NuevaVida
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Joined: 8/5/2008
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~ Fast Reply ~
I love this topic, tazzy, thanks for posting it. And I've enjoyed reading the replies. It's going to be hard but I'll try not to make my own reply too long winded.
Also, I wanted to say I really loved Rawni's post. Especially the last paragraph. That was beautiful.
My former marriage was not D/s, however I was very codependent then and he was very controlling/domineering. When I left him after nearly 20 years, I really didn't know who I was anymore, or what I liked, or even what the appropriate reaction/feelings were to certain things in life. So I was probably one of those people with deep issues that luci mentioned. You really can get to a point in life where you don't know what emotions to map to what events. I'm not talking about behaviors, I'm talking about emotions. But that's a whole other topic.
My next relationship was an M/s one, which lasted 4 years. I went into it at an awful time in my life, and he helped me map my emotions. So yes, in a way he did control my emotions. Because I had no personal foundation (and I don't recommend getting into a relationship without knowing yourself and having your own foundation first), he became my foundation. This took some time on his part, and call it TPE, call it brainwashing, call it Internal Enslavement, call it a mix of all three, call it fucked up, call it anything else, but he became my center. If I wasn't sure how to feel about something, he'd bring me to feel what he wanted me to. He had that level of control over me.
Toward the end, things weren't going well, and he wasn't able to control my emotions so much. I was depressed and angry a lot (induced by his actions), and when he couldn't re-map those emotions, he let me go (long story here not pertinent to this conversation). While we knew things were bad, I was in no way prepared to be dropped like that, especially the way he did it.
So in the blink of an eye, my center was gone. To say it was devastating is an understatement. Mostly I was in shock. I didn't know how to react to it. I didn't know what to think or feel. Hell, there were some moments when I just needed a dear friend (from these boards) to get on the phone and breathe with me, literally telling me, "Breathe in...ok now breathe out."
It wasn't the loss of structure for me that did me in. It was the loss of my center.
I did not come to the boards about this. I spoke only to those closest to me. They didn't give me any schpeal about sucking it up, or how I shouldn't have put myself in that position to begin with, or tell me to "just move on." They sat with me while I sobbed, and spent hours talking to me and listening to me as I worked through it.
So yeah, people really can be completely lost when an enslavement ends.
The thing I had going for me (in addition to the wonderful people in my life) was that I knew if I was going to get through this, I had to take ownership of myself back, and that's what I did. It's kind of a blur now but I'd say it was about a 3-4 month process, with lingering effects that lasted about a year or more.
I as an emotional masochist. Sexyred1 asked "If you are an emotional masochist, don't you enjoy it?" Um, no. My emotional masochism was certainly not tied to feeling like a dog dumped on the side of the road, not knowing which direction to turn. It was more tied to my feelings being hurt, or being defiled, but knowing I had a place to come back to (him). When my relationship ended, the only place I had to come back to was me, and I didn't know who that was, without him.
It's not a place I'll ever go again. I'm not even capable of going there again, for many reasons. But if I see someone post on the boards about a relationship ending and I sense they're even close to feeling what I felt then, I will compassionately advise them to take ownership of themselves back, and that forward movement might take baby steps. Usually I don't reply to those threads, but if I sense a real sense of feeling lost, then I advise what worked for me.
And it looks like I did get winded after all, but I felt like there were a lot of points in this thread I wanted to address.
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Live Simply. Love Generously. Care Deeply. Speak Kindly.
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RE: Loss of control - 
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Indeed! Both parties bear responsibility here. If you allow yourself to become so absolutely helpless that you can't function without another, you have deep issues that need to be addressed. Additionally, if you take someone into your life and actively groom/enable/encourage them to become so dependent on you that they cannot function if something happens to you, you're a shit 'cuz you could get hit by a bus, ya know, and then what? It takes mature, responsible adults to have healthy BDSM relationships (or any functional relationship, for that matter). Use some sense folks........luci
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