Re-Education of the Relational Self: Intro

The people closest to me know that I absolutely pour into my relationships and I keep the health of those relationships as my top priority. Those same people would also tell you that my relationships have been, and continue to be, a strange adventure. I feel like I was predisposed to be an amiable and meek person, and this is the narrative of how I'm learning to speak up for my wants and needs. Spoiler alert: apparently that's a key ingredient of a healthy relationship. As a 16 year old, on June 6, 2007, I wrote this in a journal, 

"I think I'm one of those people that can get by with a little love given to them, but in turn tries to hand out so much more than they've received. I'm not saying I haven't been loved, because I have. But I've realized...I've got problems that, if I don't take care of them now, will become major problems for me when I'm an adult." 

Somehow, I intuited that my ability to give more than I receive would be a double edged sword that created serious heartache for me and, inadvertently, other people I really care about.

When I was a young, sweet summer child, I made a list of what "Mr. Right" would look like, and it is a fantastical Frankenstein work of art. I can't accurately date this list, but I must have been 13-15 years old. At the time, I was a devout young woman of God, and this list reflects exactly what I was supposed to want out of a husband.

It's kinda cute and funny because I can still see my essence imprinted on this page, but it would be years before I had a solid idea of the type of person with whom I could spend life. I was just worried about finding someone who had any capacity to care for me. I was developmentally behind due to sub-par socialization and painfully naive due to a suppression of my critical thinking skills. (A few months ago, I read Tara Westover's memoir Educated, and her descriptions of her childhood resonated so deeply that it took me several therapy sessions and sibling phone calls to process through it.) I already felt incredible shame and guilt around my nasty habit of masturbating - something I now know was developmentally normal; I have an old devotional journal in which I used tick marks to try to shame myself into increasing the number of days I could go without it. 

Needless to say, I wasn't a healthy young person with a strong sense of self and an empowered hold on my sexuality. When I did start dating several years later, it was a mess. Like a latent expression of Disinhibited Social Engagement Disorder where I was indiscriminate about the people I allowed into my sphere of influence. I, a home-schooled innocent, had no idea that I was starved for attention, but I gorged on the regard young men at college threw at me, then later felt guilty for enjoying it because my religious narrative had no room for healthy expression of young adult sexuality. My scripts told me that men showing me attention only wanted one thing from me, and that thing must be protected at all cost, for if I gave it away my value as a woman would be tarnished forever (circa I Kissed Dating Goodbye by Joshua Harris). Surely, I would never be reward with a good husband who had also guarded against the thirsty worldlings. You'll forgive me for using a touch of hyperbole here, for while it seems silly now, this was my reality. I could write a whole post about how purity culture had me fucked up for years, but I digress. 

Side bar: Joshua Harris eventually apologized for the book and discontinued publishing, then went on to leave the faith, and help create a documentary that you can watch for free here on Youtube.

So, given my conservative childhood that afforded me little helpful information on dating and healthy relationships, I was pretty fucking lost. Oh, and my sex education came from reading about it in the ENCYCLOPEDIA, folks! And porn was the lingerie section of the JCPenny's catalog. I wish that was a joke. 

On the hunt for a good husband, I knew that I obviously did NOT want the abusive, sex-crazed, self-obsessed asshole of a caricature I had in my brain. I didn't want anyone too good-looking or built because that signaled vanity and privilege to me. Unfortunately, lots of people with traits of narcissism are REALLY good at hiding their narcissism, especially from empathetic people like myself, so I found myself entangled with lots of unhealthy people.Which, in all fairness makes sense because, ya know, healthy people tend to have better boundaries and gut intelligence, which tends to keep unhealthy people at bay.  

Except the golf dudes. I've always had this weird, slightly unfair bias against men who play golf; like, preppy argyle sweater cape with the arms tied in front, mama's boy, working at daddy's law firm, trust fund havin'-ass. Wouldn't it be hilarious if they were the healthy ones all along? In what fucking world, Kara. 

Thank you for reading! Check back for a discussion of parents. Wheeeee....