Anxiety Rooted in Self-consciousness

Hello, blog.  It's been a while.  Many things have happened, many changes, and many things still the same.

I've found a huge level of happiness over the years since coming out of the closet, leaving the LDS church, and essentially taking control over my own life.  I feel like I've grown up a lot, especially in the past year.  I started and ended one of the worst relationships I've ever experienced (I don't think I'll ever write about it so don't ask or wait for it), I moved to another state, bought a house, and started asserting myself at work more (I'm still working at the same place I've been for the past 10 years), which is something that I should have been more diligent at before, but there were reasons I never asserted myself and it was hard to confront it, and I'm still trying to confront it.

What I'm getting at is Social Anxiety.

It has been the biggest thing I've struggled with, and at times has turned what would otherwise be fun and rewarding experiences into complete terror.  And to the extent that I've been able to gain a level of self-awareness of it, it still eludes me in many ways. Although, I've come to realize that it has been rooted in and played a huge role in all the areas of my life where I seem to constantly fail.  (Even in this blog.)

For so many years I've been extremely self-conscious about my appearance, hobbies, interests, they way I talk, what I say, you name it.  No matter what it was, I would find a way to feel like I was being harshly judged for it, and that fear of judgement, and subsequent rejection was devastating to me. I could only find value in myself only if others valued me.  And, of course, that value from others was always fleeting.  I would end up just turning it all back on people and reject them before they had the chance to reject me.  I found solace in being alone.  Unfortunately, that solace became a prison over time, especially once I started to find myself.  I realized that even though I was an introvert, I was still very much in need of socialization, even with people I don't even know.  In other words, I'm not a strong introvert.  In the Meyers-Briggs evaluation of personality, I'm just a hair to the right of the midpoint between Extroversion and Introversion. And just for the sake of completion, my Meyers-Briggs personality type is INFP, which explains a whole lot of why I have trouble in other areas, but I digress.

For me, social anxiety is highly dependent on context and for the most part it's pretty much what I bring to the table in regards to my own personal beliefs about myself.  In talking with a boyfriend the other day, we discussed what it was that kept us both hiding in our little hobbit holes most of the time.  We talked about what it was like to be in crowds, why some crowds felt safe and energizing and why other felt draining and threatening.

I related my experiences going to Dragon Con in Atlanta, GA.  Four days of shoulder to shoulder crowds reaching as many people as 100,000 during the Saturday parade.  I feel fine for the most part, except in the elevators.  But going to Ocean City, MD in the summer time to walk the boardwalk, it's all I can muster to just get the walk over with and get the fuck out of there.  And then there are places like MAL where I have this cognitive-dissonance of feeling fine but also out of place.   What was the underling thinking in each situation?

Well, with Dragon Con I feel like we are all equals. We are all there to have fun and share in our appreciation of science fiction, fantasy and its associated pop culture.  It's a very liberal and progressive crowd for the most part, which invites creativity, acceptance and even celebrates our weirdness. And for the most part, even the ones who are rowdy and drunk the entire weekend are tolerable.

Ocean City, on the other hand is a place of very limited social diversity.  Mostly east coast working class vacationers, hetero-normative families, and often there are loud, obnoxious, young adults who binge on alcohol while cat calling from the balconies at the bikini clad girls on the boardwalk below.  Daily sexual harassment is the norm there. And the air is thick with tobacco smoke.  And as such, I judge these people harshly.  I feel as if I'm much better than they are and it disgusts me that they pollute places making them unsafe for women and gay people.

But then, events like MAL, and even in small ways, Folsom Street Fair and Gay Pride, the crowds can be a bit rowdy but they are friendly, and I feel safe.  They, after all are my people or at least friendly to my people and I know I'm one of them.  But, at the same time, and this is especially true at MAL, I feel like they are all much better than me and that I'm really not good enough to be there.  I'm not gay enough, or I'm not good looking enough or whatever I believe I don't measure up to.

The troubling thing about all this is that it's not rational to believe these things even when at times my beliefs have been validated by certain events.  The thing is, those times were because of outliers, they did not represent the group, and I know this.  But it's just so easy to cast aside the reality to reinforce the fears.  And those fears run deep, and they are strong and overwhelming.  And even though I can play logic games with those beliefs to talk myself out of them, it doesn't' always work.   And I feel like I'm not making any progress at all.   But really, I have made a bit of progress.  I've realized how I've been unknowingly contributing to the social anxiety which I wasn't aware of before.  I've learned a bit of nuance about my judgement of others and myself.  Also, medication helps, so there is that.

So, now, what's next?

I've started a new chapter in my life this year.  I'm putting myself out there a bit more than I ever have before.  I started vlogging on Youtube.  It's a way to confront my self-consciousnesses and social anxiety in a rather detached way.   I'm forced to confront myself when I do this.  I have to watch myself back while I edit the videos, I have to look at myself in a third person and know that the person I'm looking at is me, even though it doesn't feel like me.

This has been an interesting exercise to see where I have been self judging and self-censoring and where I continue to do so and what I've been doing to divert it and try to get people to focus on something else.  It's also interesting to see what ends up being the "something else" I try to use.  It's a strange thing to view myself in a detached semi-objective way.

I've been heavily editing and trying to polish my videos for the same reason I edit and try to polish my writing.  But, no matter what I do, the video shows a much rawer individual.  One prone to stammering, not talking in complete sentences and otherwise eviscerating all that is proper and eloquent grammar.  All of which are things I'm very self-conscious about.  Sometimes I'm sliding in and out of Utah/Maryland/New Zealand/North Carolinian accents.  Something that I had no idea I did until I started this vlogging project.  I'm finding it more interesting than disturbing now and I'm becoming more aware of how I'm perceived and in small ways, I'm starting to like the person I see in the video.

In all, it's been fun and frustrating at the same time.  Frustrating in that I have a very boring life with nothing to really vlog about and I'm constantly battling with technical problems such as sound problems and crappy white balance.  But its fun in that the editing process is creative yet very challenging like piecing together a puzzle.  I've always had an interest in filmmaking and this has re-sparked that interest, which I had long thought had died. 

A Moment to Think

I can't ever seem to shake the feeling that I'm always late to the party.  Whenever I show up, it seems everyone has had their fun and on their way home.  This isn't fully literal in the sense that I'm going to a physical party, it's just a way for me to express how I feel about coming out so late in life.  Not just coming out to the world, but coming out to myself.  And not just with sexuality, but myself as a whole person and who I am and wish to be.  I've spent nearly four decades keeping myself locked away, isolated.  Most of my childhood was in a deeply religious rural environment where my only safety was in my room with the door locked, especially when my dad was home.  I grew up with very few friends whom I couldn't often see because we lived outside of town, but I would end up losing them every few years anyway as we kept moving to new towns.

I'm quite often left with bewilderment, anxiety, and an extreme sense of invisibility to the gay community at large.  I'm not accustomed to being flirted with, hit on, touched by others or to touch others, and I'm unsure of my place and boundaries in relationships with others.  All too often, my instincts have been maligned by my upbringing so I've been conditioned not to trust them.  And in my attempt to reconnect with my instincts, I often misinterpret and I end up being impulsive in ways that bring discomfort to others.   I sincerely hope that I've not offended anyone or made them uncomfortable with how I've behaved in their presence.  If so I'm very sorry.

I know for many out there, events like MAL, are a fun party like atmosphere to enjoy what we love, but for me it's still a nerve racking experience, filled with fear, anxiety, self doubt, and an overwhelming sense of feeling like an interloper.   But I would like to publicly thank Sir, Gunny for his more than generous efforts and more than generous time he took away from his own family and friends this weekend to help me keep those feelings subdued and show me what is possible. 

Going forward, I feel some slight hope that I might see a future in this, but too much is nagging at me to know for sure if I'm ever going to have much more than what I've already been given.  I don't mean to end on a low note, but I must be realistic with myself and honest with how I feel right now.   I'm sure things will change; they have to, for better or worse, but it's difficult for me to understand what lies ahead.  I have no context for this.

Moving Along

It does go without saying that it has been a while since I've written anything on this blog.  My last post doesn't count because I was reposting something I originally wrote for Facebook.  But, it was something that should have been posted here.

Things in life have a way of changing.  I haven't been all that busy, but I have been remarkably lost in activities of distraction, which fed my writer's block.   Not that my writer's block was a problem per say, but that I was allowing my distractions to take over, not letting myself mediate on anything long enough to develop something to write about.  In essence, I've been coasting and not doing much with myself.  Letting my job any my living situation be an excuse for not participating in life, depressed mostly.  It's been like that pretty much since July.

The beginning of 2012 right up through June was intense and left me somewhat numb.  Aside from a few outings such as Dragon*Con, hurricane Sandy, which I chose to spend with a friend in North Carolina instead of suffering through the intense anxiety I went through with hurricane Irene the previous year, and a Christmas holiday in Seattle with some friends, I basically coasted on that numbness.   But all during that time, I noticed that I have been markedly feeling and thinking differently about things.  And I've been feeling the need to get back to writing as the dawning of this new year has given me a sense of allowance for renewal and awakening.

It's been a few weeks since MAL 2013 and yet I still find that I'm decompressing.  It was, as always, a remarkable experience for me as all socially intensive situations are.  And with that I've been able to measure how far I've come in the last few years as well and get a sense for how far I still have to go.  And the results are, I've come along way, and I've got a long way to go.  And with that, I would like to put this out there as a way to say thank you to the universe and the people involved, even though I've already thanked them in person.  

It's embarrassing to admit that I walk into these social situations with a tremendous amount of anxiety that paralyzes me and overwhelms my senses.  I'm quite often frozen, inhibited and shut off during these moments.  The social anxiety is often all consuming and takes away my ability to be engaging and cheerful.  It's all driven by my fear of judgment, rejection, and dismissal, for being imperfect and lacking in knowledge and experience, and unworthy of love.  And for the most part, I think I hide it pretty wall, except from the most astute observers.  But in the end, I just end up angry at myself for putting myself in social situations that creates more anxiety. I literally shut down emotionally from that anxiety leaving me in a state of mind that I was afraid of being in in the first place.    Last year at MAL that's pretty much how it went.  Even though I left there a changed person with some new found awareness about what it meant to be authentic, I was still stuck in not accepting that I deserved a place there.

This year at MAL, I had a very different type of experience that gave me some new and profound perspectives.  I learned some amazing things about myself and what it means to be a person of love, worth and value which is allowing me to feel much more gratitude than I ever have before.  I'm feeling a shift in my outlook and in my inward look, that is permissive of myself to be myself, whatever state that may look like, in whatever amount of stress I might be under, in whatever might be holding me back from expressing my wants and desires.

I'm allowing myself to be OK with the person I become when I don't know what to say, the person I become when I feel vulnerable and scared or when I'm calm and funny.  I'm allowing that person that I am at that time, and not judging him with expectations of what he should be doing or could be doing. I'm allowing myself to be what I am and only what I am in the moment and state that I am, which is now.

I can't say that I did all this on my own. Sure, it took a large amount of self awareness and willingness and book knowledge, but it took some education and wisdom that many wonderful friends have been able to give me, and some select moments of trust with some other friends at MAL as they literally, and figuratively, held my leash through the process without judgment, criticism and rejection, giving me the permission I needed to be who I am during all those states.  The simple act of going through the motions of all these states, practicing within a safe environment, which I have all the book knowledge of but I don't have the actual practical experience, in order to start that process of deprogramming decades of self doubt and self hatred.

What happened was a profound healing experience that lifted me to a higher plane of self love.

Sometimes, it really does take someone to help.  To literally be there with me and give me the permission, safety, and respect that I need for that healing experience to happen.  I've always been taught I can only do it on my own.  But I know now that's not true and in some cases, not possible.  I'm now more willing to not only ask for that help, but more importantly, allow myself to receive that help when it is offered.

But most importantly, I've learned that I can trust again.

Thank you all.  I hope that I can carry this with me as long as possible.

It needs saying even if it's wrong.

A sure fire way to affect change in a difficult emotional thinking pattern is to state it.  Give it voice. Put it into words, whether spoken or written.  And sure enough, whatever beliefs that arise out of that exercise will suddenly dissolve; especially if that belief was not formed from a rational headspace.   

I don't know why that is.  But it is why I write in this blog.  And it is why I need to keep doing it and continue to give voice to whatever is on my mind regardless if it's rational or not.   Because, for whatever reason, only writing in my private journal seems to have stopped resulting in parsing the jumble of thoughts in my mind.  This writing, this blog, has been necessary for me because of one basic thing, the awareness that what I write has the potential of actually getting read by someone.  That truth changes my entire thought process.   I don't even need to know who reads it or when, just that the words I write are going to end up in a place that can be found and read.  Without that concept of "public", I don't seem to be motivated to process any thoughts at all.  My private journal writing has essentially turned into an exercise in avoidance. 

So here I am, putting more time in to free-writing publicly about my journal writing being an avoidance mechanism so that it will dissolve and go back to being a catharsis.  Wait, isn't the awareness of what I'm writing about change the scope and purpose and end up sabotaging it?    Damn it! 

Nonetheless, I still want to take a moment here to state something about a post from a few weeks ago (April 7).  It was a post that exposed more about me and my messed up state of mind at the time I wrote it than it did about anything or anyone I was whining about.  

It's real, it's how I was feeling at the time, I can't deny that, but there are parts of it that are big red flags to me that I was not rational.  But in order to discover this, I had to forget about the post for a few weeks, finish a story I had been working on for a year, write a follow up post to that story, and then, by chance, go back and read the old post and realize that I was not resonating with whoever it was that wrote it!  Yeah, I wrote it but, I don't really know the person who wrote it.   Does that make me schizophrenic?  Not really, but it does expose how depression manifests itself to me. 

So, what do I want to say about the old post?  Not much other than to say that the feelings of isolation and loneliness, and the belief that I've been the recipient of judgments and rejection, have actually been ME doing most of the judgments and rejecting.  In turn, I've ended up imposing more isolation on myself, well beyond the physical isolation that I actually can't control right now.  Yes, the communities are generally dogmatic, cliquish and exclusionary, but that's over generalizing and unfair to the many individuals in the communities who are not that way and disrespectful to those who desire and need such closed door policies.  I mustn't forget that what seems like a clique is actually a close nit family.  One just doesn't walk into someone's family and expect to be treated as if you were always there.  It takes time, lots of interaction and the right chemistry.  And if it doesn't happen, it's OK.  It wasn't meant to be.  The problem I face is that I so rarely get interaction I never get the chance to ever know where I stand. 

Now, quite honestly, at this point, I need to be careful here because dwelling on my current physical isolation is one of the many major triggers that have literally shoved me into the hell of depression.   And even though I'm aware of how depression manifests itself at this moment in time, it doesn't mean I will recognize if and when I fall into it again.  So, will stating what I just stated mean that I will recognize it next time?  That's the expectation.   But now I just stated that the stating of it will now change its outcome.   Damn it!

Horseback Riding With Myself

I would love to say that my story with horses has come to a wonderful conclusion.  I dearly love them as I love all animals, but I haven't been able to reconcile my past experiences as well as my new found ones.  I still feel at times ignorant and undeserving of the knowledge and still a bit frustrated that I'm not as good of a horsemen that my fellow riders are.  I'm also insanely jealous of them as well.  Most of them are teenagers or younger and have the most uncanny, if I could say, natural ability to communicate with their equine companions that seem so unreal to me.  And the worst thing about all of this, is how out of place I feel as a 40+ salt and pepper hair, gay man, in a class of female teeny boppers, who can ride circles around me and jump fences, all the while I'm just trying to keep my horse from cutting the corners around the arena.

I'm currently not riding right now; I've had to stop in late 2010 because of health problems that have made it unsafe.   Problems with an untreatable, proximal positional vertigo being the main one as well as excessive weight gain, unpredictable heart fibrillations that cause dangerous lightheadedness, and a still as yet undiagnosed muscle atrophy, weakness, and neuropathy,  have made it difficult to make any progress on anything let alone dressage.  I don't really know if my riding days are over or not.  I hope that I can return to normal health.  But I just can't feel confidence in that happening as things seem to continue to slowly decline.  And to make it worse, other than the vertigo and heart issues, the doctors can't seem to find anything medically wrong with me. 

I've really been missing my time just being around those great creatures.  Grooming, hugging, leaning on, sitting on, smelling their sweat, picking their hooves, pulling their tails, giving them treats, whistling little songs to them while they crowd around me out in the paddock,  rubbing them on the brow and behind the ears until they practically fall asleep while their snotty snout is pressed into my stomach.  I've gotten so close to them now that I have gotten the point where I wish I could be one.  It's that way with all the animals I've ever made a connection to.   I see them as innocent, free spirits, always in the moment, with wonderful beauty and pure unconditional love.  Who wouldn't want to be them? 

Not to get too far off subject, as if there ever is a subject on a free-write post, but ever since I was 5 years old, I've spent much of my waking imagination in silent contemplation wondering what it would feel like to actually be one of the many animals that have occupied my waking sub-conscious.  I say 5 years old because that was how old I was when I had my first lucid dream that involved an animal.  It was a tiger. In that dream I also became a tiger and experienced an intimate and spiritually deep connection to the tiger that appeared to me.  I also felt a strong desire to never want to leave that dream and have pondered the experience off and on for decades since.  I don't know why I still remember that dream so vividly 35+ years later, but it was a life changing experience. One in which I don't really know how to explain, and it continues to be meaningful to me now, as well as many other similar experiences that I've had since, both in waking and non-waking dreams and meditations.  And aside from the apparent, if not superficial, similarity to the comic strip Calvin & Hobbes, it was nothing like Calvin & Hobbes, although I really do love that comic.

Only in recent years have I bothered to seriously look into these dreams to find out more about their possible significance and meaning.  And quite surprisingly, I've found many communities for that aspect of my life spanning from Therianopthy, to Native American spiritual traditions to the Furry Fandom.  So at this point, I can honestly claim I'm a furry and oddly enough, I actually couldn't care less about all the stigma and stereotypes associated with furries. They are my people, drama and all.

So what is the point of me saying all of this?  I don't know,
just to get it off my chest I suppose.  I haven't had a pet in my life for over 10 years.  That last one was a female tuxedo cat, who I still really miss.  We had a very special bond, as I've had with all the cats I've ever had.  She was always begging me to hold her up to the lights so that she could get at the moths.   I don't think I've ever gotten over her death.  She was suffering from an Alzheimer's like disease and it totally fucking sucked to see her go through the states of confusion she often went through.  She was only 12.

(1989-2001) picture taken circa 1994

Anyway, I wish I had the strength to just go down to the riding school again, but I also can't shake the feeling of being out of place there as if I don't belong.  It was easy for the most part to forget about that feeling when I could just jump on my horse and trot around the arena as it was just me, the instructor, and the horse.   But when I'm not riding, I become acutely aware of the dozen people there, and I am the only male.  And of course, the troublesome pink elephant in the arena that I wish wasn't there despite the common stereotype that all male dressage riders are gay.  I don't live in a gay friendly part of the country and there is always someone reminding me of that fact.

Some days I really hate my circumstances.  I really resent the shit my life has now.  And quite often I forget that in many other ways I have it really damn good!   It's as if one aspect of my life got amazingly better while others have reached their shelf life and are about to expire.  And it's those expiring parts that I never had the chance to make something of them.  For each day that passes, I find something new to regret.  

But, to avoid making this post a complete downer, I will include this cropped picture of me wearing my riding boots.  I'm on a horse.

Yeah, yeah, I know, toes forward! 

I Am Still, No One

I haven't posted in a long time.  I've been stuck in a sort of a midway point between, "It's too esoteric to post, besides who am I that anyone would care about the strange things in my mind?"  to  "I wish there were people out there who could understand me in all the forms that I inhabit."

It's self defeating in that I'll never find those people because I just can't bring myself to tell all there is to tell about myself.  What is it?  Fear?  Lack of trust?  Am I still in the closet about certain things?   That goes without saying. 

Obviously, what you don't know is what's in that closet.  Now, considering how I hint at things, some may think they know and can even guess, but most likely they'll be wrong.  Well, some people might get lucky and guess correctly but I know that most will not.  However, I want them to guess because if they guess correctly, then I know that I don't have to explain it if they don't get it.  And explaining it is something I just don't want to have to do.  Because, in the past, it has not lead to more understanding, it has just lead to more, "WTF?  You're a fucking freak!"

Still a lot of PTSD, still a lot of fear.   Yeah, I still hate rejection in some things.  Especially the things that get closer to my core. 

I'm finding once again, that I still have yet to find a community that I feel will accept me, care about me, support me, allow me to embrace and express myself in its hypersexual from, and even communally share that experience with me.   Are there communities out there like that?  It seems like there are but they don't seem all that accepting to me.   Am I fooling myself into thinking that such things exist?  It's really hard to know.  I spent one day at Folsom Street Fair last September and one weekend at Mid-Atlantic-Leather Weekend (MAL) back in January, and it sure as hell give me the impression that they do exist.  Despite the attention I got from some tourists at Folsom, I still walked away from those experiences not knowing anyone any better than I did before.  I felt like I have essentially wandered through a convention of cliquishness and exclusivity that I couldn't conform to.

At MAL, I met a few amazing people, and made some acquaintances, but they drifted off, others, after meeting, severed their online connection to me.  Confusing, frustrating, and sad.  There is something wrong with me, I get it.  I'm sorry.  I really don't have a clue how to talk about it, what to talk about, who to talk to and where to go with it.  And really, with no face-to-face, I'm at a loss.

I have so little connection, so little opportunity to travel and engage with others who share that life, being so isolated geographically from all of it, I've never been given a chance to really immerse myself fully, to really find myself, understand how it connects to me and what a lot of it really means.  I'm still trying to strip off the old masks, tear down the old walls from the Mormon cult I grew up in.  I've been isolated from everyone really; even in the cult I isolated myself from it as much as I could.  Few friends in life, difficult to form new ones, social awkwardness seemed to be the defining factor in all things.   And in isolation, social and physical, I ended up developing my own ideas and eccentricities about the way I view life and sexuality.  And even the closest community that I found that aligns with mine, the gay/leather/kink/BDSM communities, which seem to be steeped in its own dogma of identity, that it shuts me out for not conforming.  Confusing, frustrating and sad.

Reclaiming Complex and Nuance

This post is about my anger, frustration, pain, anxiety, fear and all that baggage that is associated with my inability to know what to say about my dear sweet friend who attempted suicide yesterday. 

But before I get into my shit, I want to direct you to Mr. Doodle's:
Top 10 Reasons Why I Left the Church
Top 10 Reasons Why I Came Back to the Church

Feel free to leave Mr. Doodle a comment or write your own blog post about your top ten reasons you left.   If you haven't left the church then write a top 10 reasons why you stay or came back.  But by all means, avoid calling people to repentance if they don't agree with you.  It's not going to convince anyone.  Mr. Doodle has every right to do as he please for whatever reasons he has.   As do I and as do you.  But just know, if you say I should do things a certain way, convince me first how your life's path can possibly have anything to do with the reality of mine when it comes to your own self-awareness of what I perceive.   In other words, if you can get inside my head, you would know what to say to convince me. 
  
I don't have a top ten reason why I left myself.  It's more like a top three.
#3 Co-dependency runs rampant and is self-sustaining.
#2 A dogmatic culture of "one life fits all" philosophy.
#1 It's a twisted, abusive, homophobic, fallacy, of conditional love which imposes unnecessary complexity and nuance into the social lives of vulnerable people where there otherwise would be a naturally simple existence. (see #2 & #3)  

Yes, I'll say it; my life is still being complicated by the baggage that comes with deeply imposed, completely unnecessary, fallacies of religious belief, which create a complex and nuanced social climate that only an omnipotent god could navigate, a complexity and nuance that must be danced around and walked on like a fucking, god damn, eggshell so as not to frighten the overly sensitive egos of the superstitious, busy bodies.   If you are offended by that classification, ponder it for yourself why that is the case.  You may have a blog post you could write for your own blog. (Post a link to it in the comments if you like.)

I used to love the word 'nuance'.   As a music composer it was the nuance of the performance and harmonic selections that separated a good piece of music from a great one.   I used to love the word 'complex' because, as a composer, I could stun my rhythmic sensibilities with layers of poly metered rhythms that was both invigorating and meditative.

But I've learned to distrust these words.   I've seen them used against me.  Thrown back at me as yet another means by which I am to compromise my feelings, sensibilities, life experiences and just plain life, so that fearful superstitions will not be challenged in their inability to look at anything other than the shadows on the fucking wall.   

Navigating these waters, wading through the mud, balancing on a pin head, opening a fucking window, is now this delicate and unattainable "complex and nuanced" perfection that must be played in just the right way or they revoke their love, shut off all dialog, close down all ability to communicate and then they take their ball and go home, a ball that was gifted to them by the one seeking an understanding dialog in the first place.  All the while, as they leave, they are screeching the need for empathy and understanding.   

Empathy?  Yes, amongst the complex and nuanced wash of social engineering is the word empathy, a concept that is imbued, in this case, with conditions that only go one way because only one side of that dialog understands and practices it.   The other side can only pay lip-service to it.  

I sit and watch with full understanding, yes, even empathy, all of the struggles and fears that have embodied those who can only pay lip-service.  And I can understand why they can only pay lip-service, but I can't say a single thing about it.  I can't tell them what my path of life has been, I can't talk about my experiences, fears, struggles, joys, loves.  I can't even begin to express how our experiences are wrong for each other.   All I can do is just listen and let them tell me I'm a perverse and evil miscreant because I cannot believe and live as they do.  I understand why they believe and say that  but I can't say anything about my reality.  They won't listen.  They can't listen. They can't understand.    They are like little babies who only know the world as it exists inside of their heads.   I understand why they can't understand even if the words fail me in explaining it.  But I can only sit there for so long before I have been drained of my will to live.  I resent having to babysit these adults. I've got a life to live; I can't waste it away trying to open a dialog with unreason.  And yet I keep trying.  It's leading to insanity.

I have, for the most part, learned to no longer believe that I am a perverse and evil miscreant, but only when I'm rational.  But the strange nuanced and complex world of the human psyche can still be triggered into readopting those old beliefs, and often in subtle and gradual ways.  Before long, the mind has switched into a new consciousness, into another space, another reality where I only know, understand, and experience these irrational beliefs and nothing else.  If the head-space is irrational,  I can't think my way out of it.   I become the baby who must be babysat.  And now I'm the social burden that only a nuanced and complex pandering of my fragile ego can pull me out of.   And if I'm lucky, I'll get the empathy I need before I've convinced myself that I must die.  This is fucked up!

Nuanced social navigation is an unnecessarily activity when religious dogma is not imposed on a person's identity, thus warping the very reality that is our existence.  Life is not complex when religious dogma is not imposed into every aspect of it, especially aspects of life where it  cannot offer anything of value, which is all of it.

I would love to say that religious dogma is to blame for this social dysfunction but I can't.  All it really does is use us and abuse us and keeps us stuck in it.  There is no way around this.  We are like this because we evolved to be this way.  What I can only hope for is that we will eventually evolve out of it, so that the words 'nuance' and 'complex' can go back to being words to describe aesthetics rather than the navigation of social dysfunction.  But, religious dogma doesn't believe in evolution.

where no one wants to be

Why don't I write here anymore?  I think a part of me doesn't want to answer that question here.  It's not safe anymore.  After all this time, all these months, I've realized that I've been bullied to keeping my mouth shut about some aspects of my life.  The realm of my mind that needs a voice doesn't have an understanding ear.   And I'm sick and tired of trying to say what it is, without saying what it is.  But then, don't expect me to say it now that I've mentioned I'm sick of keeping it to myself.    

What I want to say, I want to say it to a person.  To their face.  I want to read their expressions and watch for sparks of understanding, insight, inspiration, and I want to hear what they have to say about what I said.  I want them to talk to me with the desire to know what I have to say about what they said.   I want to hear and feel the tone of the voice, read and experience the body language.  I want to be someone to them in real life, and I want them to be someone to me in the same living space. 

This medium of text, a string of words which only convey just a microcosm of information is cold, empty, shallow.  It is not the essence of the person; it's not the essence of me. These are just my words filtered through hours of thought and rewriting.  I don't talk like this; I don't express my essence this way. 

When someone experiences me in the flesh, they don't see the formality or the humor they saw in my writing.  I don't think that fast, I don't talk that fast.  I stumble with what to say, I constantly misspeak my thoughts and often repeat myself.  Many times the words I want to speak never seem to reach my mouth leaving me to frustratingly search, strain and grasp for them. Often in failure.  I know what they mean, I know what I want to convey, but that damn word won't come forward.   So I pause, think, ponder, clear my head, wait for the word to come to the surface.  "Ses...sees...serrs...serrr...serpe...serep...what the fuck is the word I'm looking for?"

This is not stuttering.   I'm vocalizing in an attempt to stir up the word to come forward. Perhaps, desperately, give the listener, who I would hope hasn't tuned me out already, a clue so they could offer a suggestion to trigger my memory.   All too often they have tuned me out or take my pause as a queue instead to change the subject or worse, walk away.

Things haven't always been this way.   But they are getting worse and I fear that in time I will have lost all ability. 

Nonetheless, with that frustration aside, speaking my mind, has given me more than any writing has done because it has connected me to people in deeper ways, given my mind a chance to reprogram all of its errant beliefs about body language, mannerisms, vocal tone, and the intent behind it, undoing years of social malignment from growing up with emotionally abusive parents up in a deeply judgmental culture.  It's allowed me to find a community of likeminded people who can relate to my ideas and feelings and given me perspective and companionship.  

But, only to a certain extent. 

I've come to a moment in my life where I have found that I can no longer speak an important aspect of my essence.  I've tried to speak it but I get blank stares, disapproving glances or just plain antagonistic comebacks to shut the fuck up about it.  Bullying.  This place, this blog, is actually not a safe space for me to explore those thoughts either.  For this aspect in my life,  I'm not in the right community.   I'm stuck, alone again, without a community for the thoughts in my head. 

But I do know where those communities are!  And even though I don't know the right words to use, I give it a try anyway.  And if it doesn't fall apart right away, or never starts because I'm not versed on using the correct language, it eventually falls apart anyway.  Why?  Because I'm too far away.   I'm not worth the trouble or the time because I'm too far away.   But what do they mean by that?  Many of them are willing to travel 5 to 10, 20 hours away, or even fly across the country.  But they won't for me?  Why?  Because I don't live in a city or an area of the country that interests them; I don't live in a place where there is a community.  It's just me.   And because of that, I seem to have nothing to offer them, despite my ability and willingness to travel to them.  So our communication ends. They no longer return my inquiries or express any interest in what I have to say.  No more email, no more chats. Alone, again.

That triggers me.  Anxiety, frustration, anger, hurt, rejection, abandonment...

The only thing left is to delete them from Facebook so I don't have to subject myself to a constant barge of all the great things they are posing about the community.  And as I'm quickly losing my ability to freely travel, I can't help but think to myself,  "what's the fucking point of any of it anymore?"

All, I've got right now is my isolation in my dead end job in a corner of the world where no one wants to be.  

Where am I going?

It's happening again.  I'm finding that I'm withdrawing into myself.  I'm not out seeking people to talk to, despite my increased activity commenting on other's blogs; I'm not interested in a dialog.  I'm just talking.  Talking for the sake of wanting, needing, having something to say.  And I've been saying a lot.

It seems silly to write huge comments on other's blogs when I not looking for interaction. Better to just write a big long post here that says the same thing and have it all in a concise easy to find location.  I have a hard time remembering where I've posted my comments many times.  Subscribing only works for a while and only if other people make comments.  But, eventually, the activity dies down and it's all forgotten.

Looking in my Google reader, I am currently following 226 (and counting) blogs.  Granted a few are Info/News sites and about a dozen or so of them are BDSM related, but the rest are very much the MoHo (Mormon Homosexual) blogosphere.  I spend a lot of time poking into other people's lives.  Mostly lurking, looking on from the outside.  But I'm also moving further to the outside.  Further away from the blogging community that I've currently found myself in.

I never set out to get blog listed into the infamous MoHo blogosphere, but it's there.  I don't really know when it happened.   I just noticed it one day.  I was both honored and irritated by it at the same time.  It honored me to get exposure, irritated me because it drove me to write things that would appeal to that particular audience. I felt a bit cornered.  And I think it kept me from phasing out of the MoHo blogosphere arena as my ideas evolved.  I don't consider myself a Mormon. I had resigned from the Mormon church the previous year before officially starting this blog.

So, as I've been commenting on other bogs I'm realizing more so now than ever before that I think very differently than most MoHo's.  I don't connect with those who are still seeking acceptance with the religion and their religious family.  I was never fully part of the Mormon culture growing up and I had given up even trying to be accepted by the culture long before I ever dealt with my sexuality, which then cemented the dichotomy into permanence.  Ironic in that it took me years to discover and undo the habitual faking behaviors that I had developed as a coping mechanism to at least get by.  Even though I wore tall black boots and long hair, I still had to conform in some things to keep the peace.

My family has been supportive for the most part but, by the time I got to dealing with my sexuality, I had essentially stopped caring about their acceptance anyway.  Well, except for my mom, but she's the one who help me accept my homosexuality so her acceptance quickly became a moot point.

So, I don't really feel like I'm understood or accepted in the MoHo community because my experiences have been unlike what most are dealing with.  And my spiritual journey, which does not involve Christianity, seems to be too esoteric (if not outright disturbing) for many.  I've always felt like I've been on a different road and my adventure into the MoHo community was essentially a brief intersection.  It's just I've sort of lingered here for a bit watching the action when I really should have just kept on driving.

It's not just the blogs; I'm also on various MoHo Yahoo groups too.  I've become too liberal for them too.  I've become even too liberal for Affirmation: Gay and Lesbian Mormons.  I used to think they were too liberal.

Perhaps, I'm over generalizing people.  I'm still connected to the MoHo world because I'm still very much a product of the Mormon culture from which this all has its roots.  I'm just on a completely different road "out of here" than what it seems most people are traveling.

But I do keep reading them.  I keep following them.  Why?

I'm looking for people who are on the same road as me.  I'm hoping that I will find someone I can make the same journey with on the same road "out of here".   Each person out there who writes something that provokes a thought, an emotion, even a hidden resentment in me; I hope that they could be someone whom I can share the lonely road of self discovery.  But when I open up and share my perspective, blank stares ensue.  Granted, whenever someone expresses their hope that the church will someday grant them a gay temple wedding, I have a blank stare of my own.  I'm a hypocrite.  But I'm not going to try and convince them it's a lost cause.  I do remember how hopeful I felt once.  It's not my place to crush other people's dreams.  I'm too busy letting my self-doubt crush mine anyway.

Ugh!

But that's not all, there is also this:

I'm also spending time watching my email inbox and Facebook page, and waiting for people to talk to me.  But when they do, I ignore them.

My Facebook inbox has messages waiting for me.  People poking, inquiring, wanting to know what has been going on in my life.  My email inbox has a few people waiting on me too.  Last Sunday I finally replied to someone after ignoring him for two months.  I'm sure he gave up on me.  Still, I have another one that I dropped the ball on 18 months ago.  18 MONTHS!   And I have it highlighted in my inbox reminding me to reply.  But none of these people are the people whom I want to talk to.

If I could just get honest with myself right now and admit that I'm really waiting for a particular person to call or write to me.   And at the same time, I'm dreading it.

This person whom, over the past year I've developed feelings for. We used to have long and interesting email and phone conversations.  He has been the closest and most intimate contact I've ever had with a potential partner since the mid 90's.  And yet, we live on opposite sides of the country across three time zones.  We are 17 years apart in age and we have never met face to face.  We both set a goal together to meet up and attend Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco this year, a goal that I still have no idea if I can turn in to a reality.

The last few emails I've sent where short, sort of a "hello I'm still here" type of thing.  They were weeks ago.  We are 'friends' on Facebook.  He spends a good deal of time on there posting comments about food, cats and politics.  I sometimes write flirty comments on his posts.  They seem to be ignored most of the time.  I fear that he will delete them.   (God, I hope he doesn’t read this.)

I worry that I've developed feelings for someone that will not or cannot reciprocate.   My fear is that I've let myself fall in to another desperate, one sided, needy, pathetic relationship.  He's busy yes, so am I.  But the amount of time he spends on Facebook has given me doubts as to his honest interest in me.  Especially if he will not reciprocate even a simple flirt on Facebook, even though he has told me in past emails he thinks of me often.  But, those emails were weeks and months ago.

I can't even begin to touch on the things that irritate me about him, which causes me to hate my predicament even more.  Seems unfair to be going through this seeing as we've been only acquaintances for about a year.

I'm desperate, one sided, needy and pathetic, indeed! 

Is this what relationship angst feels like?  I don't recall ever going through this stuff in high school or college.  Is that what teens and young adults experience?   It this how it works?

God I've rambled on.

Less Angst, More Coffee!

OK, Peeps!

Just checking in to let everyone know, if you haven't already discovered, that I have another blog.
Yeah, I angsted (word?) over this for awhile and realized that I was tired of being angsty so I created another blog to post funny, silly goofy things that I do, think, say, etc.  And leave this space for my angsty stuff which I'm finding to be less relevant as of late.  It's as if I've become an adult or something.  What's up with that?

Anywho... the other blog is here:  The Gay Dactyl

Now, I don't promise to keep it updated all that often either.  And many of you who are also friends with me on Facebook will see a Facebook version of the post which is essentially identical most of the time.   I usually end up making the Facebook one first on a whim and then later post it here after a few edits.  Unless I do it the other way around. Either way, the one on here will be the one that gets edited to its final, perfect, form.

Yeah I'm all about form. 

And yeah, in past writings I also talked about making a separate BDSM blog too.  Yeah I will.  But no one will ever find it.  HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!   Seriously.  :-)

Community for the Dead

What in the hell has been bothering lately?  There is something seething below the surface and I'm not sure what it is.  Actually it's been building gradually for weeks. 

The triggers?  People, places, things...Everything.  And then...someone that I don't even know, but have felt the yearnings for years to want to know him, died recently.

Why does that bother me so much?  Another lost opportunity?  Or was it because he was only 43 years old?  Or was it because he was part of a community of people that rallied around when he passed?  When that happened, I suddenly felt like I was on the outside looking in.  A reminder that I was still not part of that community, a community that I have always felt was my place to be but could never allow it in the past.  Now I have given myself that allowance but I've been limited physically by things I cannot control.

I'm not part of any community.  And when I mean community, I mean a community of real live people.  Not virtual, abstract, text on a screen type of community such as only the Internet can give.  Yeah, there are real people behind that text, but they can never manifest any nuanced social or physical reality.  I need to be part of a community where we are in each other's presence.  Feeling, seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting, and otherwise experiencing each other.  But that's not all!  I must be more than a mere acquaintance. I must be a friend. Perhaps even a lover. Perhaps even more than that!  Perhaps what I'm looking for doesn't exist!

All of the activities, working late, dressage, walking, yoga, trips to the city, museums, blogging, etc. I do them to keep busy and to keep my mind off of what I don't have.  My hope is that it gets me out there meeting new people and making new friends, but all that it ends up doing is reminding me that no matter what I do, where I go, or who I'm with, I'm never going to be accepted as a friend by any of these people.  I want and need a deeper authentic connection with people but it seems that desire pushes people away.  That authentic part of me that no one is willing to accept, it becomes the big elephant in the room and forever creates a wall.  Could I be expecting too much from the term friend?  Perhaps I don't even know what it means.  On occasion, I discover what is being said behind my back about that big elephant.  They say one thing to my face and another to everyone else.  That burns my trust. So, perhaps I'm the one now creating that wall.  Walls are lonely.

All I can feel right now is that I'm growing weary of the loneliness.

So, here I am, wondering what is to become of it all.  What is to become of me?  I'm only 40.  My life could end in a heartbeat.  Literally, it could.  I have a broken heart.  It has landed me in the hospital three times in ten years.  And as of October of last year, I can now lie still in my bed at night and feel it stop beating every few moments.  This is followed by a rush of adrenalin and a hard thump as if it had just landed from tripping.  The sudden drop in blood pressure makes me light headed and tenses me up. I no longer have the physical energy I used to enjoy before. 

One of these days, it's not going keep beating and there isn't a god damn thing I can do about it.  It will be days before anyone notices that I'm gone.  Perhaps a few weeks before anyone comes looking.  Will there be a rally for me?  Why should I care?  I'll be dead.

Wanna fight?!

For the past several months I've been in one of those moods where I feel like picking a fight with Mormons again.  I get really fed up with the stupidity and I just want to make a point of telling people they are being hypocritical. 

I used to be on a mailing list with several friends.  The list was intended as a social community to stay in touch.  On occasion politics would get brought up and create heated debates filling my inbox with 30 page email posts.  I despise politics. I have a hard time doing nothing more with it than mocking it.  Equal opportunity left and right so I didn't read most of it.  Just skimmed for key words to get the gist of what they were saying. Unfortunately I found that on a few instances a few of them managed to find a way to offend me when they took whole classes of people and demonized them for a political point.  The first of which was right after hurricane Katrina.  The next one was last year when one expressed his outrage that our government was endorsing immoral and perverted sexual behavior in referring directly to gay marriage.  The comment was out of the blue because the discussion was about the economic bailout prompted by some article on a Mormon blog that happen to mention that gay rights were an example of corrupt government.   ( It seems that no matter the topic many Mormons will find a way to make it about "Teh Gays".) 

For the most part I just stay quiet.  And I eventually left the group as I didn't want to be tempted to spew a bunch of angry words as I made the mistake of doing a few times in the past.  I'm still friends with most of the people from that list on Facebook, just not the ones who made those remarks. 

But here is my problem.  On occasion they continue to throw out their view of life and take for granted that they think they are "preaching to the choir".  Every so often they express their disgust for the declining morals of society and then go on to list what they are.  They always seem to include homosexuality as that is one of the many things in the Mormon church's handbook of things that destroy societies.  It's those people I want to pick the fight with. And sometimes all I have to do is post something on Facebook that disagrees with the church and wait for the arguments to start.  It's as if all I really want to do is state my piece and let them make a fool of themselves as they state theirs.  So, which choir do I think I'm preaching to?   

I hope that those people will take me off their friends list rather than just "hide" or ignore me.  That's all I really want.  I feel like I'm walking around amongst people who despise me but rather than be honest and tell me up front, they do it behind my back.  But after they remove me then I can hate them for it.  I never said I wasn't a hypocrite.  I just want them to see where they are one too.  And those that stay with me I would hope that they learned something of the whole discussion and got some perspective.  I hope I get some perspective too.

I've been cranking in my mind how there could be a connection between the people who so strongly believe their religion and those that see religion as a form of mental illness. And that's just it.  If we do see it as a mental illness then the correct way of dealing with it is clinical.  Meaning that we must employ the skills of a psychologist.

It's like the time I realized a solution to the rocky relationship with my dad.  I had for years been expecting a 60+ year old man to have the maturity of a 60+ year old man.  But when I realized I had to handle him with the skill and patience the same way one would with a deeply troubled 5 year old child, things started working out and our relationships improved dramatically.

Unfortunately most of us, including me, don't have the patience and skills to deal with the insanity that is religion despite having dug out of that hole myself.  So we end up fighting with the insane.   Lose-Lose!

*Sigh*

And here I am, trying to pick a fight with insanity.

I am a Queer Spirit

Well it's been a few weeks since the Queer Spirit Retreat out in Utah and I've just now had a chance to take a moment and decompress the jumble of thoughts in my head.

The retreat was an amazingly positive experience for me and completely opposite of what the LDS religion could ever offer.  And in a sense, because it was in September, it marked the two year reunion of my personal crisis that led me down the road of confusion, despair, apostasy, awakening, renewal, joy and peace.  Now, two years later, it marks the beginning of a new and happier chapter of my life. 

I'm rather amazed at just how little drama my life has anymore.  It used to be that so much of my life, every little detail, every little thought, decision, action, expectation, and desire was weighted down with anxiety.  Because every little thing had to be scrutinized for its value good or bad, I had to have certainty where something was going to lead me, heaven or hell, and most of the time I just couldn't get it.  No longer do I feel the need to do that anymore.  Now every so often when I meditate on my life,  I amaze myself at just how uncomplicated it all really is when we let go of the things that we have no control over.  Letting go.  Letting go of beliefs that do not work for us.  Letting go of needing to be right.  Letting go of ego.  And in letting go, what is left is pure authenticity.  Honesty. 

Oh, the lies we tell and believe.  I look back at my life and see the trend as I was spiraling down to my own personal depths of becoming homophobic and how I didn't recognize the irrationality.  My world view and personal identity was defined by lies.  And those lies covered the pain.  My ego was in control of my life, protecting me with lies.  The ego is stupid.  It doesn't know what a lie is but it wants to protect it no matter what.  The ego can't know if what it's protecting is causing more harm.  It just protects it with whatever we give it.  And what I always gave it were lies.

When I came out to myself and finally accepted my sexuality, I found myself craving absolute honesty.  I was no longer going to deceive myself or other people to protect my beliefs or theirs.  And if the truth hurt, the honesty hurt, I knew I had to let go of my ego.

When I think about what it takes to be honest I still find myself struggling with it. Growing up in a religious culture that required me to deny the reality of my surroundings so that it would conform to a belief, a lie, has given me this horrible, habitual, dishonest, thinking pattern that I fight with all of the time.   So many things where never to be thought, spoken, or acted upon.  It all builds up and permeates other aspects of life. 

We have to hide our fears and pretend to be happy.  We don't want people to think the religion is making us depressed.  We don't want to make the church look bad.  We certainly don't want to admit to ourselves that we have compromised the things we know to be true so that we can belong to the "one true religion" in order to receive all the blessings from a god that we hope exists.  We even convince ourselves that we know that "He" really does exist.  Lie after lie after lie.   After awhile I didn't know what was true anymore.  I didn't even understand how I really felt about things.  I couldn't at any moment in my life make a decision without consulting an authority.  My thinking was done for me.  And yet my life was in shambles. 

The world terrified me.   Meeting new people terrified me. I would have so much anxiety I could never look at anyone. I could never actually speak honestly. I was so ashamed of myself that I would lie or divert attention to someone else just so people wouldn't pay attention to me.  I judged people.  The judgments were all lies I told to myself.  All lies I believed.  It all lead to my own personal crisis two years ago in September where my entire world turned upside down and I spent months dancing on the edge of suicide. 

But I finally came to some closure early Saturday morning at the retreat as I noticed two individuals off in the distance standing on the stairway to the upper floor of the 2nd ranch house as I waited to watch the sunrise. I knew they saw me.  But I didn't have the courage to talk to them.  I still wasn't quite free of my judgmental thinking and how it had ruled my life to the point of mental breakdown.   Always judging people by what I think they would be thinking about me, always afraid that they would hate me for my sexuality, queerness and just general social awkwardness.   Again, all lies.

But I knew their story from the night before and I was in empathy with them.  I had only faced early death as a choice.  They were facing it as an inevitability.   I had no right to judge anyone, especially myself.  Still, that morning, I just stood there for about an hour and cried. Mostly to mourn the loss of my old life, the life that I wanted but never had or will ever have. But in the end, whether I talked to them or not, just their mere presence that morning was a major healing experience for me.   And had I spoken to them that day I would have known that they would reciprocate that empathy.

After all these years, looking for my place in the world I didn't realize that I didn't need to leave Utah to find it. Well, actually, I DID need to leave Utah to discover that I didn't need to leave Utah.   My community wasn't where I was located; it was the people with whom I associate with.  But I was always waiting for someone to come knocking at my door to invite me. Ironically when they did I would judge them too harshly and push them away. I've gotten to that point now where I realize that if I don't go knocking I will never know what it's like to live. And if I'm going to accept someone else's effort to reach out to me I must be able to reach back and be ready to do it blindly.  But most importantly, I have to stop judging people.  I will never know what others are truly thinking about me anyway and in the end it doesn't matter what they think.

Two years ago I would never have even thought about doing something like this retreat.  But here I am.  It's really strange to admit this, but after 40 years on this planet, I finally feel like I've grown up a little.

Apostasy is for Everybody

I used to think that apostasy was a bad thing. In the Mormon faith, the word gets thrown around as if it's equivalent to committing murder. I think few Mormons have ever considered that the word exists outside of a religious context. For instance, to no longer believe in the Tooth Fairy or Santa Clause is an apostasy. To change a political party is also an apostasy. As we mature socially and spiritually, apostasy of any old idea or belief that no longer works is required in order to progress.

Ironically, the Mormon church asks, if not requires, people of other religions and cultures to apostatize from them in order to join the ranks of the Mormons. Of course they don't see that as apostasy because they believe apostates are only people who reject the "one true gospel". So they are quick to belabor the idea that apostasy from the Mormon church is the only true apostasy and thus, A Very Bad Thing.

That is, sad to say, rather cult-like behavior.

Having been born into the Mormon church in the stronghold of the Mormon theocratic society that is Utah, I found myself struggling almost daily to break free of the guilt as a result of my diverging belief system. The cultural pressure was intense. But the uncertainty of the outside world seemed unbearable. The perceived safety of the community was appealing and it gave me a sense of purpose and certainty in an otherwise frightening and uncertain world. Yet, I knew there was more to this world than what I was allowed to experience. The group-think patterns could give me reprieve from the perceived on-slot of the enemy's attacks on us "righteous" folks, but at the same time I felt oddly condemned for my desire to see things from the other side.

We Mormons can be a highly suspicious and judgmental people, and more often than not, only see others in terms of black or white, good or bad, friend or foe, us vs. them. There is no concept at all of moral relativity; no genuine comprehension of the diversity of personal experience. There is no true empathy. Ironically, as missionaries, we were taught empathy as a tool to persuade people into joining the church. But it was taught as a simple language mechanic in order to form the right string of words to fit a situation. These exercises only manifested in superficiality that tricked and manipulated people into believing they were being understood. True empathy never existed. The moment I had true empathy for someone, the last thing I wanted to do was teach them about the Mormon religion.

As Mormons we believe in a personal spiritual guide, "The Holy Ghost". An external spirit-person who's companionship is gifted to us by the "laying on of hands" by priesthood authority upon our acceptance of the "one true religion". This "constant companion" is our spiritual connection to the "other side of the veil", a special gift that we can call upon for direction and guidance when we face challenges and uncertainty.

All too often, as a Mormon, I couldn't trust that "spirit" to lead me where I needed to go in order to maintain my status as an upstanding Mormon. I didn't understand the promptings, they didn't make sense. They were so often in contrast to what I was being taught in church. I feared that I was not able to be in tune with the "true spirit" so, instead, I developed a dependence on what I believed to be our infallible, ecclesiastical authorities for guidance. Even so, their guidance often conflicted with what that "spirit" was telling me also. Still, I followed through, I obeyed, as they instructed; after all, they wouldn't be where there were if they didn't have the "true spirit", right?

More and more, every day, I could see that it was making my life more difficult and miserable, but I was able to maintain that acceptance in the Mormon community; up until my sanity hit its breaking point. It wasn't working for me anymore. I needed to move on. At that moment of announcing my departure, I became the enemy to be feared -- the bad, the foe, the "them". It was heartbreaking. I wanted so much to follow that "spirit" but I couldn't do it as a Mormon. I had to leave. I had to let go of the notion of a certain future for a life of pure uncertainty. It was freighting as hell but the "spirit" was telling me I had nothing to fear. Still it would be nearly a year before I wrote that letter to resign.

I was warned by my ecclesiastical authorities that my departure meant that I would lose that gift of the "spirit" and that it was never too late to repent and come back. FEAR! Yet, at the same time, that "spirit" was telling me that they were all full of shit. And it turned out to be correct. That "spirit" grew stronger instead. It seemed to be more in tune with what was behind that uncertainty than ever before. All I had to do was embrace it, trust it and listen. All the things I was always afraid of doing.

And so it goes, I've learned to listen to that "spirit", have trust in the present moment, and embrace the uncertainty. And I've discovered a wonderful joy that comes from jumping headfirst into uncertainty. It's not something to be feared. It's to be celebrated. Still, uncertainty continues to be a scary place sometimes but it's no longer a fear that dictates my life. It's really just undefined possibilities in which I have the power to take control. My personal spirituality is now motivated by the wonder of uncertainty. Too much of what motivates Mormon "spirituality" is the fear of uncertainty. From my experience, "spiritual" guidance attained through fear is just more fear.

It's quite possible I will carry that Mormon baggage with me for the rest of my life. It's not a conscious decision to retain it; it's just the way the mind works. My experiences in that world shaped my thinking in ways that I may never recognize or understand. There is no sense trying to predict what they are and if they might result in something detrimental. Some of those experiences also gave me some perspectives that I'm thankful I have. There is no use discarding all of it just because it was rooted in a fraudulent belief system. When I'm faced with situations that affront my personal experiences, I can assess their value then. In the mean time I'm quite satisfied with the uncertainty of not knowing.

Years ago when people told me of their experience of heightened spiritually upon leaving the Mormon faith, I thought they were lying, trying to deceive. FEAR! But, when I let go of that fear, I discovered a HUGE world outside the Mormon church that is vastly more spiritually inclusive and satisfying than I could have ever imagined. I can now empathize with them. I understand what they mean. I've experienced it firsthand. Now my empathy has extended outward more so than ever before on a grand scale. I now have a grasp of just how connected we are as a human race. There is no "us vs. them". That's a lie. We are all in this together, trying to figure this life out. Some think they have the answers but don't. Others have the answers and may not know it. Many may not even be looking for answers where as others spend their life in pursuit of them. In all, we are just running around, hitting and shoving and bumping in to each other like children on a playground, trying to cope with our own uncertainty of who and what we are.

As for my current Apostasy, I no longer believe that I or anyone was ever gifted with a companionship of any such external "spirit" from any "laying on of hands" by ecclesiastical authorities. I believe that such spiritual guidance already exists within us, part of our subconscious. I don't know what it is or if it matters that I know what it is. I do know that it's ours. Call it intuition, instinct, gut feeling, a hunch; no one can gift it and no one can take it away. It's for us alone to follow, interpret and understand in our moments of uncertainty. It's our personal identity and it cannot be given a name. It's our truth and it just is.

A Tid Bit of Tidbiting

I've been worrying that my posts are too long and that I'm trying to fit too many things into these essays. The one I've been working on this week got as long as 2270 words. I managed to get it cut down to around 1850 words.

My longest essay up to this point has been my ugly "Mormon Faggots" essay. I tend to ramble so much in these things that I've been able to lift entire sections out of them and use for other essays. I think I lifted three different ramblings out of "Mormon Faggots" that could be used elsewhere. Not sure if I will but then I'm not going to promise anything.

The essay I'm currently working on was originally going to be posted on June 14th but my experience during the gay pride festival that weekend changed the way I saw a few things. Also the 3 hour drive home put me way past my bed time so the attempts I made at editing that night were akin to a cat walking on a keyboard.

My feelings had changed so much that the tone of the essay had completely changed. The change didn't stem from any specific event that weekend but more of my state of mind at the festival this year. I just pushed myself to stay in a head space that was always in the present. I avoided thinking about work or other distractions. Being active in the now like that allowed me to be appreciative of what was going on around me, to drop all judgments and appreciate that I and the people around me were experiencing and expressing our personal truths without fear of death or dismemberment.

That also allowed me to stop worrying that I might be committing some gay fashion faux pas by wearing a bright red t-shirt, khaki cargo shorts, a blue and tan baseball cap and these wonderfully eye-catching, Gothic, knee-high leather buckle boots. Incidentally, the boots were a big hit! I knew they would be. I had a lot of great complements and conversations because of them.

One conservative gay gentleman asked me why I wore them. I said, "I'm simply expressing a form of my sexuality."

To which he grinned and said, "Ah, you want someone licking your boots."

Yeah, he nailed it. He wasn't so conservative after all. LOL!

But I digress.

I'm still letting my next essay stew for a bit to make sure I've said what I want to say in the way I want to say it.

It's hard to be impeccable in writing. Obviously I'm not as prolific compared to professionals. But then I've always had a fucked up need to compare my stuff to something perfect. But what? I don't know. I just know that it's not perfect for me. There is something in my gut that isn't quite comfortable with it. It's probably my ego rather than my gut talking because I worry more about any criticism of my spelling, grammar and punctuation than I do about the content of my thoroughly elucidate, cankerous ramblings.

It's my fucking blog for crying out loud. It's for dumping my brain. If people don't like it, it's not my problem. Why would I care? Why am I so hard on myself and expect that all posts I make have to be these great literary masterpieces? I don't know. I'm still just trying to find my voice really. And I would really like to be free to just throw shit up here that is just that, shit! Why don't I? It's my space to define my way. Hell, I'm just going to start doing it now with this post. I can always fix the mistakes later if I find them.... or when someone points them out.... in a way that is helpful....

The other day a friend called me and expressed his disappointment in me. He said that he had thought that for sure I had more intelligence than that.

What did I do now?

Well, in a quick little email I had accidentally used the word "your" instead of "you're".

Oh, for fuck's sake.

Facebook Folly

I had originally intended for my brain-dumping on this blog to be more frequent and on a somewhat regular basis. But I got a bit side tracked. Not in the way that is usually thought of where life gets complicated and work gets busy and all of that. It's all true but I still had plenty of time to write and I didn't.

Through the course of the weeks since my last post, I noticed that my journaling had become erratic and often times it didn't contain much more than a date at the top of the page. I would sit down at my computer intending to do it but I never got past opening up Word to a blank page before distracting myself with something mindless. I kept avoiding it. I thought that I really had nothing to say and yet I was spending a lot of my waking time in a state of emotional crabbiness.

My mind, so I thought, had no need of dumping. Sure I had moments of venting but it was on forums where the other people were anonymous strangers without dissenting opinions. In other words, I was only posting to "safe spaces" but because my venting was in the heat of the discussion, it was only within the context of the dialog so it wasn't something I could make a blog post out of. Perhaps later I will when I really get my ideas in check.

I also stopped posting pro-gay marriage stuff on Facebook too and that ultimately was the real kicker. It wasn't a "safe space". Every time I wanted to post something or comment on someone else's post, I would stop short and tell myself that what I had to say was unimportant or that it would irritate someone. I was especially afraid of what my Mormon friends and family would think, even some of my co-workers as well. I was essentially starting to push myself back into the closet again. Avoid drawing attention to myself by not talking about it. Letting it all pass by as if I hadn't noticed anything was going on, hoping that someone else will address it so I don't have to look like the angry-gay-activist-enemy-dude etc.

Incidentally, also over the course of the weeks since my last post, several old friends found me on Facebook. Some of them actually talked to me to catch up on things, clear the air about the past, or just say hello. Unfortunately, I also had a few un-friend me during that time too. And I will probably never know why. I could assume that it was the gay thing as that does bother a few of the really religious types but I honestly think that most of them just ignore me or disable the notices. Admittedly, I've done that to a few of my friends but it was to curtail having to sift through all useless spam generated by those stupid games they were playing all damn day.

But, with the un-friending, I know I can't really know anything for sure. And I'm just too chicken to ask. Besides, if I know what it was, it would probably make me hate them even more. Especially when one of them also un-friended my brother but didn't un-friend all the friends we had in common. They were just eliminating my family from their friend list. Do I want to know? Well, yes, but I'm not going to ask. They are gone and I'm sure it will be a better world without them.

What gets me about the un-friending is the audacity of it in the first place. For someone to friend me, even chat with me and post comments to my wall or photo gallery and then one day decide that it was time to cut it off is just really odd. To me, friending someone is to say, "I want to link my page to yours and be associated with you." But, to un-friend seems to do more than just say, "I don't wish to link my page with yours anymore", it also tells the world that "We are no longer friends in real life." Clearly this doesn't apply to the friends who are total strangers to me in real life. It's the ones that I have known personally throughout the years and we have a history together. It's rejection, simple as that.

I hate rejection. It's still my weak spot. It fucking hurts and I fucking hate it. And then to have it happen several times in a series of a few weeks is earth shattering for me. It's odd how a simple little act where someone makes and breaks a friendship on Facebook can trigger depression. But that's what it did. After a few rounds of un-friending, I found myself getting cautious. I started to regress. Go and hide. Don't make waves. Don't say anything that might drive any more people away, especially my friends who hadn't been paying attention recently and noticed that I'd decided to become a flaming homosexual.

Yes, rejection is something that I have always been hyper sensitive to. It is partly the reason it took me so damned long to deal with being gay in the first place. So every time I notice that someone has left, I feel utter terror inside. "What the fuck did I do now?"

Depression has a way of slowly creeping up on me so it took me awhile to realize what was going on. I had essentially revoked my own permission to express myself at all, no matter what it was. I had regressed to the old, emotionless, robotic, overly self-censored thinking from my past. And I resented it. I stopped doing any writing. I didn't want to talk to people about the things going on in my life. It was affecting my social life, my interaction with people at work, my family, everything. I didn't want to risk doing or saying anything that might express my true self in fear that it was something about me that pushed people away. Ironically, my anger, frustration and bitterness did it anyway.

Of course I was blaming everyone else for feeling like I needed to censor myself. After all, I grew up believing that it was my responsibility to do whatever it took to make sure that other people were happy. And no matter what, I would invariably fail resulting in getting horribly criticized for it. So it used to be that any little bit of criticism would push my self-censor buttons.

But this was different. I wasn't getting any criticism. I was just loosing people with no reason as to why they were leaving. They weren't sticking around to criticize. The ones that did stick around to criticize didn't bother me. I found that I was now comfortable enough with myself to brush it off. But I didn't know how to deal with the ones who just up and walked out without saying a dammed thing. That was a new one on me.

I realize that spending all of my time trying to figure out why people end a relationship is a waste of precious time that I could be using to make new friends. I'm still in a transitional time in my life where my social links are realigning. As I grow into a new and complete gay man, sure of who I am and unwilling to pretend to be what other people want me to be, I'm going to be making new friendships, adjusting existing ones and ending others. It's just the way it is. Yet, it's still hard and it's not without some hurt feelings. And quite honestly, there are a few people that, had things been different, I would never have been their friends to begin with.

I'm trying to keep in mind that, for many of those people, I'm no longer the same person they got to know years ago. Many of them, including my family, don't really know the real me. They don't know my real interests or any of my religious or political views let alone my philosophical views about life, love and sex. They think they know because I never corrected them when they made assumptions. Instead, I just pretended to take an interest in their interests and pretend to agree with their opinions. After all, I just wanted to fit in. I needed to hide myself and everyone else from that evil scary gay thing inside. So ultimately, the person they all got to know was a complex shell they helped create for me and I accommodated them by making sure I wore it full time. In many ways I even believed some of that shell was the true me.

But that shell is gone now. Quickly and violently ripped away. So much so that I'm still trying to sort out what is real and what isn't, what matters and what doesn't, who cares and who doesn't and where my spot will be in all of this. And I still wonder why the fuck it couldn't have been different.

Mormon Faggots

I was in a little instant message chat with a gay friend one evening when he suddenly started ranting about his frustration with the Gay Scene. I was somewhat confused. I had no idea what he meant by that. What was this Gay Scene that was all worth getting frustrated over? He went on to tell me about the fucking, shallow, jerks who were spreading rumors about him on Craig's List of his sexual behaviors of "getting around the town". I assume that meant he was being accused of slutting it up. Well, he does live in a small rural community in the west, and I suppose the rarity of gays out there make them somewhat territorial. Hmmm, sounds like a catfight!

Anyway, it got me thinking. There was something bugging me about this gay guy referring to his cruising as if it were a special lifestyle, -- a special Gay Lifestyle. Was the Gay Scene or Gay Lifestyle only about cruising for sex? Why wasn't there a thing called the Straight Scene or Straight Lifestyle? There are a lot more straights cruising for sex than gays. What made it so special that it was given a name of its own? And why does he refer to it as the Gay Scene?

I don't really suppose that I'm going to actually answer these questions with any modicum of facts and figures. Honestly, it's all just a hodgepodge of personal opinion. But I'm going to ponder my experiences and see what happens as I explore this idea of the Gay Scene.

The only real visible sign of gay culture that some people think of as the Gay Scene appears to be the leftovers of a culture that is reminiscent of its heyday in the 70's and 80's, when sexual liberation had matured and being out and proud was the new thing. I saw brief glimpses of it on TV growing up, -- but only after we got cable. Let's see, what do I remember? Ah yes, fabulous gender-bending queens, lots of skinny tan guys with pink feather boas and cut-off blue jeans-- cut to with an inch of their life, -- and those hot, shirtless, muscly men in their sexy leather chaps. Ooo, I need to repeat that. Hot, shirtless, muscly men in their sexy leather chaps. Sigh.

Anyway, was all of that audacious flaunting in the streets of San Francisco waving rainbow colored flags the Gay Scene? No, I think that was just California, although it has since spread to other states. To me it always looked a lot like a Mardi Gras except with less alcohol, less nudity and a visual distinction that looked, well, gay.

Incidentally, what in the hell does gay look like when it comes to judging the person? I can pass for the straightest acting gay guy east or west of the Mississippi and yet I'm as gay as gay can get. On the Kinsey scale of human sexuality I'm a 7. But people insist that I don't look gay. And only the really perceptive guys, who are looking for it, or my mom, will see the signals, but only after a while. And since my gaydar is sorely underdeveloped, I have to make sure I'm in or near the Gay Scene to get anywhere. But I don't know what that is!

What I've seen in the gay world and what I've seen in the straight world looks the same to me.
What I see is that the terms Gay Scene or Gay Lifestyle are pejorative labels used by people who think gays are, to put it nicely, icky. And those gay folks who think of themselves as icky and don't realize the double standard in play, would be the ones who use it on themselves.

The non-gay acting straight folks don't use the word lifestyle to describe their scene obviously. But insist on using that word to describe the Gay Scene. Well, except for S&M. The term "The Lifestyle" or "The Scene" is commonly used which is fine. But then those religious, non-gay acting straights, or rather, Christian anti-gay activists, would never admit to the existence of S&M amongst the straights. They make great attempts to convince everyone that S&M is only an uber-perverted, gay thing. Heh! Sorry to burst your bubble there Christianists, but it's not perverted and it's not only a gay thing! I dare say that the only thing about S&M that can be called perverted is the fucked up version that permeates the everyday life of many Christianists. But that is a topic for another time.

As a matter of interest, S&M is the only real organized lifestyle or scene to emerge from that wonderful leather subculture of the gay community. Unfortunately it has, almost completely, been taken over by heterosexuals. And quite frankly it sickens me! Every time I go online to shop for S&M gear, I have to hold back my gag reflex as I'm being assaulted by blatant displays of heterosexual bondage! Eww! I really wish these straight people wouldn't go around flaunting their sexuality so much!

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, the Gay Scene. No wait, not yet. I'm not done ranting about Christianist. Allow me to indulge myself with some reminiscing.

I came out late in life. It wasn't that I just decided to come out of the closet to tell the world, I wasn't able to accept I was gay until late in life. Yeah, it's a long, sordid and sadly pathetic story so I'll spare you all and not tell most of it. But it went like this:

I was immersed in a religious culture that prided itself on demonizing the world at large. And as one would expect, doing it without a clue as to what the world really was. Mostly blanket statements about Satan's influence and ushering in the end of the world. To them Satan was a powerful force lurking around every corner waiting to turn people into miserable tools for evil. And because we had the "one true gospel", the evildoers were jealous and hateful of our fortune. All they were intent on doing was persecuting and corrupting us poor happy Mormons to be miserable like them.

Now, this isn't really about the Mormons themselves. It's about my friend and me as Mormons! And it's not pretty. Like all good, psychotic, God fearing, Christian religions, everything revolves around the denunciation of sex. We were taught, in church, starting at the age of puberty, that masturbation was a form of sexual abuse that makes you gay. And the worst possible thing that could happen to you would be choosing to get sucked into a debasing, vile addiction such as homosexuality. Yeah, that's what we were taught! Homosexuality was a debasing, vile addiction caused by masturbation. And not only that but homosexuality was a sin almost as evil as murder. Actually, depending on whom you talked to and what mood they were in, it was worse than that. All sex outside of marriage was an evil sin as almost as bad as murder, but homosexual sex was as bad or worse than murder! LOL!

I can laugh at it now but it was serious shit back then. Total Fucking Serious Shit! And when the AIDS scare hit our little socially isolated world, that Total Fucking Serious Shit hit the proverbial Totally Badass, Gas Powered, Super Shit Spreading Fan! The times of Sodom and Gomorrah had come! Gay people were no longer just perverted, child molesting, homosexuals. They were now perverted, child molesting, homosexual, ass-fucking Sodomites! And they were here to destroy humanity with the new plague of the century, AIDS! Oh, and anal warts too. LOL!

Still, I laugh at it now but it was serious shit back then! Well, it's still serious shit today but I digress.

My response to such religious programming in relationship to my reluctant self-discovery as a teenager was to stuff it deep down in the back of my mind and forgot about it. The gay world, the straight world, even my personal S&M alone time was all off my gaydar, radar and dungeon play, for 20+ years.

I was well aware of the straight world because all my friends at the time where straight and I had no choice but to accept the overt flaunting of heterosexuality. It was all too disgusting for a repressed, straight, gay-guy like me to willingly or even successfully participate in. Thank God! Though I still donned my S&M fetish gear, I kept it to myself so it didn't count. No one else was involved so no one knew. Sadly, such repressive and split-level thinking was driving me to insanity and suicide.

But, for the most part, the gay world was something that happened out-of-sight in a city far, far away. Except when I saw those brief glimpses on cable TV. There were a few times in college I would hear about some poor fool who, hanging out at the local rest stop down the road from the university, was labeled a fag and beaten within an inch of his life. A few of my straight friends liked to brag about it. I was privileged, several times, to hear about what they liked to do with baseball bats and faggots. Welcome to Happy Valley, Utah, USA! Goddamn, Fuckers!

Anyway, back to my gay friend. His response to the same religious programming was to feel ashamed like me but instead he rebelled and acted out his sexuality. Granted, at the time he lived in a more urban climate void of small town rumor mills and threats of violence. He told me that he started his college carrier by diving right into the world of gay sexual voracity. Whereas I, denying anything gay, watched in shock as all of my straight friends dove into the straight world of sexual voracity. Ironically, I suffered great pangs of guilt because I didn't obey my religious programming and disassociate myself from such evil people.

So what, specifically, had he dived into? He told me about the bars to get hookups, strip clubs, one-night stands, orgies and glory holes in the backs of porn shops. Yeah, I'm sure there is gay slang for this crap but I don't give a shit. It's still the same no matter what it's called and none of it is exclusive to the gay world. I lived in the straight world for 25+ years where I was around straight people who went to bars for hookups, strip clubs, one-night stands, orgies and glory holes in the backs of porn shops too.

So what am I getting at here?

The so-called Gay Scene is really just a gay version of the Straight Scene. There is no difference. The sexual activities and mating habits are the same in both worlds. The cheating, backbiting and game playing are the same in both worlds. STDs are rampant in both worlds. Prostitution prevails in both worlds. Drug and alcohol abuse continues to kill people in both worlds. People fall in love and make commitments to each other in both worlds. They have kids in both worlds. They get divorced and fight for custody in both worlds. They believe in God, go to church and pay their tithes in both worlds. They don't believe in god, ignore, shun or despise religion in both worlds. Both the gay community and the straight community have their fair share of sexually repressed, promiscuous, perverted, child molesting, ass-fucking Sodomites. The only difference is, there are a hell of a lot more straight ones than gay ones. But that's just because of the nature of probability.

So, while I was playing a scared-straight, upstanding Mormon and hating my life, my friend, bless his little faggot heart, was playing a rebellious straight-act, upstanding Mormon and hating his life, but with the benefit of having a shit load of gay sex. Lucky him!

He still lives in shame as a rebellious straight-act, upstanding Mormon and hating his life. But now he is married to a psychotic woman, has four kids, goes to church and the temple, pays his tithing and hates his life even more. He never witnessed much of the straight world except for the fairytale Mormon version. Something to this effect: Grow up and go on a mission, pay my tithing, go to BYU, get married in the Temple, have 11 children, we all turn out perfect, we win our spot in the Celestial Kingdom a few doors down from God's house, and live there for ever and ever and ever and ever, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

His view of the gay world is essentially what his religious programming tells him it is. And, as with all "True Blue Mormons", or any Christian fundamentalist for that mater, he compartmentalizes his beliefs. For him, having a firm belief in the church doesn't conflict with getting some hot man-booty on the side and then teaching in Sunday school about the evil homosexuals. I guess I should cut him some slack. After all, I was a "True Blue Mormon" once. Thankfully I figured it out and got the hell out. I'm sure he'll come around sometime too. At least I hope he will. His sanity is at stake.