my careless contagion

On and off I’ve been talking to someone who used to be a counselor. They have mentioned quite a few times I should try to figure out my attachment style. It sounded like yet another psychological mumbo jumbo thing, so I didn’t. A recent conversation changed my mind. The question I asked them was, “When a man has a background of childhood abuse/childhood sexual abuse, how does that affect his adult relationships,” which led them to suggest a video about attachment styles. So, I watched it, bored as hell. But, the last attachment style sounded really familiar. It was fearful-avoidant. It’s sort of a push-pull style. It's wanting intimacy but not being able to have it. I’ve decided to let a couple of articles do the talking. The first one lists some of the signs of this style, of which I have many. The page cuts off, but that’s the main thing I wanted to show.  The second one is geared more toward helping an individual with this style and those ...

Her lips moved against mine. I was vaguely aware she was saying something, then her body moved away from mine. An ache moved through me as her fingers trailed down my arm and across my hand and finally my fingertips. She stood next to me for a moment and then she was gone. That was my dream. It wasn't an erotic dream. Just a dream. What remained after the dream was the sense of feeling worthwhile. I've gone for so long thinking I have no worth. It seems inconceivable for a woman to touch me. If a dream can arouse such feelings in me, then it's clear I was getting a lot of my self-worth from being physical with a woman. Or from any physical touch, for that matter. I wouldn't normally write about a dream like this, but it reminded me of something. In any relationship, it's important to understand love languages. My primary love language is physical touch. I'm one of the easiest to please. I didn't always know about love languages. A dear friend expla...

When I was in grade school and we lived in a small town in the Black Hills, on specific Wednesday afternoons some of the kids went to church while the rest of us went to the Veterans Affairs (VA) campus in our town to hang out with some of the veterans there. The program paired one or two kids with a vet, and we did projects and tours and other fun stuff. This was the middle of the 1980s, so these vets were WW II guys, the Greatest Generation. It's strange the memories that come to you when you're not even trying to think of anything. This is one of them. There seems to be a necessary recall going on in my head, the end of which I've yet to see. The VA once tried to arrange for our parents to meet our vets. There was some sort of party that we were all invited to. It was a great idea. I didn't tell my parents about the party. My veteran got upset with me, asked why I didn't invite them, why we didn't go. I just figured he wouldn't understand, so I di...

My white bears (hastily scrawled): 1) End up alone 2) Angry 3) Defeated 4) Paralyzed 5) Drinking 6) Twisted up (whatever that means) 7) Suicide I read an article a few months ago about facing your white bears, which are unwanted thoughts (a bit more:  http://www.apa.org/monitor/ 2011/10/unwanted-thoughts.aspx ), often worst-case scenarios. The idea of writing them down is thought to be helpful because once you put these things in front of you, you can take them apart. By taking them apart, you realize these are things you've either previously dealt with or are figureoutable. Once you say them or write them down, you realize these are common problems and you already have the tools to deal with them. In essence, they become smaller on paper than in your mind.  When I got divorced, I was faced with a variety of fears and uncertainties. I wrote down the seven scariest. I've already experienced the top four. Number six, I suppose, means that my inside...