Intimacy and Vulnerability

This past week saw yet another tidal low. Sparked by the ongoing isolation and lack of progress in life. The general feeling of stagnation has always been a triggering point for my lows.

The one positive thing to come out of this low however, is an ongoing discussion about what I desire in said times, and what my hang ups around intimacy might be.

Working with my most recent ex, and still good friend, to talk through the depths of the depression, it was asked what it was I needed. The loneliness sparks depression, and one of the best salves for it is physical touch, and closeness. It's why I typically so often go to visit friends in a low. But for all of emotional intimacy that I share with them, it doesn't feel as valid or intense, as it does with a romantic partner.

I feel a more intense and cathartic connection with my ex, than I do with my best friends for the past two or so years. Despite the fact that we only dated for maybe two months.

I get ahead of myself though. The things I need in a depression are physical closeness, to be heard, to seen/acknowledged/witnessed, emotional closeness/intimacy, and reassurance.

I can get a variation of all of these with good friends. But only with romantic partners do I feel like I get all of them. It illustrates why I pine for partners so hard, and why I'm so reluctant to let them go even when it's for the best.

So what can I only get in a romantic relationship? Well, the key difference being the physical connection, be it sex, or kink, paired with the emotional. There's a vulnerability there that is accepted and seen that isn't present in a friendship that doesn't share that. It's a physical manifestation of the emotional connection, the pairing and truely seeing of one another, in a physical bond, that I don't typically get within a friendship. I don't feel seen in the same way. My friends are my allies, but I don't feel vulnerable to them.

Which, also paints to why I typically don't enjoy physical connections that don't have an emotional aspect. Casual sex and pick up play have always felt hollow for lacking that emotional context. I can enjoy the physical sensations, but at the end of the day, my emotional center isn't attached.

This, is where things get interesting.

There are two things that I want to discuss in relation to that statement. The first, is that then, a simple explanation of demisexuality? Do I feel that experience, as a manifestation of my sexual style as demi? Or, have I ascribed a label to my particular brand of fucked up sexuality, that just happens to fit perfectly?

The latter, which blends into the reason of the first, my fucked up sexuality/body to mind connection:

I probing why I have a split between body and emotional and mental center, it seems to make sense that after spending so many years detaching who I was from my body, things I enjoyed from my body, things I took pleasure in, from my body, that things that directed pleasure from my body aren't inherently wired back into those same pleasure centers in my mind or emotions.

That is to say, I can reconnect them from the mind, to the body, but the reverse isn't true. It explains why I have a hard time finding people attractive until I know them better. I wasn't sure about my ex at first meeting, but six weeks later and I'm staring at her in a coffee shop like a sixteen year old girl wrapped around her finger. It literally alters my perception of people. That, is incredibly shocking to me.

But it also explains why, once an emotional connection is in place, having the physical connection is so fulfilling and cathartic to me. It's so rare and so historically unknown to my body, that any physical intimacy is incredible. That feeling of vulnerability and of being truely seen and appreciated and loved both emotionally and physically, erases a lot of the baggage and bullshit I've built up over the years.

When asked, how I might begin to provide that need for myself. I had no answers. I did know why I couldn't however, and that's because of the long ongoing war I have with my body. There is a bitterness, a resentment, and an animosity I have towards it that prevents me from feeling truely compassionate towards myself. You can't be close or love someone you dislike. You can't feel compassion and resentment at the same time.