Therapy

I started therapy on Monday. It was...surprisingly good. Ok, the summary.

1) Talked about family stuff- just sort of the iceberg, and what I could think of. She responded in generally sympathetic ("It sounds like you had to grow up really fast.") and useful ways. ("So it sounds like what this has lead to is some calibration issues in your own relationships, not knowing how you're supposed to relate to people." Which is exactly right. I hadn't pinpointed that exact perspective, but that's exactly right.)

2) Talked about being poly. She didn't respond in a way that was spectacularly awesome, but neither did she respond in a way that was unhelpful or derogatory. Plus, I'm not really conflicted about poly. I think it's unequivocally awesome.

3) Talked about kink. Talked about being kinked for hypnosis, which led to interest in BDSM, and she had VERY RIGHT things to say about the relation (the relinquishing of power within certain boundaries, whether they are explicit or implicitly psychological) and even knew the word scene! WIN.

4) Talked about eating. She said she had some ideas. Great.

So all in all, it was very good. Then I went home, called a couple people before a date with T, because I had a fair amount of post-stressful-incident energy, so I called folks and got some of that out. Then I went to A and T's place, where T was still exercising and sat on the couch and read- and at some point some of the stuff, specifically what my therapist had pointed out about 'calibration issues' actually hit me. It wasn't profound stuff. It wasn't really new stuff. But it hit me like a ton of bricks. I actually think I got kind of lightheaded.

I just get so angry when I think about this shit that I've gone through. (Oh, and by the way, yes, there are people who have gone through far worse than I have. This is my version of bad. And since it's my blog, you don't get to demean my version of bad.) I didn't deserve it. I don't deserve to still be dealing with it.

I didn't deserve to lose my childhood at age 10.

I think that's what gets me worst. That precocious, trusting, nerdy, bubbly little girl- who would have had a rough enough time anyway- got hit with this shit, never got to properly grow up, never got to be who she could have been. Instead she ended up me. And hey, I like me. But I'm bruised and broken and callused and hard and stupid and stubborn and fragile and uncertain- and she might have been some of those things too. But maybe not all of them. And yes, maybe she'd have missed some of the great things I am- and no, there'll be no dramatic list of those because thinking about the positive things I am is way harder than thinking about the negative things I am- 

But y'know what? I wish I could know what that little girl might have grown up like in a whole family with a reasonably sane version of normal.

I wsh that little girl had gotten what she deserved.

Approval

I had a realization about approval-seeking the other day. I do it a fair amount, particularly in certain relationships. I want people to approve of what I'm doing, though I've never known what to think about that.

One of my best friends in the world is someone that I crave approval from- I want to know that she thinks I'm doing smart things. I have recently specifically avoided telling her about becoming poly, and have just recently realized why. I knew that I was avoiding it because she would not approve- or more accurately, because she would be concerned. I wasn't sure why this was so bad until I realized that, between her concern and my attention-seeking, telling her something that I knew would concern her put her in a position of power over me that I wasn't comfortable with. It's not that I think she'd abuse it, it's just that I don't want to give her that psychological power.

Interestingly enough, my female interest is also someone that I appear to naturally seek approval from. And someday, I'd be interested in giving her that power- explicitly- to do as she would with.

Kink

Still coming to terms with this 'having a kink' thing. I mean, at least on the surface, BDSM is not that hot to me. I think I would actually find it really hot and be really into it, but just hearing about it doesn't get me hot. I so much as read accounts of erotic hypnosis, bad hypnosis erotica, talk about the fundamentals of hypnosis, and I'm turned on.

So what gets me is not that something sexually non-normative is appealing to me. 'Appealing to me' means that I'd be open to it and doing it would get me hot. Sex, for instance, appeals to me, because it's fun and there are orgasms. Sex by itself doesn't get me hot. Hypnotism is straight up, bowl me over, no questions asked, an actual turn-on for me.

So let's think about this one for a bit: hypnotism is sexier to me than sex.

Is that even true? Will that last, will the idea get old, and not as exciting? Would the reality of hypnotism disappoint?

Also, how exactly does this tie into BDSM? In a D/s relationship, you're fundamentally offering service, regardless of whether you like it, by choice. Which seems good, seems like it could be very hot.

In hypnosis, at least in the ideal fairy world, you don't have control. Not only have you offered yourself to the other person, they have taken you completely. How amazingly, mind-fuckingly hot.

So, if I had to take a guess, I'd say that suggest pretty heavily that I'd enjoy holding up the sub end of a D/s relationship.

What would I want real erotic hypnosis to be like?

Well, I don't actually know that much about how hypnotism works. But first of all, I'd want my partner and I to go to a really brilliant hypnotherapist together and have the hypnotherapist teach my dom to hypnotize me. Cause seriously, don't fuck my brain if you don't know what you're doing.

Once some of those basics were established (that bit seems boring so I'll skip it.) we'd get on with the actual playing. First of all, I would want to be able to remember everything that happened with the playing. Cause doing ridiculous shit is so not worth it if I can't remember it from inside my head. Or at least as an out of body experience or something.

As for the actual playing, the possibilities are endless. Roleplaying with me as some character seems like it would be awesomely fun, or just scenes with me as myself. Ideally the in the roleplaying, I would just be totally convinced that I was that person. (That seems kind of potentially dangerous...put on the list of 'shit to ask hypnotherapist about.')

Which brings me to another interesting question: what about safewords and hypnosis? Would you need one? I hear that you can't do anything under hypnosis that you would be totally unwilling to do in real life, you'll just be less inhibited. That's fine by me. But what if a roleplaying scene gets too psychologically intense or something? (Like if we're doing a rape scene, I dunno.) How would a safeword work, or would I just snap out of it?

Any ideas from my small but awesome readership?

Hypno-kink

Apparently having a fetish about being hypnotized is an actual thing! I'd sort of come to terms with the fact that it was real for me, (around the same time as, and in fact as a catalyst for, exploration of D/s stuff.) but I didn't entirely realize it was real for other people.

I didn't let myself think about it too much until recently, but I've been turned on by hypnosis since I was...well, since watching some episode of that stupid Aladin TV series. (Princess Jasmine, hypnotized by Jafar, the rest is history.) Are you even allowed to have sexual feelings at that age? Maybe it was more a fascination then, which translated more or less seamlessly into sexual feelings. (I recall being incredibly turned on by that one scene in Into The Mouth of Madness...kind of an odd scene, actually.)


I've never had an honest-to-god, built in, kink before. *pets her kink*