This Should Be Short, and Yet It’s Not

Name your top three pet peeves.

Before we get started today, I finally found the perfect keyboard for me. When I use it, I feel like Jason Moran (jazz pianist). The touch feels like it’s made to help me go faster. It’s kind of like having a new car, honestly. Like, there is a big difference in the feel of an accelerator on an old Toyota and a new BMW. With the brand new Bimmer, you’re going to touch the accelerator and be a quarter mile down the road. It’s nice to have a keyboard that is not in the way of being able to jump in that fast. The amount of force on the key to make a letter is almost negligible, but it doesn’t feel cheap. It’s that middle of the road touch between mechanical and laptop. If I had to name the biggest sensory issue I have in life, it’s the touch of a keyboard. I think this is because I know how important it is. I would not know that touch was important if I hadn’t lived with a pianist.

Because of my mother, I have words to express what I need out of a keyboard in the first place.

The prompt today is about pet peeves.

My biggest one is that my housemate has a maid and I don’t. I am terrible at keeping things organized, so my room is a mess and I white knuckle through the common areas because since we have a housekeeper, it is manageable. The problem is the six days a week when our housekeeper isn’t here. There are three of us, and only two of us help. Only the entitled one shares a bathroom with me, so I am constantly cleaning up after her. The way she does this is to say that because I have touched something, she cannot touch it. She comes from a culture that does not accept homosexuality and pretends that it is contagious and I am unclean. I have been laughing at her for nine years now, and it’s not funny anymore. I cannot beg her to do it, I cannot get my landlord to make her do it, because my landlord has talked to her about it also for nine years. So, if she washes her hair in the sink, it’s my problem. Has been for nine years….. because I’m gay and that makes sense to her.

Because it’s been so long, I feel trapped between “this is unacceptable” and “this is my weird little family.” There is no way I do not have empathy for someone so twisted in their world outlook that they make me treat me this way. It’s not anger. It’s pity. I look down on her because she does clean up after our guests whether she brought them or not. I say that her culture dictates homosexuality as unclean because it sounds like very Karen behavior, and she’s the furthest thing from it. I cannot see it all the way around as entitled behavior because she’s been taught since she was a little girl that I should be in jail or dead. Therefore, I can understand and be angry all at once.

Another big one is not responding to emotion with emotion. I do not ever want to hear the phrase “you should have known” ever again. I am out of the anticipation business. I cannot be the expert on how I felt and how you felt, too. Because then you’ll berate me when I haven’t anticipated correctly. You have to be strong enough to communicate your needs with me. It is only my job to become emotionally flexible enough to hear them without reacting in autistic meltdown. It is not pretty and I always regret it. Always. However, now I have new ways to learn coping mechanisms. I don’t want people to feel like they have to walk around on eggshells, the way I feel when I’m trying to guess how to make our relationship better.

My answer for this pet peeve is time. I need to hear/read what you think and walk away. Let me have time to process, because I will look at it differently if I change my environment and come back. I do not trust my first reaction. Please always remember that about me and when I say I need time, let me go. I was emotionally abused as a child. I have trauma reflexes. That means my first reaction to everything comes from that place, and I don’t want to operate that way anymore. I react with autistic meltdown because you’ve interrupted my reality so violently that my environment feels different in panic. I often react with panic because I have been corrected so much about every little thing that I feel like a dog surrounded by an electric fence in most relationships. In anxious/avoidant, the avoidant person will move the target to avoid confrontation, so you cannot please them. Meanwhile, the anxious person feels like they can’t do anything right. Every relationship I’ve ever had has been like this to some degree, because I am the common denominator.

If you have trauma reflexes, after the trauma is over you’ll gravitate toward one of those extremes, and they marry each other constantly. That’s because one of you is social masking an abuser and one of you is social masking an enabler. The younger you are when abuse occurs, the more that pattern is ingrained. The person you really are is hidden underneath those trauma reflexes, because you built them to protect the bubble an abuser creates with you. Everything about how I react as an adult is based on how I reacted as a child to hearing secrets that were too big for me. I have learned that my first instinct is to protect myself from violence. If when I express needs, I am met with violence, I will do anything to avoid saying something and I become part of the problem. So much of writing to Supergrover all those years was learning how to walk in the world in a different way.

Because she’s a boss, her thought processes got under my skin quickly. Every time she got angry at me, I made a note of how and why. It wasn’t to throw things back in her face. It was, “I’m a nobody and she’s not. What can I pick up here?” She’s also not a politician, so she could give a fuck if she wins and influences me. 😉 If she goes back and reads my blog, she will see that it’s just a collection of things she’s said in new contexts, and so many of those lines I got when she was adding new definition to furious. The reason I love her so much is that I find lines that flatten me in letters that are meant to convey annoyance, rage, whatever. I thought, “it must be love if you delight in even this.” For instance, when she said “be careful painting your feelings as fact.” I have quoted that in this blog at least 10 times because it was an image I could use and beautifully.

I wish I could get her to see that I stare at her Renoir like she stares at my Jackson Pollack. They are both beautiful in their own way. We are so magnetic when we are both painting our feelings as fact, because what is happening is that she has so much more to work with than I do. Whether she really doesn’t have time, or whether she’s avoiding writing back to feel guilty, the effect is the same. She knows more about me and can think about it than I know about her and can do the same. She has more context about my life, my mental health, my family dynamics, my entire heart and soul on the page, basically….. because when she said I could, I started using a finer brush- that I’d give her details and she’d write back.

Writing back became a pet peeve because she’d find the things she didn’t like and leave out the things she did. I didn’t like living in negative feedback, because then she started to feel like every boss I’d ever had. Assuming malice where none was meant, turning everything back around as if I’d meant to hurt her by being honest about something, and just generally dealing with the fact that she doesn’t deal in emotions and I do. I write so much about this relationship because it became a list of what’s wrong with me and why. But instead of just saying she was wrong, I dug deep into myself and figured out what was going on.

She did not. Therefore, every time we came back together after blowing each other to bits, nothing changed because she’d react in the old way and I’d regress. I got tired of feeling like she was provoking me and telling me I was the one always provoking her. I was not, I was asking her what was going on in her mind regarding where we are and where we’re going because we have shit to deal with if we’re going to create a secure attachment.

The exhaustion came from feeling as loved as I’ve ever felt and a complete dumbass depending on the day; I never knew which woman was going to show up. As a result, neither did she. It was tumultuous and extreme because we were fighting our own battles in ourselves. My way to cope is to use my blog to be Jackson Pollack. Just like an artist, I am throwing my feelings onto canvas so I can look at them from an objective third eye. Her way is to throw herself into work and pretend that our problems will go away. So, I think it’s better to be apart, because I can’t go on having issues with her that are infinitely solvable with any kind of real conversation at all…. and by that, I mean she doesn’t have to come and pick me up or anything. Just send me an e-mail with your Renoir so that I have two pieces of art in my museum. I have only been saying “I feel neglected and this isn’t okay” because I am asking for so very little. I don’t care that she can’t be available all the time, I care that when she’s here she’s present.

I need to be less reactionary, and so does she. I don’t want to end the relationship, but I also don’t want to live in highs and lows, either. It’s too disruptive to an autistic mind, craving stability and having a volatile monotropic thought process. I am not saying I never had security. I’m saying that her coping mechanism was to end the relationship every single time she was mad about something, and then we couldn’t stay away from each other. Just binge/purge for 10 years straight. If my writing had any effect at all on her, it’s that it didn’t make her fall in love with me, but it did make a future in which we were alternately mad as hell AND also craving each other’s words. What do you think it means to her to be a voracious reader and have crafted pages like mine for long haul flights? What do you think it means to me that I’m the author she reads? That bond is unbreakable, which is how I know with a 60-70% chance that she is absolutely hanging on every word here while also not saying a damn thing. Good for her, because if I can’t entertain her one way, I can entertain her another. The delivery method does not matter, and if she isn’t reading, I also don’t care. I just think her morbid curiosity is stronger than her will. 😉

I do not pretend she is dedicated because I’m writing to her. I am explaining my experiences with her, and it would devastate me to publish something just because I thought she wouldn’t hear about it. I have to consider the possibility because it would wreck me if I didn’t, because there could be repercussions for her, not me. I am trying to anticipate what will and will not be offensive to publish, working within limits. So many things here are analogies for something else that will come across to her differently than the point I’m trying to make…. and also having to be aware of that, too. How much am I entitled to my stories and how much am I just actively hurting her? She doesn’t see that it hurts me not to know, and keeps everything close to the vest.

That’s not her fault, either. That’s just the difference between us. I have something she lacks- the ability to spill my guts emotionally. She has something I don’t- the ability to protect myself emotionally by not constantly focusing on others’ needs. We are both lying to the other- she’s as much a people pleaser as I am, she just makes it look good……. and I only know because of how much she tried to please me. I regret every single time that I “made her feel like she wasn’t good enough for me,” because her feelings are valid and yet not a message I ever intended to send. How she got from “you’re the absolute love of my life and I’ll never put anyone above you again” is just beyond my comprehension, but it’s also my reality. I don’t get the right to make that reality untrue…. and she fucking knows it. That’s my anger issue.

That she cuts and runs when it’s hard, and it’s deservedly hard because it’s so fucking worth it. She does not see that’s what I’m saying. She sees it as “you’re a bad person.” I am not asking to change the nature of our relationship and make her act differently, I am saying that “this is a thing we should manage, not avoid.” Absolutely all of this is because of who she is as a person, but it’s not a dealbreaker at all. It’s that I need someone who can deal with the fallout, and she’s insistent on it not being her while also saying I shouldn’t talk to anyone else. It’s devastating to an enormous degree for both of us, because whatever she’s avoiding in me has nothing to do with me at all. I am asking for something she does not have to give. She’s 10 feet tall and bulletproof IRL while also putty in front of me, because she thinks she’s not good enough for me…. and has thought that about many other people. It didn’t start with me, and I know that.

For most people, she’d be a walking red flag. She doesn’t see that she gets to be that with me. That I’m the person who willingly said “the flag is a lie.” My feelings were deep and immediate because of it, and she’s run from it ever since.

The first fissure was treating me like I was suspect and avoiding me because I’d done something wrong….. except the story she was telling herself was fiction. It was a diversion tactic to avoid talking about the fact that she was wigged I’d told her I’d had feelings for her. I tried to be cool. I really did. But I was wigged that both she and Dana were angry at me about it, because I didn’t have a secure environment anywhere. Not at work, not at home, not in the cloud anymore.

It was a time of trial, and instead of blaming everything on others, I got the help I needed. But the problem with Supergrover never went away. Just avoid, avoid, avoid. Checking in once in a while and gifts were enough. It confused me, and she got angry if I said so. I began to walk on eggshells in a way that I don’t for anyone else anymore. I have explained both sides of the story; Dana was going down, but that didn’t not mean that Supergrover led to my decision to break up with her. I couldn’t deal with both their anger at once, and Supergrover was the more stable choice at that point. It wasn’t the whole story….. but it made cutting ties to Dana so much easier when I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it would benefit me.

She just got freaked that I chose to come back to Washington to do it, because she thought it meant that I was leaving Dana for her. What she did not realize was that a tiny part of it was for her, but not all of it. I could have broken ties with Dana from Houston just as easily. What I could not do is live in a city without a car. What I could not do is find impartial friends who didn’t know me from Adam…. I know my friends. I know that they love Dana every bit as much as they love me. I also knew that Dana needed them more than I did and it was easier not to give them a choice. You can keep up with me online, she needs you to jump in. Go to her.

Just because Dana was a walking red flag didn’t mean I didn’t love both of them equally. Dana just didn’t like sharing me and didn’t have a choice. Every “come to Jesus” meeting was a rehash because she treated me so differently and I never knew which Dana was going to show up, either. We all have trauma reflexes, full stop.

The entire problem was that when Supergrover pulled back, she didn’t have that choice, either. She thoughtlessly put something into my head that will affect me forever and decided she had the right to just let me cope. I don’t have the right to make her do anything, but I do have the right to be angry that she did indeed fail me in some respects, and absolutely delighted me in others. She is a spectrum, a 3D character, you might say. 😉

I loved checking in once in a while. I loved getting gifts in my e-mail. All that stuff was so rock solid. What wasn’t was all my anxiety roiling underneath, the feelings she refused to acknowledge that she had created. The feeling of “not good enough” doesn’t come from the fact that she is failing me. She is failing us. I could love her more deeply and be less reactionary with more information. I do not feel anger at her, I feel angry about my insecure attachment and environment because of it. Her conflict avoidance told me more than anything I could ask her outright, because she thought I was hysterical and overemotional…. because she doesn’t see that my approach to life is so different. She sees it as needing me to get with the program while also not explaining what the program entails. Hard to be successful when you don’t know the rules, but she doesn’t do rules, either.

Therefore, I feel like she steps all over my boundaries by withholding information, and I step all over hers for asking for it. We are at an impasse and always will be, because now it’s up to her to accept my reality. If she doesn’t, a part of me will always be angry with her, but it doesn’t mean that my love gets smaller. It only means that it will remain unresolved, and that causes feelings of injustice. An INFJ does not do well with injustice, local or global.

So, now I’m just working on the anger, and she’s not working on the anger she “doesn’t have.” She says in words that I’m just projecting. In her actions, I feel on target. That’s because she’s never vulnerable about anything. When she’s mad at me, I don’t know it. As you can see, that doesn’t cause problems at all. I didn’t walk away because I was angry. I got tired of feeling like my emotions don’t matter to her while she’s saying that’s untrue in words and deeds.

She did something enormous for me when we met, and I think in some sense I’ve come across as ungrateful because she sees me pointing out problems as throwing emotional bombs. That’s not true at all. I can handle bigger emotions than she can, so I write from that place. She reads it while being buttoned up, so it feels like an attack because she can’t receive what I actually mean. She is moving too fast and accusing me of moving too slowly. Again, the leap between a neurotypical and neurodivergent brain with the exception of both having CPTSD. It’s amazing to me how our traumas are on completely different playing fields, yet our reactions are the same, yet mirror images of each other. I forced us into a bad pattern, and it is better to walk away and lick my wounds than it is to convince her I’m right.

My emotional strength makes me care about myself in a different way than I did before……. but not entirely.

“For all our mutual experiences, our separate conclusions are the same.” -Billy Joel, Summer, Highland Falls

Hers is a gift I’ll never be able to repay, because now I have the confidence to believe that if I speak, powerful people will listen because that’s what I’ve been taught. At the same time, I can’t go on with such an inflexible power structure, because the avoidant one always has it. They don’t do things wrong, you’re a problem.

All I want is reconciliation on my terms, because we’ve been on hers for so long and it’s not helping either of us. If it’s not helping either of us, I have other friends. She thinks of me as someone who points out everything wrong with her…. and in my mind, she is everything amazing about being on this planet.

The last pet peeve is that she’s funnier than me.