I Just Had My Heart Melted

I was pissed off. I was royally, red in the face angry, and ready to tear someone down because I haven't gotten my psychology text book yet. I orderecd it Thursday on overnight shipping and it is scheduled to be here Monday for some inexplicable reason.

 So, I called the bookstore from my college and said in an angry voice "Hi. I'm calling about an order I placed on overnight that's not even going to be here until I get there". Then some guy who sounded not much older than me said "oh!" kind of surprised "I'm sorry." and asked nicely for the details. I told him and he said "well, I'm not supposed to deal with the online orders, but I'll see how I can help you out." he seemed genuinely saddened by the fact that I had a problem and all the wind was immediately removed from my angry sails.  He proceeeded to help by asking a manager for special permission for me to pick up a different copy of the book on monday and return my own whenever it should get here. The manager agreed and I tried to change the shipping on the order for the books, but that didn't work because of a stupid UPS issue.

 So I called the bookstore again, and they told me that it would probably be easier to place another order for instore pickup, but said he would assure that any issues were worked out with UPS if I'd rather have him do that.  In short, I called in a rage and then people were concerned for another person's welfare, and I hung up warmed from the inside about the nature of human beings. It's simple tiny things like this that make all the difference

Preemptive Strike

Halley is away at college for a few days before I get there, and, as always, separation makes me a little nervous. But it's been a whole lot easier this specific time around because xe's been reassuring me by giving a blatant statement of how xe loves me regardless of where we are or what we're doing. And it's working. I feel really relaxed, and, if I can tell you a secret, I think I'm not even going to need it anymore after I just did it. My irrational fear of losing halley is evaporating. I'm not so scared clingy, which was taking a toll on our relationship. And now it's gone! All I had to do was indulge my desire to be reassured and it disappeared.

Conflict Resolution

I felt sad. We made mistakes. And we talked them out. That's not to say that there weren't bumps along the way. That's not to say we didn't have a kind of difficult time with it. I was hurting. I made some mistakes. Calling it unable to be made up for to xyr.

But Halley and I? We don't just break up over something so silly. It was a mistake for her, what instigated it, and we've established the underlying reasons for the desire. I made a mistake, that was to tell xyr it was such a big deal. The point is, we talked it out. Unwillingness and pain aside, we made it through discussing it and we made each other feel better.

This is what makes or breaks a relationship. The way these situations get handled. And we handle them beautifully. The love we have is why we're here. It's why we want to be close and in contact. The love we have makes all of the bad times worth it, but the way we react and feel about each other when things hurt is what ensures we stay together in the moment. We always love each other. No matter what happens, I know I will always be loved and that I will always love my halley

Open

Our relationship is open, but with the understanding that it hurts me when xe does anything sexual with anyone else. I thought xe wouldn't do anything anymore, but, well, I'd never say that xe couldn't. I wouldn't take away the right to consent. Yesses and nos are both important parts of consensual actions. I'm just hurt now.

I feel sad. I knew the practical wasn't right for me. And I thought it wasn't right for us. Xe said, or at least implied as much. But, well, here we are. Yet again. Xe's been with someone else. Again. And I'm sad. Disappointed. Upset. Hurt. I feel alone. I wish that xe hadn't done this. But I've no right to be mad or anything. Thinking back on it, xe never promised not to. Just implied xe wouldn't. Implications and technicality mean I'm the one in the wrong here.

I'm nor sure how much I like my life right now. Earlier today, I thought everything was great. Was in a good mood for a long time. Now, I don't know. I kind of feel empty, sort of hollow and broken. I kind of want to sleep, but I also feel wired, so no sleep for me. I want an escape. I hate this place. I don't want this to be my life. I guess it is.

Xe's implied and promised again and again to stop. xe never does.  I promised not to leave. That it wouldn't be a deal breaker.  Plus, I love xyr. I want xyr to love me.

MGM and FGM: A comparison

Look. These aren't the same. I'm not saying they are. There are different types of each, some more and less severe. The most common type of female genital mutilation is more severe than the most common type of male genital mutilation.

But they are the same in that both rob a child of his or her right to his or her full body.
They both take away part of a human being without consent.
They both cause excruciating pain to the victim.
They can both cause death.
They both are attempted to be justified by religious reasons
They both are attempted to be justified by medical reasons.
They are both societally considered acceptable, albiet in different parts of the world.
They are both intended to rob the victim of sexual pleasure.

Consent is what's important. Watch this wonderful video, by youtube's freedom0speech. This may help explain to you what I mean.




The line between what should be allowed to be performed on minors belongs all the way at the bottom. ALL children deserve their full, intact bodies. I am as strongly against female genital mutilation as I am against male genital mutilation. No one here is minimalizing female genital mutilation. By supporting a ban on the forced genital cutting of minors, you show that sexism should not be allowed to be written into our laws. Males and females should be offered equal protection from those who wish to mutilate their genitals, no matter how severe or how mild it may be. Boys and girls have every right to intact bodies. No procedures save life saving, immediately necessary surgeries should be allowed to be preformed on ANY minors. This includes females. No one is trying to minimalize female genital mutilation. I am against all genital cutting.

 I'm sorry if I sound repetitive, but people really seem to need to hear it said a few different ways before they understand.

My Unease About Abuse

I have all of these issues that pop up when I hear about abuse, especially emotional abuse. I get worried really easily that I'm somehow being an abuser accidentally. I suppose I'm worried that I'm so needy and prone to being upset that I'm making the relationship all about myself. I get worried any time someone contrasts it with  a more abusive relationship, because I'm afraid it's downplaying and rationalization. I love my halley so much that I start to feel like every little move is important, and I worry about her. Now, don't get me wrong. This irrationality is not because of my love, rather, my love combined with my general sense of low self esteem. This problem is hard to shake, but I'm getting better.

You see, I can look at all of the wonderful times we have together, and I can see that we giggle and play and be together. We talk about everything, we trust each other, and I can see how safe I make xyr feel. We know each other, on big issues and small, and we get along on so many levels. We We give affection and we always try to be so good to each other. And, of course, we have mindblowing kinky sex, with huge focus on the most important thing: consent.

 And when we do have problems? well, we talk them out. Sometimes, I'm a little reluctant at first, but, again, I'm not perfect and I'm working on this. I'm doing really well, I might add. We communicate. We tell each other how we feel, as openly and honestly as we know how. We usually fill in the form of "I am feeling _______ because __________________________________" and it works. We feel better soon. And, on top of that, most, if not all, of our issues stem from the desire to be good to each other and feeling of failing, or a simple miscommunication (almost always my fault, by the way. [but that doesn't mean I'm bad, or ruining the relaitonship] Halley takes things literally, and I mess with them by adding the connotations of words and silly things.) Problem resolution happens quickly, if I don't lose my head, and then it's back to snuggles and kisses and discussions of the state of the world and how to help the underpriveleged (We have a project coming up!! I'm excited, but more on that later!) and hugs and namics and games and sex and argumentation and writing our blogs together.

So, I guess what I mean to say is that, despite all of this, sometimes, I get scared in the deepest corner of my mind that I'm an accidental abuser. Lately, though, I've been able to get into that corner and show my mind the above mention of how my relationship works. And, however prone I am to feeling uneasy, I know with the most logical parts of me that my relationship with halley is healthy.

Abuse?

This is currently a meditations post. I will reorganize it more logically to make sense at a later date.

I have been abused. I think. Mildly. Emotionally. Physically, only by spanking. My dad is a jerk. But is he an abuser? I think so. I mean, he always made me feel like I wasn't worth it. His time. His effort. He got mad when I couldn't do things right. He taunted me when I failed. He let me chose things only to call my choices stupid.

I used to get to pick where to eat. That was one of the common events. And every time, I managed to pick wrong. He'd tell me I could pick anywhere I wanted, then, as soon as I did "well except there! What kind of idiot would pick there to eat in the first place?!" The same was true of picking out toys when there were different types, such as electronics. I remember wanting a pink and blue handheld CD player when I was maybe 7, and he called me every name in the book, and my choice a ridiculous waste of money, because there was one that would play better quality and hold up better that was plain grey and black. I should've gotten that one.

But so many of those things, he was right about. It was a bad idea to get a CD player for aesthetics. It's more the way he went about it. The red in the face, vein popping yelling he did about these things. I was a child and I wanted pretty things. And that made him so mad. It's not that he told me mcdonalds wasn't a good meal every night, or that I should get something that works rather than something that's pretty, it's that he yelled at me, implicitly called me stupid and an idiot, and that he made me feel like I wasn't worthwhile.

I was spanked. It was pretty hard, but it wasn't common. It was usually for particularly dangerous things, like the time I crossed a road with only a 7 year old when I was 6. It made me feel pretty miserable, but I generally accepted it as a fact of life.

I don't know. I don't think these things are bad enough to count as abuse. They instilled in me a sense of helplessness, and a reluctance to make choices. They made me second guess my every decision in a relationship, and made me feel like one wrong move can change me from just being Brittany to being some total idiot who can't say anything worth listening to.

It's Only Natural- guest post by halley

I'm generally skeptical about things, but some things I actually don't think too much about. I am truly a hippie at heart. I generally think that all things natural are good, if it's a decision that has specific consequences, well, then I make sure. Parenting is one of the ones that I've thought a lot about, but not too much away from my instincts. It makes sense that a natural way of parenting would be good because if it were bad, we may have all died by now. Like if circumcision was really necessary for good health, we would have died out.

I don't know much about the studies involving sleep training or formula feeding. Brittany tries to educate me about how much better breast milk is, but it only seems to go as far that the artificial way causes harm in my brain. I've always thought that setting your baby down would lead to it getting eaten by a saber toothed tiger. Realistically, I'm pretty sure that if my baby is away from me, it will get hurt. I've always hated the idea of putting a baby in a crib. When I heard that cosleeping was dangerous because your baby might suffocate, I was still going to do it because the risk seems less, I now know it to be true that your baby is safer with you then alone, even during sleep.

If there is no logical reason to mess with something natural, then I don't think it's a good idea to do it. As it turns out, many of our "improvements" on the natural way of doing things are downright dangerous to our babies. I don't need to know exactly how bad something is to know that something with no bad things about it is better. The idea that letting a baby cry without doing anything isn't the most awful thing you could do to it feels so wrong. If I was crying, I'd want the person who loved me to help me and if she didn't I wouldn't feel loved. Why on earth would a baby be different?

We ought to instinctively know how to parent because every other species on the planet knows how to parent. No other primate puts it's young in a place away from it, no other primate rips apart it's babies genitals, no other primate cuts the umbilical cord immediately, no other primate has it's young laying on it's back with it's legs up. There is a reason for these things, they just don't feel right, they aren't right and our hormones, subconscious, and thousands of years of genetic programming tell us so.

Don't get the wrong idea, trusting instincts blindly is a bad idea, make sure that doctors haven't came up with something better and everything, but in general, natural is best. Medicine is an exception, vaccines, emergency c-sections. Don't be ignorant of your options by any means, but if something is claiming to be better than the natural way, don't just assume that science must be better. Do look at the evidence, but let your instincts guide you when there is lack of evidence. Putting your baby to your breast is the most instinctive act of motherhood, why would you give your baby anything but what was designed just for it?

Peaceful Parenting And Atheism

I obviously believe in parenting kids with love and attachment and affection. I also definitely don't believe in any gods, and to me, it seems as if peaceful parenting comes as a natural affect of atheism and skepticism in general.


Allow me to explain. If I start with no gods, that means I have no "divinely inspired" books to tell me how to parent. I have to rely on what I can see in the real world. So, when I wonder how the best way to take care of children is, My obvious first thought is that I should be nice to them. I would think that the more they can feel loved and safe, the better things would go for them. Then I wonder what possible exceptions there could be to the simplicity of always giving my kids what they want and need.


Well, if we can't afford a material object, I could have to deny them that. So, I'd explain how we couldn't afford something like that and that we would save up our money for it. If my child wanted to do something dangerous, it is only logical that I would stop them, and explain how it would hurt them, and why they shouldn't do it, as well as physically preventing them from doing the action in the future. If they aren't yet of a mind to understand, simply the physical prevention should suffice. 


The most powerful convincing tool for peaceful parenting is the question "why?" And when you start with the given of loving your child and caring for his/her/xyr well-being, the following things come up.

There's a good answer for why to hold your child. Being held makes the baby feel secure and releases hormones that encourage bonding. 


There's a good answer for why to breastfeed. It's the normal, natural way, and the wonderful things in it cannot be replicated by formula. 


There's not a good answer for the things that fall into the baby training school of parenting. Whether studies say they are harmful or not, why do them in the first place?


Why hit your child? why hit him or her gently? why on his/her/xyr bottom? you shouldn't. There's no reason to assume it's beneficial, and even if it's completely devoid of psychological harm, there is at least physical harm at that moment, and no reason to assume "oh, I should hit my child".


Why amputate a part of your child's penis? again, regardless of if there are no psychological effects, it's a simple violation of human consent to remove any part of your child that can never be replaced.


I could go on and on, giving examples of both, but I'll stop there and simply say that there's a connection between having a logical mind and avoiding behaviors that aren't clearly loving. This silly ideal of tough love is born out of a parental selfishness, as well as biblical and religious support of spanking. Skeptics and atheists should, by all logic, be more a part of the attachment parenting world. Our children want and need us, and it only makes sense we should give them the comforting, safe atmosphere, both physically and psychologically.

Different Worlds- Nina

I was at my Mamaw's today. We don't see her often, because she's an alcohol abuser and fairly emotionally absent, and my mom and dad have never seen much reason to go see her, as she doesn't much care if we're there. However, she is considered by the neighborhood, competent to watch children, and when we showed up today for about 20 minutes, there were 6 children there, running about the house. Two belonged to my uncle Adam (well, one really, and another who has his name on her birth certificate as the father,  but that's not the point.) three to one neighbor, who was there at the time, but shut off in another room, and one to a different neighbor, who'd let her wander out of the house, and all the way in to Mamaw's house. Anyway, talking to one particular girl, I had this conversation.


Me: Hi, those are neat princess cards you're playing with
Nina: Yeah, I like them. What's your name?
Me: My name is Brittany. What's yours?
Nina: I'm Nina, but my mom calls me Sissy.
Me: That's really cool. My mom calls me sissy too.
Nina: Oh! You have a mom too! Cool!


It's so common in this child's world that someone is abandoned by their parents, that I didn't even have to say "my mom calls me sissy too" to have a common experience to bond about. All I had to say was "I have a mom too" Andrea helpfully chimed in "everyone has a mommy. They just don't always live with you" What she meant was that they abandon you. Not that you live with your dad in a divorce or anything like that. It essentially happened to her too. Her mother moved away and left my Mamaw to watch them. She pays lip service to loving her children, but doesn't see them often at all. I was in a room full of children who considered it an oddity to have two loving parents who actually paid attention to you, and I was at a loss for words. 

Halleyland

In halleyland it's warm.
In halleyland it's safe.
In halleyland A is A.
In halleyland there is love.
In halleyland I feel at home.
In halleyland everyone is good.
In halleyland I understand most things.
In halleyland there is no guilt.
In halleyland there is no irrational fear.
In halleyland there is little stress.
In halleyland there's no conformity or anti-conformity
In halleyland there's nothing wrong with me.
In halleyland there's tolerance.
In halleyland the world is simple.
In halleyland there are no stupid social rules.
In halleyland being nice is how to be nice.
In halleyland we help people, regardless.
In halleyland there is laughter.
In halleyland there is compassion.
In halleyland things just feel right.
In halleyland the silly little things don't matter.
In halleyland there is communication.

In the world it can be cold and lonely.
In the world it's so unsafe.
In the world A is not A.
In the world there is guilt.
In the world there is war.
In the world there is cruelty.
In the world there is much too much seriousness.
In the world the little things are everything
In the world there are rules to go through to say anything
In the world there is intolerance.
In the world there is blind faith
In the world I feel lost and far away
In the world communication is impossible.

My Diary

I kept a diary for a long time in my life. Now that's essentially been replaced by my blog, since my parents cannot find my blog and punish me for it anymore (well, very soon they can't, and I figured a month of hell was worth the cool new outlet for my feelings.) But I kept the first one starting in 6th grade. I call it my "book of lies" (like the bible!) because it's full of me lying to myself as I lied to my friends about my own sexual orientation. But my next one was totally, 100% unflinchingly honest with myself. I kept this was beginning in April of 2009, right up through december 2009, and then a few times scattered through the next year, almost skipping an entire year. This cataloged my time through the first time I had sex and a few other interesting times. Either way, it showed what a real baby I am inside, to myself. I never, ever, ever thought I'd let anyone read it. Least of all halley, because I was so embarrassed by the way I think.

So, naturally, yesterday, halley sat on my hips and read me my own diary. Completely adoringly, as if I shouldn't be ashamed of anything in it. Of how childish I sound or of how silly my concerns were. And I shouldn't. I know better now than I did then that my halley will never find some part of me that means we just can't be together. those were honestly my deepest thoughts and the only thing I had left to be embarrassed if xe saw. So, I feel a little better about our relationship now. I have proof, that, seeing every bit of me, halley is never going to find me not good enough for xyr.

I know it took a long time for me to realize. I practically had to be beaten over the head by the fact that my halley loves me. No matter what. And I love xyr too. On my deepest level, I love her. And xe read that in my diary. I feel happy. Like I have somehow proven to myself that we will work. And, with all the communication skills and loving, soft, exciting touching to back it up, I feel happy