... to her 15 year old daughter who has explained that when she gets stressed she self-harms?
Haven't posted in a while but thought I'd write this in the hope that some of my old blog readers might have some idea about what to say or do.
My middle daughter is having some serious problems at the moment with self -esteem and her boyfriend's drug problem and she has confessed to me that she has used a razor to cut herself as it helps her to cope with the "pain" of all that stress. She is the one with ADHD so already has a lot to cope with in addition to all the s**t to do with her father.
I was, to put it mildly, horrified, my "baby" is self-harming. Of course I went into overdrive telling her that this is not a good thing and can be dangerous and that she needs to talk to someone about it, get some serious help, but all the time I was feeling hypocritical. How can I get angry with her for doing something "so stupid/dangerous" when I use pain in the same way. For me getting spanked/tortured etc is the only time when I am able to "tune out" the major stress in my life and to "turn off" my brain, or at least to slow it down to a level that I can cope with. Why shouldn't she "need" something similar?
What should I do, other than getting her a therapist pdq (pretty damn quick) that is? Anyone had any experience of this, I am out of my depth here?
Thanks
Hil
15/06/2009
20/02/2009
The End, or is it the Beginning ...
Hello All
Apologies to those who used to read me before, I've been away a long while. I'd like to claim that it is because work is hectic, which it is, or that the kids are hectic, which indeed they are, but the truth is that the real reason I have been away is that I have felt that I did not really have anything worthwhile to say.
This blog was all about the search to find myself, well that is not how it started (as those who have read it over the last year know), but it was what it fast turned in to, starting with domestic discipline, moving through to BDSM and latterly my coming to terms with understanding and accepting myself as I am, a masochist and submissive.
And I suppose in a mad kind of way I have not felt the need to blog any more because I seem finally to have found myself, and accepted me, warts and all and rather than write about it all I would rather actually live it.
I mentioned this to Andrew, who has been true to his word and has stayed in touch to continue to act as a male role model to my children, and he suggested that I really ought to "round off" the blog rather than leave it hanging so this is my attempt to do so. I am not saying that I will never write anything more here, but for now I do not plan to.
As to the actually living it bit, as I hinted before Christmas, but did not elaborate upon out of deference to Andrew's feelings (but as he has found someone new I think it is OK to "publish" this information) I have found my Dominant Sadist, the man I now call Master (well I do some of the time, the rest of the time I call him Dave!).
Over the last year I have "wasted" a considerable amount of time endlessly questioning, analysing and agonising over this "weird, kinky lunatic" side of me which has emerged from the deep. The submissive, masochist who "loves" to be controlled and spanked and needs pain. Well Dave has been instrumental in helping me to move past the "requirements analysis phase" into the "implementation phase" or is that "routine operation phase" proper, and to finally really accept this part of me, to stop fighting it and to just get on with living it.
I need the dynamic of having someone else in control, to tell me what to do, I do not understand why, I just do. For instance, why I cannot be "good" to myself, exercise regularly and not eat chocolate I do not know, but the truth is, I cannot, I have some need to "punish" myself for some unknown reason by not doing things I enjoy, like running, or doing things that are actively bad for me, like eating sugary stuff. But , when Dave tells me that I am to exercise regularly and not to eat chocolate, I do it. I am not saying it isn't hard, especially when you are a serious chocoholic, but it just works. If he sets the rules I can follow them, punkt (as they say here), full stop!
When I did fail recently, and, after a stressful day fighting my mother's computer gave in to my sugar cravings and ate a couple of biscuits and an After Eight or two, I was so upset, not as I was frightened about what he might "do", because I knew he would not be angry, but rather would be disappointed in me and I would prefer to 'cut off my right arm' rather than have him disappointed or displeased with me.
My mother was telling me recently that even as a small child I was always spending my pocket money to buy presents for other people and that (having just bought my sister a computer) it seems that I had not lost this habit. I told her that this was because I have always had this really deep seated need to please, to make people happy, even if it makes me unhappy, even deeply unhappy.
I still clearly have this need and doing things to make Dave happy makes me happy (even when it hurts or I don't like it) whether it is running, eschewing all forms of chocolate, being flogged or caned or making him a coffee, if he is pleased with me then I am in seventh heaven. In fact I'd do anything just to hear him say, "good girl". Yet if anyone else said those two words to me I'd bite the head off the patronising git!
I also need pain. Pain is my way of tuning out life and de-stressing. Why? Again I don't know, it just is and now I have accepted that it does not matter.
With Andrew I would often break the rules and misbehave to make him spank me, to give me that "bit". He did not like the inflicting of pain at all. With Dave, he spanks me because he likes to spank and because he knows I need it (and like it too, well some of the time as long as he does not use that damned loopy johnny from Leatherthorn paddles, how I hate/love that thing!). He also enjoys other forms of inflicting pain, and so I am also learning to enjoy the delicious art of sexual torture too.
It is strange mixing spanking and sex, I have always, perhaps artificially kept them separate, spanking being for discipline not for fun. But I am learning that they can mix, and mix quite well!
I have always felt extremely inadequate in the bedroom, mostly because for more than 10 years I was married to someone who firstly knew nothing about sex and secondly refused to talk about the subject as he found it embarrassing, unless of course he was drunk and was thus incapable. Being a submissive at heart made it extremely uncomfortable for me to talk to him about what he would like me to do or what I'd like him to do so I suffered in silence. With Andrew things were also a bit difficult because he did not really enjoy me pleasuring him and did not like to give me feedback on how I was doing so I became firmly convinced that I was unable to pleasure a man in bed. This did not really sit well with someone who has a high sex-drive as I do and I always seemed to feel dissatisfied.
Being with Dave has changed this completely, I know I'll not ever be really self-confident behind closed doors (or maybe open ones if that is what he wants) but my confidence really has increased. He has directed me from the start about what he likes, what I am to do and how I am to behave. Sure I can be creative and use my imagination but he sets down the ground rules and I operate within their boundaries. I have not had this much fun ever, even when I'm not allowed to play it is fun!
On a final note, and an unexpected one, this acceptance of me has had some interesting consequences on the work front. Dave asked me once, early on, if I found it difficult and tiring "Dom-ing" at work as this was clearly something that should make me uncomfortable.
Initially I thought, 'no of course not', but after some serious thought about the subject I realise that he was right. It takes serious mental effort to step out of my natural position and "Dom", and it makes me very tired, both emotionally and physically. I always used to blame myself for being inadequate or stupid when I could not "handle" something which I felt that I "should" be able to which just made the situation worse. Now I realise that this was just because my reactions were more sub-based than I realised. Well, now I know this I can devise strategies to cope with these situations. When you work in such a testosterone fuelled industry as I do these are inevitable and having some way of handling them is really useful and stopping beating myself up for being useless also makes a big difference. Positive energy is always better than negative.
So that is it, the end. It has taken a year or so but finally I have actually found what is actually the beginning of the path which I want to follow, the one that feels most "me". Sure there will be many bumps along the way, but this "me" feels much more able to meet these challenges head on.
Thanks for reading. I'll always answer e-mails.
Hil
xxx
Apologies to those who used to read me before, I've been away a long while. I'd like to claim that it is because work is hectic, which it is, or that the kids are hectic, which indeed they are, but the truth is that the real reason I have been away is that I have felt that I did not really have anything worthwhile to say.
This blog was all about the search to find myself, well that is not how it started (as those who have read it over the last year know), but it was what it fast turned in to, starting with domestic discipline, moving through to BDSM and latterly my coming to terms with understanding and accepting myself as I am, a masochist and submissive.
And I suppose in a mad kind of way I have not felt the need to blog any more because I seem finally to have found myself, and accepted me, warts and all and rather than write about it all I would rather actually live it.
I mentioned this to Andrew, who has been true to his word and has stayed in touch to continue to act as a male role model to my children, and he suggested that I really ought to "round off" the blog rather than leave it hanging so this is my attempt to do so. I am not saying that I will never write anything more here, but for now I do not plan to.
As to the actually living it bit, as I hinted before Christmas, but did not elaborate upon out of deference to Andrew's feelings (but as he has found someone new I think it is OK to "publish" this information) I have found my Dominant Sadist, the man I now call Master (well I do some of the time, the rest of the time I call him Dave!).
Over the last year I have "wasted" a considerable amount of time endlessly questioning, analysing and agonising over this "weird, kinky lunatic" side of me which has emerged from the deep. The submissive, masochist who "loves" to be controlled and spanked and needs pain. Well Dave has been instrumental in helping me to move past the "requirements analysis phase" into the "implementation phase" or is that "routine operation phase" proper, and to finally really accept this part of me, to stop fighting it and to just get on with living it.
I need the dynamic of having someone else in control, to tell me what to do, I do not understand why, I just do. For instance, why I cannot be "good" to myself, exercise regularly and not eat chocolate I do not know, but the truth is, I cannot, I have some need to "punish" myself for some unknown reason by not doing things I enjoy, like running, or doing things that are actively bad for me, like eating sugary stuff. But , when Dave tells me that I am to exercise regularly and not to eat chocolate, I do it. I am not saying it isn't hard, especially when you are a serious chocoholic, but it just works. If he sets the rules I can follow them, punkt (as they say here), full stop!
When I did fail recently, and, after a stressful day fighting my mother's computer gave in to my sugar cravings and ate a couple of biscuits and an After Eight or two, I was so upset, not as I was frightened about what he might "do", because I knew he would not be angry, but rather would be disappointed in me and I would prefer to 'cut off my right arm' rather than have him disappointed or displeased with me.
My mother was telling me recently that even as a small child I was always spending my pocket money to buy presents for other people and that (having just bought my sister a computer) it seems that I had not lost this habit. I told her that this was because I have always had this really deep seated need to please, to make people happy, even if it makes me unhappy, even deeply unhappy.
I still clearly have this need and doing things to make Dave happy makes me happy (even when it hurts or I don't like it) whether it is running, eschewing all forms of chocolate, being flogged or caned or making him a coffee, if he is pleased with me then I am in seventh heaven. In fact I'd do anything just to hear him say, "good girl". Yet if anyone else said those two words to me I'd bite the head off the patronising git!
I also need pain. Pain is my way of tuning out life and de-stressing. Why? Again I don't know, it just is and now I have accepted that it does not matter.
With Andrew I would often break the rules and misbehave to make him spank me, to give me that "bit". He did not like the inflicting of pain at all. With Dave, he spanks me because he likes to spank and because he knows I need it (and like it too, well some of the time as long as he does not use that damned loopy johnny from Leatherthorn paddles, how I hate/love that thing!). He also enjoys other forms of inflicting pain, and so I am also learning to enjoy the delicious art of sexual torture too.
It is strange mixing spanking and sex, I have always, perhaps artificially kept them separate, spanking being for discipline not for fun. But I am learning that they can mix, and mix quite well!
I have always felt extremely inadequate in the bedroom, mostly because for more than 10 years I was married to someone who firstly knew nothing about sex and secondly refused to talk about the subject as he found it embarrassing, unless of course he was drunk and was thus incapable. Being a submissive at heart made it extremely uncomfortable for me to talk to him about what he would like me to do or what I'd like him to do so I suffered in silence. With Andrew things were also a bit difficult because he did not really enjoy me pleasuring him and did not like to give me feedback on how I was doing so I became firmly convinced that I was unable to pleasure a man in bed. This did not really sit well with someone who has a high sex-drive as I do and I always seemed to feel dissatisfied.
Being with Dave has changed this completely, I know I'll not ever be really self-confident behind closed doors (or maybe open ones if that is what he wants) but my confidence really has increased. He has directed me from the start about what he likes, what I am to do and how I am to behave. Sure I can be creative and use my imagination but he sets down the ground rules and I operate within their boundaries. I have not had this much fun ever, even when I'm not allowed to play it is fun!
On a final note, and an unexpected one, this acceptance of me has had some interesting consequences on the work front. Dave asked me once, early on, if I found it difficult and tiring "Dom-ing" at work as this was clearly something that should make me uncomfortable.
Initially I thought, 'no of course not', but after some serious thought about the subject I realise that he was right. It takes serious mental effort to step out of my natural position and "Dom", and it makes me very tired, both emotionally and physically. I always used to blame myself for being inadequate or stupid when I could not "handle" something which I felt that I "should" be able to which just made the situation worse. Now I realise that this was just because my reactions were more sub-based than I realised. Well, now I know this I can devise strategies to cope with these situations. When you work in such a testosterone fuelled industry as I do these are inevitable and having some way of handling them is really useful and stopping beating myself up for being useless also makes a big difference. Positive energy is always better than negative.
So that is it, the end. It has taken a year or so but finally I have actually found what is actually the beginning of the path which I want to follow, the one that feels most "me". Sure there will be many bumps along the way, but this "me" feels much more able to meet these challenges head on.
Thanks for reading. I'll always answer e-mails.
Hil
xxx
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