Nothing to Fear But Fear Itself

WARNING: REALLY PERSONAL STUFF TO FOLLOW.

So on the eve of my birthday, I feel like I owe it to myself to be honest with me and honest with the people that I love. I'm tired of worrying that my own family won't love me if they knew what I am really like.

My husband loves me unconditionally and he knows who and what I am. Unconditional love is so important and I can't figure out if the pressure to keep certain parts of myself hidden was out of fear of my family's disapproval or out of my own need for self preservation.

I am bipolar. I'm being medicated for it but the depression still hits really badly. I have days when I feel "normal" but it turns out that my "normal" is manic. I feel happy and sleep little and eat little but then come crashing down after a couple of days into a state of depression and the medication stills needs some adjustment. At least I finally know why I feel as though I am losing my mind.

Everyone has some super secret part of him or herself but I am tired of lying about where I go and what I do every month. I'm an adult and I guess I finally feel like people are either going to love me as I am or not at all.

It has gotten kind of silly coming up with an excuse every month to sneak out with Jeff. We aren't going to a writing group or meeting friends from out of town.
No, we are heading out to munches. We have dinner once a month with a group of very friendly and kinky friends, around 30 or so people who sit around and talk about ropes and floggers and spankings and a host of other kinky topics that never come up in polite conversation. It is a simple dinner over pizza, yet in many ways I feel like I am coming home. Because I can be myself, free from judgment.

It won't be a secret to a lot of my friends or to my husband, but maybe to my family -- I don't know -- but I used to devour romance novels. I know that my family thought it was because of the sex in the books. That wasn't it at all. The sex bored me when I was a teenager. I was way more excited by the inevitable scenes in which the heroine was tied up, either by the villain or by the hero himself. Either way, it was interesting to me, way more interesting than the sex scenes, which I basically skimmed over.

I have always known that my brain is wired differently, that my thought processes are unusual and I kept certain things to myself. How successful I was in doing so, I'm not sure. But even as a kid, I knew that other kids weren't reading Nancy Drew books for the same reason I was.

Because I discovered, too, the way in which my body responded to pain. I didn't fall into cutting or any serious self harm, but I discovered pretty early that certain pain releases endorphins and feels incredible. I didn't discover until much later than other people feel the same way. I spent a lot of time reading books and feeling lonely until I discovered that I'm not the only person who feels this way.

If you're still reading this (which you are not) then you will find out that I am bisexual, something I have always been terrified of telling my family, as I grew up hearing that homosexuality was wrong and sick. Imagine my surprise when I was attracted to girls and boys, though I didn't act upon my attraction to women until I went away to college. I did kiss a girl in elementary school, but it was really very innocent. But I am going to be 37 in a few hours and I grow tired of pretending that I am not attracted to women as well as men. If Jeff can accept that, then I think that is what matters most.

What is the worst that will happen if people find out these things about me? I guess I will find out because 37 years is too long to deny who I am. I am bipolar and bisexual, a bookworm, a wife, a mother. The pieces all fit for me.