quirkkittenexplosion Member Profile

intro to my romantic relationships, i guess?

Relationship Stress / by quirkkittenexplosion

January 17th, 2023

...See more Hi, I’m new and dramatic. You can call me Quirk. This is my first thread in here, but I thought I should do an intro or something before I go ahead and start engaging with folks. I’ve had quite a few relationships prior to my current situation, and I like talking about relationships. I think the ways that people can connect, whether it’s platonic or romantic or sexual whatever, is infinitely interesting. I may frequent this part of 7cups. Anyway, my relationship challenges. That’s the prompt here, yes? I have a few. I’ll ramble. My nesting partner and I have been together five(? sixish?) years. We act married, we feel married, we’ve given each other rings. But I don’t think we’d be considered engaged. Cool with us, we don’t really care. We started our polyam journey or whatever sometime around our second year of dating. I lived outside a the country for half a year and we “took a break”, and when I came back he suggested polyamory. Due to how that came about, I sometimes have some anxiety about his desire to be in a polyam relationship. He has reassured me several times that it’s just the relationship style that makes sense for him. Anxiety brain still comes back to this though. My nesting partner (let’s call him Bear) is the epitome of reserved. Some of this is, I think, personality. He doesn’t externally emote very often, and never for social norm reasons. He also doesn’t understand/recognize a lot of social norms. Which might be something else in the realm of mental health. Regardless this can put some stress on us both as I have Big Emotions™ and it’s difficult go to him for support with that. Bear doesn’t hug if I’m scared or anxious, doesn’t comfort in the ways I usually expect. He’s very calm and that helps when working through what I’m thinking, but… there’s a disconnect there that’s stressful. I’m also seeing a man (let’s call him Bird). Bird is a completely different person, way more emotional, and more comfortable with queerness than Bear. It makes it easier to connect with him about that aspect of my life. The stress in this relationship being that our relationship is newer and I don’t want to make him feel like it is lesser. It’s not, just different. Again, this may be anxiety—he’s got his own nesting partner (the partner(s) you live with). So he probably understands what this is like. But we don’t see each other very often and it makes me worried that I’m not providing enough attention, care. But if I provide more, I’m worried that Bear will be negatively affective. It’s a stressful balancing act—but sometimes I feel like I’m the only one stressed about it. Bear doesn’t have anyone else he’s seeing, though he’s close enough with his ex that they’ve ~had relations~ again. Sometimes she sleeps over. We’re all pretty close, but I’m not sexually attracted to her. Though I am. Attracted. So that’s a whole thing to untangle at some point. Ugh. This has gotten long. I’ll leave it here, I think. Yikes. Sorry I talk so much. And yeah. This is where I’m at and what I’m dealing with. We can chat about it if you want.

trying to connect and anxious about it, sos

Anxiety Support / by quirkkittenexplosion

January 13th, 2023

Hi, this is where I’m at Anxiety wise.

Anxiety Support / by quirkkittenexplosion

January 7th, 2023

...See more This is my first post. TW: Anxiety, Self Harm, Blood, Sexual Assault, Panic attacks, general mental health issues. Let me know if I need to add any others; not always sure what needs a tag. Hi, you can call me Quirk and I have anxiety. (queue the chorused, Hi Quirk) I’ve had anxiety (and a gift basket of related disorders) for pretty much as long as I can remember. My mom’s also anxious. I think I picked it up from her. It got notably worse way back in high school. We moved. And that summer before the new house, new school, new people—I got in my first car accident. Not the new experience I was promised by my parents. That night I paced a rift in the living room shaking too badly to speak, racking my nails down my arms till they bled. So, that’s what anxiety looked like for me. Panic attacks were easy to identify. I got sent to therapy. They gave me an itemized list. Depersonalization, Disassociation, Paranoia, GAD, Panic Disorder. Agoraphobia. The works. All I knew is that, sometimes? I lost my ***. But I was a teenager. And so did all the other teenagers. Then I graduated. Went to college. Had the college experience. Meaning, for me: homecoming royalty. Dean’s list. And then—sexually assault. And then, suddenly, the shaking wasn’t as manageable. The pacing became running til my legs gave out. It was long sleeves in the summer, and I was falling apart. So, back to therapy. I ended up graduating. Getting a job. An apartment with my partner. Once again convinced myself I got my *** back together. Put it all back together, threw it in a bag, shoved it in the back of the closet. Then, Mother Nature said, “Time for a global pandemic.” Do you know what you get when an anxious paranoid agoraphobic POC, a global pandemic, and a racially charged riot walk into a bar? This joke is called: my life. I went back to therapy. Kind of. Aged out of my mother’s health insurance, so things got… sporadic. My partner and I got two cats for comfort, I got a better job, I scraped my life back together. Mostly. I got a second partner because, for some reason unbeknownst to me, people keep wanting to date me. I work from home. I only panic, occasionally. I only have issues finding reality, sometimes. Last night wasn’t one of those times. Last night was also the stupidest reason. Because I had coffee, just a cup of coffee. And usually I can handle that jolt of panic that comes with the extra energy. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t handle it. Felt like the car crash, and unwanted hands under my clothes, and the city burning—all of it, all at once. It felt like I was being torn apart, pulled in a million different directions, but also as I’d dropped in the trash compactor and I couldn’t Han Solo my way out this time. So, I’m back here, half a decade and some change later, trying to figure out how to handle it. For real this time. For good. Rip it out at the roots. Burn it at the source. Because I’ve still got decades to live my life. And I don’t want to live it like this.

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