I’ve spent the past two entries and a lot of my energy on rhetoric and objective thinking. But at the same time, there’s the nitty gritty, the bits of my psyche that are feeling minutely unbalanced.
Having my sexuality censored didn’t throw me into an enormous depressive spiral of self-doubt. It didn’t cause me to take any dramatic steps back or change any of my beliefs. It has not been so climactic.
But I’d lie if I said it wasn’t affecting my relationship with kink, with sex, and with other people.
Two weeks ago, that Saturday night, I fell asleep with sex banished from my mind. The yawning gap where my sex drive had gone missing was hidden, all mixed up with the rest of my misery.
I keep using the word “shredded.” What it means is I walked around for days with my nerve endings dead, my brain feeling sluggish, my nose stuffed and my spirit exhausted. I still feel it; the numbed feeling, the exhaustion. I am still so, so tired. I can’t remember the last time I was this tired.
One by one, parts of me are beginning to heal. I emailed my family member back. What started as a fight has become a halting, slowly paced discussion; still painful, much more rational. A few days ago they emailed me a stupid joke:
Q: What did Buddha say to the hot dog vendor?
A: Make me one with everything.
I laughed and cried at the same time.
In an example of incredibly ironic timing, the weekend of the fight was directly followed by the weekend of Black Rose, a kink event in Washington DC. Months ago, May and I had planned to go. We had tickets, a hotel room, people expecting us.
That week, as each day dragged by, I kept thinking Oh god oh god, I do not want to go to Black Rose. I cannot deal with scene space. I cannot handle playing.
I feel incomplete. I feel as though parts of me have died and fallen off.
But I had laid my money down, and as it became clear that sometimes the solution to pain is not to wall oneself off to the world, I sucked it up and went.
And it was lovely. Lovely, and hard, and complicated. It was what I needed it to be.
The entire weekend I felt strangely as though I’d been granted a brief reprieve from my pain. Like the world was on hold, and my sexuality was working, albeit quietly and with far more reservations than usual.
It was as though the range of interests I’m used to enjoying had been culled ruthlessly, walling off sadomasochism, walling off D/s, building big heavy brick walls around anything I would consider heavy play. At the time I hardly noticed; I was so fried, so happy to be playing again, to be reconfirmed.
But as I’ve come out of that space and back to the world over the past week and a half, those walls have remained. It took me days to find a way to recognize arousal again. My fantasies feel scattered. The first orgasm I had after the weekend was hard. I had to wait for it, because I couldn’t fight for it.
It would be easy to say this is frustrating me, but that’s not quite right. It’s making me less confident, it’s pushing me into issues with my body and my personality that I had under control three weeks ago.
It makes me want to wear baggy clothes and put my hair in my eyes. I watch myself flirting and have to consciously tell the part of my character that worries about social faux pas to shut the hell up.
We think about being attacked and group our possible responses into fight or flight categories. I know it looks, on that side of the computer screen, like I’m fighting. On this side, nothing is simple. I’m consciously trying to figure out ways to defend myself and cataloging ways to fight, and at the same time I catch myself stumbling over words, pulling gestures back in half-fulfilled motions, hiding my face and shutting my doors.
It’d be easy to pass this off as a minor depressive spiral. Maybe that’s all it is; I don’t really have a pinpoint on the nuances of my mind.
I know I’m second guessing my desires. I can feel myself doing it, like there are decisions being made in my body that my mind is continually one step behind. I don’t like it; it’s unconscious. This little thread of pain and uncertainty isn’t based in rational thought. Rather, it’s an earmark of my self confidence, reduced to tatters and shreds.
I feel as though there’s a plate glass window between myself and my sexuality. As though I have neural gaps and lack the ability to bridge them.
I know I will bridge these gaps and tear down all the temporary walls I threw up in my hasty defense of my psyche. I realize that this is largely a matter of time.
I can be patient. I will wait for my kinks and I to find our way back to each other.
12 Comments
I have nothing profound to say except that your impressive ability to look inside yourself with honesty, objectivity, and clarity continues to amaze me. So I will say that and continue to offer you hugs, support, and baked goods as needed.
I imagine that reconnecting with that part of your sexual desires would be easier had I not been so depressed these days, too. You keep telling me not to apologize for that, though, so I’ll stop myself before I do that.
Buddha goes up to a hot dog stand, tells the guy to make him one with everything. The hot dog guy hands him a dog, Buddha gives him a 20. “Where’s my change?” he asks. Hot dog guy says, “Change comes from within.”
I’m really commenting just to tell the addition to that joke. But I’d also like to say that I’m just starting to imagine myself as into D/s and kink and stuff, and I’d just found and love your blog and am glad you’re continuing to write to us. The idea of what you’ve just been through makes me seriously nervous about this whole thing. I admire your courage and your willingness to stay with it, to keep listening, and not to blame.
Hi Rona,
Baked goods are always appreciated, and are almost as good as hugs. Movies and hot chocolate are good things too.
Maymay,
Would it be easier? Yes. Does that mean you should feel bad about it? Hell no. My life would also be “easier” if I were served breakfast in bed every morning, but that doesn’t mean I want you to do it.
NomSecret,
I am *so* glad you posted the end of that joke. I like it even more now.
Thank you!
Reconnecting with your sexuality when disconnecting things happen is invariably tough. You know this already, I’m sure, but: don’t push it. Cut yourself a bit of slack, and don’t try going beyond what you’re comfortable with at the time. It can be really tempting to think “oh, well, if I just try this anyway maybe it’ll be OK when I get going”; and indeed sometimes it may be. But when it’s *not*, it can be much more damaging than just being patient.
It’s worse if it’s someone else pushing you, but even yourself pushing you can be suboptimal in the long run.
Good luck as ever with continuing to work through this.
Thanks Juliet. And damn, that’s good advice. i will see what I can do about taking it :).
Again, you are holding up beautifully. Your blog has helped my husband and I keep our marriage strong (and sexy!) even with the trials of 2 kids. So thank you for keeping it up.
I finally got through all of your response posts since your hiatus. It is so good to have you back.
I feel like I have a family like yours, mostly open-minded, and wouldn’t they all not be too surprised if they found my online writings? Saw in black and white that I enjoy and need to be dominant and sadistic in my romantic and sexual life? I would probably be facing the same kind of pain and confusion you are going through if someone did find what I’ve put online about my kinky life. So I have been reading your blog with a new kind of interest, studying almost, with great introspection. What would I do? Could I bear to do what you have done and revisit all of my online writing about kink, thinking “What would __ feel about this?”
I also empathize with having to return from a period of little to no libido, although here it is because of a back injury.
Time heals. It always does. See you on the other side. And again — THANKS.
Time never heals anything. If it did, no one would ever have to do any introspective work to feel better.
I disagree maymay. I think that time can heal things. After a while, it just does not become something that has any effect on you. But, that’s just my opinion.
I think there is a huge difference between an emotional trauma one has become dulled to the experience of over time and an emotional trauma I would call healed, and it has never been solely the passage of time that I have seen heal such things. But, that’s just my opinion. ;)
I’ve been busy with holiday stuff, and settled in tonight to run through my favorite bloggers and catch up. So I’m a little late in adding my support here, but I’ll add my voice to the rest.
I’m sorry for the painful events. I respect and adore you, although I don’t *know* you except from your writing here. But I feel as though I know you, because of your writing here.
There is no advice I can offer to make it better, nothing at all I can say to make it better. What I can say is that I offer you, for whatever it is worth, my unconditional admiration of who you are. Of what you share of yourself. Unconditional. There’s too little of that in the world, I think.
You’re in my thoughts.
P.S. A note about time healing all wounds… time doesn’t heal it, it’s what you do during the time that can potentially heal wounds.
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