“It’s a dirty business, dreaming
Where there is silence and not screaming
Where there’s no daylight
There’s no healing, no noYou’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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
(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.
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.
This month has been very rough.
My stepsister had her baby within mere days of my grandfather passing away. And both of those things happened within days of my miscarriage anniversary. Also my health has been super bad lately. Yay autoimmune disorders.
I don’t really feel like discussing or whining or seeming as depressed as I am. So here are some pics commemorating this month so far.
My grandfather and me when I was young.
An awful painting I did for a friend’s wine and painting party.
Zoe’s favorite sleeping position.
Zoe trying to comfort me on the couch
My aesthetic right now is shitty horoscope readings. Thankfully, there’s a Tumblr for that.
And yes, I’m a Taurus.
Stuck in baby blues as the anniversary of the worst day of my life approaches. Nothing to describe this loss. I always hope the next year will be better. So far they are not.
Every year hurts just as much as the last.
Especially when I get my period near the date. Most triggering 4 days of the month.
I just want it to be Halloween soon.
Trying to get past this date. Trying really hard.
Today I have to attend my stepsister’s baby shower.
The one living in the house I was kicked out of for becoming pregnant. The one getting every bit of assistance, gifts, and advice because she isn’t having the father step forward. Not that I’m saying mothers can’t do it “alone”. Just that I got treated like a plague despite having a supportive partner and a plan of action. Not enough for the Daughter of My Father though.
Perhaps she gets more because I’ve always gotten less and should know better.
They keep saying “another accident” but the way this one is being handled breaks my heart into a thousand pieces.
This morning I sobbed four times while wrapping the gifts. I was able to part with two generic Carter’s outfits from the box I bury in my closet (and take out regularly anyway- just so I don’t forget her). Nothing personalized and definitely nothing handmade goes into the gift bag.
They’re mine. Not for others.
This pain is still some of the rawest feelings I’ve ever experienced.
Other guests just keep saying I look tired. Okay. Sure.
Two Ativan and a couple Zoloft with ephedrine probably does make me look tired.
Bone tired of this subject.
If I could get out of this party I would.
I would probably remove a pinky or toe.
No. More. Babies.
DIFFERENT NOT BROKEN
For now, this website will be about book reviews!
My journey towards healing
Rebuilding an authentic life after anorexia
writing as a way of life
frightfully wondrous things happen here.
For those who want to know what it's like to live as a simple boy and girl..and girl and girl and girl.
pen, paper, and crazy 