Archive for the 'mother' Category

Bullshit, Part I

Published on November 21, 2011 in anger, bdsm, consent, D/s, DeeDee, happy, kink, mental illness, mother, musings, sexuality, stupid people, trust, Uncategorized and venting. 3 Comments

It has been quite a week here. I’ve been sick, DeeDee had family issues and I dealt with premenstrual dysphoric disorder early in the week. I hope next week is far better.

I’ve been left contemplating how consenting adults can have their choices questioned (part I) but on the other hand people who violate withdrawn consent can go around denying it for years (part II).

Some members of DeeDee’s family have decided that she can’t possibly have chosen to be in a bdsm relationship. They think she must be abused. They’ve found my blog and point to my own history with depression (and the one time I was hospitalized for such 23 years ago when I was a teenager). People into bdsm are as varied as any other group of people. Some are mentally well, some have mental illness, some are awesome people who stick strictly to the notion that consent matters, and unfortunately, a few are predatory. People into bdsm generally like things more intense than others. Are people who like to burn their mouths on hot, spicy food sick people? How is this different? I like extra spice with my sexuality. I like the feelings of bliss released when controlled pain is applied to my body in a consensual situation. While I suffer from a mental illness, that is not what causes me to love playing with power differential sexually. I’ve had kinky fantasies since childhood, and while my family is your garden-variety dysfunctional American family, I was not abused at all in childhood. No one beat me, no one did inappropriate sexual things to me (or, indeed, any sexual things to me). I was treated lovingly for the most part and, as an only child for the first 11 years, I was pretty much spoiled. (On one side of the family, I was the only grandchild for 9 years. Oh yeah. Spoiled.) Being turned on by thoughts of bondage and helplessness just occurred naturally. (And, I might add, long before I was raped or sexually assaulted. Rape and sexual assault, sadly, are more common in this world than bdsm.)

The infantilization of those with mental illness would be humorous if it wasn’t so damn offensive. I would like to think that while I certainly talk about a lot of intense kinky sex here, I also very clearly convey the loving relationship I have with MasterDoc. He doesn’t take advantage of my mental illness. If anything he has mentored me in adopting better coping mechanisms. I don’t blow up in emotional outbursts as often as I used to. I’m far better at asking for what I need emotionally rather than stewing and expecting others to read my mind. Bad methods of coping I learned from my mother have been slowly unlearned with MasterDoc’s patient teaching. I suffer far less distress than I used to because I can handle things more rationally.

But, you see, I would bet DeeDee’s family will think he made me write that, or something. Determining that my agency has been taken away from me without so much as talking to me is also damn offensive. While I like the security of considering myself owned by MasterDoc, the truth is owning people is illegal in the United States. I am a free woman. I have a career. I can pay my own bills. No one is manipulating me to be MasterDoc’s submissive. I have the means to leave if I wanted. But I don’t want to – not because anyone has worn me down or some shit, but because I have a tremendous amount of loving support from my chosen family. My current household is so delightfully stable and placid compared to that of my parents’ house. (While ultimately loving, my Mother had a tendency to shout and have emotional outbursts. Thankfully my Dad was stable.)

I think it might actually disappoint some people just how normal and dare I say, equitable, our relationship can be. I can disagree with him. We will discuss things we disagree on. MasterDoc likes having intelligent women as submissives because he’s not looking to control someone 24/7 (not to mention the conversation is far better). He wants us to think for ourselves. He wants the best for us. He’s still good friends with his former submissives. Hardly sounds like they fled from him, huh? He walked one down the aisle as her bridal attendant and she counts him as her best friend.

But I could talk about that ad nauseum and still not convince people. That’s okay. I know I’m in a happy and stable relationship. I know MasterDoc has not ever laid a finger on me in anger, and never will.

Emotional Scars

Published on September 19, 2009 in anxiety, bdsm, D/s, depression, emotions, masochism, mental illness, mother, neurosis, submissive, trauma and Uncategorized. 2 Comments

A few days ago, Always Aroused Girl tweeted this link. I starred the tweet, curious to read what had hit home for her when I had the opportunity at home. This article hit home for me too. I waver back and forth between thinking I was emotionally abused as a child – am I making a big deal out of nothing? Maybe I’m too sensitive. Ah, but am I just saying that because I’ve been beat down emotionally and I don’t have faith in myself? Too many questions.

Although I suppose the most glaring example I can remember does shed light on my mother’s behavior being emotionally abusive. I was suicidal from a young age (8 or so, probably very telling in and of itself) and when I was 13 I actually attempted it. It was a lame-ass attempt – I drank twice the maximum dosage of Act fluoride rinse that it said on the bottle. Something like 4 or 6 metered doses. I told my mother shortly after, and she dragged me to the car to drive me to the emergency room. And the thing she said on the way to the hospital, which I have never forgiven her for and probably never will, is: “Why are you doing this to me?” I had attempted to end my own life, and through it all she just thought about herself. I had to go through drinking syrup of ipecac, vomiting up the entire contents of my stomach, and sleeping the night in the hospital with an IV stuck in the bend in my arm, feeling more and more foolish when I had to tell hospital staff that I drank the fluoride rinse as an attempt to kill myself. And yet this was something being done to her – not a desperate cry for attention and help from me.

So from a young age, I wrestled internally with a desire to be taken care of, and a defiant attitude of “I don’t need anybody. I can take care of myself. The world can go fuck itself.” This weekend, between the article linked above and spending a weekend alone with a sprained wrist, I find myself wanting to push people away. I’m feeling defiant and like I don’t need anyone, but underneath it all is a strong desire to be taken care of (but I don’t think I really know how to be taken care of anyway). I keep setting myself up to do things that show me how self-sufficient I am (I got the laundry downstairs by myself with barely using my sprained left arm) and I’m not going to sit at home feeling helpless, I’m getting out and about today. Not going to try driving until tomorrow, but today I’m reveling in the freedom my feet and public transportation afford me.

But at the same time I feel terribly lonely.

After reading that article, I also had to ask myself if my submission and masochism is partly rooted in the emotional abuse of my childhood. I crave the opportunity to work for the love and approval of an authority figure in my life (my Dom). I am hard hit when we’re spending time together and he ignores me. (Not every single time, but when we’re supposed to be focused on each other and his attention wanders, which granted, is probably more down to him having attention deficit disorder than him wanting to ignore me.) I remain a people pleaser, trying to keep everyone happy and to withdraw when I feel like I can’t do that. I don’t want to need anyone. I don’t want to still crave my mother’s love, affection and attention. I want to push this need away and deny that it’s there. Why? Probably because in many ways I don’t think I’ll ever be worthy of the love and attention I so crave. It hurts too much to want it. So I wish I didn’t want it.

As a teen, I didn’t attempt suicide again although I hoarded old medication and razor blades so I’d be prepared if I ever “got up the courage” to do it. I began cutting myself at some point after the suicide attempt. When I was nearly 16 I ended up in a psychiatric hospital for three months because I declared to my father that I was going to kill myself that night. I never really wanted to die. I just didn’t know how to live. I was hospitalized and it got me to a semi-stable place, but I was never medicated or anything to truly help clear up the depression. My relationship with my mother continued to be complex and unsatisfactory. I could write a book about my relationship with my mother. My father was a source of stability always, but he could be a little distant emotionally as well. I put that down to his damn Germanic & WASP back ground. My family’s not particularly affectionate.

When I was a teen – 14 or so – I helped a friend with a science project and as part of it she had to take my pulse – and I remember my heart soaring to have someone, anyone, touch me. I was so starved for touch. I still have a mixed relationship with touch – I crave it, I push it away, I seek out painful touch like beatings.

I’m not entirely sure where I’m going with this entry, but I can see how I became this needy yet solitary adult. I don’t want to be needy, so I push everything away. But I still feel needy underneath it all. I want to be loved and I want to be able to open myself up to really and truly feel the love that there is in my life. But I think there’s always going to be a part of me that doesn’t believe I’m lovable.

I’ve been afraid to have children, because I’m afraid I’ll be like her and have them hate me as much as I’ve hated her off and on. (“Her” being my mother of course.) I want to be a mom, but I think deep down I don’t think I’ll ever be part of a family like I so want to. When I do find love and happiness I get so scared of it going away. And how would I cope if it went away? And isn’t it inevitable that it will go away and I’ll be alone?

After writing all this I have to laugh a little at my saying above that I’m not sure if I was emotionally abused as a child. I think all signs point to yes. And I have to wonder if my desire to be dominated comes from a desire to have someone intensely focused on me for a change. If I’d rather be controlled than ignored. I think the masochism comes from a place of both needing the endorphin rush that ensues and a need to just simply be able to feel anything. I’ve spent too long numbing myself emotionally, pushing things away. Physical pain is a way to feel for a change.

Mom

Published on April 1, 2007 in depression, family and mother. 2 Comments

I visited my mother yesterday, something I always dread doing. Mom is the root of the majority of my dysfunction. Her own dysfunction is startling. I never fail to be hurt by her obvious lack of caring. She’s never been to see my place (neither has my brother who’s so much like her) and I’ve been here over a year now. She doesn’t seem to have any interest whatsoever in coming. Most parents are curious to see where their kids are living to make sure they’re in a decent place. After all, my father’s come down here numerous times and Davey’s parents have even come for a visit from two states away. Heck, when she and Dad split up I was curious to see her new place where she was living on her own to make sure she was somewhere okay. We moved out of the house around the same time, and she was so concerned with buying herself new furniture and taking all she could from Dad that she didn’t give one thought to the fact that I’d be lucky if I could get my grandmother’s old, worn sofa from my Dad to sit on. (Dad being how he is, of course he gave it to me.) She didn’t care that I was starting with nothing.

Even something as simple as noticing I’ve drastically changed my hairdo totally escapes her. She’s got to talk about all the awards my brother’s won being an EMT and fireman, but when I finished graduate school I didn’t get so much as a “gee, that’s great” until a few days later when she simply left me a small gift on the tv for when I got home from work. She didn’t even give it to me herself and she was home. (And this after all the years of pressure she put on me to be “gifted” as she claimed I was. To do really well in school. The pressure was such that I’d consider committing suicide in high school if I got a bad grade.)

She doesn’t call me, but I force myself to call her now and then because I don’t want to give her something to lord over me (“You never call!”) but she has my number and if she gave a shit she could call now and then. Part of me wishes I could just let go and give up on her, but the little girl in me still wants her to care. I spend hours talking about this shit in therapy. I’m in my 30′s and my mother is still a major source of aggravation in my life. I’m just glad I’m not in the house with her any more.

I’ll never forgive her for the time when I tried to kill myself when I was thirteen and she, while driving me to the hospital, said, “Why are you doing this to me?” Even then, it was all about her. I was in so much pain at such a young age that I was trying to kill myself and all she could think about what how it affected her. I asked for help for my depression and all she’d tell me (even after the suicide attempt and after she actually felt freaked out the first time I cut myself) is that, “You’re not depressed, you’re bored.”

I can’t talk to her about any of this. All she does when something is too difficult for her to bear is deny it vehemently. She denies helping put me in heavy debt in my 20′s even though all my friends from that era (and my Dad who she put in debt too) remember the whole period clearly. When I was a kid, I would think that I was insane when she’d deny something. I must be crazy, I thought, since I clearly remember such and such but she totally denys it ever happening. At least as an adult I’ve come to realize that she’s the one in denial, and that my memories are correct. I asked my cousin if my Aunt does the same thing (Mom’s sister) and apparently she does. My cousin thought it was just my Aunt’s drinking that did it, but now she sees, as do I, that it’s a family-wide dysfunction on that side. My brother does it too. I hope at least my cousin and I can come out of this sane and functional.

Maybe this is part of why getting over the assault has been so hard. Yet again it’s someone who’s hurt me completely denying what’s happened. Competely denying my experience and my pain and making me out to be the nutty one. I’m not nutty. I may suffer from bouts of depression, but I’m not insane and I speak the truth. I’ve always been honest to a fault and brutally so.