Paranoia Doesn't Mean I'm Not Right

Before I checked myself into the psych hospital at the tail edges of my little meltdown/nervous breakdown, I let a few people know so they wouldn't worry. Among the people I told was a man who I report to for my favorite part-time job, the man who talked me into this job. His email reply was short, but supportive.

I emailed him when I got out, mentioning how I'd not done well on the job before I went in and wondering what he wanted to do about that. He usually emails me or calls me a lot during a week just to keep me up to date and to keep in touch.

I've had one text message, basically the same as the one he sent before I went in. And that's it. According to another member of the team, this man who supported me seems to have the same phobia that another good friend of mine (same age cohort as the man with the job): a fear that people with "mental illness" are never as stable or dependable as "normal, healthy" people and as such should be avoided as employees. At least, that's my fear and my current perception of this situation. 

And this situation and these reactions, ladies, gentlemen, and others, are why I choose to make this blog as anonymous as is reasonable and why I have not told my more stable job about it. I'm paranoid, but not a complete idiot. Just a partial one with a lazy streak.

A More Civilized Pace — Please!

Change. I know life is full of it, but I do remember when the changes in my life were more leisurely, when they weren't falling over each other in their eagerness to meet me, when they weren't pulling me along at rocket-speed and dangling me behind them like a toy on a tether.

I complain about everything, right? But my life seems to be on a bullet-train of change. I'm half a century old: change should slow down! Just let me catch my breath, at least. And how about balancing things out with some positive changes, such as financial independence (or at least security), and love and friendship (close on a geographic scale, please)?

I'm not a jet-setter. I'm not an adrenaline-junkie (but there are a couple of things I wouldn't mind trying again). I may walk briskly, but I also like to "stroll about, lookin' at the shops."* I love spending long, slow hours with friends and family, telling stories and laughing, taking long and scenic drives, playing games, and watching children play. I love spending time with someone special, curled up at opposite ends of the couch, and reading news articles, comics, and book passages to each other. I like to savor.

Mind you, I'm not only slow. I enjoy fast-paced movies and books. I love to watch MythBusters and the more explosions the better! I like fast rides and short lines. There's nothing like running and laughing with children until everyone collapses with exhaustion and giggles.

My social life at home is too slow: it's dead. With no work, my days drag. If I weren't paralyzed with fear over my impending complete brokeness, I could at least write. On the other hand, there have been jobs, Mom's cancer and death and all the many months of follow-up to that (that are speeding up now), and changes in my social life that brought it to death, freelance gigs, meeting people professionally — it's cocaine one one side and pot on the other, but not balanced and neither healthy nor fun.

Do you know what I want? 

1. Financial independence, or at least financial security, so I don't worry all the time, expending my energy fruitlessly.
2. Friends with whom I spend time with frequently.
3. Enough to do without it being too much. If I work for pay, then less than 40 hours a week and little or no commute: why spend my life on things that don't add to it? If I don't need to work for pay, then enough volunteer work and activities to keep me interested and interesting but that leaves me with plenty of time and energy to spend in other ways.
4. Someone special to spend that time with on the couch.
5. Two cats.
6. An office and studio that is full of light and comfort and that inspires creativity. In fact, an entire house like that. My house.

I know life is full of change, and that you cannot control all of it, or even most of it. I know change comes at all speeds, but lately I've felt exhausted by it. I want some good change in my life, and for my vehicle of change to move a bit slower. I don't need to ride in a stealth bomber.

*Moody Blues, Days of Future Passed

Loving myself

My therapist doesn't know everything. Agreed, that shouldn't be shocking, but I thought she'd have some idea about why I have difficulties with orgasm, if they related back to an incident in college. Nope. Apparently that is more in the realm of sex therapists and mine is not.

Of course, now I have to wonder: should I see a sex therapist? Because I surely envy those women who seem to have orgasms effortlessly. Even the ones I give myself require epic effort most of the time. If only I could stop thinking. I feel only sympathy for the lovers I have had, given how frustrating I find it.

 There was a short period of time around 40 when they seemed to happen easier, but that was by myself and, I'm ashamed to admit, my most serious foray into self-love. Yes, at 40. Hell, I didn't get my first vibrator until my late 40s. Just a slow bloomer I guess.

And now my age is beginning to turn on me, leaving me wondering, will I still feel sexual during menopause? Afterward? My sexual feelings come and go; if there is no one to play with, then my libido takes a long walk, but it eventually comes back again, even if there is only me. I've passed my sexual peak, virtually unaccompanied. Will I want even battery-operated company when I've passed the 'pause?

I worry. I think that having no sexual feelings, at least for someone who has had a very active libido (moreso than some of my partners — they wear out so quickly), would be a significant loss. It would be like losing a part of myself. I am a less ecstatic person when I am not engaging in my own pleasure. (When all is well with me, I've usually been a happy, cheery, and occasionally somewhat manic person. Very easily blissed out.)

I don't really have anyone to talk to about this. One of my oldest friends doesn't talk about sex in quite that detail, at least with me. Another is still pre-M. Mom's gone. And I don't have any truly close friends to talk about this with. So I talk about it with all of you two or three people out in Digi-Land.

I hate uncertainty. I hate thinking I'll never have sex again. I hate thinking I'll never feel sexual again. I have a hot-air balloon full of feelings and fears and all I can do is hold tight to the balloon as it grows and grows.

I bought that KY Intense product to try. I don't know. I'll have to try it again. I was a bit nervous because the product notes say external use only, don't use it internally, but damn! Everything is so close together down there! I was afraid of getting it inside and getting the warming lube that I was experimenting with on the outside and what happens if you accidentally cross the lubes? I will say that the KY Intense feels a bit like mint on the outside.

In my search for more dependable (and greater) orgasms, I am a bit of an ad junkie. I've seen lately an ad for KY His & Hers or maybe it was KY Yours & Mine. Something like that. Apparently it feels great, one liquid for each person, and then when the two combine, KAPOW! I figure, I could use the Hers on me, of course, and the His on my Battery-Operated Boyfriend (aka B.O.B.) and see if it works. However, I have noticed a lack of ads for the KY Intense. Something tells me that perhaps it wasn't so intense and the new product is simply the new "flavor" of Orgasm Helper.

On the TV series CSI (the original, based in Las Vegas), there was a character named Lady Heather and she was a dominatrix who ran a BDSM club of sorts. Eventually, in order to be socially acceptable for inane reasons, she became a sex therapist instead. I wish she were real — I have a feeling she could help me out.