If there is one thing that sticks about the past 18 months, it is that this is an extra long training day for me. I can’t lie and say that it is unnecessary. It is in fact beyond overdue.

At 43 one might believe that there is little left for me to learn.  One might believe that I have all those life lessons categorized for future reference. The truth is I am learning how to do things for the first time as much as I am learning how to do things differently.

It took 5 years of therapy to finally achieve a diagnosis that matches my symptoms. Borderline Personality Disorder is the name and I recall once upon a time a person I “respected” tossing that word out there.  When he spoke I always thought that he was speaking of me. I was under the false positive that I mattered to him and stayed on his mind as much as he occupied space within me.

The piece that he wrote was how important it was to not attempt a relationship with a woman with BPD. The thing was way back then I did not think that I had BPD. It took this crisis to expose the symptoms that I suffered and it took two hospitalizations to get it right.  Now that we have it “right”, I am working on living a life that resembles normalcy for me.

The biggest challenge that I have is forming relationships. New relationships are almost impossible for me. I wish that I understood that better before I fell for Andrea, but that did not happen. I have one very healthy relationship with Clyde and a series of other relationships in varying degrees of dysfunction with everyone else. Even those who I love with all of the fiber of Aphrodite, there is a level of dysfunction.

As I settle into the reality that I cannot stop the wedding (not that I really want to – it gives an end to that cycle of love rinse and repeat), as I come to grips that the new home on the horizon is one built for two and not for three……I wonder how on earth I am going to create new relationships.

I learned that it is important to have some other outlet to occupy my spirit and mind that is not related to Clyde. I am fearful of how I will achieve those other relationships when my ability to attach is broken.  I either fail to catch a grip or I strangle hold the grip. There is not an in between for me.

Frankly this is mostly in my head right now because I want to have sex. Even that though is something “unhealthy”. The positive is that I am far enough along in my recovery that intercourse matters to me. Over the years I got very good at turning the need off and burying it. I simply was not interested in grooming someone else to do to me what came so easily to that other someone. Now that I am perpetually horny again, I can look back and recall how I used to get down.

I did a piece called body count here at Vizionz, and spoke at length that I have a significant number of sexual partners. I am not ashamed of that, nor will I ever be ashamed.

What I am is better understanding that in the absence of the sex that fit me best I overdosed on sex that wasn’t bad…..it just wasn’t that. I recall explaining….or attempting to explain to him that who I was with him was 180 degrees different than I was with others. That remains still to this very moment.  To achieve the total satisfaction that sex with him brought to me, I need copious amounts of other things that are not him.  It is plain when I pay attention and look at it reasonable and rational. It was not necessarily when I was mowing through warm bodies just to get a nut or 50.

Although I have felt that compulsion since…only once though…..even with that delicious compulsion that explains to me my perfect place…..it just wasn’t him.

Prior, that devouring of warm bodies was just a means to an end. In this moment that hunger feels like too much damned work. Yes I need what I need but I am not interested in going through the motions to get it when it takes so fucking much to get there.

In my younger days it was much simpler to select a victim, take what I needed and disappear. There was never a time that I could not just grab what I wanted. I suspect if I put any effort into it that things would be the same today. I am not willing to put in the effort though. I am not interested in another precarious attachment that I will have to toss again later. I am just not gonna be able to do it.

What I am also fearful that I am unable to do is settle down and “commit”. The idea of sharing my intimate life with one man or woman right now is not in the least appealing. I can’t want to right now. I know I don’t have to which is good since I don’t want to today.

The problem really is all in my head. The problem is my needs which were developed and refined and satiated so well once upon a time are well beyond the numerous faces and names that make my history that I have now forgotten. The concept of doing what truly gets me off with some guy I met at the Starbucks is …………. NO. 

The concept of accepting a relationship to get that which I need is ……………….. NO.

With all of these nos out here, and May 28 within spitting distance I sit and type and wonder where my yes is. I also wonder if I am intellectually and emotionally healthy enough to say yes.

In the meantime though, now that I have a job offer I can start to plan the most epic of long weekends in North Jersey. I will miss B and my spoon down to my bone marrow. On the other hand, it gives me the opportunity – if I choose to accept it – to roll though in beast mode.

…..and I just might. After all – broken attachments or not – a bitch is hungry.

 

Aphrodite Brown