Seeing those photo's again myself left me feeling tremendously sad. I had buried the memories, and yet I was stupid enough to dig them up and share some of them. And together with the pain the anger surfaced, at men crossing boundaries and using women for their own pleasure without making sure the woman enjoys it just as much. Or even: knowing she doesn't, and still doing what they want because after all, she is a slave so she has no say in things, and if she tries to say no, she is being a bad slave and should never even call herself submissive.
I will not go into any more detail here because even now, 12 years after we parted ways, just thinking about it fills me with not just pain and anger but also: fear. I haven't slept much last night because my head kept going back to that very dark place, sometimes falling asleep only to be woken by vivid nightmares that were even more scary than the average nightmare because most of it was, at some point in my life, real.
I can't go on this way. Although I have seemingly overcome the PTSS I was diagnosed with after I was finally able to escape that relationship, I realize I am not fully healed. I am too easily put off balance by things like yesterday's conversation and it makes me angry at the world, at men sexualizing me. I will refuse even a snuggle or some innocent flirtations from close friends who I will normally flirt with just as much as they do, with me. I need to grab this negative, hating monster that lives inside me by the tail, stick it in a box and burn it. The monster makes me occasionally very sad, angry and jaded towards men in general, who have done nothing wrong. But even more importantly the monster keeps me from being my happy, playful, flirty, sexual self, my real self who I enjoy being so much. It keeps the butterfly from flying.
I just deleted all the photo's from back then. They serve no purpose and they only hurt me whenever I look at them. There is nothing to be gained from hanging on to bad memories. I need to let them go. And I need to embrace not who I was or who I will be, but who I am, right here, right now. Not perfect. Not by a long shot. Damaged perhaps, but a survivor, and someone who I think has managed to hang on to her core being. A nice person, warm and caring and smart, with a sense of humor and a quick wit. And where it comes to BDSM: a very soft person who before anything else needs to feel loved, cared for and cherished. Not a slave. Not even all that submissive most of the time because I am perfectly capable of making my own decisions, running my own life and calling the shots if need be. But with a deeply rooted need for someone to take that away from me at times and bring out the much softer, playful girl on the inside.
About a year ago someone told me that on the inside, I am still a slave, and that I should find a Dominant capable of handling that slave, the right way. This person was wrong. I was wrong, for believing it. I am not a slave and I never was, not mentally, because I'm simply not wired to be a slave. All I ever wanted was to be loved, protected, nurtured. To be that beautiful but fragile butterfly I usually keep hidden deep inside. To spread my wings. To fly. And I'm going to.
