The Brain and the Heart

Have you ever been caught in one of those situations when your brain is telling you to do one thing while your heart is telling you to do another? I know I get caught in situations like that all of the time. Usually I do the stupid thing and follow my heart, because it seems to be my heart that makes me feel like something is right, instead of just making me weigh pros and cons and choose the logical option.

My heart is stupid. It gets me into trouble and throws me into situations that I'm just not ready to handle. I followed my heart when I chose my first college and that ended up turning into the most epic disaster in my life. If I had taken the time to really sit and think things through instead of doing what felt right maybe I wouldn't have ended up in that situation.

Right now I'm caught in one of those situations. I have to make a decision and my heart and my brain can't seem to agree with each other. I know that I should listen to my brain on this one, but my heart is speaking very strongly this time and I can't ignore what it has to say.

I've struggled with depression for several long years now. It's not an easy struggle, but I've been doing relatively well for the last several months, especially with the end of the unhealthy relationship that I was in. Now that I am single again, I realize that I will eventually have to deal with potential boyfriends again. My most recent romantic relationship was also my first, and I was disheartened by the ending, which was painful. This isn't the first relationship I've had end in a painful way, though it was my first romantic one, and because of past difficulties I've had a lot of trouble forming new relationships, trusting other people, and being willing to enter into any romantic relationships. I put my whole heart into this last one, giving myself over entirely to my partner, and that ended badly for me. I'm afraid to go through that pain again. The fear comes from the depression. I worry that if I continue to get hurt that I won't be able to continue fighting the depression and it will overwhelm me.

I also hate being alone. While many people will say it's perfectly fine that I didn't date until I was twenty, it is unusual. Most of my friends - even ones more quiet and shy than me - dated throughout high school. I honestly got to the point where I thought no one would ever ask me out or that I wasn't, for whatever reason, a date-able person. I resigned myself to being alone for the rest of my life. Now that I have finally had a taste of what it's like to be in a relationship (the good parts, not the bad) I don't want to go back to thinking I'll be alone forever.

All of this plays into my current dilemma. When I was a junior in college, living in Montana, there was a guy at home - significantly older than me - who expressed feelings for me (that's putting it mildly). At the time I was working through some issues that I had with men - fears that were leftover from several experiences throughout the last 20 years of my life. His messages telling me how he felt upset me and stressed me out and I avoided talking to him as long as I could before I was finally able to deal with the situation and tell him that we couldn't be together. I decided this because I had been trying to recover from depression and find out if I had a personality disorder that would have been the cause of some of my behaviors and experiences. Not only that, but he had his own mental problems that had not been diagnosed yet.

We were a bad match. That's all there was to it at the time. It wasn't that I didn't like him. This man is a sweetheart. I knew that he cared about me. That alone would have made me happy. On top of that, I had feelings for him, too, even though I was trying my best to bury them. In that case, I let my brain win out over my heart because it was a time when I needed to focus on ME.

I am still friends with this man, even to this day. I still suffer from depression, and he suffers from his own mental illness and is even more handicapped by it than I am. His life has not been easy. I haven't even been able to piece together everything that he's been through, outside of what other people have told me and small hints that I pick up in my conversations with him. What I do know is that he still feels something for me. What that something is, I'm never too sure. I think he knows that I tend to shy away from him if he goes back to what he first said when I was still in college. I can see in his messages (we talk via messaging systems at the moment) that he changes the words around. For example, he uses phrases such as "i want to try see something in someone else that i don't get to see but may be once in a life time" and when I ask him what he means he gives me vague responses about friendship or love, but never really explains himself. The last time he mentioned wanting to be with me (he added in "despite our situations" when he mentioned it) I practically interrogated him, so it doesn't surprise me that he's careful in his own, strange ways.

Within the last few months there have been several times when he has asked me to come and hang out with him or get coffee with him. I want to say yes. My heart tells me that I should go. My brain says that it will encourage him to pursue me. The fact still stands that we are a bad match. Our mental illnesses would conflict. We would hurt each other without realizing it. On top of that, he's eight years older than me and, at the moment, can't live on his own. He gets money from the government each month. I want to have children, raise a family, have a home of my own. I need someone who can do that with me; someone who can support a family. I don't think he's capable of that. I don't even know if he's capable of maintaining a normal relationship. Things are different with him than they would be with another man. If my last dream weren't to have a family, then maybe it wouldn't matter so much. But at the age of twenty-two I'm at least ready to start looking for someone to settle down with.

That is what my brain is telling me. It makes sense, but I'm still torn between what my brain says and what my heart feels. Because when I think about this man I feel something. I want to reach out and take care of him. I want to be the friend that he needs. Maybe I want to be more than that. I know that going with my heart on this one would be a bad idea. The problem is that it's a lot easier to do what you feel is right than it is to do what you think is right. Feelings are powerful. Love, fear, hope, sadness...feelings are the basis of who we are. Our thoughts aren't any less important, but it's easier to push them aside.

Feelings are important. Always consider them. But don't forget to pay attention to your brain as well. Sometimes it has something just as important to say as your heart.

Selfishness

Each year Christmas comes and I wonder how my family manages to pull it off. We are one of the most dysfunctional families I know - and I know that we're far from the most dysfunctional. Seriously, though, every year it feels like I am spending Christmas with a group of high school students or college freshman. How one family can manage to create so much drama, I may never know. Last year someone didn't get exactly what they wanted or got less than someone else, so of course the first reaction is to throw a fit, cry, and stomp out of the house. And I'm not talking about kids here. I'm talking about a twenty-two year old married woman. The last time I was upset because I didn't get the exact same as someone else in the house, I was in elementary school.

Somehow we managed to pull this Christmas off with minimal drama. If anyone got less than anybody else, it was me, and I sure as hell didn't give a shit. I was happy with every gift I got, from Starbucks gift card to my very first scarf. What several of the people in my family fail to realize is that it's not about how much you get. It's about being thankful that you have loved ones who care about you. It's about being a family. It's about loving one another.

Christmas is a holiday where it becomes clear which half of the family is materialistic and which half is all about loving each other. We're a blended family. There's my mom and her husband. I am my mom's oldest, but her husband has a daughter a year older than me who is married and now has a son. She is my stepsister. My father is out of the picture, and has never been a part of it. I have a half-sister who is five years younger. Her father is not in the picture either. My two half brothers are from my mom and her husband, and they are the sweetest little things on the face of the earth.

My mom's husband was raised in a very materialistic family. In other words, he is never happy with what he has. In his family the parents got everything and it was the kids who went without, and he seems to think that is how the children in this family should be raised. His daughter tends to be materialistic as well, though not to the extreme that her father does. She does get upset if she doesn't get the same amount that my sister and I, who still live at home, get, even though she's married and has her own family now.

My mom was raised differently. Her mother, my grandma, often went without in order to make sure that my mom had everything she needed. My mom, though she went through horrible things as a child, was taught that how much you have is not what matters. She raised my sister and I the same way, and is raising the boys that way now. My sister is a teenager, so she's going through some rebellious stages, but I am happy with what I have, even when I have been wearing the same, beat up pair of sandals for the last several years. I have what I need, and that's all that matters. The boys are that way sometimes, but they have picked up a lot of selfishness from their father. It hurts to see them throwing fits when they can't have the toy they want or the movie that costs too much.

I am happy with the things I have. I have to rely on other people for things I need because of the debt I'm in from a failed attempt at college. I don't have a lot of things that I want or need. What matters is that I am happy. I have two sweet little brothers who look up to me, wonderful best friends, a cute baby nephew, a sister who can be a pain (but I love her!) and a loving mother and grandmother. I have a cat who drives everyone insane even though he's adorable and fluffy. I love him to death. I have my fish and my snails. I have two wonderful garter snakes that trust me, even though they like to sit and glare at me from their tanks. How could I not be thankful for what I have?

I wish that everyone in my family could see things this way. My mom's husband will never change; this I know. We've waited seven years for that to happen, and it hasn't. If anything, it gets worse each year. He wants so many things that he's spending his retirement funds (he's not retired yet) to buy things or take trips that we really can't afford. He spends it all on what he wants, and then he neglects to make sure that everyone in the family has what they need - and needs are greater than wants. There have been times when he won't even let my mom buy clothes for his sons, because he wants the money for something else. If I were in his place, I would go without clothes myself before my sons didn't have the clothes they need.

Greed and ungratefulness doesn't just come in the form of money. My mom's husband is so set in what he wants that he can't do anything for others, whether it's money related or not. He wants so badly to watch television that he will go to the point of ignoring his children when they need him. The littlest one - age three - is potty trained, but needs help getting onto the toilet, making sure he aims correctly, and wiping when necessary. This last week, my mom went to the store one evening for a few minutes to get some things we had run out of. She came home to the little one crying in the bathroom with his pants around his ankles and a mess on the floor. Why? Because he had asked daddy for help, but daddy ignored him and he really had to go so he tried to do it himself. But he couldn't climb onto the toilet. When he couldn't hold it and made the mess he was hysterical because he thought he was in trouble. He was crying very loudly, and had been for  little while when my mom came home. Where was her husband? Still watching television, ignoring the crying that could be heard from the bathroom.

I don't understand how a grown adult, a father, could be so selfish that he would ignore his son who needs help, just because he doesn't want to do it. I can't even bring myself to call him their father. I am more of a father to them than he is, and I'm their sister.

I don't know how normal this is here in the United States, or elsewhere. What I do know is that this is selfishness. Sometimes selfishness can be appropriate, but when it comes to taking care of someone you're responsible for creating? or when it comes to being grateful for the gifts your family generously gave to you? That is when selfishness is wrong. That is when it is not okay. I hope to God that I can show my little brothers how to care for others. I know how they feel. My father is selfish too, going as far as publicly insulting me on Facebook because I didn't give him what he wanted. I want to show people, my brothers especially, that getting what you want isn't important. What is important is that you are loved, you are taken care of, and that you give the same to others.

Accepting less than we deserve.

When it comes to love I tend to believe that you don't necessarily deserve any specific type of person. You don't deserve someone amazing just because you're a good person who does good things, and you don't deserve someone less than amazing because you have a hard life or get into trouble a lot. Just because people think I'm intelligent, loyal, or kind doesn't mean that I deserve to be with a saint. Love is about who you want to be with, not what you deserve. It's about who makes you happy and who you choose to love. If you deserve anything, it's to be with the person you love.

While I still hold quite firmly to that belief, I have come to realize that there are things that people do deserve when it comes to a significant other.

Every girl and every boy, every man and every woman, no matter who they are, what they've been through, or where they are in their life, deserves to be respected, especially by a significant other. You deserve to be happy, to be with the one that you love, but you also deserve to be with someone who respects who you are and how you feel. Respect is important in any relationship.

I spent a year and a half with a boy whom I loved very much. I say boy for a reason, even though he recently turned twenty-one. There was more than one time when he tried to break up with me. His excuses were that I deserved better than him, or I should try to date other people. I didn't believe either of those things. I fought to keep us together because I loved him more than I had ever loved before. I didn't care that we fought all the time. I didn't mind his pig-headed tenacity that caused so many of the fights. I was more than willing to put up with his childish comments and persistent offensive behavior because I loved him. Ultimately, my love for him was all that mattered to me. When he told me that I deserved better than him I disagreed because I believed that I deserved to have the person that I was in love with.

I failed to realize then that I wasn't receiving the respect that I deserved from him. Every time we fought he ended up making empty promises to change. He promised to stop brushing off my complaints - that he was ignoring me, that he wasn't taking me seriously, that he was talking rudely to me - as if they were jokes. He promised to stop swearing at me as much. He promised to stop smacking my butt and grabbing my breasts constantly, though especially in public. In the end, he broke every single one of those promises, and more. In the end, he tossed me to the curb and refused to speak to me, as if all of our problems were my fault. When he ended things I begged him for two weeks to take me back, without even so much as a "no" from him. He ignored every message, every plea. I loved him more than anything or anyone, and he had said that he loved me the same. Then suddenly he turned his back on me. I was lost, confused, and hurt.

At first I thought that I might wait for him to change his mind and come back. Then, when he continued to ignore me (at this point I was trying to get his Sprint account and pin number so I could switch my phone off his plan), I realized that I really did deserve better. Yeah, I loved the guy more than anything in the world. I would have gone to hell and back for him. But I realized that, no matter how much I loved him, he wasn't worth my time anymore. Maybe I did deserve to be with the one I loved, but I did not deserve to be tossed to the curb while he was still claiming that he loved me and wanted to be with me forever. I didn't deserve to be completely ignored by the person I loved so much. Love isn't always worth that kind of pain.

I made a big decision in the third week after he ended things. I decided that I deserved a man, not a boy. I deserved someone who could handle relationship problems maturely and who respected me and my feelings. My ex had stopped showing me respect months before he broke things off. I should have ended things then and there, but I was caught up in wanting something that was less than what I deserved. In a sense, I was settling for the first thing that came along that seemed to satisfy my need to love someone.

The last message (apart from the ones when I was trying to get those damn account numbers!) I sent to him was this: "You were right. I do deserve better. I deserve someone who respects me." After I switched my phone back to my parents' plan I removed his number, deleted him from Facebook, and removed any remaining message threads I had from him. I still think about him every day, and he will always have a place in my heart. But if I had to choose between him and being alone for the rest of eternity, I would choose to be alone. I know that I deserve something better than him, no matter how much I love him.

It's not just about who you love. It's about who loves you enough to treat you with the respect that you deserve.

Closer to Love

I was raised a Christian - not quite born, but raised from a very young age. I was taught to believe that other religions are wrong and that homosexuality is a terrible sin. I believed what other people said - that the Bible preaches against homosexuality, that all other religions are wrong...I was nothing more than a sheep, just like a large majority of American Christians are these days.

I'm not trying to offend anyone here; this is my own opinion and my own process of thinking. But there are a lot of Christians who hardly ever pick up a Bible and actually read it. And, to be honest, I am one of those. I have a hard time picking up my Bible because I struggle with religion in general. In fact, right now I am not a "Christian," as most Americans would describe it. I believe in God and I believe in the Bible. I draw my own conclusions. I am not Catholic or Protestant. I am not Baptist, Methodist, or Lutheran. I'm not even a non-denominational Christian.

I am spiritual. That is all.

I was raised to discriminate. There was something wrong with people who followed other religions. And, while I wasn't given that message word for word, that was the example that I was given. Homosexuality, too, was a sin, and homosexuals were wrong in some way.

Then I went to high school and I realized that believing in a different religion didn't make someone wrong. It just made them different. It wasn't my job to judge them or stay away from them. It was my job to love them and accept them for who they were. And while I did, and still do, believe that there is only one right religion, that does not mean that I have the right to label other people sinful or wrong simply because they believe something different from me. What if I am the one who is wrong and they are the ones who are right? Just because I believe something doesn't make it the truth. I can believe that we don't need oxygen to live, and obviously that would be wrong. It works the same way with religion, in my opinion. And I had no right to judge other people as sinners when I myself am a sinner - I lie, I hurt people, I lose my temper and I yell and I fight. All sin is equal. I can't judge anyone for their sins.

I was taught that homosexuality was a choice and that it was the wrong choice; it was a sin to be homosexual. I believed that, and I did my best to crush certain feelings that I had for a couple of people who were the same sex as me. I was determined to not make that "choice" and sin in that way.

And then I went to college.

I researched birth order in my first semester of college and discovered something that I found quite fascinating. It opened up many doors in my mind that had previously been closed because of what I had been taught to believe all my life. See, there is some evidence that the mother's body see's the male fetus as a threat or an illness because the male fetus has horomones and such that are not normally found in the female body. Therefore, the body's defense systems may attack the male fetus. This could possibly cause homosexuality in men - and it is a perfectly viable explanation. After all, there are other instances in which the mother's body and the fetus don't get along perfectly. But if this were true then homosexuality wouldn't be a choice now, would it?

Imagine that.

All my life I also believed that the Bible condemned homosexuality. I believed that because other people had told me to believe it. And then in my Sophomore year of college I went with a friend to a church that was showing a film that examined biblical evidence concerning homosexuality. While that video didn't convince me to completely turn around and believe that the Bible didn't condemn homosexuality, it did make me think and it did help me to begin to really form my own opinions and stray away from what I had been taught to believe.

By then I had already been toying with the knowledge that I was most likely bisexual. Now, let me explain how this worked. I did not simply decide one day that I was going to like both guys and girls. Do you know that feeling you get when you really like someone? Like, you know a guy and you get this funny feeling when you think about him or you're around him? You like him for his personality; it's not just a "OMG he's sooooooo cute" kind of crush. It's deeper thann that. One day I noticed that there were a few girls that I felt this way for. I had felt similarly for a few guys in the past. I was confused at first because I didn't understand what was happening. I tried to ignore the feelings. They persisted, and eventually I accepted the fact that there was nothing I could do about them. They came without invitation, just as my feelings for certain guys did. It was a physical reaction to begin with, and then when I knew the person better I began to like them for who they were as well.

It wasn't a choice. It just happened. I tried to kill those feelings off somehow, and I failed rather miserably. If anything it caused me pain. so I stopped and I accepted it and I learned to live with it. I became what people call "bisexual," though in reality it can be better described as pansexual, or the ability to love many.

There are two terms that people need to understand the difference between. Sex and gender. Sex refers to one's physical parts - you are male or female based on your genitalia. Gender refers to a social status of some sort (e.g. man, boy, woman, girl). In our country gender is usually perceived as a social manifestation of the sex, but this is more social expectation than anything else. There can actually be a lot of variety in gender because it is abstract, unlike sex which is concrete.

I was so afraid of what my family and friends would think of me if they found out what I was that I confided in my abnormal psychology teacher via the journal that we kept as a class assignment. I told her that I was denying the possibility that I might be bisexual because I didn't want to be labeled negatively by friends and family. She sympathized with me and acknowledged the high cost that I would have to pay if I continued down that path. I also asked her if bisexuality had a basis in neuroanatomy. I would like to share her response with you.

"Yes. In fact, Dr. Perkins. now director of the HAB program, did research on the brains of "gay" sheep. Because sexual orientation occurs on a continuum (rather than just male or female) she refers to 32 sexes, not just three: male, female, and bisexual.
In other words, in the world of intersexed children there are many more normal variations than just boy or girl.
In Kinsey's bipolar scare of exclusive hetero or homo, he indicated that most people are somewhere in between the extremes, with bisexuals occurring closer to the middle. [Very few individuals on the continuum are exclusively hetero or homo, whereas many are bi].
Polyamory iis another way to discuss this issue. Poly = many, amor = love, or able to love many. This term can be used to describe people who are attracted to and 'able to love' more than one narrowly defined class of partner, e.g. just men or just women.
The bonobo, a primate, is considered a good example of naturally occuring (i.e. occuring in nature) bisexuality. They mate with both males and females. They masturbate frequently and even use sex to distract each other from being violent. They literally 'make love not war.'"

This really opened my eyes. Thirty-two sexes? Hard to believe, right? Physically, there's a limited range of sexes - typically just male and female. But when it comes to the mind there are many, many more sexes and a lot more variation. It's normal to be bisexual and love more than one "gender" - in fact, it's similar to being able to love people of different colors or different heights.

I am not wrong. I am not sinful because I can love people. And for me it's not about having sex - I don't want sex with anyone, male or female. I just want to love and be loved, and if I find that with a girl then so be it. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

My mind is open to new things. Once I followed the crowd blindly, like a sheep. And then my eyes were opened and I realized that I couldn't let other people tell me what to think or believe. I also realized that I had to be open to alternatives, and when I finally was it made a lot more sense to me. Rather than simply saying that homosexuality was a sin, I was able to look further into it and realize that homosexuality and bisexuality aren't even "choices," as so many Christians put it. It's biological/genetic. If it really is based on the body and not a choice, then how can God punish people for that? To be honest, if He will punish me for having feelings that I have no control over, then He is not the God I have been raised to believe in.

We are all human. I am human. You are human. No matter what you look like, what you believe, or who you love, we are all human, and therefore we are all equal. And to me, that's part of what makes the world beautiful. Discrimination is the abomination, not homosexuality.

There is nothing wrong with me. I am Ashley and I am exactly who I am supposed to be. God made me this way, and I will do whatever good I can with it.

I believe in God. I am bisexual. I am proud.

This feeling's getting stronger...

"Take my breath away
Now I'm trying to get up
I'm trying to retrace
My steps back
To where ever I messed up
Is forever enough?
I'm holding on
I know you'll be there whenever I wake up"

Those particular lyrics are from "Is Forever Enough" by Hawk Nelson. I felt they were appropriate considering what I am about to talk about. I don't know why I'm about to talk about it. I have to hope that no one I know really considers this seriously or I could be in a lot of trouble.

Have you ever liked being around someone so much that it's like they're a drug your addicted to? I've had the feeling a lot of times before, especially with friends. That was really because, years ago, I began to rely on my friends to keep me from becoming too depressed. While I haven't been diagnosed, I am pretty sure that I have a mild form of clinical depression. Coupled with a difficult and often depressing life, it makes things tough. But when I'm with my friends I'm happier, and because of that I have had friends act as a sort of drug. Getting addicted to them sounds odd, but it's happened, and I know it's happened for other people too. However, it can also get dangerous. For me, I offended my family by choosing friends first, and in the end I even lost a friend.

Last year I was pretty depressed. I lost a good friend because of that. But I gained a good one too. If I hadn't lost a roommate, and after that a friend, then I doubt that I would have grown as close to my new friend as I did. I didn't recognize it last year, but I had grown to rely on her. And then, when school ended in May, I saw her only twice throughout the whole summer. I missed her. A lot. She did so much for me, and I felt that I owed her so much. I wanted to see her more.

Do I sound like a stalker yet? Haha.

Anyways, when I finally got to see her again this year, we started to spend a lot of time together. With the exception of classes, work, and meetings, we spend quite a lot of our time together. Of course, there are days when she studies with someone else and there are days when I hang out with other friends. But the majority of our time is spent in each others' presence. 

Well, the last few weeks I've noticed something different from previous relationships. I have an extremely deep attachment to her. When she isn't with me, I'm down or distressed. When she is going to go somewhere without me I get moody. I'm highly protective of her. If something upsets her, I am upset. If something makes her happy, I am happy. Of course, I'm not so emotionally attached that I don't feel my own emotions. I have my own turmoils and my own happy times. And other people have effects on me too. In fact, it's not unusual for me to want to protect my friends. I am just more protective of her than others.

I don't know what to call the feeling. Sometimes I wonder if I have feelings for her. But that would be strange, considering the way I think and the way I view other girls. In all reality, while the majority of my friends are girls, I don't trust them. I've seen girls with mood swings far too often to want to fall in love with one. It especially annoys me when they use PMSing as an excuse for bad attitudes, rude behavior, and fights. I would never use that as an excuse, even if it does have an effect on me. Because, no matter what, you are the one who decides how you will behave.

So, yes. Sometimes I wonder if I have a "crush" on my best friend. It's creepy for me. It's strange. And I will honestly say that I still prefer guys to her (there's actually a bet going around on which guy I'm going to marry). I would never consider being in a relationship with her. It wouldn't work. It certainly doesn't help that our religion and family gets in the way. But my feelings aren't deep enough to consider anything like that.

Another possible explanation for the way I feel - especially the protectiveness - is that it's more of a motherly feeling. And that's entirely possible. I get overly protective and overly worrisome at times, much as a mother might. At this point, I'm leaning towards that feeling, as the other feeling doesn't seem like it fits the situation just right.

Ah! I don't know what to think, really. I just want to be her friend. I want her to be happy and I want her to be safe. There's nothing wrong with that...right?