This empty life…

He called me “hon”.

He is not prone to terms of endearment. This isn’t a man who slips into language like a diner’s waitress.

After no communication for days. Maybe a week.

I’ve lost track of time.

These days time is like taffy. Stretching, clinging, sticking.

The point is it just slipped out so casually.

And I want to bash my head into a wall repeatedly.

There’s a reason I grew up loving paperback mysteries, Stephen King, and Wes Craven movies. This isn’t a girl who believes in fairy-tale-happy-ending bullshit.

I am my father’s daughter.

And I know better.

I know that there isn’t some white knight who is gonna swoop in at the last minute and make all the hurt disappear. There isn’t even a constant weight on the other side of my bed, much less in less explicit facets of my life.

I am on my own. Always. Regardless of where I’m stuck in time.

Only a single friend has told me “You deserve to have him stay. You give so much.”

All others are silent. And it shows me what I already know, in that deepest heart of mine. That truest heart. That constant companion that’s been there since when I was little.

There’s no point in giving. There is no deserving.

There is only the taffy stretch of time and the constant stickiness of pain.

“Cigarettes” by The Wreckers

Tomorrow dawns…

“It’s a dirty business, dreaming
Where there is silence and not screaming
Where there’s no daylight
There’s no healing, no no

You’re gonna sleep like a baby tonight
In your dreams everything is alright
Tomorrow dawns like a suicide
But you’re gonna sleep like a baby tonight”

-“Sleep Like a Baby Tonight”, U2

Letter to Father

Dear Dad,

I don’t understand why the universe is the way it is. I know you’re a realist but I can’t make myself be that every moment like I’d like. I don’t understand why people like Rogers who do so little adulting, don’t try to look for a job or way of income; keep getting these windfalls that allow them to continue living in the avoidance way of life they’re used to.

Meanwhile I work so hard at trying to get the sort of position that could actually handle my bills and way of life and come up wanting every time. So many job applications. A handle of interviews. Nothing further. At all.

I won’t say “it isn’t fair” because you and I both know that’s a trite excuse for the cards the universe deals each and every person. I get that it isn’t supposed to be fair.

But it certainly isn’t easy to process or handle or deal with.

And I can’t deal. I would if I could but there’s only so many “no’s” and turn downs a person can take. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong and I don’t have the drive, desire, or energy to continue to try to discover how to solve this problem.

I don’t have the friends or relationships to give me any level of support to get through these black thoughts. I learned early to not share those inner thoughts and keep that mask on, but usually I had at least one person in my life I could let it slip with a bit.

No longer.

It’s exhausting having to keep this mask on all the time. I just can’t keep doing it like I have.

I just want to sleep.

Take care and enjoy all that perfect family portrait life that Teresa’s family offers. It’s better that way anyway.

I was always the black sheep in everything.

-K

Pride/Humilty

Pride

Stiff rigidity and tempered steel.

To bend this habit is like breaking bone.

But in the days following my stark refusal to release my pride…

It’s sharp regret.

I find myself unable to say what I think is expected.

It’s like dirt in the throat. Sand in the mouth. Broken glass along the tongue.

Wishing I had learned differently.

Grown up in a house of strong affection and open emotions.

But such is not my world. I wish it were.

It’s entirely a weakness, pride is. I know this. I know this with every fiber of my being.

And yet I still cannot break the habit.

The masks, the boxes, the robotic responses.

Co-dependency crippled me all those years ago. I carry a scar so long, so deep that I can feel the rippling skin tightening with thought. So calloused yet so paper thin.

Don’t show weakness. Don’t show need. Don’t show want.

Don’t break character. For the love of god, do not cry.
Do not ask for help. Do not show desire. Do not be vulnerable.

Just let him go. Just like you let them all go.

Pride is a prickly bedmate. A cold companion.

But I know no other better.

---

Humility…

That fear bubbles up and locks my tongue so neatly when I think to be otherwise. And the moments happen more and more. I think of every bright shinning piece of the past years.

When he’d go out of his way to check on me when I had been my quiet, reclusive self.

When he knew what joke to make to get me to smile.

The way the heat rushed through me so easily when he brushed his fingers over me.

The natural way my head tilted against him when I sit close.

The way he knows to stroke my hair when I’m feeling nervous.

The way he gets just the right level of teasing and sarcasm to make me smile.

The way he kisses the top of my head as an afterthought of affection.

The way he knows I carry all my tension in my neck and shoulders.

The way he recognizes the look of self-loathing in my eyes and knows the right words to make me actually feel solidly beautiful..

I miss that syrupy thick feeling while lying on the cool sheets and allowing his fingers to dance over me.

But that fear, that victim mindset leaps to attention.
It hisses-snarls-screams at me…

“Remember what happened last time.”

The one time I tried handing my heart over. I tried full, unconditional trust.

Unconditional trust is overrated.

Unconditional trust is what turned me into the victim.

Conditions are safe.

Source

Letter to Germany

Dear Germany,

I remember when we went to see Captain America before you left (hah, was it really that long ago that the Avengers were a new thing?) and I cried when Bucky fell out of the train and Steve had to mourn losing him. You thought I was a dork. I totally was. But I think now, I may have been that sort of precognizant dork that recognized a loss of my own coming. There is no one I’ve encounter that I have the bond with that I had with you. I suppose part of that is age. Such is being an adult. The world is your own; wholely.

God know Rogers has been a good friend. I can’t really fault him in any way. I’ve been withdraw for years now. There’s no new friend who could get under my skin and into my soul like you did back in the day.

Obviously not anymore.

Honestly, I don’t know whether we truly ever had it like that. Did we? Or was it just the innocence of youth that sort of gave us those rose-tinted glasses and the idea of this other person that could be part of our soul (without the messy romantic bullshit).

It was a beautiful idea regardless. Whether a lie or not.

These days feel like shadows. I can’t recapture that ideal of before no matter how much I reach. It could be that I’m not trying hard enough, but my ability is such that I’m not able to try harder. I would that I could. Such is my mantra for the moment. For the year. For this lifetime.

I would that I could.

There was so much shit in high school. So much. And yet, I would pry out the bit of idealistic friendship I had there for a couple years if I could. Because god knows I’ve never found it since. There is nothing wrong with my current group of friends. I know they try. But I just don’t open my soul like I used to. I don’t let anyone, platonic or otherwise, pry their way into that dark dank recess of what used to be a giving and loving place.

Obviously no longer.

I don’t have any magic excuses or apologies really to give you. I’m a selfish person at this point I suppose. Or weak. Or tired. Whatever you want to brand me with is fine. You’ve had your own thing now an entire ocean away anyhow. I’m sure I’ve be relegated to a blip on your radar at this point. And it’s fine. Distance is a bitch.

So is life.

-K

Suicide: An Examination

(TW- pretty obvious I’d say. Don’t read if you can’t handle frank suicide talk.)

The past month I have tried to kill myself twice. Overdosing on pills and slicing my wrists open.

I failed twice.

Due to interventions by people who contacted EMS and police to force me to the hospital.

I’m sure those more optimistic sorts of people would say it’s that I was “rescued” or “saved” from that whole “permanent solution to a temporary problem”.

It isn’t feeling much temporary to me. It’s been over a year now. I am an utter shell of a person. Can’t get a job. Can barely keep my head together for longer than a couple days. Time ebbs and flows and dribbles and spurts.

The only constant is pain and despair.

I find little joy in anything. I’ve been through so many different anti-depressants and such that I can’t even remember all their names. None of them help. Many of them made things worse (fuck you Prozac). I am trying very hard to remain here due to promises I’ve made to family and friends who at times I feel are being selfish in their demands of me. But perhaps I am the selfish one. It’s hard to know.

What I want to do though is record all that happened. So this entry is obviously after all the ODs and psych ward and hospitalizations and pills-pills-pills. I write this while sitting in my own bed with Zoe nearby. But the next series of entries are copied from a composition journal I used to write both my “goodbye letters” to various people and my entries during the psych ward stay.

Eventually the idea is that I will not be in this suicidal mindset anymore and looking back on this entries might be informative to me. I suppose. I just need to get it out anyway. I’m sure it will not strike many people on here as that fascinating of a read and god knows none of you are required to read any of the following posts. They are mostly for me.

For me and the universe.

I would like to dissect and examine the mindset behind the desire for suicide.

The Fitted Sheet

Source

Putting a fitted sheet on a mattress fucking sucks. I swear it’s the workout of a marathon in one room.

You try that whole “diagonal sides first”; the whole “back sides first”; whatever other “trick” you got from family or Youtube. They make it look so simple. A breeze. Obviously a fucking simpleton should be able to get a damn fitted sheet onto their fucking mattress.

That’s the metaphor of my life right now.

I have this life “fitted sheet” that is well-worn, perhaps a bit faded. The pattern is super funky. Couple decades old.

But it’s mine. And I’ve heard it isn’t easy to get another.

I also have this brain “mattress” that I think may have somehow obtained the incorrect size. I’m not sure whether I meant for a full instead of a queen or maybe I need a king?

Honestly, it’s sort of hard to tell whether the mattress is too large or the fitted sheet is too small. Or perhaps the opposite. It’s all just wibbly-wobbly.

No matter how much I fucking groan and shove and twist into all sorts of fun shapes, the damn sheet never seems to fit properly onto the mattress.

I think I’m going to have to saw a corner off. Which is a bit sad, as I love this “mattress”. I don’t want another. I don’t want to really change it. To trade it out for something else. This one is just so familiar, despite the stains and weird lumps and sort of frayed bits on the corners. The whispers in the stuffing and the smudged sort of writing in spots that never seems to rub out.

If I can get the sheet on after cutting a corner off the mattress, then I can just face the weird malformed corner to the wall so no one visiting can tell.

Problem solved, right?

Social Media destruction

Nothing like the past knock-knock-knocking on your door.

Knew I should have gotten a louder “fuck off” doorbell.

Thought I burned that bridge long ago and now find that there’s some sort of vine growing out of the wreckage and trying to curl itself around my neck.

I thought that scar was a faint white impression of the wound it once was. But there’s some scab left to be picked.

It’s simple words on a screen that lend power to the climbing foliage. To pick at the surface of skin.

I have only myself to blame.

For many months I’ve debated on deactivating my Facebook account. Honestly, if there was a way I could simply use the messenger and not anything else, I would more likely do it. It’s the messenger I don’t want to part with. The main way I communicate with friends I’m not physically close to (like ones I know through this community!).

Today while updating my profile picture to something a bit more festive, I somehow accidentally caused my timeline to switch to 2006.

I should have immediately closed out.

A sane person would.

This jigsawed brain made the decision to continue scrolling. Scrolling through a smattering of words from a period of my life I’d long tried to purge from my being.

Words include lame jokes with friends. Basic life updates about school and work.

And posts from Her.

I have moved multiple times since my 5 year relationship with Katherine, but it still haunts me. Almost daily. I love my current house. So very much.

And yet at night my dreams are permeated with the rooms I lived in with Her. The house I lived at with Her. There is no rhyme or reason.

I barely dream of my current partner at all. I don’t understand this flawed thinking at all.

And now it isn’t even just my subconscious.

I don’t understand why I scrolled. Why I took that screenshot. Why I saved it. Why I include it in this post.

Social media is a toxin. A dangerously addictive substance beyond heroin, meth, or alcohol. It speaks sweetly and dresses up flawlessly. But behind those honeyed words and slick threads is a sinister hole of festering stink.

And I don’t even mean the vindictive way they use profiles for marketing. Note your interests. Or track “trending” topics.

I mean how it harbors a storage of memories you didn’t even know still remained. Memories to be purged. You recklessly thought you’d never have to see again.

A simple click.

Words across a page.

Marrying the mental and the mischief

It always surprises me how aspects of my kink related play marry to other aspects of myself.

Let me back up briefly.

 It’s about to get a bit personal.

I have struggled with an eating disorder for over the past decade, though I am now medically considered recovered. I was hospitalized for it back in my late teens and it has influenced some of my current medical conditions.

My relationship with food is still complicated. Especially around holidays like Thanksgiving. I have to navigate a prickly maze of thorn-laden hedges in my brain to merely sit down with family and eat a plateful of food.

I deal with it in my day-to-day life mostly by grazing. It tricks my brain and those darkly creeping thoughts to only eating a little at a time. It’s the plates full of food in front of other people that sets off that siren screaming in my head. Calling the cruel goddess Ana to my brain with her poisoned words and glittering sharp teeth. Just a couple pounds less. Always just a couple less.
Her demand of sacrifice is a throwback to the days of pagans gathered around an unfortunate virgin, knives gleaming.

But I have found a surprising weapon in the community and exploration of kink. Not just the support I receive from friends and mentors when the dark thoughts curl around my feet, but also the play itself.



The subspace is untouchable by Ana. It is a thickly layered brick maze that she cannot navigate. The stinging of a flogger, the thudding of a paddle, they add barbed wire to those brick walls. The rip of tape, the slithering sound of rope, the zap of electricity…

All of these things are soothing to me. They bring me to a place that I cannot bring myself. 

It may seem unorthodox, and I’m sure the average mental-health professional would be floored by the therapy I get from play. After hitting subspace, I haven’t the inclination or motivation to count calories or restrict myself.



The food I put in my mouth after a scene is so goddamn guilt-free delicious.

Competing with Myself (TW**)

(WARNING: SUPER DUPER TRIGGER WARNING FOR BDSM PLAY TALK– MAINLY IMPACT PLAY [i.e. spanking/paddling].)
I know this can be an especially hard trigger for the mental health community and survivors in general. I do want to reassure my friends that my interest in impact is 100% consensual and a cathartically-theraputic release for me. I am not being abused in any way, shape, or form. But I needed to write about this and put it out into the world. I have mentioned some BDSM stuff before.
But please don’t feel like you need to read it. I promise it’s okay if you don’t. I do plan a more PG rated update this week as well.

---

These last weeks have been rough.

They have been a blender of loss, frustration, depression, anxiety, and self-loathing. The combination of my grandfather passing within days of the anniversary of my miscarriage has my headspace a mess. Halloween stress and relationship turmoil hasn’t helped.

Thankfully, I’ve had some great support along the way.

I’ve recently become closely involved in the local BDSM/kink community in my city. I imagine that seems extra nuts for a nutty person who survived childhood sexual abuse.

I will say my specific interests are extremely focused, have nothing to do with non-consent, and I only do anything sexual/fluid-exchange related with my partner Army. I still consider myself monogamous, though some argue that fact and consider non-sexual impact play with others makes me poly.
But that’s a whole other topic. Army is aware of my interest though, and supportive. I am not dishonest in this interest.

---

The Experience

In October, I was happy to be able to attend a private BDSM play party with some trusted friends I’ve made over the past six months. I wanted to try and relax and let myself feel more normal. Away with the swirling cyclone of blackness I’ve been caught in. Let in some fresh air and some good conversation. And of course, break out the floggers and paddles.

I thought bottoming in a simple impact scene would be good for me.

It felt like a mere five minutes before I tapped out (I was lovingly assured it wasn’t that short of time). I could immediately tell by the minimal level of red skin and bruising on my rump that I hadn’t taken the level of impact I normally do. My mind immediately recalled a recent scene with the same trusted tops where I took over an hour of play, building up to some good thuddy and stingy impact tools. I was thoroughly bruised for days. And the cathartic release and therapeutic stillness in my head had lasted for hours afterwards. My main goal.

I am what’s called a masochistic bottom (or sub). I get off not only on the pain and surrender of control during the scene, but the flash of pain I can achieve 1-3 days later by doing that casual “bruise-press” with my hand. It’s something that helps silence both the cacophony of voices/thoughts in my head and the daily autoimmune issues. I suppose the endorphins released could be compared to self-harm, but I like to think this coping technique is healthier. Definitely safer. There is no bleeding or scaring level injuries.

Just the beautiful canvas of colors on my rear that can occasionally bloom in a distracting way.

But this scene certainly won’t give me much of that.

It wasn’t that the scene became too painful, per se. It was more that I could feel the subspace drop almost immediately, along with an edge of wanting to cry. Like, full on sob. And I wasn’t brave enough to cry in front of multiple people. Even if they are my friends, I’ve never felt comfortable with public crying.

And yet the other bottoms that were scening already had some beautiful bruises blooming on their own rears.

My jealously ran quick and deep. Not a jealously of their specific bruises. A jealously of my earlier self, who would have easily gotten such badges of honor.

I do know bottoming in a scene isn’t a competition between persons.

But this was the first time I learned that I have to count myself among those persons. I’m not competing with myself.

It’s been a hard lesson to learn. It’s an ongoing lesson as I write this. I suppose the whole DID thing doesn’t help when it comes to self-competition. And I definitely noticed the fact that it wasn’t Charlotte who was 100% fronting during this scene like usual. She could always take more than any of the rest. Even my co-concious self.

I’m blessed enough to have some great local friends in the community who were unbelievably kind about my insecurities. I even had the tops from the scene take me aside afterwards and reassure me. Now those are some awesome people to keep in a play roster. Their intuitive understanding is the best I’ve encountered. Actually, they’re the only people in the past six months I’ve trusted enough to play with on my own (i.e without Army) and multiple times.

Even though my direct grief influences will most likely end soon, I have to figure out the balancing game of dealing with grief and still trying to remain active in the scene. I don’t want to have this sort of sub/grief drop again.

I imagine it is a process that takes time. I don’t think it’ll be easy, but it’s looking like I have a great support network while I get this lesson down.