Unravelling Me

I wrote this blog a couple of weeks ago...decided it was too personal and deleted it. I am trying to determine what my word/phrase for this year will be and I keep coming back to a theme of living out loud. I mean that in so many ways - I'm out as a lesbian in my personal life but I make my family members too comfortable with it - so I still hide. I am a people pleaser so I worry that I lose myself in my desire to please others...so if I am really going to be unapologetically me then I need to put this post back up even though it is hard for me to put this subject matter out there.

Here it goes...here I am showing my vulnerable little underbelly...

I'm wondering how to unravel negative messages that are so knit in to the fabric of my being that it feels as if unwinding them may unwind me.

I am in a loving relationship with a wonderful person who loves and accepts me for me and yet I still struggle with these messages about sex and sexuality from my formative years; I don't know how to fix them. There is an inner vixen in there...someone who likes and enjoys sex but she is completely imprisoned by a woman who feels guilt and shame about her past and who carries and wears the disappointment of her family. I carry it to bed every night...wearing it like an old, ugly robe. That robe needs to be burned. I want it to be burned. I need it to be burned.

It's not even about the fact that I'm in a same-sex relationship...I had this same issue when I dated men. My first memory of a sexual experience was being 4 or 5 and my Mom found me with a stuffed animal between my legs and I got a spanking for it. I was told that it was a sin to do touch yourself in any way. My parents had sex but it was very secretive. Not that you want it in front of your children but they acted like it was dirty and something to be hidden from me. I don't think they felt that way about it - but that was the message.

Then there are the things I've done along the way that go against what I want to believe about myself. I want to believe that I'm a good girl. That I'm a good Christian/Spirit. That I'm a good person...but how do you believe that with a past like mine? I would never let anyone talk about my worst enemy the way I talk to myself - that has to stop. I've forgiven myself for some things but others I don't know how to let go of such a far departure from my own morals and beliefs. I carry such pain and shame around with me every day and I don't want that any more. I want to lay it down and be free.

So, I need to forgive me for having sex for the first time with the wrong motives...I did it because I was going through a very tough time with the church I grew up in and I was rebelling against God.

I need to forgive myself for having sex for the wrong reasons in most subsequent relationships - I did it to get the guy or get the girl or get the approval and the love I so wanted.

I need to forgive myself for a relationship with a married man. Wow. That one is hard to write down. That one is the one I can't bring myself to forgive. That one scars my soul.

I have forgiven myself for getting pregnant and placing that child for adoption...it is a continual source of joy and pain and when I struggle with issues around adoption I struggle with sex.

Funny enough the thing I feel least guilty about is the thing you'd think I'd feel most guilty about: being in a same-sex relationship. It goes against everything I was raised to believe...but I've done so much reading and praying and soul-searching about it that this is the one thing I don't feel guilty about. I hate that I've disappointed my family and I do wear that shame but I've also really turned a corner on that in the last couple of years and am becoming more willing to let them wear their own shame and not take it on as my own. Now I need to not let their secrecy become my secrecy - I'm not sure how to do that while still honoring their wishes - but I'm learning.

Wow. I'm not sure I can post this. I'm not sure this is what I want out there for public consumption no matter how little my little blog is read...but then again that is what I'm fighting against...letting my shame and guilt force me back in the dark and only portray to others that which I want to accept as part of myself. I think I'm really struggling with this as I'm on this diet and losing weight - losing my safety blanket of self comfort and my way of keeping myself unattractive - as I go through this process I have to stand up and face my demons. I'm ready. I have to be. I only have half my life left to live and I want to live it with joy and laughter and peace and happiness and intimacy and freedom and lots of love in all of my relationships.

OK, I'm going to hit Post and put it out there because funny enough I have no problems telling people about my sexual orientation but there are a few things that to me are so unforgiveable that I can hardly speak them out loud. So that is what I need to speak. That is what I need to put a voice to...my shame needs a voice so that it can be silenced inside this prison of a mind.

To quote one of my favorite lines in one of my favorite movies (So I Married an Axe Murderer), "I have two words for you my friend, 'therapy'."