Realisation

I have apparently developed a serious discomfort with heterosexual males that I don't know well. It seems that any guy I met before the mysterious point at which that happened is totally okay. But any after and I'm skittish and uncomfortable. So far as why this has happened, I don't know. It's a chicken and egg argument. Have I become more uncomfortable with the heterosexual male because I'm hanging out mostly with girls or non-heterosexual males or am I hanging out with girls and non-heterosexual males because heterosexual males are making me uncomfortable? Soon I will hopefully be able to test and see if it's ALL heterosexual males or just YOUNG heterosexual males.
It's been an odd realisation, as this is not something I've had the greatest problem with in the past. I mean, I've often been an "one of the guys" girl. Some of the best friends I have had were heterosexual males. I'm the one who always calls bullshit when people say that a woman can't be friends with a heterosexual male. THEY'RE PEOPLE JUST LIKE US.
God...I have no idea where that last bit came from. Forgive me.
It was REALLY strange to realize that. I just keep coming up with these realisations and I'm honestly too stressed to deal with them. My mind is turtling lately because of stress, I DO NOT NEED ADDED SELF-REALIZATIONS.
I have to wonder if this discomfort is temporary. I mean, if it is temporary and recent (as in, the reason I didn't realize it before was because it didn't exist) I can think of what caused it. And when removed from that cause I could hope for it to disappear. Because I need it to disappear if I want to be able to play Shadowrun again. I can't just AVOID straight guys, particularly not in the kinda insular gaming community. I enjoy being part of the community when I'm in a position to do so. I enjoy hanging out with straight guys. I don't want to lose that because of stupid brain-chemistry stuff.
There are two reasons I can think of that I'm feeling like this. One is that recently I have been put into the middle of some heterosexual "feelings" drama(s). If that's the reason, then I'm thinking this is a temporary thing brought on by the stress of dealing with it. A temporary thing that will go away. The other reason...is going to require a lot more work.
The other reason is another realization I had not too long ago. One that I sort of already knew, but hadn't really pondered the consequences of dealing with. I mean...I knew about it, but hadn't really thought through how it was going to effect me. So, big reveal coupled with trigger warning. If you've ever been sexually assaulted or abused in any way READ NO FURTHER if you can't handle the topic.
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A couple of months after my marriage my now ex-husband celebrated his 21st birthday by getting drunker than I have EVER seen him. To the very best of my knowledge he has no clear memory of that evening. He sexually assaulted me. I said no. A bunch. He had sex with me. At no point did I give consent. After he started, I clenched my fists and tried to dissociate myself from what was happening to me. I had never thought something like that COULD happen to me. A year or two later when we finally talked about it (I had told him something happened, but never the details) he got very angry with my having ever dared say he forced me. Because apparently I could have stopped him. He was always bigger and stronger than me, which we both knew was why I was attracted to him, but somehow I could have physically stopped him. I stayed married to him for seven years. I let him convince me that it wasn't REAL rape. I can even understand why he did it, I mean...what man wants to think of himself as a rapist? Particularly when it concerns a woman he loves. But in his ignorant youth he did us both a great GREAT disservice. One that he no longer has to deal with. But I do.
The fact is that I cannot know if my unique sex drive is a simple matter of brain chemistry or one of emotional scarring. Another fact is that a romantic relationship is almost ALWAYS going to be one about sex. Which brings me to the fact the third: I cannot in good conscience have a romantic relationship until I deal with this shit. And fact the fourth: While I LOVE women and find them beautiful and attractive, I cannot A) know that I'm not going to have the same issues with sex and B) do women in general the disservice of dating them because I can't emotionally handle dating a man. That would be a bullshit thing to do, so I'm not doing it.
This has been a really bad time for these kinds of realizations. I'm applying to university. I KEEP getting sick and am falling behind in my homework. I have love drama happening all around me. I have the stress of living with a family that has an issue with an integral part of who I am. I'm glad that I came to these realizations, I just wish that the timing had been better. I also really wish I had a cuddle buddy handy, because I could use the comfort of being held by someone who loves me enough to cuddle without the expectation of sex. I could really use that right now.

Resolution

So, I may have mentioned that there was this guy who made me incredibly uncomfortable and I couldn't figure out why. I can't remember if I mentioned that there were other friends (female) who felt the same way. The closest of those and I discussed it and we finally decided that the reason we were uncomfortable was because he was not sending the normal type of signals. We decided that he was pursuing friends like he was trying to get laid and we were cool with that. It made us more comfortable to have quantified our own emotions.
We were wrong.
It turns out he's DESPERATE for a girlfriend. Like...REALLY desperate. As in I have it on good authority that he "doesn't care if she's fat or ugly or old" he just wants a girlfriend.
This has cast everything in a new light. I don't think I'm uncomfortable with him anymore, but I don't think I'm going to communicate my pity either. I mean, he's like...23 or 24 years old. That seems WAY too young to me to be THAT fucking desperate. I understand the whole cultural differences thing but....seriously dude? I mean, I suppose it could be that he cares more about inner beauty and all, but how this has been conveyed to me by a third party I have no reason to doubt *runs out of breath*. Ahem, based on what I've heard it has nothing to do with inner beauty and everything to do with "MUST HAVE GIRLFRIEND".
Anyways, I am fighting off a stomach bug and stressing about the future so au revoir.

Engaging in Escapism

Oh Lordy, am I ever! It's a little weird for me tho. This level of escapism (as in, resembling addiction and negatively impacting some very important life stuff) is a lot more typical of crazysauce than fibro. My crazysauce is currently in a really good place, so feeling this disconnect and the escape compulsion is...different.
My fibro is flaring. Like...ALL the time. It's the hazard of living where I am. I am on the edge of exhaustion constantly. I have to be careful driving home, because I'm half-afraid I'll fall asleep at the wheel. And I'm taking a foreign language class. Online. This is the class that is suffering the most from my current state, the others require less of me or something IDK. But Korean? GOOD GOD it is suffering. My teacher is extremely nice, but being nice can't help me in forcing my brain to kick into gear. I just stare at my homework and go duuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. I took this class because I really WANTED to (and I wanted to before I started getting back into kdramas and such), so the fact that I currently feel so apathetic about it is frustrating.
But I was talking about escapism. Which is related.
So this year I took up the Goodreads reading challenge. I said I'd read 500 books, which is TOTALLY doable with the way I read. I figured I'd fall behind during the quarter and catch up on break. That's not what happened. It's during the quarter and I'm six books ahead on my reading goal. Because all my brain (and body) wants to do is curl up in bed and read, only shifting for the pain. So I'm catching all my math up at the last minute, BSing my way through a 200 level communications class, and totally fucking up my Korean class.
Considering I'm trying to get into a decent university and one of the majors I'm going for is Linguistics...This is discouraging. I know it's not that I'm not interested in the language, I still like it. I know it's not because I'm lazy because I'm working my ass off. I'm doing classes and conversation again, only now conversation includes four partners (one is more theoretical, but that's a whole 'nother rant) and two conversation groups. A week. I'm maintaining okay, but I'm fast getting to the point where I can't pretend anymore in Korean. I just can't think.
And right now? I hurt. I hurt and I want to crawl into bed and into a brain candy book that will give my brain cavities. I have to memorize two dialogues and learn all the Sino-Korean numbers, something I couldn't manage last quarter at all. I have to do this by Tuesday. *opens romance novel*