I Became Who Would

From the Wild Collective Heart series: Part 18

Content Warning: Childhood exploitation and trafficking, psychological abuse, coercive sexual dynamics, dissociation, trauma reenactment, family abandonment, and threats of institutionalization.

I ran like hell from everything leaking inside of me and from those people back there I’d thought I’d known.

Our “Listener/Dom” broke it off with us, which was intensely cruel, as there were parts of me who saw him as their protector, their lover, their handler, and so on. Even though it was ultimately for our best outcome, it was still a nightmare. I learned there were parts inside of me that could not stop themselves from following the patterns he’d set for them each day. They were stuck in a trauma loop, reenacting over and over, making sexually explicit videos and pictures as though they still had to perform for him. It took months for our nervous system to calm enough for it to stop. We had these parts hand the videos and pictures over to us each day instead of sending him anything. For a time, I kept us without a computer to ensure all parts of self were safe.

He’d had parts of me who were trafficked as a child performing for him, and they were so overwhelmed by the loss of who would take care of them that I became who would.

I got us in therapy. A few duds, and then the psychologist I was on a waitlist to get in with finally had a patient opening. I knew that it was safest for my entire system that we be in therapy and working on healing.

My father had turned my family of origin against me and wanted me committed to a mental institution, where he happened to work. He told my family, and even extended family, that I was spiritually possessed. I knew that I could not be safe again, and I felt my life might be in danger, so I got help, which posed its own complications. My system was told never to speak about anything in our past or the most severe punishments would find them.

Well, we clearly did the work needed to find freedom.

-Raven & Rogue