I realized today that while I always wanted to perform and sing I happened upon so much simultaneous difficulty in my nervous system when it came to the audition process. I would start singing, and the people observing would look impressed, but then I would get so nervous that my leg would start shaking uncontrollably. It looked to the judges like I had stage fright or a deep lack of confidence and would probably fuck up the main event. But it just so happened that by the rehearsed performance, if I were to make it past said devastating audition, I would be fine. It was just the audition. I felt heavy judgement in that moment. I mean I was in fact being judged, and it would fill me with a deep sense of dread and anxiety. I realize now it was in result of struggling with the fact of feeling unwanted by my Father. He never gave me that validation of importance and value in his life. That audition would trigger that core wound of wondering whether or not I was good enough to be wanted by the ones doing the choosing. Which is why I would never have issue with the actual performance, because at that point I had already been chosen.

Harry seems to be the opposite. His stage performance is brimming over with confidence. But when it comes to physical intimacy with me, he feels deep judgement, fear, and overwhelming anxiety to perform. At least that’s what I’m assuming is going on in his brain and body. He won’t admit it to me, in the past year, he’s chosen to blame it on me, by calling me boring and saying we just don’t have that type of relationship. Saying that it’s not fun or enjoyable for him, and I make it all about me and getting off. I think that’s bullshit. Maybe for a bit when he first moved in and I didn’t know what was happening and why he had suddenly stopped wanting me physically and I felt completely rejected and unwanted and then also when I was detoxing off of my body’s dependence to alcohol, and I felt like I was completely falling apart both mentally and physically, I needed that chemical fix to satiate the deep deficit I was experiencing. I needed the sex to combat the dopaminergic absence, the depression, the pain relief both physically and mentally, the numbess, the lack of all the serotonin and hop GABA that I had infiltrated my body with on a daily basis. The alcohol was medicinal for me. But now, I want nothing more than to explore eroticism without expectations. I just want to learn how to make him feel good. Feed him pleasure in whatever capacity he wants to receive it in. Create our own little world of touch and intimate ecstasy. I don’t want performative. I don’t want judgement. I don’t want porn. I don’t even necessarily want penetration. At least not yet. I want exploration. I want love. I want relaxation and good feelings. I want skin to skin, closeness and connection. Play and response. Goofy, possibly awkward, non-judgemental, accepting, fun, physical play. I accept all of him. I love every piece of him. I don’t know if it’s things that I have done or things in his own head that have built up such a threat response to anything that involves possible physical intimacy with me. A threat and fear of shame and failure. Failure to me and failure to himself. Even though I could never feel like he failed. I would try a thousand times if we had to. To him, it’s been built up to a big ball of pressure, and I deeply wish I knew what to say or do to not make that the case. I want to offer him parasympathetic restoration, I want to take him off the cortisol train. My kid has such a healthy attachment. I gave him that. He loves all the brain chemicals. He loves the oxytocin. He loves physical touch. He always wants to snuggle and hug and get his head scratched. It’s adorable. That’s what I want from Harry. That desire for animalistic pack bonding and touch. I want to create all the neurotransmitters and hormones with him. At one point I think he did want them. I don’t know if he ever felt them, but I believe he wanted them, when I didn’t understand what he was asking me for. A deeper connection. To be seen. To be heard. To be accepted. He asked me for these things. He wanted me to be a great partner at a time when I didn’t understand how to be. When all I understood as closeness and oxytocin and bonding was through sex. That was my gateway to connection. I didn’t understand what he wanted from me. Now I do. Now I understand after traveling down that deep rabbit hole of my own wounds and reprogramming myself and my neurochemistry through information and relational communication. I am secure now. Or much more close to consistently secure than I ever was. I am regulated now. I am untriggered. Triggered in the rarest of moments. But never by him. He doesn’t trigger me anymore. It is crazy. I am healing. This relationship and all its massive difficulties have absolutely healed me and gifted me with my greatest relational lessons of my life. Josh destroyed me and Harry healed me. Not that that means this relationship is great. I’d say anyone would be hard pressed to call a sexless relationship great. But the rest of it feels healthy. Or at least I do. Or at least it and I do, now.

But of course now that I understand how to be a great partner, he doesn’t seem to want one. In me or anyone I am not entirely sure which it is exactly. Now that I can give him everything he had asked me for when I wasn’t able to give it, now that I can give it, he acts like he no longer wants it. I become secure and he free falls into avoidance. And I’ve realized he’s always been there. Honestly, I still feel like he is disorganized. We both were. His is high anxiety, high ADHD, on a cycle of cortisol and dopamine and currently deflecting oxytocin, serotonin, and GABA. Maybe GABA is his answer. Maybe that’s my next question to him, whether he’s in a constant spiral out of ruminating thoughts concentrating on the worst case scenario. Maybe GABA can help him with that, if that in fact is the case. Things are slowly getting better, but there is such a long road to travel. How do I show him that I have nothing but the best intentions for both of us. To allow us both the optimized functioning that relational intimacy would provide. I want that confidence, and I want that love. I want that oxytocin and estrogen. I want to be pain free again, and I want to feel amazing. I want to feel like I have a second chance at life and love again. I want us both to have the capabilities to succeed and the best shot at health we possibly can. It’s all a possibility. It’s all in our reach. We just need to create the mutual intention toward it. Walls down, hearts up.