The Quivering Strawberry

It's one year since I started exploring kink, and I find myself at a crossroads. Crossroads are very familiar to me. 

Figs are finally in season in my country, which means they are cheaper. I was so incredibly excited to get some that I got double what I intended because I would like to keep them a bit longer. Figs are so delicate. The company that supplies my local produce retail company places their figs in cupcake casings and then in a small plastic container. I am fortunate to get ones that are firm this time. Last year, they were already getting bruised and a bit moldy. That day I decided to make jam when I realised that my figs were not going to last. I've been craving some natural jam lately, so I made a chia and fig jam. It was supposed to be sugarless, but then I mixed it with an artificial cherry jam. I am in my IDGAF era. 

I haven't made jam in a while. I don't know why. These past few months have been very weird and full of changes. On our last fruit haul, I got lots of berries, and I usually make jam with berries, but recently, I've been into smoothies since we have a blender again. The blender was one of the things that my mom could buy instead of changing our locks when her life was in danger. She can't even use it. I do. I appreciate it, though, because smoothies have been amazing. I feel satisfied, and enjoy the silence.

Yesterday I was passively listening to my TikTok while I was soaking my feet, and an audio of an excerpt from a book by Sylvia Plath started playing. I haven't heard this audio in months. I find it so interesting that it is appearing on my FYP again.  

I am working on a project that has a Narrative therapy exercise called the Tree of Life. It's a therapy tool that was created by a Zimbabwean psychologist, Ncazelo Ncube-Mlilo, to help children from traumatic backgrounds take control of their narrative. You draw a tree that represents your life, and from the root to the leaves, you map out your entire story, including origin, support system, values and hopes and dreams. The exercise is useful for everyone needing to do introspection. 

My entire project gathers inspiration from nature. It's inspired by my longing to go hiking again, using the experience of hiking as a metaphor for the journey of accomplishing goals. When I heard this analogy of the Fig Tree by Sylvia Plath, it felt so aligned. It has been one of my favorite quotes, I still haven't read the book though.

"I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet."

- Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

When the audio gets to the part "I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose." It reminds me so much of the times when the weight of my sadness would make my body feel as though I was sinking into the floor. That must have been rock bottom. If it wasn't, I don't want to feel what rock bottom actually is. I feel so much hope and a knowing that my life will get better, that I am destined for great things. I know that I am divinely guided and protected. Yet, I am still terrified.

For one week, M and I spoke about our future, and he told me everything that I wanted to hear. I had so much fear, but my love for him and my desperation to be with him made me believe that we could do anything. It felt like the future that I wanted was within reach, but it was fragile, and I could lose it at any point. There are so many blocks between us. I didn't feel worthy of this life. When we separated again, my goal was to focus on myself until I feel like a person worthy, not of him but of the life that I want. 

The reason why I never felt motivated to go after this life was that I never thought it was possible. As his influence is fading, I believe less and less that I will achieve my desired life. I find myself asking, what is the point of trying? For one week, I believed that anything was possible. This belief lingered longer than I expected. It's not that I feel hopeless, but I feel like I am in limbo. I know he is coming back to me, and I would hate to still be the same person that he separated from. That is unattractive. I know my life is going to be great, with or without him, but I don't want to live without him.

The following recently popped on my FYP, as I am feeling ready to truly let go and let fate do her thing.

“Love liberates. It doesn't bind. Love says, I love you. I love you if you're in China. I love you if you're across town. I love you if you're in Harlem. I love you. I would like to be near you. I'd like to have your arms around me. I'd like to hear your voice in my ear. But that's not possible now, so I love you. Go.” - Maya Angelou

When I am with him, it feels like nothing else matters, while we still acknowledge that the world is messy. Having someone who I can talk to about the world is amazing. I am often crushed by my emotions and drained energetically by everyone and everything, but he gives so much to me (energetically). He is energizing for me. He is my inspiration. He is my guide. Even when we are not together, the books he introduced to me, his music and the memory of our conversations still guide me. Everything makes sense when I am with him, and I move forward a bit.

My very first blogs were about my frustration of not meeting a man who sees me worthy of a conversation or doesn't antagonise me using my country's politics. I was yearning for someone who intellectually matches me. I do not have a science brain, I have a humanities brain that is driven by an intense empathy. I met M and he is perfect. But... This was my last straw with God. This is incredibly cruel.  

I found a term for the feeling of grief that is not caused by death. The experience is called a "Shadow Loss", and I came across the term when I was doing a course through Coursera by MoMA, called Artful Practices for Wellbeing. It was coined by a Thanatologist, not as a diagnosis but as a description. I knew that this could not have been coined by a man, because men are socialised to experience and process loss differently. Sure enough, it was coined by a woman, Cole Imperi. She came up with this term when she was diagnosed with PCOS, which resulted in her and her mother grieving her ability to have children.

My PCOS diagnosis was also a turning point in my life when I realised that I needed to rethink what I truly wanted. I was grieving the loss of relationships, the idea of marriage, and losing my community through the realisation that I will never fit in. The following year, I got my autism diagnosis. It felt final. I was trying to fit myself into spaces that were not meant for me. Finding places that I fit in is hard. I keep having to let go of places and people that I love. I can't explain because it seems so simple, "just act right, just be happy".

I started birth control at the end of last year, and I feel like a new person. I feel so light. I don't know why it took me soo long. I realised that I was not imagining it, that my periods were dragging my mind and body to the depths of hell. Why did I put myself through that? It made me question, what else do I think I am imagining but is actually very real? How am I holding myself back when I'm not listening to my body or intuition? These past few years, I had been working on getting rid of shame. "Your body is supposed to birth kids" and "Your body is supposed to be able to handle your periods" were like nasty gums stuck in my subconscious. I had to break free.

These past few months have made it clear that I still have many limiting beliefs about myself. I have been purging emotions this past month. It's such an interesting experience because, in the moment, I feel as though I will never feel any different, but I cry it out, eventually forgetting what I was crying about in the first place. After crying, those tough emotions disappear, and I feel like I can take on the world again.

I am 30, going on 31, and I feel like my life is restarting. A part of me also feels like my life is over, even though I know that the 30s are a decade of transformation. Many people find their success or purpose in their 30s. Somehow, I feel the same hope and fear that I felt when I was 20. I say that my life will look at a certain way in one year, even though the odds look so slim right now. It has to happen. I can hear time ticking and the figs will bruise. At least, this time I know that I can make jam with bruised figs and prolong it a bit longer. Redirections are not bad, even when they hurt like hell.

You know how they say to be careful what you wish for? I'm half joking with this but I left my bedding in water longer than I should and it had an odour when I hung it up, even after I tried rewashing it multiple times. It's been windy and that helps in the drying process. However, I thought to myself that since it's still summer and braais (barbeques) are still a thing, maybe a neighbour will start a braai and the smoke will latch onto my bedding and neutralise the odour. I woke up from a nap this afternoon and the whole neighbourhood was filled with smoke because a building nearby was burning. Everyone is safe though. lol. Anyway. 

My desire to belong is so strong that I constantly ignore red flags. I often try to manage my feelings by staying away from cliques. I don't have the type of personality to chameleon my way into established groups within a community, I always stay in the fringes. From my observations, communities are often made up of a core group, these are people who may be founding members of the group or have been around for a long time. Then are people on the fringes such as new people or people who do not fit in for some reason. The core group may also just be recognizable people in a community. 

When I like a community, and it is a small community, the rules for myself are not to date/or get involved in a way that will potentially hurt me with someone from the core group of a community and to be in good standing with the core community. When I was with my spiritual community, I had so many fights and disagreements with people and it never really mattered. We either became best friends afterwards or just coexisted. Conflict can be natural. When I felt hurt by the core group, the rejection stung more than anything. I am experiencing something similar in my kink journey with the chatroom that I keep frequenting.

Before I entered my current dynamic, I was going to join another poly-dynamic. I had sent out a notice on my profile that I am looking for a Dom and a few Doms responded. I chose one that was a red flag from the get-go, he has the Joker as his profile pic and he refers to himself as the Devil but he has a personality and that is what attracted me to him. I never paid attention to the main chatroom and I didn't realise that he was a recognizable figure in the group because he was always there. From what he tells me, he was an outcast for a while but from what I see, he has become part of the core group by having subs who are part of the core group. His subs are the most popular subs in the chatroom, there are multiple ranking systems on that platform.

I usually would not put myself in this situation because I know how it would end up. When he ended things with me, his excuse was that the other women were not feeling a family vibe from me. I just met them, ofcause they would not feel a family vibe from me. He spent the week telling me that I was going to be a perfect addition to his group and making plans for all sorts of activities that we would do together. I just go with the flow. I tried very hard to interact with the other subs, I would greet every morning and I would send them messages when he asked me to. I do not think that the subs are the reason why I did not fit in the dynamic.

I think the real reason was that he was not attracted to me because when we had a play session two nights prior, he did not want to see my body after I sent him pictures and videos of myself. The next day, I tried to get to know him better, asking him where in the USA he was from, Michigan. I tried to have a conversation about the interesting things that I have learnt about the USA. Through my interactions with people in kink, I learnt that there is a region in the USA called the Midwest. I also tried to mention how close-knit the East-Coast/Atlantic states are, because American media dominates popular culture, I hear of states and cities in movies and series, on social media and in books but it's interesting to be able to put it all into perspective.

I was struggling to make sense of my thoughts and I was sorting my thoughts out as I was talking, but the fact the conversation felt forced was an indicator to me that I was going to struggle in this dynamic. He fell silent after I spoke about how when one thinks of American cooking, one thinks of Southern cooking such as fried chicken, cornbread, mac and cheese, potato salad, collard greens etc., or fast food like burgers and there is American Mexican food such as tacos, guacamole and quesadillas. I didn't mention this but I want to add how mainstream Italian food is mostly American Italian food. I might have made the mistake of saying that Midwest cooking that I've seen so far feels like convenience cooking, like taking whatever is in the house and making a meal. If the person engaged in a conversation with me, I would continue that I really appreciated it because mainstream conversations on food in the USA are very out of touch. That can of soup is not going to kill you. 

I once had a debate with my previous Dom ( The one I keep talking about, let's call him M) on canned food and my stance was canned food is still very important, especially in the USA where there are food deserts. Also, in many places around the world where people experience poverty, preserved food is still very helpful. Fruit and veg are readily available in every corner of South Africa but not everyone can afford the amount of fruit and veg that is needed to consistently make a good meal for an entire family, or may not have the time to chop vegetables, because of Apartheid spatial planning, a majority of South Africans live far away from their places of work and spend a large part of their day and salary commuting to work and back. Apartheid spatial planning not only means that people do not have time for things like gardening, but that people of lower income, mostly people of colour, do not have the space or fertile land to have a vegetable garden. I know, I used to be in close proximity to projects that are trying to find a solution to the lack of gardens in marginalised areas. 

When I see Midwestern Americans with that can of Campbell soup, it makes my heart happy. It's a breath of fresh air from the food fear-mongering that occurs within mainstream conversations that are dominated by Americans. Firstly, I am always surprised that Campbell's is still being sold. For a non-America, one's exposure to Campbell's is through the famous pop art painting by Andy Warhol, I always thought that it was a vintage brand that didn't exist anymore until I saw it on Tiktok. Midwestern cooking feels so familiar and homely to me.

I saw a girl with scurvy on TikTok and there was a conversation on how scurvy is on the rise in the USA because of food deserts and the cost of living crisis experienced worldwide. One of the ways to prevent scurvy is to have fresh fruit and vegetables, it doesn't matter if it is fresh, canned or frozen. Sure, the nutrients that you get from preserved food are not perfect but it is not useless either. There has been this push for perfection in health conversations over the past 20 years that is incredibly unattainable for the average person. I want to write more about this in another blog. 

It makes me sad when the only thing that a person knows about South Africa is load-shedding or crime. I am not against people talking about the problems but it's unsettling when it is used to villainise my people and when it's the only thing that a person can talk about. That is what happened with this Dom, that was the second red flag. When he found out that I was South African, he asked me about load-shedding because he heard of it on an episode of 90-day Fiance. That show is already a hot mess and I do remember that couple he was talking and I have so many opinions that will just piss people off, so I keep my thoughts to myself. 

I've learnt things from 90 Day Fiance but I noticed commentary from the audience of that show has a tendency to villainize developing countries, the people and their cultures and I will write more about this in another blog. You can still learn a lot about a country from that show, beyond the problems of a country. I've been ignorant too, one of the featured couples on 90 Day-fiance, the woman gave up her yoga studio to move to the USA. I never really thought about yoga in the Caribbean, even though there is a large population of people of South Asian descent because of history.

After I told this Dom that load shedding had been fixed (temporarily), he proceeded to speak about crime and then he repeatedly asked me if I was safe. That is very weird (THAT IS A MICROAGGRESSION). I don't think that I am any less safe than an American is in their own country. I consume American news and I get exhausted from American news because there is always a tragedy happening. I will still never make that the core of my conversation with an American person. Even when I do speak about American issues, it is to defend marginalized Americans. People are so much more than the problems of their country. 

I don't expect a person to know everything about South Africa but I appreciate when a person to empathetic, socially aware and makes an effort. One of my favourite conversations was with a Dom that I met in the Cage, who was in tune with the fact that racism is an issue in South Africa without me having to say anything about it. I was telling him about how people are not happy with the name change of my home city. The name isn't even in my native language but I respect it because there isn't enough indigenous (Khoi-san) representation in this country and it is causing tension. Another conversation, that I also had on the Cage was a Dom who asked me about the three capital cities that we have, lol. That is such an obscure fact.

My current Dom, who I met in the dodgy chatroom (he is such a light in that place), has actually stepped foot in South Africa. He visits for business trips. In one of the first conversations that we had, he criticised Apartheid sympathisers. I never told him how much it meant to me. He also knows what Maas is. I call maas fermented milk but it's similar to buttermilk. We also have buttermilk in stores, so I assume that maas is different. Maas is sold in bigger quantities than buttermilk. It's mostly similar to yoghurt but it's not as smooth as yoghurt. The fact that he likes it made me want to cry. It's one of my favourite things ever. 

There are other issues that I had with that other Dom. He asked me if I did raceplay and I declined. I now think that he only wanted me for raceplay. He also wanted me to move to the USA but I don't think that I can do anything more than visit in the next 10 years. At the same time, even visiting America requires sacrifices from me that I can only do for the right person. I am writing about that in another post. I have a lot of thoughts but I have been too overwhelmed to write. The men I've met who speak about me visiting, seem to underestimate how tough it is to enter the USA. A friend of mine got rejected for a visa because she could not prove that she would go home due to the fact that she didn't have stable residence, and she needed the visa for a cruise job. Don't get me started on how expensive it is because of the exchange rate.

This man also shared a borderline racist joke. The sub that I met is Indigenous American, she asked me how many languages I speak and I told them English and my Native language, isiXhosa. IsiXhosa is the language that they based the language of Wakanda on in Marvel's Black Panther. The next day, he tells me and his sub a joke that starts with, "Since you're both Indigenous American". Huh? I was incredibly confused. There are people outside of the USA who identify as Native or Indigenous to their countries. The joke got weirder and I am too exhausted of thinking. I don't want to read into things anymore. If she laughed at the joke, then I am not going to say anything,

When we fell silent after I said what I said about Midwestern cooking, I felt stupid because I was not really sure about the thoughts that I was sharing. He sent messages to our group chat and still ignored me throughout the night. I messaged him the next morning and he didn't apologize. I gave one-word answers because I was not sure of myself or of my mind. He then said he wanted to talk and gave me this excuse of me not getting along with the other subs, who I had been nothing but polite to. I totally understand, those women have been friends for a long time. This is something that he should have thought about before including me in the dynamic, it feels even worse that they kept telling me how much of a good match I was up until that day. I think he just wanted to avoid conflict and did not have the guts, to be honest with me. It would have hurt less if he told me that I was rude to him or that we were incompatible. 

This felt like a knife to my heart. I felt like I was a teenage girl again, being rejected from my all-female groups or experience passive-aggressive behaviour and covet bullying. Last year, I reconnected with a former best friend of mine she didn't know that I came from a political family but my most prominent memory of her is of her telling me to shut up and calling me self-centred, so I always waited for questions before telling anyone anything about myself for the longest time. I learnt to feel safe again in my 20s. Now I have good female friendships again. I am still pretty apprehensive though. With most people, I listen, and they feel safe around me but I feel exhausted and isolated by the lack of exchange of energy. 

Men come and go, but you are kind of taught that you should have some sort of camaraderie with other women and if you don't, then there is something wrong with you. Women are supposed to be a sisterhood. It's an unrealistic standard to place on women though, even I, have not always been warm to other women or protected them. What goes around comes around. Even with this realisation, I still feel hurt that these women, who I've barely interacted with, did not give me a chance. I know that narrative is probably not true but it is stuck in my mind. It made me feel so unsafe in the chatroom. The subs are part of the core group of the chatroom, they dominate that chat.

One thing that we spoke about was public play, his fantasy is to put his subs on display and I was hoping that it would bring me out of my comfort zone. I hate seeing them doing their public play in the main chat. I also think about how the need to fit in is so strong in human beings that even attraction is based on not only how one feels towards their partner but also how their partner influences how people perceive them. I know that I am not everyone's cup of tea and I try to protect myself as much as possible. On my profile, I clearly state that I am a plus-sized black woman and he said that he had no problem with that. 

Another thing that I don't speak about anymore is being on the spectrum. It takes me a while to figure out social cues, I can recognise patterns but I cannot reciprocate social cues. I will always feel somewhat awkward. I tried so hard to put myself out there with the other subs. That not being enough feels like a reminder of being defective somehow. He has an autistic nephew that he looks after. I felt sad that I still didn't trust him enough to be honest with him and ask for help with the interactions with the other subs. People have disappointed me so much when it comes to this that I just don't feel safe anymore to speak about it.

I left the chatroom for a cool-off period and to focus on my current dynamic. I still feel insecure though. I know that I did not get rejected from that chatroom but because I didn't receive honesty, I feel like I have to look over my shoulder. One of the things that Dom would tell me about the chatroom is that people gossip about him. I felt I was involved in clique politics and I try to avoid cliques like a plague for this very reason. In 4 to 6 months, the place is going to drastically change again like it always does.

I think about my ending with M and how I was more broken about losing him but I never felt like there was something defective about me. M was always honest with me about who he is, his desires and he believed in me when I did not believe in myself. This one feels like a real punch in the gut. Not because I want the Dom back, but because I betrayed myself so much in that short connection and it brought out so many insecurities in me that I had been trying to work through. As much as he keeps saying that I did nothing wrong, nothing makes sense besides the fact that he is the villain in this story. It was humiliating.

I wish I could allow myself to be angry and scream. 

"Why are you leaving me, if I didn't do anything wrong? I don't understand, I thought you liked me."

I feel want to feel safe and protected. I want to feel heard. I also want to belong but not at the expense of my authenticity.

I am hoping that if I write this out, I will feel better about it. I need to finally close this chapter in my mind.

My previous Dom knew the stupidest little carrot to dangle for me to fall for him again but this time it did not work. He showed me a bag of a certain pop-culture significant high-end motorcycle that he doesn't own and I still thought it was the coolest thing ever that he was in close proximity to it. This was as pathetic as the first time we got back together, I broke no contact by showing him the ugly tomatoes my family got from our garden this year, lol.

This time he gave me information about himself and I felt disappointed. He knows me. As much as I was happy that we were talking and that he was opening up to me, I knew that nothing was going to change. We want different things and I was not going to force things again. I finally accepted that we were not meant to be together. That he was just a lesson for me. It is still painful as hell though. I was trying hard not to catch feelings this year but here I am AND IT SUCKS! I want to go back to my nonchalant, detached self. 

I am the one who first opened communication a week prior. I wanted to close the chapter by being honest and telling him that he was not a healthy person for me. I never get the opportunity to be honest with people. I have to be honest though, I was still hoping for an apology or a realisation of some sort that I knew was not going to manifest. We had an argument, I stopped responding and a week later, he made contact again. I know. Very toxic. When I told him that I was moving on, I meant it this time. 

I've spoken about this before, that even if we had mutual feelings, there are many reasons why we would not work out. I still miss the conversations though. Our conversations gave me life. I am so afraid that I will never experience that type of connection again. I don't want a man like him again but I want a similar connection one day. It is a very rare connection. I don't feel the same when I speak to other Doms. I can still connect to other Doms but it's just not the same. That's okay for me for now. I don't appreciate any Dom that I talk to any less because there aren't fireworks.

One thing that this dynamic has taught me is that I am not being honest with myself about not wanting a long-term dynamic. It made sense when I was still new and figuring things out. Now I am feeling more comfortable within the lifestyle and I want something proper. I have always known that I am using online relationships to fill the loneliness that I am experiencing without the commitment aspect. I am obviously not ready for a committed offline relationship. Online relationships work very well for me. Being a sub is still a big commitment but I love it.

Through kink and online relationships, I meet a diverse range of people that I never thought I would be able to date or befriend and that is crushing for me. Astrologically, it has always been written in my stars that my life partner will come from distant lands. For many reasons, it makes sense that I am having better connections from international connections than local connections. The frustration of not being ready for a long-term relationship is killing me though. To have something I desperately want being so close and yet so unreachable hurts so much. I am learning a lot about myself through these experiences and I am making peace with myself. I still wish I could have experienced this growth with one person instead of being put through quests by the Universe or fate or whatever.

Within the kink community, I love that I have been able to show up as my most authentic self. I have never had that experience before. The experience is not perfect but it is a better experience than I have ever had in my life. I've always known how to stay in my lane and staying in my lane is proving to be rewarding for me. I still tone myself down a lot in some settings but whatever fulfilling experience that I have means so much to me and it is changing my perspective on myself.

Another realisation I had to finally face is that my taste in men is very bad. My commitment issues make me fall for eternal bachelors. I need to let go of the delusion that my affection will change their minds. I need to be with someone who wants the same things as me (I know! It's supposed to be common sense)  My ex-Dom was not suitable for a long-term relationship, he established that at the beginning of our dynamic. What I miss is the conversations that we used to have and I am so afraid that I will never find that again. I don't need another man like him but I know that when I am ready for a vanilla commitment, this is the type of connection that I want.

I am in a new dynamic now. When I first spoke to my current Dom, I made the mistake of mentioning that one of his current subs is a former sister-sub of mine. It took me a while to decide to be his sub and I used the excuse that I did not want to impose on that sub's space. Apparently, she doesn't remember me but she said that it was okay, so we are now sister subs again. We haven't interacted though and I appreciate that because I want to focus on my relationship with Dom. 

I had to put a boundary with my Dom about comparisons. He kept asking me about this previous Dom and I really did not want to get into it because it has the potential for racial insensitivity because of the type of dynamics that my previous Dom had with his other subs. I also don't want my current Dom to feel as though he is saving me from my previous Dom. I also don't want to be put into a position where I am defending this ex-Dom. I don't know what happened with other subs but I can only speak for my own experiences. I feel like the negative experiences that I have had are being exploited in some way. 

I adore my current Dom but I cannot stand a saviour complex. My entire personality is being reduced to my alleged experiences with my ex-Dom. My current Dom is convinced that my choices are influenced by experiences with my ex-Dom and is creating a trauma narrative that does not exist. I did not have the best ending with my ex-Dom but he healed me in so many ways within our relationship. I am pleading with my current Dom to leave this other man in the past. I'm unsure of what is going on with the other sub but this situation is irking me out for many reasons. It feels obsessive and very unhealthy.

I am so proud of myself that I am able to advocate for myself but I find it exhausting. I think he finally gets it. We'll see. Don't get me wrong, my current Dom is amazing and tries his best to be a safe, sane and consensual Dom. He is also a bit conservative. After my situation with my family, I started rethinking the types of dynamics that are good for me. I need stability and my current Dom is promising to give me that. I also need gentleness and my current Dom is giving me that. I very much adore him and he cares about me. I just want to leave the past in the past and focus on him. 

My mother is fine. They let her off on a warning and her abuser did not get bail today but will go into another hearing. The whole process was intense and stressful. There was so much miscommunication and getting money for the lawyer was exhausting because we had a series of unfortunate events but it was eventually sorted. The court is just a 10-15 minute walk from my house and that helped so much. We were at the court since morning and we only left in the afternoon. It was also a very hot day, we were so exhausted.

My mother and the abuser were locked up in the same building and appeared at the same time in court but they kept her at a slight distance. It was so surreal to see him again. It's still weird watching someone that I grew up around ruin their life in this way. It makes no sense. You would never hear me verbally say that though, when my mother and grandmother were shocked that things ended up this way, I reminded my mother that this man has been telling her who he is for the past 20 years. I still think about how much of a lifestyle change prison is. Consequences though.

A few months ago I said that I wanted to move out from home by December and that is not happening. Besides the fact that my life is not together, a part of me is scared of leaving my grandmother. I am trying to move nearby. There's an area in my city that I dream of living in. I feel about this place the way Marylin Monroe speaks of Brooklyn. I thought that I would retire there one day but I recently decided that I want to settle there. It's just a 10-minute drive from my family home and down the road from my mother's work. I don't want to be accessible though. 

It's on a hill, so depending on where you are in the area, you can see the ocean. Right now, I can only smell it on a humid day and I am surrounded by industrial buildings. The house I'm looking at doesn't have ocean views but the other house I dream of has ocean and city views. They've been on the market for years because the street is a little dodgy and the houses have weird architecture. I love the quirkiness though. They are perfect for one person. I visualise my life in those houses every day.

My grandmother is very independent and my mother is selective of what she cares about. If something breaks in her house, my grandmother goes on as if nothing is wrong. When I lived in another city, I would visit and my grandmother's living room bulbs would not be working and she would sit in the dark to watch her TV. Even if she told my mom, my mom would forget. My mother is also getting old and it's scary. My best friend and I talk about our fears of looking after our aged mothers one day as eldest/only daughters with mommy issues. When I was in my early 20s, I did not hesitate to get away but now I do fear being too far.

As much as I was angry at my mother, I am also very proud of her. She's been going to therapy for the past few months, now she has a psychiatrist and a social worker. The gravity of the situation is slowly sinking in. I never thought that I would see the day that she takes her mental health seriously. I was also a bit sceptical of her intentions and commitment at first. I've been begging her to go to therapy for the past 5 years. Though the last time we had a big conversation about this, I was deflecting because I had a crisis and I was in big trouble, she had to help me get out of the trouble. I understand when she is mean to me right now to deflect, I still don't accept it though. I think our relationship is getting better though.

One thing is for sure though, shame is NOT going to help me get through the fear that I am feeling. Shame is a very limiting and destructive feeling. Shaming oneself into change does not work. Shame is suppression instead of actually dealing with your feelings. Also, it's my home. One is supposed to feel safe at home. It baffles me when people are so fixated on that part of my life that they totally ignore anything else that I say. Most of the time, it's important to listen to how a person wants to be helped, instead of working from a saviour complex. 

I don't understand how I say the I am concerned about my family's well-being and the solution is "be independent". That doesn't solve the problem that there are two very stubborn and independent women who are ageing, money is not a problem for them to look after themselves but I don't trust them to make good decisions and have the right priorities. Also, the world is terrifying and constantly changing. I do have to move eventually though, I can't be here forever. For the most part, I do feel ready to finally move on with my life and I feel a hope that I have never felt before.

As exhausting as it is and as much as I complain, I will never regret being there for my family. That's what my family does. 

Once I leave home though, I am not moving back. I'm planning my life to avoid the chaos of my 20s and accommodate my brain. Autistic people struggle to hold down jobs, are often in employment that they are overqualified for and are often paid less. 

Funny enough, when I sought to confirm my diagnosis, the student therapist that I was seeing was also fixated on me becoming "independent'. She gave me the journal article with these stats and then totally ignored them. I sent videos and journals explaining how I was feeling and she completely ignored those too. I was in such bad shape that I was struggling to eat and I was so anxious that I was paranoid. At some point, I even quit therapy and only returned when her supervisor had an opening to do the assessment.

My independence was dependent on my diagnosis. I don't want to get into another job that burns me out in 6 months (autistic burnouts are dangerous) and I don't want to get into another toxic relationship. I don't want to have a crisis after a crisis. I don't want to hit rock bottom again. I can avoid those things when I know my brain and can communicate my needs better. I am a completely different person than I was 5 years ago. I feel a peace that I never thought that I would ever feel.

Tomorrow is finally pizza day. I plan my day around food, lol. Having PCOS (which is a genetic hormonal disorder caused by insulin resistance), I have to think deeply about what is nutritious, keeps me full for long periods of time and will also stimulate my taste buds and brain. I also find cooking to be meditative, it's where I get my best ideas and I make sense of my work. I can't always make elaborate things though, I eat the same thing most days to avoid decision paralysis. I get excited when I have the energy to be creative.

Trigger Warning:

This blog post heavily deals with Domestic Violence and Self-Harm..

This morning I was planning to make myself a butter paneer pizza because I recently saw a butter chicken pizza on TikTok. I went next door, to my relative's house, to get a tomato, only to find chaos. She was getting arrested because she injured her ex in self-defence. Our local police station would not let him open a case because they were very aware of the situation but then he went to another police station to open a case. This woman has protected this man for 20 years and he did not hesitate to try to ruin her life when she finally had enough. 

I still haven't gotten my pizza. I just wanted a tomato and the next thing I know, I'm being given her handbag and she's writing her details. Nobody is telling me what is going on until I start shouting for someone to inform me. My uncle was there, I have never seen this man visit this much in my life. My grandmother is just as confused because she also went into the house for something else and was suddenly being asked to do stuff. However, my grandmother is old and couldn't help much. The next thing I know, I'm in an Uber to the police station with my uncle because we couldn't open the garage door to get the car. 

I still haven't gotten my pizza. I was too exhausted to make it by the end of the day. I'm not sure if I can even make it tomorrow either because I have to be in court and bail her out. The police at the police station were just as confused as us because there is a lot of evidence that he is the abuser. The police were talking about how well-known her house is at the station. It's been almost 20 years of this nonsense. I keep reminding her this because she is only realising now the severity of the situation and my grandmother is confused. I'm confused about why my relative and my grandmother are shocked that it came to this. Even my grandmother's baby sister's preteen children could see through the situation.

When I moved back home a few years ago, I told my relative that if she and her partner, does something stupid then it would be our problem. We would be the ones running around for her because she would either be in the afterlife or in prison. I am too exhausted to be annoyed. I also switched off emotionally because sometimes people just need to experience consequences. I've been trying to process everything happening in life. I was doing well on my own but something keeps happening to set me back.

I had a trauma debriefing session the Monday after the incident and it ended up being so traumatic that I made a Facebook notice that I want nothing to do with my spiritual community. My friend offered to get me another counsellor but I thought I was fine until I started ruminating. This woman kept dismissing that I am on the spectrum. Ironically, rumination and taking time to recognise emotion is a trait of autism and that kept me from cussing her out. I also felt a need to be respectful because we came from the same spiritual community.  

I felt so aggressive in therapy but I needed to advocate for myself. The fact that I felt the need to advocate for myself was already an issue. I wanted to talk about the conflicting feelings that I was experiencing at that moment but she wanted to talk about my "failure to launch". She was fixated on why I've been at home jobless. Meanwhile, I'm terrified of what would have happened if I was not home. It is possible that she didn't want this event to make me feel stuck but her approach was wrong. A few days after the session, I felt re-traumatised because I was processing things that I thought I had already processed before. I had so much hope for the future and suddenly I was back to being unsure of myself. She totally dismissed my feelings about the event and focused on my past, which is irrelevant.

I find myself having to explain these past five years. I tell her about the lockdown of 2020, being stuck in our religious community's centre to help maintain the place when they had to cut our 150 people staff and volunteers to just 40 volunteers. We were also on level 5 lockdown longer than anyone. I tell her about my burnout, I tell her about my PCOS symptoms flaring up and I got very sick. I tell her about my ASD diagnosis and she scoffs and gives me a grin of disbelief and then she questions where I got my diagnosis.

I try to explain how I've been working on getting to know my brain and working with my brain. I've been adjusting my life to suit my brain, which means starting my own business. I am not lazy. Being in my community made me realise that I would sacrifice anything for things that I am passionate about. I will work myself to near exhaustion for a cause that I believe in. However, being on the spectrum is pushing myself what feels like 150% but people see 0% because I struggle with some things. In my community, I struggled with my spiritual practices such as meditation, the sermons were overwhelming and I hated the scriptures but I never understood why until I realised that I was autistic. Pathological demand avoidance, overstimulation, and a strong sense of justice. Being in service of people felt more spiritual for me, it was the most that I felt most safe and happy. Helping to maintain my community was my passion. I am now creating my own rules.

She asks me why I took 8 years to finish a two-year diploma, I try to tell her about my struggles with executive dysfunction because I am autistic. She is dismissive. I've been to therapy for all of that already, it's not important in this session. I assertively try to shift the conversation to the past month and my anger at the lack of efforts to prevent this situation. How it did not have to get this far. I begged and begged for my relative to take real tough actions to protect herself, to not have any more mercy. I tell my counsellor about my regrets and fears.

My counsellor concluded that maybe my relative did not listen to me because she is frustrated that I am a "failure to launch" (this is the summarized version). I know she hates me for it and it's something that we've been working through these past few years. I just don't understand what relevance my "failure to launch" has to do with anything that's happening now. It felt as though I was being blamed for the events of that night. I witness an attempted murder and almost 20 years of abuse but the fact that I am still living at home at 30 is the most pressing issue? She makes me feel like I'm not allowed to be outraged.

I ask myself what would have happened if I was not at home? I tell my counsellor about the begging. She tells me that I'm overthinking and she refers me to a psychiatrist. I was trying to be a good girl, so I agree. I need to go to a psychiatrist to get meds to potentially fix concentration issues but I refuse to go on anti-anxieties or anti-depressants. A part of me feels like if I had a job, I could have afforded to change the locks myself but it was not my responsibility and it would have been of no use if she let him back in the house. I was not the one getting death threats from her partner, I was not the one being chased out of the house that she paid for and maintained on her own. 

I told my therapist that I was not looking for my relative to listen to me, I wanted her to have common sense and be nicer to me. I know it sounds mean but I don't understand what is going on. I feel like my therapist is blaming me for what happened, while I feel emotionally and physically exhausted. I am angry because it seems so logical that this could have been avoided. I was feeling so hopeful about my future and excited about life, only to be made to doubt myself again. 

I had not felt this defeated since the time a friend of mine tried to harm himself with paracetamols and battery fluid and messaged me to tell me about it. Throughout that whole ordeal, I was constantly shamed, pushed aside or abandoned. I had so much guilt. I know it sucks that I am making his struggle with myself. It was a very complicated situation that drove me into an intense existential crisis and I was so traumatised by the entire relationship that I went into a very deep depression in the following year. I started healing after I watched the last episode of Bojack Horseman and Diane's monologue was everything I wanted to say but was never brave enough to.

It was something along the lines of "I trusted you. I trusted that you would be okay. Suddenly I didn't trust myself anymore. Why did you make me feel like I was responsible for you?" I cried so hard after that episode. I was on the floor, curled up in a ball. I started feeling myself slowly release my anger, guilt and shame. I feel some of these sentiments return. "Why have you always made me feel responsible for you?

One of the reasons why it took me 8 years to finish a 2-year Public Relations diploma was because it was via correspondence (mostly online/mail) and I quit at some point to pursue psychology at a physical college. During my studies, I started noticing my ASD symptoms. I thought a physical college would be better but it was worse. The symptoms were always there before the college but I always blamed myself for it, that I was not focused enough or planning my days properly, or that I must have been stupid. I was finally following everyone's advice on how to have an organised and functional life but it was not working for me. My relationships were also very chaotic.

When my friend was in hospital, I felt like every move I made was a mistake and it brought up so many ethical dilemmas for me. I was studying psychology because I was living in an organization that claimed to help people with their minds but was quick to discard people once it was clear that they had more complicated issues. I hated it so much. It was an incredibly elitist place. When I would consult my lecturers on what to do in a real-life crisis, I would be met with confusion and told that it was not my problem. I started questioning what the point is of doing any of this work (spiritual or professional) if I can only help certain people. 

In my first post about this situation, I wrote that I thought I knew enough about domestic violence from a theoretical level but it feels like it's been thrown out the window of my mind. I find myself blaming my relative and telling her "I told you so". I feel conflicted because I hate when people do that to DV victims. I vehemently defend strangers but here am I, going against everything that I believed and I don't know how to stop it. I know this is not her fault but I feel so angry and unprotected. I still have compassion for her, my anger comes from fear. 

I've been following domestic violence stories on TikTok. I don't seek them out but it seems like many popular international influencers are coming out as victims. A recent one is an influencer called Morgan Bailey, who became famous for calling out her deadbeat baby daddy and then there was controversy when they got back together, people were angry at her. He recently claimed that she was abusing him and tried to show "evidence" (messages of him demanding money from her "or else) but it all just proved that he was, in fact, the one who was abusing her. This was not the first incident, a while back he locked her out of her house. The comment section is people telling her "We told you so" and insulting her. I am so against these reactions to domestic violence.

Just last month, a popular YouTube influencer found out that her husband SA'd their children, and people were blaming her. People pointed out her inability to see red flags and blamed the fact that she wanted a man with money. Her content is centred around her marriage to a "Provider man", so I guess people were waiting for an opportunity to dogpile her. I was so livid at the discourse surrounding this woman and I would write Facebook posts about how unfair it is.

I feel so disturbed by the reaction of the public towards influencers who have experienced domestic violence and how people make sound it easy to leave. I remember being in toxic relationships and not being able to see the true extent of danger. I had no reason to stay in those relationships but I did. My relative also had no reason to stay in this relationship but she did. She has her own house, car (she even recently bought a new car, so she would stop using the car that he bought in their relationship), and a good job. She provided financial security for me so I would not depend on a man, but she also taught me toxic relationship lessons. 

One of my favourite content creators on TikTok is "Snips", her mother was in an abusive BDSM relationship and they spent her entire childhood trying to groom her into joining the lifestyle when she was 18.  She was one of the resources I used when planning my BDSM journey, specifically whether I want children one day. However, I started relating to her content. Though my childhood does not involve BDSM, I relate to the parentification that she experienced from a parent who could not make good decisions for themselves when it comes to relationships. 

That is where my anger lies. I would never direct this to another woman but in my family's case, I wish she protected me.

Snips emphasises that even if children are not witnessing extreme violence or inappropriate behaviour, they can still pick up on dysfunctional relationships and it can still affect how children view relationships. Though I never witnessed my mother being beaten and she was not beaten every day, there would be one explosive fight a year when I was a teenager, I was always the one swooping in to save her. What I did witness was her being cussed out every day and how terrified we all were of this man. I remember him blowing up her phone because he didn't want to cook lunch for himself. Mind you, he had a high-paying job where he only had to work a few days a week and not even a full 9-5. I knew he would not hurt me but I always feared for her life. I witnessed her struggle financially to pay for and maintain her house. Though he had a well-paying job, he contributed below the bare minimum. I remember spending every day after school keeping her company when she waited for him to finish socialising at the tavern, he would be so drunk that she would have to help him in. 

He lost his job and refused to do anything to change his career. He refused to go back to study. He also refused to buy a house despite my relative's pleas. He decided to spend his pension trying to "maintain a lifestyle". The housing market in my city is amazing, the houses in nice areas are so cheap. He was financially abusing her.

Something that frustrates me is how much I suppressed in my teenage years and how I unravelled in my early-mid 20s. People would make me feel like I had no trauma. My mother is very involved in my life and has an excessive need to care for people but that is a trauma response that people misinterpret for love. No doubt she loves me, but the expressions of love are unhealthy and lack boundaries. She also has an excessive shopping addiction that I want nothing to do with because my whole life being reminded that she is in debt but still being forced to accept the things that she buys me, then I would be made to feel guilty when I needed something. I am so content with little.

People would make me feel I had no right to struggle in life because my mom provided for me financially in my early 20s but my grandmother has helped her too, her entire life. I've had authorities in my community play "Trauma Olympics" with me, either telling me about their childhoods and then tell me how lucky I am or they would tell me that someone who was harming me has had a rough life instead of helping me solve a problem that I came to them for help for. I would sit in silence because her abuse is not my story to tell. I didn't even tell my closest friends about it until recently.

This experience with the therapist allowed me to step into my power. After a week of guilt and an amount of anger that I hadn't felt in years, I realised that I didn't need permission to feel my feelings. None of this is normal. People don't just experience knife crimes in their homes. People in healthy situations do not have to tell people to shut up, not only because the fighting couple is annoying but because you're afraid of escalation. A healthy childhood is not one where you have to place strict boundaries with an alcoholic to leave you alone or watch someone being disrespected on a daily basis. A healthy childhood is not one of living in fear. I don't have to have adverse experiences for me to demand safety, it should come with being human.

I was so broken in my early 20s and no one could help me, despite my pleas but I healed myself. I don't have intrusive thoughts anymore. I look forward to life and I finally feel like I have a long future ahead of me. I was in therapy for years and I felt worse, but I put in the work to get to know myself and finally be authentic to myself. I spent many days sitting in my feelings, days where it felt like the depression was so heavy that my body would sink to the floor. I went from crying every day to crying once a week, lol. I learnt to forgive myself and I appreciate every part of myself

I refuse to let ANYONE take that away from me.

trigger warning: Domestic Violence

This is a stream of thoughts because writing helps me process things. This blog might be all over the place, because I am exhausted. 

A month or two ago, I had the desire to own a tuxedo cat, I'm not in the space to get one though. It was more of a wish for the future. However, that night, my dogs started barking at something. They never bark during the day, but they were still barking at something the following day. I knew something was up, so I followed my dogs to the corner of the yard where the commotion was apparently happening. I looked up and I saw a tuxedo cat looking at me with a confused face. It was adorable and chubby, I wish I could steal it but I don't have a suitable house for a cat and I would never steal someone's cat. 

I haven't seen that cat in over a month but I saw it today. It was too afraid to come to me and I was too distraught to bribe it. I wanted to hug it so badly. I felt a little protected in a moment when I felt unsafe. I don't know what the cat was going to do but it helped me regulate my emotions a bit. It felt like a sign.

The situation at home escalated. I am not going into details but everyone is fine, but it was traumatic, to say the least. I spent the evening talking to police, getting locksmiths and security and crying, then cleaning a lot of blood. I feel so angry that it went this far. I feel angry that I had been pleading with my relative to do something to actually make sure that the man does not return to the house. She was relaxed and I tried to be relaxed. Then today I had to save her. What if I was not here to save her?

I constantly scream "I told you so" and I feel like such a B**** for saying that.

I don't understand what is going on. I begged for a real solution. I begged for the person to be put in jail a week ago. I begged for the locks to be changed. She tells me that changing locks is expensive but she had all the connections to have it done with free labour and get locks at a discounted rate and now we spent double the amount. I thought I understood domestic violence from a theoretical point of view but it feels like it all got thrown out the window in my mind. I find myself frustrated with experiencing this situation and the feeling of powerlessness. I question whether she enjoys the drama. It's such a horrible thought. I know that there is a lot of past trauma influencing current decisions but I still hate her for constantly protecting this man. That is also such a horrible thought.

She is the most hyper-vigilant person I know when it comes to the world, I don't understand why she is nonchalant about someone who is trying to hurt her. Someone who has hurt her badly multiple times.

I feel angry at the abuser too. I feel sad that I am watching someone spiral to the point of ruining his life but I am terrified of where this will end if there are no consequences. I hate him for forcing us to make these decisions. I feel sad at the consequences that they are forcing us to enforce but we have no choice. I also wonder if there will be consequences at all or will the victim have empathy again. I just want this to end without any loss of life. 

The worst has passed but I still fear that it can get worse. I am tired of thinking positively, I have no control over anything and it is terrifying. I feel guilty that I am making this about myself.

I am always looking out for my mental health. A friend who I haven't spoken to in months messaged me today. I told her what happened and she is organising trauma counselling from our spiritual community. I've been steering clear of my spiritual community. However, my friend and I have always done undercover missions to help people like me as much as possible. People who are not in good standing with our community. It's interesting being a recipient of that help.

I used to advocate so much for my community to have counsellors. They used to be anti-therapy, even though we have psychology professionals in our organization. I also used to get backhanded comments when I was a psychology student. I don't think I'm the reason they have counsellors though. After the events of lockdown, the 2021 riots in our country and protests within the community for an inclusive and safer environment, the community finally realised that we are not immune to the ills of the world. It feels so surreal that they taking access to counselling seriously now.

I am definitely getting a long-term therapist next year though.

Something she said gave me a flashback of another incident where someone put their life in my hands. It happened a few years ago but somehow I still cry about it sometimes, even though the person is alive, good and married, they have a good life. I am still stuck in that moment, beating myself for every little mistake I made. I spoke about it for years in therapy and it never really helped beyond managing the thoughts. I wonder what effect this situation is going to have on me, I'm so glad that I have resources because I don't think that I can process this on my own. 

It's 5:30 AM right now and I need to go sleep but I am so scared to go sleep. I am so tired. There is no threat right now but there is the fear of the possibility of something going wrong.

I had already told myself that I was taking a break from kink, but now I will be definitely taking a break from kink. I don't know who I am right now and I feel so vulnerable. It's more than the events of last night that are making me take a break but last night confirmed that I need time out to figure out myself again. As much as I so badly want a Daddy to make me feel safe and tell me to sleep, I would not feel good burdening someone with a traumatised version of me. Also, traumatised people are terrible at picking partners. 

I think I want to take a break from the Cage but I love having some kind of community. 

Yesterday, I told someone I had built my tolerance for chillis and hot spices, and then I made a sweet chilli sauce that brought tears to my eyes, lol. I threw away Habeneros yesterday because I was not in the mood for that level of heat, only to find out that the chillis that I recently got had a similar level of heat (if not worse). My hands were burning after I made sweet chilli sauce and there was nothing sweet about it. lol. 

There's something that I've been wanting to write about for a long time but I was afraid of that feeling that whenever I am happy something bad happens. I kept telling myself that the feeling did not have a hold over me and it doesn't. Change is not a bad thing. I really want to write something positive for once but it's extremely vulnerable and I feel stupid.

My recent dynamic felt like the most rewarding relationship I've ever had in my life, though it was chaotic. I experienced everything that I have ever wanted and learned to believe that things do get better. I feel hopeful for what life has in store for me in the future.

When I met my recent Dom I was not looking for a new dynamic but something attracted me to him and I asked him to train me. The conversations that we had on the first day were not limited to kink but he also shared music with me and videos of himself playing a guitar. I love guitars. I haven't learnt how to play beyond basic chords but most of my friends are very good self-taught guitarists. He plays an 8-string electric guitar, I never knew that 8-string guitars were a thing and I do listen to metal, I just never had a deep interest in metal. My knowledge of guitars was limited to classical/nylon and steel string acoustic or a 6-string electric and a 4-string bass.

Metal resonates with my soul but the thought of a sub-culture intimidates me. I also come from a small town that doesn't have a metal scene and when we did have a metal scene, it was not inclusive. I had been listening to more metal on YouTube around the time I met him. It's the only music that seems to calm my brain. When I heard his music, it invoked something in me. You know how penguins have a song that brings them together, this connection reminded me of that. I felt so mesmerised by him from the moment I heard him play.

I loved that I could learn new things from him. He would send me ideas for topics to write about for my business. His favourite topics were global warming and AI-related. I think about how I used to beg a man, who was an environmental activist, to have a conversation with me about anything, including his work. I got those conversations from my recent Dom without asking and he did nothing remotely connected to environmentalism as a career. I finally had a man with passions and interests and was very expressive about it.

One day I had drama at home and we spoke about it. He led the conversation from empathy to generational trauma to the state of the world. Nothing exists in a vacuum in my brain, it's all connected and it was lovely to speak to someone who just got that without me saying anything. The drama at home was not the only reason why I was sad, I also heard terrible international news and I was too scared to ask him how he felt about it. Even though we didn't talk about it at the moment, we kind of alluded to it. We spoke about injustice in the world and we realised that we are on a similar page when it comes to politics. The conversations felt engaging. It did not feel like something that one of us had to fan to keep alive through questions, the conversation was flowing.

Our play sessions were phenomenal but intense. I had been struggling with my hormones a few months ago and would have intense highs and lows. I started using birth control injections to regulate my hormones but my sex drive plummeted. I was constantly turned on by him though, especially when we spoke about topics outside of kink, I got extremely turned on by him. We tried TPE but he got very busy in his offline life and I was so frustrated because I loved reporting to him about every little thing. He is very sadistic though, with very few limits. That was something that I thought I was ready for but wasn't. It brought out some stuff in me that I thought I had healed from. 

He would let me know when he was busy. One day he apologised for being quiet and I cried because I'd never experienced that before. When he didn't let me know, I would freak out and that caused conflict between us. I've never told anyone this before but when someone stops responding to me, I don't think of infidelity, I think the person is in the hospital or dead and I know it's irrational. There was a time when his phone was not working for a week and I went into full panic mode until I forced myself to switch off. I had to hold on to the idea that if there's nothing that I can do about it, then it's not worth my mental health. I forced myself to focus on myself.

I trusted him to an extent because he proved himself to be trustworthy. When he had other subs, he made us befriend each other and we had a group chat. When he said he was busy, I would never find him online anywhere. I could see his last seen on Telegram and he would be away for a long time from the chatroom where we met plus he was rarely active on Fetlife. I hate when people monitor me and I needed to remind myself to not monitor him but I had to learn to trust him. He was already a transparent person and I loved that about him.

One day he tried to get me to download an app that pays you to play games, he probably got a commission for inviting me but I still thought it was nice. No man has ever thought of my financial well-being before. Even if he had money to spend on me, I would feel uncomfortable about it because people often use money as a tool of manipulation. I appreciated his creativity. The app didn't work out though because I have a Chinese brand phone and my Google is a bit of a mess, so I struggle to get some apps.

In our last days together, he pushed me to finish my project for work. We didn't talk much but he would always ask me about my progress. He also helped me get through some blocks that I was experiencing. It was amazing to have that exchange of energy. I feel like I was just taking and taking energy though. I had nothing to offer him that he actually wanted. I wasn't even his type.

Two weeks ago, he showed me around his city through videos and photographs. We spoke about my aspirations, my work and my passions. I want to have a shop one day that stocks products from local artists in my city. I told him my passion is art. He walked around his city taking pictures of galleries for me, one of them was an art centre called "Ophelia's Making Academy". It was such a huge building and it was a type of art centre that did exactly what I wanted to do. I told him I wanted a place like that one day. I felt as though I saw my future. 

He made me feel seen. Around him, I could be my whole authentic self - smart, ambitious and sexual.

I fantasise about a road trip to Botswana with him, to experience the metal scene there. I don't even like driving but I feel inspired to get my license and a car. I have never had faith in myself to ever find the desire to do a long-distance drive but here I am, with the strong desire to strengthen my driving muscles, so I can get used to driving long distances. Though we're not together anymore, I still fantasized about it.

I was so madly attracted to this person, in the way that Lana Del Rey writes about men in her music or if he asked me to jump into a radio-active toxic waste tank in Gotham, I would, without a question. That is not healthy, that is insanity. I spent my entire life praying for a certain kind of life and I feel that it is close by, but I found myself praying, "I don't want my new beginning if he is not in it". * rolling eyes at myself * He doesn't do commitment, he is not commitment material and he was not looking for commitment. He does not even talk about collars. I'm not ready for commitment either. I cannot have any kind of commitment without my "new beginning". So what delusional nonsense was I praying about?

A funny thing is that, when I have a conversation about collars with other people or other Doms, the commitment of a collar feels intimidating to me. When it comes to him though, if he wanted to collar me, I would accept in a heartbeat. When I mentioned a collar once, that's when he showed me the app to make money. He thought I meant the play collar. I had mentioned to him before that I hoped I could get toys soon but they are so expensive and I guess he was trying to help with that.  

I had developed an unhealthy codependency. I felt as though I didn't want to live without him. I knew I could live without him but I didn't want to live without him. I would lay in my bed unsure of what to do with myself when he was too busy to speak to me. I had so much to do and I would have to force myself out of bed. My ASD brain's need for consistency makes me feel stuck if there is a disturbance in my routine, but I could manage the feeling these past few months. When mixed with codependency, I felt lost. My routine should not be dependent on other people's attention.

I always said that I do not want to have a Joker-Harley Quinn dynamic because it is dangerous and toxic. Lately, I've been using the analogy of Batman and Catwoman as a healthy dynamic. Batman proves to Catwoman that he is reliable, stable and safe, so she allows him to tame her a bit but she still has her independence. I felt like I took a step back in my healing. I did so many things that I hated. I begged. He likes it when I beg but there's a certain point where I hate begging. I developed strong feelings for someone who I knew could not reciprocate them.

We knew this wasn't going to be long-term, the agreement was that I would be his sub until he decided he didn't want me. There are so many other reasons why this dynamic is not supposed to be long-term. We spoke of how our dynamic will be online only because US immigration is hard to get through and visiting the US is expensive. My social media is very political and I've seen my friends get rejected by the embassy for less. On the other hand, he loves his freedom and I respect that, it's something that I love about him and would never take away. He has had live-in subs before but I could never just be a sub in an offline relationship. I need stability and safety. I would never uproot my life for uncertainty. He also doesn't do vanilla relationships and I am not his type.

He once said that I was his type, and then he ended the dynamic the next day. I am laughing as I am writing this. 

My biggest fear when I started exploring kink was being considered a fake sub, there's also a blog post that I read a few months ago about "toxic subs" that still haunts me today. When I was processing the ending of my dynamic, I felt so much shame that this dynamic barely lasted two months when it felt like everything that I had ever wanted. I understand why it ended and it was for the best. I am at peace with it because the good outweighs the bad. I don't really care anymore about being a "good sub". I don't have the energy to care anymore. I am learning so much about myself though and that is the most important thing for me.

We have roses in our garden and I am unsure if I should do a manifestation spell or make a Turkish Delight syrup to drown my sorrows in again. When the first rose appeared a few weeks ago, I ran myself a bath and placed it in the water along with a cup of milk and a spoon of honey. I was having a shitty day and it was the best "pick-me-up". There are enough roses for everything but what do I have the energy to do is my actual dilemma.

The Turkish Delight syrup has such a funny backstory. When I started making the sweet, I was not reading my instructions properly and kept missing the part where it instructed that the syrup must simmer for an hour until it thickened. I was so confused, my syrup was not turning into firm sweets but it still tasted like the best thing ever. I even watched instructional videos and I still missed it. I hope this makes sense but it was a new technique to me that my brain kept rejecting for some reason.

I think I prefer the syrup to any Turkish Delight that I make. When it comes to the actual sweet, authentic Turkish Delight from Turkey is the best. My dream is to visit Turkey for more than a layover, so I can indulge in Turkish Delight and watch cats. Alternatively, one of the things on my bucket list for my next visit to Cape Town is to visit the Turkish store to get authentic Turkish Delights and other treats. I can imagine a picnic with one of my best male friends and watching Cape Town squirrels run around the Company Gardens in the city centre. 

I took a break from social media to focus on my real life, I've been trying to finish a project for my business but it's still not done. I was also spiralling emotionally. I felt like every time I was happy and I felt comfortable in the feeling of happiness, something bad happened. I wish I could share the things that happened these past two months but it's a lot. I learned a lot about myself though and I feel at peace with myself. I feel divinely guided and it sucks sometimes, but it feels good to be protected in ways that I am. I am back to learning to let go.

So there was a domestic violence situation in my home, a relative has been in an abusive relationship for the past 20 years. A part of me is angry because this relationship and these people screwed up my perceptions of the world and relationships. There is some heavy generational trauma involved here and I am trying so hard to understand.

Anyway, my relative's partner got aggressive a few days ago and I had to call the police. She was so nonchalant about it and told us about the threats he made towards her and the weapons that he had in the house. I was livid, especially since she was still reluctant about sending him to jail. He is still not in jail but the police took him to his family home like they usually do and he ended up back in her house two days later. Then he got upset when she didn't want to stay in the house and instead slept at our family home (the houses are next to each other). I feel like she's putting us in danger because every time something happens, I have to push her to make decisions and she never does. I know that I have to be more empathetic, so I let go. I let go of any anxiety around this situation, I let go of what I have no control over. 

This is why I work so hard to unlearn toxic relationship ideas and learn how to be assertive and let go. I don't want this to be my life anymore. There's a quote on TikTok that's been floating around "If you're raised with an angry man in your house, there'll always be an angry man in your house." I don't want an angry man in my house. I never want to be around a perpetually angry man again. I don't want to be the angry one either. I don't ever want to be in a house where I have to fight someone on a daily basis, as I've watched my relative do. I don't want to subject my neighbours or people around me to awkward moments and disturbances.

These past few months, as my relative has been trying to get this man to leave her house, he has been incredibly nice to me. He kept buying juice and chocolates. He bought cheese a while back and said "I made sure I bought cheddar because I know you hate Gouda." I hate Gouda with a passion. But I do not forget that I hate him even more than I hate Gouda. When I told my submissive friend about it she said, "You're not a child". That's true, you can bribe a child but an adult has the reasoning to know when a person needs consequences.

I really want to buy a house of my own soon. I visualise the furniture that I want in it, the colours and imagery that I want on the walls and I write a list of what I want to plant in my garden one day. I most importantly think about the relationships that I want in the house, the friends that I will regularly feed and play board games with, and how to fill the house with chatter, laughter and music. What kind of lovers I will invite into my house, and what kind of life partner will stay with me. How will we merge our lives and how will we resolve conflict? I've been watching clips of "The Cosby Show" and I know it's unrealistic, but I keep thinking about how I want to be as calm but strong and assertive as Clair Huxtable, even when she is angry.

I don't ever want to repeat the chaos of my childhood and my early 20s. Even when I was not around the angry man, he still followed me in my relationships with men who despised me or in spaces where I knew that I was not supposed to be. I know it's unrealistic to not have conflict but it's how the conflict is worked through that matters. Not being around defensive people and not being a defensive person is so important to me. Not being around people who cannot be accountable and who flip the blame. Not being around controlling people. 

Now that I am thirty, I feel so much more comfortable with myself and confident that I am close to being the person that I want to be. Of course, she still has a lot to learn and experience. Learning how to let go and focus on myself has been rewarding, even when it's hard sometimes. I feel hopeful for my own future and breaking generational curses. I am also hopeful that the people around me can make good decisions for themselves, even when I do not agree with the decisions. It's not my business. I need to let go.

I was in another BDSM chatroom the other day and I caught someone telling other users that they would not recommend South Africa because of racism, crime, and murder. I'm not sure if irony is an appropriate word to describe this situation but "Don't go to South Africa because of crime and murder" is often a dog whistle. This is complex because it's not that the crime does not exist, it disproportionately affects people of color in underprivileged areas but it's not fair to only associate the country with crime. It feels like nothing we do is enough, we are still associated with all the bad that occurs.

The sub he was talking to replies " Oh, I haven't heard anything bad about South Africa. . . besides the usual". I chipped in "South Africa is not the "Wild West" that people make it out to be." He starts questioning me on whether I'm South African and he ends up in my private messages. I am pissed off at this point and I am snapping at everyone who replies to me. Then I take a break to force myself to calm down and show him some empathy. He comes from a community (a demographic of South Africans who moved away in the 90s) that has an international reputation for holding on to specific sentiments about the country. There's a whole conversation on social media about this, many tourists claim that they are deterred from visiting the whole country or certain cities but when they visit, they realize that it's not as bad as it's made out to be. I am forcing myself to understand that it is conditioning. 

I still tell him that I think what he is doing is not fair and he apologizes but stands firm that it's his experience. I don't argue against people's experiences. He tells me the region that he is from, I try hard to tell myself that it makes some sense but then he asks me about riots that occurred in 2021 and my heart drops. The country has moved on but it's still heavily on his mind. That region has experienced natural disaster after natural disaster since the riots. Those people have beeen suffering, and he tells me that he is aware yet he is still committed to seeing them as villains. Those are human beings who have gone through unimaginable suffering that they don't deserve, their reputation cannot be limited to riots.

It's a city that I go to when life is overwhelming and I've lived in it during lockdown. When I am there, I am always told that it's dangerous but I walk from my community compound to the nearby mall on my own, I just don't go to unfamiliar places on my own. I have a love/hate relationship with that city. I will tell someone who is from there that it's overwhelming for me but when I am speaking to someone international, I understand that what I say has consequences for the people who live there. The region is majority Zulu people, who are one of the most legendary tribes in Africa, and they co-exist with one of the largest Indian populations outside of India. The city looks like a "little India".

Both groups are resilient people who have held on to their culture and identity despite attempts to eradicate them. They are also resourceful people because what has been lost has been replaced with something. Though our Indian community has retained their architecture, religion, food, social norms, and arts, many have lost their languages but it has been replaced with a dialect of English that I wish got more recognition. Zulu people created gumboot dancing (which started as a way to communicate in the mines), isicathamiya which inspired the music of the Lion King and gave us Ladysmith Black Mambazo (5-time Grammy award winners) and they have innovated subgenres of house/EDM music. 

Since 2021, my country has won the Rugby World Cup and now has the record for the most World Cup wins, cementing ourselves as the best in the sport alongside Aotearoa/New Zealand's All blacks (who made it to second place again). The winning of the World Cup is symbolic, it is a reminder that we will work together as a country and heal from our past, no matter how hard it is. We also won some medals at the Olympics and we dominated other fields that I can't remember because we were winning so much. We have been participating in the International community more, positioning ourselves as neutral peacekeepers. As chaotic as the past 30 years have been, we have made strides in human rights, science, and the arts. It will never be enough for some people though and that is exhausting. 

He told me that he hadn't been to South Africa in 26 years, which would mean that he left 4 years after independence and he hasn't actually lived in the "New South Africa" but he wants to tell me about "experiences". There are so many layers to this that I cannot write about but the more I think about it, I get so emotional. When one has a level of privilege it's hard to see beyond that privilege unless you have experiences that open your eyes. As a lower-middle-class "born-free" black person in a country that's still trying to find its feet post-independence and has a wide inequality gap, even I have had to deconstruct unconscious biases in my values and as I am creating international relationships, I realize that I still have a lot of work to do.

To not recommend a place because of its problems is to say that the people of that place have nothing to offer. It feels dehumanizing, especially coming from someone who has no real connection to the place. He left when he was a teenager and hasn't experienced the building of a nation with all its complexities. I am a human being. I am a human being. I am a human being. So is everyone who looks like me, regardless of class, education level, or gender. We give so much to the world and it's never enough. I find myself being hyper-vigilant of so much and it's so exhausting.

As I am building international connections, I often wonder how a person perceives me. Am I a stereotype? Am I breaking stereotypes? Am I portraying my country in a positive light but with nuance? It's not only about the country but the continent, there are connotations to being an African from Africa. It's also important for me to question whether I am tackling my own unconscious biases about other people. It saddens me when I am chatting to someone and they say "I'm from (insert country that experiences an intense amount of stigma), is that okay?" What do you mean? Why would it not be okay? 

Stereotypes are very sticky and sometimes they are so subtle that we don't realize that we cause harm by holding on to certain beliefs. They seem logical, the issue exists but it's not about denying that the issue exists, what's harmful is how people create narratives around the issue that paint a group of people in a negative light. When the issue is mentioned, there is a quiet part that people just get. It's so important to be aware and constantly interrogate our beliefs.

My whole country is searching for a missing pair of shoes on TikTok. I have never seen my country this united in trying to solve an internal problem. They're usually this united when they are bullying people from other countries. (Yes, I am distancing myself because I am not a bully).

Here is what happened, a woman posted a video of herself questioning her husband on a Gucci receipt she found in his car. This receipt was for a woman's shoe and it cost R18 300 ( around $1000). In South Africa, that's the equivalent of an average salary in a job that requires a degree. He looked like a guilty puppy: an awkward smile, looking down and avoiding eye contact. 

She asked him, "George, where is the shoe? I don't have the shoe". Then she posted a follow-up video of herself searching the boot of his car. 

The whole country is now asking "George, where is the shoe?", even brands like NetflixSA and Nandos are joining in the "interrogation". As a country, we never take anything seriously, especially a good cheating scandal. We even started calling our president "Cupcake", after we found out that that's the pet name his mistress calls him. With the George scandal, influencers are being monitored by the people and some are taking advantage of the situation by posting unboxing videos of Gucci shoes. Content creators are going into full investigations, finding the exact style of the shoes so we know what we are searching for. I've heard jokes about taking a day off work to find the shoes. There are content creators appealing to the "Judas" of the alleged mistress's friend group to release the messages of their group chats. There are official brand billboards and adverts also searching for the shoe.

As much as I am laughing at all of this, I am also having flashbacks of the extraordinary lengths the women around me would discuss going to keep their husbands from cheating. I remember one of my uncles deleting WhatsApp because "It causes problems." This was after I witnessed my step-sister and my mother come together to delete any suspicious contacts on my stepfather's phone. I've also heard women speak about how they would rather do their own housework despite working full-time than have a domestic worker who might steal their husbands. 

I've heard these stories my entire life but they weren't enough to put disdain in me for cis het monogamy. I'm not saying that queer people don't have issues of their own, but as a cis het person, I find cis het relationships to be hell. I was in an abusive relationship in my early 20s and from the first week that we were together, he went through my phone, would pick fights, and made me delete men from my WhatsApp. I refused to let go of my male best friend, I needed to put my foot down somewhere. This man hated my female friends too. I didn't go clubbing or anything like that (not that it matters) but I only saw my friends once in a while for an art event, for a hike or to explore the city and he would throw tantrums afterward. 

My ex was such a hypocrite because he was texting his ex and he had a female best friend. I never hated his female bestie, I adored her and her boyfriend. I understand how much time, effort, and experience goes into cultivating a long-term friendship. When it was his birthday,  I supported her business. When I wanted to do something special for him, I would plan with her. He kept his money with her and she stole his money. I felt a sense of joy, those were the consequences of his actions. I still adored her. We once, unknowingly, dated the same guy way before we officially met and we bonded over that. When the country had raids "searching for illegal immigrants", even though she had her papers, I still checked up on her along with all my foreign friends and boyfriend who was at work that day.

To this day I still have anxiety over a man controlling me to the point of suffocating me. When that relationship ended (because he verbally attacked my FEMALE best friend), I had moved into a high-control spiritual community that was centered around celibacy to the point of separation of the sexes. There wasn't any real separation though, men and women still had to work together to keep the place together. It was just a lot of misogyny in the sermons and decision-making. There was also a lot of fighting amongst us. At some point, I was the scapegoat and got into trouble for having male friends (I was friends with EVERYONE who needed a friend). I was so rebellious though, no one was going to tell me what to do. It was a good decision because when I experienced dark times, both men and women were there for me, and none of the people who judged me.

I never really thought about polygamy until I found out that the West African businessman that I was in a situationship with was married. I don't know why I was determined to become the second wife when he claimed that I could be anything I wanted to him. It was stupid of me because I was "out of sight and out of mind" when he left my country, every single time. When I spoke to my friends about it, they were horrified. "How do you think the wife would feel?" Years later, I realized that it was a good thing that I hated babies enough that I never let this man put one in me and that our relationship never progressed because I found out that he and his wife assaulted his affair partner who was begging for child support.

Polygamous marriages are legal in my country but it is not socially accepted because it is still very patriarchal. According to tradition, the first wife is supposed to consent to the second wife but in many cases, the consent is given reluctantly, through coercion, or under duress. It is not consent if it is not enthusiastic. Also, only men are allowed to have multiple wives under customary law. Our government was considering introducing a law allowing women to have more than one husband but there was a lot of controversy. 

There are women who believe that women who accept a polygamous marriage have no self-respect. I write a lot about how much I hate these blanket statements. I once saw a post on a social media platform that shared these sentiments and there were women in the comment section giving valid reasons why they would like a polygamous marriage. Reasons such as sharing the responsibility of child-rearing, lessening the burden of wifely duties such as cleaning and taking care of the in-laws, and taking turns to please the husband. Another interesting trend is that there are women who prefer to be mistresses because it's a more exciting position and has way fewer responsibilities than being a wife (good for them).

A part of me wants to question why cheating is a thing when ethical polyamory is a possibility but then I remember that it isn't socially acceptable and it's not always actually ethical. On the other hand, I understand the turmoil of a spouse being asked to be polyamorous when they are set on spending their life as monogamous. As a woman, there's so much pressure on you to make sure that your husband is happy, when he wants another partner the first question that must run through her head is "Why am I not enough? Am I not performing my duties well?". It essentially feels like you're being replaced without being replaced. I imagine that it would be the same for a man too.

This is why I am wary of married men, even those in open relationships or separated men. Was the relationship open with enthusiastic consent? Is the open relationship something that is done to spice up the relationship or is it an escape? You can hear the difference in how someone speaks about their spouse, if they are mentioned at all. Are you in a culture or community where women are allowed to have some sexual freedom? Is she also allowed to find a partner? If there is some anxiety, how are you encouraging and comforting her? Are you genuinely okay with her dating other people, especially when you're separated? We've all heard the stories of a spouse asking the other to open their marriage but then they become envious when their spouse gets more attention than them.

Modern polyamory does exist in my country in more progressive corners: with the youth, in art spaces, in Queer spaces, in BDSM spaces, etc. They get spoken about negatively but I think the world would be much better if people were just honest with themselves. It's so much better than the "traditional" way of doing things, where the woman knows her husband is cheating and just allows it because "All men cheat" but she has to be loyal otherwise the consequences for her are harsher, possibly life-threatening. I am also tired of hearing people place themselves into a sickening anxiety over loyalty, whether it is fear that you might get into trouble for speaking to the gender that you are attracted to or being afraid that your spouse is about to replace you or "make a fool out of you". 

I used to think that I was a jealous person but I just wanted transparency and fairness. I was recently in a polycule dynamic and I realized that I'm happy being with one person but I don't mind them being with other people, I just want to know that the other people exist. I don't have the energy to please more than one person. At the same time, I don't believe that one person can fill all of your needs. What if I do want to explore more in the future? Most importantly, I want to be safe enough to not get into trouble for ridiculous reasons. I feel comfortable in my desires now and I've learned how to have better and clearer conversations on polyamory in any relationship.

I wish more people could build relationships based on their preferences instead of what is expected of them by everyone else. I wish more people were comfortable enough to be honest with themselves about their preferences. I also wish more cis het relationships were conducive to change and growth.