Screams are Not for Me

So, I've got something of a confession to make. I can't deal with screaming.

It's something I've struggled with for quite a number of years. For most people, of course, feeling uncomfortable around people screaming is a perfectly ordinary and desired reaction - when people scream, that usually means they're in trouble.

But that's not so much the case when you're a kinkster.

Because screams happen a lot at our gatherings, and in our homes, and they're not typically signs of distress. Indeed, for a lot of kinksters, they're a sign of getting exactly what they want. Screams of pain, of delight, they're all a part of our lifestyle.

But I don't deal with them very well.

It's reached it's biggest point now that Sister has started hanging around the house more, and Daddy has started playing with her more often. Sister has a much bigger appetite for pain than I ever did, and it means that Daddy can push harder than he'd normally do with myself or other partners. And she's not the kind of painslut that goes all stoic. No, she cries out, she screams, she yells.

And that makes it really difficult to stay present when the two are playing. It takes me back to bad times with my parents. It takes me back to times where I've been smacked or belted because I've done something wrong, and that is not a place where I want to go. Even writing this, I'm having to write around the emotions, because I don't really want to accidentally slip into those memories. It's a bad place. Worse, as I start getting closer to those memories, I start getting anxious about other sound, like impact noises, I start desperately needing to get away, because my calm's been broken, and I need to go somewhere where there's no kinky noises to put the shield back up.

So, if you see me in a quiet corner at an event, or at a kink party, or you see me being really uncomfortable, this is probably why. I do want to be part of events, and this reaction makes things hard for me. Feel free to distract me, or take me away from the scene, take me to another part of the party where I can talk with others and not be around the violent sounds. I'll be grateful, and you might just have saved my sanity for another night.

Isolation and Vulnerability

I've posted previously about how I've kept myself distant from things around me, and recently I've been doing a bit more work into trying to break that down. In particular, I've started seeing my old psych again, and tried to pick up where we left off.

He pointed out a really interesting thing that I hadn't really thought about, when we were talking about whether to engage or stay distant. He pointed out that really, the question was striking a balance between isolation (which is safe, but lonely) and vulnerability (which is dangerous, but rewarding).

He noted that I've had a lot of bad cases of becoming vulnerable to someone, and then that person betraying my trust. Which means that, over time, I've become a whole lot less willing to be vulnerable around people. Oh sure, I can happily chat to people, talk to them about me, but I'm never investing my vulnerability on those conversations. Instead, I'm keeping solid distance, throwing out "safe" parts of myself. But it means that I have very few real, genuine friends, because I won't let down that isolation barrier, and engage in real, vulnerable interaction.

Me and Daddy had a talk last night about what my isolation means in our relationship, especially seeing how long-term it is. And really, what it's doing is choking his desire to engage in anything meaningful with me. After all, I always have the shields up, I don't engage with anything he'd plan, so what's the point? I'm only caring about what I'm getting out of kink, I'm not really engaging with him on the level he's looking for. Worse, it's making it hard for him to take those sorts of interactions from others - I'm basically rubbing off on him.

As much as he's not saying this to make me feel bad, it does make me feel a bit guilty. Even if it's not exactly my fault, it's still my problem to fix. I have to learn this engagement stuff, but frankly I'm not sure where to start. Well, okay, I know exactly where to start, and I've already done it - I'm seeking professional help. But as of yet, I have no game plan, how I get this fixed.

Oh well. Baby steps.