stella41b
Posts: 4258
Joined: 10/16/2007
From: SW London (UK)
Status: offline
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This was how I was raised by my parents together with emotional manipulation and emotional control, beatings and neglect. I have spent over 30 years trapped not just in a body that I neither need or want, but prevented from finding out who I really am or what I'm about through my own fears, apprehensions and lack of any sense of self.
I started transitioning or trying to transition through the gender reassignment process in 1998, and that transition continues.. but it's the after effects of the above which are still hampering me and holding me back and which today, as I write these words I am still dealing with. Was I ever loved by my parents? I don't know, and never will because they are both now dead. The concept of thinking that I could ever be someone who is loved is a recent one, it came from my years of success in Polish theatre, and I am working towards that same success as me, Stella. Yes, there were people in the past who told me that they loved me, but it wasn't me they loved, but the image of me that I presented. The real me was always hidden deep inside me, and there was a time when lying, cheating, miseleading, keeping secrets and deceiving was a better way for me to be in a relationship. But you cannot have or even hope to enjoy any relationship which isn't based on honesty, truth, and openness.
This explains why I have always been a service submissive, and it is these relationships in which I could be Stella, open, honest, myself, which were the ones which were more successful. There was never any love of the common kind in these relationships because I never asked for it, and I never believed or understood that I could ever be worthy of someone's most treasured feelings. Even today people tell me how brilliant and wonderful I am, how warm, caring, talented, but there are some days when I just cannot believe them, and these are the loneliest days of all.
And all through, all through those years I have carried so much anger, so much bitterness, so much frustration, so much resentment, seething and caustic, burning deep within. And way back I have done things and committed acts of abuse, been emotionally manipulative, and have responded to people much in the same way as my parents responded to me. And knowing this and seing what I was doing to other people hurt me, it cut me right to the bone, because all I have ever wanted in life is to find myself and be myself, and to be accepted, understood, respected and loved.
To me my views here are very clear.. not only can there be no place for abuse in BDSM, but there can be no place for anger either. Anger is the most destructive and traumatic of human weaknesses, together with bitterness, and the only children of these two parents are fear, hatred and conflict. However anger comes itself from fear, and what is fear? Fear is nothing than an emotional reaction to what is not known and not understood.
However you can pick any emotion or feeling, anything you can feel, anything you can think, anything you can express, it can be love, hatred, anger, warmth, kindness, apathy, sadness, whatever it doesn't matter, for any emotion or feeling can be either positive or negative based on the choice of intent and energy used to express that feeling, thought or emotion. This is the first and most fundamental principle of magic, as stated in the Qabala of Alastair Crowleigh, in that the energy you project out from you is the energy you get back.
BDSM and WIITWD both require interaction between people, it has much to do with the energy flow between people, and I associate that energy of BDSM and WIITWD to be positive energy. However in order to be able to project out and transmit that positive energy you need to have discipline and control of your own mind and body, and to be able to control your own mind over your body, 'mind over matter' as it were. On the basis of this reasoning I base my view that there is no place for anger within BDSM or WIITWD. None at all. This is why the 'D' in BDSM stands for discipline.
Anger is negative energy where passion is positive energy, resentment can become drive and determination, and any destructive or negative emotion or feeling can easily become constructive or creative with the right intention and flow of positive energy. All you need to be able to do is to channel that energy, discipline your mind to focus, to conentrate, and to project that energy and channel it outwards.
My own way is to choose freedom, and that means freedom from attachments and possessions, material possessions, physical attachments, attachments to people, and so on. However in becoming free I also became responsible, and I understood that it wasn't my parents who had kept me in this situation, it was me. In choosing to accept this responsibility I was making a choice, in choosing freedom I was making a choice, and I realized that I could keep on making choices and these choices constitute my freedom.
Part of that freedom is freedom from having expectations from other people. I have taken on a very frugal, almost missionary type lifestyle, I accept that my life as a transgendered female is always going to be somewhat difficult, I accept that not everyone is going to understand me, accept me, but I also accept that this could be true not just because I happen to be transgendered, it could be for one of many other reasons.
This sense of freedom is very important to me, especially as I am in my early forties, and only just becoming myself in life. At least half of my life is already gone, or it might even be the case that almost all of my life has gone, who knows? All I know is that I have no more time to waste on anger, bitterness, personal conflicts, hatred, confrontations and playing the role of victim. I am not a victim, my past and my life has brought many benefits to my inner nature and character, I am no longer afraid, of anyone or anything, I am a survivor.
I live in the here and now, I cannot continue living in my past, because that only drags me down and the voices from the past have proven on many occasions that they can undermine my personal self-confidence and feelings of self-worth. I cannot live in the future, for to do so would be foolish. I can only live in the here and now, and what I do for others is unconditional, my kindness, my friendship and my love. It is that way because I am choosing to make it that way, and in helping others through this I am also helping myself.
But I am human, I am fallible, I make mistakes, I fail, but failure for me is just an attempt which hasn't been successful. I have the choice to try again, or to try something different.
To me, if you stop and think about it, anger is just a way of demanding attention and saying 'look at me, I'm hurting'. Okay... and? You see there is not one person here or alive today who hasn't been hurt, we have all suffered, we have all been afraid, we have all been deprived somewhere of something in our lives, we have all experienced loss, heartache, pain, and fear.
Personally I believe that the most powerful sentence in the English language is a short one of three words - I love you. Is there someone here who does not want to hear those words addressed to them? But if saying those words can have such an effect on someone, then what about the action, the gesture, that shows someone you love them and convinces them that they are loved? Is that not something which is very powerful? This is something comes from inside you, it costs nothing, and you are able to give as much of this to other people, as often as you wish. Is this not something which is very beautiful?
I am no different from any of you, no better, no worse, and I have that choice. So do you.
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