threads, thoughts, and Christian D/s
You can't do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth --Shira Tehrani
i have been actively following a thread on my Christian D/s email group about panic attacks in the middle of scenes. one girl, a sub, had one such an attack and had no idea where it came from, as (she says) there has been nothing in her history to provoke such a thing. i have refrained from commenting on this, even though i have suffered from a panic attack or two during a scene in my past, because my experiences were so different.
i am not referring to the general panic i would feel when i was with M., but... after Him... there were times with other People when i would have a flashback which would lead to a fairly severe panic attack. it hasn't happened much lately, and not at all with Master, but with my previous Master it happened a few times. mostly it would occur when something was said or done, something was approached that reminded me of something with Michael so clearly that it mentally threw me right back into the times i was with Him. from things i read, i guess i sort of had post-traumatic stress disorder, at least to some extent. i hope it has faded enough that a panic attack won't happen with Master. if it does, i hope it doesn't anger Him too much. it used to really upset my previous Master, which got me even more upset.
there is another thread going through the group that i am thinking of posting to; a survey about background and religion and D/s. i already posted to the activity survey, which was only my second post, after the introduction one. some of the P/people on there seem really nice. one of the male Members (a Master) emailed me privately outside of the group. i'm not really all that comfortable with that, and i haven't answered. it has been about a week, and i am not sure at this point if i will answer or not, or even if i should. He hasn't emailed again, and He was the only person to do that, to email me directly and not through the group, so i don't think it is a usual occurance. if it turns out that it is at some point i may choose to leave the group, though i would hate to do that.
what i like about this group is that for the most part, T/they are all real life people, and T/they share my beliefs and values. T/they share my love for an "old-fashioned" or victorian type of marriage, a relationship where a Man is the undisputed head of the household. T/they also are all, at least as i have seen so far, sweet and kind P/people, concerned about one A/another and it is really almost a community. i think in some ways, this group fills the void in my life that mainhall used to, before mainhall turned to where it is now. these people are the kinds of people i used to know in the hall.
what i find a little ironic is that most of the people in this email group grew up in traditional Christian homes, with the wife/mother playing a submissive role in the family (even though not practicing D/s) and the husband/father the head of the household. in my family it was so different. there was no "traditional" with my parents, though to some extent there was with my grandparents, when i would visit them (maybe this had a bigger influence on me than i thought)... but with my parents, my mother was a screaming loony and my dad just always let her have her way. i know that sounds harsh to say that about my mother, but... i grew up in a house where i was told almost every day that i was unwanted, that i was not good enough, that i would never be anything worthwhile... all of this was far worse than the occasional (though severe, when it happened) physical abuse. so when i say my mother was a screaming loony i mean it literally.
of course, she has been through counseling now, and is quite different than she was when i was a child (in some ways, though i still will never be "good enough" to please her). my parents and i have tried to remedy our relationship, and it is better now than it was when i was a child, though my fathers recent name calling and berating of me on the night of my grandmothers death put that backwards a bit. i have to say, both of them are nicer now than they were when i was a child, though. of course, this may be due to the fact that i was not the child that they wanted, and so i felt the brunt of it then, when the disappointment was fresh to them. now, they are somewhat resigned to what nature has given them, though they are not particularly happy about it.
well, Master is online so i guess i should tie this up for now. someday maybe i will get into why i think my childhood made D/s inevitable for me, though i think that is already pretty clear.... til next W/we meet be well and happy --di.