How has abuse affected your life in BDSM?

[gemmy]

Abuse is defined differently for many and we all react differently to it as well. Some common threads are there but I don't think it is ever something that goes away completely, at least not for myself.

I've always been the little sub that wanted to make people happy and went about my days quite happily doing so for my family. Then my family fell apart.

I was put, with my two sisters and one brother, with foster parents at the age of five and that's when my nightmare began and continued until I was 13 - 14 and left home to find more nightmares, running from one evil to another in a horrid catch 22 for years.

I was physically beaten almost daily by my step-monster mother and by as many implements as she could find at hand - wooden spoons, sticks, logs, toy race tracks (damn, those hurt and welt up quite badly), even canoe oars. She vented rage on me like I still have never seen from another human being, she hated me so so much. Along with that, was the verbal, mental, degrading emotional abuse. (that's the reader's digest lol there is much worse)

To further that, I was raped of my virginity at 13 by a stranger, again at 14 by my step-brother and yet again at 15 by my biological father - I didn't have consentual sex until I was 17.

So then I headlonged into a series of horribly abusive, both physical and mental, relationships until my daughter was born.

A lot of the early stuff is still a blank as I blacked certain horrors out. I have nightmares and things come back to me slowly but they are fairly far apart, thankfully.

All of that said, I've often wondered what part that plays in my likes within BDSM - I am a masochist (the daily beatings?), I do like humiliation (the emotional??), I have rape fantasies and of force (the rapes?) - there are similarities for sure. I still have no idea what they have to do with each other but they must cross lines for sure.

I have learned to recognize unhealthy, demeaning submission vs. healthy exploration and willing submission and I think it's through this 'healthy' submission that I can release a lot of what's bad still inside me. I've done a lot of work on my own for the sake of being sane enough to raise a sane daughter: for her to matter, I had to matter first and things changed from there and have been steadily changing since she was born.

All in all, coming out the other side, I do know one thing:

I'm a very strong person but don't trust easily or often on any deep level - it would be nice to learn to one day though - all things to look forward to

*sorry if this is tmi* :P

[butterflySlave4u]

All of that said, I've often wondered what part that plays in my likes within BDSM - I am a masochist (the daily beatings?), I do like humiliation (the emotional??), I have rape fantasies and of force (the rapes?) - there are similarities for sure. I still have no idea what they have to do with each other but they must cross lines for sure.


*sorry if this is tmi* :P

these things are true for me as well, all within a fantasy setting....and i think that's a clue...when fantasizing about those things, WE are in ultimate control...you're raped, yes, but the knife he holds to your throat to threaten you does not cut....

you are beaten, but under your own conditions...not on your back, over and over...but everywhere, and the strikes used, hit the places that feed your masochistic soul...

i've always considered it a form of mental healing, to fantasize this way...i've even been able to bend my own reality a bit, my memories of "how it really was" with my ex-husband...and it helps me to heal...

he was a egomanical sadist, in the truest sense, and the damage he caused will be with me until (and even beyond) death. But i survived, many that i knew didn't...and i know i'm stronger for it...

some damage remains...one of my strongest urges is "fight or flight"...and i won't fight, not even to defend myself...i've logged out of Yahoo on my poor Master more than once, thinking that something i've done isn't worthy of His attention, or just because i get scared and confused...but He has the patience of a saint, and sits there calmly until i calm down and log back in...smiles...and He's always there...makes me talk about it, face it, and stare it down....

do i think my abuse affects my BDSM life? absolutely...my desire to please stems from my fear of being abused more, for the most part...give him what he wants, and more, and maybe the belt stays in his beltloops tonight...it's a survival tool...

and Hugggggggggs to you gem, it was NOT tmi...