Closing a Chapter

I would like to add some content warnings at the beginning of this post. I discuss sexual assault here, with PTSD and the aftermath as a big part. There is also mention of BDSM and the BDSM community, though I tried to not be too graphic. If any of these are subjects that bother you, please consider not reading this article. In any case, take care of your mental health. You matter.

Today I deleted my Fetlife account.

If you don’t know what Fetlife is, it’s a sort of social media site for people who are into kink to meet with other people into kink. For the decade I was using it, off and on, it was not really a dating site. You got to meet with other likeminded people in your local BDSM scene, or see other, similarly minded events.

I signed up for Fetlife the first time when I returned from college. I had been curious about BDSM for a while, discovering I was a submissive who did not meet the DSM criteria for masochist (which was a good thing). For years, I explored this side of me online. On Fetlife, I continued this exploration.

After converting to Catholicism, I closed my account, thinking I would not need it anymore. I was considering entering the religious life, and had been for years before my conversion. I was not aware of my asexuality at the time. I simply assumed I was a heterosexual person who was just different.

In 2019, however, I finally told myself the equivalent of carpe diem. I would have to do something in my life, take some chances, meet some people. So I started attending local events in the BDSM scene nearby.

At first, it was fine, if bland and somewhat annoying. I attended munches at a buffet restaurant, where we would meet in the back and talk kink. I didn’t talk really much at all. I met people and exchanged socials. Most were much older than me.

Then I made the decision to attend the local dungeon.

The BDSM Scene: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Prior to attending the local club, I thought that everyone into BDSM was a Bettie Page style model. I was waiting for corsets and latex galore, and for men attired like extras in The Matrix. I found things to be much more mundane, with a queer celebration of many bodies that was shocking and pleasing at the same time.

I was out of my league, to be honest. I spoke with a catty drag queen, observed as a Domme used a remote to shock her sub, and spoke to a large array of people. For the most part, I hid in the shadows. I had been very sheltered my entire life, and I confess I was the one who made it that way. I spent so much of my life wrapped up in the world of books and the imagination, that it was strange and alien to see these things before me. And to realize these were people.

One of the proprietors of the club suggested that I could be demisexual, since I did not want to “scene” with anyone there. To scene is to enact a BDSM action, such as a flogging, a spanking, etc. It usually has a specific amount of time and limits attached to it. It can be ended through the use of a safeword, and there are monitors there to make sure things are consensual.

I explored spanking and flogging with several people, but I did not find it enjoyable, outside of the flashes of pain it provided. I found my body wondering about the sensations I was feeling, the unfamiliar jolt of stimulation to the nerves. The first time I visited, a person known for being well-versed in the art of spanking introduced me, and the stars I saw, the universe before me, sent me into a bewildered, ecstatic fog that I’ve never quite reached since, and tried to reach in the few interactions after.

But it was difficult. The most difficult thing about it was seeing the unhappiness of the people who changed their partners over and over. The men loved to show off their “toys,” like excited geeks at cons. The women often seemed pleased with exploiting themselves and each other. But there was every gender in between in those dark rooms, the carefully curated playlist pounding as you could hear screams and moans over the course of a night.

A Wrong Turn: Fight, Flight, Freeze, and Fawn

I was green, even though I thought I knew everything about BDSM. Playing with people online, even through voice, is never the same thing as participating in the scene. A man I vaguely knew sent me a message on Fetlife. He said that he’d like to do a scene with me. I outright rejected him, as it as clear he had a girlfriend, and furthermore, I wasn’t interested. He persisted, asking me to watch him scene with someone, then asking me for coffee. It was so easy to say no to all of the above online.

Eventually, his girlfriend/friend found me and became my buddy. She added me to their WhatsApp conversation, and the man said he’d be happy to see me at the next event. I was flattered to be included in a friend group, even if it involved the asshole. I had few friends who truly understood me as it was.

That evening, the man approached me and asked. I again said no. Later on, he approached me again, and asked. I said yes that time, because I wanted him out of my hair. I will not go into details, but it was nonconsensual as soon as he started pushing his tongue down my throat. And once he tied me up, I froze.

I learned later, from a therapist, that I was playing dead. She told me that fight and flight are not the only things we do when we feel in danger. Freeze is another response that we often have when something traumatic happens. I tried to tell him that I wanted him to lay up, and I did tell him to ease up when I could talk, but he did for a few seconds before hitting me harder and harder. I tried not to throw up. I tried so hard to survive.

What happened when it was over was strange too. I sat with him, dazed, but not in the same way as I was when I enjoyed that first spanking. I was starting to dissociate for the first time in my life. I cuddled him and coddled him, hoping that I would appease him and be able to get away. They call that fawn.

In the aftermath, I told that proprietor about the assault, and reported it to members of the board that hosted the event. I did what I always do in the face of these situations. I try to do the right thing so that others do not get hurt. It was not for me, but for future victims that I tried to tell.

But she (and others) blamed me very casually for the assault that happened in January of 2020, right before COVID. They blamed me for not saying the safeword, and for knowing that I “go nonverbal.” For so long, I believed them rather than myself. I believed the words they used to save their asses over my lack of sleep.

After the assault, the predator also took my sleep. For the next five years, I would sleep with the lights on, in four hour intervals, often with nightmares and abrupt awakenings. I would see myself there, tied to the St. Andrews cross, viciously beaten, over and over.

What this person stole from me was more than just the worst night of my life. He stole my sleep, he stole my safety, he stole my comfort. It was a long, long journey to get a PTSD diagnosis and head toward the road to recovery.

The Long and Winding Road: Recovery and Dear Heart

After these horrible interactions, I deleted my account, afraid that other people would come after me for maligning this person’s name. I cut all ties to the local community, and I tried my hardest to keep a modicum of my sanity as a grocery store worker during the height of COVID-19. I used my EAP to get a therapist, and I fought so, so hard to get a PTSD diagnosis.

Apparently, unless you’ve served in combat, even if you have been sexually assaulted, it’s hard to get a PTSD diagnosis as a woman. It was not until my second hospital visit that the doctor nodded and said that this sounds about right. Things were different for me, too. I had more meltdowns, and every day, every single day, I would consider ending my life. Every day. My first hospitalizations occurred during this period too.

In 2023, I moved to Macon, where my situation deteriorated, but also got better, in some ways. After being shuffled through some very dismissive and cruel doctors, I finally found someone who was willing to listen, and a therapist who was more than willing to treat the anger, the anxiety, the fear, as what it was: PTSD.

Every day I lived in Macon, I lived in fear. I slept in my extended stay AirBnBs with the lights on every night. I watched my back and carried pepper spray as I walked downtown. Not in fear of the rampant homeless population, but in fear of affluent white guys I would see walking or jogging along. They reminded me again and again of my attacker. I clenched my fist every time.

I continued for a long time to consider my own end, until I was put back on lithium, which knocked out most of the ideation. Having been diagnosed with bipolar disorder years ago, it had been one of the most effective drugs for me. It almost miraculously began a healing process that would take me out of Macon and to the arms of Dear Heart.

At the end of 2024, I was starting to piece back my life. Having worked a year at a thankless library assistant job that was triggering panic attacks, I was ready for a change. I started freelancing as a writer for a company that sells philosophy-themed t-shirts. And I decided to ask out someone I’d met online.

I met him in an odd place online (not Fetlife), and we talked about this and that. He shared his love of horror movies and his extensive cackle-worthy humor. He also listened. He listened to my hour-long rants on the state of the world, on the men who are bastards, on my unfortunate position. He listened, and we met to see the new (horrible) Nosferatu.

Moving Forward with the Best Support

The rest is history. We have been together for over a year, and he got me out of Macon. He is a kind man who loves dogs, D&D, and apparently me. I don’t know what I did to deserve him, but I am so very glad he is here and so am I.

A while after I deleted my Fetlife account, I setup another one. I am not sure why. Perhaps out of morbid curiosity. I had meant to delete the account as soon as we became serious. I was really only receiving messages and friend requests from creepy old men, even after I mentioned I was in an exclusive relationship. I hadn’t visited it in about a year.

I was in the midst of deleting another account when I thought, eh? Why not. And I did it. And it felt like such a weight was lifted from my shoulders.

I’ve had the pleasure of working with a very good for me therapist for the past year plus, who told me that I had spent my entire life facing my mental health challenges alone. Now, I have someone to face them with. I have someone who holds me when I am having a panic attack, and someone who is loving and kind. I didn’t know you could have a loving and exclusive relationship with someone that got you and liked you because of it.

I am at a point where I can manage the symptoms better. I still don’t understand every trigger, or when I need to work on taking care of me a little more than usual, but I have a better grasp on when I need support and how to reach out for it. Closing that account was like shutting a book you no longer need to read. An old textbook, maybe.

I am ready to move forward with my life, beyond the trauma. I am ready to actually live my life and do the brave things I stopped doing because of the fear.

There is hope after trauma. There is hope after ideation. I learned that emotions can be so painful that it is visceral, and ideation becomes a response. Not a desire to end your life, but to end the feeling. And feelings end, they do. I never thought these would end, but then I found a person who showed me they could. For that I am infinitely grateful.

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