I’m feeling petty

So, I was reading this bullshit and it made me annoyed. Obviously. Alan Craig is a friendly, approachable chap (just look at that picture of him in the banner, holding his glasses and everything because he’s just that damn down to earth) and member of the Christian Peoples Alliance which is…I’m not entirely sure. An alliance of Christian people? Well, good for you guys.

The article is about how he’s TOTALLY NOT A HOMOPHOBE, GUYS, but gay marriage is wrong anyway, and he’s written some email urging people to sign a petition to keep marriage between men and women, because that’s what’s good. That’s what’s right. Nothing goes wrong with marriages between a lady and her man. It’s all nice and godly. His email includes fancy, bullshit words like “promoting corrosive relativism and silo multiculturalism” which is the sort of thing people say to sound smart. (Protip for everyone who is ever campaigning for anything ever – there is nothing wrong with using words that ordinary people understand. It’s the difference between your supporters pretending to know what you’re on about, and actually knowing.)

I could write more about why he thinks gay marriage is wrong, and I could write about why I think he’s wrong, but that’s the smart, adult thing to do, and I would much rather copy and paste some of the charmingly prosaic comments and write immature replies to them. Way more fun. Here we go.

‘John’ says: “please do not use the word ‘gay’ to refer to homosexuals.”

- Why not, John? Could you elaborate a little further? Please remember that Alan Craig likes to use some nice, non-offensive (remember, TOTALLY NOT A HOMOPHOBE, GUYS) terms such as “gaystapo” and “homosexualstapo” doesn’t have the same ring.

‘Dr Gilbert Cozens’ says: “Dear Mr Cameron, you have a beautiful little girl but if you & your wife and family friends were unable to look after her how would you feel about her being fostered or adopted by a homosexual couple, have you any plans to complete your destructive action of our society by legalising beastiality after all it is the only thing that you have left out and will surely be the next demand from the homosexual lobby, may God have mercy on your soul!” 

- I assume this is directed to Cameron-Shiny-Face, our British PM. Does he think Cameron reads a blog called Alan’s Angle? Who knows? Basically, he’s asking Cameron that in the event he and his wife magically couldn’t look after their daughter, and NONE of their friends or family were able to take over, how would he feel about the GAYS doing it. Because that is definitely what’s going to happen if gay marriage becomes okay. You will gain some terrible ailment preventing you from being able to look after your kids, perhaps via the loss of all your limbs, it will spread to everyone around you and the homosexuals will be the only ones left to do any child rearing. Also, apparently the “homosexual lobby” (do you mean lobbyists?) are going to demand you legalise “beastiality” next (not even a word) because the one thing gay men like more than screwing each other is screwing farmyard animals, yup. Final point: SENTENCE STRUCTURING. How are you a doctor?

‘Sid Robbins’ says: “Considering that those with homosexual tendencies make up about 1.5% of society, the rest for some reason choose this lifestyle, which is perversion. This is all about sex, and the fact that what, is not exposed, is what the mating habits of these gays are . It leaves me disgusted,” 

- Your command of the English language leaves me disgusted. Also, mating habits?

‘C Barber’ says: “I can’t find acceptable words to describe what homosexual men do to each other. Even using the correct words is distasteful and better kept from open discussion. It is certainly not something to be accepted in a civilised society, but then, does our society, which has deteriorated in so many aspects, have a claim to be civilised anymore?”

- Alright, sunshine. Acceptable words for what they do to each other? How about “make love”? Or sometimes they might just “kiss.” How distasteful of me to say so. Also, “anymore” isn’t actually a word.

‘Margaret Stephenson’ says: “Why were both men and women created if they were not both meant to form partnerships in stable hetrosexual relationships and produce children. Without each separate sex we would not be here now today”

- Why were both female and male sheep created if they were not both meant to form partnership and produce little baby sheep? Sheep, and plenty of other animals, have gay sex, and always have done, and are magically still here. Also, “stable hetrosexual relationships”. What’s the divorce rate again?

‘Sally Carson’ says: “Like your straight-forward comments but the picture may encourage some in the wrong direction”

- I really like this one. The picture in the article is pretty basic, two (somewhat well-defined) men in bed, looking like a couple. Is she saying that picture is hot enough to turn straight men gay? It is a pretty cute picture.

‘John Allman’ says: “I was surprised that Alan didn’t mention the recent ruling of the European Court of Human Rights comment, in a case brought against France, that contracting high parties (countries that have signed up to the convention) were under no obligation to allow same-sex marriage, but that if they allowed same-sex marriages that were purely civil, and they allowed different-sex marriage in churches, they would be obliged also to allow same-sex marriages in churches.”

- You know what, fuck it, I can’t even parse this. LEARN TO STRUCTURE SENTENCES.

‘David Skinner’ says: “Gays do not like to be called homosexual, queer, pinkoe, or even gay,since that term has come to mean naff or rubbish.”

- This guy clearly knows what he’s talking about. I love it when straight people tell everyone what gay people like to be called.

‘Montoya’ says: “Oh please, REMOVE THOSE TWO HOMOSEXUALS in bed from the article! Makes people sick…”

- The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

‘Peter Stokes’ says: “As individuals they need help, as couples they should get no ‘acceptance’ at all.”

- As an individual you need a smack in the face, as a couple I simply pity your partner for having to breathe the same air as you.

…and I’m done. This achieved precisely nothing. Criticising grammar or spelling is not clever or mature. Accusing vehemently hetero people of secretly liking a picture of two guys lying in bed next to each other is something you would expect to hear in a school yard. This post wasn’t insightful or helpful, but wow, it was FUN.

The message is, if you’re going to wantonly criticise LGBT people for whatever bullshit reason, I’m going to make fun of you for being, well, stupid.

How about you stop telling me what I’m supposed to look like?

I like the internet, I really do. I spent hours and hours on it. It’s an entire world of joy and memes and swearing. Sometimes, though, the denizens royally hack me off, especially when they tell me what I should be doing or how I should be acting.

Take this image. Don’t even get me started on the slut comment in the first part (what makes her a slut? Seriously? Because she’s putting the controller to her mouth and, like, I don’t know? Sometimes a chick might put a penis there too, and it’s supposed to allude to that? So basically I can’t ever put anything in my mouth because then I’m a slut? Whatever), in response to this image I would just like to say…speak for yourself. I care about my appearance, y’know, sometimes I do my hair and sometimes I wear make up, and – wait for it – sometimes I play games while wearing make up. Shocking, right? I’m not a knockout or anything, and I don’t pose around with a controller in my hand because, well, there probably wouldn’t be anyone to see it and I’d feel silly, but that doesn’t mean that in order to be a “gamergirl” I must refuse to shower and hunch over in front of the screen, Gollum-style. I’ll look however I fucking well please, and you, gamer community, need to stop acting like you’re some kind of elitist club with a required dress-code.

This is what we are and aren't, apparently

Gah!

I finished a book. It’s not what I call my Serious Writing, it was one of my Fun Writing ones, with the plentiful sex scenes and over the top drama and ridiculous plot twists. (It’s not as bad as it sounds, according to the chosen few who have read it, it’s a fun read).

This is a good thing. Right? Right. It’s a good thing. Finishing a project is something I’m terrible at, and for some reason books are the only thing I can finish. It’s an accomplishment. It doesn’t really feel like it though.

The first one I finished, now that was different. I was thrilled that I’d managed to finish a book, even if it did take me 4 or 5 years to write (to be fair, for a good 2 of those years I didn’t write a single thing), thrilled and pleased with myself. But now it’s as if my brain is saying, “Well, big deal. Not like you’ve never done that before.”

I want to write. I want to be writing right now. It gives me purpose, something to think about, all that. Without it I am…listless. Bored. Fidgety. Untethered, like a balloon without a string. What am I meant to do with myself?

The story ended with plenty of room for a sequel. In fact it ended with the intention of a sequel. I want to start that sequel right now. I can’t though. Every time I try and set my brain to planning it out, even a little, it shies away. Like it’s saying, “No, Luce, chillax. Can we do something else for a while? Find a hobby? Maybe go outside now and then, pick your social life back up?”

Fuck you, brain. I want to write. I’m going to sit here until the inspiration strikes.

I would like to talk about…

…my dad, who was an alcoholic. Soon it’ll be two years since he died. Where did those two years go?

The last time I saw him was at a funeral, his mother’s. She was 99 when she died so the news of her death wasn’t a surprise exactly, although I guess we all hoped she’d reach 100. Not that it was much of a life, she was very, very senile. She couldn’t remember who I was, or who my dad was, which upset him. In a way he lost her a long time ago, when she failed to recognise him.

Still, her death hit him hard. I hadn’t seen him for months until then, and I remember how when I arrived at the crematorium, I was directed to where the family were waiting (I knew none of them except him) and he looked almost incredulously pleased and grateful that I had came to the funeral at all. His eyes were very red.

I ended up sitting in a pew directly behind him. I remember thinking how his shoulders look too small for his black funeral jacket, like he had shrunk. If he’d been older that would’ve felt less poignant, noticing that, but he was in his early fifties – too young to be shrinking away. That memory, looking at his shoulders and thinking how fragile he looked, is depressingly clear in my mind.

Afterwards everyone went for a drink in the local club, his regular. We spoke, outside having a cigarette together, and he looked sad. Not just grieving but like he was sad, to his very core. I remember asking him if he was still writing and he said no. He didn’t do anything much any more. Still, we hugged a few times, my mum hugged him, my remaining grandmother hugged him quite a lot. These details might be boring, but to me they’re important. They’re my last memories of him. Despite the sadness cloaking him he did seem happy that we were there and for that I’m grateful. My mother tells me that she saw it us and me and him making peace – just in time.

I saw him only rarely throughout my teens. He and my mother were never married and split up when I was about three, I think. He went to stay with his mother, Annie, and I would go out there every second weekend to stay. At some point Annie went into a home because of her dementia. I have a lot of memories from that time that are hazy and strong at the same time. I can remember the atmosphere, the room hazy with smoke while the Doors played and he played along on his guitar. I can remember looking at the covers of his book collection, lots of books of the fantasy genre – the kind where exotic women never seemed to want to wear clothes. For me it was like looking through little windows into unknown worlds, all those book covers and vinyl sleeves. Everything was covered in a fine layer of dust (he was never one to clean) and everything had a faint brown tinge which was probably all the smoking.

He would always get drunk. He wasn’t a scary drunk, or a particularly pathetic drunk (although clumsy), but it affected me anyway. Even now in my twenties I still feel unsettled if I’m around my mother or stepdad when either is drunk. As a child I was afraid of almost everything (stemming from abuse at the hands of a family friend) and when my dad was drunk to child-Lucille it meant that if something bad were to happen, a fire, a break-in, anything, he wouldn’t be able to protect me. A couple of years after Annie went into the home, he had to leave that house and the council provided him with a one-bedroom apartment in a rundown area. The stress of that made him have a breakdown and he went into hospital for a while. Some kids at my school found out somehow, and made fun of me for it. Children can be so cruel.

It wasn’t long after that there came a time when I decided I’d had enough of my alcoholic father and just stopped going to stay with him. Part of me doesn’t blame myself for that – alcoholic parents aren’t much fun even if they’re not violent or scary, but part of me wishes I’d never made that decision. I was so bitter after it, every time he came round I would just be as unfriendly as possible. I had hit my teenage years by then, but the memory still chills me. He loved me. I wish I could go back in time and yell at myself for that particular phase.

I grew out of it, but our relationship was never really repaired. When he came to visit, sporadically, I never felt like we had anything in common, really. He always found it very funny if I was hungover, and unlike my mother he wasn’t perturbed when I started smoking. Some will see that as irresponsible parenting, but I think I understand where he was coming from. He couldn’t be the responsible parent, but he wanted me to have fun. He wanted me to enjoy life. He wasn’t an involved parent so he wasn’t going to hark on about grades or getting a job, he just liked to hear about me having a good time with my friends. I get that now, and I think about him whenever I am having a fun, wild time, drinking a bit too much and doing something I shouldn’t. If there’s a heaven (he’d go there, alcoholic or no, he was too nice a person for any of the more grim fates) then he’d be up there laughing.

When I started writing this I assumed it would be one post, but apparently I have more to say on it than I realised. I’ll write the other half tomorrow. Probably while listening to the Doors.

Safewording: difficult and complicated

Reading a lot of posts elsewhere about consent, abuse and safewording has inspired me to try and write about my own experiences in those often less than pleasant areas of BDSM. My experiences might not be unique but I think they’re relevant.

I’ve suffered abuse in my life, which is tragically not very uncommon for a woman. I wouldn’t say I am particularly traumatised these days. I’ve managed to work through a lot of it. Most of the abuse wasn’t anything to do with BDSM, but it probably does affect my BDSM experiences in ways I’m not even aware of.

Coming at it from the first angle, that of a sub, I can say that I haven’t actually ever safeworded. Does that mean I’ve never been in a situation where I should have? No.

Safewords are not the only thing one should rely on during a BDSM encounter. We can also read body language and facial expressions and use them as guidance on whether or not to continue. But we’re not infallible, we can’t always be certain that the other person is entirely comfortable with the experience. It would be far simpler if people just always safeworded, whether from the top or the bottom, whenever they felt they wanted to stop. But they don’t. We don’t.

Safewording is hard. Anyone who has been a sub can tell you that. It’s hard for so many reasons. Here are some of the thoughts that have probably gone through my head a few times during BDSM encounters when I’ve not actually been enjoying myself very much:

The other person will be disappointed, and might not ever want try a similar scene again.

I should be able to cope with this, if I can just tough it out it’ll be an achievement.

My partner seems quite close to finishing, I should just let it play out. It’s not for long.

I said I wanted this before, I’m being too fickle and it’s unfair on my partner.

If I use my safeword then it’s hardly very edgy now, is it?

See, I can easily tell myself now that I wouldn’t think those thoughts. Not these days. I’m wiser now, more informed, blah blah. But the truth is, I’ve not needed to safeword for a very long time (just luck, really), and the next time the situation arises? I’ll probably think one, or more, of those thoughts. I can only hope that I’ll have the good sense to ignore them and safeword anyway, even if it’s just to change the scene around a bit. I’ve spent far too much time having sex that I’m not actually enjoying, held back by my own unwillingness to communicate my needs and initiate a change of pace or direction. Not once has a BDSM scene turned what I would call abusive for me, just boring. I’m lucky for that, lucky that I have very sensible partners.

Recently I did a Big Switch, and I’m currently far more interested in being a domme. This came about for a few reasons, one being that C makes such an amazing sub. Another is that I’m actually further from achieving my ultimate goal of reaching orgasm – my once relied-upon non-penetrative method for climaxing with another person no longer works, and I’ve decided to stop trying for a while because the failure is killing me. It’s not all bad though because you know what? Being a domme turns me on quite nicely, it turns out. It’s also enlightening and gives me a chance to experience the safeword business from the other side.

I approach it carefully with C. I can read him quite well, not that it’s been without its hiccups.  I know he’s not likely to safeword, so I don’t push the boundaries, and I won’t be willing to until we’ve established a more firm method of communication. Traditionally we imagine dominants to be quite confident  (the idea of a shy dominant is actually strangely appealing to me) and confidence is not something I have an abundance of, although it’s building up, bit by bit. If C were to halt an encounter, would my confidence be shot? A bit – but I’d get over it. Would it stop me from ever trying a similar scene again? Definitely not, if we both still wanted to. Would I think less of him for needing to safeword/stop the encounter? Nope, not at all. Knowing how hard it is, I’d probably respect him more.

Not every failure to safeword ends in abuse, and not all abuse is a result of a failure to safeword. See what I mean about complicated? The only way to get around the problem is to communicate. Talking in-depth about this stuff isn’t always very easy, sometimes it’s insanely difficult to find the right words, to iterate exactly what you mean, but as someone who has spent a lot of time on her back thinking, “I’m not enjoying this at all” without actually saying anything about it, I know now it’s worth it.

Misogyny and the internet

As someone who used to frequent 4chan (never /b/), I’ve been aware of the general misogyny rife in certain areas of the internet for a long time now. By the time Reddit became huge I was already mostly bored of that type of internet forum, and by “that type” I mean anonymous and fast-paced. Recently there was a lot of feminist backlash over an incident where a 15 year old girl posted a picture of herself holding a Carl Sagan book her mother had bought her as a Christmas present on r/atheism, one of the bigger subreddits. Because she posted a picture of her face, the replies very, very quickly turned vulgar, and then gross. Anal rape jokes everywhere.

I don’t think she was much surprised by the insane torrent of sexual and vulgar jokes and comments that were immediately directed her way. I think she probably hoped it wouldn’t happen, but she’s 15. She probably knows the internet better than even I do.

Most of the feminist responses I’ve seen, at least from women, have been along the lines of, “That’s just horrific.” And it is. Some of the male responses I’ve seen have said that she invited those comments by showing her face. That sounds really bad, but I think the point they were trying to make is that on Reddit (and elsewhere) you are offered a veil of anonymity that protects you from being judged based on your race/class/gender/whatever, providing you don’t reveal any of the aforementioned information. It’s true in a sense, if you don’t let on that you’re a woman, no one is going to tell you to get back in the kitchen.

However, the idea that if you keep your gender a secret you won’t be affected by misogyny is wrong. When I went on 4chan I was mostly posting under the guise of “Anonymous”, generally assumed to be a white male unless otherwise stated. No misogyny for me! Except there was still misogyny everywhere, in every other thread there would appear at least one dirty little speck of it. Just mentioning women in general, no matter the overall topic of the thread, was inviting a few sexist jokes. I’m not really bothered by sexist jokes, but a lot of women are.

It’s difficult to know what, if anything, can be done about it. While misogyny wasn’t moderated out of existence on 4chan, and most likely never will be, the moderation on certain subreddits is supposed to be heavier but clearly the moderators aren’t too bothered. I was surprised, actually, at the shock and horror expressed by various communities when this dirty aspect of Reddit was revealed to them. I assumed they knew.

The strange thing is, I’m pretty certain a lot of the men that made those really gross (and they were gross, trust me, “blood is mother nature’s lubricant” gross) comments to a 15 year old girl just because she posted her face probably don’t even think they’re misogynists, not really. Some of them will have girlfriends. Some of them will love and respect their girlfriends. There’s this notion that if said on internet, in avenues like 4chan and Reddit, horrible, vulgar comments like that are okay, funny even. Why is it okay to say them on the internet? They wouldn’t go up to some 15 year old girl in real life and tell her to “BITE THE PILLOW, GOIN’ IN DRY”.

I love the internet for a lot of things. What I don’t love it for is how it somehow manages to make people act so inhuman. Remember the Rebecca Black fiasco? Since when is it okay to tell a 13 year old to kill herself just because she sang a song? Being online instead of face-to-face makes people feel invulnerable, free to make whatever inappropriate joke they normally might only have thought, free to rant in hatred when otherwise they would’ve kept it to themselves. This is the downside to the internet, while it gives some the freedom to speak out, reach out and do good, it gives others the freedom to spread shit like racism and misogyny without fear of real reprimand.

Try to remember your humanity. If you ever see someone acting grossly inappropriate to the sort of extent mentioned above, report the comment/commenter. There’s usually a button, and if enough people report something, eventually moderators and site admins will do something (unless you’re on 4chan, but if you see something horrible on 4chan just do what the sane folks do and leave 4chan).

New Year’s non-resolutions

I don’t really do resolutions, as a rule. They don’t work. People seem to forget that just because it’s a new year, you don’t magically have more free time or become less lazy/unmotivated or have more spare money to do something like join the gym and visit it several times a week, or quit smoking, or eat healthier or whatever. January, as we should have all learned by now, is not a magic month. We’re usually recovering financially from the monetary black hole that is Christmas, and the stress of that recovery doesn’t exactly make it the ideal time to quit that unhealthy addiction or start losing weight or whatever it is you think you need to change. If you want to change something about yourself, you can start doing it any time of the year. It’s better to do so gradually, too. We can’t just change overnight, 1st of January or no 1st of January.

That said, there’s something symbolic about the New Year. It’s a good time to reflect on the events of the year past, and while we don’t need to make resolutions about it, we can try to keep in mind mistakes that we made, things to avoid for next year. So, here are some things that I’m going to try and remember for 2012:

Being in a shit relationship is not better than being alone. There’s nothing wrong with being alone. I can handle it. I’ve always had this pervasive fear of “being alone”, but stupid fear or no stupid fear, if the person I’m with isn’t in any way good for me, I should leave. From now on, I will. Possibly. Hopefully. No more waiting around for him or her to magically not be a narcissist. Just like January isn’t a magic month, people don’t magically stop having personality disorders.

Finishing projects/courses isn’t daunting, everyone does it and I can do it too. I seem to think I can’t. I’m put off from beginning a project for fear that I won’t finish it. That’s a silly thing to think. I can finish whatever I want to finish. If I really can’t force myself to keep working at it, then obviously it’s not the right thing for me to do. End of story.

I am not mentally ill, technically. So, sometimes I might feel it but really, that’s that whole anxiety problem I have making me paranoid that I’m crazy. Also, I use the terms “batshit” and “crazy” etc. quite a lot. I shouldn’t. Having worked with people with mental illnesses I know that those terms are quite derogatory and unkind. There aren’t really a whole lot of synonyms for “mentally ill” that aren’t, but that’s not the point. I shall try and slowly exorcise them from my vocabulary.

Forgiveness is pretty damn awesome but a lot of other people don’t agree. I’m big on forgiveness. It comes easily to me. If I think the person apologising to me is being genuine, I’ll forgive them. It makes me happy, and makes me feel free and released from bearing grudges. I highly recommend it. However, a lot of people don’t forgive easily. Some don’t forgive ever. I recently apologised to a friend I fell out with about a year and a half ago. I wasn’t particularly pleasant during that fall-out, and neither was she. I said I was sorry. She sent me a very bitchy message in return. I should have remembered that she is the sort of person that does bear grudges, and for a long time. Plus, a lot of people don’t really understand forgiveness, I reckon. They don’t seem to realise that forgiving someone for having wronged you doesn’t mean you need to start liking them or trusting them again straight away. When you say, “I forgive you”, that’s all it means. “I forgive you. I’m no longer mad at you for what you did. We can move forwards.”

Rejection isn’t the end of the world. Of course it’s not. It feels like it is, but it’s not. Whether it’s a college course or a romantic interest, rejection hurts. If it’s romantic rejection, move on and leave it be. If it’s a different kind, better yourself so that it won’t happen next time. Turn that hurt into determination. Of course, the romantic kind might give you some ideas of how to better yourself as well, and when I say “leave it be” I don’t mean never trying again. Just probably best to try a different person.

There is a fine line between optimism and delusion. Optimism is better state of mind than pessimism, truly, but I’m quite good at being optimistic and hoping for the best when really, I should be preparing myself for the reality. Not preparing for the worst, just keeping in mind that things probably won’t turn out as perfectly and as smoothly as I planned. And there’s a difference between focusing on the good stuff and just completely ignoring the bad stuff.

I have these things written down now, so hopefully if – or when – I forget them all I will notice this post, reread it and remember these few little snippets of wisdom, written at a time when life was (mostly) going pretty well. Good luck to me in 2012, and good luck to everyone else too.

“Year’s end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us.” – Hal Borland

The Elusive Big-O

I’m one of those women that’s almost impossible to get off when it comes to sex. I understand it’s quite common, as a little research is done on the the mystery that is the female orgasm it turns out that quite a few other ladies out there can’t orgasm, or at least can’t orgasm very easily. They often think they’re broken as a result.

It’s understand why they think they’re broken. In literature and TV/film, women having difficulty orgasming is a pretty rare sight. If it is there, it’s often the focal point of the book/episode. The outcome is generally that once you find the right combination of a fitting man and the exact amount of the right foreplay, it’ll come and then you shall come. Like it’s a formula or something. It’s all too easy after a few years of trial and error and more error and still not being able to orgasm during sex to come to the conclusion that nope! Your lady parts just don’t work. No refunds on your faulty girlbits, darn.

Actually, it’s just annoyingly complicated. I’m annoyingly complicated, and lacking anyone close to me who can sympathise. While I know it’s fairly common and have read posts from other lady bloggers about their own adventures in seeking an orgasm, none of my female friends have that problem. If they do, they lie to me, because pretty much every single one of them says they just come during sex, just like that, even if there’s no foreplay. One of them actually told me that she came alarmingly quickly, that it took a few minutes of sex and lo! She was singing. That concept is completely alien to me.

Some of my friends ask me why I don’t knuckle down and invest in a good vibrator and get the guy to use it on me. Problem solved, right? Except that actually, the thought doesn’t turn me on. At all. Quite the opposite. Vibrating things turn me off. It would work anyway, if a guy were to use one, but the orgasms would be one of the weird kind, achieved only through brute force and physical stimulation. There is a massive difference between those orgasms and orgasms where you’re properly and truly turned on. This brings me to problem number two.

When it comes to getting turned on, I’m absurdly fickle. I have a few different kinks, most of which fall under the one ‘umbrella kink’, and that’s cool. What’s not cool is that on different days, no, on different parts of different days, different things turn me on. I myself won’t know what I’m in the mood for unless I have a stab at a few things. Then I do figure it out and along comes problem three…

…I can’t focus. My mind never stops. The gears are constantly grinding. I’m so ungrounded; my thoughts are always spiralling off in colourful tangents and it’s normally quite wonderful. Not so when I really need to focus on what’s happening. So I try to focus, and hey I’m starting to build up a bit and then holy shit, I should write [some scene] in [book] and make my characters do [x thing] wouldn’t that be great? What would also be great is if I were to have [unhealthy foodstuff] for [various meals] and you know what? If make my eyes go out of focus it makes the pattern on this wallpaper look extra trippy. That’s so cool. Where am I? Oh yes, in bed, and I’m supposed to be like, feeling something. Well, lost it now. Start again. Same thing happens.

However, I still have faith. I have not yet had an orgasm through intercourse, and very rarely have one during foreplay, but it must be possible. Besides, the more time goes on the more familiar I am with all the problems that exist as a barrier between me and sexual satisfaction. Would you believe that there was once a time when I used to wonder why I always lost it when an orgasm was building up and it never occurred to me to think, “Well, gee, Lucille, maybe it was because you started imagining a world where cats could talk and fly and you stopped thinking about the fact that you’re currently having sex.”  Smart, right?

At least both C and E care. C, especially, would probably be happy to spend hours and hours trying to get there. And getting a man willing to put in all that time and effort for one measly orgasm, well, that’s half the battle.

Dark times, bright outcomes, part two

Time for the rest of the story. I wish I had a campfire.

So, R left me and I wasn’t heartbroken. The significant lack of heartbreak was a bonus, admittedly, but I should have realised something wasn’t right with me anyway. It had been a stressful few months.

I went out drinking a couple of nights later with my friend. It was to cheer me up, but it wasn’t exactly working. Everything seemed sort of flat, and I felt curiously numb and detached as we sat in our favourite bar speaking to familiar people and listening to equally familiar music. I drank far too much, perhaps in an effort to make the flatness go away.

I ended up having a drunken emotional breakdown. You might be familiar with the kind, when you’re so overcome with grief and misery you don’t even feel like a person any more. I think I mentioned offing myself, something about throwing myself off the nearest bridge, and a friend called an ambulance for me just in case. Suicide is something I could never go through with but I know he was just being careful, my friend. Off to hospital with me.

It wasn’t until noon that I actually spoke to a doctor. He suggested staying in hospital in a mental health ward for a few days, or I could go home and arrange some meetings with a counsellor. I’d not slept and I think I blearily asked if he thought I should stay in hospital. He said it might be a good idea so, barely thinking and having no idea of the implications, I agreed.

The ward was a separate building, newly built. It had been open for only three days. I knew as soon as I stepped foot in it that there was no way I wanted to stay there, even for an hour. It smelled horrible, like newly built buildings do. It was dark and oppressive, the walls were bare and the windows were covered with thick metal mesh so the light was dim. I had stopped feeling suicidal many, many hours ago and I wanted to go home. Nothing appealed to me more than the thought of my home and familial comfort. Seeing as they hadn’t at all forced me to agree to go there, surely that would be okay, right? Wrong.

The head psychiatrist lady was robotic, and as I told her I wanted to go home and didn’t want to stay in this awful ward, she stared at me as if I was a curious new specimen, and then said that no, I couldn’t go home. I could go home when she decided I wasn’t about to off myself, despite the fact I’d shown no suicidal intentions other than during that one drunken moment. As it was Friday and doctors don’t work on the weekends (something that pisses me off), that meant I had to wait until Monday. The thought filled me with the utmost horror, but I had no choice other than to agree, so I did.

She left and another woman came to see me. She threatened to section me. She repeatedly told me all about how if I tried to leave, the police would be called to bring me back by force and they would section me. She told me that being sectioned was a permanent mark against my name and that I’d never be able to get a job in certain sectors. My mother was on her way to bring me clothes but I later found out that before they let her see me they took her aside and said that if she tried to take me home they’d section me. It was their Big Threat, sectioning Lucille. My mother told me she knew fine well I would be miles better off if I went home with her but they weren’t going to listen to a word she said. My mother also said she hated how threatening the woman sounded.

So! A few days in a nightmare ward. It was horrible. I longingly thought of home. The nurses criticised me for not interacting with the other patients. The other patients were people far worse off than me, some of them liked to yell, some of them could barely speak, some of them couldn’t shut up, some of them shuffled around like little ghosts. I spoke to a few when I had to, during meal times. I didn’t judge them or think myself better than them or anything like that, I just had nothing in common with these people. One of them, a man, liked to touch me a lot, seemingly innocuous, on the shoulder, the hand, then the thigh. The nurses didn’t care.

On the Monday I was so hopeful and nervous that I was trembling. I had been doing my best to act Pretty Darn Sane, and when Head Psychiatrist Lady came to see me I forced out quite a few smiles. I’m a good actor. She said I could go home, and I was ecstatic.

The experience traumatised me in a few ways. When I got home I had panic attacks for a little while, almost like I couldn’t handle not feeling like a prisoner any more. I know it wasn’t just me that found that ward awful, the other patients I spoke to also said they hated it and were constantly asking to be transferred elsewhere. When I eventually told the story to C (much later), he was mortified when he learned I’d been in there. He had a close family member with mental health problems who stayed in the same place and he said it was a cold, dark place with a really nasty aura. C was just a friend around the time I was in hospital, of course as I’d only broken up with R not long ago, but it was after that our friendship grew and then eventually turned into something else. While he didn’t know why I’d been in hospital – it was a long time before I told him the truth – he cheered me up once I was home by just generally being his sweet self. He made those days of recovery much easier, and I don’t think he even knows it.

I’ve got a new phobia now, a very deep, intense fear of staying in hospital. Last time I set foot in one as a patient rather than on a work placement, was for migraine related causes and I actually put on a great show of feeling alright, downplaying the pain and acting chirpy and responsive, because I was terrified of the thought that they might keep me in over night. I’m getting over that particular issue now, slowly.

While studying healthcare I did come into contact with a lot of high-ranking NHS people, and I let them know that I felt the NHS had completely let me down. I told them everything that was wrong with the experience, the aggressive threats of sectioning that made me feel far more hopeless than I’d felt before, the lack of any kind of compassion and the attitude of the staff that seemed to only enhance the shame instead of lessening it. It’s important, in healthcare, to make sure patients don’t feel ashamed. It’s a guideline, and I saw none of that in practice. Hopefully the people I spoke to listened, and thought about it. I might return to working in healthcare, I’ll see how college pans out, and if I do, I plan to speak to more NHS employees about it because something has to be done. We need a good system for treating mental health patients. We need to make them better, not worse.

I know the NHS have to cover their own backs. If I was suicidal and they let me leave only for me to kill myself, well, that would look pretty bad. However, the doctor I spoke to first clearly didn’t think I was at imminent risk of suicide considering he gave me the option to just go home. And Head Psychiatrist Lady couldn’t have possibly come to any conclusions about whether or not I was truly at risk in the short ten minutes she spoke to me, ten minutes filled with her completely ignoring everything I said. At college, as a group exercise, me and some others had to come up with the one thing we would do to ‘fix’ the NHS. My group decided that patients needed to be listened to. We get it, doctors and nurses, you’re the ones with the knowledge and you know better. You have to be efficient, too. We’re not deluded. But when it comes to mental health, we were taught that listening is everything, absolutely everything. We were even taught how to be good listeners. Why didn’t I see any of this in practice when I was the patient?

The bright outcome is that, since then, life has only gotten better. There are still downs, obviously, but I learned a lot. It brought me closer to C, and taught me things about myself, like how I should never stay in relationships that are destined to fail, and that I shouldn’t drink when I’m feeling off, definitely. I can’t single-handedly fix the flaws with the NHS but hopefully if I continue with my studies, like social sciences and healthcare, it will give me a louder voice to be heard by the right people.

Dark times, bright outcomes, part one

I was originally going to title this post ‘Bad relationships and bad mental health professionals’ but that’s a little too negative. A whole lotta negative thinking isn’t going to do anyone a whole lotta good. Besides, while the relationship was “bad”, the mental health workers I have in mind weren’t all bad. And as I’ll have to split this in two, I figured the new title was far more optimistic. Anyway, story time chilluns.

A while ago, I was in a relationship with a guy who I’ll call…R. It was my second attempt at a relationship with R. He broke up with me the first time and, after assuring me he had changed and that the problems that riddled our first experience together had been or could be resolved, I accepted when he asked to get back together with me. Naïvety, perhaps.

It wasn’t a good relationship. I did realise at some point that he Wasn’t Quite Right, and that he had some deep and dark emotional problems but I didn’t think to do anything about it because he had, to put it simply, convinced me that I was completely crazy. He was very good at doing that, and by the end of the relationship, I thought I was batshit. So batshit that I felt the need to warn the next person who wanted to be in a relationship with me that I was nuts. “I’m an emotional clusterfuck,” I think I told him, “I get totally insane and over-emotional, can you really deal with that?” He said he doubted I was very crazy, and that if I was he would certainly try.

Many months later I am still with that person, C, and I no longer think I’m crazy or over-emotional. I think I’m normal – at least on that front. So how could one person have me honestly believing that I was insane?

We argued, me and R. Couples do, and none of our arguments were more dramatic or stormy than any arguments I’d had in relationships previous. In fact, I’ve been in a relationship where the arguments were so incredibly volatile and nightmarish that to beat those on the drama-scale would be one hell of an achievement. Yet, every time I argued with R, he told me how dramatic I was being. It was “too much drama” for him. I wasn’t allowed to ever get annoyed with his behaviour, I was not permitted to ever snap and just explode when he drove me up the wall because in the world of R, that’s not included in relationships. When we broke up, I remember saying, quite accusingly, “You think that relationships are just about sex and good times.”

“Yes,” he said in response, “They are.”

He was seriously lacking empathy. He could be incredibly, unintentionally cruel. My father died near the start of last year and I remember crying while watching an episode of a TV show where the main character managed to track down his father so he could be at his wedding. All I wanted, while I cried and thought about how that particular privilege was forever lost to me, was a hug. I had told R many times that when I got upset, all I wanted was to be held. Instead, he just sat there and stared at me blankly, and slightly coldly. Like I was weak and pitiful.

It all came to a head when the anniversary of my dad’s death rolled around. I wasn’t a weeping mess, far from it, but I felt quite vulnerable. I tried to speak to him online, but he blew me off. I informed him I was upset, he in turn told me that he was getting drunk with his friend. Fair enough.

He didn’t say a single word to me for the next four days. I probably don’t have to describe my emotional state over those days, you can guess. Eventually, he did initiate contact, and when I responded coldly he said, “You’re mad at me, huh? My friend said that I’d basically told you to go away while I was drunk.” So it’s not like he didn’t know something was wrong with me. I told him what was wrong and I was angry. I had insomnia as a result of stress and when I said that I felt like I was breaking down over lack of sleep and lack of emotional support he said, “I’m out, sort yourself out. This is too much for me.”

That was it over. I wasn’t too heartbroken – I felt more relieved than anything. The relationship had been poisonous, not just because of his, how do I put this, emotional impotency. His family were poisonous and made me feel very unwelcome and the sex had been lacking for me. I’d told him early on that I’m tricky to bring to orgasm, tricky nearing on impossible, and he took this to mean that he didn’t ever have to bother trying, so he didn’t. Just like he didn’t bother trying to work through problems. I remember once, after an argument, I said to him, “I wouldn’t leave you, you know, just because of one argument. I’m in this for the long haul and it takes a lot more than arguing to make me leave.” He was silent for a moment, then said, “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t say the same.” Ah, blessed honesty. I should’ve left him right then. He made me think I was crazy by constantly telling me I was, he put me down, he criticised my figure, he offered no security and no support.

While I was glad it was over, and knew it was for the best, I was still in a very dark place. So dark, in fact, that I ended up hospital. I’ll talk about that in part two. It has a (mostly) good outcome, this story. I promise.