Content Warning:
This entry contains childhood trauma, emotional abuse, exposure to violence, and references to boundary violations and mental health struggles. Reader discretion is advised.
This post reflects real-life experiences and is not related to consensual BDSM, roleplay, or kink.
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Past memories - ties to therapy
Richard once did an underground fight.
One hit — that’s all it took.
He went down cold.
I remember being shocked and feeling the adrenaline in me. I was happy he lost.
I shouldn’t have laughed, but I did.
There was something about the irony of it — the man who loved to hit, who puffed up his chest and acted untouchable,
folding in seconds.
He couldn’t handle someone his own size.
Couldn’t handle real power, real fight.
He only liked to hit the kind of people who couldn’t hit back.
Women.
People who couldn’t fight back.
Anyone smaller.
That’s why I dislike men like him —
the kind who confuse control with strength.
They’re loud until someone louder stands in front of them.
Then they fall quiet and fast.
I remember sitting near the ring with Anna and Rose.
The crowd roaring, sweat and smoke thick in the air. They picked me to go up there.
I walked the edge of the ring, fingers up,
three in the air, circling.
Next round.
Let’s go.
And then I stepped down, watched the next fight, and learned something no one had to tell me. Anna taught me how to protect myself if someone tried to hurt us—how to get away and call for help. Hit a woman in the nose and kick the man's junk, and scream for help, saying "danger danger 911," but that's not always possible. But to be able to fight back meant being able to run as fast as possible.
Real strength isn’t loud.
It doesn’t hurt people to feel powerful to be strong.
It just stands there, takes the hit, and gets back up.
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180 Counseling
I used to go to 180 Counseling for therapy when I lived with the Whites as a foster and adopted child. Eventually they stop taking me to the therapy after being adopted because they called it; it was no help.
Every two weeks, they drove me there like it was proof they were doing something right — like it made them look like the kind of people who cared.
I only talked to women therapists back then. Her name was Jennifer, but Jen for short.
Some things were easier to say to a woman, some to a man, and that’s never really changed about me.
It’s not about trust exactly, more about comfort — the kind that feels safe enough to breathe.
Well, try to.
I have been hurt by both men and women.
At that time, I told my therapist everything I could.
About my biological family.
About the things that happened to me.
About my PTSD dreams — the ones where I’d get hurt by Richard, or worse, the ones that blurred the line between fear and memory.
A time Richard got he lost the fight badly at an underground fighting ring and told her everything I remembered.
In short, one bad dream I told her was about me getting hurt. a situation involving multiple people that felt unsafe and confusing… and the dream blurred fear, violence, and something I didn’t understand at the time. It was a very vivid, mixed dream I had that mixed trauma. The environment I was in exposed me to things I wasn’t ready for.
Sometimes I tried to talk about the Whites’ house, too, but I couldn’t say it to her bluntly. I had to beat around the bush.
It wasn’t safe to.
So I hinted.
Little things like, “I don’t feel comfortable there,” or “The nightmares, the intrusive thoughts I didn’t know how to handle.”
I hoped she would understand what I was trying to say without saying it.
But she didn’t protect me.
She told Margaret.
Sometimes she’d ask me to step out of the room and talk to her behind closed doors.
Other times, I’d be told to go wait outside while they talked at the counter scheduling my next appointment, and I’d try to read their lips.
And then I’d see it in the car when it was time to leave — Margaret's glare.
That cold look that said it all.
She knew what I was trying to tell the therapist.
And the therapist told her anyway. My distrust deepened even more.
That was the moment I stopped trusting her.
Therapy stopped being safe. I was not safe and Whites made that clear to me.
I knew even back then that therapists are supposed to keep things private — unless you’re going to hurt yourself, hurt someone else, or someone’s hurting you.
But she didn’t tell me to keep me safe.
It felt like what I shared wasn’t kept safe.
She told the person I was afraid of and facing .
And the person I was afraid of and facing smiled right beside her, like she had won.
When Jen moved to a different office — and I wasn’t allowed to see anyone else.
Only her.
Only the one who had already betrayed me.
No other options.
No new faces.
No fresh start.
Just the same woman, in a new building, pretending everything was fine.
So I learned to go quiet.
To sit there, nod, answer her questions carefully, never too much, never too little.
To survive the sessions without really being seen.
Because that’s what therapy became for me —
another performance.
Another room where truth wasn’t safe.
And maybe that’s what hurt the most.
The one place that was supposed to help me heal
became another place that taught me how to hide.
There is more about this. I have to re-collect paperwork…