Early Adulthood

After I came out to my mother at 22, she never mentioned it again - not even when I brought my boyfriend over for Thanksgiving dinner.

My year-long relationship with said boyfriend - who gave me scabies (though we never discussed it after going to the doctor) - ended when he left for Florida, unannounced. Afterward, I had been (what I now know to be) raped by a gorgeous rebound guy who shortly thereafter asked me to buy him a Mustang. (I owned my first business by then and had some success normally unthinkable for 23-year-olds.)

My aunt - who was the most tolerant of my orientation - told me that I had been whoring myself out. That guys were "just like that." And that that's what I was "signing up for." She slut-shamed me, stereotyped me, belittled me, and invalidated me. Of course, I couldn't name those things at the time. I just knew I felt an overwhelming sense of shame. Even my most open-minded, intelligent, psychologist aunt thought something was wrong with me. That I deserved any bad experiences that might come my way. That my "proclivities" were disgusting, or pathological. She never asked me about my identity after that, and I never wanted to speak of it with her again, either.

I dated Carie shortly after (and for several years) - which was comfortable because she was queer too, while still being a girl. That was 20 years ago. John, you are the first man I've dated since I was raped. You made my cognitive dissonance crystal clear when I was forced to resolve you with "all guys are that way."

My emotional neglect, my forced financial independence, and the shame and obedience drilled into me weren't isolated issues. They were interconnected threads of control, woven together by conditional love - love that said, "You are worthy if and only if you are compliant, unproblematic, and unburdensome. Only if you make me look like a good mother in front of my friends." My sense of self-worth became deeply tangled in these conditions, and my struggle to assert autonomy in my relationship with my mom wasn't merely an interpersonal dilemma or an unskillful navigation of a sharing of minds - it was a rebellion against decades of emotional coercion and conditional acceptance that shaped my very sense of self.

Recognizing this has been critical for me. It's why validation and genuine emotional understanding are so critically important in my life - especially now.

My smarts and logical thinking aren't like yours. Mine are learned defenses against being told - or feeling - that I'm stupid and therefore unworthy of love, and perhaps I'll even be physically hurt or unable to feed, clothe, or shelter myself. They are also side-effects of spending too much time alone.

In our relationship, this wound was activated every time we got into the "teacher-student" dynamic you mentioned - which was often, because you're so knowledgeable. In those times, I felt as though I wasn't smart enough to be lovable. That I'm not intellectually stimulating enough for you. That I'm being talked down to because I'm stupid. Every word of your endearing, lovable, patient explanations might as well have been a dagger in my heart. It might as well have been my father whipping me with his belt or leaving me on the side of the road. But I tried my best to swallow this pain, silently, and in other ways, because I knew how much effort you, too, were putting into our communication, and that you didn't have any knowledge of this sensitivity. I hid it from you. I hid my deep pain in those moments to try, for you.

Even as I write this, I hear - immediately, and intrusively - in my head, my mother's dismissive voice, chuckling, saying, "Oh son, you were never really left on the side of the road. Maybe for a few minutes - but that's just what they did back then." Except, now, with clarity, I scream back in my head, "No you stupid bitch, he left me in another god damn state when I was 11!" (writing this email has already spurred two angry journal entries, as Mother's Day approaches, entitled "To My Dear Mother, on Your Special Day," which were cathartic releases.)

Instead of your natural intellectual smarts, I learned emotional intelligence. If I could get adults to react positively to me when I was a kid, then I could make my parents look good in front of their friends - and receive some positive attention from my parents (one of the few times they seemed legitimately proud of me). Knowing how to identify and trigger things people found entertaining or interesting was highly rewarded. Not drawing attention to myself, not being a "problem," was a survival skill - to avoid physical pain. Learning to recognize when someone might be starting to think I was getting annoying at such a young age also made me hyper-sensitive to the slightest perception of rejection or criticism - especially from people important to me or their friends.

Usually, this skill is what lets me empathize and connect - deeply - with people I love, and marginalized or victimized groups. Sometimes people call others with similar sensitivities HSPs (Highly Sensitive People). It makes me avoid doing anything that might solicit a negative response from others (especially lovers) - even a minor one - even at my own expense - even when it's important.

My childhood neglect also means I don't need a lot of validation to feel "normal." In fact, asking for validation can even feel like an inherent failure for me. Like I'm being a problem - exactly the thing that poses an existential risk. It's not a logical feeling - it's just a deep wound that only heals slowly over time, and probably never completely.

It's why I never feel comfortable letting other people pay for me, and prefer to pay for them - because, to me, I live in a perpetual state of being inherently unworthy - of inherently being "in debt" to anyone I am "positively inclined towards." Letting them pay for me means I'm even more in debt; I'm trouble - a financial burden. But, if I pay for them, then maybe they'll overlook some of my inherent deficiencies which make me a burden.