[Personal Post] Happy to be Poly and my 11 year mission finally completed.

In the last week I've had three panic attacks, two of them were in the space of twelve hours in my flat and one was in a hotel with friends around. The third was a monster of panic attacks and the worst I've ever had, I clawed anyone who went near me and I could get my fingers into if they tried to take my hands away from my own body or hair, and I screamed so much and cried so much that I eventually passed out from exhaustion - I have basically felt out of place during the last week or so.

I made changes in my life as a result of this, I took my relationship down a level because I couldn't deal with the stress I was putting on myself to try and juggle a monogamous but open relationship, along with a polyamorous lifestyle. My brain was a mess of guilt and self loathing about how I couldn't just be happy with one loving relationship.

I'd also come to the realisation I had more social anxiety issues than I realised and it affected my sex life and being affectionate with anyone. I would flinch if someone did something to remind me of a bad experience in my life. I'd get anxious if someone felt demanding or threatened the control of my life away from me, this was with anyone except the ones I trusted most and felt safe around, but sometimes even they stepped near that line of starting to feel uneasy sometimes, overall it just hurt people I cared and loved and I could not understand why, I just hated myself more into I could not contain it any more and released it in the form of the panic attacks.

I am someone who wants to feel and be accepted, who automatically thinks people don't like me because there's no reason for them to like me, only to be annoyed by my behaviour and mistakes made in front or them or what they hear about me and such. So when someone officially rejects me I will freak out on various levels depending on the background, situation and person. If I am around a lot of friends but feel unimportant or loved at the time then I will feel sorry for myself and then hate myself for being weak for being stupid and doing that, it is one big circle that I have come to the conclusion it is fine to feel sorry for yourself sometimes and it is fine to feel guilty too, you deal with the problem around it, not hate it.

As a result of the panic attacks my brain flipped table and decided to stop caring about what others thought about me (mostly my family) and decided to purchase some hair stripper and dyes (my previous blog goes through that) and be the person I love to be; someone who can dye their hair colours and show how unique they actually are and loving being different, plus it's so pretty and fun.

After I dyed my hair I felt a lot happier, a lot different and a mildly different person as well; I gained confidence out of having hair I really enjoyed having instead of having to keep it somewhat sensible to look sensible and 'clean' in order to be attractive, but I just found it boring each time I looked in the mirror.

So I attended an event as a volunteer to boost my confidence and get better with my anxiety. As you might have guessed, this came on top of me by Saturday evening and I broke down again, I needed it though and a few days have now passed and I feel happier than I have been in a while.

I also went down a level with my monogamous boyfriend because it didn't feel right that I would insist on them finding other women yet I had consent to see anyone I wanted within consent, I felt guilty that I was just taking advantage of someone that expected something different to what we discussed and perhaps they were hopeful for something they wouldn't get out of me, I discussed it several times with them until I was not comfortable being intimate with them, especially in public. I was reminded of a previous relationship where I couldn't give them what they wanted and I wanted something different, which resulted in being a bad experience that has affected me deeply.

Now I trusted him a great deal and knew he wouldn't do the same to me, it was the memories brought up again when something was done in a similar way to the past. Whenever I felt like anyone I was intimate was starting to get too intimate/affectionate with me, I'd flip and run away emotionally and not want any of it without getting anxious and scared. I knew this was unfair on him though and took us down a level I was comfortable with, instead of disappointing and hurting him and feeling guilty for it every time, even if they said it was okay, it wasn't okay with me.

Now I feel much more comfortable and happier because I know where things stand in my life; I have no one I feel I have to tick every box with in order to make them happy, I have no guilt of needing to be better, needing to come up with fun things to do and needing to be an entertaining person. I think my brain considers proper relationships needing a high standard of maintenance no matter how open they are now, it leads to marriage or some form of commitment that I can't seem to handle and I'll never have children either.

So I now know I have people I'm in love with, people I care for and who I can be intimate with, I'm still scared that some of them may just turn around and tell me it's not what they want, or they have found someone else and want to cut things off etc, but I'll accept it because I've also started to love my own company and a little bit of love for myself now and I like to hold on to this, so I'll be happy for them in the long run.

Being polyamorous does get lonely, it's difficult to be confident of a life choice very different from the monogamy we're brought up to believe in as a life goal, but for some people it's just not for them and I am one of them. Sex is not a representation of deep feelings for me any more, it is just enjoyable and about compatibility, it is something I cannot do by myself and something relaxing to do. I don't believe I'll get married and I won't be having children, so what is there in a monogamous relationship that I can benefit from, when I'm perfectly comfortable having multiple lovers.

Sure, maybe someone will come and swoop me off my feet and be 'the one' that I want to settle down with, but I believe that's for later on in my life when I just want to settle down for some peace and quiet and know more about where my life is heading and how it's shaping up to be etc.

My mission

This is now completely unrelated to what I've been talking about, but it's related a little bit too.

When I was 15-16 I was obsessed with kissing, when I finally had my first kiss at 16 I loved it and was no disappointed, I was then given advice on how to 'improve' and learnt that I loved comparing to different peoples kissing and how they kissed, I learnt from them and I've never lost the importance of that first kiss and the connection it gives you to someone.

So over the years I always noted down who I'd kissed, a kiss on the lips would also count and I never forgot each person. At one point I decided that getting to 100 people kissed would be quite the achievement and I'd head for that, but I wouldn't kiss anyone, they had to mean something to me and/or for me to like them and know them enough to judge them as worthy enough to contribute towards this side line goal I had created for myself.

It was just for fun, but when I started hitting the 90 people landmark, I started to become more careful, more considerate and a little more sad that I could see the end of this goal. I thought about what I could do to celebrate achieving something I had set out to do and stuck to it and the rules I'd given myself, but I was also not sure how stupid and silly it was. I accepted people who knew about my marathon of kisses would probably label me as weird and/or as a 'slut' but I knew that the word slut was not necessarily a bad word, it's only that people got insecure and started feeling like it was a bad word, so by calling someone slut you would hurt their feelings etc, but it doesn't phase me any more because I then believe they need to look up the definition of the word and how it is not a bad word.

I had two kisses left by the weekend and I had hoped and somewhat planned to had achieved my goal before that weekend but sadly people just weren't comfortable with it, and to some extent I agree with them now I look back on it, and I'm only a little disappointed they had their own morals and could not oblige to what felt like something very important to me because those people would never be forgotten - surely that's important in this life? Not to be forgotten once you've passed away? It's each to their own though which I understood, and it only hurt with the people I actually had proper feelings for too.

I actually felt relieved when I met my goal. I didn't need to try and reach a goal any more, I could just relax and take things as it came, not be held by rules I'd set myself and just enjoy what comes along without having to consider things as much as I did. It's like when you're a kid and wanting to know what you'll be when you grow up. I had no idea who the 100th person would be, how important they would be to me, their gender, how long I knew them etc.

So back to being happier; I currently stand in a position where I can depend on myself, know that the love, care, attention, affection and relationship I have with people is in my control again and I'm not obliged to be someone else or try harder to make someone happy because I have high standards of how I need to behave. Yet at the same time I'm in relationships that just don't have that official label to them and I can relax and know that we both understand the situation and enjoy it a lot more.

So..yeah, big rant blog post thingy; I am happier for the time being.