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Musings of an Extraordinarily Ordinary Man… turned clinically asexual epileptic from breath play.

Del 4

Today is the one-year anniversary of what I literally wish was the end of my life and figuratively was. For those that periodically ask me for an update, thank you for your thoughts and well-wishing.

I’m afraid the update is grim. I’ve surpassed $320,000 in medical bills and have been put on a specialty medication that costs $400/month. Again, my thanks to all of you for picking-up the tab on my ex-partner’s and my extraordinarily shitty decisions. The symptomatic ramifications of my brain injury have materially worsened. The unchanged symptoms are epilepsy, severe neuropathy in my hands, cognitive impairment, nonexistent libido, and dupuytren’s contracture. But, my epilepsy has dramatically worsened. I’ve gone from mostly focal (petite mal) seizures to mostly tonic clonic (grand mal) seizures. Grand mal seizures, in particular, actually damage the brain even more and I’ve had seven of them in the past couple weeks. My memory issues are to the point where it’s likely I won’t remember having written this tomorrow. Roughly 60% of my life doesn’t get filed into the hard drive, which is very consistent with a brain injury in the left temporal lobe. I’m now sleeping my life away at 16-20 hours/day. And, worst of all, I’ve developed a severe anger/rage issue, which is also frequently a byproduct of a brain injury and/or the anti-epileptic medications.

The anger/rage issue is unquestionably the worst new development. I’ve gone from one of the most calm, carefree, mild-mannered people on earth to an unrecognizable, bat-shit crazy, physically and verbally abusive thug. I’ve become a monster that can literally act as if I’m possessed by a demon with virtually no warning. I don’t recognize myself which frightens me beyond measure.

The rage is unacceptably bad at this point. I punched a guy, unprovoked, at a local restaurant a few days ago. Of course, I don’t remember it. But, everyone else sure as hell does. I’ve never punched anybody in my life. The real me is damn near a pacifist. Apparently, however, the brain-injured me just walks around punching people now. I’m an unpredictable danger to everyone.

It’s so bad that I’ve actually become an unpredictable danger to my best friend and love of my life. The past few months have been pretty bad for her too. Apparently, I’ve been screaming at her regularly, saying the most atrocious and hurtful things. Nearly always, I have a grand mal seizure immediately following my unprovoked verbal abuse and remember none of it, including the rage. Two weeks ago, she was actually so frightened that I was about to get physically violent that she grabbed her dog and left in her bathrobe in the middle of the night and I don’t blame her. I’m twice her size. I can’t even begin to imagine how scary that was for her.

She has been an extraordinarily good caretaker of me ever since the waterboarding accident. She’s stood by my side through the worst of the worst while struggling with her own demons associated with her role in our disaster. I couldn’t have asked, and probably never could have found, a more diligent and loving caretaker. She’s a fantastic person and I love her so much!

During all of this, we’ve known that our relationship was “transitionally monogamous.” Eventually having a child has always been important to her. Given my age, I was certainly more reluctant to go the baby route. However, as we grew together, particularly in the first few months following the accident, it seemed likely that marriage and a baby was in our future. But, as my symptoms worsened with each passing month, my desire to have a child faded. My belief is that intentionally having a child would simply be irresponsible for someone with my disabilities. It wouldn’t be fair to my partner or the child. Yet, having a baby, or not, is just one of those things that you can never tell someone their wrong to want. Likewise, you certainly can’t stand in the way of that desire. Hence the “transitional monogamy.”

Between her desire for a baby, my lack of desire for one, and my recent rage issues, it just seemed best to transition our relationship sooner rather than later. Therefore, my partner and I are no longer together and she has moved out. I want to be very clear that she did not leave me because of my rage. We’ve both suffered through so much together and she was more than willing to endure more. Even the rage she would have suffered through, helping me to the best of her ability the entire way. It’s simply that my disabilities are no longer compatible with her rightful desire to have a child and live a relatively “normal” life.

Journal Entry 12 — The Vast Inequality of Risk
This entire journal entry is written primarily for Bottoms.

Bottoms, I have a question for you… would you play a game of poker with someone if you had to ante $5,000 while your opponent only needed to ante $50, or, in some cases, $0? On the surface, that seems like a pretty ridiculous question, doesn’t it? But, it can’t be too ridiculous given that all of you, based on your actions, are willing to do that regularly. I was too.

Recognize what the ante represents in poker. The ante is what you’re willing to put at risk simply to play the game. In poker, the ante is the same for everyone. But not in kink. Not by a long shot!

The Top’s ante depends on the Top. Mentally ill, immoral Tops that lack a conscience ante $0 because they don’t care about the outcome of their Bottom. They can walk away from a disastrous outcome for the Bottom with absolutely zero baggage and not give a shit. Fortunately, the vast majority of Tops are morally-grounded people with a conscience. For these Tops, the ante is somewhere between $0-$50 simply because they would need to live with the immense guilt of what they’ve done to their Bottom. In the case of my former partner… one of the most kind, caring and loving people I’ve ever met… IMMENSE guilt, the likes of which will necessitate a lifetime of therapy. For the really gracious ones, add a few more dollars to the ante associated with some extended aftercare. Horrible. However, in relative terms, peanuts compared to the ante of the Bottom.

Bottoms, what are you putting at risk? Every outcome ranging from scaring, temporary nerve damage and mild psychological pain all the way to maiming, a lifetime of crippling pain and agony, debilitating psychological trauma, and death.

But wait… We’re not done Bottoms. I better honor my own writings and experience by acknowledging that the risks themselves are utterly insignificant relative to the ramifications of the risks. Therefore, we need to add things like, losing your ability to experience meaningful relationships, losing your libido, incurring hundreds-of-thousands of dollars in medical expenses, losing friendships and family members that feel uncomfortable interacting with someone so severely disabled, losing your ability to drive a vehicle, losing your independence, losing your memory or ability to save new memories, shitting and pissing yourself uncontrollably, losing your ability to do everything you once loved… Everything! Losing your willingness to get married and have a child with your best friend and love of your life, punching random people in the face for no reason, potential lawsuits, shitloads of medications you need to manage, sleeping 24-hours a day for days on end, losing your job, losing your home, losing your retirement, being a burden to your closest friends and family, needing multiple therapists and so many doctors you can’t keep them straight, vomiting, falling, seizures, broken bones, muscle atrophy, obesity, anxiety, panic attacks, crippling embarrassment, lying to avoid more embarrassment, wheelchairs, walkers, canes, needing to wear a helmet everywhere, service dogs, loss of speech or other methods of communication, debilitating headaches, and a strong and persistent desire to end your suffering through suicide… That $5,000 ante is starting to sound a little low, isn’t it?

The vast inequality of risk between the Top and the Bottom is even more pronounced when you push it out over time. It’s one thing to merely identify the ramifications of the risks. But recognize that they may never go away. Take my former partner and I as an example. I, and I alone, will bear the vast majority of the horrible burdens of our spectacularly bad decisions forever. While she’s meeting someone new and falling in love, I’ll be suffering. When she’s getting married, I’ll be suffering. When she has her beautiful child and is overwhelmed with joy, I’ll be suffering. When she’s happily celebrating birthdays and holidays, I’ll be suffering. Every leisurely morning, enjoying her grande iced latte with coconut milk and an extra shot, I’ll be suffering. Every night out with her loving friends and family, I’ll be suffering. Every walk in the park, every picnic, every vacation, every good book in a comfy chair, every movie night, every ray of sunshine she enjoys, every single happy moment of her entire life, of which I hope she has millions, when I’m a distant, horrible memory of a terrible experience from her past... During all of that, I’ll be suffering or dead. With any luck, the later.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I want all of that for her. I love her very much and she deserves all the happiness that she can extract from life. I’m merely trying to get my fellow Bottoms to grasp the magnitude of the disparity of risk by using my former partner and I as an example. Seriously, even as I write this, I’m beginning to think that I under-estimated the ante of the Bottom. If we’re being fair to the relationship of relative risk, it’s probably closer to $50,000.

So what? What’s the point? I don’t have the answer. The philosophical quandaries of nearly every aspect of the kink world escapes me. However, it certainly seems prudent for Bottoms to own MUCH more of the responsibility than Tops do to mitigate the inherent risks of the scene. Bottoms should take MUCH more ownership in the scene than the Top. MUCH more of the research. MUCH more of the prep. MUCH more vetting of their Top. MUCH more of everything because they have SO FUCKING MUCH MORE of the actual risk! However, that doesn’t seem to be common. And that makes sense given that taking ownership over a scene is taking a more dominant role over the scene which is the exact opposite of the Top/Bottom relationship. The Bottom wants the Top to be in control and the Top wants the control. That’s clearly a problem.

What’s the solution? Again, I don’t know. I can’t help but feel like everything I write about is only for my own personal therapy, that’s not working, versus actually making a difference in helping others to avoid the same outcomes. Why? Because, as I wrote in my first five journals, every single variable associated with human behavior is stacked to perpetuate bad outcomes.

We don’t have much control of our libido — It decides when it’s in charge.
Our libidos like to do incredibly stupid shit that we periodically regret.
Our confirmation bias make it very difficult to change our predispositions towards deep desires.
For many kinksters, our deep desires are risky as fuck!
Our confirmation bias kicks-in a second time to distort objective truth by convincing us that our deep desires are not risky as fuck.
It’s only when the bad outcomes actually occur that people like my partner and I finally wake up to the reality of what the ramifications of the risks, that we voluntarily create, actually mean. At that point, it’s too late. One life has been destroyed and one life has been forever altered in psychologically detrimental ways.

I had many more topics to write about in future journals — all intended to lift the cloak of what the ramifications of risk really mean and to help more of you avoid the same mistakes. Nevertheless, this will be the last of my journaling. It’s time for me to check-out. My legacy will be these writings, which, oxymoronically, are written for the benefit of so many great people that glorify behaviors that I previously glorified myself and now fucking loathe! The message of my disaster will slip quietly into the darkness like the messages of so many before me — People that learned the hard way what risk really means and either died or left the community without the ability or desire to look back and try to warn those left behind.

It’s with great love that I bid you all a fond farewell. It’s been a joy to share this beautiful place in the Universe, for such a small amount of time, with so many astounding people, in this wondrous and magical gift called life. I hope you all make the most of it and don’t throw it away as my partner and I did with my life.

Sincerely,

An extraordinarily ordinary man… turned clinically asexual epileptic from breath play.

Tillagd 30 jun 2021   Kultur- och faktaartiklar   #Breath control

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