WHEN PEOPLE TALK ABOUT INTIMACY, WHY DO THEY THINK ALWAYS THINK YOU'RE REFERRING TO SEX?

Good morning. I hope you all had a nice couple of days. I did which is what brought this topic to mind.

As you know, this is my second marriage. We've been together for 18 years.
My husband has two "children". They were just becoming young adults when we met.

Blended families can be really difficult. Especially when there are young kids involved.  It was easier since the "kids" were still living at school and at home, part time ,with their mom.

Looking back, the thing that made our relationship growth harder was the geographic distance.
It wasn't that far,  but the trips were well over an hour. At least if we went to visit them we could park since they were out near the end of Long Island.

We lived in an apartment in Great Neck where the parking after 4 PM was as bad as Manhattan, except we didn't have parking lots you could pay for.

this was across the street.

I hated to invite people over because after arriving on our block, regardless of the length of your trip, you could drive around nearly as long before finding a spot (that was hopefully legal) and then, have a long walk. So, I thought I was being considerate by not asking.
I never thought that people might think I didn't want them to come around because I didn't care about them. There I'd gone again. Projecting my ideas into the brains of others.

It was also difficult because they were at an age where they were busy enjoying their lives which did not include parental units.

Since I hadn't been lucky enough to have children of my own, I was so happy to have step kids. Whenever we did see them it was always good. I have to say that they accepted me immediately.  His family, is actually pretty terrific. Even his ex-wife. Of course I didn't know that at the time.

Still. I never felt like part of the family. Except for his Mom. I had expected to become intimate with his family,  because, well,  what did I know?

You see, I have problems with intimate relationships. Not the ones you think about right away. Not sex. As a digression, I will say that there are many people who can have really intimate sex instead of a really intimate relationship. But as I always say, that's for another time.  Intimate relationships with friends, family and you know, other human beings.

WHAT DO I MEAN WHEN I SAY "INTIMATE'?

Webster starts with the words fundamental and essential.  Next is, most private and personal.  Having sexual relations is 6th on the list.

I see intimacy as being able to have close, loving relationships with people who are important to me. As I, am hopefully important to them as well. I don't see intimacy as being one sided. It still takes two.
However, I don't actually know what that is. As in, huh ? How do you show your love? Do you tell the person everything you think and feel?  How much time do you need to spend together? How often do you need to talk? I know. It sounds but ridiculous, but then, that is my name.

WHY DO I SEE THIS AS AN ISSUE?

If you've been following along, my upbringing was middle class and not with people who were easily capable if intimacy. Not that I think there is any relationship between class and intimacy.

Whatever closeness we had was the unhealthy kind. My mother was well meaning. Of course it took years of therapy and a 12 step program for me to get there, but I did. That's what matters. (To know that she was well meaning and not just some mean bitch who didn't want me to be happy)
She was very codependent. She wanted to know what I was doing, who I was doing it with, and that was very invasive. So, I became rather evasive. She did share some of her intimacies with me. Unfortunately, the things she told me, I did not want to know and surely did not need to know.



My dad has his issues as well. Codependence, of course. Is it possible to have one codependent person in a relationship? But his brand of dependency was very different. Home for him was a place, that he didn't spend a whole lot of time. He needed to know it was there and my mom was the anchor. Of course he saw it as an anchor around his neck, even though he had created it. And, although he was out a lot, he was home just enough to make me fearful and untrusting of men.



And of course, my older sister and I were so different and young. So when she up and died it was like I had been given the trifecta nuclear family.

What had I learned about intimate relationships?

1. If you got close to someone, they want to know all your business.
2. If you got close to someone, you couldn't trust them with your feelings or your business. They'd use it against you.
3. If you got close to someone, they  would abandon you; whether by death or desertion, betrayal, it didn't matter. You'd be alone.

 And so, I hobbled my way through my early years. Making poor choices. And making intimate friends who I would ultimately disappoint, do something stupid and lose the relationship. Again, it would take a long time to realize my part in things. It is so much easier to blame everyone else.


I was the proverbial person who was creating all these self-fulfilling prophecies. I just didn't know it.

I think my solution, when I got older, was to become more selective and less intimate with everyone. And much less dependent.

I usually had one  very good friend with whom I could share my life, but the rest. Well, who needed more?

In my mind, I was caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. If I allowed more intimate relationships I would become anxious. Too much for me to handle. 

OR

We get to know each other and if you really know me, you'll run. Or you'll  take advantage of me or expect me to be someone I couldn't be. In any case, I'd be left, so why bother?

WHAT THE CONSEQUENCES ARE:

When you are afraid to make friends, you may have a select one or two. Then you worry. What happens when they go south? Actually, my age that means to Florida, but it didn't have that connotation when I was young. (ha ha)

You believe that it's better to be able to take care of yourself and not need anyone else. You try to be completely self-sufficient. People may think you're aloof, a snob, a shit. You don't look shy, although you probably are because your level of experience in meeting people is limited because you haven't wanted to meet people.

DOES ANY OF THIS SOUND LIKE YOU?

I know I am not alone. I know that this is a problem for a great number of people. People who believe they want to have intimate relationships, but can't seem to find them. And, yes, they could also be of the romantic kind.

 Intimacy is a tricky lady. You have to know her to be able to relate to her. However, if you never got to know her, you can't figure out how.

When I was 47 and still in single 2, (that's when you've been married once and are single for the second time), I was put on anti-depressants for the first time. Suddenly, life seemed better. I felt "normal".  I won't anxious and crying and I liked me.  At least I thought that was what normal probably felt like. So I decided it was time for me to get out there and meet someone.
And that was when I met my husband. I was still terrified, but I was more terrified of never getting beyond my fear. And so I pushed through it. It hasn't been easy. But it has been worth it.

BACK TO WHERE THIS POST BEGAN -

I thought that it would be easy to develop relationships with my step children.
Like I said, we were always on good terms when we got together and I tried to get closer to them. Of course, my version of closer pushed them away because they weren't ready for me. And, my skills and understanding of the situation were not very good.

And so it has taken many years for me to feel like I have a family.  I had to learn boundaries. I had to learn not to take certain things personally.  I had to learn that with children, it's about them, not me.

I'm still learning. Only I finally feel like I'm  part of the family. I really do love them and feel close to them. My son in law is one of a kind, as is his mom. I love spending time with them and we have great conversations. And also a lot of fun. And the ex has remarried too. My step daughter's mother in law, and mom step-dad live twenty minutes away.  We live over three hours away.  As it was in New York, it has become in Florida. But it's okay. My husband and I are not the kind of people who want to be involved with all the day to day issues. We are happy to be as involved as we like and are here for them when we're needed.

My step son and his wife are still in New York so we don't see them often. It's tough because even if you have a relationship, long distance makes it a lot of work.  And I am not a phone person. I don't know why, but I hate talking on the phone.  So you can imagine how surprised I was when they sent me a happy mother's day text. You can't imagine how wonderful that made me feel.

When my husband asked me what I wanted for my birthday, I gave it a lot of thought. When I lived up north, my best friend would always have a cake for me and her kids who were around, would help celebrate.  I missed that.

So, I told him that I wanted to spend it with my family. And that's what we did.
We drove across the state and took them out for dinner and had a roaring good time. We got there early so we could see the grandchildren and the other grandparents baby sat so we could go out. That's all of us pulling together.

the waiter, hubbie, kids and Claudia. I was taking the pic.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS:
You don't have to share your feelings or know everything that's going on in someone's life to have an intimate relationship. You have to have a connection of the heart. You know you're loved by the actions they make and even when they forget to make them.  They know you love them, the same way. You all know that you're there for each other if you're needed.

I don't know if I can branch out with this knowledge to people who aren't family, but I'm getting a bit more understanding of what it means. And I know that although I'm not one of those individuals who have to be with someone all the time, I do need to be with people some of the time.

ME AND MY SWEETHEART Joey

ABANDONMENT ISSUES AND RELATED FEARS, IE. IF I DON'T POST EVERY DAY, YOU'LL LEAVE ME

   Wow. I started this yesterday in the a.m. and wrote the title because it was what I was thinking about. I never got back to it until 24 hours later.  And...

   I was shocked that I hadn't written anything but the title. Woe is me.

What brought this to mind yesterday? 
   Never mind. This was going to be about abandonment. At least from my own experience combined with my wondrous textbook and clinical knowledge. That was meant to be facetious. Well maybe a little.

   It took me many years of therapy to understand that my really bad anxiety attacks were in fact abandonment anxiety. Are there different kinds of anxiety?
  Yeah. Pretty much. there are quite a few.

  Anxiety is generally defined as a diffused, unidentifiable fear. Fears are usually specific. I am afraid to make a mistake in front of people. I am afraid I have spinach stuck between my teeth. In my mind a very legitimate reason to not eat spinach.
  You get the idea. If a specific fear is extreme and out of the realm of your reality, it is termed a phobia. Fear of heights, being enclosed, driving over a bridge and the things you've all heard of. If I lived in a desert that was crawling with spiders and I had a fear of spiders, it might not be a phobia. If I live in my house in Florida, where the exterminator comes every three months, and in ten years I've only seen two really big spiders, AND I had to do a complete house check every morning and every night, I'd have a phobia.


  I surely have/had ?  generalized anxiety disorder because I came from a very fear based place. I had a couple of phobias that thankfully passed. I couldn't ride in elevators unless they were somewhat large and no one else was in it. I still don't like heights.

  I can't say I like crowded elevators but if my life takes me to one, I go.

  Since I was 14, right before my sister died, I started to get physical symptoms of nausea and vomiting. Only certain situations cause it. Like going on a school trip. Or later, going to school. What caused it? Was that anxiety?Or was that activity making me anxious. Anxiety can be a symptom or a cause. Sweet thing anxiety.  It's a multitasker.

  So, I would get nauseous and vomit. It was quite effective in stopping me from going out of my comfort zone. However, when it interfered with my school life and would have made me drop out and lose a year, I decided enough was enough. I pushed through it and came out on the other side.

  I surely didn't get rid of all of my anxiety. I had just decided that there were some things that were too important to allow myself the luxury of self-sabotage.
 
 Life went on. I did lots of things. Sometimes I was anxious, sometimes I wasn't. Since this isn't a complete biography, we'll leave it at that.

  I believe it was around 18 years ago, when I was finally able to fine tune the origin of a certain type of anxiety.  It was the one with  the feeling that was so bad I didn't know what to do. I felt empty. I felt like I'd crawl out of my skin. I felt I was on the verge of panic. I felt rooted to the floor. I felt unable to do anything. I thought it would never pass and it was absolutely intolerable.  

  I had a really awful fight with my fiancé. We weren't married yet and he left the apartment. I was flooded with those feelings. I felt helpless, lost and there was only one thing I could do to make it go away.  Take a valium and go to sleep for the night. The next morning would usually find me feeling better and some conflict resolution would have to take place.  i.e.. we'd talk.


   This night, instead of hitting the valium I decided to try to ride it out and think about the cause. I recall asking myself what preceded this response? It was an overwhelming fear of being abandoned and I was responding like a little child who was unable to take care of herself. I feared for my life.

  I was in my late 40s and I was responding to something as if I were 4, or 6?  That was an eye opener.

  I know a lot more now than I did, even back then. But I knew that I never felt safe or secure. I also knew that I had never been taught skills on how to soothe myself when I got hit with anxiety. At least not anything particularly effective.  Sorry folks, eating a gallon of ice cream may be soothing, but the byproduct isn't helpful, is it?

  How on earth do you learn to soothe yourself? For me, part of the process was understanding why I felt the way I did. I was able to use self-talk. Like remind myself that I was a grown woman and did not depend on anyone to take care of me. I also realized that after a certain age, the only one who could abandon me, was ME!

  Once I learned how to recognize the particular feelings for the abandonment issue  I could start soothing myself before they got out of control.

  Those of you with anxiety and panic know the metaphor. It's like a little snowball that rolls down the hill and keeps collecting more snow as it rolls faster and faster. It just keeps getting bigger and bigger until it rolls you over and you attack yourself. Or hit the wall and knock yourself out.

 Since that time, I have had only one episode that I was unable to talk myself down from, and I think that's a damned good success rate.

PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY ON SEPARATION:
DR. G.'S INTERPRETATION

   This was of particular interest  back in graduate school. I knew I had issues related to separation and attachment , so I read the books and wrote some papers. 

    Back in those days, before it was all about neurology and physiology, there were actual theories and ideas about children's emotional development and how they become attached to the significant people in their lives. I'm using the term mother, because it's easier than listing all the possible care givers. The "who" doesn't matter, as research found. The fact that the baby bonds is what is important.

  There were infants during WW II who were orphaned. You've seen some of the photos of the nurseries in England. Rows of cribs and one nurse, feeding and changing them all. There were infants who died for no apparent reason. It was referred to as the Merganser effect, if memory serves. Later it was found that that infants also need love and tactile affection to survive, if not thrive.

  John Bowlby was a British physiatrist who first studied infants and their attachments' to their mothers. He wrote three seminal books on the process.

 I can't go into too much of the theory. Three books and all, well that' a lot of material to try to condense.  Hell, even if I did, you'd all leave me because I'd be boring you to death and fear of that is keeping me from writing too much.

  YES !!! That's why I thought about it yesterday.  I saw a video about one's presence on their blog. The person said you have to be consistent. If you post every day and you cease that pattern, people will stop looking after a couple of "no post days". If you post weekly, then keep to that schedule.  That got my abandonment anxiety cued up. I post sort of every other day, or sometimes more, so if thought if you didn't see me for a few days, you'd leave me. Nuts right? But so true.  Anyhow,

   Mary Ainsworth also conducted research and found three forms of attachment. Secure, Insecure, and Ambivalent.

  A secure child, well when mummy comes back, the child is glad to see her and goes to her, and then is able to go back to playing. The insecure child, ignores mummy when she returns and makes mummy really pissed off.  The ambivalent child (guess who), is relieved that mummy came back,(oh thank God she didn't just leave me here)  but is also pissed off that she left at all. This child waffles, looks at mummy, looks away, looks back and can't decide what to do.

  These types of children become who they are because  of the nature /nurture situation. Unfortunately, in this case, nurture has influenced things a bit more. The children who are ambivalent usually have inconsistent mothering as compared to the insecure who have poor mothering. These kids know they can't count on her. At least they know where they stand. See, being consistent is so dammed important in so many things. I used to say that the only thing I'm consistent about is my inconsistency. Does that mean I'm doomed?

  I expect that many of us who fall into the ambivalent style, form codependent relationships. Can't live with them. Can't live without them.

THEORY ABOUT ABANDONMENT:
  It's pretty much a known and accepted theory. This isn't one of my ridiculous ones. At least I haven't made it into that yet.

   Not everyone is fortunate to have had a good enough mother. If they were lucky, they had enough people around so they could form solid attachments and go through life with a usual amount of anxiety and fear. Some were constitutionally fortunate and although they may not have gotten what they needed, they had the internal strength to give it to themselves.

  For those us of who did not get what we needed, have a few more struggles than others. Of course everything is in varying degrees. You can use a continuum or a scale of one to ten. Some got it worse than others or perceive it that way. That's just the way it is.

CONCLUSION: 

Never, ever lose hope. I believe that you must be brave and be able to look into your self. You can't blame other people. My mother did the best she could. It wasn't her fault that it wasn't good enough. If I accept that, and then after I understand it, well, that's on me if I still want to be hurt and angry.  Do I still blame my parents? Of course I do. It's so much fun. As long as I keep it on the light side, it's okay. Holding onto the heaviness, it's  not healthy nor does it make you better. If you want to get past your anxiety and fear, you'll have to do the work. It's not easy, but anything of value requires work. Even if you were told over and over that you're worthless, they were wrong.
   You are valuable and you are worth working on.