On the Unsexiness of Being Neurodivergent
Depression is an asshole. It’s full of lies and unnecessary cruelty. It tries to get you to believe you’re worthless or pathetic or why bother with anything. Might as well just sit in a dark room binge watching True Blood (obviously totally hypothetical example) rather than going out and doing something, anything. Why bother when everything is hopeless crap?
But Allie Brosh describes depression better than I ever could so go read her hilarious and sadly all too accurate depiction of depression here and also here. Especially if you’ve never experienced depression yourself. Spoiler alert it’s not just being sad and no I can’t just get over it.
It’s okay I’ll wait and watch dog videos while you go read.
Okay, you back with me? So that evil depression demon is why I haven’t been writing even though I have more free time than I know what to do with these days. When my brain chemistry was cooperating I dreamed of endless stretches of days to write or practice rope. But now that I have them I just sit and stare at walls and pretend to be okay whenever my work from home man friend wanders into the same room I’m currently sitting in while I contemplate the worthlessness of my existence.
Haha look at me watching puppy videos! Let me tell you a funny story about what the neighbors just did! Would you like to hear a ditty!? See I’m fine, everything is fine! Fine, fine, fine you can go back to your office now! (Spoiler alert #2, trying to pretend to be okay for your friends is exhausting as all hell.)
And as soon as I’m unobserved I go back to my black hole, remembering when I used to have interests and hopes and desires and, you know, a sex drive. And once I realize how much time I’m wasting feeling well nothing I fall into a loop of hating myself for wasting all this time. So I just end up deeper in the hole. Some days I can drag myself out of the house to see another human or to run an errand that involves speaking to someone and that’s a huge win. To celebrate I come home and lay in a dark corner (well as dark as I can find, it’s summer in Portland which mean its constantly sunny and 100 degrees which isn’t helping. It’s like the sun is shaming at me. “Look at all this brightness I made for you! Remember how you wanted sun instead of rain well you have it, go enjoy it you ungrateful jerk!”) because going outside for a couple minutes has taken up all my energy for an entire week.
So in this weird head space the last thing I want to do is be sexy or think about sexy things. My libido is in there somewhere, occasionally it will pop up and insist I masturbate furiously to some thought or situation I ordinarily wouldn’t find at all interesting. It’s as if my body knows I’m in a sex desert and needs to do whatever it can to manipulate the situation to make an orgasm happen however it can. Sadly these rare burst of lust rarely happen when the man friend is interested or available. Cue another spiral of angst, I can’t even be a good sexually available girlfriend.
It’s not a fun place to be as an erotica writer. Somehow it feels like going to a sexy place for inspiration is even harder than writing anything else would be. So I haven’t been writing or doing anything creative really. Even practicing rope has felt like a chore.
That’s where I’ve been, why I haven’t been blogging or showing up to events. The sadness that started after the election, just never got better, then life happened and the sadness and hopelessness and feeling of why bother when the world is so very fucked turned into legit depression. And I’m not sure how I’ll get out of this hole of ennui but I know I will, I have before and I will again. I’m not sure what the catalyst to start hoping again will be, maybe it will be a kernel of corn under the fridge, but probably not. But I’ll keep trying to find my old self and hope for the best.
I see little glimpses of my sexy sassy self sometimes. Like at the small rope party I had for my birthday. It ended up just being my fella and my two kinky besties but it was perfect. I didn’t have high hopes for feeling up to tying, I just practiced some things on the man friend and thought that would be that. But when Sock Girl showed up all smiles and silliness even though her life isn't 100% sunshine and rainbows at the moment either, I got inspired. Damn the brain weasels, I was going to have a good time and show her a good ropey evening as well!
So I put a boring not very creative TK chest harness and hip harness on her for a mean partial suspension. Just wanting to enjoy the rare moment of having a hard point to use, not needing to do something new or pretty. My only goal was to have fun with her and make sure she got something out of the scene. And since I know she likes mean, I was pretty cruel to her, so much so that in her attempt to hide the leg I was tormenting she turned things into a full suspension.
I hadn’t planned in that and felt a moment of dread, thinking I’d ruined everything and hurt her. But instead she was smiling and giggling our rope giggle of “that hurts and I love it you horrible wonderful sadist.” The rope was perfect, it supported her, I know how to tie if I just had more opportunities to practice suspensions I would know that.
So she dangled there and we laughed at each other. There she was in a TK suspension. When we first started doing rope a zillion years ago she couldn’t stay in a TK for long and I was too shy to attempt suspensions. Now look at us! Just two gals having a momentary tough time, defying the evil brain chemical liars to have the best rope time ever.
I’m super grateful to her and that moment. It gives me hope. I’ll keep chasing those little moments until maybe everything isn’t hopeless bullshit.