Emotional, Mental, or Psychological Struggles and Kink

[Eido]

I saw this on a friend's facebook page:

"If everything I want and everything I choose is just some vestige of trauma, what gets to be mine? When do I stop being a victim and get to be the authentic me?"

It was attributed to some TV show character I was not familiar with. I googled and the show is Killjoys from the SciFi network.

I have been lugging around similar thoughts and feelings stemming back to some childhood trauma a long time ago. If how past events like this have interacted or impacted your relationships and relationship to the kinky world, and anyone wants to discuss, I thought I'd start a thread. I'm not starting with my story because I'd like to hear if this topic is of interest first.

Anyway, pardon my awkward start. Just trying to get a sense of the room, as they say.

Eido

[Tigerstretch]

"If everything I want and everything I choose is just some vestige of trauma, what gets to be mine? When do I stop being a victim and get to be the authentic me?"

Even if pretty, the question is flawed. It doesn't work that way. Your trauma impacts you in many different ways, but doesn't make you who you are. That is not how the human brain work at all.

Your brain will always send you a random array of positive and negative thoughts, it will never stop because it is designed that way. No human being can claim that they only have positive thought. It is simply not possible, it would actually be cause for concerns.

The thoughts are exactly that... just thoughts. They are not who you are, they are not who you will be, they are not streaming through you brain because you had a trauma. They are normal random stuff base on your experiences and imagination, they are just random words. Example: "I'm so weird!" ... that's a thought. It doesn't mean it's true, it doesn't mean it's false, its just words.

If you try to suppress it, it will cause damage. But, if you acknowledge it and understand that it means nothing and consciously decide that it is not useful, it will just fade away. Congratulation, you sent the message to your brain that you were not weird.

Another thought: "I'm thinking of a leather sleepsack." You acknowledge the thought, you like it because it turns you on and it feels good, You decide that you want to try one because it's cool. Congratulation, you just told you brain that sleepsacks are pleasant. (they really are of course)

So the line is there... Don't think your thoughts are who you are because they are not. They are just a random collection of stuff, words. If you acknowledge them, consciously determine that they are useful or not, and if they are aligned with your values then you use it for whatever purpose you can find.

Fusing with a negative thought, thinking the thought is who you are, will bring nothing but sorrow and pain. "I'm like this and I do this because I had a trauma" is just a thought... Now, what do you consciously want to do with it?

Listen to it or decide that it is not helpful?

[Eido]

The quotation wasn't intended to be fully descriptive of anyone's experience, including mine.

That said, it resonates strongly with me.

I don't agree with your analysis. If, as is commonly, perhaps simplistically, believed, our personalities, our essential beings, are the result of experience combined with biology or genetics or some natural and inevitable factor that is not easily summed up in one word,

then I am, in part, the product of my trauma. Even a statement like "I'm not going to let this define me" is a product of whatever the 'this' is.

In my own experience, which is difficult for me to discuss, which might be considered a product of the experience itself, there are a number of topics where my feelings, my acceptance or rejection, my revulsion even, come with the question of 'where did that come from?' which sometimes turns into the question 'Who gave me this?'

To borrow your example. I'm thinking of a leather sleepsack. This is not something that I have any personal or even secondhand experience with. The sensation of my skin crawling, the sudden catch in my throat, the feeling of hot nausea, is all coming from somewhere. Where is it coming from? My intense revulsion at having my face covered, of feeling warm breath, my own or someone else's coming back into my face (the whole Covid mask thing is a real funfest for me) comes with vague, disjointed memories of something awful happening, something I could not escape.

The dissociative episodes that have occurred related to certain situations did not happen because I embraced a negative thought. Positive thinking and reframing has a place in coping, I believe. With enough gentle, loving exposure and practice,  and enough positive reinforcement, and enough reframing of my own reactions and thoughts, I think, perhaps foolishly given my past experiences, that I could feel some positive, arousing, loving things while someone I trust and love deeply laces or zips up or otherwise secures a full body covering thing around me.

But that addresses a single reaction and not the root cause of my whatever. My issues? My past? My questions of "Who gave me this?"

Again, maybe not the most cogent thing I've ever written. More like a stream of spew from a container labeled "Contents Under Pressure"  The best I can manage right now.

Sincerely,
Eido

[teanndaorsa]

I think most of us could charitably be described as a grab-bag of all sorts of experiences, good and bad, all mixed together in a chaotic storm. What makes us feel one way or another is a complex blend of things, some easy to spot and understand, others subtle and misleading. Personally I think it's too easy to get lost down the rabbit hole of "why?" Sometimes knowing why can help, other times it's a reason that doesn't change anything about what you choose to do next. Worrying about whether or not your choices are "your own" and not some deterministic outcome of the sum of your experiences is a fool's game. Even if those desires are "determined" by your experiences, the complexity and uniqueness of your experiences is as much "you" as the face you see in the mirror in the morning.

In the end, we enjoy what we enjoy, whether it makes sense or not, whether you can justify it to another or not. I think what matters more is that we get to choose, and how much we enjoy those choices when we do. As one of my authors keeps telling me: revel in your kink(s). Enjoy them for how they make you feel, rather than second guessing them. Not everyone will share your kinks, not everyone has to. All that matters is that you do.