Defeating Beholders

It feels like Novice and I are in a better place now, compared to a few months ago. I think back at some of our fights / misunderstandings / hurts... They feel smaller now, often less severe, and usually of shorter durations. Not to say that we don't accidentally hurt each other. It still happens much more often than I'd like. And not to say that I don't struggle with my own demons still, because I do.. But we know each other better now. Trust each other better. And know ourselves too. 

We had a couple of really, really tough weeks in the start of October. That's the last big one, and the one we'd had with the longest duration. We called that conflict The Beholder, because it sort of took on a life of its own. And we had to conquer it together, to get anywhere. Looking back, it was a perfect storm leading up to it, it just had to implode; 

I was two weeks post op after top surgery when it began, on October 1st. Still limited in mobility, still sore and tired, I'd just started trying to sleep in a regular bed, but it wasn't going very well. Novice still hadn't looked at or touched my naked chest, which made me feel sad and unloved. 

On her side, she'd been coped up with me for two weeks straight, almost no alone-time at all. Somewhat triggered by my healing wounds, but also hating herself because her triggers hurt me. She also wasn't out as a transwoman to her family yet, which was laying heavy on her mind.. Then she had a weekend of a ton of socializing and learning, which exhausted her.

I'd been stuck on her couch most of the time, I was under-stimulated and over-stimulated all at once. She loaned out her projector (that we use for playing Playstation and watching movies) for the weekend, but once she got it back she didn't put it back up. She was too exhausted (logically). And she wouldn't let me put it back up either. 

For almost two weeks. 

And all of a sudden, her appartement didn't feel safe anymore. She'd taken away the main thing I had to occupy myself with, wasn't able to fix it herself and refused to let me fix it for us. And because it was her appartement and her projector (and her Playstation and her... everything), I was powerless. I just could not wrap my mind around why she would do such a thing, and was incredibly hurt by it. 

I kept trying to give her space, but wasn't able to do so for long periods of time because I was really dysregulated myself. So I kept pushing her to flee, and we never got anywhere. Even after she actually put the projector back up, I was still dysregulated. I didn't dare to start using it again. If the things I use and like, can be taken away at any moment, can I really trust my surroundings at all? Can I ever relax?

After well over two weeks, I finally managed to get a grip, to let it go, to conclude that this is just how it is. What cannot be changed, must be endured. So I started using the projector again, playing Playstation again. It felt scary as fuck, but I did it.  It took 17 days of us both being, in varying degrees, dysregulated and miserable and hurt, before getting to that point.

That act of letting go, managed to help her out of her loop as well. She realized that she hadn't been able to let me put the projector back up, because she has a mental "hang-up" on her audio and video stuff being set up "just right". She needs to do it herself. This realization, in turn, made her actions more understandable and therefore bearable to me. She wasn't purposefully being unkind, it wasn't an attempt to drive me away because she didn't care about me.

Because that's the root of most of it: We're both fundamentally insecure, angst-ridden lumps of self-doubt. We struggle to believe that the other person really loves us. We expect to be abandoned. We can't wrap our minds around someone as much as liking us. When I hurt her, I hate myself for doing so, and she reacts in pretty much the same way. So emotions become scary, because if either of us displays hurt, the other person will hate themself for causing that hurt, making the first person hate themself for causing the second person to hate themself. We both take on absolutely all the blame, in every situation.

There isn't a quick fix to this. We will just have to learn over time, that the other person DOES love us. That their actions and words are NOT intended to hurt. That emotions ARE ok, and that someone else's self-hate and angst ISN'T your fault. And I feel like we're making progress. 

Novice has been struggling with insomnia these past couple of months, and is trying to get a handle on it now because it was getting out of control. That means she's much more tired that usual, and therefore more fragile too. On my side, I'm overwhelmed and somewhat burned out from everything happening last year. So I'm not my most  high-functioning self either...  And it's ok. We occasionally hurt each other or misunderstand each other, but we have more tools now than we did three months ago or a year ago. We grow, we learn. We love. 

And I think we'll be ok.