Reason # 4637848 Polyamory is awesome

About two months ago I had, what seemed like maybe a sinus infection that was annoying enough to make me feel tired and run down, but not out of it enough to go to the doc. Then I got laryngitis and some chest congestion, again, I did not go to the Dr.

Yesterday around 10 a.m I started to have chest pains on inhalation on my right side. My boyfriend W had errands to run but offered to take me to the ER. I did not want to be a burden, "It's the ER, I will be there all day." I told him to run his errands. Then I went to make an appointment with my PCP but was on hold for so long I gave up. Then I considered Med Express, but for some reason, it charges me 200$ (er visit fee) for  Med Express, and I figured they might want to run tests that can't be run there. So they may refer me to the ER anyhow, another 200$. (I'm not going to get into the sad state of health care here in the US) W told me to go. So, I let him take me. My husband, R is at work, and W happened to have his moms car that day, so if it had to happen, it was a good day for it.

While being checked in, they asked about my emergency contacts. They had R listed, and I asked if they could add  W. They asked what the relationship was and I said "boyfriend"  The check-in lady, sweet as can be said to me "Oh do you want me to take R off of here?" And I said no. She looked at me funny. I said, "We have an open relationship, it's fine." She looked at me and said, "I have a question,  is it fun?"

"Ha! Yes," I replied, "I have lots of love in my life."

After having a CT scan, they said I had 'substantial pneumonia.' They said two of my three lobes in my lungs were infected and that I could go home, but I would end up back in the er the next day. They wanted to keep me maybe 2-3 days on an iv drip to get rid of it.

By the time we figured everything out six hours later, R had finished work, so he packed a bag and brought it to me. I was a little worried about all this, missing work, etc. But, both R and  W came to visit me and bring my bag upstairs when I went to my room. Then they each sat with me for a few hours, and we talked, laughed, it was an excellent stress relief.  My comet partner is going to pick me up tomorrow, and my girlfriend was unable to visit but has been chatting with me to check in.. I'm glad I have so much love and support in my life.  Early this morning W came to visit, and R is coming later.

I'm grateful  W nagged me just to come. I'm glad R was home so that he could easily bring me some stuff.  I feel so loved and protected by my polycule. It is fantastic when all these people love and care about you.  I never really had that growing up, and it makes me appreciate it so much more as an adult.

As I've said in past blog posts, my mom always said I was poly because I was trying to recreate a better family life than what I had as a child. Maybe she's right, but anyhow, the whole "it takes a village" isn't just for kids. Everyone should be so lucky to have all this love in their life. I am glad, even sitting here in this hospital bed, that I am so loved, and it's excellent. :)

*~*~*Slutty Heart*~*~*

Going from good to bonkers

So, let's discuss a topic near and dear to my heart - Mental health. This is going to be a very long post, but it's important, and I SWEAR it has something to do with poly, even though at first it might not seem that way.

Lately, I've been feeling great. R, my husband, seems annoyed with me lately. When he's annoyed for what seems like absolutely no good reason, it's usually because I'm starting to slide down the slippery manic slope.

So. Just so people know, before I say anything else, just like depression isn't being "just sad" mania isn't being "just happy" either. And I've been at this for so long, that I can see the darkness hiding in the light. I know that even though I have a laundry list of good things going on, I can see the red flags in there, even in the best of happenings.

1.) I'm crushing it at work. We have key performance indicators and I am DESTROYING them with my charisma and charm. haha. This is not a bad thing at all.

2.) Inflated self esteem. (if you couldn't tell from point number 1.) I'm clearly feeling REAL good about myself. My self esteem is great and my value at work is being noticed which only makes me feel even better. Again, not a bad thing. I also feel super pretty.

3.) I keep a fairly strict sleep/wake routine, and eating routine and other such things as a way to monitor my mental health so that when I start to fall away from my patterns, I am more likely to notice it and make note. I generally go to bed between 11:30-12:30 and wake around 7:30 am. Last night I socialized with a new person until 1:30 am and it took everything in me to finally kick him out so I could go to sleep like I knew I should have an hour prior.

4.) I tend to get super generous with my money when I'm hypomanic. Today I bought W a pair of (to be fair, sorely needed) eyeglasses. Not terribly cheap.

5.) I've been fighting the urge to drink lately. I don't drink. At all. It makes me manic. When I'm getting manic, I usually want to give in and drink and just scream into the void to BRING IT ON!

6.) I've been feeling super creative lately and writing more. I AM NOT COMPLAINING. I love to write!

7.) I've been told to 'slow my speech down' a lot lately.

8.) My sex drive is up.

So, while almost all of these things can be considered GOOD things in my life, they are also red flags. Because they eventually, if left unchecked, have a good chance of turning bonkers. This is how it goes:

At first, I crush my numbers at work, I get a lot of accolades and notice of my accomplishments. Then I start to get weird.

 I start sleeping less, socializing more, staying up late, waking up early, maybe I drink, Suddenly my performance starts to slide, and in a big way because I have a job where being charismatic is super important. When actual mania hits, and I start to worry that people can look me in the eye and SEE that I am not mentally well is when it really goes downhill fast. I worry people can see the illness inside me, I stop making eye contact, very important in my job. I start to distance myself from my patients/customers, get snippy with my co workers. It becomes difficult to go to work, to stay at work, to even show up and I talk so fast no one can understand me. I'm told over and over again to slow down while I'm explaining features and benefits, but I can't, so I just annoy people. This hurts my numbers and makes my boss (who knows I am bipolar) worry about me and the business.

 I start pretty much giving away my hard earned cash, taking my friends and sometimes strangers out to expensive dinners, I can't possibly burn through my money fast enough doing that so I start gambling. Tables games sometimes, mostly poker. You should not play poker, manic. NOTE: YOU SHOULD NOT PLAY POKER, MANIC.

Then once I've burned through my cash I start wracking up the debt. Some episodes take months if not longer to recover from financially. I stop going to work. I use up all my PTO, I stay home and fuck strangers I find on tinder because my sex drive is out of this world. I invite them to my house on first meeting and might not even catch their name by the time they are out the door. Then I unmatch them before they reach my porch. This is around the time I'll start hallucinating. Thinking the police are listening to me through my phone, I swear I can hear the police walkie talkie clicking coming from my phone, I hear them, hearing me. Old fashioned phones are ringing in my ear, people are angrily screaming my name, doors that aren't there are slamming. I feel electricity under my skin and I can't get all the energy inside me OUT fast enough and I shake and wring my hands until they are raw. I pace until I've worn a path in the floor. Soon, I'll get violent, and it will all end in a blazing glory of me hiking up the hill to the local psych hospital where I'll go to get my meds straight. Something I should have done long before all that other shit happened.

So yes, I'm keeping an eye out right now, and will up my haldol once I see for sure it's needed.

How does this relate to poly, you are wondering?

Well, I'm good at catching shit these days, I see the bonkers coming in the wave of positive things happening in my life. I find myself saying, "Why can't I ALWAYS feel this way? Why does it have to turn bad?" To which my bipolar partner K replies, "That is a manic sentence if I've ever heard one. And I have. From myself, every time I get manic."

My husband is annoyed at me and it will only get worse and drive a wedge between us if I let this go. K is happy and proud that I'm catching it early. W is saying, "Maybe you are just happy." But he has very little experience with mental health issues and doesn't quite grasp the seriousness of the events unfolding before us.

I'm very happy that I have so many loving people in my life that I can bounce off of and find support from and hell, even teach and help to understand further. If I HAVE to be sick...If I ABSOLUTELY MUST deal with this cyclical, at alternating times depressing and maniacal illness, if it is something, which it always has been (diagnosed at 14, sick long before that.) that I must deal with, in the end I'm glad I'm not dealing with it alone. I'm also so happy to have my polycule, so that I don't drain any one partner with all my bullshit. It makes it easier for me, and I imagine, easier for them, they have each other, I have each of them, no one person has to bear the weight of my sickness. We share this...I hate to say burden but in all honesty it is a burden. We share this burden and it makes the load a little less heavy for each who must carry it with them. For that, I am grateful.

******************************************************

TL;DR

*I suffer from a wretched mental illness and am so happy I have multiple loves in my life to help me carry this burden.*

******************************************************


*~*~*Slutty Heart*~*~*

"Friends are family you choose for yourself."

A woman at work said to me
“I get the gay thing, the bi thing, I don’t get the non-monogamous thing.”

I can’t help but wonder why people have such difficulty with this. I GET the monogamous thing, and that is that I GET it, literally, without ever having been monogamous myself. I don’t see the appeal, but I’m not bothered by it, nor do I find it particularly mind-boggling.

I can only speak from my own experience.
I am at work, so I don’t say to her, what I want to say, which is: 

Hey lady, if you think loving and being loved by one amazing person is incredible, try adding a few more and see maybe if you aren’t walking around with a smile plastered on your face all day too.

I feel so much joy in my poly life. Someone asked me today how my life was going, we hadn’t spoken in a while, and they said, “How is poly life treating you?” I’m so lucky, that even when my life is in shambles at work, when my mental health is in disarray and my physical health is failing too….the one constant is that my relationships are all fantastic in their own ways. I have such an amazing poly family, I can not begin to express my gratitude here. I am loved, and it feels really, really lovely. :)

My mom always said I was poly because I came from a broken/unstable family life. This could be true. I can’t really say, but if I had set out to create a better family for myself, than the cold and unloving one that I grew up with as a child, then I did a DAMN excellent job of it. Because I am surrounded by people who love me, and I love them, and we are family. I have such a strong sense of family with all of these people, and I just could not imagine my life without them at this point. They have all been around from the ‘newest’ partner, at 5 years to the ‘oldest’ partner of 22 years. These people are not flings or romp n’ roll in the hay playtime buddies. These are people I’m making memories with, memories that will last a lifetime. People who I can count on, who care about me, people who I am lucky to call partners and privileged to call family. If I somehow have set out subconsciously to build the perfect, loving, caring, supportive family, fuck it, I’ve succeeded.

For those who just don’t get it, or think I’m just being slutty, you have entirely missed the point. 

*~*~*Slutty Heart*~*~*

Love with a fearless and faithful abandon....

So, my poly family, K, R, B and I all went to the beach together. Our first trip. It was a great time. I'd love to bore you to death with tails of conquering the ocean, seeing the wild horses and dolphins and all the fun stuff we did, but I have something more serious to discuss.

So when we got back, a couple of weeks went by, things were starting to get to a certain point with B, he started to have doubts and jealousy. As K says, "If every poly person who had jealousy and doubts at some point or another stopped being poly because of those doubts and jealousy, there would be no poly people." Truth.

A lot of people assume we don't deal with these issues. But we do. Within monogamy, I feel like jealousy means something different than in polyamory. In monogamy, it's like a badge of honor. If your man or woman is jealous, it means they really care about you. I don't see jealousy that way though, I don't see ME being jealous of another person as a sign that I care so much about my partner, more, it seems like if I'm jealous that there is something lacking with me. Am I jealous of the time spent with that person? Their affections? Or is it something far more insidious, like a personal insecurity? Most likely, it is. That is the worst. Because no one wants to look into themselves and see that they doubt their self-worth. Will my partner be my partner forever? Will they find someone else if I "allow" them to see other people outside the group?

These were some things that B and K were dealing with at the moment. K made a promise that she's not going anywhere that she won't leave, and it was hard for her to be so vulnerable. This promise may have set his mind a bit at ease, but, none of us know what the future will hold. Maybe your other WILL leave you for someone else, or will find a new primary, or maybe you thought you were on equal grounds but suddenly you find yourself a secondary, somehow not knowing it had been that way all the entire time. There are many variables here. No one knows what's coming, what changes our relationships will suffer, and if they would survive those changes. All I know for certain is change is the one thing we can count on. Being a part of a relationship is almost like thrill seeking. Simply because we do not know the ending. Is it happily ever after, which we won't know until our death bed, or is it more of a 'may so and so be damned' situation. We don't know. We can't know. That's what's so amazing about it. You go all in with your emotions, you feel so fully (if you're doing it right) and you are risking it all. Risking your future with this person, risking things like "losing your youth" to someone you've given the 'best years of your life' to (I am quoting my mother here). But....what if....what if they stay.

What if it is happily ever after? There's only one way to find out.

So we talked and talked. Then, we talked some more. (If you're poly I'm sure you know how that goes!) Everything got worked out, even if they are issues that no one can ever guarantee the way K tried to guarantee them to B. I think on some level he knows that she can't know that no one will know until we get there. But I think there is faith, and that keeps him around. The faith, the blind, unwavering belief that she will be there for him no matter what the future holds is enough to keep his head above water, though he's nearly drowning in the fear that she will leave.

I suppose I have the same fears, and in some ways those fears are coming true. R, K and I have always claimed to be non-hierarchical. When push comes to shove though, B is where K's future lies. He can marry her one day and give her the children she someday wants, and we can't. That doesn't mean we have to end, but the dynamic has changed and like I said, change is all we can really count on.

My advice here to anyone who is questioning their relationship is just to love with a fearless and faithful abandon. If it ends "Don't be sad that it's over, be happy that it happened."

*~*~*Slutty Heart*~*~*

A Thousand Nights...

A bit after the Columbus Took A Chance poem, I was feeling a little more than just mushy feelings, so.....I wanted to write and B said, "Write about what you want." And this is what came to be:

A Thousand Nights

We lay in bed the morning after a night 

of heavy drinking

he tells me he was thinking 'stuff' 

about me last night

"What kind of stuff?" I ask

"Awesome stuff."  he replies.

I don't want to pry

A drunken memory of the night before

plays behind my eyes

of him holding my face

in both hands

and saying

"Do you have any idea how much you mean to me?"

Which I reply with a shake of the head...no

and a kiss

abyss deep

I lock eyes with him

and can't help but wonder if he remembers

such shared moments

in the dark

hot 

pulsating 

club 

at 2 a.m 

the night before

As I write this

I can't help but think

'Part of me is made of glass'

and here I am, breaking before him

"Tell me what you want...." He says to me

from across the dinner table

I get lost in his eyes, that dark honey brown

and his crooked smile

"I don't really know" I say

That was then

today I know

I know I want him to hold my hand as we walk

and I want a thousand nights of him 

holding me tight and asking if I know how much

I mean to him.

A week ago I wanted less

but it's my passion, you see

people

and the experience they can give me

good or bad

I want his place in my heart to be a 

patchwork of sex and crooked smiles

hand holding and

drunken nights

and emo songs playing in the background

on youtube while his eyebrow arches 

and he says, "Want to go into the bedroom?"

A thousand nights that end that way 

wouldn't be enough.

"Tell me what you want...." He whispers in my ear

while I lay naked and breathless beneath him

I can't bring myself to say the words

spinning through my mind, though my body

is aching for his touch

I want his hands tugging at my hair

his nails tearing at my flesh

his lips on my thighs

and his fingers around my throat

as I gasp for air

My orgasm pulsing just below the surface

waiting to shoot through my fingertips

my nails tearing at the sheets

and my eyes locking with his 

as he gives me that crooked smile

and yes

A thousand nights that end that way

wouldn't be enough

*~*~*Slutty Heart*~*~*

Tear you apart...

I've been struggling for a couple of weeks to write this post. I don't know why. I don't know what to say. If you've read K's Rants you know that she and her previous partner, C, have split. She is now dating B.

It seems I am also dating B. It was agonizing for me to write that last sentence. I mean, he's nice, he's open and honest and smokin' hot. But...I am emotionally unavailable in a lot of ways, ways that weren't as obvious to me until he came around. He just SAYS things. Says things that he FEELS. WHAT?! I mean, honestly so does K....but....I feel secure with K I guess? There is this newness to B and this uncertainty. I'm just  left silent by a lot of things that he says because I'm kind of like, left looking around like...."Was he talking to me?". *looks over shoulder*

It's good but painful. In that way good sex is good, but painful. *analogy high five*

I can not say another word on this subject. It's maddening.

How about you guys? Any emotionally unavailable polys out there? It seems kind of like an oxymoron or contradiction or some such thing....I'm working on it. Feel free to comment about your emotional unavailability issues or that of a partner and how they may have worked through it. Thanks.

*~*~*Slutty Heart*~*~*

Sex. and stuff. and things. yeah...That.

Sexual stuff was a real challenge for all three of us once it came time for that part of our relationship to evolve. There was this one time when the three of us played a bit, and I accidentally leaned on and CRUSHED R's ball's. So yeah, that ended that. You would think. But the real reason that night ended so abruptly was because later down the road K expressed some nervousness about being with me specifically. Mainly  because it had been so long since she'd been with a woman, and she had nerves about pleasing me (I bitch about ALL the TONS of bad sex I've had in the past, and it didn't help, she didn't want to be one of those stories.)

I will be entirely honest. I  freaked out in my own way. I got up and started cooking dinner in the middle of us all fooling around. I was, in my head, providing her an out. I started having waves of panic. Was this going to be another situation like with A? I went to bed early, and alone. Everyone started to feel weird and sad and awkward. I saw K sulk past the bedroom door. R went out to check on her at my insistence, in my mind she was drowning her sorrows in wine, or doing some other similarly self-destructive thing.

When he returned I asked, "Is she okay?"

"No." He replied

I  panicked..."What's she doing?"

"She's...eating applesauce. Very. Slowly."

OMG! The relief. haha, looking back it's kind of hilarious. I called her into the bedroom, and we had a long talk all about her insecurities and mine, and issues and fears I have regarding A and where our relationship would go.

Since then, sex and such has happened for all of us, and my fears were unfounded, of course. I rarely have these A type thoughts creep up on me, but when they do, there is usually a deep and thoughtful conversation that follows, just to reassure me. Honestly, sometimes all I need is for her to hold me and kiss my forehead and tell me she loves me, and that she's not A. Things are different now, they are beautiful.

*~*~*Slutty Heart*~*~*

We are family

My family has known that I'm poly for a long while. When I was 28 though, I came out as bisexual. I was in my first triad; my mom was not thrilled about this and at the time she thought that I was dating R and R was dating our then girlfriend A.  The only reason I even told her was because A, who had not yet shown herself to be a problem had played an instrumental part in getting me the psych help that I needed. I  had gone through a particularly bad depression. I was sitting in the hospital, on the phone with my mom when I said, "So, you know how R is dating A?" She sighed and said "yes." and then I came out with it. "Well, so am I." her response was "Well...that is something you will have to discuss in therapy." CLICK.

To be entirely honest, I did not have the best family life growing up. My mom decided that this was the reason I am poly, because I had such a shitty childhood that I am trying to recreate a better family dynamic. R had a fabulous family life though, so whatever. Then she proceeded to tell me that we aren't a 'real' family.

Anyhow, I just want to take this moment to say that I DO have an amazing little poly family with K and R and even though it might not be the normal way to go about having a family, I'm very happy with the way things have turned out for us. We are all so very happy together, and we are a family.

In the comments below feel free to tell me how your family has reacted to you coming out as lgbt or poly. 

*~*~*Slutty Heart*~*~*