The Diverse Dungeon

Episode 9 - The Intersection of Relationships and Neurodiversity

• Rae • Season 1 • Episode 9

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Why do unresolved relationships linger in our minds? This week on Diverse Dungeon, we explore the intricate landscape of relationships through the lens of neurodivergence. As I wrap up my grad school class and look forward to the summer break, I share my excitement about attending Sex Geek Camp and diving into personal projects. Thinking about my discovery of my neurodivergence and how it has shaped my past relationships, particularly with a fellow neurodivergent individual.

In the second half, we recount the emotionally charged relationships that included a metamour with borderline personality disorder (BPD), which brought significant challenges. From emotionally unstable moments to a dramatic camping trip.

Tune in to hear these personal stories and reflections on the complex interplay of neurodivergence and relationships, and how they continue to shape our lives.

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Not So Fast (Quarantine Beats #01) by Patchworker f.k.a. [friendzoned] | https://soundcloud.com/patchworker
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The Crossover by Pyrosion | https://soundcloud.com/pyrosion
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Speaker 1:

This podcast deals with mature themes and ideas. Please don't listen if you do not wish to hear about BDSM, sex or neurodivergence. Thank you, hey there, neurokingsters, and welcome to the Diverse Dungeon, episode number nine. Today's quote Every day is a new beginning. Treat it that way. Stay away from what might have been and look at what can be. Marsha Petrie, sue.

Speaker 1:

So, uh, I have finished my grad school class and I don't know the grade yet, because mostly I'm scared to check. The reason I'm mentioning my grad school class is because I have not had a chance to make any arrangements for interviews. But now I am officially in summer. My last day of school is on Monday, which is two days from today, and then I have a whole ten weeks of summer in which I'll still be working, but I will have at least some more free time, and hopefully I can use it. Not only that, I will be going back to Sex Geek Camp, where I'm hoping to get all sorts of new ideas on how to promote this little podcast of mine.

Speaker 1:

So what I was thinking about was talking a little bit about myself, but also about some new ideas I've been thinking about since I realized that I too am a neurodivergent. So I'll talk about it a little bit more later on. But there is a new show on Netflix called Geek Girl and, oh my God, apparently somebody wrote to my 15-year-old self and said, what Cinderella story would you like to watch? And then they gave it to me many, many years later. But it is adorable and the music's really good. So that is my new favorite show and I cannot recommend it enough.

Speaker 1:

And I will give you a link in my episode description, of course, about one of my first relationships with somebody that I now know was probably as neurodivergent as I am and it's not that I'd never dated neurodivergent people before. That would be very untrue. It was. I think this was the first time I found somebody who recognized the neurodivergent in me and I recognized it in him and we appreciated about each other like, and I recognized it in him and we appreciated about each other as a particular quality. It's like something we were looking for in each other. It was a poly relationship. It went on and it was off and on for about two years, and this was many, many years ago. So the reason I wanted to bring up this story one was because it is the first time I think I was with somebody whom neurodivergence was a part of our relationship, but also because of something that happened recently.

Speaker 1:

So last week I was driving with a current person I'm dating, and I don't remember how the comment came up, but I basically said that I don't like dating former relationships. It's just not my thing. I am a big believer in that. Exes are exes for a reason, and of course, that invoked the gods above who needed to hoist me on my own petard. But I actually appreciated this because it reaffirmed my feeling, even if it got a little weird for a minute. So here's what happened.

Speaker 1:

About two hours later, I'm checking my phone and on one of my social media channels, a friend of mine had liked the post of one of my exes. So here, rule number one I do not follow my exes on social media. I do have ex-boyfriends on social media, but they have graduated to something else, that is, family or friendship. This particular ex, while I think very highly of them, we've never made that transition, so, but we have a whole ton of friends in common. So, but we have a whole ton of friends in common, and so, anyway, one of my friends commented on or liked one of their posts, and their post was about basically an NRE, a new relationship, energy squee about this new relationship they're in.

Speaker 1:

And it was funny because I'm I'm human. Okay, yeah, I don't follow them, but when somebody likes something it just pops right up. So I was like, okay, I'm going to read this. And it reminded me of why I like Jack. Jack, we'll call him that because I've never dated a Jack and I don't believe there's any Jacks in my life. Anyway, it reminded me of why I like Jack so much. There was just I could hear his voice as I'm reading this post of his. It also reminded me why I no longer want to date Jack, and it's nothing that he said that was horrible or insulting or wrong, it was just that, oh right, I've been in that relationship with him and I remember that part. And that part is wonderful in the outset and sucks when it's over. Nre is great with Jack at least it was for me.

Speaker 1:

Post-nre, when he gets bored and finds something else and it doesn't necessarily have to be a new person is awful. One of my friends pointed out that people like Jack are lighthouses. When they shine upon you, it's amazing, and when they don't shine upon you, it is very dark, and now that I know that I would never get back into a relationship with him, I know that there is an exception to that rule. There is that person who changed him. He married them, and with good reason. They're a good match, but I am not that person. I never would have been that person, and so I never need to go back and try to be that person.

Speaker 1:

That gave me a lot of things to think about, like why is there a couple of relationships that I'm not over yet? And I realized the reason is because, unlike my relationship with Jack, which had a beginning, a middle, a break, another middle and an ending, and therefore is resolved, I have relationships that are unresolved, there is something still that needs to be considered, figured out or whatever. That doesn't necessarily mean I'm going to go and resolve them. That is not always how life works, but it made me understand for the first time why there are so many relationships I can just walk away from without looking back, and there are one or two where I'm like, nope, not done yet. Now that I've been able to identify that, yay, I can try and write down and figure out what is not done, and it was also nice to know that I could look at a relationship like the one I had with Jack and go, okay, there are the good things, there are the bad things. This is what I learned from that relationship, and since that relationship I have not gotten into a relationship with another lighthouse, or at least not one who is just like Jack. So overall, I would say that was a positive.

Speaker 1:

But that was a whole week of having to process and think about this. So I'm still going to call this a hoisted on my own petard, because I said I don't get involved in former relationships. I'm, you know, been there, done that and while, yes, it is true, I had never really thought about what it was that allowed me that privilege and allowed me to make that decision. So there's my little bit of wisdom shared with you. I don't know if it'll do you any good, but it's certainly helpful for me.

Speaker 1:

So, since I'm already on the subject of old relationships, I decided that I would make this a story of two relationships, one that resolved quite neatly and I can say well, I had very little, if anything, to do about it. Jack did find a partner that really seems to suit him. They have lovely children and, while I don't know whether their life is good or bad, I know that they are happily living life and we hope to see them at some point. My husband and Jack used to work together, the transition from exes to friends. He certainly is family in his own way, but that's a whole other story which I guess I should tell some other time. So, after the break and a quick transition, I will tell you about the relationship that hasn't resolved. And it isn't because of the person, it's because of a third factor of the person. It's because of a third factor and it made me realize that sometimes we talk about neurodivergence as though everybody who's neurodivergent are wonderful people and of course they're human and therefore there's going to be good, bad and mediocre actors. And so I want to talk about what happens when neurodivergence goes untreated and goes very, very badly. So, after the break, what happens with BPD?

Speaker 1:

About a decade ago I got into a relationship with a man we'll name uh, we'll call him daniel because, again, I don't think I've dated any Daniels and there aren't currently any Daniels in my life. Daniel was a millennial I've mentioned him before and he was a bit younger than I was. When I met Daniel, he had a friend whom we'll call Kevin, and that is when I learned about what dealing with somebody with borderline personality disorder can be like. So a couple of disclaimers. One, I am not a psychologist, nor do I play one on TV. I am a teacher of psychology comma, but I have never, ever, performed therapy on somebody and I would not know how to do it with this one and I would not know how to do it with this one. Two, while I interacted with Kevin a great deal again not a psychologist, and I cannot diagnose somebody without the appropriate training.

Speaker 1:

That said, a friend of mine who is a therapist said that Kevin fit all of the markers for somebody with borderline personality disorder. And since that's a nice easy hook to use, that is what I'm going to say Because, quite frankly, it's my story. I actually knew Kevin he is one of the people who introduced me to Daniel and Kevin and I would have said we were good friends. We chatted all the time, we texted each other. When a mutual friend passed away, we cried on each other's shoulders. I introduced Kevin to a theater group I was a part of and encouraged him to join. So I thought that Kevin and I were good. I thought he was like my new gay bestie.

Speaker 1:

I didn't realize that he had anything wrong and, quite frankly, that is one of the kicks about borderline personality disorder. I'm going to call it BPD from now on, just because it's a lot to say. So my therapist friend said that the way you diagnose somebody with BPD is not by anything they tell you. It is how the person makes you, as the therapist, feel this also happens when a person with BPD and their partner do therapy together is that it isn't how the person with BPD acts, it's how their partner acts. That gives you that key. Because borderline personality disorder is one of those things where the person who has it can be completely unaware and no matter how many videos you show them of their behavior, how many times you talk to them, how many interventions you do, they literally cannot see it. It's part of the disorder. So the people who aren't on the wrong side of somebody with BPD also don't realize it. There might be some warning signs, but it's the kind of thing that you really got to know your stuff in order to see it. If you want to see a great show about somebody with borderline personality disorder, crazy Ex-Girlfriend is absolutely a fantastic show, fantastic show. It deals with some very difficult issues about mental health and borderline personality disorder without catastrophizing it, and is relatively realistic, but does so in a way that is a lot easier to digest. I learned a lot about BPD from watching that show and it really helped me process a lot of what I dealt with.

Speaker 1:

With regards to Kevin and Daniel. Okay, let's see if I can set this up for you. So Kevin had a little group of friends and Daniel and another person were part of that, and Daniel and this friend showed up at our little theater thing to see Kevin perform and after they saw Kevin's performance, kevin introduced me to both Daniel and the friend and I'm going to leave the friend out of this because that makes things even more complicated and you don't need another name. So Kevin and the friend, daniel and the friend Same friend Daniel takes one look at me and I take one look at him and we just have that moment of oh well, hello.

Speaker 1:

There there's a great story about how we met and it really comes down to both of us sort of broke out of our little shells and sort of approached each other, even though I was way too old for him and I was way too married for him and a few other things, and honestly, I don't think we cared. We met, we danced, we started exchanging texts and emails and within less than a month we were a thing. And oh my god, were we a thing? There was so much broken there and part of the reason was because of Kevin. So Kevin introduced us. Kevin said, oh no, it's okay, daniel's my ex. Daniel and I are just friends. It's fine. It's wonderful To quote another friend of mine, to quote another friend of mine and Admiral Ackbar it's a trap. Oh my god, it was such a trap, but anyway. So I, being the happy little polymonkey that I am, treated Kevin like another, like a metamor, and my friend, how awesome was that. We did stuff together. It was fantastic, it was great. We were going to hang out and do stuff together and for a while it worked.

Speaker 1:

But then I found out what happens when somebody with BPD gets scared. So let's talk about what borderline personality disorder is. According to Healthline, it is a condition that affects the way a person processes everyday emotions and reactions. These are people who are often impulsive and emotionally unstable. They have intense episodes of anger, anxiety and depression, and these episodes can last several hours and then be followed by a more stable period. And while it doesn't say this on Healthline, often during the stable period there are apologies and I promise it will never happen again. It's kind of like being around an alcoholic after they've had a really bad, you know party night and now you're dealing with a hangover. So one of the problems with somebody with BPD is they don't have what we would call an emotional baseline, that place where we're like okay, I am neutral, I am neither happy nor sad, I am just there. It's kind of like and this is absolutely me but it's almost like emotional bipolar disorder. Instead of the physical moments of mania and depression, it's like they get emotionally manic or depressive. So the relationship with Kevin was incredibly stormy and one of the reasons is because he was so sensitive to abandonment. He would make the biggest deal out of things that would just never occur to me. I'll explain one.

Speaker 1:

We were all going to go camping with a group of friends and the campground was about five hours drive away. Kevin had an incredibly flexible job. He just took Friday off and he drove there and he probably got to the campground around noon one o'clock. Daniel and I both had jobs that were not flexible, and so we could not leave until four or five o'clock, so obviously we weren't going to get to the campground until about 10 or 11 o'clock, and we had both worked a full day before we got there and when we arrived a full day before we got there. And when we arrived, we found out that Kevin was very upset with the idea that Daniel and I were going to be sharing a tent. I don't know why this was a concern. I don't know why it happened. There was something about Daniel was going to spend one weekend with Kevin and one weekend with me, and then something else came up. I don't even remember. All I know is when we got there, kevin got into his head that Daniel had abandoned him, and so he spent most of that night outside of our tent crying and telling us how horrible we were. It was the first time and unfortunately not the last time I was going to see how obsessive Kevin could become.

Speaker 1:

After that, I wanted to cut Kevin out of our lives. Daniel wanted to give him another chance, and it wasn't until Kevin hurt another one of Daniel's friends about five months later that he finally cut Kevin out of his life. But here's the thing Once Daniel cut Kevin out of his life. But here's the thing Once Daniel cut Kevin out of his life, that was that. However, all of the social connections that Kevin and I shared Kevin decided to do everything he could to poison that theatrical group I introduced him to. Yeah, he almost got me kicked out of the group, the dance communities I am a part of. He almost got me kicked out of them, and some of them he made so uncomfortable that I couldn't stand to be there.

Speaker 1:

You see, the problem is that people with BPD are often very charismatic and the people who are on the good side just don't understand what you did wrong. So if you've ever been in that situation where somebody is just tormenting you and nobody else can see it, it might be that it's because they have BPD and their charisma is such that nobody realizes that they're ostracizing you. It had to make things incredibly painful, and the worst part about it was is that, of course, when Daniel and I broke up, things with Kevin did not get better. In some ways they got worse, mostly because I was still dealing with the repercussions of my relationship with Daniel. But I didn't even have a relationship with Daniel anymore and it really felt like Daniel just got to walk away and in some ways he did. He moved away. He never has to speak to Kevin again in his life if he doesn't want to, I don't know. I mean, I suppose if Kevin really wanted to he could find him, but they're on two different coasts now.

Speaker 1:

As for me, it wasn't until the pandemic happened that Kevin went away far enough that I don't have to deal with him. But the trauma is still there and I don't even know how to explain how deeply that trauma runs because, of course, my neurodivergence and Kevin's neurodivergence clashed and turned into a total dumpster fire. And that's the thing I think we don't talk about enough. When we talk about neurodivergent relationships. We often talk about how we want to be good to our neurodivergent people and we want to help them and we want to be supportive. But if neurodivergent people make 15 to 20 percent of our community and in the BDSM community I think that number is much higher then relationship interactions like the ones I had with Kevin are probably far more likely and probably are part of the reason that some of the drama in the BDSM community gets as toxic as it does, because in the BDSM community. As we are all very fond of saying, we're playing with edges, and edges are sharp and they cut. And even though Kevin and I were nothing more than friends and metamors, I still have some very deep scars that go along with what happened between us.

Speaker 1:

Further, to go back to my earlier point, that is, I think, one of the reasons that a lot of my shit with Daniel is unresolved. It's not that I want to get back into our relationship with him, but instead of us having a nice easy figuring out what we're going to be as our relationship ended, we ended up having to deal with a lot of emotional trauma on top of a very difficult breakup, and I don't know that it will ever get resolved. I don't know that it can because it's not like I'll ever be able to get quote-unquote justice over what happened with regards to Kevin. It's not like I'll ever be able to make Daniel make up for what happened, nor do I think he can. So that is one of the reasons that I want to do what I'm doing is that I want to make sure that we have these safe spaces, not just for people to be neurodivergent and exist in BDSM spaces, but also for people to be neurodivergent and be safe in those spaces, especially because of the way neurodivergences can crash into each other and make things worse.

Speaker 1:

And I think there's a problem that many people who are neurotypical just don't understand it, because well, it's like telling a claustrophobic person it's okay, you'll be fine. No, that's not how it works. The claustrophobic person is stuck in a very small cell and they feel like they're going to choke and die. Nothing, you say, is going to make that better, even though reality and logic tell us otherwise. And that's the problem with neurodivergence, especially with stuff like BPD, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia or rejection-sensitive dysphoria. Reality stops existing for those people and the only reality they live in is the one their brain is imposing on them.

Speaker 1:

It takes a lot of structure and support to help those people, especially since many of them have been so traumatized that they don't want help anymore, because to them, help doesn't mean making things better. Help just means that you're making them more acceptable to society, that you're making them feel more comfortable for neurotypical people to be around. A lot of the help that we give to neurodivergent people is showing them how to better mask that they have a problem at all. People is showing them how to better mask that they have a problem at all. And that's where I think the BDSM community could be a much better resource, because, of course, in my opinion, one of the great things about the BDSM community is that we give each other a space to be our most authentic, truest selves, and the way we do that is by creating a safe space in which to express ourselves. We have mental cudgels and whips that we need to wield, and we need a safe space in which to wield them, where we know that we will not hurt other people without their consent and where we can be flogged of those problems with our consent, and I think that is the most powerful thing we could offer to our fellow neurodivergent people.

Speaker 1:

So that's today's episode of the Diverse Dungeon. Last thing, again, geek Girl. I cannot recommend it enough. Also, crazy Ex-Girlfriend I think. They're both on Netflix. And then I already know what next week is going to be about, because I had a friend ask me for it, which is I'm going to give you Ray's guide to how to interact with introverts. I took a very intensive course on how to do that. I am married to an introvert and, as somebody who is truly extroverted, I have a lot to help you out with. So next time, which hopefully will now be on a more weekly basis, but we will see. Until then, your anxiety is lying to you. Have a great week. This has been an episode of the Diverse Dungeon put together by Buzzsprout Media. The musical intro was Not so Fast. Quarantine Beats Number One by Patchworker, formerly known as FriendZoned. The musical outro was the Crossover by Pyrosion. Any mistakes are purely my own. Thank you,