Self Actualization through Lesbian BDSM
I'm not sure why I'm turning to this blog right now. So much has happened that I haven't felt the need to write about. I took my ADHD meds for the first time in a while, so I feel the ability to sit here and tap at my keyboard until I'm satisfied. Today I think I wanna talk to you about BDSM again.
My first blog post is called "Fear, Pain, and PTSD." I wrote it while actively being abused, at the start of my career in the kitchen. I was searching for salvation and only understood it within the framework of domination and submission. A year ago I did not understand the depth of emotion and care that I now experience as someone's collared and committed sub. The collar is something I've been dreaming about since I was a teenager. I desperately wanted someone to not just want me, but want to own me. I wanted so badly for someone to love me in a way that I could understand. I wanted to belong to someone and I wanted it to be the other person's choice.
For a long time, I felt like I was holding my friends hostage. I felt like people only loved me out of obligation, and if I really truly was loved as a choice it was because of the things I could do for someone. I don't do well in traditional relationships. I'm insecure and do way too much in the dating stage and then get bored once I accomplish my goal of being someone's girlfriend. I feel so uncomfortable under the burden of keeping up an act that I hurt other people in the process of leaving. I don't let myself be vulnerable in front of my partners because I don't actually want a relationship, I just want the type of domestic intimacy on TV. I get scared I'm gonna get raped so I don't even really fuck my partners, preferring to pretend I have a romantic first time planned and then leave before the inevitable can happen.
But. For the past five or six months, something different has been happening. I met someone who's love means control, and talking about things, and hitting me when I fuck up. I've participated in a relationship where every aspect is negotiated and boundaries are clearly drawn. A relationship where either of us only has to say one word and we stop what we're doing, even if our clothes are on and we're not having sex. Even over text. We talk about rules and what happens if they're not followed. I've cried multiple times in front of them and they've done the same for me. They drove me to the hospital last week when I finally accepted concern about my mental state.
I'm their dog. It's okay if I fuck up because puppies do that, and the guilt is over as soon as the punishment starts. I can be playful because they want to play with me. When life gets so hard, they're there for me. They make it easier for me to make big decisions by taking on the ones that seem little. And it makes me feel so cared for. The best part is that they need this as much as I do. When they feel like everything is out of their control, they text me to tell me to do something for them. I get to help them just as much as they help me. It's beautiful and reciprocal and I love the way my body bears the evidence of their care for days after we see each other.
I care for them so deeply. And they care for me. And it's not as equals most of the time. I feel safer being cared about as an inferior, but their care about me as a person with equal dignity shows even in the power dynamic.
I'm hard of hearing. I'm pretty sure I've been hard of hearing since I was a kid, but a few accidents caused my hearing to get way worse. And if I'm being really honest with you I'm afraid of getting hearing aids. I'm afraid that what I was told as a kid is true, that I'm making the conscious choice to tune everyone out. I would rather struggle and pretend I can understand the world. I've wanted to learn ASL for a while, but it's really difficult to learn a language when no one else can practice with you. I've had countless friends and family make promises to learn with me, and not follow through. It's not easy, walking around with half a guess about what's going on. I struggle to comprehend speech if I'm not close enough to read lips. I walk through the world translating noises and mapping them into words with similar sounds that work within the context of the situation. Verbal instructions are my biggest enemy. I constantly have to just figure stuff out because people are tired of repeating themselves to me. If I speak in my natural register, I can't hear myself. I know my volume based on the weight of the vibration in my throat.
I haven't been acknowledging myself as disabled for very long. I was not allowed accommodations for my disabilities when I was younger, and oftentimes feel I haven't earned them. I never, ever, ever expect people to be understanding about my ears.
Inside a BDSM scene, there are a lot of verbal instructions or cues from the dom(me) to the sub. This works really well and is super awesome and hot and sexy if the sub can hear these instructions. I opened up about my hearing to my domme during aftercare at the beginning of our relationship in the form of an apology. I didn't think that they would do anything, but I wanted to express that I was sorry I wasn't better.
I'm struggling with how to write this next part because I don't know how to make the words form the emotions I need them to. Claire learned sign language for me. The next time we met, they signed "good girl" to me while grabbing the strap and I burst into tears for the first time in a few years. It's hard to describe how I felt in that moment, none of the words in the English or Spanish language can express to you what it was like. I felt like Claire had reached into my chest and found the ugliest, most rotten and shriveled up part of me and held it gently. It felt like experiencing an August thunderstorm for the first time again. I'd given them a lot of me at that point, more than anyone else in my life, and they chose to cherish this part of me that I am still so ashamed of.
My life is easier now because of those two signs. When we're together, their signing helps me know what's going on around me. Those two signs helped me ask for accommodations in other parts of my life, whether or not they're physically present. I went to see a play last week and was able to have the bravery to ask for the script they keep in the info booth for hearing impaired audience members. I've been introducing myself as hard of hearing when I meet people, and most everyone has been way more understanding than I imagined they would be.
I hadn't hit real subspace before Claire. It's become one of my favorite feelings in the whole world. Everything outside of them fades away, and I'm solely focused on what they want me to do. I trust them completely with my body and mind and they continue to take that trust and make me more because of it. BDSM gives us a framework for understanding ourselves and expressing needs that are deemed societally uncouth. It allows me to care about them in the way I truly want to and allows them to do the same. Within our dynamic it's safe for me to be stupid, or a mess, or ugly, or overly affectionate. It's safe for me to be hyperactive because that's just what puppies do. It's safe to ask for help because they've told me how being allowed to help me helps them.
I'm able to be a whole person because I have a space where I am not a person. I have more freedom because I have less choices. I'm more put together because I'm allowed to be a wreck. I'm a better person because I get to stop being a human twice a month.