day 15

I am in a sort of dry state where writing is concerned. I had been blank for several days. Staring at the empty screen or page and not being able to write. Or i would force myself to write and be upset with the dribble that emerged. Something changed yesterday and now I am bombarded with scattered strands of intense thought and I get a terrible headache when I try to pull them together and write. Its painful. Its frustrating. I want to slam down my laptop screen and run away. 

Intimacy has been on my mind, specifically emotional intimacy. The sharing of deep feeling, unspeakable thoughts and vulnerability. Sharing your most secret desires and emotions. I need intimacy in my life and sadly it's one thing that's been really hard to find here in Singapore. When emotional intimacy is not possible I find I tend to withdraw into myself, into solitude or intimacy with myself. But I need both.

When I was young I found myself expressing feelings that my mother often told me were best kept to myself. I craved understanding at a very deep level. She felt as a woman in a patriarchal culture I was better off giving up this need. Perhaps she was speaking from her own experience and disappointment for as I grew I could see she was much like me. My father passed on when I was ten and after his leaving I felt very alone. My father I felt lived his life deeply and surrounded himself with music, sport, art and many friendships. He was very different from the other adults in my extended family and was perhaps a role model for my adult self. 

In the absence of relationships that nurtured intimacy I think I buried that need and was very much a loner as a child living in imaginary worlds where at least I could know myself deeply. I created characters in my head that acted out different aspects of myself. As most of us do I sought intimacy in my romantic relationships as I grew but whereas physical intimacy was easy to find emotional intimacy eluded me and I was left feeling an emptiness. I didn't give up though and often found myself in conflict as neither me nor my partner knew how to both genuinely share ourselves or to receive that sharing in an open non-judgmental way. I struggled with trying to express a unformed need that I had but really did not know how to flesh out and describe.

I think the first truly intimate relationships I had were with a therapist and my co-students in a therapy course back in 1995. Though the course ended in disaster I touched then what I was seeking and it made my search easier both on the outside and within the bounds of myself. I also realised how  intimacy with myself was the pre-requisite for intimacy in relationships. As my self-knowing and my ability to talk about what I was feeling expanded I also found very close relationships that endured the demands of this need. Certain environments encourage such knowing and expression. There are safe places to explore this need but I wanted more and I searched for something within me that was a safe container and would allow such expression in any space that I was in. Sometimes people thought me odd but for long I was happy as I followed this need. When many other things were going wrong externally this brought richness and wholeness to my life.

Truly intense emotions are hard to stand, especially those termed as negative. Truly authentic relating in the here and now is even harder. Even those that crave it actually find it hard to stand when they are on the brink of a conflict with another that requires them to really explore themselves in order to resolve the tension in the relationship. It takes strength to stay at this point and plunge in. Most walk away.

I have found only one such relationship through my volunteer work here. In efforts to find more I enrolled in a course on counselling psychology believing that there would me others like me in that space. Unfortunately though I found friends I did not find deep authentic relating of the kind I was looking for. Disillusioned I did not pursue the second year to get my masters but walked away with only a diploma. When counsellors/therapists do not truly know themselves or share themselves with friends and try to work out their conflicted relationships I doubt their ability to form intimate therapeutic bonds that lead to deep therapy. Perhaps I am wrong and perhaps with the many dangers that close therapeutic relationships can lead to this is better or at least enough? From my perspective though this kind of therapy stays close to the surface, close to problem solving and advice and does not touch the roots of where change needs to happen.

I think for a while I numbed my need for authentic relating as I tried to adjust to this environment. For a while I drifted and the boiling frogs dream and the subsequent writing is pulling me back to who I need to be. Not sure where it will take me. This is not what i expected to write. This is not what was pressing on my mind but in some way I see that I have pulled together some of the scattered threads in my mind.