Wired

I estimate I spent 25 minutes of my therapy appointment crying. So... successful? Or at least I trust her?

I said that my primary goals for therapy were to deal with my negative feelings about M's transition without making M deal with all of them, to learn to handle my stress better, and to give myself a place where I can be honest about my feelings without feeling like I'm hurting someone I love.

My HOMEWORK for this week is to write a goodbye letter to Matt, the man I fell in love with, listing all the masculinity and gender roles that I was attached to. (sobbing) Therapist said that it was not going to be possible to move on and change our relationship if I had not looked at and let go of the parts that were going to change. Which...feels true, yeah. I have been doing a bunch of forward-looking stuff, trying to get my head around the change, but you can't do that if you're still also expecting the way things always were. So. Appropriate mourning, without excessively inflicting it on other people. Seems good (seems horrible and hard and I hate it, so it's probably what I need to do).

The other thing we talked about is what I'm scared of, and being forced to haul those squirmy shadows out into the light was the rest of why I was crying. She assured me she gets paid by Kleenex consumed, and that there is a kickback arrangement. Which made me laugh soggily.
* M not being attracted to me anymore
* Me not being attracted to M anymore
* Living with three people in hormonal flux
* This being just more than I could handle and me crumbling under pressure.

(Which is when she brought up Beverly Crusher and her crush on a parasitic alien, and it was all well and fine when the alien chose male hosts, but it was just too much when the alien chose a female host. Apropos!)

She says that of course I have a breaking point, everyone does, but being scared of it and avoiding it adds to my stress and makes it more likely that I will break catastrophically instead of gracefully. Hm. There are engineering parallels here. I had mostly thought about "staying strong", not "failing gracefully and in a way that allows for rebuilding". So that was good.

She also suggested that I find myself a nice strapping man who is taller than me to indulge my desires for that, instead of just being sad that M is not that. So I'd say she's adapting to poly pretty well. ;)

And then I went home and cuddled Baz, who was glad to be home from camp, and made dinner, and put everyone to bed, and put M to bed when they came home. M did not ask me about my day at all, being taken up with their day, and what had happened at support group. And I cried myself to sleep, or started to, and then decided to send M a text saying that I was upset (they were already asleep, and waking someone up to yell at them about behavior is shitty). So, good self-advocacy, I guess.

Oh! And I bought myself a VERY BRIGHT, pretty expensive tail light. As opposed to the moderately bright, relatively cheap variety. $20 is worth it for "visible for as far as a mile". I was going to ride this morning, but I'd forgotten it was the day I drive Kay to rehearsal. Sigh. I will never get to ride again. (yes I will, but I'm feeling thwarted). My bike shop guy is learning to anticipate my whims. I won't pay for new bikes for anyone but me, but I will splash out for all the safety gear.