Many of you are new around The Journey - or missed some of MY history. As some of you know I have been working on a follow up to our TTWD...... There is a draft I have been working on...... and I was thinking it would be ready to post this week. BUT I am thinking that at least some of my back story should be posted now..........
I honestly didn't realize how much my history was affecting my now..... There were some posts in blogland that were triggering a guttural reaction in me.... and I reached out to willie. She was great at guiding me through my own personal nightmares.. what I called my TPE (total power exchange) hell. So let me give you some of my history - hoping it might explain my future TTWD blog.
Many years ago when I first started to dabble in D/s - BDSM... I met a man.. just a man... and for whatever reason we started playing together... I enjoyed it... he enjoyed it... we started to explore D/s together. It seemed a good pairing ya know - two people learning from square 1 together. You'd think working together would create a bond / a TTWD relationship that fit both of us perfectly right??
We moved from dabbling in D/s to full on TPE. BUT at that time he wasn't living with me during the week - I was working .. he had responsibilities... it was only on weekends. I realize and accept full responsibility for some of the damage ... not all but some. Red flags should have been raised - but they weren't. We went through some bumpy times - but eventually we did actually move from Quebec to Ontario...... and I retired from work. We were now living 24/7 TPE ... He got deep into my head... I was made to feel responsible for everything that went wrong - including how much snow we received (yeah yeah I know - how stupid could I be!!?? but I felt guilty) He started making it awkward for me to see my family... he controlled who I talked to at munches/parties... he seemed to have no boundaries - often humiliating me in public.
Honestly I didn't 'see' how bad things were.. how much *I* had disappeared. I felt very isolated and very alone. He would come and go as he pleased (as it turned out seeing other women - playing with other women - lying to me and to others)
Then friends in this new to me community banded together ......... they got me alone .. and they told me it was time I moved out - took my collar off and got free. They told me bluntly what they thought of this man who was my Master... they offered any and all help to get me out - to get me safe. Yes safe !! that's how bad it was. and I did it...... and it was hard.......... it nearly broke me. I had to learn to live alone - to find my way and OMG it took so long!! I landed up in the doctor's office a blubbering mess ... he got me into therapy.... it was a long long road back to normalcy. I couldn't have done it without those friends ..........
Did this man - this ex sir - disappear ? leave me alone? nope..... he would post on his blog his angst.. his anger towards me. He would mail me threatening letters... He tried demanding money from me... It scared me. It scared folks in the community who kept a close eye on me. I didn't think I would ever be free ........
So I started to plan yet another move. A move out of his city.... was looking westward .. my daughters weren't happy - they wanted me closer not further away.
It was at this point that Sir Steve was on the edges of my life.... we were talking.... renewing our friendship. He suggested I move to his city - move east -- putting me less than an hour from both daughters. It made sense..... closer to my family... much MUCH lower rents... so I found an apartment and moved. I didn't give anyone - ANYONE - my contact information. (I have to add here that those friends who helped me - they knew how to contact me.. and some of them even came to visit - to check out how I was doing - small smile - they are GOOD friends) I finally felt safe.
Time passed. I felt safer. IF ex sir tried to post comments on here and they weren't appropriate I would simply delete them. BUT being me - every once in a while I would allow a decent comment from him to be posted. Then this ex sir went through a really rough patch. There was a serious episode this past year.... non BDSM related - but demonstrating yet again how lucky I was to be out of this relationship. even still I tried to be a 'friend' to him. (ok ok slap me upside the head!) I thought that perhaps we could now be just friends.. (ok ok slap me upside the head again!) Cause this morning Fondles sent me a message telling me this ex sir had left a comment for me on HER blog! WTF??!!! She described it as 'passive/aggressive'. So things haven't changed. not one bit. He's still trying to get to me - to push my buttons.
Thankfully I have Sir Steve. This poor man probably has had more than he originally bargained for.... he has helped me heal .. he has helped me stand on my feet again.. to feel good enough... to feel special.. to feel loved.
History is important to our stories....... it is what makes us who we are....
Thank you for sharing Morningstar ( I'm glad I went searching for a Monday post from you as it still is not up on my blogger). Reading more about your history has me running our weekend conversations through my head- hoping my opinions, or whatever we want to call them, did not dismiss any of your experiences.
ReplyDeleteI often think that our need for connection, or exploration of part of us we don't quite understand can lead us into dangerous territories or have us not see what others seem to see so 'clearly'. Sometimes our intuition is bang on, other times it isn't and worse perhaps, is we ignore our gut.
I can understand that part of you thought you could be friends with your ex- connections are truly hard to sever. No doubt you did discover a lot about yourself during that time together- even if it ended in a way that cast a negative feeling over the entire experience. I think it is human nature be tethered in one way or another to our past and those in it who shaped our world. I for one have a very difficult time emotionally cutting ties.
I think it is a very brave woman who listens and trusts those around her that they have her best interest at heart. To reflect and see what they may see. I think it is a very courageous person who tries again. I'm in awe that you could allow yourself to trust again- even if the dynamic is very different this time around. Trust is not an easy thing to have in many situations, let alone after you've been in a dynamic that ended up being very toxic.
I'm sorry that these past few weeks have been emotionally challenging for you. But it sounds like you've got the right guy to help you through it.
Thank you for letting us in, so we can better understand why you feel challenged. I hope your thoughts are starting to become more clearer now.
willie
honestly willie I could just hug you -- you helped me so much this weekend - AND I didn't feel you dismissed anything... quite the opposite... you quietly rationally showed me the other side of the story -- helped me use my rational brain (yeah yeah I actually do have a rational side - cheeky grin)
DeleteAND I started rewriting my TTWD blog LOL... I think it's gonna be a whole lot more positive now :)
Oh phew! I'm so relieved !! I cannot wait to read your post.
Delete( And for what it's worth, I enjoyed our conversations- they had me thinking too )
"had me thinking"
DeleteSooooooooooooo are we gonna read these thoughts any time soon?? LOL
Oh . Lol probably not. It was more thinking about the past and how I arrived at viewing things etc.
DeleteI remember reading your blog in the old days. It is shocking to see how much difference there is between the image that your blog then, was giving your life and what was really going on. The downside of the internet is that you never get the full picture of someone's life
ReplyDeletePrefectdt
I honestly hid the problems from everyone (or so I thought) as well as hiding them from myself... I count myself very lucky that I had good friends to pull me out when I was drowning :)
DeleteI am a big advocate of thinking that there is no 'right' way to do ttwd, because quite simply we all have differing needs, however there most certainly are wrong ways, unhealthy ways.
ReplyDeleteThere is a difference in being dominant and domineering and often the lines between the two can blur where it becomes difficult to recognise the difference from a submissives point of view when in it, this man imo was domineering and not dominant.
It's also common to not 'see' what others see, I wander if perhaps your need to please, to want it to work, prevented you from recognising that this wasn't good for you?
especially if he was/is a narcissist (comes over to me that he is) so nothing you ever did was going to be right or your trying to please him, no matter what it would be your fault, a typical narcissistic trait is not being able to take responsibility for themselves/their own actions....and they never change because they dont consider its them that is the problem.
Thank goodness you had good friends that got you out and through this, the fact that even now he feels the need to comment, well he is to be pitied because you have moved on, your happy, and that I wander if it drives him mad, but thats on him not you.
Claire
Gosh Morningstar, you have shared parts of this before and I'm glad you shared more with us today. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteThat must have been such an incredibly difficult time for you. Thank goodness you had good friends who could see and helped you out of the relationship. We often can't see it ourselves.
There is a big difference between being Dominant and domineering.
Hugs
Roz
Recovering from an abusive relationship - of any kind - is one of the hardest things we as humans have to do, I think. It takes immense amounts of bravery to trust again, to allow oneself to be vulnerable again. Like you, I spent time with someone who was truly not good for me, and who did me a lot of damage. It was a long time ago, nearly 20 years ago now and it still affects me. Less so than it did when we were first seperated, but occasionaly it still whaps me in the head. Like you, I have been so fortuante to find someone that I can trust and who has been there for me during the main recovery period. He stayed with me throughout the first year afterwards when I was essentially having something of a mental breakdown. It took YEARS to undo the damage shitbag caused, even though I was only 'with' him for two. I do think we tend to under-estimate, as humans, the damage to mental health that can happen in bad situations. The point of all this? I'm not entirely suprised that this still occasionally prods and reminds you of a bad time in your life. But I get the impression that like me, you're more aware of it now, thinking through how you react to things instead of just reacting and understanding that you've hit a triggerpoint. I'm glad you have friends that you can talk through this... and that you have friends that were able to intervene for you. *huggss*... keep on improving, and living your life. and hopefully one day this man who so mistreated you will come to understand that the only way for him to heal is for him to do the same.
ReplyDeleteketh - I was lucky too - to have the friends who started the healing and then Sir Steve - my lord - he was SO patient - helping me to find my strength and my worth again.....
DeleteLife is so much better now - and I am so much calmer now - it still amazes me :)
I tried commenting earlier but my fone wouldn't let me. It kept saying that Blogger had crashed. Pfft.
ReplyDeleteAnyway I was going to say thank you for sharing this part of your history. It's great that you had some awesome trusted friends looking out for you and that you had the courage to walk away. It must have been very difficult so i salute your bravery!
Also, to be fair, the comment he left on my blog seems innocuous enough, but that ACT of replying you there (might I add, with nary a hello to the owner of the blog, seeing as it was his very first comment) felt a little cyber-stalkish. That's the part that feels p/aggressive to me.
I do hope things get better moving forward. *Hugs*
Fondles - that's part of his MO - being innocuous - and if anyone challenged him on his comments - he acts all butt hurt and says that's not the way he wanted it to be taken - used to make me feel like I was losing my mind..
Deleteand to your concern that he would react to this post... (small smile) he hasn't tried to comment BUT has blocked me completely on FB. shrug..
That's a GOOD thing, imo.
Deleteyes it is... a very good thing
Delete