Healthy relationships

 Over time, if you keep track of your behaviour, patterns may emerge. In my case, I have tended towards attachments that simply were not in my Highest Good. Something made them feel good at times and at other times, they felt quite toxic. I was often off balance.

It isn't all that complicated at the heart of the matter. My parents being busy, self-absorbed, loving but at a distance, led me to chase love, but in all the wrong places because we tend to repeat these patterns unwittingly.

This blended with an early private life where my mind had co-mingled love with strict discipline, perhaps a scene in a movie I had watched, or a book I had read. Who knows.

This meant, in practical terms, that when I was in touch with someone who gave me intermittent reinforcement together with access to that dynamic in my fantasies, this became a 'hook' for my desire to feel love and to be pleasing; for the slot machine to throw out a random symbolic gold coin or two; to feel affection.

A situation where one is in a trauma bond with someone sometimes feels abusive but often not. The mind has a way of rationalizing things, especially if the coins were given out early. The mind says, 'it happened once, that means it can happen again'. I have written about it before in the sense of the fly being caught in the spider's web and when I wrote that, it felt erotic, whereas what I write about today isn't in the least erotic. Rather, it feels like shame.

Shame is the trickiest emotion I think I have experienced. There's a part of the brain working hard to protect you from shame until, in my case, I came head on to the feeling and registered it as just that. It started with a feeling of disgust when listening to a podcast hosted by a Dominant and then the deepest and most uncomfortable feeling of shame overtook me. What the hell had happened to me to have had any other feeling than this deeply uncomfortable feeling when listening to comments about submissive women that sounded harsh?

Even since then, my brain still asks me to use certain dark fantasies as a way to relax. I am well aware of the dichotomy of these two experiences. I do not berate myself for that but rather offer myself a great deal of self-compassion. My brain is wired now in a certain way and only time and effort will rewire it.

I can only speak for myself, and as had happened once before, when the drama and hurt of the association flooded me as it did when listening to this podcast, the decision to remove myself entirely was made quickly and almost effortlessly.  

I don't want to use jargon, but it felt like the Protector that was not allowing me to feel the shame, felt I was ready to withstand the emotional pain of that and stood back. The truth was revealed to me. I needed to move on now with self-compassion and I needed to ensure that any future associations, friendships, therapists or lovers were entirely healthy relationships for me. 

I needed to choose with full awareness, and I needed to note that healthy relationships don't always, or maybe never, have the zing of something that could light up the part of the brain that responds to intermittent reinforcement, or a power dynamic that isn't based on love and respect and taking into account the high likelihood that someone with childhood trauma could be retraumatised. Anyone less than a person academically highly trained to understand the effects of childhood trauma, attachment styes and a propensity to be susceptible to intermittent reinforcement could potentially do more harm.

I think I will have to look out for this for the rest of my days. There's a bit of post trauma sitting in the wiring of the brain and some susceptibility to a trauma bond, but also, I have grown older and wiser, and I am my own best friend now. I do not foresee this happening again.

Healing

There is a saying that you can't heal what you can't see. This is why I went searching for answers about how I felt because I knew what I felt wasn't how I wanted to feel, and intuitively I understood that I needed to know where I had been to begin to heal.

I've read a number of books now on topics that seemed related to my circumstances. There was marginal assistance through the psychology sessions I have had but nothing directly related to a full understanding of my circumstances and certainly no advice was administered as to what to do. In other words, there was no diagnosis and no treatment plan.

However, I feel quite clear about what happened to me now and this is a great blessing, to see the history clearly. This is profound.

I think when the brain has been subjected to thinking in a certain way over a long period of time - I am in my early 60s - it is not realistic to think that I won't have some tough moments going forward, but I definitely feel grateful to have understanding, and so long as I am kind to myself, which I see as vital, I think there is much reason to be hopeful that the shame and blame that I put on myself will fade.

It was difficult to say the least to learn that it was my inner critic that kept me in torment. I blamed myself for not being stronger and more resilient, whereas now I am learning to turn that message around:

"Things were difficult for you for no fault of your own. You had to survive, and you did what you could to survive. Now, new strategies are needed to thrive. And, you are putting those strategies in place. Be proud of yourself."

Without going into too much boring detail about my reading and understanding here's what I discovered:

- Although my parents loved me in an overarching way (the feeling was no doubt in their hearts) I was not given a childhood. I have no memories of being kissed, cuddled, held. I have no memories of being read to at night, or being tucked into bed. I didn't eat with my parents. My parents demanded that their two children be as little effort as possible and so I closed down my emotions, was 'good'.

- I began to masturbate at a very early age and this was my attempt at 'self-soothing'. My childhood environment did not provide me with a sense of safety and masturbating myself to sleep became a survival strategy for me; a way of soothing my troubled mind that was flooded with chemicals that made my body and mind anxiety prone.

- I am kinky and this is now hard wired and cannot be alerted. Fear and sexual arousal at a certain point intertwined.I don't seek to alter it. It is obvious, day by day, that I am aroused in a 'feel good' and sexual way when I have an overt sense of ownership. I want to be 'attached' to my husband. He gets this, fortunately. He is comfortable with it. I have shared my understandings with him.

- I was susceptible to having my attachment system activated due to the lack of mother love. I was also susceptible to having my inner critic activated and exacerbated. It hadn't occurred to me that the lack of mother love repercussions were the fault of my parents but rather I blamed myself, unconsciously. I now understand the thoughts. I wasn't lovable. I wasn't worthy of love. I wasn't pretty enough, or sexual enough. Importantly, I needed to be pleasing. I had learned this as a child. If you don't act how they want you to act, they reject you.

- In short, I was highly vulnerable to any sort of narcissistic behavior of another; to love-bombing, to verbal abuse; manipulation. My trained sense of loyalty to people, even when they behaved in a  selfish and unloving way made me feel that I needed to find even more tolerance and strength for toxic behavior.

- What I came to see was that in the end it wasn't about the Other. It was about the fact that I had failed to understand that any disrespectful behavior towards me should have been a red flag on which I acted to create a boundary against the toxicity of the relationship.

- I was kind of right. It was all my fault, no matter what the training of my childhood. You see, I can't change the behavior of others, but I can change my behavior and in this way I can change how I feel. It is in my power to say no to a sense of blame and shame, to have some control over the depression; to say yes to a sense of personal power; to have respect for myself.

This is a game changer. I can't say I won't have tough days. I know I will. But, there's a huge sense of power over my destiny now.

I am eternally grateful to Kelly McDaniel who wrote 'Ready to Heal: Breaking Free of Addictive Relationships' and to Abdul Saad of Vital Mind Psychology who has free on You Tube videos that have helped me so much.

There are very good people in the world. Of this, I have no doubt. If you have struggled in a similar way to the way I have struggled, I encourage you to seek your answers. Once you know what in fact happened to you, you are on your way to healing. Know that you are not alone. You deserve to be happy.

Behavior

Raising memories and feelings from the sub-conscious can take a long time. If I had been absorbed in a life of full time employment I am not sure that I would have been able to see the full picture of my life, and the lives of other people who I know well. It's not just come to me in snippets here and there; a thought that has halted me such that my mind insists on it being further explored, or a piece of conversation that has struck me as happening thousands of times before, but ultimately as the complete story of an era, of several families over the generations whose lives have intertwined to bring us to the modern day.

It has a unique quality about it - certainly the characters are unique - but also a universal quality about it; that there are soul mates all about me nearly all of whom I will never meet, who have vaguely similar stories with the same theme. I wonder if they are still trying to nut it out - why he responds the way he does, why she responds the way she does...some sort of dance with a vaguely familiar tune. How did we finds ourselves here on the dance floor again, she wonders. Unless you can break it down for yourself, it's a language and a scene from the movie of your life that seems indecipherable.

When and if you do come to realize that you got where you are, or where you were, through a series of  events where little people weren't treated well and grew up with deficits that they then exposed other people to, especially their own children, but perhaps too their siblings and people at their work place, or just in the wider world, you begin to see the damage delivered to the world by the behavior of the individual.

If we posit that even huge world events such as a World War can begin with an event, with individuals not being able to have a conversation that is reasonable and fair, we begin to see how devastating it is to have individuals in any sort of power situation who are not fully formed; rather living out their lives in terms of an inflated ego and crippled morality.

The crisis of a World War, or any war, leaves countless human beings having seen and experienced devastating carnage; the physical body and mind broken.

Survivors return to a more peaceful world once the conflict has reached an end, for now, but with broken minds, they often are in no position to parent the next generation. But, they do, and therein the damage is inflicted once again on innocent children. It goes on and on.

Until, with luck, the behavior is brought to the surface. Until, somehow it gets through to the person that these are people you love and you don't really want to hurt those you love, do you?

Awareness is everything. For as long as we allow unaware behavior to march on into the future, behavior that carries the scars of the past, we can't break out of the cycle of toxic shame, of mental anguish, of an egoic identity that demands its way. For as long as the more empathic souls amongst us allow this demonic egoic identity to thrive in others, refusing to build barriers against such outlandish behavior, we can't stop the devastation of a tidal wave of destruction knocking down the doors of our homes and our world.

This is, if for no other reason, why it seems such a downward turn for our civilization to be satisfied when any person who is so full of himself as to say that he thinks he is the best at nearly everything, to have great power. What the World needs now is full understanding of the overarching damage done by narcissistic abuse; not more people wrapped up in their own importance, but more people willing to devote themselves to providing the love, attention and care that the next generation need in order to stabilize this world and recover from the last century.

It sometimes feels to me like we are living in a world where so many people walk around like aliens without a brain that can decipher right from wrong; that think of manipulative strategies as downright clever. If we don't wake up by the millions pretty darn soon I think we are writing our own death warrants here. The world won't withstand the neglect.

Emotional wound

I've been working on the basis that to heal an emotional wound you have to trace it back to the event or events that happened.

I am starting to think that there are two elements in place, not one; that one is a harmless sort of thing and the other is a wound that needs to be healed, as best I can.

First, the kinkiness: light, fun, harmless play. I think I probably developed it at a very young age. Remember when I was young, in the 1950s, spanking was a normal sort of thing, though not for me.

I think I was curious. I think I connected it with  a sort of loving approach, to the extent that the child received attention. I think I was starved for attention and so maybe that resonated for me.

I saw movies. I noticed my reaction to the scenes where there was a power dynamic of some sort.

In short, spanking was a turn on for me. Still is.

For whatever reason, feeling helpless, in a good way, is a lovely letting go response for me.

Much later, I got hooked into an objectification sort of kink, which fed me in some way at the same time as it was a power dynamic that humiliated me. It could leave me feeling heavy and damaged; angry and flawed.

Feeling a need to try to remember my childhood, I began to realize, piece by piece, that I carry a great deal of shame for my early years and probably carried even more then.

It isn't just that the circumstances of my exterior life involved shame. That's about 20% of it.

The major part of the shame comes from the fact that my parents spent very little time with me; an incredibly small amount. And, that I was so different to them in nearly every way. That I had no belief in the value of expressing my feelings. That I felt it a waste of time to have needs.

On the contrary, I developed a strong need to aid my mother in her emotional life, to prop her up when needed. Seeing clearly that my father had a great many needs, needs that he seemed to feel that only my mother could fulfill, that left me to handle life on my own, and to do for my younger brother whatever I possibly could.

It wasn't that they looked out for me but rather at a tender age, I looked out for them.

This seemed to set me up for an adult life where I didn't feel it my place to have needs or to express them. I looked after other people. I was even proud of my ability to do so.

At the same time, giving and giving, I worked on the basis that if I gave over my agency to another, he would do the right thing by me. If I was brave enough to express my needs, he'd do his best to fulfill them.

Eventually, I did express my needs.

But, I learned that over the long haul, that wasn't enough, for the special people in my life had wounds of their own; needed to control their world, and me.

Somewhere in there, my needs got prioritized further down on the list, rarely to make it to the top of the pile.

This is when I started to pay attention.

Why was I carrying around these days a great big boulder, a heavy heart?

The experts say that I have to develop more self love and self esteem. I have to understand that people rarely change and that I have been putting my faith in the wrong people. That I need to be assertive. Mostly they say it is best to go my own way.

I'm astounded at the depth and intensity of this wound. I don't really expect it to ever heal completely.

I wonder what my untapped potential would have been, if my life had been different from the beginning.

It's tempting to think this is one of several lives; that there is a lesson in all of this, preparing for the next merry go round.

Or, maybe, life will unfold from here in wonderful and positive ways; open up for me like the petals of a flower. It's a bold statement, but I think I deserve that outcome.

Shame

Shame is a concept I've always struggled with. Guilt comes from a feeling that you have hurt another person or taken a wrong action. You've made a mistake. I have felt guilt and can speak to moments of guilt, no problem.

But, shame is so much more personal, so much more difficult to say out loud or even to write about in an anonymous online journal. Shame comes from the feeling that you are worthless, that you are a mistake, or that there is something wrong with you as a person. It's shame, I think, that keeps a person in a state of denial or lack of awareness.

Here are a few examples of shame:

'You think that others are judging you.' and 'You believe that you have to prove your worth to others'.

I can speak to this, bucket loads. I was living and working in the United States. I wanted to take leave to go home to Australia for a visit but was told I hadn't accrued enough time there. I asked if I could make up the time over the next several weeks to enable me to take the time off. They offered me secretarial work and after my job I'd stay back and type/send telexes (yep, I'm that antiquated!) off to various parts of the world.

This was entirely reasonable and in just about every way I was fine with the task. But, one evening, a wave of shame washed over me as I sat in front of a typewriter in what was the typist pool. What was I doing? Where was my life heading?

I had followed my very new husband to the other side of the world without a work visa (only he qualified for that) which meant that I had to take one of the only jobs in town - working for another country. Yes, I had qualifications to work there and doing this sort of job wasn't too far outside those specifications but I knew deep in my bones at that moment that I was selling myself short, hiding in a dead end job rather than having the guts to seek more. In a sense my circumstances were perfectly aligned with my lack of courage, and in that moment of shame all was revealed to me.

Thirty or so years later I found myself at my University College reunion. I was happy to attend the evening, although when arriving into the room for some time it felt like I knew no-one. People didn't look like themselves on first glance, but as we introduced ourselves to one another the memories came flooding back. They were, and are, such lovely people, very engaging, warm and welcoming. But, again that moment of shame early on in the evening was felt with such force that it nearly knocked me down. I felt dread at having to answer their questions, 'And, what do you do?'

These people had long careers in education, in science, in medicine. What did I have to show for the decades that had passed? I've been a mother, a devoted mother and a good one I think. I had volunteered at school, been a member of auxiliary groups, had some jobs along the way, but where was the career?

My introversion, or perhaps my shame - a fear that others will reject me, a fear of standing up for myself, an ability to hide my emotions, an inability to believe in myself and my worth - has held me back.

My most recent example of this utterly overwhelming sense of shame is when I was doing the Masters. There is a part of me that knows that I'm not stupid, but there is also a part of me that fears failure - the annihilating fear of being shown to be what I think I am inside, average.

I had determined to do one subject at a time. Each subject is 12 weeks long with plenty of work to get done and then the next subject starts immediately the next week. Still, I'd be traveling along all right and I thought I'd enroll for two subjects concurrently.

There reached a moment when panic set in. How was I going to keep the high marks rolling in at the faster pace? I pulled up a tutor's email and explained I'd have to drop out of her subject. She replied to say that there was absolutely no need. I was going along beautifully at a high standard and just keep going, not far to go now. The option to fail/hide/run away was taken away from me.

In fact, when the comments came back for the piece of writing I submitted towards a prospective novel she wrote, 'I'm sure your work will be published soon.' I didn't even let it wash over me and I still have not. I felt I must have conned her in some way, though I don't quite know how I would have done that.

There is no doubt that I am my harshest critic. It is a simple statement of fact that I am an introvert and don't really have the mental energy or desire for a career or full time work. I loved my work last week at the school but the thought of having to do it all over again the next day would not have been a happy thought. I use up a lot of resources to be around people, giving to people. I adore it but then afterward I need to spend time alone.

Writing is ideal because I can do that alone and then go out and be with the world when that is done. I can be quite hungry to interact with the world when I have had sufficient time alone. But, I struggle to believe that I have any ability, though I do have glimpses of feeling good about my work.

I can't deny that the shame sits in my bones, still. There is no-one in my family who wants me to work or expects me to work, except my mother who thinks I'd have fun working in a dress shop. Nope. I actually wouldn't enjoy that.

Another example of feeling shame is when someone doesn't stand up for herself/himself. This is a long and old story. I have assumed the Caretaker role in a number of capacities over my life. Whilst on some level it felt comfortable to do so, I did know deep down that it caused me deeply distressing feelings of shame. There's damage there, it's undeniable and obvious to me now, with unhealed wounds. I am working on it, working specifically with this element of shame, cognizant that  people who suffer with narcissistic tendencies have enveloped me through the years. I'm investigating this. It's two steps forward and one step back, but much progress is being made.

Margaret Fjelstad, a therapist who works with people who have taken on the Caretaker role such as myself writes, 'Letting go of shame happens simultaneously as you learn to care for and value yourself. When you come to the decision that you are the real judge of your life and that you belong on this earth as much as anyone else, you will find that you no longer feel there is something wrong with you..."

I look forward to that day.

Loneliness

When we harbour an emotional pain, especially one that we have carried from childhood, there can be glimpses of that old feeling in what appears to be random moments. I've glimpsed my childhood loneliness in moments of stillness early in the evening when it is time to close the curtains in my bedroom. The sense of loneliness comes to me for an instant, a returning shadow. There is a feeling of heaviness, like a weight or anchor is holding me to the spot. I acknowledge its presence, the moment moves on into the next moment. I get on with my evening tasks and the feeling goes away. I've had a vague sense of understanding of these moments of hurt over time but I haven't dwelled on them. We tend not to do that. It's called denial.

As uplifting as the vast majority of my experiences have been in a power exchange, I have experienced moments of what I will call 'loneliness' through that connection also. In some acute way a particular experience, or just words, would tap into a deep emotional pain that made me want to run from the dynamic and end the pain. Eventually - a minute, an hour, a day, or a week later - the feeling would pass and I'd realize that I couldn't run from it, needed it. There was nothing else to do but to return the pain to its deep recesses in my mind and to hope that it didn't return; to attempt to mitigate the possibility of those same scenarios playing out in the same way.

For the past few months those feelings of what I am going to call 'loneliness' returned repetitively, almost to a point where they were with me more than they were absent. I can only guess that my mind had reached a point where it was ready to interrogate the feeling.

I read voraciously online and I had a stroke of good luck. I came across two reputable therapists of long standing who had written books about this word that kept speaking to me - co-dependency - and I sent for both of them.

Co-dependency, I have learned, is a symptom of trauma. No-one intends these traumas but not everyone is designed for parenthood and, unfortunately, all children have the same needs, regardless of the quality of the parenting style. In the face of a narcissistic parent, a parent who needs to feel special in their own way, children must determine a way to cope. My way of coping was to be good, quiet, no trouble; to keep my feelings to myself; to provide the space and caring they needed, whilst not getting the care I needed.  This is nobodies fault. It is just the way it played out.

Sensing that there is something significant about these moments of 'loneliness' I intentionally explored my experiences for an explanation. I have been surrounded by family all my adult life, and their friends, who love/like me very much. I've the opportunity to see my friends and acquaintances when I choose and those friendships are warm. I am not alone, and still I was feeling deep loneliness.

Of course, it is the quality of the connections you make that factors into a sense of loneliness or not. A couple of years ago now I had a single session with a healer type of person and I remember now that he said to me 'You don't give anybody all of you, do you?' My response was immediate, 'No, I don't.' I knew that deep in my bones, but I didn't know why. I didn't know that I carried shame (is 'shame' the right word...?)  that needed to be hidden, even from myself.

When a co-dependent meets someone who has also suffered a similar sort of childhood trauma (e.g. neglect or conditional love only), a dominant type of person, the sense of comfort and arousal is immense. The pull towards him is magnetic. The force field is as strong as an addict towards his drug of choice. The experience can be electrifying and joyous. But, for someone like me that power dynamic can also result in a sense of isolation for a number of reasons.

It is often said by a submissive or a dominant that the other "completes" them. But, what if you have two underdeveloped people - two half-people that need each other to make one complete person? It is only when there are two individuated people that there can be one healthy relationship.

If I am correct in this analysis, then I have no alternative but to address the co-dependency, for as much as I love power exchange so much of the time, the low times are overwhelming for me.

So, how does one heal from this dilemma left over from childhood experiences; from core needs not being met? My reading says the answer lies in self-love. As I come to understand the problematic issues that can relate to the power exchange dynamic and that have affected my life, I feel stronger.

Justice

I have a strong tendency to give people the benefit of the doubt. Even if they have done the wrong thing, I am not inclined to want them to suffer. I tend to think that there were extenuating circumstances or that maybe they were bullied on the schoolyard or that they don’t feel loved, to name just a few reasons why I don’t have black and white feelings about ‘justice’.

It is probably a good thing that I did not become a teacher, or a prosecutor or a judge or any such person who had to make the hard decisions about people’s behaviour. Prison movies freak me out and stories like ‘Oranges and Sunshine’ are not for me.

Yet, I have craved a situation where someone has the right to judge me – to direct me and order me; to discipline and punish me for even the most minor acts of disobedience. I have desired and made myself vulnerable to the sort of treatment that I could never inflict on another human being.

I never stop wondering why this is the case. I find it endlessly baffling that I should judge myself a success or failure according to how completely I am able to submit to another human being’s version of what I should do and how I should do it.

It embarrasses me to type that when I succeed in obeying completely I feel elevated and a success and when I don’t succeed in obeying completely I feel desolate and an abject failure – so despairing of my own disobedience that it can lead to a type of temporary paralysis and depression.

But, I know I am a decent person. I never break the law and I care for other people. I work hard and do what I can to help people in all sorts of ways. I try to be virtuous and to improve myself. I just don’t understand why I take the ability or inability to submit so darn seriously.

I recognize that life should be made up of a healthy dose of fun and there is much that is fun and arousing in submission. Surely we would not do it if there wasn’t some fun and arousal to be had.

Yet, the state of a submissive is that sometimes there is negative emotion to be dealt with – anger or at least frustration, upset, embarrassment and shame, along with accompanying feelings of regret and insecurity if we feel that we have not risen to expectations.

In fact, we accept punishment readily and even thankfully when a submissive such as me could never consider treating another human being in such a way.

I sometimes sit with myself and silently ask myself, “What are you doing?” Why am I tougher on myself than I could ever be on anyone else and why do I crave to be treated in such a way that will ultimately mean that I will judge myself so harshly – a “failed” submissive, potentially?

I have not the slightest clue but if you do, please don’t hesitate to enlighten me.

Primal thoughts

‘We are the prisoners of our genes.’ I have heard this statement many times since it was a favourite statement of someone I knew rather well. It is true. Some things about us are set in stone; preordained. We have a childhood and that adds a whole new layer of complexity. By the time we have become adults we are extraordinarily complex. Those people who blog and read here are particularly complex people, I suspect.

I love complex people. I was not a big game or crossword puzzle sort of child but now that I’m as grown up as I’m likely to be, I love games and I love puzzles. It is quite extraordinary how clever we are in keeping ourselves safe and well. As people who give and receive love in a slightly different way to the norm we try hard to make sense of what comes naturally to us but seems unnatural to others. We seek to understand.

We are in need of translating our thoughts. We tend to be people with a strong connection to thoughts that are primal; thoughts that occur within us in spite of civilization. If it is true that a man’s primal thought is to penetrate women; to capture them, then maybe it is true that a woman’s primal thought is to be taken by men; captured.

We grow up in systems: school, family, religious and community systems where we accept or reject a number of values and beliefs that may make our primal thoughts unacceptable to us. We must adapt. We adapt by translating our thoughts into some new schema that makes it possible for us to function with a sense that we are being true to ourselves and acceptable to society and our own values.

In this way, I find complex people such as you find here on the blogs very clever. Innately we know at some point in our lives that we have no choice but to accept ourselves and be true to ourselves and we do what we can to achieve that end. If the unconscious mind does not fit societal norms what can we do? We sublimate our thoughts. We find a conceptual substitute. This is highly adaptive. This is the survival instinct at work.

As clever as it may be, it is frightening too. Unlike those whose conscious mind and unconscious mind are a good fit, some of us may struggle with these variances. We want to be good. We don’t mean to cause anyone any trouble.

For many generations people similar to us must have been very torn, keeping these thoughts to themselves. Without the sorts of opportunities we have to find new schemas, perhaps on the Internet, they may well have lived their lives beseeched by the demons in their mind. Perhaps some of these people are responsible for the greatest writing:the poems and the novels we so admire. Their chosen schema was their writing. I wonder about this.

For some of us the sexual impulse is strong and for some of us the sexual impulse is almost overwhelming. Perhaps the strength of the primal urge dictates the translation and various obsessions. In any case, such translations and obsessions seem to me a healthy way to experience the feelings we have in a relatively safe way.

From personal experience, I know that one can feel guilty even about the translation let alone the primal thoughts. Even the translation can be out of line with societal expectation: the good mother, the good wife. At such times I must forcibly remind myself this is why I have made the translation: so that I can be everything to everyone, including myself. This requires diligence and good management. At heart and in practise, it is a good thing.

Training the doll

It occurred to me recently that I have never really written directly about what my time in training as ‘the doll’ has been like. I’ve written as ‘cindi’ so you know something about what I experience. However, I don’t think I have said much at all about what the training has meant to me. It has meant a great deal; changed and altered me in ways I could never have imagined at the outset. It sustains me; fulfils me; consoles and comforts me; allows me to sink into my alter ego in a way that provides me with sustenance and energy. It has been the greatest of gifts in my life and this post is my attempt to explain that process.

From the outset, I was given limits and boundaries; contained. I was told that the only appropriate way for a doll to talk was in the third person. This seemed relatively natural to me from the outset and very soon, completely natural. Over time, words such as “are” ,” is” and “am” were denied. It took a few days for me to get the hang of it but I never for a moment rejected the idea. At least, I have no memory whatsoever of a rebellious thought towards the limit imposed.

There is one day when the limit was new that stands out in my memory where I was making mistake after mistake and eventually he had had enough of it. I earned myself 100 lines and was told immediately after completing the lines that I was to type the first thing that entered my head. I was truly ashamed to discover that I had made another mistake and that sense of shame stayed with me for a long time. I vowed never to do it again, and whilst I must surely have made the odd error over the next few weeks, I accepted my limit into my heart and embraced it as the way I would always speak with him.

There have been fleeting moments, I admit, when I have thought how wonderfully bold it would be to write across the page, “IS IS IS IS IS IS” but I know in my heart that this word is not for the doll, and the victory would be so short, and the consequences so uncomfortable for me, that I have never done this and never will do this. I speak the language of the doll happily.

As well as speaking in the third person and without the words associated with identity (for example, “I am”), I speak not English but ‘bimbo speeki'. I don’t use the spelling of the English language but rather the spelling that comes (cumz) naturally if one had never been schooled. I am free to express myself in a way such that the rules of language and spelling had never been imposed on me.

All put together, my form of communication is very liberating and immediately places me in my dolly headspace. It is anything but a chore; anything but an imposition; anything but insulting to me. It is the language I use to enable me to feel free; liberated. It is my window into the soul of a sexual, hungry, single minded being whose desire is to please and serve; to express her sexual energy and her understanding of her role; her purpose; her place.

My desire to live more as ‘the doll’ and to experience the mindset of the doll was made more possible with physical limits. I was instructed to get a set of acrylic French nails. Eventually, I was told to make them longer – one centimetre. I initially failed to comply and found myself staring straight into his resolve to be obeyed. Unless I complied there was nothing else to talk about. I returned to the salon and started again from scratch.

I adore my nails and on the odd occasion when one is broken (usually due to my loss of focus on the limits of a doll) I feel wretched until it is fixed. The nails contain me in a number of ways. Most importantly, they slow me down. I must cautiously open a drawer to get out a pot, for example. I must consider how I might attend to a chore or if I can pick up something heavy with one hand or two. I must take my nails into consideration at all times. I hear the clickety clack of them as I type right now. I notice them as I gesture to talk to someone or as I move in Pilates class and place them carefully on the floor as I bend. They are as natural to me as if I was born with them and I simply cannot consider living without them. They are the hands of the doll.

The attire of the doll was considered. I have always been a fairly conventional girl. As I look back on my working life in an office, pants were never for me. As a PA, I considered it my role to look a certain way and skirts and dresses were always my choice. But, away from a corporate role, I had wandered into dressing casually in jeans and pants more than was necessary.

In my headspace as a doll, pants felt no more right to me than they did in the office and my choice is nearly always a dress or a skirt and top/shirt. There are times when pants are worn. I don’t deny that. But, those days are very rare and they have a purpose to them. New items of clothing are carefully considered and the question in my mind is ‘Does this outfit make me feel like the doll?’

The doll is not overindulged and thus a great many items in my wardrobe were given away. They needed to be appropriate and pretty. There was no reason for the doll to have a wardrobe overflowing with garments and I learned to appreciate the value of less items, well organized. This pleases me enormously and keeps the doll ever present.

Whilst the limits of language, nails and dress were vital, I think the most significant lesson and limit of all for the doll has been behaviour modification. I don’t say this lightly for it has also been the hardest limit to embrace.

I am, generally speaking, a polite individual. I treat people with respect when I speak to them and I am a ‘live and let live’ sort of person, but my behaviour required modification to reach the high standards required of a doll. Most importantly, I allowed my emotions to get the better of me. Hurt feelings, anger, a sense that I was being put down, all played into inappropriate responses.

To give an example or two of this, one time I was hurt by a comment and before I knew what had happened I responded with sarcasm. I was told to go away and think about my response and I remember an acute sense of confusion that I should be abandoned at a time when I felt hurt. On another occasion, I was stung by words that I thought related to me and I fired off an email expressing my hurt feelings and confusion.

It took time for me to learn to slow my responses down; to think about them and try to deal with them myself and make sense of them; to not allow my emotions to bleed all over the page. I learned to ask to speak to him to clarify a statement. I learned to open my mind to see matters from his perspective. I learned to trust. I learned to give over control and to stop trying to control (though that lesson is an ongoing one, for sure).

Of course, much of this training occurred by way of a special limit. I was introduced to anal training almost from the outset and discovered its benefits almost immediately. But eventually, the directive was to use my plug more than I did not – every night and part of every day. This was a limit I found that pushed me to the brink of rebellion and sometimes headlong into war. Yes, the benefits were undeniable and the doll present, but the command challenged my ego profoundly. ("Cindi tinki she 2 speshel 4 dis rule.") I would comply for long stretches only to use some excuse or other to take liberties for a day; sometimes longer. I would eventually confess. The aberration would be discussed; often punished by way of denial. For a doll, this has great meaning.

Over time, I would come to see that this way of life was right for me; that it brought me peace, fulfilment and sexual pleasure and that the need to rebel had become redundant. In fact, the doll required bigger, more challenging plugs. Over time, it became apparent that the doll and I were interchangeable and that to deny what helped and nurtured was to be stubborn and appear to self-harm. Ultimately I accepted that for as often as possible, to live as the doll was to live in harmony with my true nature.

Are there moments when I wish I could discuss with him something relating to my everyday life? Of course! We were friends before I was the doll and he, the trainer. Yet, I have come to see that this time when I may only speak with him as the doll is the greatest of gifts and much more significant and valuable than any other conversation could ever be.

In any case, I have learned that as the doll, I may ask questions or ask to discuss a topic that might be bothering me in ways that allow free expression of a sort. Good behaviour, politeness and a show of care, kindness and consideration are all rewarded in their own way. Most importantly, there is a sense of continuity, of trust, of deep and abiding friendship and respect for one another’s lives as individuals and as partners of two highly (and separate) successful marriages that is extraordinarily rare, I think; perhaps unique.

My training as a doll has brought and continues to bring me great happiness, fulfilment and succour. It has relieved me of bad habits and behaviour which held me back in my marriage to a darling but demanding man and given me limits and boundaries which keep me feeling safe and nurtured. It has encouraged kindness and in return provided me with the kindness of others. It has shown me how to live according to my nature and my needs and has fulfilled and transformed me in ways I could never have imagined. My marriage is better; my life is richer; I am softer and much more fulfilled; content.

I look forward to new challenges. Dolls need challenges. Complacency is not for them and so the road will never be entirely easy but nor will it ever be (God willing) without the care, consideration and thoughtfulness of a dominant man. The doll’s trust, obedience and kindness makes for the completion of the dynamic that is a special kind of love; a spiritual connection that goes to the heart of all that is good. Dreams really do come true for good dolls.