Simplified complexity
Simplified complexity?
Hmmm, what does that mean? Well, it is about the easiest way to explain my life. I believe, I was born transgendered, I have clear memories of believing I was biologically male until, I was about 8 years old. Then my mother told me I was not a boy- I had returned home from school, stripped off my shirt as I walked through the house... and apparently shocked her visiting guest.
The conversation, was short.... "you are not a boy you are a girl, you are going to gown boobs you have to wear a shirt..." ... my childhood memories end with those words.
I was a male gendered, female bodied, person born into a matriarchal family. The message I got was that to be male was substandard, to behave as a tomboy was fine, ... but the real power in life was held by the female sex.
I was taught to behave as a female, one who could wield sexual prowess with talent and skill. (I was an accomplished belly dancer, before I reached puberty.)
I hated myself through out most of my life. I became suicidal by the age of 8, just a short time after I was told that I was a girl. (I remember mixing household chemicals and standing there breathing the fumes)
I started seeing psychiatrist in childhood. I don't remember most of my life, what I can recall is chopped into snapshots... and sound bites... out of order and intermixed. Some where along the way I was diagnosed with different mental heath issues, each one to be disposed of as my behavior showed the symptoms to be improperly matched, until one finally one stuck... dissociative identity disorder.... that is the proper term ... although most people will recognize the term 'multiple personality disorder'... like Sybil... or in the modern media forum The United States of Tara... from ShowTime TV.
Let me take a moment to make it clear, I do not have 'evil twin syndrome' and I do not mean -chronic pelvic pain- that showed up in a web search I did. I mean the type this quote matches, "Anyone who has watched more than seventeen minutes of television is familiar with the evil twin plot device..."
So, what does all of this have to do with being poly? I am dissociative, to me the alternate awareness's of who I am as a whole.... are separate people.
Other people who are around me/us long enough state they can tell 'us' apart... (which makes me smile, because we can't always tell each other apart)
Jay, (me) posting here .. is male, Butch lesbian, FtM transgender (not transsexual)... not attracted to men or masculine energy ... most of the others are female, cis-gendered, straight... (at least one is openly bisexual, but is herself content with monogamy) ... so where is the 'plot twist' -meant as a tacky pun- My spouse is male, he has been given grief without end, and continually harassed with questions of "What IF"... he had been told so many times, if I have a girlfriend then he should get one too... (he does not want the hassle) ... the fact lost on most narrow minded people who do not understand what they have already been told.... is that he already has multiple female partners all built into one body... (I will try to quickly count on my fingers how many) .. I think there may be as many as ten, recognizable different female alters, who are a available to him at any given time ... which he states -to anyone- he can tell the difference between... and we are not talking 'moods' I am meaning totally separate, psychologically identifiable, personality profiles all in one body which have the effect of 'feeling' like different women to him, he says the inside/vaginal responses are different, taste and sent, as well as over all responsiveness /ie what they like -do not like- voice, desire, etc the whole package .... and then there is me (Jay)... and just a few other male id'ed alters. Most, well all but one, have integrated..
The pain of such an arrangement.... all of 'their' sexual involvements/activities, do nothing to meet my needs and desires... I do not get to feel any of it... except a horrified cringe at the bits of awareness.. wherein I know I do not have a separate body of my own. I was much happier when I did not know, we are not separate people.
So, I know and understand the intricacies of sharing.... far beyond what most people will ever understand.