Thursday, January 1, 2015

A Rainbow Sheep: Blog Reboot!

This is the blog formerly known as “Soloing a Healer,” which will henceforth be known as "A Rainbow Sheep."

In this new blog, I'll be exploring and becoming more vocal and open about my gender identity, which is gender fluid. Those of us who are non binary, or not identifying as strictly male or female, technically fall under the transgender umbrella, and we tend to be quite baffling to those who identify with the binary understanding of gender. It can often be an hours long intellectual exercise to even begin describing how we see ourselves, how we function emotionally, and how we relate to the rest of the world. It's my hope to offer support and a familiar voice to those who are on my journey or similar ones to understand themselves and attempt to explain it to others. We are gender fluid, gender queer, and even agendered, those who don't identify with any part of gender, but instead something more abstract. There are many other words to describe it, but from now on, if I am referring to all of us as a group, I will just say non binary folks.

The second reason I decided to start writing this blog again is my realization that I am codependent. It can be crippling and affects every decision in my life, including what I do with my own body and how I express myself because I so thoroughly take into account what other people think or what I perceive that they think. I'm still coming to understand it all, and the process of overcoming very ingrained behaviors and fears, I've realized, has become much more manageable when I journal about it. In case you're not at all familiar with it, a list of common symptoms among codependents includes, low self esteem, people pleasing, poor boundaries, reactivity, caretaking, control, dysfunctional communication, obsessions, dependency, denial, problems with intimacy, and painful emotions. You can be in a codependent relationship that is a one time thing, or you can be a codependent in other areas of your life full-time. I've experienced both. Not all of my relationships have been codependent ones, but I believe I have been codependent for nearly my entire life.

So how have things changed since I initially started this blog? Well, when I first began to write here, it was in large part for the same reason I am writing here once again, to express myself and explore my inner thoughts, feelings and discoveries of who I am and what I want from life. The main difference now is that I'm not in denial about how much my self image, self esteem and self worth are tied to what other people think, or what I perceive that others think. The idea of Soloing a Healer was to document finally becoming an independent person, but I was far from ready to accomplish that goal at that point in my life. This time I want to acknowledge exactly who I am right now, today, flaws and all, and document my work towards the person I wish to become, rather than forcing a label or an ideal on myself that hasn't come into fruition just yet.

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