No longer as truthful as should be deserved, some names, places and events deliberately vague to protect identities that aren't mine

Saturday 25 December 2010

It's a Festivus miracle! Or not really...

I tried.  I tried really fucking hard.  To ignore the thoughts in my head.  To make an effort.  To face the world.  To get myself into the Christmas mood and at least have one day where I didn't just want to stay with the covers over my head the entire time.  I should have quit whilst I was behind...

After enduring the morning round of the ever-fun game 'pick on the depressive's physical appearance and fashion choice for the day, I occupied myself by making the obligatory mulled wine.  After which we were supposed to go to the market up the road from me, which was laying on a Christmas Eve daytime special.  Agreed that we were supposed to be leaving at 2, of course we didn't walk out the door until 3.30, by which time all the stalls were in the process of deconstructing the metal frames and driving off home for the day.  Fail strike two.

I tried my best not to be too down about it.  I have no doubt it was blindingly obvious I was disappointed and frustrated, but I at least managed to keep my voice neutral, rather than despondant.  I'd been banking on wandering round marketyness to get me feeling vaguely in the festive spirit, but that option clearly went out the window.

In fairness, 15 minutes of our late departure was due to me trying to make an effort in my appearance; I showered, shaved, scrubbed, and put on jeans, a vest, tshirt and a shirt instead of the black joggers and hoodie option that had been my staple for 2.5 days.  Obviously in light of the fact that going out was a pointless exercise anyway, trying to make an effort to look somewhat decent was well beyond the universe's expectations of me for the day.

One of the Christmas rituals in my family is that we have turkey sandwiches at midnight, and open the presents then.  It comes from when I was young and my dad used to work really long hours all the time, so there I was at 10.30 at night, with turkey in the oven, and something happened.  Something small, but I broke, I fell apart, and all I wanted to do was go back to ignoring the world, even the relatively small world of Chris and his friend who's staying with us.  I realized that all these Christmas rituals only mattered to me, that Chris and his friend would carry on and have their Christmas just fine whatever happened, so there was no need to fight so hard to make sure there were turkey sandwiches, or to think about the fact that I haven't watched The Muppet's Christmas Carol or It's A Wonderful Life this year.  Chris probably thought he was being helpful when he agreed that it didn't matter.  It doesn't.  But it did.  A hell of a lot.  And no-one even noticed that I was trying, or why I wanted to do these things.

I get that my being majorly depressed is trying on Chris. He doesn't know how to deal with me at the best of times, and he can't relate to the place my head finds itself in, so it's hard to judge what to say or do, or how to react, when to force an issue and when not to.  And I know he's doing as best he can.  And I know it's unfair to sit here, and spout out a bullet point list of failings, because that's not accurate, and it only tells half the story.  I'm the cause of these problems in the first place, and I know that.  But sometimes that boy can be so goddamned obtuse.  Like when he wonders at me why I seem to be so much worse than usual this year, if it's just that I put on a face when I spend Christmas with his family, or mine, because I've never been this bad before.  Why at the moment, nothing good seems to make me smile, and everything bad is so severe and dramatic.  How when all the frustrations of having to deal with a depressive boyfriend, completely understandably, get to him, he decides that the most appropriate person to vent angrily about it to is said depressive.  How all he wants to do, is just tell me to cheer the fuck up, and we both know it.


...So much for a relaxing 5 days off work before my 6 weeks non-stop marathon.  I escape to Joel's tomorrow for the day, so maybe that will calm me down.

Oh yeah, merry fucking Christmas.  I bet this is exactly the present the bf wanted.

Monday 20 December 2010

These are a few of my favourite things.

Some topatoco items I want.  I don't even like printed tshirts, but I want these.  Also, if you have no idea who topato is, go read Wigu from the start.  I can't be bothered to insert the link, so just google it.

http://www.topatoco.com/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=TO&Product_Code=OP-CATLADY-SHIRT-PINK&Category_Code=ALL
http://www.topatoco.com/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=TO&Product_Code=ASW-TROUBLE&Category_Code=ALL
http://www.topatoco.com/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=TO&Product_Code=GOAT-RFV&Category_Code=ALL
http://www.topatoco.com/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=TO&Product_Code=RUMB-HUGS&Category_Code=ALL
http://www.topatoco.com/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=TO&Product_Code=SNF-CONSCIENCECAT&Category_Code=ALL
http://www.topatoco.com/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=TO&Product_Code=SNF-SCAREMYSELF&Category_Code=ALL
http://www.topatoco.com/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=TO&Product_Code=HIJI-SCIFIVE&Category_Code=ALL
http://www.topatoco.com/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=TO&Product_Code=SSC-PRESSUREPOINTS&Category_Code=ALL
http://www.topatoco.com/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=TO&Product_Code=ASW-WEALLDIE&Category_Code=ALL
http://www.topatoco.com/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=TO&Product_Code=RB-SHEEPFLOW&Category_Code=ALL
http://www.topatoco.com/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=TO&Product_Code=HIJI-EDWARD&Category_Code=ALL
http://www.topatoco.com/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=TO&Product_Code=RUMB-TREAD&Category_Code=ALL
http://www.topatoco.com/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=TO&Product_Code=ASW-BLOWMOON&Category_Code=ALL
http://www.topatoco.com/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=TO&Product_Code=ASW-CALM-PRINT&Category_Code=ALL

Friday 17 December 2010

The Resolution

A clarification on the previous post.

I don't find it hard to tell people I hardly know a lot of detail about me.  I find it very easy in fact.  I completely disassociate from it, and with the likelihood that I never need to deal with this person in my life again, it's not a concern that this person mind discover intimate details about me, or have the awareness and perceptive abilities to be able to read more about me than I'd like.  And there's a handful of people in my life that I'm very close to, that I will happily tell a lot to, because I trust them not to use it to hurt me, and because I can hurt them just as badly back if necessary.  The concept of mutually assured destruction is such a satisfying deterrent in the world.

It's the people inbetween that are the big, big problem.  And generally, people don't traverse from one end of the spectrum to the other without being an inbetween person at some point - though, at least half of the people who are very close to me did exactly that through some rather inexplicable process when I think back on it.

But yes, fine, I can go to the new doctors and with a relative degree of (outward) calmness tell them plenty about my current state of affairs.  And assuming I don't have an all out full blown panic, start vomiting every 5 minutes, or attack them violently, I could probably tell the psychiatrist a fair amount about me in the initial session before I start to get completely paranoid about their intentions.  It's the fact that I have to go back that causes (further) issues.  It's that you're supposed to establish some kind of rapport with them (which I will do, it just won't be a positive one, I guarantee it).  That's where the whole idea starts to fall down in my head.  Beyond the risk of violence, physical nausea, random and sudden disappearance etc, that is.


And to top everything off, I have to ring my mother at some point and decide whether I'm going to Christmas or not.  Well family Christmas on boxing day.  We always get together every year, and it's fun, and I love my crazy big family get togethers and Christmas is the best one of the entire lot.  But like so many family Christmases, it's also hell.  I struggle to get through it without at least some alcohol or a cigarette in me; it involves, even more than the standard get together, facing endless questions from each and every aunt and grandparent about what I'm doing with my life and how I compare to everyone else in the family.  It's a constant dodging and minefield stepping of social interactions against people who offer you no mercies in their probing or judgement and who never forget to recall each and every past action good or bad that you ever made.  I'm not sure, given I'm going crazy and having to face one hell of a nightmare to deal with it, as well as working like hell due to a crisis that's occurred at the venue (I did 20 hours work in 24 yesterday, and have to do 12 - 14 today), that attempting to deal with the love/hate joy that is a family Christmas gathering is something I'm prepared to put up with right now.  And further, this will involve explaining all of this to my mother, and trying to get across why I'm not just blowing off family Christmas and being an arse, without panicking her by telling her I'm suicidally depressed right now.  I haven't quite worked out how I'm going to do this yet.

Thursday 16 December 2010

The first step

I've never written about my extreme and passionate hatred and distrust of mental health professionals.  I kept meaning to, but I kept never getting around to it.  I would call it a paranoid phobia, because the level of my reactions is that extreme, however I would also argue it's based on fair experience, so it's not completely irrational.

I had to go to the psychiatrists several times as a kid.  I remember being about 6 or 7, when I was seeing them because I had rather severe issues with social integration (I know, you're shocked), and them getting me to play games, and they asking lots of questions about why I'd arranged the game in a certain way, or what if 'x' situation hypothetically happened.  Even at that age, I found their questions rather contrived.  Anyone else who's ever had to deal with the psychs will know exactly what I mean.  One of the main reasons why I have such an issue with mental health professionals, is that they're basically they're to judge you.  Yes you might have put yourself (somewhat) willingly in that situation, but they eye you with a condemning suspicion, they second guess every motivation or desire you have, ask leading questions that seem to encourage a certain modality, they expect you to tell a complete stranger the deepest and darkest parts of you that you wouldn't even admit to yourself, and let them judge you as a person on that basis.  I don't believe any degree has been invented to give someone that right.  And the questions they ask tend to be fairly idiotic; honestly, I defy any 'normal' person not to feel despair at some point, to drink because it's easier one night, or god forbid, hear voices (this one tends to happen especially when others are in the room I've found).  I know it's actually a matter of frequency, but any evaluation questionnaire I've ever encountered doesn't actually seem to factor that in for some reason.

Needless to say, when I had to see psychiatrists at 10 and again at 14, it didn't go very well for me.  Or for them.  In the first instance, the prospect of having to see one again made me psychosomatically so violently ill that I threw up all over the reception area. The second time around, I threw a chair at one.  I missed.  It hit the window.  But understandably, even as a minor no-one could get me to go through that kind of ordeal long enough to get a full and official diagnosis.

My perspective on psychs was only further confirmed when my mother suffered from PTSD after a car accident.  I was driving by this point so it was my responsibility to take her to her sessions, as she wasn't allowed to drive herself at the time.  She got fed up with them and let me fill out the evaluation questionnaire.  They seemed a little confused at some of the helpful comments I wrote in the margin to each answer..

I don't mean to knock the work they do, I know they can truly help some people, but my experiences have never been positive; very much the opposite, and the overwhelming majority of people in my life with mental problems of one kind or another (and being me, I know a LOT of people like that), aren't exactly sold on them either, and know all too well what I mean by the above description of judgement and suspicion.


But anyway, through persuasion, begging, coercion, and probably some sick twisted sense along the lines of morbid curiosity, I somehow conceded to go and seek some help in regards to my previous blog post.

After battling my way through the daunting realm of the NHS receptionists on Monday, and finally getting her to let me register, based on the fact that yes, I was in the right catchment area, and yes, I did have ID and proof of address on me at the time, and yes, I did have an hour to spend filling in forms, and yes, I will hand them to her because leaning forward to reach the extra 15cm required to pick them up off the desk once I'd completed them, I spent my early morning ringing for an appointment, and convincing them that yes, it probably was fairly urgent and thus in need of an appointment that day, rather than scheduling one for some time after Christmas.

Appointment time comes around and I spend my time sitting quietly in the waiting room having an internal panic attack and dreading the concept of trying to convince an NHS doctor of ANYTHING, because ultimately, any action on their part involves some form of budgetary spend and they're strongly discouraged from ever actually doing that.  Eventually a doctor - not the one I was supposed to be seeing, but I was randomly assigned one when I booked the appointment and it was my first time at the surgery so it didn't really bother me, comes and calls my name and off I go to plead my case.

I basically tell her the symptoms I listed in my previous blog post.  She naturally asks me a few questions and tells me that there's a crisis team at the local A&E (which I know is the place to go in dire emergency anyway).  She then comments that I seem quite calm, controlled, and together; I've got to the surgery, I've got myself dressed and don't seem malnourished etc.  This point irritates me a fair bit.  I understand the point she's making, but it also suggests that unless I'm about to jump off the chair with the rope around my neck, or have to be forcibly referred by the police and hospital departments, that it's not a huge concern and they don't really want to get involved.  Which, granted, knowing the NHS as I do, I appreciate is completely the case.  Not through any fault of uncaring on their part, but again, there are budgets to think of, unless it's an urgent crisis the money to deal with it isn't there.  Which isn't a great situation to be in when you've just gone and asked for help because you're feeling suicidal, if not actually on the brink of committing it.

I explained that yes, I'm controlled, it's a skill I've learned from a childhood spent in and out of hospitals, from experiencing acute physical pain at least once a week, and moderate to severe pain on average 3 days a week.  I can have a panic attack and I can do it perfectly quietly, so that other people wouldn't notice.  I'm used to suppressing the physical signs of my internal struggles, physical or emotional.  I further explained that I'm a damned good liar.  Chris lives with me, he sees me most of the time, and sure he can tell that I'm down and feeling depressed, but he had no idea how bad I was until I posted that blog post.  No-one would . Even Joel can't read everything about me, and if I don't want the world to know something, you'd be surprised at how well I can cover it up.  This, combined with her asking if I had any methods in mind, and when I mentioned bridge jumping as one of them, and she asked if I knew specifically, to which I could respond in full detail about the bridge, method of getting there, expense, jumper mortality rate, speed of impact, and the various circumstances of that particular locale that gave an increased chance of a successful plan, seemed to convince her that maybe she should go ask the senior partner what to do with me.  (for those weirdly interested, golden gate, obviously a plane, about £500, which isn't really a concern if I'm that committed to it, >98%, ~100mph, solid impact of water at that speed, almost certainly fatal neck, spinal or head injuries at the right point of impact, or failing that, significant bone breakage, leading to severe internal bleeding, organ puncture, combined with strong undercurrent and very low water temperatures, as well as low visibility in fog periods)

Anyhoo, I was deemed not to be at imminent risk (I was having a relatively good day yesterday), and with people around and close to me who knew what was happening, so another appointment is scheduled for next week, and in the meantime they're trying to find me a psychiatrist who can start seeing me before Christmas.  Things always happen to me at Christmas, it's the worst time to be needing medical help - last year I had to go through all of Christmas and New Year eating only soft solids because my wisdom teeth were boring holes into the back of my head and I couldn't get them removed till Jan 4th.  So begins the long process of diagnosis, should there be any to give, but most people in my life reckon there is.  I might not make it through the process, I will most likely get angry about it at various points, things will be thrown, and Joel may be forced to accept a unavenged punch to the face in the name of being a caring friend.  I might get therapy.  I might get drugs.  It might all be pointless.  I might not quite be crazy enough to actually get anything; I always seem to miss the bar by a fraction on a lot of things in my life.


However, my friends are not without humour.  Sean offered the following :


"...well speaking personally I always look forward to the opportunity to experiment with new psychoactive drugs, so if you don't like them, you can pass them on to me. :D"

Saturday 11 December 2010

Will you still call me Superman?

I'm going crazy.

I mean, I know I've always been crazy, but I mean I'm going more crazy than usual.  As in mental breakdown kinda crazy.  Sure I go up and down all the time, I have my depressive periods and my manic ones, and I hate them, but I can deal with them.  I know them; they're fine, I know they'll eventually pass even if that takes 6 months, and even if they cause me to be somewhat self-destructive in one direction or another, but I much prefer them to being just ambivalently 'okay', which I really don't know how to cope with at all.

The catalyst for this has been the raise at work that I was supposed to be getting, effectively I'm not getting it now.  It's more complicated than that, so don't start telling me my legal rights and that, but basically, I'm still permanently broke, and unable to afford so much as the food to live on.  This sent me spiralling.  I'm now in full blown mental breakdown mode.  To the point where I've actually considered taking myself to the doctors and getting either therapy, or drugs, or both.  Anyone who knows my violent aversion to the medical profession and mood altering drugs will realise I have to be pretty damned desperate to reasonably consider that as a course of action.

Symptoms include: epic depression, frequent panic attacks, involuntary muscular control - i tend to spasm uncontrollably a fair bit at the moment, totally destroyed sleep patterns - to be fair, these were being really screwy anyway, but this is just compounding matters, as a sample of the last 3 weeks, in various 24 hour periods I've slept 20 hours, slept 40 minutes, got stuck in a 4 hours on 4 hours off pattern, not slept at all, slept for 2 hours in 40 etc. Periodic bouts of suicidal feeling and the all important and symptomatically important planning of it, feelings of dread, being trapped, severe insignificance, psychosomatically induced nausea, severely disinclined to even get out of bed each day, for anything, and a complete lack of appetite; I could happily go 2 days without food at the moment (which would result in even more nauseous feelings as I get really ill if I don't eat), and so on and so forth.  All the poster symptoms for severe depression, stress, anxiety, and general mental failure.

I did the NHS direct symptom checker (which as we all know, is infullable), and at best it told me I should contact my GP immediately/ASAP (I don't actually have a GP but oh well), and at worst, that I should call 999 immediately and get myself to an A&E

To stop you all from panicking, I'm writing this at work, Joel knows and is keeping a close watch on me through all possible methods at his disposal, and practically all the time I'm at home Chris is there (which isn't always a good thing - getting time to myself just to unwind proves to be rather problematic due to the chris timetable meaning he's in almost all the time I'm at home, but means i can't do anything too stupid, or at least, i can't overtly do anything too stupid).

Of course, ordinarily in situations like this, I would run away from the world for 2 weeks, but alas I'm not at uni any more, so if I just don't come out of my room for 2 weeks I'll get fired.  I'm broke, so I can't go afford to go anywhere.  My job takes too much time to get a second one.  I can't quit my job because it's more advantageous to stay in it, and even though I'm broke despite working, I'm so broke I can't afford not to work the crappy job I do have.  And Chris would pretty much kill me if I went anywhere without him after this summer.  Especially if I did it with the complete isolation I kinda need about now.  Which I can't really blame him for, it's perfectly reasonable to be honest, and rather a mute point as I don't have the money in the first place, but it's all just compounding issues.

There's a fairly likely chance Joel will end up dragging me, fully kicking and screaming inevitably, to the doctors at some point in an attempt to force them to do something for me.  Of course I'm not thrilled about the concept of going to see medical professionals, and any concept of therapy is likely to throw me into fits of vomiting, but nothing's happening yet, so until such point as I am dragged kicking and screaming, I plan to hide from that prospect and ignore it entirely.


Oh, and bonus points to anyone who knows the title reference.

Friday 10 December 2010

Life

Life is hard.  Really hard.  A lot of the time.  And some days you know exactly why you fight so hard for it.  Most of the time I just carry on because I have nothing better to do with my time and it has the small chance of providing some passing amusement in any given day.  But overall, I have no idea why we all struggle so much, for something so transient.

Friday 3 December 2010

Awesometimes

So basically today has been ALL kinds of awesome.  New year will be AMAZING

Aside from the epic raise listed below.  We ran a test on a demo mic we have on hire, and it was so impressive even the big boss came up to me and asked what I'd done and how much it would cost to do that, and he seems really sold on them, which means I should get a massive £2k boost to my budget at work with which to buy us a load of shiny new mics for the new January show!  YAYS

I'll be able to afford shit in January.  I'll be able to go to the gym and like my body again.  On top of that, Terence is due to come over in February, which although I'll be crazy busy during, will be... well indescribable.  I grin stupidly just at the prospect even now, expect me to be unbearable come the end of January.

And further more, my friend Shawn just said he might be coming over in the Spring from California!  So that's more friends I get to see.

Added to that is the fact that I can now afford to take me and Chris to the US in the summer for a month.  Next year is looking so good in so many ways.

And if I work things out right, maybe in the later part of next year, I could go to Australia and visit someone who understands me in ways even Chris, Jack, Terence or Joel don't, and who I miss, every damned day, an amazing kid, and someone who'd I'd easily count as one of my best friends even though we've only hung out a handful of times.  Ryan, I miss you like crazy, you're awesome, and I wish you'd hurry up and come back here!

Must be funny...

Either work read my blog and someone spoke to the right people, or I'm just naturally that awesome, but the most AMAZING news has happened.

I was feeling REALLY shitty the last couple of days.  Being so broke for so long was finally taking its toll on me, I was about to crack.  I was sick of work, I was sick of not being able to afford to eat.  I was sick of never knowing if I'd even be able to pay my rent each month, I was sick of not going out or seeing anyone, I was sick of not being able to comfort buy to help that, I was sick of being stuck at home, I was sick of being stuck around Chris, I was sick of Chris and I not being able to go out for dinner, I was sick of everything in the way that only being flat broke for a year and a half can do to you  (he says having gone to the US this summer, I have my priorities, leave it at that).

Today, the big boss pulled me aside (always worrying), and told me they were really happy with the work I do, and were going to give me a raise.  That was an understatement.  I was on £7ph, which is nothing to live on in London.  I am now on £15ph.  That's £120 per day, pratically contracting rates!  That's a healthy, and respectable £31k per year.

My pay has more than doubled, £7ph just covered my rent and bills (but no food).  This means virtually all that extra is dispoable income.  This means I can save.  This means I can go on holiday.  This means I can take Chris on holiday.  This means I can pay £100 per month into my pension.  This means I can buy shoes that actually keep the cold out.  This means I can happily afford a gym membership.  This means I can pay off my credit card debt next year.  This means when Chris is pissing me off I can go out, and stay out, or I can grab Joel and go to Amsterdam or Manchester for the weekend because we feel like it.  This means I can come back, and take Chris to dinner, or see a show, or something date like to spend some time together that isn't me tired from work and him studying.  This means if I want new game, or cd I can afford it.  This means I can shop somewhere other than primark and get clothes that actually fit me.  This means I can buy the food  This means after all that, I might even have £100 left so that when I randomly need to go to waitrose to buy dinner because I'm working 90 hour weeks, or I need coffee, or I'm feeling down and want to get the new Armani Exchange sweater to make myself feel better, I can.  And I don't need to worry all the freakin' time about how I'm going to afford anything.

And it's more than that.  My CV says technical manager for the venue I work at.  On my old salary there's no way I could have stayed past March.  Now I can stay, in a job I love, at a venue that challenges me every single day.  Now I have the salary to back up my job title.  Now, when however many years in the future I'm looking for another job, I can argue my worth effectively.  A technical manager on £14k is either a shit manager, in a shit venue, or hyperinflating their job title.  A technical manager on £31k does a good job.  For a respectable venue.  They're willing to do 90 hour weeks when needed.  As my mum put it, it's now "a proper job, on a proper salary."

I'm not careful with money, I know this, but like I said, this gives me the money to go pay into my pension, and save for a holiday, and then go see my friends afterwards.  Not either/or each month.  This makes me a 23 year old earning £31k for a job he never did a degree or formal educational training in, for a job I picked up from a student society and happened to be good at.  I don't have to worry so much anymore.  Sure I'll be broke some months, but it'll be my own damned fault, because I just *had* to buy the collectors edition, or that new pair of jeans, or I took Chris out.  I can pay for dinner when I go out with my parents for once.  I can be a normal happy human being, and that's fantastic.

And my mind, now doing backflips and being so much relaxed from where it was this time last night, notices.  Earlier I was dreaming of an insanely hot boy, and him kissing me.  Happy at work, happy at home, happy in dreams.  Roll on my next paycheck!

Wednesday 1 December 2010

Keep the change ya filthy animal

I follow a lot of random crap on twitter.  One of them is @WTFSexFacts which tweets bits of sexual culture oddities like the world's first vibrator and other assorted bits of humorous paraphernalia, as well as random sex related quirks like how many nerves are in each of the body's erogenous zones.

Earlier this evening, this was tweeted:
So, my boyfriend just told me he is bisexual. Should I (A) Dump him now? (B) Use him for warmth through winter? (C) Replace and then dump?


Now, it's nicely packaged in a vague attempt at humour, but I really shouldn't need to point out to any of you the horrific prejudice against bisexuals contained in this comment.  Twitter sure did.  I told them to get over themselves.  They obviously liked this person enough to consider them their boyfriend beforehand, whilst it might throw up some issues - for example I can understand there might be some things to talk about if this happened 3 months into the relationship, rather than after 2 weeks - the simple fact of the guy's sexuality shouldn't determine the future of the relationship.  I'm not saying this sort of admission doesn't cause problems, but to determine if someone is 'dateable' on the basis of whether they're potentially attracted to 50% or 100% of the population is plain ignorant.

Firstly, I'd like to give some kudos to the boyfriend in the circumstances.  Coming out to your family and your friends isn't an entirely comfortable experience for almost everybody.  You can never be 100% sure of the reaction you'll get, even from those who know you inside out otherwise, and have known you since childhood or before.  Coming out to your partner is a delicious awkwardness reserved for bisexuals alone.  Well and transsexuals I suppose.  This is the person that either is, or you hope will be, one of the closest, most important, and most intimate people in your life.  It's a lot  to risk, and it's a lot to expose yourself to, because if the reaction is negative, it's going to cause a lot MORE problems than just a bit of discomfort or a lost friend.


The next tweet to come from @WTFSexFacts was:
I have nothing against bisexuals. I just don't date them. I have many as friends though. Lonely people


Oh gee great, because that's so much better.  Frankly, to me, that kind of comment is reminiscent of the same logic that says 'gays can do my hair and be my interior designer, but they're not allowed to marry, I don't want them living on my street, and I'm scared for my children being within a 50 mile radius of them'.  Apparently, we bisexuals are have some weird leprous facet to our personalities that makes us undesirable in the dating world.  And as a result we are all lonely miserable, and can never land/keep a partner and are always desperate to cheat on them with the other sex so we can feel fulfilled and happy and content for a good 5 minutes.  Or something like that as I understand it.


Slowly however, things become clearer:
I dated a bisexual in my teens once. He dumped me for a girl. Dumped her for another boy. And so on and so on.


It emerges that the good @WTFSexFacts has obviously had a bad experience in the past, and is thus lambasting everyone with the same paint brush, so to speak.  And we all now how stable and reasoned the relationships we form as teenagers are.


Having been called on such points, the response was:
Well, why did he need to tell me? I call that softening somebody up for the blow. If he planned on monogamy, I'd have been none the wiser.


Now as stated, I have a lot of respect for the boyfriend for being brave enough to come out with this, but I'll grant you I'm biased.  And yes, depending on the exact circumstances this was communicated, and how long into the relationship it was, there's no doubt a lot more to it than some mere tweet reports can offer us, but all that aside, most people I know don't like to be lied to by their partner.  They don't like to find out from a friend of a friend, or 10 years down the line.  The monogamy point, is mute.  Assuming the best intentions in the boyfriend in revealing this, then it was to be honest, to share, and to head off the minor potential of a lifetime's worth of frustration exploding into an affair, by knowing that the subject can be discussed in the relationship, and often that's all a lot of things meed to stop them from ever actually becoming a problem.  That's not a relationship thing, that's a human social interaction thing.  Every damned one of you reading this has felt the need to rant about something at some point, and having done that, you feel calmer and better about it and it no longer bothers you.  A 5 minute bitch every so often and you're good.  I also severely dislike the implication that an admission of bisexuality is just a way to get out of a relationship.


This goes back and forth back and forth on twitter for a good while, in fact it's still going on.  @WTFSexFacts seems to continuously voice/confuse the opinion that bisexuals have some sort of uncontrollable compulsion to be sexually active with both sexes, and that they are by nature unfaithful, quoting his authority as a sex fact researcher, but no actual statistical sources, along with the misguided personal perception that there is no way he will be able to fulfil a bisexual's needs and make them happy.


Finally, about an hour ago, this comes out:
Let us just say I date him and 10 years down the line his other needs surface and he finds a girlfriend. I'll want those 10 years back.


Whereas of course, if @WTFSexFacts was with a completely gay individual, the chances of that individual turning round in 10 years and saying they'd met another guy are in fact non-existent.  It's a little known fact about gays that they are in fact perfectly faithful, whilst straights are getting divorced and bisexuals get distracted mid-fuck they're so promiscuous.


I can't be bothered to post all the other idiotic, depressing, offensive, and bigoted tweets that have come out of this feed this evening.  Go look them up if you're that bothered.  @WTFSexTweets seems to think that biseuxality is a choice.  And that you're just undecided.  Of course I never really understand how this argument works when you accept that gay and straight sexualities are not choices, but just a fact of nature.  Unless you're expected to be like gay christians - you can be a gay christian, you're just expected not to have sex?  Others involves in the back and forth suggested that @WTF should go get tested immediately, because apparently bisexuals are full of diseases.  The gay agenda gets talked about all the time, but none of you probably knew about the bi agenda.  Item one is the usurping of the gay superAIDS, with biAIDS, which kills you instantly.


What's most depressing about this is that even though the account often delivers tweets with a level of tongue in cheek sarcasm, it does claim to be a factual account, and so to voice someone's personal prejudices on it, to 50,000 odd followers, some of which are not all wordly wise, and ask the account questions precisely because they don't know anything, gives off a very bad representation, and on top of this the amount of times @WTF's tweets were being re-tweeted in a positive fashion.  Finally, the guy tweeting from @WTF, is a gay gay.   This isn't some idiot republican midwest "there are no gays in my town" making these tweets.  It's a UK based gay guy.  If that's the level of intolerance and judgement coming towards bisexuals from those who have the best chance of understanding what a burden sexuality can be, how in the hell do you stand a chance of educating the more ignorant masses?!




To be honest, you have it hard as a bisexual.  The straights mistrust and are confused by you at best, and at worst lump you in with the gays for eternal damnation or civil rights issues.  And you're not better off amongst the gays either; most of them think you're in denial, supporting a prejudice that gay is something to be avoided, greedy, or just plain indecisive.  To paraphrase @WTF's words, 'if you can't decide what gender you're attracted to, how are you going to decide on a person?' (I shouldn't need to explain to you how this is ALL kinds of wrong).  You can't really do bisexual orientated events, beyond a social mixer perhaps; they simply don't work, and end up just being stunted or forced versions of their gay/straight counterparts.


People out there, even fairly reasonable people, seem to have this irrational paranoia that you're going to inevitably cheat on them with someone of whatever gender they're not, because you have no willpower or self control, and they simply can't compete and offer you what you need.  Frankly, Chris doesn't provide me breasts, but then he doesn't provide me with an athletic jock build either.  These are not things I need.  These are ideals.  We all have them.  And we all have to throw most of them out of the window when it comes down to who we actually end up falling in love with by sheer chance of the universe.  Your gay or straight partner stands no more or less chance of doing any of these things based on sexuality alone than anyone else.


Get over yourselves people.  @WTFSexFacts pissed me off today, and disappointed me, and made me physically ill at several points.  But that's just representative.  I'm not trying to say bi's have it worse than any other minority group out there, but a little support from the LGBTQQI groupings who would be a really good and well deserved start.  We have a lot in common, we face a lot of the same trials and hardships, we've experienced a lot of the same suffering, prejudice and oppression.  Why, do the bullied, end up just bullying others even weaker than them in life?  Bisexuals are people,  Just like everyone else.  Just like your gay best friend.  Just like your parents.  They make mistakes, they have flaws, but no more than everyone else.  One person might not be right for you, but that's because of them as a person, not because of who they might, potentially, find attractive.