Fear, Pain, and PTSD
I'm thinking about the point of a blog that no one will read or find. Should I censor myself when this is connected to a name no one calls me and was only posted to a tumblr account with 20 followers? Ultimately, this is for me. I started this because I thought about writing a memoir. Writing a memoir seems so self important. I'm not a celebrity, nor am I accomplished in any field. But a blog is one of the most accessible ways of writing. I feel like this is a medium for nobodies. I'm not performing for anyone because I don't expect anyone to see this. I deliberately chose to not put this on a social media site or, god forbid, substack, because I don't want anyone to respond. I want to be able to talk about what I want to talk about and not be concerned with what people think about it. This isn't about anything bigger than me. This is purely selfish. I am not concerned with legacy, or my future children finding this and looking back on it. It somehow feels both more and less safe than writing in my journal. Someone could find my journal and know it was mine. There definitely is identifying information on here in the about and AA pages, but it seems to take more effort to find a random webpage that doesn't show up on Google than to open up the journal on my bedside table.
I'm contemplating this because I want to write about something I joke about, but is a real thing to me. I'm having a rough night. It's currently 4:30 am. I have to wake up at 8am for an open to close shift. Rough night isn't even the best way to describe it, I'm really just kind of depressed, possibly at the beginning of a depressive episode. And when I get like this, I have this very visceral desire to be hit. BDSM would be the best framework to place it in, but I don't want to have sex. Sex is my bargaining chip for meeting this need. I know that most men don't want to engage in asexual kink. Most men don't feel like they're getting anything out of it unless they get their dick wet. Most men think I won't get anything out of it unless they touch me sexually.
I guess this desire comes from wanting the ever-present Threat to be real. The near-constant state of "being prepared for a threat" that comes from having PTSD. I would like to experience what I'm constantly afraid of, have it end, and be comforted. I was abused as a child. I could make a joke about how that's probably obvious, but I don't really want to change the tone of this post. I experienced pain as an expression of love, and I think sometimes my brain gets confused and feels like I'm not loved because no one is directly hurting me. I think when someone who had a healthy childhood wants to connect with their inner child, they do things like watch Disney movies or go to the park. I'm terrified of being an adult. I want to reconnect with a childhood that was scary and painful. I want to feel helpless and powerless again.
Trauma is weird. I miss the feeling of watching a new WillNE video while my parents fight in the kitchen. There are other situations I feel compelled to escape from now, but again, they're not immediate threats. I'm learning how to feel fear again. I would like to feel it. I feel a lot of anxiety, stress, and dread, but not fear. I think fear is something that can only be felt in the moment. The feeling I get before or after something happens is usually anxiety. Anxiety is what you feel backstage before a performance, fear is what you feel walking onto the stage. I think fear feels good. I don't have to worry about anything other than what is going on right here, right now. I spend a lot of time trying to outrun what's happened to me that it's almost relieving when it catches up. A flashback is awful, but trying to stave one off for hours is worse. I'd rather suffer intensely for 2 hours than suffer mildly for 2 weeks. This isn't some zen stance about avoiding pain. I'm neither a masochist nor a hedonist. I am possibly a mix of the worst traits of both. I like pain because it makes the pleasure more intense, but if I could avoid all pain I would.
I read The Four Agreements during a 3 month forced backpacking trip (troubled teen wilderness "therapy.") There's a part where the author says something like, that animals suffer once, but people suffer a million times by beating ourselves up about our mistakes. He frames this as voluntary. With PTSD, I'm being forced to suffer a million times for someone else's mistakes or deliberate actions. Is it wrong of me to want to experience being an animal for a bit? I often describe the experience of being dehumanized as seeing myself as an object. I am a swiss army knife, I guess. I can be a sex doll, or a researcher, or a scapegoat, or a problem to solve. I most like being an animal. It's my favorite way to view myself. I am like one of those dogs that was bred to work, but is now kept in some white woman's studio apartment. I had a purpose, and now I don't. And people keep telling me that my life is better now, but I'd really just like to go back to doing what I was bred to do. Objectively, my life is better. I don't mean to sound ungrateful for my physical safety and relative freedom. But fuck I'd like to go back to someone controlling me. I'd like to stop having to live for myself. I'd like someone to give me rules and tell me what I'm allowed to do and what I'm not. I'd like there to be actual punishments for not following the rules.
I try to set rules for myself but I am not self disciplined enough. (Clearly, as I have to be functional in 3 hours.) I don't know how to make myself have self discipline. I can reward myself for doing the things I need to do, but I can also just give myself the reward anyways. I feel no internal rewards for doing hard things. I feel no internal rewards for doing things I want to do! Why do anything at all? I mostly do things out of boredom. I go to work so I can have money, but also because college was too hard and I needed something to do all day. I do enjoy my job. I enjoy reading Batman fanfiction and sex and journalling and eating good food at the same level. I have 2 levels of enjoyment; "that wasn't awful" and "I liked that." I have very little motivation unless I am actively avoiding pain. Often it is only when I feel the pain, that I start doing the thing I needed to do. I have a horrible memory for things like that. I always remember things better than they were.
So anyways. I want to be hit. I want to beg for it to stop and for it to continue. And then I want to be held. I can only allow myself comfort when I feel I have earned it.
04-24-2025