Being Fully Myself (pt. 2)

I have figured out a way to do my fancy scarves with out putting too much stress on my hair (which was making it begin to thin in places). I have a snood underneath the scarf instead of tying my hair up into a ponytail or attempting a bun. Theoretically, that'll reduce the stress on my hair. So far, this is comfortable and not really moving much. I like the crown style because it feels like my head is getting a hug. It helps ground me and it looks good on me. I had to fold my black and brown pashmina down by 1/3 because my head is small but it worked out alright in the end. You can see my ribbon choker in better detail in this pic. That big, faceted glass heart is a real statement piece on this ribbon. 

I'm going to be wearing my fancy scarves again, because I like how they feel and how they look. I'm going to see how I can mix colors with the black look. I think it would be cool to accomplish getting that shiny magenta scarf to work with my jet black pashmina. It'll be tricky though. But, as I said in my last post, the opinions of others doesn't count unless they're important in my life. 

I am working on not censoring myself in speech as much as I am working on allowing myself to dress in what makes me comfortable and feel happy. Obviously, I have to limit vulgarity because I have two kids who are trying to figure out how to get away with it at school. It's not school appropriate language, so I am being creative in my work arounds. Or I am just refraining all together. I have been putting off doing my therapy journal work where this new effort to stop censoring myself is vital. I've been anxious about what my brain is trying to get out. I've been feeling like there's some kind of trauma memory coming to the surface and it is making me uneasy. Trauma memories are not easy to deal with or to work through.

I have decided that I am going to start writing in my off-line journals about my sexuality and trying to make sense of what it is that I truly desire. I have this problem that arousal makes my ability to speak go tilt and language just doesn't work right for me. Beloved finds some entertainment in this, so it's not all bad. It is, however, a real difficult thing to communicate what I want when I get like that. So, I am going to take the journal/scrapbook that I started about five years ago (and then abandoned) and I'm going to start writing about things that I enjoy and such. I may start posting erotica again on my erotica blog. It was a project that I started for a potential poly-partner that got weird about the time that potential partner move out west and deities started making their presence known in my life.

I'm a sexually submissive person that really enjoys objectification. I didn't realize how much I enjoyed it until the last few years. It confuses me that people think I'm switch. Beloved explained that people can be dominant in one setting and submissive in another setting. When he phrased it that way, it made a bit more sense. I mean, if you're looking for someone to drop kick you into doing what's healthy for you, I can do that. If you're looking for someone to take control in the bedroom, I really am bad at that. We've attempted that a few time and the failures were hilarious. We still chuckle over how I just can't top. He's made jokes about it. It's still funny.

I have come to realize that vanilla sex is excessively triggering for me, aside from being pretty much the polar opposite of what gets me off. I was feeling badly about this and like there was something wrong with me. Then, I thought about it, every time I was sexually assaulted, it was more or less vanilla sex that my assailant was after. Kink is my refuge and safe place from those memories. It is where I can put aside the stress of the day from being in charge of a household and just let Beloved take control of the situation. It's a relief for me to do that (aside from really exciting) because it makes for one less thing to worry about. When we were attempting to be more vanilla in our approach to sex, it was a disaster. I wasn't having flashbacks  left and right because Beloved knows what my triggers are in physical contact, but arousal was a problem for me. I found myself having emotional flashbacks later and feeling depressed. It was just awful. For a little bit, it was looking like we were damned to sexual frustration and something akin to celibacy.

Then we decided to go back to what worked for us in the past. While we couldn't play as hard as we did in the past, sex improved in direct proportion the more we moved away from what resembled vanilla sex. We're still figuring out how to make things work with the fact that the kids can sorta hear what's going on because that wall between their room and ours is the one thin one in this stupid building. It feels like we're relearning how to approach kink. As Beloved said, "We're going to do science." It is challenging because our sexual appetites are not completely in synch and I still have problems with masturbation (it triggers my ptsd for a few reasons that are a bit too gross to get into here). I think, however, that we're going to figure this out and make a way to have a more active and healthier sex life. I know that some people would be horrified by what we're into (which isn't why I'm going into more detail) and that is part of the reason why I can't wear the collar all the time. 

Still, we're finding ways to make this work and we're working together to do that. That's reassuring for me because I have a lot of emotional issues surrounding sex, still. I'm angry and sad that I still get triggered because of the sexual assaults that happened to me. There are things that I want to do that I struggle with or just can't do because of what was done to me. It's not fair and I hate that I'm like this. It makes me feel like I'm broken. Beloved pointedly reminds me that I am not broken, I am injured and healing from a grievous one at that. He regularly says that I need to stop trying to run on a broken leg when I get frustrated and try to force myself to do things that are hard for me. It's a gentle reproach, but it makes it real clear that he's not going to tolerate my putting myself into a position where I can injure myself more.

The D/s side of our relationship is a bit more complex and complicated than it used to be. At the same time, I am finding it immensely comforting and helpful when he just cuts through the chaos I have surrounded myself with it tells me what needs to happen next. I tend to get sensory overload and then have executive functioning issues (like I get a little panicky about ordering from an unfamiliar menu because choice overload and I have to ask him for help on it). We both know it's a direct result of trauma that I'm still working on processing. Growing up in a household where every choice you made was deemed the wrong choice tends to make choices of just about any sort scary. Having someone I can turn to and ask for help making them is a big deal. And that just kinda naturally had worked its way into our kink. He doesn't order me around and micromanage my day, but he does push me in the directions that I need to go to be healthy. And he makes a point of praising me when I do accomplish things that make me healthier on my own and in response to his pressure.

I don't know if you could call it a 24/7 D/s thing. I don't know how to describe it. I just know that when my executive functioning goes to shit and my anxiety spikes, he firmly puts me back into my place and keeps me there until I have calmed down. It's like we're living the joke of the submissive saying to their dominant person, "I'll do anything for you." and the dominant person starts listing off things like 'drink more water, eat healthier, get some exercise, brush your teeth' and the submissive person goes 'wait, not like that!'