Hello All!
In my never ceasing attempts to show you, the reader, how a dynamic can look in honest transparency, I am here once again.
As per usual, I ask you to suspend judgement within the contents of this space.
Let us consider together how to grow here. With insight. Compassion. Grace.
Amethyst has a horrible trauma around physical intimacy.
There.
I said it.
Nothing she likes to see. Certainly nothing she wants to admit to others.
It causes her, as one can imagine, to feel broken. Less than. Damaged. Fucked up. To make matters worse, her partner NEEDS intimacy. So she is constantly being pressed here. Uncomfortable. Awkward. Vulnerable.
In ways she does not want.
Oh, she wants to heal. Just in a bubble. Away from anyone else seeing or knowing.
Where she imagines discomfort will not exist.
The reasons for her trauma?
Every person in her past used her body to get off. They did not care one iota for how SHE felt. What she needed or wanted.
This deepened abandonment wounds.
Created a sort of disconnection between anything that looks like intimacy.
A shutting down of her heart. Where she just wished the space was over. She would endure because it is what she felt she must in order to have a relationship.
Today she knows with her head different. But the trauma plays out in her body. She closes down. Recoils. Can become emotionally distant. Has no desire for physical intimacy personally. It just activates old stories. Why re-traumatize ones self?
She has no idea what to do. How to make it different. How to grow here.
Neither do I........completely. I have no idea what will work for her growth. That's a nasty truth many dominants will not share with you. We are often at a loss. We can shotgun a circumstance with ideas.....that is not the same as knowing how to best serve you. Often, especially around emotionally charged situations.
What I DO know is, I love her. That has not disappeared because she has trauma. If I abandoned her because of her trauma I would have to abandon myself. Not only so, but the next person will have trauma too. Maybe not in the same way, sure. But I would get to navigate trauma regardless. No dynamic is without the challenges of vulnerability if we value trust, honesty, and transparency as bedrock foundational pieces to our connection.
I have believed, and heard reflected over and over,
'Love is not enough'.
While I do agree that a relationship needs more than what most define love as. My definition of love is possibly unique in the sense that I do not believe any of the other things a relationship needs exist without love.
I digress, the point is, what happens when you run up against a seemingly immovable object as a person and you yourself need that object to move for whatever reason?
Do we quit?
Pack our bags and say it is not a good fit?
Leave, because life is too short to be dissatisfied?
Is what our partner struggling with something harmful to themselves or us?
Are we selfish because we have our needs?
Where do our needs actually come from? Why are they there?
Is our need more important than our partners need to feel safe?
Is our need more important than our partners well being?
All things being equal, if our need is valid and their need is as well, which one gets honored if they are opposing needs? Theirs? Ours? Both? None?
Do we consider alternatives? Poly? Open relationship? Therapy?
Is the consideration of these things against our character? Does the integrity of who we are cease to be valid if we consider crossing our own boundaries?
How do we rectify a circumstance, that at the very worst, in the immediacy is not functioning healthily?
I have sat with each of these questions, and considered so many others. What I discovered is that the questions revealed one solid thing to me.
It matters, and I care. For myself, and for her.
I have gotten the opportunity to strengthen my own resolve around my needs. I have sat with and come to understand what my need is and why it exists. While there is a biological imperitive driven into every man to 'spred their seed', it is also true that it has evolved into more than that for me. It is the way I share my heart. It is the way I give. It is the moment I allow myself to be open, vulnerable, exposed to my partner. I share, unreservedly, unashamedly, all of me in that space.
To not have my partner meet me there as they are able is challenging to say the least!
Notice something I just expressed though.......'as they are able'.
I have also witnessed a way I have set myself up for a fulfilled prophecy of 'never being loved or met'. By having expectations that intimacy MUST look a certain way for it to be honest. No surprise then when I walk away feeling unseen. Unmet. Unloved. I was cock blocking myself from receiving it. I would not have gotten to see this if it had not been for this piece Amethyst and I get to navigate.
She is able as she can be in this moment. And any woman will tell you, some moments are easier or more intense than others. Sometimes presence is easy to achieve and other times the kids are down for a nap and any sound at the baby monitor keeps your focus elsewhere.
Trauma keeps us focused elsewhere. Scared. Believing something else is transpiring except what actually is.
Would my exit from the dynamic increase her likelihood of healing? Or would it create more trauma?
We can debate until the cows come home about my rights and her needs.
The point is......did I mean what I said when I placed a collar around her throat?
Am I responsible for her or not?
Sugarcoat it all you like behind reasons or excuses. I am either serious or I am not.
Either I care or I don't.
Yes, I can care from a distance.
Yes, my care of myself matters and should not go neglected, mostly from myself.
Query:
Can you both care for someone's need for consistent stability while they heal AND respect and reach for your needs?
Can you respect someone's trauma and choose yourself while simultaneously choosing the connection you both share?
I would say the answer is a resounding yes if two requirements are met.
1. The trauma response is not one of physical, emotional, mental harm to anyone or the connection as a whole. This is entirely subjective......if I had no emotional capacity to accept anothers trauma because it caused prolonged harm to me this requirement would then not be met.
2. All parties agree to respect where the other is, what they need, while also doing their honest best to heal. Including but not limited to open, uncomfortable, exposing communication around how each might feel with the continued caveat of respect.
Only an individual can answer whether their care means or includes being consistent with their word or character. My personal experience has been others are quick to give up because it is 'challenging'. Rather than face their own heart and the reasons for the fear that may be raising up in them it is simpler to walk away, not look at or face the resistance and go somewhere where the resistance is either less or fantastically 'does not exist'. IMHO no such place exists. Because the resistance one is facing is what is needed for their maturation.
Nonetheless, this is what a relationship can look like.
Facing fears.
Seeing the not-so-pretty pieces of ourselves.
How we can judge. How we do not want to see those unsavory pieces we believe we keep so well hidden.
How we can be so quick to give up on a connection because it presses on our own fears.
Anything worth having is worth fighting for.
If you knew you would make a million dollars a year if you stuck with something through thick and thin would you stay? Would there really be anything not worth it?
If the above questions causes you to find excuses or reasons that are not because of immoral, or out of integrity for you pieces, I would very much question whether you should ever be in a committed relationship. Let alone a BDSM dynamic.
Life is not perfect. Nothing comes pre-assembled when it comes to a person's emotional or mental welfare. Knowing this honesty will prepare you for the truth that effort, work, love will be required to propel any healthy connection. They don't just happen by accident. They are intentional.
As I said, it matters, and I care.
So long as it matters and Amethyst cares too there is nothing our connection cannot weather. Because we intend connection......even though we can feel scared in moments. Even though it may not look like we want it to all the time. Even if we fail ourselves and struggle.....we intend connection.
What seems to be dysfunction, or broken can actually be the very glue that builds you closer. If you allow it......if that is what you intend and mean.
A collar means nothing without purposeful follow through on intentions.
For all parties.
I hope you find your peace and focus today.
Namaste
Drago and Amethyst
12/1/2023
