Recreating family of origin dynamics

Is it preservation of sanity or is it insanity?
I'm in a high state of anxiety. Functioning, but distracted regularly and easily.
I'm afraid to face the truth. I'm afraid to be wrong.

I'm wrangling with my thoughts about my beloved PT. Sometimes I like him very much. I enjoy his attentiveness, his sensibilities, his whimsy, his friendship. However, more typically I find him disagreeable. I find him self-centered and irritable. Harsh, intolerant. Long winded. This is mostly when he's drunk, though, sadly, not exclusively. He is easily triggered, and the events are not always predictable. Its hard to tell what will set him off,  -a look, a sense of exasperation, a perception, an irritation. These behaviors are really hard to live with. Its painful knowing there is no rational resolution. Nothing to ease the situation except to ignore it, wait it out. Wait for morning when all is forgotten.  I hate pretending everything is ok when it is not. I hate to be silenced as a self-protection strategy.

I don't want to make anyone wrong. Not really. I just want to know what to do. I want to be truthful. I want to make things right. I want to understand. I want to feel loved. I want to be love. I want to feel peace.  I am taking a sober look at the idea that I'm not a good fit for this lifestyle. I keep coming back to this idea that I need to be somewhere more in line with my core values, somewhere that feels more comfortable and less anxiety provoking.

I also worry that its me who is living out some sort of neurosis and just projecting it onto PT. OMG..! What if that is the case? What if its my own mental health issues that are keeping me in such a high state of anxiety? I don't want to abandon love if its just me who is playing out some sort of relationship sabotage due to trauma or fear.  I dunno. There's stuff in my court, for sure. But, damn. PT has some deep issues. He's so freaky sometimes. The aspergers issue is huge. I'm sure he's on that spectrum. He is so normal in so many realms. But this area of connecting, or acting kindly... he just seems so out of touch with reality on a regular basis.  When he is in a certain brain space, what I've come to think of as the aspergers spectrum, he acts as if he is incapable of connecting. Its as though his brain wires misfire. He's an alien lashing out. I've got to stop kidding myself. Wishing. I've got to stop this wishful, magical thinking. He is not going to change. Its not just me. He treats everyone the same way. Its maddening to those who love him. Its maddening to me. I know I have to decide. The indecision is creating so much anxiety for me. I have choices, but which one is the best one?

Choice # 1: Stay and know that it will be a lonely existence in terms of not receiving affection, attention, care, nurturing, interest -those things that make us feel seen and valued in the eyes of our fellow community members. These are the gifts of humanity that feed us, keep us emotionally healthy. It's part of our healthy nuero-biological wiring. I know this. I see it.

Choice # 2: Move on.  Scary! But, today, like many days I feel weary of the constant hostility, and/or neglect. I don't feel motivated to stick it out because there is no reciprocity. My mind constantly tells me that I'm not thought of as family, so why should I stay?  I'm mindful of what I just wrote... "my mind tells me". What I mean is that I'm aware that I'm listening to myself and that myself, my brain is influenced by damaged interpretations; left over wounds from a childhood of feeling emotionally abandoned. I'm aware that its wise not to believe everything I think. And yet, I also feel confident that I'm trying to be objective; trying to observe what happens between us; trying to understand my own role. In my objectivity I can identify my triggers, my emotional reactions, my listening, my trying to understand, and my irrationality. I feel like most of the time I can see what's going on and it shows a frightened, protective man who activates a fiery fighting defense intended, however subconsciously, to frighten others into backing off. And so, I think I have to go.

And thus, choice # 3 emerges. As I stand in my place trying to make sense of the events that fall out around me, everything I know about human dynamics and spiritual wisdom blazes in front of me. In the course of being called to be present, alert, honest PT falls apart. He seems incapable of standing in his warrior strength, in his place of compassion, of kindness. In my observations I see a man who struggles to understand what the hell I'm talking about. I see a man who is habitually cruel and takes pleasure in hurling painful emotional spears. I see a man completely detached from what is really going on in the moment. I see a man who when presented with truth in the moment dissociates and hides his head under blankets and cowers like the abused man that he is. He comes across as a frightened child and its as though his mind is being beaten into hiding. I see all of these things and my deeper, wiser soul says that I should stay and protect him. Offer him the detached love that he needs, manage the household selflessly and move into the solitude that awaits me, someday, anyhow. The wiser soul says stay and forgive. Dwell in the beauty of the home, of the land, of the non-attachment that comes from being a room- mate rather than someone who is maturely loved.  I think of all of these things and remind myself that even the aspies can love. "Take the higher road," I say to myself. Hold this truth in your heart and feel the truth about PT and others on the aspergers spectrum: They love and they feel loss, but they cannot connect.

So, - is it a necessary polar opposite... i.e. -"Bad" for me to leave?  No. Of course not. At least I think its not. The fence rail I'm on though is this nagging question that suggests that if I leave I am leaving the very love that I've always wanted. If I leave is it because I'm the one who is fucked up?  What if the great truth is that, "by staying, the relationship will get better as most things do, -like a fine old wine, will we learn to tolerate one another and will I then find that we have a solid, loving bond that is more powerful than I ever imagined." What if???  If I leave I would miss out on this.  What if I'm missing the point and I'm just running because of the age old truth of fleeing from having to look at myself? What if the great mystery, the great breakthrough to nivana was to be had simply by relaxing into my life as it is and letting him do what he wants? But what do I do with the idea that this higher path really means that I have to sidestep the tirades, dodge the drunken evenings and just go with my life?  This is the path to enlightenment, to living a life that is balanced and equanimous! My god! I am so weary of the rage and neglect. What does it mean if I'm afraid to stay with it? Am I a looser? The looser?

What if its my destiny to live with the aloofness, the cursing? My destiny to live without support, without being noticed, without tenderness, without sexual tenderness. Am I crazy to want this in my life?


In a flash, it crosses my mind that he is just like my mother. My family. He's more familiar than I want to admit. But I don't choose to live in this type of world. I did not choose to live in a shallow, harsh, emotionally cold world. I fled. I always flee.  I'm always searching for adequate sustenance; searching for anything to ease the wanting, the hunger for authentic connection. Is that what the idea of god fulfills? Will meditation really create a sense of having enough? I hear my mind saying over and over again that I want a world that is more loving, more peaceful, more meditative. And yet, I choose PT. I choose a man who is bright, engaging, funny, lively, hip etc... but also, someone who outwardly reminded me of my father. But now, here I am having to face the obvious truth. Have I, in choosing PT as my mate, recreated my fundamental family origins? Is this my predicament? Am I just recreating the pain of my aloof, absent, angry mother, the anchor of my family of origin?  Fuck.

So, what do I do with this information? How do I reconcile this insight? What does it mean? Can I heal these original wounds? Can I rewire the brain so that it doesn't feel such emotional pain?  Can I tame the triggers? Will the pain subside? Will I find peace if the reaction goes away?

I am spending a lot of time weighing and measuring these thoughts, trying to understand. Like the classical conversation between the velveteen rabbit and the Skin Horse, wherein the rabbit asks, "What is real?" I am on a the fence.  Should I go? Should I stay and accept this life with all its failings and all its beauties? What should I do?