the world did guys dirty. Obviously, they have their privilege, but the men that I have personally experienced have this underlying sadness. They are hurting and don’t know how to express it.

    I think you could probably guess that a romantic relationship with a woman is highly communicative. We’re in-tune with our cycles, hormones, feelings, and the complexities behind them. Women are also generally more likely to get vulnerable. Testing that theory; if a woman was crying in public people wouldn’t be all that surprised, but if a man was crying in public people would think something is deeply wrong. It’s a bias we all contribute to whether we like it or not and that’s just because the world taught men to suck it up.

    I’m meeting these thirty-something men and I’m seeing it all over their faces. When I bring up a boundary, call them out on being shitty, or even harmlessly tease – I see their eyes glaze over and they get defensive, quiet or completely refuse to acknowledge it, dodging the words altogether.

    Over the years, we’ve developed this kind of man-hating culture because of all the really bad news coming to light on celebrities and college boys assaulting women and covering it up. Don’t get me wrong, there are a LOT of bad men out there doing all sorts of fucked up shit, but I feel the over-arching generalizations have made the state of men’s mental health even worse. They are more scared than ever to open up, again just judging from my personal experiences.

    One guy I have been talking to, Drake, struggled to even form words when I asked him a vulnerable question around loneliness. He stumbled and I could see him trying to change the topic completely out of discomfort. I did everything in my power to show him he could be safe and say what was on his mind and it was like pulling teeth. Trying to know the push and pull balance is a new dynamic for me, coming from a prior relationship where everything was on the table.

    Another guy I had been talking to, Jesse, just didn’t engage with me when I would ask slightly personal questions. Everything was a soft spot, even me asking when his last relationship was. He became defensive, snapped at me to derail the conversation, and would ghost me for hours only to respond on a completely different topic. Don’t get me wrong, I know that I don’t know these men very well and they could very well have past traumas that I could never understand – but I was gob smacked at the stark difference between interacting with women these last 7 years and then my first interactions with men being so alike to one another.

    My biggest question, obviously stemming from the ignorance of the male experience, is why they wouldn’t want to try and help themselves – to feel better. To go to therapy and try to break past those barriers. I suppose some feel that is what they have to do to fit in and that perhaps it’s not wrong. I suppose others are too imbedded in their traumas and experiences to see that they can help it. And some are just perhaps stubborn and don’t believe they need the help.

    Regardless of whatever it may be, it breaks my heart. Talking, and having intimacy with these men as a 30-year old woman, has changed my entire outlook on men. As sad and twisty it is to admit, it has healed some of my inner-child’s harsh beliefs from judgement to compassion. It has built some bridges for me from difficult memories into re-framed sad ones.

    I had been really mean to men when I dated them back then because they kept hurting my feelings in so many different ways. I don’t make excuses for them but reapproaching those memories with 8 years of therapy and a fresh perspective, I can at least try to understand and not take them as personally.

    So, where do I go from here?

    I think it’d be difficult for me to say that I won’t date a man who can’t communicate, express their feelings appropriately, or have a hard time doing the work to better themselves, but I’m beginning to realize that a boundary I need to have is balance. I can’t work with a man who won’t try.

    For those who can’t or won’t try, for their own reasons, I have compassion, but my heart can’t save theirs even though I do have so much love to give.

    The tricky part is knowing for certain what side of it they are on. There are men who say they are trying, but the proof isn’t there. You want to believe in them, root for them and give them the support but it’s a torturous game of figuring out when to walk away.

    I had to walk away from Jesse because my alarm bells wouldn’t stop going off and I began to feel that perhaps one day I wouldn’t be safe with him. Jury is still out on Drake and this new guy I’ve been seeing – Wesley – seems to be the first out of about 5 guys that hasn’t shied away from a vulnerable question.

    I didn’t think that this period of sexual experimentation and discovery would lead to me reflecting on every experience with a man that I had ever had, but I’m so grateful for it. But I’m equally as sad processing it all through.

    I have this deep desire to cup these men’s faces between both my hands and tell them it’s okay. That everything will be okay. That they are safe. I wish them all the love they could possibly imagine and that whatever is holding them in a vice grip will just let them breathe already.

  • Navigating Life Changes: Unpacking Layers of Identity

    There have been some stark moments lately where I’m realizing there are even more layers to who I am and that’s scary. I thought I knew every angle and crevice of my personality and desires. Now there’s this hunger to unveil more and more, ripping up each layer like floorboards of an old house. It’s overwhelming and electrifying, and I can’t slow down.

    It all began when I ended a very safe and healing 5-year relationship with a woman (we’ll call her Erin). She taught me what a healthy relationship should look like and how to comfortably live with another person while still holding independence. I owe so much of my growth to that experience and her. It just couldn’t work out – we weren’t right for each other for a lot of reasons.

    I don’t think it’s talked about enough how intense it is to just change you’re entire lifestyle after a long relationship like this one. You’re removing an entire person from your life, from your bed every night, from your current and future plans. It rewired my brain and now all I can think about is – ‘What now?’

    I began to take stock of my life; the first thing being how I was taking care of myself -how I looked. I asked myself: “How do I want to feel about the way that I look?” The answers always drilled down to confidence. I wanted to look and feel confident.

    So, I got Lasik; my biggest insecurity being my glasses. I updated my wardrobe, where for the last few years I almost always wore sweats. I started experimenting with my hair and makeup, where I would usually throw on a hat and didn’t want the work of taking off the makeup so I would forego it altogether out of laziness.

    —It’s a little funny now when I look back to see how depressed I actually was in that relationship. Getting out of it and on the *right* SSRI changed my fucking life. I was in such a funk and completely blind to it because of all the weed I smoked – chalking it up to just resting, just relaxing, just taking it easy, just me being me. —

    After all that, I began to exercise regularly – wanting the feeling of being refreshed, feeling strong and again, confident. For the last two years I had been insecure of how much weight I had gained which resulted in high cholesterol. I was consuming so much sugar out of comfort, and she was too – we were enabling each other constantly. Add in weed and well, you can see how it can get out of hand.

    Almost three months out of the relationship and I’ve dropped a considerable amount of weight out of eating healthy, exercising, and regulating my emotions exclusively. Taking myself out of the disgingenuine relationship began saving my health.

    The snowball kept snowballing and I didn’t want it to stop. It became addicting – still is. I told my therapist, “I don’t want it to stop! What else can I do?”

    I decided my next exploration would be my sexuality. For the last 7 years, I’ve only been with women. The last guy I had been with I was just 23 years old. I was very unsure about everything in life then – though I still am in a lot of ways – I was in a completely different place filled with insecurity and unhealed trauma. I had no tools.

    I’m 30 now and I’ve gone to years and years of therapy and with all the healthy moves I have been making, my libido had picked up which made me think more…creatively. What sounded good. Like food, what could I go for? Between all the smut books I had been reading and my curiosity to what men were like now, I knew I had to move in that direction.

    I was so scared at first because 1. what if Erin found out and so soon after our breakup? She would be heartbroken. 2. what if it is awful? What if it brings up triggers?

    The very last thing I had wanted was to put myself in a situation where I would come out of it feeling the same ways I had felt when I was young: used, unheard, and transactional. I decided that whatever happened with these men that I would tell them exactly what I wanted and make sure it happened. I wouldn’t settle for an experience my younger self cried over countless times. I started coming up with a plan to do just that, and doing it discreetly so that Erin or anyone would never find out without my control. This was mine.

    Something amazing happened from that. I’ll call him Drake. He was the first guy I met on Tinder who made an effort. He made me a little scared with how forward he was, triggering me on a small level, but I summoned the courage to tell him to chill the fuck out and if he wanted it to move forward it would be on my terms. Luckily, he took it very well and the mutual respect only grew from there as he texted me every day for a week until we met up, hopping on the phone once for two hours just so I’d be more comfortable first.

    He came over on Valentines Day of all days – by accident. He swept me up in a kiss in the first moment, ripping the bandage off in an instant. It quickly escalated but it lasted forever, in the best way. It happened a few times with sweet moments tucked in the middle. He made it feel comfortable and safe. He made me feel desired. He asked questions and leaned into my answers. He helped me grasp in that moment that sex with men didn’t need to feel the way I only knew it to be.

    Don’t get me wrong, the guy has his flags and I would never consider a relationship with him, but I’m so grateful for the experience and the mutual intentions for connection. I walked away (barely) with a new outlook and giddiness to an entire side of my sexuality that I can now feel confident can be pleasurable and accessible.

    It made me emotional for a few days, just processing the experience. How my body felt and at what times, what things he did that I enjoyed and perhaps what I wanted to try next.

    Tinder came through again with another guy, we’ll call him Jesse. He was more subtle, actually barely forward except for his pet names for me – “Queen” and “Baby” that I guiltily throbbed for. I began to notice his insecurities, lack of communication and time management, and worst of all – his drinking problem. Things escalated anyways and I let him grab me in big bear hugs that would melt me to the core. I would let him grab my hand and kiss the back of it as he looked in my eyes and said something sweet. Two weeks of talking and it appeared he craved the ‘girlfriend’ connection more than the physical, and I was kind of okay with that.

    We eventually had sex and I was pretty curious to see how it would feel compared to Drake. Would he also know what to do and how to do it? Would I feel just as safe and comfortable? I couldn’t help a little nervousness as we didn’t have as direct conversations like Drake and I about what we liked and didn’t like. Jesse didn’t get my spiel on ‘I won’t accept anything but quality’ as I told Drake from the start – but that was because Jesse didn’t come off as threatening as Drake did in the beginning with his fuck-boy talk. Jesse was also more shy.

    I approached everything with Jesse differently and it showed. It showed in Jesse’s comfort to be a little too drunk, it showed in me letting myself be drunk along with him. It showed in Jesse’s lack of focus on me in that moment…his inability to take direction and make consistent effort to ensure I was having as good as a time. The sex certainty wasn’t bad, but it was nothing compared to Drake and I felt that in my heart. My younger self felt it a little, she was a little disappointed in me.

    I’ve let her down a lot these last seven years. Not calling it quits when I should have with Erin. Not taking care of my physical and mental health. Staying in a job that was chiseling away at my peace.

    I owe it to her to make up for it, so I told Jesse that I needed to move on. Even though I loved the sweet platonic things he would do, I knew I couldn’t let myself feel less on the physical end. I knew his drinking problem wouldn’t let up for me to do that. It was surprisingly difficult. I had grown attached to the sweetness and because of that, i strung him on a little bit more than I should have.

    There was a lesson there that I needed to learn. A reminder that sometimes I have to override my feelings even when it sucks, that I have to parent my younger self from making choices that would hurt me in the long run even though it felt good. It also brought to light a feeling of lack – a deep desire for hugs, comfort and general connection. Something I’m actively trying to fill with my friendships, a dependable love.

    So, after all this glorious snowballing and lesson-learning and sexual awakenings, I’ve let myself reap the benefits in other parts of my life. The confidence leaked into work – which resulted in taking on new projects and receiving accolades for my work. It leaked into my friendships – opening up for more vulnerable conversations. I have been becoming more myself – getting my sparkle back as they say – and leaning into my truest thoughts and desires. People have been noticing and telling me how excited they are for my changes, which snowballed me even more.

    I will say, I’m still adjusting to this side of myself. Learning who she is, how much is too much. When to fold and when to press forward.

    I’ve now redirected to my job. If this HR career is something I actually want for the rest of my life or something I have kept with out of comfort and my long-lasting depression.

    I know that I would write full-time if I could. But the confidence hasn’t leaked in that direction just yet and I know that full-time writing isn’t common. Not only are the odds against me, but I feel that my ADHD brain sends me on unorganized tangents. That I miss important details, themes or connections that would strenghten my writing. That I lack outline and general structure.

    I joined a creative writing group to help with this, which is such a huge step out of my comfort zone, but it’s once a month. This blog is anonymous, and I’m scared for anyone I know to see it; critique it. My best friend reading my diary when I was younger still triggers me today. I have a lot of fears around my writing still.

    I know that if I want that to change that I need to make big uncomfortable changes as I’ve done so far in other areas of my life. So, what would big uncomfortable changes look like? How can I melt the confidence into this?

    The snowball must continue – I won’t let it stop, at least not yet. If I let it, this could perhaps be the biggest roll.

  • From Silence to Confidence: Reclaiming My Story

    It’s been sometime since I last wrote here. Truthfully, life has completely taken over and I’m glad it did. I’m sitting in a corner of my new apartment, looking out to everything I built for myself just in the last month.

    A magical thing happened when I started to write. I began to dream about what different experiences could feel like and subconsciously, experiences that I wanted for myself. I read somewhere that you should ‘write what you want to read’ and I had been craving something with meat to it – something that will have me second guessing who I’ve become these last 30 years and who I actually want to be for the next 30.

    Since the beginning of December I ended a 5-year relationship, moved into a studio apartment, dreamed up another idea for a story, went to a swing dancing class by myself, signed up for a creative writing group, dyed my hair and even got Lasik. And it all happened because I really wanted it to. If my characters could have adventures and happiness, so could I.

    With all of these changes a new sense of self-confidence has emerged, both on my own and interacting with other people. Confidence that I’ve got this and I can have what I want, if I just fucking go for it. It’s snowballed into the most essential thing I’ve always needed from the very start, the sole reason I began to start writing again, and that was to be heard.

    I ended my last relationship thinking to myself that my ex was perfect just the way she was and I just wasn’t feeling it. After some time to myself, I started to take note of my feelings in the closure process. I realized that I was dating someone that inherently prioritized her own voice above mine. It’s funny (sort of), I look back and think of all the times she’s blatantly interrupted me both one-on-one and in social settings, sometimes completely changing the subject as if whatever I was saying was unimportant. I look back and remember all the moments when she would ask me how my day was and completely check out. I remember asking for something and her twisting it so it would benefit her too.

    Not many people know that I grew up in an emotionless and uncommunicative household. I’ve come to realize that I was allowing myself to perpetuate my past. I allowed myself to be unheard because that’s what I have known.

    My younger self used to dream of my comments being posted on websites when dial-up was still a thing and I had only 30 minutes of computer time. I told myself after seeing “How to lose a guy in 10 days” for the first time that I would be Andy Anderson someday. I loved Harriet the Spy, observing and writing everything she saw. My journals had receipts, little drink umbrellas, movie stubs, and flowers and leaves. From a young age all I wanted to do was to be heard and connect.

    So, here I am starting over at 30 and doing my best to reconnect to the little girl that felt so free and open to share everything with the world as it came, no filter and no fear.

  • Therapy & Character Development: Writing my first book

    I have had this story in my head for years. Whenever I had felt a subtly glimmer of inspiration, I would build it in my mind little by little but never actually putting it into words.

    Over the course of the last year and a half, I went through some of the worst bouts of depression. I wrestled with the thought of feeling meaningless, like I had nothing really to live for. I didn’t have drive or motivation in my career. I smoked weed to get through a lot of the long days and nights. I had been growing apart from the person I had been dating and with all these things combined I was severely under stimulated.

    I would scroll through TikTok, searching for keywords like ‘passion’ and ‘quarter-life crisis’ just to figure out what other people were saying. I was looking for guidance on what to do with my life.

    I don’t know what exact moment sparked this next chapter, but all I know is that it took 3 and a half weeks of isolation and a tiny spark of inspiration to just open up my laptop and begin writing an outline for the story I had always wanted, but was never brave enough, to write.

    The issue was that I knew the story would be personal, regardless of whatever fiction I sewed into it, there was going to be raw and real feelings -my heart- knitted into most of everything I wrote. Not because I meant to do it, but because it’s all I knew. It wasn’t till later did I realize that I needed it to be that way.

    I put it off for so long because I thought that if I had decided to actually publish it, that people in my life would actually read it. The people who are not actively addressed, would know who they were in the story.

    Even if I didn’t publish it though, there was fear someone would find it and read it. Like my best friend read my diary in my sophomore year of high school, causing a rift between us for two years. The summers after that, I would burn my journals on solo camping trips after finishing them for exactly that reason. Fear. Fear that someone would read something they didn’t like and that I would lose them.

    You’re probably thinking, “Damn, what the fuck are you writing in those journals?”

    Everything. You know those thoughts that you know are not healthy, not politically correct, not censored – your ‘monkey brain’ thoughts that you are conditioned to think from your environment, your background and your own personal experiences and traumas. Those.

    What she read that day was directly about her and how I felt about the decisions she was making with her life. Thoughts that were harsh and unguarded, but needed to be picked out from my brain and laid out on paper where they could rest and I could let it go.

    Writing has always been my therapy. With this new book that I continued to write, pushing through the fear, I have digested my most difficult feelings. I have gotten closure from my parents, went after what I truly desired, and worked through things that I never knew lived deep beneath my skin.

    I kept asking myself when writing it, ‘Is this too much of me – should I make it more fiction?” I laughed to myself because a lot of it was/is fiction, just things that I actually wanted to happen in my life. I was writing for the person I was, am and wanted to be without realizing it.

    So, as I was developing this character, I began to develop the person I really want to be. She’s still in progress by a large sum, but I’m starting to get to know her more, what she really wants and how she’s going to get there.

    Fast forward a few months later and I’m sitting in an almost empty apartment, the person I just broke up with going solo on their family trip as I count down the few days I have before I move into my new studio apartment. Alone. Well, with two very cute cats, but alone.

    I started this book thinking it would be a gutsy project, only to find that it has opened my eyes to an entirely different world that I want to be actively apart of and build from the studs.