contemplative====================
Some people have journals to pour out their feelings, and this is good. Some people have commented on these journal entries with platitudes, advice, and gut reactions regardless of the basic fact that they only have the journalist's point of view of events to determine what happened.
And so, I provide here a little rumor control. My side, for what it's worth.
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I had a friend, someone I trusted, someone I cared a great deal about for reasons that didn't always make sense, do something stupid. The 'crime' is not that
lionmage had a 'dark fantasy' about me. I can't stop anyone from thinking, nor do I want to. I certainly can't stop the men of my social community from having fantasies about me, or any other girl in my community for that matter. The 'crime' is that his fantasy was moving out of the realm of imagination and into concrete reality, the details described logistics on physically and psychologically raping me through the use of drugs. While we had playfully talked about such things before, it was always 'consentual', it never went as far as this conversation did, and it was private conversations with him and me, not with anyone outside the relationship. I've had real demons invade my life early enough that I have no illusions of relenquishing control of my body or mind to *anyone*. I have survived molestation, rape, mental and physcial abuse by others; I would never, even in play, consider such to be a 'fantasy' of mine. Consent is the difference: You _can_ consent to relenquish consent -- BDSM play often revolves around the release of self-will for a specified time or gig, but that release is voluntary with both parties aware of the rules. The 'dark fantasy'
lionmage alludes to was purely non-consentual, told to/with a third party involved, used real names and used real events/information that killed the fantasy and make it a perverted plan.As much as I loved
lionmage, as much as I tried to pull him back from the abyss, his darkness has always cast an unsettling shadow over our relationship. It shaped a lot of how we interracted, whether he could see that consciously or not. And as much as I shared my love and compassion, how much I poured out understanding and empathy, I could never be everything he wanted me to be. I have always been polyamorous, but I had also made it clear (or so I thought) that there was someone in my life that 'had priority'. That someone has known me longer than our community has been around, longer than the Internet has existed publicly, let alone as long as I've known
lionmage. My coug'r and I have built up a strong friendship and love for 2 decades, in spite being across a continent from each other for most of that time. I have joked that we're among the first 'wired' couples, since we spent most of our earliest conversations through BBSes back in the early 80's. My other playmates (friends who I get physical with) understood this relationship, and appeared to be happy just to have the opportunity to be close with me on my terms, unlike the 'fanboys' who seemed determined to win me over somehow.I don't think I'll ever understand why I appear so unique. I want people to be happy, I want to share my hard-won sense of self and joy to others so that they can learn to love themselves. I thought that's a simple concept. In exchange, I get obsessions and adorations that are undeserved and only hurt the one doing them. My sweet scared
lionmage was like that, but I kept hoping he was different... My ex-husband Ogre tried to control me, and when that failed he hurt me physcially, and when that failed he threatened suicide. He quite likely has bipolar disorder and definitely has uncontrollable rages. In those aspects,
lionmage *is* a lot like my ex. Though lionmage never hurt me physically, it wasn't a matter of if but when. It is rare for someone to want to hurt a loved one, but it still happens -- it's not intent, but circumstances that cause it. In a rage, in fear, under the influence of chemicals both natural and synthetic, stressed out over something unrelated and lashing out: it doesn't matter, because the minute you actually show violence of any kind, it's too late. Ogre didn't punch me, therefore he was upset that friends compared him to OJ... it didn't matter that the arguments that ended up with me pinned to the bed or the wall, fighting for breath and having bruises on my arms for weeks from him squeezing me qualifies as spousal abuse. It doesn't matter than lionmage had similar problems with his own ex-wife, or that both of them had problems controlling their anger. It's violence, pure and simple. But I wasn't attracted to Ogre or lionmage because of their darkness: I was attracted to the good things in their light. Both are extremely intelligent, thoughtful, compassionate, computergeeks that never had the macho-bullshit of the average non-nerd male. As in all things, there is good and bad, and I have always strived to praise the good while ignoring or reducing the bad to a mangeable state. In this unfortunate incident, I was unable to do the later. My distance and diverging paths of our lives prevented me from being able to help him, though I tried to get him to seek love closer to home, to find someone who could be there as I could not. This visit was to be the last time we both had time together alone, and we both knew it.... our paths have diverged too much, as it often does in life. So, getting this warning and log a mere two weeks before I was to come out to his place was the hardest blow I've ever had. I meant it when I said all trust I had for him is now gone. The person I knew fought demons inside him, and this time the demons won.
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Other rumor control notes, minor compared to the above, include:
Drugs: I don't care about if someone uses them, as long as it's responsible use. Anything can be used as an escape (drugs, alcohol, netsurfing, etc.) and that's where the problem lies. I personally don't use drugs or alcohol to escape, because I know there is no escape -- only a temporary distraction. My ADHD-addled brain has enough distractions, I don't need outside help. It confused me that
lionmage mentioned a 'concern' of my 'increasing use of alcohol to escape stress' since I don't drink in any quantity to justify such a statement. I may say "man, I need a drink" as a joke, but the fact is that the last time I had a drink was a small portion of a pint with friends at a pub, not alone and suffering the desire to kill some mental pain. It's an unusual year if I've had 10 ounces of alcohol; my usual yearly intake can be measured in a shotglass. Likewise with drugs; I get others high being near me, I have no real use or desire to be in an altered state than the one I'm naturally in.Fighting over women: I have no idea where this came from, the concept that there were two guys fighting over me.
lionmage's comment about 'Ken being in control' and 'it wasn't always this way' seem short-sighted, which saddens me. There was never a 'fight', there was never two guys vying for my attention in any meaningful way. I am my own woman, I am not owned by anyone. I visit friends and hang out with playmates I want to. Ken does not control me, never has, never *wants* to. What *has* changed is that he's more open to expressing his relationship with me, and all the responsibilities of caring for someone that it implies. He asked me to marry him, and I accepted, and when we get married it will be as two individuals sharing a life, not Man and Wife. Ken *is* posessive of me, but it's a positive posessive, the one that can keep a relationship alive for decades. Ken *is* upset about this whole situation, because the last thing he wants is for me to get hurt again by someone who isn't in contol of himself. Beyond that, I'm the one that's making the decisions, as painful as some of them have been."If Only" :
lionmage is not the first person who has told me that they would wish a permanent relationship with me: it's not bragging, it's the unfortunate truth. I've had maybe 50 proposals over the years, usually starting with "If you ever leave X...." I don't know how many times I've had to say "That's the wrong way to get someone's attention" but here it is again: Bemoaning a 'might've been' is non-productive at best, and destructive at worst. Nobody wants to hear "If only I met you before your husband/wife" because by the nature of time you *can't* have, so crying over it is pointless. When a friend tells you she got engaged, the response should not be "Damn! I had thought about giving you a ring a year ago." Wrong answer, wrong intent. Nobody in my social group *could* have met me before Ken did (actually not true, but the ones who did have no interest in me) , and I had always wanted to be with Ken for the rest of my life, so
lionmage would not have wanted to see what would've happened if he *had* offered me a ring before Ken did. I'm sure there were other friends who may have *thought* "Well, darn, I missed my chance with her" but they never SAID it to me, because that's just not right.I'm not a prize, I'm not 'first ring, first served'. My first marraige had been for "practical reasons" that were all the wrong reasons and I knew it at the time: I was not going to make the same mistake twice. I knew Ken had wanted to marry me the minute his own divorce was finalised -- *I* was the one who told him "wait a bit, enjoy being single and ask me a little later". So the ring is only a legal and public symbol of Ken's intent to stay with me. No amount of 'if onlys' are going to change that, or change my mind.
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Okay, enough rambling for a first journal entry. I'll try to keep them shorter in the future.
