One of the more interesting self discovery things for me is that my vulnerability exists and looks different to most people's apparently.
It's something I'm just beginning to understand the effect of throughout my past.
I'm neurologically different to the average Jane, as a result, how I process and interact with the world is different too. I am an open book on a ton of things. I have no issue sharing my past hurts, explaining my life, telling about my mistakes, and my "wins" ... my strengths and my flaws... none of these are any difficulty for me to share.
I have never really understood why this makes people go a bit deer eyed and make comments about "brave" and "vulnerability." ... uh... no. No guys, that isn't brave at all, because it isnt HARD for me. I don't in any level understand WHY any of that should carry emotional weight to me. I don't in any level understand why sharing that should be hard or scary... and as a result *this is not vulnerability*<<<< for me.>>> Might be <<< for you>>> but it isn't for me. At the same time, because it would be vulnerability for someone ELSE, if they are writing their own script they can 100% misunderstand me and feel like I've got some big deep lasting connection because !!!omg she shared this with ME! WOW! She must trust (replace with like/love) ME so much!!!
... apparently this has been a huge issue throughout my life and I never understood or recognized it.
This week yet ANOTHER person from my very distant past showed up for the 10th time trying to get back into my life. I'm not going to go into the admittedly creepy details of how this person has over the last 3 years created numerous fake profiles on various sites... even going so far as to try and convince a coworker to give him my #... unbeknownst to me I actually DID know him *drumroll* in 2007. .... the final *move* here was to send me screenshots of messages we exchanged literally 16 years ago.... Why in the hell is this person "stuck" on me that long ago????
*lightbulb goes off* ... well shit. My bad. Kinda. I can't really carry the weight of someone putting weight I never did on conversations that were completely normal to me. That's on him... but I CAN, now that I understand, be sure to be clear about it with folks from now on. *thumbs up*
Which brings me to a second important topic today: Hard limits.
Those are really important things! Those are important to discuss from the get go! I applaud folks for knowing them and knowing themselves well enough to set them! GOOD JOB! Truly. Hurt happens when you don't realize something *is* a limit until you're too deep in to discover it, and then you're emotionally involved, and then there are all these entangled feelings which might sway your ability to "stay true to yourself" <<< or maybe that's just me.
But has it ever happened to you that a "Hard Limit" ended up being because of past trauma, personal prejudice, misinformation, or unfounded fear? It has for me. I've written before about the purpose of limits for a slave. (I'll link the bigger post here, but the short version is they are caution cones to demarcate landmines and hidden dragons in the initial stages of an M/s relationship, until such time as the Master knows what those landmines and sleeping dragons are, and can navigate them or defuse them). In short, they aren't there to be
They are more like the beach landmine scene from Last Man on Earth (sadly no clips exist apparently).
So I'd like to tell you that when I met MstrJ I had a big ol gigantic OH HELL NO reaction to one thing. It was a "Hard Limit" for me.... and when I talked to Him, I told Him it would never ever change. I also took some time to reexamine my reasons, and yep... I was solid. But I really liked everything else about Him... so W/we kept on talking, and I found a way to set a limit which could respect my limit and respect His autonomy. "Don't engage in this thing while communicating with me. Be honest and open with me about it, and don't break my trust." Guess what? He could respect that! Awesome! As time went on W/we opened a dialogue about it. I wanted to understand more. A lot of hours over a lot of months were spent talking about it and I found out that some of my concerns were founded in lack of information. Some of my concerns were founded in expectations my family and religion had placed upon me. A lot of my concerns were due to past trauma from other relationships.. but none of my concerns had a single thing to do with Him. So I put my money where my mouth was and said.. ok... I don't KNOW how this thing impacts *you*... so no promises... but let me see if my concerns are valid. Time after time after time I gave it a shot to see if the fears I had held any truth as it came to HIM... and they did not. It took YEARS for me to completely abandon that as a hard limit *towards HIM*.... but I can tell you that that limit does not exist with regard to Him and Him alone. Anyone else, get lost, but for Him... there are a lot of things I wouldnt engage in with anyone else. Come near me with a violet wand, a knife, any form of fire, you want to put WHAT WHERE????
... but since when is HE *anybody*. Just a thought about growing relationships rather than assumptions.
~His slaveMikayla
One of the first songs He ever sent me
