#but i hate how empty i am as a person intellectually socially emotionally and spiritually

[valtsv]

obviously the answer to this is to be curious and proactive now that i have greater access to the world around me, but i do feel a kind of bitter grief whenever i'm confronted by evidence of how much of popular culture and just general knowledge about the world around me i missed out on growing up by being near-isolated in a household where my information intake was fairly strictly monitored, and most of what i accessed had to be done secretly, and in fear, for my entire childhood. i had no friends, no role models except my parents and their close friends - few of whom were particularly inspiring or diverse in their behaviours or views - and my education was fine, but it was all pretty standard by-the-book stuff that didn't encourage much independent thought on its own. if it hadn't been for the internet and the local library, i would have been even more cut off from the outside world. and now i find myself constantly confronted with things that people assume are common knowledge, but for me are brand new never-before-seen revelations. it's embarrassing. it's not like i grew up in a sterile white room cut off from society, i just didn't know that there was more available to me until i left home. and now i'm stuck playing catch-up on things most people are already familiar with, knowing that isolation and neglect may be reasonable excuses for ignorance, but they won't change the fact that i am ignorant, and small-minded, and naive.

[wanderingsoul]

What Am I Doing with My Life? Sunday Morning Pondering's Amidst a Quarter-Life Crisis

So recently I did a thing, and graduated college. Yay, right? It still seems surreal, and honestly something that I thought would give a feeling of accomplishment has instead led me spiraling into questioning who I am, what I’m doing with my life, who I am becoming, and who I want to be. Not to mention the immense pressure to get a job and start life and look like a successful adult!!

All these existential crises have led me to a standstill, completely paralyzed, incapable of anything other than going to my very part time summer nanny job, and avoiding my life at the beach. I started the summer wanting it to be relaxed, and to “enjoy my last summer before adulting”, but honestly, I haven’t been enjoying it all that much. The whole not having a purpose and not knowing where I am going in life really puts a damper on things you know. Not to mention unhealthy coping behaviors like shopping, which I have been doing a lot of in my generous free time. Which then adds to the stress because I have less and less money! I know I am doing things that I don’t like, and I don’t like how I feel, and I feel generally aware of what would make these things better but I can’t stop! It feels that way anyway.

Days spent mostly alone feel refreshing and I love it, but also I end up procrastinating the many important and good things that I should be doing? And then I feel bad and don’t want to do any of the good things because I feel shame that I haven’t done them earlier! I feel like I am not doing a very good job of eloquently painting the picture, but you get the idea.

(Side note- Daniel Caesar just came out with a new album and its perfect)

Let’s talk life accomplishments – graduation. I graduated from a school that I did not like very much, with a degree that I loved for 1 year, and became to really dislike my last year. Social work is a super emotionally taxing career, and I totally get that, and in the beginning, I was all into that. I was fresh into soul searching, and I loved the challenge of having to analyze my behaviors and other people’s all at the same time. I had a very rewarding internship, and I truly felt like I was making a difference and learning so much about the world and myself. Then senior year rolled around, my depression got a lot worse, I worked a ton, felt completely useless at my internship, and lost one of my closest friends to her boyfriend. I also dealt with a lot of friend drama, and grew apart from my parents, which I hated. Also did not spend anytime exploring my spirituality, and reaching out to God. So, in almost all areas of my life, I felt empty. It was a hard year, and one where I was supposed to be planning long term, and finding my life passion and looking for jobs. I did pass my licensure exam to become a licensed social worker, but that did not make me feel much better considering I failed a class, and felt so checked out of my other classes I rarely showed up and hardly did any homework. Which was really unlike me, and something I had never done before. I just genuinely did not care anymore, and had no motivation to do well at all. Which was depressing, and made me feel not good about myself, which then became a vicious cycle of self-loathing, not doing anything, then more self-loathing. Gosh it was hard.

During this year, I didn’t really have anyone to turn to. That sounds dramatic, it really does. It’s true and not true all at the same time. My roommates were good to me, and hard to deal with, and fun and crazy. But I just feel like I don’t have a soul connection with them. Like some people you meet and you just know that these people get you and you feel like you could spend forever with them and not get bored. I don’t have anyone like that in my life right now. Which is why I think time alone doesn’t feel as fulfilling. Because time alone is not time alone solely for me, it’s to escape others. Time alone is spent being thankful for the lack of other people instead of the joy of just myself. Very close, but very different. I only had one best friend growing up, and I think it affected how I view friendships now. I know no one will compare to my one friend, so I get small parts of friendship in different people, never fully investing, never fully connecting because they’re not her. And that’s shitty right, not investing in others fully because of my childhood best friend?? It’s not her fault at all, I think I’m just a one-person kind of person. Which in case you didn’t know, is not how college works at all. College, in my experience is full of quantity over quality. And I know that’s everyone experiences college friendships differently, but that’s how it was for me. This has caused me to become very fickle with my friendships, and flit from one to the next, searching for that genuine connection in each person. One of my close friends pointed this out to me, and I can see it very clearly in many of my friendships. Which doesn’t allow me to be a very good friend to people that value my friendship. 

Back to questioning what I am doing with my life. For some time in college, I felt as if I had a purpose in life. To be a social worker, to help people, to discover more about myself and the world. I felt passionate about what I was doing, who I was learning from, and what direction I was going. Now I feel burnt out, and I haven’t even entered the work force !!!!! What the heck is that even. 

I think one of my (many) problems is that I am also looking for validation/happiness in places I won’t get any. I am not pursing jobs which could provide a purpose for my life. BUT then my brain instantly shames me for seeking purpose in my job instead of in Jesus. I want to connect back into my spirituality, and I feel like I could be at a good place to start again. But my dad, a while back, said something that really hurt me, and even though I instantly rejected it, has made me question. I always felt comfortable searching and questioning, and doubting, because I know that God had made my brain this way, and valued the intellectual. So I never felt bad about questioning my faith, or taking a step back, and evaluating. But my dad said that God won’t wait forever, and that eventually he will walk away from me. And I’m scared that is true. Even though I try to cling to scripture that says God will never leave me, part of me wonders if it has been too long. Have I been questioning so long and doubting so much that God has given up on me? I don’t think I can even handle the idea of that. Because even though spiritual fulfillment has seemed so unattainable these past two years, its always seemed like something that I can access again. Somehow, I will find time or have a moment, and I will be at a place where I can again reach out to God. Having him in the background has always been something that I drew immense comfort in. Knowing that he sees me, and knows how much I have been struggling, and loves me so much that he allows me to figure some of this hard stuff out. He doesn’t want to control me, but wants me to learn the value of His love and His validation. He is preparing me for himself, and calling me into vulnerability and relationship before him. (small tears). 

So as I begin to process this spiritual awakening of sorts, I have to trust that this is all part of his plan. And it kind of makes it all seem worth it? Like this hardship means that something beautiful will come from the ashes, and that brokenness doesn’t have to be an end point, but rather a good place to start something. 

[opalmothnightingale]

Some Types of Neediness Spoil Love

1- 20- 18 - 

I want nothing more than to wrap my life around the care and nurturing and making another happy...  Only if they are made happy by things I like to do...  No doormat am I...  

But yes, I even thought I would like to love somebody who’s weaker, more tired, broken, sad, needs help and care and things like that...  If I had the resources.  That is a neediness I can accept, and be happy with.

But the sex based neediness can create this artificial sort of love that is chemically induced and physically dependent.  I mean, call it love if you want but it seems to me like it’s a drug induced love illusion.  Love can be there but so is the love illusion drug sex feeling.  That doesn’t leave, it remains imprinted as a trait of personality, for those whose love bonds are dependent on it.  For them maybe it feels as natural and right as ever a love could be.  Good for them, but bad for me.  It’s fake, strained, artificial to me.  It feels less than to me.  It’s not what love means to me and if I can get by with it, it’s not the ideal love to me.  

But I think other forms of neediness might be even more pernicious and insidious and destructive, harder to meet needs like emotional dependency, psychological disorder and so on that needs others to be their mind, their heart, their soul when their own selves are broken...  Which, I might like if I know how to do that, but if it’s changeable, unstable, chaotic and I don’t know how and when I can help them...  Sex dependency is at least more predictable usually..  Lol  Sigh.  So,..  I dont’ know...

It’s not just that men’s sex drives and compulsions weigh things down for me but the whole masculine mentality I think...  Which many women also have...  This whole work based, productivity based mentality, which also may be applied to housework and other tasks, not just money making work...  This competitve and social approval seeking mentality of being strong, stable, grown up, productive, dependable...

When what I want is to be a wandering mind, heart, soul and expression, scattered and only seeking to be tied down as much as needed to meet basic needs.  Emotional needs and artisitc and soul and intellectual needs are more important, and are changeable...  I seek and fulfill those on my own, and with friends, but not seeking friends like a supply to give me that...  Only to enhance it if I can find someone who shares in those dreams and ideals, joys and loves and meanings.  And creative expressions as well.  

And I want to be a caretaker...  I thrive in the role of nurturer...  But I don’t want to be a sex provider.  Which is what I feel like for my husband.  Ugh  I don’t ever want to feel like this is even a chance that is what I am, unwittingly, for another person, ever again...  

So but yes, though, I want to care for needs and make someone happy and know just how to make them most happy but the sex urgency just seems too urgent to me...  It seems to animal.  I want my role as something more mental, creative, psychological instead, even if it’s a need-filling role...  Something calmer, more sedate, caring for the person not the mating animal in them...  Lol 

Yeah, not for me...  I am done with that gross base fixation, sex and reproduction.  I want the motherly, feminine, doting kind of role.  Forget sex.  It makes me want to strangle someone.  I get so mad about it.  I get so dark, angry, vengeful about this whole topic...  I hate it.  I want to be free from it for the remainder of my entire life...  Not only sex but all masculine, needy, dominant roles and cravings and expectations... 

I want a completely opposite world, life and roles...  That is what I want, most of all...  And now I see that and tell the universe.  Universe if you will give me love, give me a love that is not clinging, grasping, fists clutched, hungry, pursuing. 

It’s ominous and disturbing and reminds me of men in my family who had that whole vibe, who didn’t sexually abuse me but they did abuse me emotionally and it’s this whole disgusting man persona 

(and many women adopt it and find it appealing but it makes me want to run and hide forever from such, in myself too, to strangle it out of existence...  an aberration...  a blight, a stalking disorder of mania and selfish controlling darkness...  It makes me feel traumatized and abandoned and cruelly abused all at the same time...  If I let myself go there which is why I try not to). 

It’s ironic because I’m highly sexual but maybe that’s why I feel this way because I know I can meet my own needs.  I don’t need another to teach me that.  I reserve my sex for the purest, most refined expressions...  Which can include spiritual sex with spirit beings.   And so, nothing is the same after you have spirit sex...  Yes,...  So there’s that.  It’s real.  It’s been a regular part of my life for a few years at least now.

I wouldn’t ever go back to only physical or 3 dimensional based sex (that is to say, sex without a strong energy/astral feeling)...  Nor even human-only based love any more after having this...  I need soul love, spirit love, astral love, spirit conversation/telepathic communication, energy, healing, and sex...  It’s more than the physical can be....  

The physical and material aren’t enough for me anymore...  Not that I have seen so far at least...  And, it can’t begin to compare,...  Can’t compare at all,... with all the healing and energizing and heart rejuvenating from the energy, higher self things I experience in my spirit love bonds...  

Even though, physically, it leaves something out...  Lol  But I think I could find how to make up for that,...  

And, so,...  Not only sexually but real life presence, which could be made up for with my own friends and lifestyle and lovers perhaps (or not any lovers, but only the feeling, idea and expression of romantic love, immense and unfettered...  

Found in ideals, ideas, love, all over the world and books, art, an abstract but real bigger picture “lover” which I can find and see and sense somehow...  Like god is with people and like passed on loved ones are with you...  

...  Yes, in signs,...  Powerful experiences, that you’d share with a lover, if you had one,...

And energy,...

And synchs and things that remind you of them, all over the world and your own heart as well...  And somehow all this is so big if I could only show it to you...  If you could only see how to have a lover with no lover there,...  The world would be transformed, with all it’s lonely sad broken angry people...  Not feeling like that any longer, I think...  Love, romantic feeling love, 

(and yes, sexual bliss too haha...  but not a needy obsessed sex,...  not for me at least...) and adoration just..   it really totally transforms shame and everything, all bad feelings or poor self esteem, depression, anger, etc, etc, etc). 

Only now I don’t have to because my physical sex needs are overly “met” by the needs of my husband that he expects me to dutifully provide 

Or...  else our marriage wouldn’t last or would degenerate...  I never knew he was like this, till years into our marriage, when I fell out of love after he forced me pregnant...  The last shred of romantic love I had for him, gone absolutely after that...  But he has to have fake love expressions and sex if he will be there to raise the child he forced into being on an unprepared mother...  

Oh isn’t sex great?  Isn’t marriage and family wonderful...  The fabric of humanity and human animal generations over time...  

Hm but...  yeah...  This is reality, true and stupid and animalistic and shameful, the hidden secrets that keep our species going along...  through the centuries.

But,...  Ah,... so now...  Yes, now you see why I despise sexual compulsivity, right?  Hmm.  Yeah.  Ugh.  *Waves of disgust and nausea*  Sex leads people to act like greedy mindless animals...  I don’t want that.  Sex leads people to call it love when they have this basic, mindless animalistic bond...  That feels totally empty and boring and crass,...  

My husband thinks he is so in love but I am disgusted...  Good if that makes others happy, but it’s not for me.  I need a spiritually and emotionally refined foundation for the love in my life...  No material or mundane bond satisfies my sense of heart, joy or motivation, but leaves me feeling empty and bored and alone...  Like a used object, there to gratify the role they want me to be for them.

And...   For me, I have definitely found spirit sex is better than real sex, if I have to choose only one or the other of the two, and so it’s not just me alone but there is love there with spirit, which now it is a constant source to me.  Not to even mention kundalini and the sexual fulfillment that it gives me.  I think there are techniques that can maintain that sexual energy all of one’s life...  Sexual practices are part of many spiritual disciplines,...  but this doesn’t always revolve around a partner.