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9:30 p.m. - 02/20/03
+:the pain is manifest in my resistence to your love:+
Three diaryland entries, ah ah ah.

When I asked the doc why it wasn't ok to just not discuss this, have this, develop or understand this, he said it wasn't so much that it's not *ok* as that it's not *possible.* As in, he knows better than to believe I've ever been asexual, even though he believes that I haven't felt much in that direction, in order to keep from feeling unsafe. His example was going to the bathroom; you could decide you didn't want to do that anymore, but you couldn't very well quit. And the first thing that popped into my mind, which I really *wish* I'd said- but I didn't- was...or like eating? Like you can't stop eating because you need food... but I *did* stop eating. That's what has me so confused. I did this once before. I turned off a need. And yes, it led to hellish places, and it took away so many things, and it was abusive, and I spent years not knowing myself and hating what I thought I knew...but...but...is there anything to add to that statement? I *did* it, all the same. I could do it, the same way that somehow, I managed to not feel any of this shit for several years. I managed to feel asexual whether or not I was, without any great effort. And that's what bugs me now, partly, is that I feel like I can just flip the switch again if I want to, but then...I can't seem to make it work anymore.

And the thing is, it has to be different this time. If I really believe that "eating disorder" is a misnomer- that the illness consists of feeling and thought patterns which manifest in food but also in other areas- than I need to treat this the same way I would turning off my need for food. It needs to matter just as much. It's just, this one thing is still poison. This one thing has always been bad. And there's so much to go into around it, and my head caves in before I even start to speak; it's too much even to pose a question. I tell him, I don't even want to say I'm thinkisng about it because that seems to make it real. Suddenly. I can deny it when it's inside me, but when I start to show it to others, when I mention it, bring it up, discuss it, answer questions...how will I deny it then?

He says it's a part of me. One part. And one part, no matter if it's good or bad, cannot compete with the genuine strength and goodness at my core. I think I've taken that to mean something else, though- probably before he even said that. Putting the emphasis not on the one, but rather on the "part." I like to see things in neat columns, dissected down, made simple, placed below grids. I like to keep my food from touching and my feelings from touching and my memories from having any links. "No, I wasn't abandoned *again*- it's just this person left and that person left, but it was for entirely different reasons and in different ways and the two had nothing to do with each other so why would you even suggest such a thing" sorts of thinking. I guess it's a big step for me just to say that what I'm feeling about the ed and what I'm feeling about relationships could be pretty parallel. Or maybe not parallel. Maybe they connect.

I'm just scared of that, you know? I'm scared of the idea that this is something inseparable, something that seriously is a part of me. If this person I am is good and this part is connected to her, than it means I'm continuing to treat one aspect of myself with the same fear and loathing and suffocatory (oh, who cares, it's a word now...) tactics that I used to give *every* part. I used to give the whole self. If it's a part of me, than I'm damaging something connected to the goodness. I want to keep them separate. I want to say, there's this brilliant, wonderful, amazing girl at the core of me, and she's doing beautiful, wonderful, amazing, marvelous things, and I love her. And then there's this other part that's a bit starved and confused and abused because I kept her locked away for years (but obviously, if she wasn't supposed to be, I wouldn't have done it) and yeah, she's probably needs some healing, too, but you know- she's not a *part* of me. Owning everything inside me, all of who I am, makes what I'm doing to this part (or have done) like brutally attacking only one arm. It makes it into a limb on my strong tree. And how can I say that such brutality is ok, when it's connected to the goodness? I know this for everyone else. I know this for everyone else; it's a given. But once again my standards for myself are skewed. I don't want the essential me to have one horribly abused arm. I don't want that for her at all. I want to love her fully so that she can fully thrive. But if that means accepting, or even starting to uncover, this part... I'm so terrified.

And it's so frustrating! It's so stupid to me that I'm terrified. Especially that I'm terrified of being gay (which granted is probably less than I am of being straight, simply because I'm scared of responses to my being gay, I'm scared of being in actual straight relationships). Acceptance (for others) is so intrinsic to me. It's so natural. It's bizarre to me when people don't act entirely accepting, when they aren't just alive with curiosity to know another person through and beyond *all their labels*- when they can get so caught up in one. And I do it, too, I guess. Labels like "man" send me running. But hell, I've been seeing a male doctor for nearly a year now. I tell him basically everything, I trust him, and I'm so grateful to see him. So maybe that's getting better. In general, especially for someone with as little exposure to diversity as I've had, I'm open. I think I'll be more open as I'm able to enter a community where diversity is a given because now there's still that, "hey, look! that person isn't tanning-bed brown with tawny hair and blonde highlights! and oh my god, they're not wearing abercrombie *either!*" Post-neverland-jaw-dropping syndrome. The number of freaks in the world still astounds me. In a good way. That childlike awe I talk of cultivating.

So, what? So this is me? This is part of *me?* Part of the good, the strength, the oh-so-happy things? How is that possible? I don't think that's possible right now. But I realize, from writing what I can do with that (beyond the fact that I'm entertaining the idea now.) I can cultivate a healthy, fledgling doubt. I can cultivate a doubt that says, almost inaudibly, "Maybe this doesn't have to be something awful that happens to me. Maybe this is something of me that will be wonder on my terms." That's the big fear, I think. Losing control. Losing control of how I'm perceived, of how I relate, admitting to something so animal inside of me. Setting myself up for the rape I always thought would come.

I've only recently become one to blame the media, and maybe I'm overlooking some other criminal force...but that last thought is real *shit*- you know? No one should be sitting around waiting for a rape to occur. I read about Freud's fucked-up psych studies that say women create tales of sexual abuse because they can't accept their own desire without making it a forcible thing. And it's such bullshit. That, and television, and music, and video...it's all so stupid. Whatever planted this idea in my head, whatever watered it, and gave it the right light, and the correct angle of shade, needs to go to hell and die. And that's saying a lot, for a girl who doesn't believe in such brimstone.

chord, who slept away the evening and feels a "little better"

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