Losing Physical Intimacy

I feel sad this morning. I ask myself why I am sad. Because I feel I have lost something with my housemate Brian. It was not lost during his trip last week, which I wrote about in previous posts. That was just the manifestation of the internal loss that had been ongoing. Probably similar to when Dad said "I am done with you" after I intentionally injured him during our last time roughhousing. That was not the end but a manifestation of the end that was ongoing.

I have been withdrawing from Brian for some time, withdrawing my emotions and putting more and more into our inappropriate physical contact that started not too long after we moved in together. Maybe it was the same scenario with Dad regarding substituting roughhousing for emotional interaction? When Brian began cutting off the physical contact, I resented him doing so. This is an easy way to feel connected, but emotional connection is much more difficult, uncertain, and unrealizable in my mind.

When we first moved in together, our emotional connection was stronger, and we had no physical contact. Once physical contact started, the emotional connection started getting cut. I believe I have cut the connection more and more, as has he.

He no longer makes an effort in many ways that he did when we first moved in and had no physical contact. If he makes himself breakfast, he only makes it for himself. He doesn’t even try to wake me up when he goes to Mass. He doesn’t encourage me as he used to. He doesn’t share anything with me. What he does share is superficial. Work. Anxiety over work. Nothing deeper than that. I am sure this is in response to me to a large extent. It hurts me deeply, and my response is to pull back even further.

I don’t know how to fix this. Or if I want to fix it.

Dad may not have known how to communicate, so we played. When that was lost, we had no way of bonding anymore, so our father/son relationship fell apart.

I need help getting out of the mess our physical contact has caused, but neither of us seems to know what to do..

I depended on physical contact; now that it is gone, I feel I have nothing. Nothing to keep us close. Nothing to make me special, which I've believed for most of my life, is necessary for someone to love me as a brother or otherwise.

From a sermon by Saint Peter Chrysologus, bishop. “... If you ask for yourself what you deny to others, your asking is a mockery...”

I do not give myself to Brian as a friend, as I didn’t to Dad out of fear, and so I get nothing in return.

“... Fasting bears no fruit unless it is watered by mercy. Fasting dries up when mercy dries up. Mercy is to fasting as rain is to the earth. However much you may cultivate your heart, clear the soil of your nature, root out vices, sow virtues, if you do not release the springs of mercy, your fasting will bear no fruit... When you fast, if your mercy is thin your harvest will be thin; when you fast, what you pour out in mercy overflows into your barn. Therefore, do not lose by saving, but gather in by scattering. Give to the poor, and you give to yourself. You will not be allowed to keep what you have refused to give to others...”

I went down to speak to Brian, and he was making breakfast, so I went back up to my room. I believe he started making breakfast at the time we usually pray intentionally because I am petty like that, so I assume he is, too. I left without speaking to him for my doctor's appointment. This is the pattern of Dad and me. He cut off physical contact, and there was no emotional sharing anymore, so we drifted.

Do I choose to stop this? Is his friendship worth my suffering?

Human-Written, AI Spell-Checked 3/10/21 AD

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