Bloodties =/= Obligations

It was first in high school when I realized that being related to someone doesn't necessarily mean anything. I was dealing with my father's absence and this view worried some peers and instructors, but they understood when what was going on became clear.

As time went by and I went off to college and, now, I graduated, my view shifted slightly. There's a difference between disconnecting from someone who's left and disconnecting from someone who's clinging to you. I don't have to put up with someone who wants me to be miserable, wants me to serve her, and who doesn't take responsibility for her 50% of the relationship. I shouldn't have to be miserable in order to placate her (although I doubt even that would be enough for her).

Being blood-tied with my wonderful family does strengthen our bonds, but it doesn't obligate anyone to do something I don't want to do. I prioritize my family when they respect me; someone who disrespects me can't expect blood-ties to be enough for me to overlook it.


To see my loving family grieve over a departed cousin and then to be told by a senseless relative that she "grieves as though my daughter as died" is too much.

Passing

When I'm in boy drag, I do want to pass. When I'm in girl drag, I don't. Usually, I want to just be seen as an ungendered individual. I fluctuate between androgyny, masculinity, and brief periods of light femininity and go by how I feel each day.

I have very vivid dreams, in which sometimes I'm watching myself - in these, I have no control over what happens - and sometimes I'm myself and I have some control over my words and actions. In some of the dreams in which I'm myself, there is a man who's like the me I watch. He's always a dream person, but not like the ordinary dream people who fulfill a role and then disappear, he helps me fulfill a task or something along those lines.

I don't think that this dream man is someone I'm becoming, I think he's the masculinity I'm finally developing. I still have dreams in which I have long hair and feminine clothes, which I change to fit my current, androgynous self.

I suppose I still have femininities; I giggle, I like decorating for the holidays, I love Disney, etc. I don't do these to be feminine, they just are classified as such. Because masculinity has been out of my grasp for so long, I try on masculinities like I try on shoes: keep the ones that fit you.

Since when is personal spirituality a bad thing?

I'm very fortunate to have friends and family who have strong, personal spirituality; we've all come from very different backgrounds - Catholic, Jewish, atheist, Buddhist, Neo-Pagan - and come to similar places. There is the fable of the blind monks examining an elephant, each one claiming to have discovered a tree, a hose, a fan, a rock, etc. We're all monks, but have admitted that we are blind and that our interpretations cover only a portion of what there is - indeed, only a portion is really what humans can hope to achieve.

After graduating in May, the only fundamentalist, evangelical, super-conservative religious folk I saw/heard were the ones online and easily shut off. Their utter rejection of science, compassion, acceptance, and secular society disgusts me. Instead I bit my tongue as some atheists wrote/said that people who believe in God/whatever might as well believe in the Tooth Fairy. After all, these people understand that science is necessary and that theocracies are A BAD IDEA so what does it matter that my timid spiritual statements get brushed aside?

And now I have coworkers who believe that, without ever having read it, the Bible is 100% factual. These fundamentalists have as much influence over me as the evangelizing atheists: however much I allow them to influence me. Because we live in a very diverse, secular society, nobody will ever get all that we spiritually want but we will get what we need: the ability to practice in private. Which is as it should be: PRIVATE.

I't just so strange to me that the two extremes who hate each other so much would act so similarly towards someone in the middle...but I'd still take science and secular living over theocratic insanity.

Forgiveness

Going to a strict Catholic school is precisely what prevented me from understanding what forgiveness means for many years. Forgiveness, to that parish, was to be given as stingily as possible and with many reminders for years, "I was able to forgive you, so you should do X for me." The concept of forgiveness was associated with Christianity, which I thought was that school, so I rejected the entire concept up until my senior year of high school. Then I has a Jesuit priest as a teacher and he showed me that it is possible to be religious and even a clergyman as well as compassionate, understanding, and open. He and a close friend of mine taught me about forgiveness:

You've probably gotten a wound on your hand or something at some point and had to change the way you did things while it healed. It scabs over eventually and your new patterns become habit. Then you realize, maybe even weeks later, that the wound is completely healed and you can go back to doing what you used to do (which seems foreign, now). There may or may not be a scar, which may or may not fade. That's what forgiveness is and it can take any amount of time or it might never come about at all. It can also be chosen and scheduled like a surgical procedure or physical therapy. And it doesn't come easily and may require an additional healing period.

The final piece these two wise people let me know was that you don't have to actually let the person know you've forgiven z, though it may show through in your behavior if you're still in contact. It's entirely possible to say to someone, "I've forgiven you for what you did, but I still want no contact with you."

There are some people I'll never be able to forgive and some people I won't be able to forgive until they die. There's the whole thing about this time of year being the forgiving season and other such garble...enough holidays have been ruined by these people and now that I'm away from them, I don't want another holiday brought down by thinking about them.

Borderline Personality Disorder

The DSM-IV Criteria for Borderline Personality Disorder:

1) Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment.

2) A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation.

3) Identity disturbance: markedly and persistent unstable self-image or sense of self.

4) Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging.

5) Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behavior.

6) Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood

7) Chronic feelings of emptiness.

8) Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger

9) Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms.

I'm currently reading http://www.amazon.com/Stop-Walking-Eggshells-Borderline-Personality/dp/157224108X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1259603146&sr=8-1 and the behavior patterns of both of my parents are so much clearer now. An absent father with at least 5 of these symptoms and a dependent mother with all 9. Their internal struggle has been described very well in this book by people with BPD, paraphrase:

"Without my relationship with X, I don't exist. I must keep X with me at all times, but I can't allow X to know how afraid I am. I have to push away X so that X won't reject me. But I have to keep X in order to exist."

It is a terrible cycle of idolizing and devaluing X (usually someone very close to the person with BPD), needing to keep X as well as to push X away, and relying one's identity on X while hiding one's self from X.

What's scary is that I went through that cycle as a child, preteen and teenager. As I fought for independence and grew during my adolescence, the cycle began to break down. When I moved away to college, I actively chose to stop. My physical distance from the sources made me able to separate my identity from the cycle and, thus, break it. Sometimes I still find shreds and they are getting easier to stop. My parents, though, can't separate the cycle from themselves; they have no distance, so they can't break out of it. And because they can't connect their behavior to reality, they don't think that they need help.

Now that I have complete independence, I will no longer put up with angry outbursts and berating claims. I'm responsible for my health and happiness and nobody else's. I can care about others, but that doesn't mean that I'm to blame when they can't take care of themselves.

My dad and I haven't had contact in 9 years; because of the time that has passed, I can better appreciate the good times we had. I'm currently trying to figure out what to do with my mom. I don't think that it would be possible to make a complete cut like with my dad, but I'm now able to leave when she begins an episode. I know that it's healthy to avoid statements such as, "You are unable to love another human being," and not to expect similar reasoning from someone who is motivated by fear.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am thankful for (in no particular order):

- my Ballou Mathers



- my gross girlfriend



- my awesome family



- being Scandinavian



- living in Chicago



- FOOD



- books and libraries



- The Art Institute



- my friends



- living in a secular society



- being able to live semi-safely (in Chicago, anyway) as openly queer



- having a job



- my Fluffy-man



- folk music



- the internet

Being Scandinavian is Badass

My father's family is 100% German. My mother's mother's family is German/Prussian and a little Scottish. My mother's father was English, Norwegian, Irish (supplied by his mother), and Norman. His last name was Tremain, but he added an "e" on the end when he and his father, both named John Tremain, held positions in the treasury of the town Mauston, WI. For many many generations, the direct line has always carried the name John Tremain. My uncle, his eldest son, and his son all have John in their names. The tradition is being passed on, but with more individual input. The Tremains came here in the 1600's and may have, we think, married a Native American woman. We know that we came from a town in Cornwall named Tremain. Here is our family crest, which I want as a tattoo:



Before coming to England, the Tremain line heralded from Norway. Many now-British areas were invaded/founded (depending on who wrote the history) by Scandinavians, so there could be badassery in the bloodlines of many Celtic/British peoples. That was before the Norwegian-Swedish War of 1814 and obviously before Norway became completely independent of Sweden in 1905, so I guess I could somewhat accurately say that I'm...both?? Norwegians and Danes were unified, so I could also be Danish?





In any case, Scandinavians are total bamfs. Norwegians, Swedes, Finns, Faroes, Icelanders and Danes are the Samuel L. Jacksons of nationalities.