The Polyamorous Misanthrope

Originally published at

http://www.polyfamilies.com/misanthrope20041030.html

I remember one night, after Atlas was published, she [Ayn Rand] was sitting on the sofa, crying, protesting the state of the world and her place in it, and then she said how much she would hate for John Galt to see her this way, how much she would hate for him to see her miserable or in tears. I said, “Why? Wasn’t this part of the battle? Wasn’t feeling like hell and then picking yourself up and carrying on part of what made the struggle heroic? What was there to be ashamed of? Why did one have to pretend that there were never moments of utter despair? Wasn’t the challenge to experience them, own them, admit them, without denial or pretense ‹ and then go on fighting?” I said we should be proudly willing to let people see us in our darkest moments because in the end it was not going to be our darkest moments that would define us.

– Nathaniel Branden

Don’tcha love my titles.

So, why does it suck to be poly?

Okay, at first I have to come out. Yes, yes, you already know I’m poly, you might know I’m bi.

There’s something else about me I don’t talk about much. I’m not ashamed of it, mind you, but it’s not something I tend to broadcast. At least, until today.

I’m bipolar, and am what is so quaintly called “non-compliant” about medication. (Possibly “stiff-necked pain in the ass” would be a closer description, but I’ve not heard a clinical professional use the expression). Yes, that’s right, you’ve been taking advice from a crazy person. Please, no mental illness advocates lecture me on using negative imagery about mental illness, ‘kay? I know the list of famous and productive bipolars as well as you do. It’s a pain in the ass, but no, it doesn’t mean you can’t have a good life. Hear that, little poly chilluns? You can have overwhelming challenges and have a good life. LOL. Sometimes I even remember that.

But sometimes I don’t.

That’s when the problem comes in. You see, when you’re really down, you need to get help. Sometimes, you let it go too far and you wind up in the emergency room. For the record, no, I didn’t make an attempt to kill myself. I was watching myself rationalize that in the long run it wouldn’t hurt my family as badly as dealing with my fucked up self. I know how dangerous that is. I also know the statistics on suicide risk for children of suicides. I’m a mother. I don’t want to put that kind of burden on my kids, even if I am nuts. I checked myself in rather than do something I was really going to regret if I survived. (My best friend for many years was a critical care nurse. I’ve heard one to many horror stories of failed suicide attempts to want to deal with that).

So here I am in the emergency room. Were the staff kind and understanding? Yes. VERY much so. I was treated kindly and with dignity, and I very much appreciate that. It helped. A lot!

But –

They didn’t know about polyamory. So, here I am trying to explain what’s going on in my life, and without the context of polyamory, it’s going to be impossible to understand! They’re not going to be able to help but so much, nor are they going to have any real perspective.

I’m a poly advocate. I spend a lot of time on polyamory, analyzing family structures, thinking about what works and what doesn’t, writing about it, talking about it. So, I have all this stuff organized in my head. Do you think that a suicidally depressed person who knows she’s not thinking clearly is gonna be a good person to be educating a psychological professional about her lifestyle in the throes of a crisis? (Hollow laugh).

As is my wont, I started thinking about my own experiences in terms of the poly community at large. I know for a fact I’m not the only poly person who has gotten depressed and landed in an emergency room. I tried to imagine not have at least some of a rote speech about the subject memorized. I tried to imagine that I was not an advocate ¨ that polyamory as a theory just didn’t take UP that much of my thought process because I was busy having a life with my loves. (Not that I don’t, mind, but my career is the poly community when it comes down to it). But say I were a waitress or an engineer or a computer programmer or a lawyer? In a crisis situation, would that person be able to explain his life in such a way as to get help that would actually be useful.

Possibly. But maybe not.

Frankly, I think it would be better if a person who needed psychological help did not have to routinely explain her lifestyle (I had to do it five times in the course of about 24 hours). So, do I have a proposal for a solution?

<GRIN> Why yes. (Is anyone surprised?)

I’m putting together a pamphlet with the help of some other poly activists and psychologists — yes, I’ll announce it! When it comes out, it’ll be in PDF format and free for the download to print up and distribute. Me? I think it needs to go to medical schools, departments of psychology in colleges, hospital psychology departments, and therapists’ offices. If you wanna do a little poly activism that will do a lot of good and not take much time, this would be a quick-n-easy thing to do.

Updates as they happen.

In the meantime, you might want to check out “What Psychology Professionals Should Know About Polyamory”. It’s quite good and can be very helpful. It’s not a pamphlet that one can get out there in an emergency, and is much more suited to long term therapy. I like it a lot.

Originally posted at

http://www.polyfamilies.com/misanthrope20041023.html

I’ve run across a few items in discussion lists lately where people who are experimenting with polyamory have been bemoaning the fact that they can’t “get with the program”, or that they can’t get rid of jealousy, resentment or what have you.

Now, I will be the first to tell someone that resentment, jealousy and such are things you do not want to hold on to. You want to get to the bottom of your feelings, find out why you feel what you do and get rid of it, get over it — do what you have to to deal. Resentment will eat your soul alive and turn you into a very bitter and twisted person. I seriously doubt most people want that for themselves. Jealousy is a sign that something’s amiss and it’s important to get to the bottom of this. Now, understand I am not saying this as someone who never feels either jealous or resentful, or has overcome the problem. I struggle with both on a regular basis in many areas of my life. Neither emotion, by the way, is limited to romantic relationships. In fact, if you have a problem with either, I would say that it’s quite likely these things spill over into other aspects of your life.

As you explore what you’re feeling and why, one very valid and important question to ask yourself is, “Is polyamory really for me?”

It might be. It might not. Things may be changing in you, too. I can recall a time when I was completely cool with casual, light relationships. I enjoyed them and found them fulfilling. As my tastes changed, I recognized I needed to choose relationships that were in harmony with my new tastes. If I didn’t, it could make me unhappy. No biggie. Just choice.

Some questions you might want to ask yourself in trying to decide if polyamory is really for you:

• Why do I want this?

  What do you hope to get out of polyamory? Are you doing it because you’re in love with someone and are afraid you’ll lose him? Are you doing it because you feel it’s “enlightened” somehow? (It’s not. Poly people have about the same general range of enlightenment as the rest of the general population). Do you think that you’ll be happiest either being romantically involved or having the freedom to be romantically involved with more than one person? Are you doing it because your partner has asked for this and you’re happy and relaxed about her being happy? If you’re doing it out of a positive feeling rather than out of fear, you’re more likely to be making a happy choice for yourself.

• If I have worries and fears, why do I want to overcome them?

  Do I feel like my worries and fears are illogical? Do I feel that overcoming these will improve my relationships (the answer here is “yes”, by the way, even if you don’t choose a poly relationship!). Do I actually feel the fears are valid and I’m trying to keep a relationship together that shouldn’t be?

Mostly I am putting this out here because I am worried about people going through contortions to try to “make” themselves do something that is not happy and fulfilling. The choice to be open to polyamorous relationships is such an individual thing, after all. There’s really no value judgment either way, in my own humble opinion.

There’s a flip side to this. Your partner might find polyamory the way that makes her most happy and fulfilled. Then you’re coming up against some hard choices. I know of one couple pretty well where the husband is poly and the wife is not. They’re both happy and relaxed about it. She’s perfectly happy with him forming other relationships, trusts him to be there for her when she needs him and and vice versa. She doesn’t seek other relationships — just not where she’s at. I will note that it seems to work best if the monogamous partner is a very independent person.

If it turns out that your objections to polyamory are because you’d find it difficult for your partner to be forming other relationships, and your partner will be happiest and most fulfilled forming other relationships, then yes, you have a problem. I wish I could give you a pat answer to this one. Unfortunately, there isn’t one. There are a lot of factors to be weighed. How important is it to both of you to continue the relationship — to what lengths are both of you willing to go to do so? As you explore this, the answer will become clearer.

Some people will decide that they want to make themselves as okay as they can be with polyamory to try to preserve the relationship. Sometimes, this works out well, and sometimes it really blows up. Because relationships are such individual things, it’s hard to predict. The only thing that I can really offer here is to own your own feelings and such as your own responsibility and hang on hard to the fact that ultimately, your life is in your own hands — happy or sad, your life is your own to mold, and your happiness is completely in your own hands.

Originally published at

http://www.polyfamilies.com/misanthrope20041009.html

Gather ye round little poly chillun, ’cause Mama Java has about had it up to her eyeballs wit da nonsense.

Polyamory is not about:

• Nudism
• Tantra
• Religion
• Heinlein
• Politics

Let’s start with nudism.   Yeah, yeah, yeah, I understand that a lot of people who are really hard core nudists/naturists feel that liking to run around in the altogether is a freeing experience.   Fine.   Enjoy.   Just don’t try to link it with polyamory, ‘kay?   Mama Java likes her salwar kameezes and isn’t stripping down around non-intimates.   Mama Java doesn’t want to consider all the world her intimates, either.   She thinks the general run of humanity is worthy of kindness, yes.   Respect and dignity, certainly.   Only her intimates get to see her boobies.   ‘Nuff said.   Doesn’t make her any less poly.

How about Tantra?   Friends, Tantra is not about having more or even better sex.   It is a spiritual practice for which you do not, I repeat do not have to be polyamorous.   Many, many monogamous people practice Tantra.   It is about honoring your partner and making a spiritual connection.  Certainly one can practice Tantra and making connections as a poly person as well as a monogamous person. This does not mean that one has to be either to practice it.

In fact, no spiritual practice is necessary at all to be poly. Polyamory is not about Wicca, or any other form of neo-paganism!   Yes, I’m a Heathen, myself, but polyamorous people come from all sorts of religious paths.   I personally know Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Wiccans, and Atheists who are poly.   Early Gnostic Christians were poly (yes they had spouses in common, look it up), the Old Norse weren’t.   Don’t hang poly on your religion, kiddies, and don’t try to hang your religions or spiritual practices on poly.   They’re not one in the same.

Heinlein…   I should have put this particular peeve first as it is one of my strongest.   Most of the people who try to base their philosophy of polyamory on Heinlein have read one book by the man — Stranger in a Strange Land.   Was it a brilliant book?   Oh my word, yes!   But it seems to me that most people who try to base their idea of polyamory on the book just plain didn’t understand it or what Heinlein was getting at in general with his work, according to letters he had published about the subject.   Heinlein wrote over forty books, and his philosophy clearly had evolved over a career lasting nearly half a century.   It is also necessary to remember that Mr. Heinlein himself commented that his first objective in any fiction he wrote was to entertain.   While many people, including myself, found his work philosophically profound, he himself was horrified at anyone trying to live according to his fiction. “I was not giving answers. I was trying to shake the reader loose from some preconceptions and induce him to think for himself, along new and fresh lines. In consequence, each reader gets something different out of that book because he himself supplies the answers . . . . It is an invitation to think — not to believe.”

Polyamory is not about any specific political movement, either.   I’m a pretty hard core Libertarian and I live in what is essentially a commune, and I am politically active.   The only thing this has to do with poly is trying to get marriage and family law expanded to the point where there are more options available to poly people.  But, I don’t assume that a poly person shares my political views.  I’ve dated Socialists, and know plenty of poly pacifists, as well as some militant sorts I just plain wouldn’t wanna cross.   Believe it or not, there are plenty of politically conservative polyamorists, just as there are plenty of politically conservative monogamists.   Honey, polyamory is not the answer to World Peace, and isn’t going to make people stop fighting each other.   It doesn’t make people stop acting like people!

What polyamory is, or should be, is about being able to love more than one person sexually or romantically.   That’s it.   Not complex.   Not saving the world, no incense (though I could do with some good sandalwood right now!), you don’t have to take your clothes off, and nobody has to live in a nest where we’re all water-brothers.   You get to pick your own path.

Just don’t be trying to tell me I oughta be walking with ya to be poly, ‘kay?