MOOP!

"I'm sorry my neuroses interrupted your flirtation"

--Probably the new subtitle of my User Manual, which has been getting a lot of pages lately, mostly of the 'no, you can't see this' variety. Yes, that makes it the least useful user manual ever, shuttup.

TW: Emotional abuse

Proving that I am sometimes smart enough to censor myself in IM conversation, but *not* smart enough to not post passive-aggressive things in my livejournal, here is something I didn't say to someone, that I think is relevant to the grand scheme of How Sor Works.

I don't grovel for forgiveness with anyone I'm not in an emotionally abusive relationship with. Either I will apologize and that'll be enough and I'll be forgiven, or I'll have to "prove my sorryness/love/sincerity" and I don't go for that. Let me know which it is.

Context should be obvious --I'm having an argument with a friend, in which I'm in the wrong, and they're angry at me for it⁰. That's valid --everyone does stupid shit sometimes, and I am so not exempt from that. And when I do stupid, or dangerous, or unhealthy, or abusive, or kyriarchal shit, I want to hear about it.

What happens next is I'm going to think about it, apologize, and move on. And that's all you'll get from me. Oh, don't get me wrong, the matter won't end there --I *will* keep thinking about what you said, especially if it's right, especially if it hurts, especially if it can at all ping my guilt conscience¹. And I'll pay attention and introspect and change my behaviour if I believe it needs changing.

But I don't think that part of the process is necessarily your business. Whether or not I change my behavior or actions is not something you can affect. You can give strong recommendations, you can give encouragement, you can give bribes or threats or carrots or sticks but ultimately, it boils down to the fact that I am my own beast. I would like to hope that I am a logical beast, and willing to listen to those who have good recommendations or my best interests, but regardless of how good or logical I am, I will not change unless I decide to.

And sometimes, that seems not to be good enough for people. Sometimes when I think about it and apologize and move on, it's apparently not enough to placate the person arguing with me. I'm not sure, perhaps my apologies do not sound sufficiently sincere. Perhaps they are the sort of person who goes for vengeance and do not feel I have paid the sufficient price for harming them. Perhaps they just want to see me grovel.

And to that, I say fuck that, and fuck you. Anyone who wants to see me grovel, ever², is welcome to get the fuck out of my life, post-haste. Because I used to grovel. I used to beg for forgiveness. I used to throw myself prostrate before the person I had Wronged and weep for my foolishness.

Spoiler warning, the person I did that for most consistently was the ex that abused me. I talk a lot about the sexual stuff (I think a lot about the sexual stuff, little triggered shards of pain from someone touching me just the wrong sort of right) but truth be told, the emotional part's what lasted.

I had a moment a couple weeks ago where someone I'm currently dating said something harsh at me in a moment of miscommunication³. And I shattered. I flung myself textually to their feet, explaining what was wrong, apologizing and over-apologizing, begging them to not be angry, that I hadn't meant to hurt them, oh please forgive me I didn't mean to make you mad.

And even as the words left my fingers, it felt atrocious. I felt slimy and caught and completely worthless. I wrote a bit that I never did post, and I talked about the fact that when you're in an emotionally abusive situation, and you are perceived to do something wrong, groveling --as fast and as furious as you can-- is the only way to Make Things Better. It's my fault for not being better, for not taking good enough care of them, for not being on their side, for not paying them enough attention, for not loving them hard enough, strongly enough. And if I don't throw away whatever I was doing --clearly unimportant-- to fix. it. now., something terrible will happen to them and it will have been All My Fault.

"I love you so much, and all I get in return is hurt. Why do you have to make me hit you, darlin'?"

So I personally have only one context for groveling, and it's abuse. Groveling is the thing that happens in order to prevent them hurting themself. In order to prevent them hurting me. Groveling is frantic, painful, and to be perfectly honest, a whole lot less sincere than my initial apology.

So I don't grovel. Ever. If I make you mad, let me know, by all means. I may be a feral thing, but I can still be trained if I want to, perform tricks like not leaving dishes in the sink or keeping my partners up to date on the romantic status of my other partners. When I fuck up, and I will fuck up, because everyone fucks up sometimes, I will do my best to make it better. I'll apologize. I'll think about what I've done. I'll change my behavior.

But I'm not going to grovel to you, and if you think you deserve it from me, you can go to hell.

~Sor
MOOP!

0: This should be obvious, but just in case, if you think you know who I am arguing with, and it's not YOU, it's not any of your business, and you should not be speculating or guessing.

1: Which is somehow as healthy as any Catholic, despite growing up in a household where the whole point of Christmas is that Santa comes by.

2: As with many other forms of harm, exceptions can be made for the purposes of kink, or scenes, or other dirty-scary-sexy-nonsense that plays with power and control.

3: Turns out they had been looking at the chatlogs for one of my metamours, not me, and I hadn't done anything wrong. They apologized. Happy ending all around!

TW: Emotional abuse

Mild trigger-warnings for self injury and alcohol consumption

One of the many things playing havoc with my mind right now is the ways in which I do and don't self-destruct. Because right now, I've done a rather impressive job of fouling up my life, and getting out of that, as cleanly as possible, is a fascinating challenge.

Because I mostly haven't been wanting to hurt myself. There've been a couple of broken moments, but really, for the last week or so, I've been very productive, and in a very non-damaging way. Oh sure, I'm pushing myself in a lot of ways that are foreign to me, but being this stressed and broke almost feels more like mySelf than otherwise.

I really am a creature of the eleventh hour, aren't I?

At any rate, one of the things I am finding more necessary than usual is sensory drought/drown. I don't have a better word for this, only that it is a thing that happens in my life --when I get to a certain level of off-balance, I need *something* to spring me back. And usually, that involves appealing to the basic senses, and either cutting them off entirely or overwhelming them.

(This is what led to my ill-fated attempt to dance squares blindfolded on Tuesday. Hint: it does not work, at least not without more preperation on the parts of both myself and the square proper.)

So here's some sensory stuff I do to help my brain work:

( I know there are like twenty different senses, but let's go with Eyes, Ears, Mouth, Nose, and Fingertips )

All this babbling sortof comes completely tangentially to a comment a friend made offjournal back when I made my posts in early January about self-injury. soong said "Why can't you have normal self destructive habits and just get drunk like the rest of us?" which is one of those things that I am both grateful is true, and a little...worried. Why aren't I able to drown my sorrows in the bottle when I absolutely need to? No, of course it's not a good thing to do often or regularly, but I keep alcohol in the house --hell, I probably have enough scotch alone to pickle an elephant-- and when it's been this bad a week...why shouldn't I pour myself a drink and maybe let the edges of my mind go a little fuzzy.

I think it mostly boils down to the fact that I am entirely lawful about alcohol, and always have been, and probably always will be (because there's a part of me that knows "just this once" is too easily "whenever I want"). No, I don't mean I didn't touch a drop until I turned 21, or I won't share good booze with minors, just that I created my own set of laws long ago, and they are unimpeachable. Chief among them is "I don't drink alone". But I also don't drink at parties hosted by college students, at burns, or at cons. I don't drink to get drunk. And if I ever utter or think the sentence "Lord, I need a drink", I am specifically not allowed to have one.

Maybe it's just because "ALCOHOL IS ALWAYS BAD" was drilled into my head when I was young. Maybe it's because I actually just dislike pretty much all the physical and mental symptoms of being tipsy. Maybe because there's a brilliant blackmail potential to being "the sober one". Or maybe I just know that I have a sometimes obsessive personality, and figure the fastest way to avoid the slippery slope is to avoid it as much as possible.

Look on the bright side, at least it's not as long as yesterday's post?

~Sor
MOOP!

In writing this entry, I posted on Twitter "Writing more of my user manual. Is it arrogant, to suggest how people should best interact with me, or self-aware?"

Foster replied with "I think it's self aware to figure out such details but arrogant to expect that anyone will read it."

So, like everything in my journal, I will assume you didn't read it unless you tell me otherwise. That's absolutely okay, you don't *have* to read anything I post, especially not when it's this self-serving. I really truly honestly don't mind. That being said, I present the first part in what might wind up being an ongoing series:

The Care and Feeding of THIS Introvert
-A subsection of the "How To Take Care of a Sorcyress" user-manual-

( So, I am an introvert. )

YAY ALL THE WORDS OMG.

~Sor
MOOP!

1: There are exceptions to this. If you're Dating (And I mean capital letters and I call you boyfriend and you were one of the first four [REDACTED]s in this post) me is usually a pretty decent exception, though you still damn well better understand that I will kick your ass on the curb and make you entertain yourself if I am busy, at least for a little while. Veronica is also permitted to do this, if she finds herself inclined. My immediate family is theoretically allowed, but I reserve the right to be doing something they find scandalous when they show up.

Seriously though, if you want to visit me _let me know_. I cannot always drop pre-arranged plans just for you, no matter how lovely you are, and I won't always want to. If I know you're coming, I can make the plans around you.

2: The Jolly Fats Wehawkin Temp Agency! Nothing weird or secret ever happens here, nope, not ever, what other room?

Also, yes I spelled that right.

3: This is actually, you know, a pretty big "Sorcy is shutting down" warning sign in general. Specific ways to deal with it will be discussed in another section of this user manual, but the quick and dirty way to reboot a sorcyress involves leaving her alone with a source of VERY LOUD music. Yes, that includes her ipod and headphones.