Difficulty with Masturbation

[IthilienDude]

Heather,

Yes: I'm on the waiting list for the Rape Crisis Centre in Limerick, but by the time I get an appointment I'll be living in Galway, so they recommended I get an appointment with the Galway RCC as soon as possible, which would mean taking a day off work to travel 2 hours to Galway for a consultation. It doesn't seem feasible at the moment.

I suppose it's true, but I often wonder why it is that abusers like me so much? What signals am I giving off? Because I've hardly ever have non-abusive boyfriends: out of my 5 sexual partners, 4 of them were abusive, and 1 was borderline. I'm just afraid that forever and ever I'll just get caught in these awful relationships :/

This is more related to a previous post: I said before that I was horrified by the concept of sexual contact with another human being, and I thought that that feeling would never go away. But recently I've been seeing a guy -- just meeting for drinks -- and in spite of myself I now feel like I actually want to touch him, and have affectionate contact with him. Which is pretty much miraculous when I consider how I felt only a few weeks ago. I mean, my body doesn't have any other intentions for him yet, but it's nice to fancy someone again. It's helping my mind get over a few other issues surrounding my sexual conduct, including my ability to pleasure myself.

[Heather]

Ah, I see the circumstances that make getting on that waiting list now iffy. Sorry if I made any assumptions. (And bug yay about the happy news! So glad to hear you just enjoying yourself with someone. That is good news, indeed.)

Today is my outreach day, so I am on boats and tromping all over the city instead of in the office where I can answer things, so I won't be able to get into a real conversation about this until tomorrow, but I did want to get started, if I can. If you want to talk more about this tomorrow, I'd be glad to.

I often wonder why it is that abusers like me so much? What signals am I giving off? Because I've hardly ever have non-abusive boyfriends: out of my 5 sexual partners, 4 of them were abusive, and 1 was borderline. I'm just afraid that forever and ever I'll just get caught in these awful relationships

I think the sounder questions are these:
• Some of us are simply more vulnerable to abuse, like those of us who grew up with it, so it was normalized for us, or who have circumstances or parts of who we are that make us more vulnerable by design or by some kind of -ism, like those with disability or who are women. So, I think the question, "What is it -- and probably it's more than one thing -- that is making me more vulnerable to abuse?"

• Some of us have better radar, as it were, when it comes to people who are abusive; are better able to pick up clues that someone is or may be abusive. Others have a very hard time seeing abuse coming, for lack of a better word. So you might ask, "What is making it harder for me to see clues of people who are abusive or dysfunctional? What ways of being abusive, or kinds of abuse, do I seem to have some real blind spots with?"

• Too, once abuse or dysfunction begins, we don't all respond to it the same way, and some of us have a harder time getting away from it and out of it than others. Mind, sometimes circumstances matter here. (And of course, trapping someone in it in a myriad of ways is part and parcel of abuse, so it's often hard for anyone to just get gone from it once it starts.) For instance, someone who has a couple mouths to feed and whose abuser plays a big part in their ability to do that has practical circumstances that make leaving more complicated. Someone who has been convinced by their abuser that their life is earnestly at risk if they leave, same thing. But even without circumstances like those, some people, or some people sometimes, get more "stuck" in abusive relationships than others. So, looking relationship by relationship where you had a hard time leaving once you had any clue something was not good, you might ask yourself, "What made it hard for me to leave this?" Then you'll look for common themes or patterns.

Coming up with the answers to questions like that, of course, isn't likely something anyone can do in a few minutes: it's more the work of days, weeks, months or years. But if you can start to come up with those answers, it should be pretty helpful to gain an awareness of a) what is making you more vulnerable to abuse, b) what makes it harder for you to see it coming, and c) when relevant, what makes it harder for you to nix someone or leave. And those answers can show you things you can work on so that you can become less vulnerable to it, and the people who do it, more able to see folks like that coming before they can get a foothold into your life, and more able to get gone if and when they do.

Those are the kind of things that *are* about you, and that you do have control over. I hope that you can see that those kinds of things aren't really the same as the notion that you have some flaw or set of flaws that "make" you "attract" abusive people: again, they're opportunistic. Often, all we have to be when it comes to someone abusive seeking us out is in the room, and in some way vulnerable, which we all are in some way just by virtue of being human. It might help to apply your (clearly formidable!) martial arts training and frameworks to this: this is all really just a kind of self-defense.

When I'm back-back tomorrow, if it's helpful to you to see some of someone else's process with this, I know that these are questions I've asked myself in doing my own healing work, so I'd be glad to share a little. We're not talking about the same situations, and I know we'd have some different answers. For example, religious guilt and indoctrination with some bad-news religious messages is not part of my picture with those questions, but it clearly is with yours.

I do also want to leave you with a reminder that patterns like this, patterns of abuse or dysfunction in relationships? They are SO NOT JUST YOU: you are not the only person who has struggled with this, and you are not alone in this. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with you, in other words, that is the basis of these patterns. There are for sure some big things wrong, in very big ways, with the people who have been abusive to you, because if there wasn't, they wouldn't have abused you or anyone else (and again, they probably have or will abuse others if they abused one person: abuse tends to be serial). But you haven't abused anyone, so while there are likely things you can do to better protect yourself from abusive people, and to defend yourself, in a word, if and when they show up, none of this is about what's wrong with you.

Even just talking dysfunction, not abuse, almost everyone is going to have at least some patterns in relationships where they wind up in something that's the same in some way per something unhealthy or unsatisfying again and again and again: it tends to take time to see those patterns, then time to figure out where they're coming from, then MORE time to figure out what we can do to create change with them, and then even more time, and a bunch of practice, to learn how to translate that awareness into what we have the power to change.

But you can do this, and you are so not doomed forever to crap. That doesn't have to be you, and I can't imagine it will be just based on our interactions here, because you strike me as very thoughtful and smart, and also very highly motivated to get what you want and also what you deserve, which very much includes healthy interpersonal relationships and interactions that you feel good in and that benefit you and your life.

[Heather]

Btw, I think that all of your abusive romantic/sexual relationships or interactions have been with men, yes? If so, I think it might be helpful for you to read something that's considered pretty cornerstone when it comes to both abuse "theory" and self-help, which is Lundy Bancroft's "Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men."

Sometimes, getting a better sense of the kinds of things that drive that behaviour can help develop a keener internal lookout for all of this so that you can learn to spot it a bit better and earlier, before you get stuck in it, in the way almost any kind of abusive dynamics will tend to reel people in and keep them in by design.

[IthilienDude]

It's grand: I hadn't fully explained it.

Yes! I'm happy to be having fun with a guy again. It's early days -- just meeting for drinks and having conversations -- but it's nice. He's originally from the States, so our conversations get very interesting.

I'll respond to your post so it'll be waiting for you when you get back. BTW: Boats? Fancy! Your job sounds awesome!

I will offer my answers to the following bullet point questions that you suggested. I understand that these are things that need time to be thought over, but I actually would have explored those questions during my many stints in therapy, and have spent a lot of time thinking about them since I broke up with my last boyfriend.

These are just initial thoughts:
• I would have grown up in an emotionally abusive and neglectful household, as I've discussed before. My parents often violated my autonomy, and my mother used her anxiety as a control tool. I always defer to other people's problems over mine, meaning I'm gullible.
• I think for me it's a matter of it being normalised, and also my trusting nature. I like to think the best of everyone, which means I can reason out anyone's bad behaviour: "They're having a bad day", "they don't know any better" etc. I also don't think I like to admit to myself that there is abuse happening.
• For me I find it hard to leave abusive relationships for two reasons: "I don't want to me alone", and also "If I leave him, people might think I'm a stuck up bitch/got too high standards" etc. I'll remind myself of all their good qualities to convince myself to stay.

For me, one of my major vulnerabilities is my willingness to be friendly and accommodating to anyone. I was never taught how to be nice AND self-assertive: being self-assertive or setting boundaries in my household was always an explosive and confrontational thing, heavily avoided, so the practise of saying 'No', but still being nice about it, would have been seen as a contradiction.

Like, any 'No' was considered an earth-shattering thing by my mother, and she'll say yes-yes-yes-yes-yes until she's pushed too far and loses her mind and has a meltdown. Being consistent with 'No's was never modeled to me, and learning it as an adult has been extremely difficult.
I am open to listening to your experiences, if you're willing to share. I like to hear about how others deal with situations so I can learn.

I'm beginning to see patterns more easily. I think my last relationship flicked a switch in my head that got me thinking and observing the patterns of abuse and dysfunction in my life, and also in the lives of my siblings, who also are prone to dysfunctional and abusive relationships. My oldest brother, for example, is in a relationship with a woman who has made his cannabis smoking habit worse, and no they both spend every day smoking cannabis and he has nothing to do with us anymore, or any of his friends.

Thank you for your kind words, Heather. Hopefully things will turn out well for me, soon and just in general. This new guy I'm seeing is very keen on open communication, and does more talking than doing, which suits me fine!

So far, all my sexual relationships have been with men. Despite being bisexual, I tend to only go for men. (I had one non-sexual romantic relationship with a woman, who then decided she preferred my brother and they got engaged; it all ended horribly, and she and I never spoke again.)

I wish I knew how men worked a little bit better: I was brought up in a house with fairly toxic gender expression. My brothers were brought up to hate themselves for being men and be doormats for women, and I was brought up to be aggressive and understand that I was too 'clever to be a stupid girl'. I know I identify as a cisgender woman, but I find it very difficult to completely embrace my womanliness, and as such find it hard to identify the differences between how men and women behave.

[Heather]

It looks like you have a pretty big start here!

You know, one thing your response has me thinking about is if you feel it might be helpful to read a little bit more about the broad and nearly universal issue of how girls and women taught -- and let's be real, outright trained -- to fear not being "nice" and to be passive and its impacts, as well as some material designed for self-help to work on turning that around. I'd be happy to build you a little book list with that if you'd like.

My head is a foggy mess today, alas -- picked up my partner's sinus infection, durnit -- so I am happy to talk more about my own stuff around some of this with you, but I will probably wait until I can think more clearly.

(The boats, btw, are just ferries and water taxis, something you're no doubt familiar with! Between the ferries and the green and the rain, living here often gives me a feeling of confusion, because it feels a whole lot like the UK, but here I am, on the Northwest coast of North America, very far from the UK. I live on a small rural island, and the ferry or water taxi are the only ways to get to the mainland for my shelter work, which is pretty intense and satisfying work, I think, but in no way glamourous by anyone's standards! )

[Heather]

Finally have some of my brain back. I'm just going to riff a little here, and hopefully some of it will be helpful to you.

Some of my stuff around this is pretty similar to some of your stuff. I also had abuse normalized for me for a while there, and part of that situation, oddly enough, was because one of my parents grew up a lot like you (the Irish one, no less, thus part of why I so get some of the cultural issues you've been immersed in and have been negatively impacted by), and I think your bits with leaving, and what makes it hard, were also her bits with leaving. For me, some other things that came from abuse, dysfunction, or both, is that I have a very hard time seeing narcissism. That way of behaving was very, very normalized for me, as I was surround by it intensely, and so I will often end up with narcissistic people, or get drawn into their stuff and by the time I see it, I'm usually in pretty deep. I also have tended to respond to that kind of behaviour in ways that haven't been healthy for me.

I, too, tend to think the best of people: I take people at their word, very literally, and don't tend to look between the lines because it just doesn't feel like something one has to do. So I also get being gullible in that way.

The leaving bits aren't my personal challenges: by and large, I'm actually pretty good at leaving. In shelter settings with teens, those who run away from home or foster care or shelters are often labeled "runners," and that's something that has often fit me, too: I'd be labeled a runner as well (and was one when I was a teen, though, as is often the case with the teens in those settings labeled that way, I ran to survive and it's very good that I did, as -- IMO -- it often is that they do).

I think, for me, some of breaking my own patterns with abusive people was helped by my being forced to survive, in a word. There was a point, in my teens, where my life was at risk in some ways, pretty literally, and my sense of self was absolutely at risk, so it was basically give up and give in -- and lose myself as a self -- or get out. Get out was where I went, and while that also cost me in a lot of ways, that way of standing up for myself made starting to work through all of this a lot easier, I think. You're not in that same kind of place, but it sounds like with this last relationship, you might have been in something similar, and the way you're really fighting for yourself now feels, to me, like that kind of strength and drive I felt after having made my choices way back when, if that makes sense. It's a good place to be in, in my experience, even though there is that thing where you come out, and then you're sitting there with these big heavy bags to lug around until you can find a way and a place to unpack them, and when you're still so tired from being worn down for so long, no less.

I know for me that a few things have really helped over the decades that I think might help you, too:
• Being on my own and being autonomous and independent. It's much harder to be afraid of being alone when you just take a leap and do it. Live alone, if you can. Even when living alone for me meant incredibly precarious financial situations, as if often did, I think the pros outweighed the cons, by a serious long shot. Don't commit to serious romantic relationships for a while: play the field, and hold yourself to that more easily by telling anyone you start seeing upfront that you're not in a place to do more than something casual (that can be about sex, but it doesn't have to be, or doesn't have to be just about sex: it can also just be about keeping dating AT dating). Make what committed relationships you have be friends and communities, rather than romantic or sexual relationships.

• Do what you can to care less about what someone else might think of you. I know it's super-hard, especially with the setups you've had around this, to accept that what you do actually can't control what others think of you, but it can't. Even if you stay with someone awful, people STILL might think you're a bitch, for instance, or stuck up, or whatever. Try and remind yourself that if you lead with what YOU think of you, and let that be the most important thing, then a) if people don't like you, well people just don't like you, because you're being you, and that's going to happen. We all have people we don't like, and the why of that is all over the place: sometimes it's because someone is an asshole, sometimes it's because we're jealous, sometimes it's because someone reminds us of parts of ourselves we don't like, and sometimes we just misunderstand someone. But if YOU like you, it's a lot harder to stay focused on trying to act in a way that controls what others may think, and when others think poorly of you, it's a lot harder for that to be something that hits you very hard. I know for me that getting there, through all of my life, has been helped a lot by simply doing things with my life that *I* find great value in, that *I* think are important, and that make me feel good about myself, even when in some way I fail at those things, or don't do them as well as I'd like to.

• Take some baby steps to take risks with saying no. This is another thing where I think you just have to leap, and breathe your way through it, even when your heart is racing. Try doing it in less-loaded places first -- like some dude trying to get your attention at the pub when you don't want to give it, for instance.

• If you can find a good therapist, go all in. I lucked out with that during some of my hardest times in life, including one therapist who was even willing to waive their fees for me, bless her heart. But if and when you can't find that, or have to wait for that, see what you can do to DIY it. Self-help books that are good can be everything (still going to make you a little list this week around assertiveness stuff and the curse of "nice"). Building a support group for yourself of friends with similar stuff, or who can at least listen to you and support you, even if your issues and their issues aren't the same. Journaling can be another giant help, or creative pursuits: I know making music and visual art have both been ways I have worked through some of my hardest stuff. Time all alone that's extended and truly alone is another help in my experience, like a solo camping weekend, where it's just you, your heart and head, and the forest. I find for myself -- and you may or may not feel the same or experience this yourself -- that doing what I can to just let myself go to my darkest, scariest places and explore them without fighting my hard feelings or trying to avoid them really benefits me.

That's a lot of riff there, and sorry that it's so disjointed. I hope at least some of it is of some value to you, but if not, you're certainly welcome to steer me in another direction, and by all means, we can keep talking if you'd like.

[Heather]

Just realized there's something else I wanted to add to some things you said.

One thing we know from study -- and some search engine-ing will show you some of this data if you're curious -- is that emotionally healthy men *like* assertive women. It's men (and I think it's fair to say, people of any gender) who are NOT emotionally healthy who don't.

So, it may help to remind yourself that being assertive, and not worrying so much about being "nice" is not only something that's going to help you in all aspects of your life, including your own self-esteem, it's also something that carries the extra bonus of basically supplying an automatic screen for abusive guys or other men who just aren't likely to be men you have healthy interpersonal relationships with. The guys who won't like you because you're being assertive are very likely to also be the guys who are abusive or otherwise dysfunctional.

[IthilienDude]

Oh, I know that whole narcissism blindness thing: I'm like that too. I find it really, really, really, hard to spot narcissists. The thing is, they're not always big and bombastic: in my experience, most the narcissists I've ended up with are kind of shrinking violets, who wouldn't be making a show of themselves, but are self-absorbed. Pretty much every single partner I have had or nearly had -- man or woman -- has been a narcissist.

The problem for me is I know for a fact that I will always be attracted to the same kind of person; we can't help who we find attractive. This means, in a way, I'll always been drawn to the same self-absorbed, self-centred kinds of people. This causes me a degree of consternation.

In my house growing up, 'quitting' was never permitted. We had to consistently work on things, even if it got to the flogging a dead horse stage. Giving up was never an option, running away was never an option; giving up and running away was for weak people, or selfish people who couldn't face up to their responsibilities. As such, when my relationships were dying in the water -- well beyond their sell-by date -- I'd still be there working myself to death trying to resurrect them. I couldn't be seen to give up.

Even with my toxic relationship with my mother, I feel if I don't keep trying every damn thing to try and fix it and decide to give up, I'll be seen as a weak thing who just couldn't stick the work.

I'd love to live alone: it would be my ideal. King of my own Castle, as it were. Rent here in Ireland is ludicrous, I mean, really ludicrous; especially if you want to live alone. Monthly rent for a pokey 1-bed apartment here translates to about $620 per month, and when you're earning less than $14k per year, you'd be left with roughly $120 per week for EVERYTHING ELSE: bills, food, travel, clothes, medicine. It's just not practical.

I don't plan on committing to any kind of romantic relationship. I'm happy to meet up with guys for dates (drinks, walks in the park, etc.) with hugs and kisses, but nothing sexual. I really don't want that yet. I'm meeting up with a few people at the moment for socialising, men and women, and it's kind of refreshing to have things be a bit more laissez-faire instead of it becoming this intense self-destructive entity within five minutes.

I've recently been playing with the idea of getting back into my creative projects. I've been listening to a lot of avant-garde music recently, and would like to experiment with music for a bit; do some solo work. I find creative things quite liberating when I don't think about them in terms of 'achievement', but more in terms of 'fun'.

I'm thinking too about getting more into DIYing my clothes again: I used to be mad into that when I was in art college, and it was good fun. I got a strange kind of kick out getting stares from strangers when I went out in my odd get-ups.

I absolutely HATED my psychologist. With a passion. I just didn't click with her. And unfortunately I think I'm being referred back to the same woman.

She used to get uncomfortable about certain topics, and I was limited in the amount of detail I could go into with regards to my childhood abuse and sexual abuse, because here counsellors etc. are legally obliged to break confidence if they believe another child/person is in danger of being abused. At the time, my sister was under 18, and there could have been consequences to telling the psychologist that I was abused because it would have implications on my sister. Same with sexual assault: they encourage you to report it. At the time, I didn't want to get ANYONE in trouble.

One question I do have, though, is what exactly counts as 'assertive'? Does that mean just speaking your mind when people are crossing the boundaries, or does it include things like being a go-getter?

I ask because in most things in my life -- work, friendships, projects, and romantic relationships -- I am the initiator. Nearly always; I can't think of a single friendship, project, or relationship that wasn't started (and mostly led) by me. I hate waiting around for other people to act: if I want something, I go and get it, I don't wait around for it to fall into my lap.

So does 'assertive' include that kind of behaviour in its definition? Do emotionally healthy men like women who are 'go-getters' and 'initiators'? Or do I have to change that aspect of myself to screen out all the emotionally unhealthy men?

Thank you for sharing your thoughts! I understand this has really strayed from the original topic, but I suppose all these things are related.

On the original topic of the thread, I have tried to implement a few of the things suggested to me by you and other users: slightly changing the narratives of my fantasies during masturbation has worked a little. It's change in small doses, but it seems to be doing the job.

A lot of things have been a little bit better since deciding to take control over my mental health.

[Heather]

Just wanted you to know I saw this: only on call today, and will be on the road, so want to hold up on a response until I can respond to you on something better than my phone.

[IthilienDude]

Heather,

That's okay! I'll be here

[Heather]

Thanks so much for your patience. This last year has just wiped me out so utterly, it's hard sometimes to drum up the energy for even the things that I want to do and that matter a lot to me.

So, long story short on what "assertiveness" means in the first place: I'd say that it's basically the walk between expressing yourself openly and honestly, including standing up for yourself, while not violating the rights or well-being of others, or stepping on their ability and chance to do the same.

Is taking the first step with any given thing a way of being assertive? Yep. So is saying what you want, which is what, for example, a "Do you want to go out with me?" in dating is: that's initiating, and also making clear what you want.

I think go-getterness can sometimes be about achievement, rather than assertiveness, so I'd say that if that means someone going for what they want because they want to, rather than doing it because they feel they have to achieve, or must to survive, sure. Otherwise: maybe, but maybe not.

And yes: emotionally healthy people tend to prefer people who stand up for themselves, and have and express a sense of self outwardly. That leaves room for things like how shy someone may or may not be, or even things like social anxiety, mind: all of this stuff is on a curve and is also about who we are as people. Assertiveness isn't aggressiveness. It might be loud or strident sometimes, but it can also be quiet. (Rosa Parks is one good example off the top of my head of someone who's a good example of a quietly assertive person.)

A good clue when you're asking about if you have to lose a part of who you truly are to attract people who won't abuse you, I think, is that if you get to be all of who you are with emotionally healthy people. It's people who aren't who vastly prefer us with missing or broken pieces.

On "giving up" or "quitting": It might help to recognize that those are problematic terms for leaving abuse. For one, choosing to stay in abuse (when it is, in fact, a choice, and it often isn't) is, in a word, as much "quitting" or "giving up" -- on yourself and on having control of your life -- as leaving is, if not more so. But really, I'd say these frameworks aren't sound for interpersonal relationships, either. Because what those choices are supposed to be about, ideally, are mutual happiness. And if in any given relationship, people cannot be happy together -- and neither someone abusing nor being abused is happy: that's clear evidence of mutual UNhappiness, to say the least -- separating isn't quitting, it's continuing with the initial core aim of the relationship in the first place. There's a lot more to say about this (especially when we're also talking about any of this frame in this area being informed by Catholicism, since, as you know, parts of that system are so enabling of abuse and there being some virtue to people just bearing the harm others are doing them, especially when people = women and children), but I'd start there, just as some food for thought.

I want to say something about this:

The problem for me is I know for a fact that I will always be attracted to the same kind of person; we can't help who we find attractive. This means, in a way, I'll always been drawn to the same self-absorbed, self-centered kinds of people. This causes me a degree of consternation.

Namely, that it probably isn't true. Sexuality (which effectively includes romantic relationships and attractions) is FLUID, not static, and it's based on who we are as people. By all means, some of who we find attractive is understood to be hard-wired: SOME. Not all. Some.

Just about as much, especially when we're not talking about something like sexual orientation, is not hard-wired, and tends to shift and change as we and our lives do. That will often include changes like learning to better able see patterns in our lives, and ways we might create or co-create them, that don't serve us well, working through some of our emotional wounds and things we have learned (like wounds from abuse or dysfunction, and unlearning messages from abusive or dysfunctional sources or environments), how we think and feel about OURSELVES (it's very common for us to be drawn to craptastic people when our self-esteem sucks, for instance), and so much more.

This is not your fate, friend.

It's truly not, and I'd encourage you to do what you can to accept that and get away from this likely-wrong, and worse still, self-defeating mindset that this is just how it always will be for you. It most likely won't if you don't stay the same -- including thinking the same things you did once, like, say, that abuse is normal, that you have to be nice at all costs, or other things you thought once, and are learning to think very differently about) the whole life, which you probably won't. But that change is a lot harder to come by if we aren't open to the idea that it's at least possible, and better -- and quite realistically, unless you just don't ever evolve or change as a person -- still, more likely than us being doomed to a life or love life that's about the worst version ever of the movie Groundhog Day. No need to feel any consternation: this is NOT YOUR FATE. I can literally promise, and I'm a person who is very cautious with the making of promises.

(I hear you on ridiculous rents, btw: I grew up and came into my own on the north side of Chicago, where they are even higher, and now live in the Pacific Northwest, where it's higher still. $650 can't even get you a very tiny studio in Seattle. If you ever want to brainstorm about that, I'm happy to do that -- though probably we should make another thread so we can keep our focus on your bigger stuff. There are some options to get good half-steps to Kind of the Castle-ness that often are affordable.)

[IthilienDude]

Apologies for the late response! It's been nearly two weeks since you replied, and a lot of fairly interesting/unexpected/upsetting things have happened.

I hear you on the motivation of go-getterness. I was brought up in a very achievement driven household, even though my mother denies that she ever raised us to be obsessed with achievement.

I wouldn't ever describe myself as aggressive, but I'm definitely persistent. I never get loud or obnoxious, but I can get on people's nerves by persisting over things. I think sometimes I get frustrated when my efforts don't get results in the amount of time I expect.

(On a similar note, recently I got involved in a group of people who are interested in Libertarian social ideology, and it has somewhat changed my beliefs about human interaction, and about being calmly assertive and true to oneself without violating the safety and rights of others.)

It's interesting what you say about "quitting". Abusive relationships form such a huge part of my family relationships, and it's almost impossible to escape. My parents have always used very subtle control tactics that are disguised as support: "Have a job in our family business so you don't have to go looking for work", "have the money for your college fees, and you can pay us back over time", "let me be your promoter for your band: I know people". These all feel incredibly trapping, like I have no choice but to accept the offers and am then expected to be eternally grateful and compliant to ever whim and wish of my parents in return for their charity. It's overwhelming at times because -- given our country's horrendous economic position -- I often have to go with these options so I don't starve.

A lot of the things that have happened in the fortnight since I was last online has been related to disintegrating family relationships, and realising how much control my family has over me, and how much of it is almost inescapable.

For example: my older brother and I both work for my mother. The other day in work he lost his temper with me, and while our business was open to the public he began being verbally abusive/violent, physically threatening and intimidating, and destroying the property. He hasn't spoken to me properly since, and has just decided to not turn up to work anymore, meaning I've absorbed all of his shifts.

Instead of dealing with the problem and tasking him to task over his behaviour, our mother -- who is ultimately in charge of the business -- has just insisted that I need to forget about it all and move on so that things can run smoothly, completely disregarding that I felt my safety was genuinely threatened.

This is a thing that happens a lot in my family: no-one is held accountable for anything, and abuse it just swept under the carpet and forgotten about.

Yes, I do understand that sexuality is fluid, but I don't really see it in my own life. I always go for the same kinds of idiots... =P

One of the experiences I had recently highlighted how little I esteem myself, and how I labour over men who don't respect me.

I was seeing a guy recently, and we were enjoying it. I introduced him to a friend of mine, and all of a sudden he says he's not interested in seeing me "that way" anymore and wants to be friends. Next thing I know, my friend tells me he'd asked for her number to meet up and hang out. She decided not to follow through on it, and felt pretty bad and was afraid this would affect our friendship. (Luckily it hasn't: neither she nor I have much to do with that guy now.)

The thing that I noticed this time around, though, was the fact that I was pursuing him even though I was pretty much 100% aware that he didn't respect me: he never returned calls or texts, he'd cancel meet-ups minutes before, and then he pulled that stunt with my friend. But the more he pulled away/made things difficult for me, the more interested I got in him. Noticing this really upset me, and I spent a good few days crying over the fact that all my exes had been this level of disrespectful all along and I had been blind to it.

I've decided to make myself a list of character traits that I expect in my partner, and things I shan't tolerate. Hopefully, I'll have the self-belief to stick to it.

I know a lot of this isn't really related to our topic of conversation, but I thought I'd clarify a bit of what has been happening on my end.

[Heather]

Feels related to me, and even if not, it's the way you wanted to check in, and feels pertinent for you, so it's all good.

One big thing I want to say here is to remind you that a statement like this: "Yes, I do understand that sexuality is fluid, but I don't really see it in my own life. I always go for the same kinds of idiots... =P" isn't something to get very attached to when you're so young. After all, this is all still awfully new, so feeling like something will be a lifelong pattern because it's been one for a few years? Not so much. You still have the vast majority of your lifetime left to change your own patterns! Again, just because this is how this has gone a few times, and over just a few years doesn't somehow doom you to it forever, I promise.

And since it sounds like you're starting to gain a real awareness of those patterns you didn't have before, and also are clearly dedicating yourself to doing what you can to change them, I'd say it seems pretty unlikely they'll stay the same.