Secrets

I slept better last night.  A little.  Weird dreams, but I managed to sleep until 10, so… little better.

Sir and sub brother have been home (they went away on their own trip) for a couple days now.  But something has been bothering Sir.  He hasn’t said that, I just know.

The thing is, he doesn’t talk about it.  He won’t talk about it.  So my best guess is that it is work related because… that’s really the only thing he doesn’t talk about.  Ever.

And I…  feel strange about my feelings about that.

After Michael, I don’t know how I can feel okay about a man I’m in a relationship with shutting me out about things.  Michael shut me out from day one, and for the entire time we were together, and it ultimately ended us, and it harmed me… maybe forever.  It made me doubt and question everything about us and about myself.  It made me question my worth.  Even for… so long after he ran away.

And now I’m with Sir, and he… keeps things from me, too.

I’m not sure how it can feel different to me than it did with Michael.  Except… it does.  I don’t know.  Maybe because… Sir doesn’t…  because he hasn’t given me any reason not to trust that his secrets will keep him from me.  That one day he’ll just walk away and I won’t know where he is or what happened or why…  I don’t think that.  No part of me, even the most insecure, paranoid, doubting part of me believes he would ever disappear on me.

I never could say that about Michael.  And maybe that’s the difference.

I could say that Sir’s secret-keeping never hurts me or sub brother, and mostly that is true, usually Sir just becomes more distant, like something is on his mind, but then it resolves in a couple of days and things are fine.  But once in a while he becomes short with us and becomes mean and angry and it becomes a problem for all of us.  He solves it, always.  But sometimes it hurts us.  So I can’t even say that it never does.

The difference, I guess, is that I trust him.  I trust him that no matter what, things will get solved and we’ll all be okay.  And… I never trusted Michael in that way.  I never… felt safe.  And it’s weird, because I gave my submission to Michael at a level I’d never given to anyone.  Somehow I could find my way to trust him in that way, while having absolutely no faith that he wouldn’t abandon me.  And I don’t know what that means.  I don’t know what that means about me.

But I trust Sir to not abandon me.  And somehow that changes everything.  I can be patient, I can be calm, I can be tolerant of his issues…  Michael, repeatedly, accused me of mental illness.  He used my bipolar as a wedge and a cudgel and he beat me with it all of the time.  But I have realized that, it was an excuse for his own illness.  He didn’t have a diagnosis, but he was sicker than me or Ryan.  And his sickness made both of us sick.  I think he could have made healthy people sick, but he definitely made us both unstable… because… he couldn’t be trusted.  Because he couldn’t… because I couldn’t believe in him.  So when he hit a rough patch, to me, it was always potentially the end of us.

When Sir hits a rough patch, it is… potentially… going to get rocky.  We may even fight, which we hardly ever do, and I hate it, but… it won’t be the end of us.  And that… knowing that… truly, in my heart, knowing that we will survive this, it allows me to keep my keel even in a way I could never do with Michael.

And Michael blamed me for that.

I’m not perfect.  I never will be.  Every once in a while all the planets align and the shit truly hits the fan and I hit a danger point and I want to self-harm, or I even get suicidal…  And I probably will always be vulnerable to those things because I have bipolar and anxiety and PTSD and addiction, and none of those things just stop being a part of who I am.

But I have friends, I have lovers, I have people in my life who… are not… sick the way Michael was.  I have people with whom, no matter how rocky the waters, I know we will survive.  And that helps me survive.

Michael blamed me.  He blamed Ryan.  He claimed both of us were mentally ill and that was why we were all failing.  But it wasn’t true…  It was him.

It was always him.

It has taken me too long to know it.

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