How has abuse affected your life in BDSM?

[thrall]

BTW- when I was learning about domestic abuse, the statistics were that a woman generally leaves an abusive partner 7 times, before making the final break. Those guys are very good with the flowers & promises- they have to be.

OK....had to add this in........


Flowers.....as much as i love them....when someone is giving them to you..(me)....Big red flag of something is wrong!........hate to say it but flowers to me say guilt.

[thrall]

Ive thought about this question for a while now, thinking about an answer. Not an easy answer.

My past has forged who I am now. There is no question in my mind about that.

Thrall lives and breathes submission. She follows and listens. Thrall feels and is vulnerable.

The public face of Thrall is who protects her. The public face is strength, power and control.

The problem for me, is letting anyone past that protection to allow them to see …..who I am……who I truly am. Allowing anyone to see……..thrall. My past has clothed me in a suit of armor that lives within heavy battlements…….its the getting though the gates that is the challenge….

[denuseri]

its like each layer of armor is a scar in our souls?

[stripedangel]

A scar, like a callous. Blister me enough and i will get callouses. Then, it doesn't hurt so much when it happens again. thrall, that was quite moving.

[thrall]

A scar, like a callous. Blister me enough and i will get callouses. Then, it doesn't hurt so much when it happens again. thrall, that was quite moving.

*blushes*...thank you


Here is the problem with scars.......they do not have any feeling left in them, they are numb....or are so sensitive to touch....the touch is painful.

Abuse is a wound.......

Wounds can be deep and penetrating. Some wounds close and some wounds seep. Some wounds are so insidious that they are unseen, unfelt and unknown.

Wound needs to heal.....and not scar.

[ashtonDs]

Originally posted by thrall:
Abuse is a wound.......

Yours will heal. It almost sounds like you are despairing that it will, but it will. If you give love and receive love you will get to the point where the hurt goes away. Sometimes there will be reminders and pain will return but it will be temporary, you will survive, you will prosper.

I wish somehow the I could reach out across the miles and fix everything for you, but that is not possible. All I can do is wish you love and peace...and healing.

[sisterhoney61 {RW}]

Why is so difficult for a woman to believe she is beautiful? When my wife was pregnant she told me she was fat and ugly. I thought she never looked better and couldn't keep my eyes (or hands) off of her.

You have to realize that you probably aren't in the best position to make that call. From where He is, your Master can see what you cannot. He sees beauty in the whole package that is you. Next time you hear those words, "you are beautiful," believe it.

And don't worry about being too far off topic. After the abuse is over we all have to deal with the aftermath. The emotional takes a lot longer to heal than the physical. Good luck.

Some of us women never hear it from the men in our lives that we are beautiful. My father never said it to me. No boy (young man) that I knew ever said it to me. My first husband, whom I was married to for ten years, never said it to me. I've always been overweight and felt invisible, unnoticed by men.

I wasn't told I was beautiful by any man until I was almost 40. Master has been saying it all these years and I still have trouble believing Him. Will I ever truly believe Him? As He says, maybe on my death bed. As you said, the emotional abuse takes a lot longer to heal than the physical. I'm still pretty fucked up from what I suffered at the hands of my ex. But Master loves me anyway.

[ashtonDs]

Originally posted by sisterhoney:
never hear it from the men in our lives

It's important to have someone who can see the beauty in us, to remind us of it when we falter. When He tells you you are beautiful, believe it. You cannot see your beauty from where you stand. He can. And if you can't believe, accept that He sees it. Belief will follow.

You should know, I think you are beautiful too. (I only wish I could have said it how many years ago.) I've read some of what you wrote in support of other people. Only a beautiful soul can do that. Just read this thread and see all the beauty flowing out of people who are hurting taking time to lend support and encouragement to another person. You are not alone. Thank you for sharing your beauty.

[Krougar]

I hope its OK for me to post in this thread as I neither have real BDSM experience nor have I been abused but I would still like to comment.

I don't like uncertainty, the more variables I can eliminate the happier I am. I want to know facts, I want to know what will happen. I don't like it when things go unplanned. A possible partner who is tied up has fewer actions she can take, therefore I am eliminating variables. Even though the possibilities I eliminate are fairly inconsequential it still provides some benefit to me.

[Guest011909]

As someone else here alluded to...i don't know that we can pin point where specific fetishes, etc come from...and i DEFINITELY do NOT think that all bdsm fantasies spring from abuse....however, i can say for myself that - at the risk of making this a miserable run-on sentence - there were submissive tendencies in me from as young as i can remember. STILL...i also was very conscious of a shift that took place when i started having sex as a teenager and realized that the boys i was having sex with were getting a lot more pleasure than i. Later, when i reflected on being molested as a child, i learned phrases from text books like "identifying with the aggressor." i believe that came from self psychology, and manifests itself in a way that might also be described ast Stockholm Syndrome. Anyway, when i learned that phrase, i didn't associate it with being mosleted as a child. Instead, i associated it with my sexual experiences as a young woman. Finding that the boys i was with did not care about my sexual pleasure, i fetishized that experience. i now find it to be a real turn on when my sexual needs are not given importance. Therefore, the whole "use me,abuse me" kind of thing. Again, not saying this is true for anyone else...just speaking to my own experience.

[ashtonDs]

Originally posted by Krougar:
I don't like uncertainty, the more variables I can eliminate the happier I am

The problem is, with people who have been abused, we don't even know all the variables. You can't know them (and we can't expect you to). And as for you eliminating them, that is impossible. There is no surgery you can perform to remove them.

If you are in a relationship with someone who is hurting you must realize that:

1) all you can do is lend love and support
2) ultimately they, with your help, have to make to decision to purge the demons (or remove the variables as you say)
3) it is not a neat linear process that progresses in neat steps
4) the process is messy at times and
5) if you get involved with them, don't give up and leave after a short while, you can do more damage than you can ever realize.

I'm not trying to attack you I'm only trying to say that you are only human, as we are, and this not something you can fix, even if we wanted you to.

[Krougar]

The problem is, with people who have been abused, we don't even know all the variables. You can't know them (and we can't expect you to). And as for you eliminating them, that is impossible. There is no surgery you can perform to remove them.

If you are in a relationship with someone who is hurting you must realize that:

1) all you can do is lend love and support
2) ultimately they, with your help, have to make to decision to purge the demons (or remove the variables as you say)
3) it is not a neat linear process that progresses in neat steps
4) the process is messy at times and
5) if you get involved with them, don't give up and leave after a short while, you can do more damage than you can ever realize.

I'm not trying to attack you I'm only trying to say that you are only human, as we are, and this not something you can fix, even if we wanted you to.

Oh no, I wasn't making any comment towards your issues, I simply stated what attracts me to D/s and Bondage,

edit:

lmao, I mis read the title I probably shouldn't have posted, but I think my post still some-what applies

[ashtonDs]

Originally posted by Krougar:
I probably shouldn't have posted, but I think my post still some-what applies

Even if you did misread the title it brings up an important consideration. There are some people who think abused people are just weak-willed and won't "snap out of it." Even though you didn't mean it that way, what you posted allows us to talk about how to help someone recovering from abuse.

Sometimes we can, unwittingly, cause great pain by our actions. Sometimes we can, unwittingly, cause great good.

Now if there is one of us out there who has encountered a situation where they were given this kind of "solution" they can comment and maybe help someone else avoid a similar situation.

[ashtonDs]

Originally posted by pettobecaged:
Again, not saying this is true for anyone else...just speaking to my own experience.

pettobecaged, abuse affects all of us, even in ways we don't know. You don't have to excuse your feelings and experiences, they are yours and yours alone.

I'm glad you found an outlet for your feelings and I hope I'm not out of line when I say, I firmly hope that some day you will be able to find someone who can make it possible for you to accept the fact that they are interested in your pleasure and can give you your fill.

(Between you and me, if we ever got together I would have to put on quite an act to seem so uninterested. I imagine it would be very comical. In my mind I can just picture you all tied up, laughing your a** off at me. lol)

[jaded_sub]

My parents fought all the time throughout my childhood...until they divorced (which was a year after I married my first husband). I was only 16, and know now that it was just to get out of the house. He decided that he didn't want to be committed to a relationship and started cheating about a year after we married.

I married my second husband about 4 years later. He turned out to be extremely abusive and controlling. I couldn't talk on the phone without handing it to him to "verify" who I was talking to. Nor could I go out with friends or family. According to him, if I wanted to spend time with them it could be at either our place or theirs (with him in attendance, of course). Anytime I couldn't account for a period of time throughout my day he immediately assumed I was cheating on him and he would proceed to knock me around until he was finally convinced that I hadn't.

After a few years of that, I finally found a safe place to stay and divorced (with a restraining order). I moved to another city over 100 miles from him and started over with my child from my first marriage.

Then, I met my recent husband. We dated for about 3 years before marrying. Only to discover that he also has a violent temper. He is not as controlling as my second husband and doesn't have trust issues...but when he loses his temper the result is always violent.

We have dabbled in bdsm as I have discovered that I am much more comfortable in a submissive role, but since the violence I have not been able to allow myself to actively enjoy the lifestyle.

[gemmy]

Ive thought about this question for a while now, thinking about an answer. Not an easy answer.

My past has forged who I am now. There is no question in my mind about that.

Thrall lives and breathes submission. She follows and listens. Thrall feels and is vulnerable.

The public face of Thrall is who protects her. The public face is strength, power and control.

The problem for me, is letting anyone past that protection to allow them to see …..who I am……who I truly am. Allowing anyone to see……..thrall. My past has clothed me in a suit of armor that lives within heavy battlements…….its the getting though the gates that is the challenge….

That's exactly it Thrall - The person who came to the forefront to protect a 5yr old child as she was being beaten was this strong, confident person who has now turned into the adult that is me today. How she could have been there to protect me back then I'll never know. I do know that I (my protector) reacted and responded to my stepmonster even though I (the 5yr old) had blacked out.

The black outs happened a lot but yet when I would come to, here and there, she would still be wailing on me and screaming at me for being so defiant and how dare I talk back (I had and sometimes still don't have any memory of talking back). Those are the repressed memories that still come to haunt my nightmares looking for release.

Now, it is such that the woman still fiercely protects that little gurl but it's the little gurl who wants to come out to play and have fun again. The woman just has not found a man strong enough or responsible enough to handle them both with patience and care or maybe the protection is just too thick to penetrate, I don't know.

I do however believe that there is someone out there with enough insight and love to get past all that Well, at least one can hope hehe

[Nixxi_Chaos]

I think a big reason of why I'm such a sadist is mainly because from 3rd to 8th grade I was pretty much tormented, and stuck in a catholic school. For the first 3 years, I got the shit beat out of me almost every day, was jumped multiple times, and got molested by kids older than me. I had the idea that I was worthless so beaten into my head, that I never said a damn thing until 6th grade when I 'snapped' so to speak, and broke a broom handle of the back of a kid's head and gave him a concussion. Pretty much from that point on, I've learned that I love hurting people, seeing people in pain, etc. Another factor of if is most likely my family history, on both sides, there's a long history of mental illnesses. I realize I must sound completely fucking overdramatic, forgive me for that. It pales in comparison to most peoples' trauma, but that's my stupid reason.

[BryansGrrrl]

Thank you all for sharing your stories. I have read them all and I see many correlations with my own experiences and thoughts.

I have asked myself these questions often, as I too tend to psychoanalyze myself rather frequently.

I was molested by my uncle when I was 6 years old. This happened frequently over the course of a year, while I was in kindergarten. My father was away and my mother worked, so my 14 year old uncle babysat me after school. We were alone for several hours before my mother came home at night. I did not tell my mother this until I was in the 5th grade. Then she misunderstood and thought it had only occurred one time. She did not know until I was 16 that it happened repeatedly and intensely for that whole year.

It has, of course affected my life in countless ways. The only real sexual / bdsm issue that I've run across though are certain phrases that I react badly to, phrases that my uncle used.

I have informed Mia'Cova of the abuse, the extent of the abuse and the particular phrases that bother me. We have discussed the possibility of things like rape-fantasies, etc. and we realize that for these he will have to be careful of my reactions and I will have to be aware of how I feel and react as well. If there is a negative reaction, we will not try those again. He will not use the phrases that make me uncomfortable.

I know this has affected this area of my life, but I think (as with everything else) effective communication can help you to overcome so much.

And on a smaller note, related to the discussion on women not being able to find themselves beautiful: I would not necessarily classify this as "emotional abuse" but I remember my father saying to me frequently as a child, "You'd be so pretty if you'd just lose some weight". I know that I am beautiful inside, but things like this make it harder to believe it of the outside. I hope that I will overcome that with time.

[Bears2009]

I am a male that was 6 years old when it started with a neighbor and then he taught my parents to spank .anyhow I am still looking for that something in life that will answer all the questions that it left .

thanks to all of you I think I have found the right place

[shyslut]

Im starting to realize that my post is going to be very long and maybe stupid but I guess I just NEED to say some of this *sigh

I grew up very impoverished. I was raped and assaulted many times from age 6 and at least once a year after that all the way to age 23 by strangers. My mom was very abusive and maybe mentally ill as well. My dad was schizophrenic, paranoid, bi polar etc.

I literally was raised as an animal. I didn't brush my hair or change my clothes. I ate off the floor. Flys didn't bother me. Heck sometimes I was so hungry I ate rotten meat and maggots. That didn't seem to bother me either.

What did bother me was that I tried to be so good and still my mom hated me. But I was good to everyone else. That didn't matter either.

What complicated matters is that the first rape got gossiped about. It was decided that I was whore. All this decided in kindergarten. For all of my school years I was verbally abused and physically. Spit on, burned, stabbed etc. Once I made a friend the first day of school. The next day they walked on the other side of the hall. Its a horrible experience to realize that your hated by 3000 people every day.

Then I got a "boyfriend" In quotes because he raped me and my mother was even trying to get me on birth control so he could continue and marry me and take me away. I let it all happen and didnt put my foot down till he said our marriage would be shared by his best friend. Who creeped me out even more than he did.

At 15 my grandmother got a terminal illness. Shed always been a depressed person but along with the diagnosis she was even more depressed and her meds did not help. She requested that i be moved in to care for her. I was a happy little helper. I paid her bills and did her dr visits. I gave her medicine and dressed her. I pulled her panties down for her to potty and administered yeast medication. I did all the cooking and cleaning. In the end it was my decision that put her in a hospital and mine to enforce her DNR order. It was me that sat with her till her last breath. As much service as I put into her even in her condition she matched it. She taught me how to cook, clean, sew and balance books. How to dress and what to do with my hair. How to take in details. She provided support for my school work and for the first time in my life i was making As and not fs.

After she died my aunt kidnapped me and my sister. It was a good thing is some respects. She continued the work of rehabilitating and socializing me and my sister. At the same time though she had bi polar and was a very scary angry person alot of the time. I could never please her even though I was perfect. I was!!! I never had friends or TV or food i wasn't supposed to. I made perfect grades and i kept the entire house perfectly clean and I NEVER got in trouble. I never spoke unless told to. I made over 4.0 GPA. Yet if I took more than a millisecond to answer or something equally stupid. I was fed bread and water for 3 days in a closet. Or I was confined to the couch for 3 months.

I tried so hard to please her. Dang she worked me hard. Hand tilling 2 acres of land and building fences etc. Even when my hands blistered I said nothing. Then I said nothing till they busted. I still didn't say anything when it happened again. Then the day came that the palms of my hands fell off. I had coated all the tools in blood. I could not bring myself to work anymore. She came out to yell at me and saw my hands. Said I was being a whiner and lazy. I ended up coating my hands in mud and grass and continuing tilling.

Eventually she got tired of me. Kicked me out of the house with nothing in a snow storm. I was only wearing sandals at the time. She did not know that I had met a boy though. I walked 4 miles to his house and his grandmother said i could stay.

I had 1 good year with my now husband. Sex was a freaking blast!!!! Then my dad died, I miscarried, we were homeless and a storm of other tragedies. Then it happened. I lost my mind. I had a mental break. I had a diagnosis. Bi-polar with psychotic features. I had many suicide attempts. Many hospitalizations. Was even institutionalized and lived in half way houses.

Finally came to a stable point. No change, no jobs, lots of meds and no sex drive. Stayed like that for a few years. Very shy and didn't go out. No sex drive not that sex had ever been that great or inventive anyways. But it was a wonderful life I was okish.

Here it is 8 years after my diagnosis. I am still on meds and probably will be for the rest of my life. I am considered to be 98% well. Yet in some ways my issues are even worse than they used to be. I have absolute mistrust of any person. I have a large amount of fear for stupid things like calling a company on the phone.

Some big changes have happened in the last year though. I found my sex drive and my enjoyment. I am bursting with sexual creativity. I have a husband, a mentor, a sadist and a couple casual partners. It worries me at times that I think about sex and bdsm and pain and being submissive so much. I worry that its somehow negative. The silver lining is that it definitely does good things for me. I get catharsis and pure relief. I feel happier for days or months after playing. I am finally able to feel sexual and pleasing. As fearful and paranoid as I am around "regular" people kinksters are different. Yes I am fearful and paranoid. But its a wonderful experience. I am able to meet with dominants and give trust. There is where the bdsm mindset shines. Ive found over all that people in this lifestyle communicate and are very careful. That they are honest and open minded.

As for beauty. No one told me I was pretty even when I was a foot taller and 30 pounds lighter than everyone else. No one said I was wonderful when I made good grades. No one has ever said oh shes so kind when I was abjectly making sure I was nice and everyone else was happy.

I try to work on these issues but lets be honest now. I weigh 300lbs. I have issues which my never get reduced to a real manageable level. I am a broken person. Yet I do try so very hard still. Do I approachh beautiful, wonderful or kind? Nope not even 1%.

Again though here comes the praises of the lifestyle and those involved. I have met people who say I am amazing, beautiful, natural sub, best slut, gorgeous beauty. Angelic face, cute tummy. That how I respond is a work of art. That im intelligent. That they'd be proud to own me. That I am a glass of water to their desert. That Im a "keeper". Maybe some day ill believe some of that. Maybe 1%??

[LolitaDoll]

Abuse in my life has really affected me. I've always felt beaten down. I had to grow up several years ahead of my time. I felt like I deserved to be beaten and abused. Overtime it turned into a love for being submissive. As a submissive, I've always felt like I'm able to please whoever is telling me what to do. I've always aimed at pleasing others, no matter the cost to myself. The abuse helped mold me into who I am today.