Psychoanalysis - the end

 Okay, psychoanalysis for me, that was a dumb idea. Maybe with someone else, someone with positive regard for the client and a non-judgmental approach, but, ah no, that experience needed to be terminated. 

Before I terminated, I checked with several people - the hypnotherapist, the man I had gone on a few dates with and was a therapist, my son who is a therapist, my eldest son, my male 'friend', and they all agreed, 'okay, sometimes we make mistakes and sometimes we don't listen to our intuition, and that's what happened here, so let's step out of the mud and run in the other direction.'

I hot tailed it back to the hypnotherapist who isn't just any old hypnotherapist but a kink educator. A light scolding:

'Now, what did you learn from this experience?'

'To follow my instincts.'

'That's right.'

So, we had a great discussion before a trance which was breathtakingly healing. We got onto boundaries. We were talking about kinky dating apps and rope classes and so on, and we got onto boundaries, something that, frankly, I have been confused about.

He was explaining that the men he talks to, they don't want a whiny 30 something submissive, they want a slave: someone who can be obedient to them and someone who can take care of herself too. They want a slave with confidence.

I asked a dumb question.

'Well, what if they want something, like money, and I don't want to give it to them?'

I could hear the hold back in his voice, the pause, what he was dealing with.

'Then, you say NO.'

Then, he explained.

'With your husband you weren't allowed to have boundaries. If you created a boundary, which you started to do, he actively punished you for it. The person who should have been teaching you boundaries was punishing you for creating a boundary.'

I hadn't thought about it quite like that, hadn't actually realised that I was in a dominant:slave relationship, but yes, he was right.

The moral of the story, folks, the lesson learned, is that if you identify as a kinkster - a submissive, a slave, a dominant, it's going to be hard to find a therapist who is going to be able to talk to you in a way where you understand each other. Be careful who you open up to. I mean this woman told me I was living in a fantasy world and the only reason she could think that up is that I shared my fantasy life. There's more. It was wretched. Such a violation of trust. Never going back.