Role Play
Wife.
Mistress.
Woman Scorned.
Mater.
Martyr.
How is it that I consciously reject these scripted parts but find myself so easly drawn into playing them out?
Speaking of games people play, I just did a survey on same-sex relationship 'abuse' for a PhD candidate from Mac Uni- and remembered just what it was like to play Cowering Partner. It was a somewhat intense experience answering those questions, in that it made me face up again to just how emotionally and physically abusive that relationship was. Ouch. I sometimes tend to gloss over all the bruises and broken furniture when I recall how it was, can't quite recall why or how I was forever walking on eggshells and jumping at shadows. All the same, no matter how yucky and scary it was to deal with it again, I feel that this type of research is incredibly important in terms of supporting claims for services etc. Please participate if you have ever been in a same-sex relationship.
I have also been considering my history of finding myself in 'relationships' where it is expected that I will do more than my fair share of the emotional labour, that I will fulfil some 'emotional' Girl/Femme role while the other person does the 'rational' Boy/Butch role. I have emotions, true, and as a rule own them and admit them and try to deal with them instead of pretending they don't exist. But I can't be expected, or expect myself, to take on all the emotional work for two (or more) people. I resent being forced into situations where every intimacy that may make anyone feel vulnerable is somehow my fault as EmoGirl, every time anyone has to face an emotional demon (or even an angel) EmoGirl is the one who somehow summoned it. What power! What responsibility! EmoGirl, Chief Conjurer of Affective and Emotional States, Without Whom All Beings and Situations Would Remain Rational. (As an aside, who decided that rational and emotional were mutually exclusive? And that emotions hold lesser value? A male philosopher, perchance?)
Bugger it all. There are moths and there are flames. And I am NOT being the moth ;)
Its a pattern I keep repeating, and it has to stop now.
Mistress.
Woman Scorned.
Mater.
Martyr.
How is it that I consciously reject these scripted parts but find myself so easly drawn into playing them out?
Speaking of games people play, I just did a survey on same-sex relationship 'abuse' for a PhD candidate from Mac Uni- and remembered just what it was like to play Cowering Partner. It was a somewhat intense experience answering those questions, in that it made me face up again to just how emotionally and physically abusive that relationship was. Ouch. I sometimes tend to gloss over all the bruises and broken furniture when I recall how it was, can't quite recall why or how I was forever walking on eggshells and jumping at shadows. All the same, no matter how yucky and scary it was to deal with it again, I feel that this type of research is incredibly important in terms of supporting claims for services etc. Please participate if you have ever been in a same-sex relationship.
I have also been considering my history of finding myself in 'relationships' where it is expected that I will do more than my fair share of the emotional labour, that I will fulfil some 'emotional' Girl/Femme role while the other person does the 'rational' Boy/Butch role. I have emotions, true, and as a rule own them and admit them and try to deal with them instead of pretending they don't exist. But I can't be expected, or expect myself, to take on all the emotional work for two (or more) people. I resent being forced into situations where every intimacy that may make anyone feel vulnerable is somehow my fault as EmoGirl, every time anyone has to face an emotional demon (or even an angel) EmoGirl is the one who somehow summoned it. What power! What responsibility! EmoGirl, Chief Conjurer of Affective and Emotional States, Without Whom All Beings and Situations Would Remain Rational. (As an aside, who decided that rational and emotional were mutually exclusive? And that emotions hold lesser value? A male philosopher, perchance?)
Bugger it all. There are moths and there are flames. And I am NOT being the moth ;)
Its a pattern I keep repeating, and it has to stop now.
posted by Zoo at 10:33 am
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