For Me

[Crazy Eddie]

There are a few points I want to make. First, my sexuality and my parents' role in it is an EXTREMELY sensitive subject for me. I know that may not come across because I write openly about my experiences. Nonetheless, the whole subject leaves me feeling very vulnerable. I guess I require handling with kid gloves when it comes to this topic. I think that may be due to my inherent sensitivities and also due to it being a fairly recent revelation. As Cobra observed during my LD thread, I'm just not there yet.

Second, I really was just musing. I wasn't looking for advice or suggestions. If I am looking for advice I will ask for it specifically and then I will take what I get because I asked.

I think this may be a Mars/Venus thing. This happens sometimes with cac where I'll speak my thoughts out loud and he'll try to come up with solutions or suggestions for me. All I'm really doing is talking. Just putting out my thoughts, speaking them out loud. I learn a lot and process much more efficiently when I talk or put my thoughts down on "paper." I have told him this.

True, but when you put it here, some of us can't resist putting our two cents in. Something we say might help you or someone else. Something you say in response might help us. We certainly can't identify you or hurt you in any real way... we're just putting words on a screen, and you can interpret them in a way that will increase your understanding and make things better in your life.

And about the blame: yes, right now I am blaming my parents. I have to do that so I can stop blaming myself. From this point on, I agree that my life and my choices are my responsibility. But, for most of my adult life, I was unaware of the extent to which my parents' behavior negatively affected my sexuality. Good grief, I've been labeled an LD person, with all its negative connotations, when everyone knows that the only healthy way to be is HD. I never connected my LDness with my childhood until a few months ago. I just thought there was something wrong with me! Now I know there isn't. So, yes, I'm pissed off right now. It is part of the process. It won't always be so.

Seeing the way they influenced you is good. But the "blame" is a little more complicated.

Your parents did things that may or may not have been justified. They can't force you to do anything, but they can certainly influence you by their words and actions. But even a little kid isn't a robot. She reacts in her own way based on her own perceptions and judgements; another kid with the same parents might react a different way. At any rate, if she keeps reacting in the same way over and over again, it can become a habit, and that habit can persist long after the original motivation for the reaction is forgotten. Seeing that original motivation, and seeing the wrongness of the judgement that was underlying it, can help to an extent... at least it'll help you drop your insistence that you're being perfectly reasonable and the other person is unreasonable for any objections to the habit in question. Beyond that, actually getting rid of it is a challenge, and one that you have to undertake on your own apart from any real or imagined confrontations with your parents.

Such a habit can take the form not only of tangible actions and words, but also a raising of defenses in response to certain innocuous situations. When those situations call for playing with someone else or for getting work done, raising the defenses are quite a distraction and tend to ruin the whole thing.