do i taste blood
Mine is mostly cognitive.
I have all three. Well oops.
Dammit! So do I!
No one has said this yet, so I feel I must.
THANK YOU FOR THIS.
So many people don’t seem to understand that social anxiety can manifest itself in multiple ways. Some people will just dismiss that you have social anxiety if you don’t fit into what they perceive it to be, and that lack of understanding can be really hurtful. So thank you for this.
(And as my personal comment, I fit into behavioural and cognitive.)
all 3
i think i’m primarily behavioural and secondarily physical
i might feel fantastic and on top of the world and not give a shit about anyone else in the room, but for some reason i can’t speak, or i can’t stop shaking and twitching and breathing wrong and losing my sense of balance
which then LEADS to the cognitive aspects as i wonder what the hell is wrong with me, rather than me worrying myself into the physical and behavioural ones
and i’ve never been able to articulate that process to any counsellor or family member before until this wheel thing, that i genuinely don’t know WHAT is going on in my head that is making me freak out physically
it feels good to figure it out that little bit further and write it down
Five hours ago, a family friend who goes waaaaaaay back to early childhood years came over for a five minute visit and ended up on the couch, tipsy and having animated discussions with us. Mostly complaining, because she’s an Arabic woman and thus her younger brothers got away with drunkenness and partying during their teen years while she can’t even even tell her parents about her long term (two years and counting) boyfriend. She’s twenty two. This is a familiar tale- I have a lenient dad, but I’ve had friends literally dragged out of one of my sleepovers after a five minutre screaming match because their dad heard that my older sister’s male friend was stopping by to see her. We were twelve. No, this wasn’t considered something out of the ordinary, although I think their mother was a bit pissed at him. Not even by the “westernised” Arabs we know, although I think most of them are getting better the longer everyone is here. Hell, my mom even warned me not to mention the male friend when my friends were dropped off.
I love my family, I know and love plenty of other Arabs, but uuuuuuuuuurgh
but also
i really love it when i realise i’m in a group of likeminded people who know what i’m talking about and to whom i can express certain views and know they will get what i’m saying, and it’s even better when it turns out dear old mom is one of them
the discussion at one point turned to that one Republican dude who talked about rape and how women’s bodies had magic ways to shut down and prevent pregnancy and we all had a good laugh about how nowhere is safe from shitheads (sister: “it was really gross what this guy said against abortion, he went like ‘In cases of legitimate rape-‘” friend: “strike one. do i even need to hear the rest of this?”), but then we went back to talking about the particularly Arabic brand of shit my friend gets from her dad and her deeply closeted, previously-fabulous-turned-religious-and-stressed little brother. sad when you contemplate it on your own, hilarious when you’re drinking with my mom and sister.
do you ever just reminisce about your childhoodand think to yourself
‘fuck how did I not realize sooner that I was totally gay.’
when i was eight my sister got this book that was like a hundred thousand movies you have to see before you die or something, and it had some naked boobies in the emmanuel pages that i used to stare at and feel really, really good about. i had what was in hindsight a really, really obvious crush on a girl in my class and went years thinking i’d never had a crush because she wasn’t a boy.
it got worse.
i remember at one point when i was thirteen actually thinking to myself, “holy shit, that lesbian kiss on tv is groin stirringly hot. too bad i’m straight. i wonder why i never find guys that hot. ah well, back to reading this shonen-ai that i picked based on plot and completely passing over the sexual pages, on my own, no one else around to be posturing for because i genuinely haven’t figured out i’m into women”
three years later i find myself some lesbian porn and finally, orgasm achievement: gloriously unlocked. going by the video time, in less than 49 seconds.
a couple of years spent making up for lost time later, it turns out there are a few guys that make my loins sing, but i only ever find them hot when they’re tonguing other guys. viciously. i can’t even do straight without it being gay.
