Catch 22

for me, reality is subjective.

science shows that each persons experience of the world is unique. Colored by their previous experiences and their outlook/opinions.

my faith takes this a step further and tells me that belief creates reality. I visulize, I think positively, I "create" the opotunities I want to have in my life.

as an extention of this - I lie. Its not something I particularly see as a bad thing. I generally don't do it in a malicious manner. I just don't think that 'objective' truth is as nessicery as some people do. For example, does the nurse really need to know that I was late to my appointment this morning because I wanted a quicky with my partner or would saying my taxi got stuck in traffic suffice? Life is complicated, I don't like to share a lot of my personal details with the many people I come into contact with during the day. It can be far easier to give relatively non personal details that keep conversation pleasent rather then cold and unwilling to talk.

but then, that is only one way to use a lie. I also lie to myself. When faced with a tough lecture or a boring class, I tell myself it will be fun or interesting. I tell myself constantly that my university can't possibly be as unorganizd as they appear and that things Will get better. When I feel my stomach drop, my palms go cold and my gorge rise - I tell myself I'm not having a panic attack. In fact, at that point I might even begin to bully myself as well as lie.

there are occasions as well, that I lie to those I am close to. No one in my family knows that I'm into bdsm or that I'm poly. For most of my life, my mother didn't know that I was bi. I only told her a couple of years ago now, and really, I wish I hadn't. Its a truth that seems to have done her far more damage than the lie was doing to me.

He has recently given me a new rule. I cannot lie to him. Not that I do so intentionally. This includes half-lies, part-truths, bending the truth and lies of ommision. Apparently I'm not even allowed to call upon the 5th amendment for a little grace.

obviously, this makes a great change from the way I normally live my life. I have to be fully honest with a man when Im rarely even fully honest with myself. In fact, I probably lie to myself the most often. I am finding it a difficult task. Talking myself into believing something as part of my reality has long been a coping mechinism and to some degree, my new requirement to be honest with him is taking away my ability to use this trick on myself. I'm a coping mechanism down. Telling myself that everything is gonna be ok when it obviously isn't no longer works because his requirement has rooted me in his reality.

this is OK when he is there to replace that tool. However, there have been a couple of occasions now where he hasn't been and yet, he has been in contact enough to know that something is off. I get nervous in crowds. Especially when its late at night and most of the city is drunk. I normally use music to create a barrier between myself and the world. If I can't hear it, it doesn't exist - a great lie. Last night, I was caught in the city centre, alone, with no music. The only tool I had at this point was changing my perception of the situation. I Could Not change the fact that were going on around me. However, I could lie to myself and tell myself that the reaction I was having to them was false and as such unimportant. This is an oversimplification of the process. You can't just tear a piece of fabric apart with your hands. However, once you find one strand of thread to pick at, then another and another... you can slowly change things, pushing towards the wanted goal. Yeah, I feel small and emotionally beaten at the end - but I get home without having a panic attack. On the way home, He called. He could tell I was off and tried to get me to tell him what was up. This put me in a catch 22. He wanted to pull me back into his reality, meaning I would have probably had a panic attack in very short order... however, not telling him would leave me in violation of my rules.

lying is an odd thing, its done in many ways for many reasons. I think I lie most often to protect myself. Honesty can be brutal and unforgiving. I worry that this writing gives the impression that I live in some fantasy world.this is certainly not the case, though I suppose some may argue. Perhaps what I'm trying to say is that I have been I the habit for so long of using lies (often hurtful ones) to get the best performance from myself, that in this - doing things his way is going to take a lot of getting used to. I'm not sure its something that he really understands yet.

the emotional honesty he asks for is difficult in other ways. I find it so hard to share those parts of myself. There is a part of me that waits with bated breath for this all to go to hell. Like everything that has come before simply so it can say it was right... right about him, but mostly right about me. That I -am- everything on that list of ugly adjectives and that any hope I have is futile and any happiness is fleeting. That each revelation I make to him is going to make him realize him a mess he doesn't want to clean up. I've been having a pretty strong drepressive swing this week. I do not think I would otherwise speak of this particular vulnerability - this fear. However, it does put me in mind of a Hunter S Thompson quote;

"Never turn your back on fear. It should always be in front of you, like a thing that might have to be killed."

Thompson prefaces this by saying "I understand that fear is my friend, but not always."... I'm not sure I would agree with that part of the quote. Fear holds us back, it paralyses us and clouds our thought. Those are not the actions of a 'friend'. When I find myself confronting a fear, I will force myself to interact with it until I have killed the response. And so, despite my fears... because of them - I post this.

i fear the day that I am found wanting. Discovered to be the imposter i am. I fear the transparency that emotional honesty will allow. That I will be found of be shallow, hollow - the nothing I have always suspected.. I have always known, at my core, that I truely am. I fear that I am fooling myself by believing I could be what he wants, no matter the words he says.

these are fears so ingrained, so much a part of me, that I do not know how to hunt them down and kill them. Really, these fears are not even specific to him, though they affect our relationship. These are fears I have known so long, have become so comfortable with, that they seem like friends. Even though logically, I know they cannot be. They stop me from communicating effectively with him. I always hold back, feeling that being fully honest about my emotions would be a burden upon him. Fearing that the honesty would push him away. That I would be seen as difficult.

and yet, I know that in not giving him the honesty he asks for, I am not complying with his desires, I am refusing to submit. Not because it is not what I want, but because I fear it is not what he wants - that I am just could not be. I either fight myself or him. Another Catch 22.

in both cases, I either fight myself or him. That is the Catch 22 at its most base element. It seems an obvious choice. Looking at it now, it seems stupid I would even give it a second thought. Where he leads, I follow. But it is easier said than done and right now I am faltering. It seems simple to say Stop, but I'm greatly struggling with the -how- of doing that. I suppose this post is the first step.