Circle of Tall Trees

Category: Tree (Page 2 of 10)

Ancestry, roots, grounding, lineage.

It Wasn’t All Bad.

September 9, 2026 / / 0 Comments

From the Wild Collective Heart series: Part 23

Content warning: BDSM and coercive power dynamics, dissociation, trauma reenactment, psychological manipulation, and references to childhood trauma.

“It wasn’t all bad.”

My father told me that in the middle of my mental health crisis. He was referring to my childhood years. “It wasn’t all bad” would follow me into this second uniting with my ex Dom.

I told myself, it’s not all bad. Which became, the good outweighs the bad. The benefits outweigh my fears and doubts.

He told me he didn’t know all that was going on when we met. He didn’t know I wasn’t sleeping or eating or that I’d had a mental breakdown. And I wanted to believe him so badly because the alternative was that I was talking to someone extremely calculated and someone dangerous to me and my system.

I wanted a good story, and I got exactly that. Just… it wasn’t the story I meant or set out to create and live.

I wanted the BDSM dynamic, the devotion, the intensive care, and even love, potentially. I wanted what I never had. The allowance to be myself and… not abused for it. Not exploited for it.

I needed it to have been a misunderstanding because the alternative was that this person I’d trusted with my mind and body, my sacral energy, was another reenactment of a time when I was truly vulnerable and at the mercy of others.

It feels extremely humiliating and painful to realize I’ve reenacted something from my past. The deep shame is unbearable. I could logically recognize that I was reenacting something and still not be able to see what was happening while my brain was overwhelmed. I was misfiring, overcompensating, burning out, and going numb. They were all warnings I couldn’t see because dissociation was my blind spot.

Then add to that the chemical fire of a BDSM dynamic and my brain is mud, ripe for conditioning.

I started to notice he’d say things while I was in subspace, tranced, sometimes heavily dissociated, flooded with happy chemicals, endorphins and things. He’d tell me he owns me, not just as his submissive, but all of me, soul included. He would tell me it’s his destiny to own me. He’d tell me afterward he was just following the flow of the moment and encourage me to do the same.

Over time, I looked for how this was mirroring my past. My father had a hypnotic way of speaking to me. A confusing and deliberate tone, spacing of words, and intense stare. He’d only talk to me like this alone in his bedroom.

Instead of reacting in terror that my ex Dom was mimicking this with me, I felt grateful for the clear processing of a past puzzle piece and fell into further devotion to him.

I gave him the credit for the work I did with my selves because he led me into that space where I could look, notice, and see. Where the truth could break free from the stubborn dissociative walls and, for a moment, I could piece it together and be free.

I gave him way too much credit.

-Raven & Rogue

Plainly and Unabashedly

September 8, 2026 / / 0 Comments

From the Wild Collective Heart series: Part 22

Content Warning: Psychological abuse, coercive D/s dynamics, dissociation, BDSM, religious conditioning, and complicated spiritual and sexual dynamics.

We’ve really had to discuss how to speak about this, the spiritual side of what happened to us with our first-ever Dom, who wasn’t a Dom at all, nor were we looking for a Dom. It’s very, well, chaotic, as you can tell by now. He was the person to introduce us to BDSM at all.

Our upbringing introduced us to a very classic dynamic within couples that made it feel natural to us. My mother and her mother and her mother were all submissive to their husbands. It was not only the spirituality we lived at the time, but also the dynamic in the home of our upbringing.

I remember my oldest brother asking me to cook for him on occasion. Like, literally, he asked me to make him a sandwich and another time a pie for his girlfriend. I did it with pride for having a skill that he needed. I was useful.

So, with this Dominant person, it was entirely natural to me that it would be the same. I was useful.

The issue is, my worldview was very cut off from the world at large. I only had a tiny perspective to go by and nothing else to gauge reality from. I still kind of prefer it that way, to be true. We’re already complicated, and humans are, and so I do actually prefer my world to be simple, while I also really love the complexity of reality, much like I enjoy a good story.

-Lilith

It is complicated to not sound completely off our rocker talking about the spiritual aspects. Well, but the D/s was always spiritual to us. That is right there to see within our upbringing. We treated it as holy. A communion between souls and God/s. It’s how we learned to open to our devotion and ekstasis at all. It is agape.

-Star

I rather like the plain texts on such things. Plainly and unabashedly is best.

-Lilith

Of course.

-Star

True. So Boring Though.

September 8, 2026 / / 0 Comments

From the Wild Collective Heart series: Part 21

Content Warning: Psychological abuse, coercive sexual dynamics, BDSM/D/s dynamics, trauma reenactment, dissociation/DID, manipulation, sexual language, and references to childhood trauma.

He called himself our pimp when we came back to him. He was beyond happy about it. I was not celebrating, as I understood this to be reenacting on our part, and his part? Well, the truth reveals itself in “pimp” from the get-go. I mean, I can’t put it any more succinctly than that.

I was not as cohesive as we are now, nor was I at the helm of our life any longer when this happened. I came out fighting and furious.

I told him and my selves this was only reenacting and soon it would be done with, to which he mocked me, telling me, “You just need a little reenacting and all good to go.”

I guess this is when it became sincerely personal for me. He knew I was not in executive control of my system. He started in on calling me a bitch and telling all parts of me I am just a bitch he needs to submit. I tried to keep front. I tried to handle it, but Rogue was better equipped.

-Raven

Yeah, the trouble is I liked the psychological fuckery. I still do, but of course now, I understand that he in particular did not have our best interest in mind, and it could not be a real D/s without the key elements of negotiation, sanity, and boundaries, along with discipline and, foremostly, consent.

I kind of chalked it up to, well, at least we’re alive! We’re living and making choices, and that’s better than dying from COVID! I needed the structure and the attention. I needed to be allowed my sexual-ness without the constant shame of that expression from various parts of self. No shade intended. This is all hindsight stuff, anyway.

I fell head/vagina long into a D/s arranged around my trauma and his narcissism. I had fun too. Hence why I reiterate, I thought I was also a psychopath like my father, like him. I fucking found him so relatable it was intense. Like, we were made for each other.

AND we were, sort of.

It’s that whole empath and hunter-prey dynamic. Oh fuck me, I had lived for that shit. Not only was it home, right? It was intoxicating. It was enthralling, finally the vampire I could be fucked by. Chills.

But I do solemnly recognize he fed off my ability to imagine and create enough for me to make him a prince of darkness to begin with. He really had to do very little, actually. I filled in the blanks of him with my fantasies, and he willingly accepted.

Gods, if only we’d met in a mental institution.

-Me playing. Sort of.

-Rogue

Yeah, well, while I was living the horror of being aware we were being conned and abused, catfished even, I’m glad you enjoyed it.

-Raven

Don’t get pissy. You enjoyed it too.

-Rogue

No comment.

-Raven

Omfg, this is your time to shine. No shame, babe.

-Rogue

Alright, I fell for him too. For a moment I understood the dynamic and believed we’re fucked and crazy, and what else is there to do but join them and see what this is all about? BUT I read and learned about true BDSM dynamics on the side, and yeah, I knew this was not going good places.

-Raven

You liked it.

-Rogue

Oh, I loved it. I have no shame about that. But he was not a Dom. Not at all.

-Raven

True. So boring though, but true.

-Rogue

Back Into Hand

September 7, 2026 / / 0 Comments

From the Wild Collective Heart series: Part 20


Content Warning: Trauma, dissociation/DID, coercive control, trauma bonds, psychological manipulation, disrupted therapy, and references to COVID-19 illness and distress.

I brought us back to him. I had to. I had a dream that he was dying and wrapped in bandages from head to toe, and he was asking for some solace only. I sat across from him at a cafeteria table, and I felt intense terror in losing him. I remembered his email and contacted him. He wrote me back immediately, telling me how loving and kind I am. That was who I remembered. Not how they talked about him in therapy.

-Essie

The world had changed in the COVID crisis, and my system was deeply activated during that time. We excel at surviving, but it takes a toll, and parts of us searched for the last known handler to feel safe again and be told what to do. It didn’t matter that I had all my know-how for emergency times from my upbringing. We were still lacking the comfort and the love we needed to feel safe in our foundations.

The contrast was a tug-of-war inside us that would not end. And finally, I was worn down from lack of sleep and fear and having gotten sick with COVID, and my system took executive control and did the unthinkable after so many years of therapy under our belt by then.

I don’t blame us. I understand it painfully.

-Robin

We were also in the middle of trauma processing in therapy. After years of stabilization and learning how to stabilize and function in our life together, we’d chosen to begin processing the trauma that created our internal structuring to begin with. That meant somewhat reexperiencing the trauma for the first time together, as parts of us began encountering trauma that hadn’t previously been known across our system.

Between that and COVID and our regular in-person therapy being disrupted, it was too much for the world to deal with, let alone us. So it makes perfect sense to me why we’d trigger back to where we had last felt some kind of safety.

-Raven

Essie’s not going to, so we should explain. She’s a part of us that split off when we’d met our ex-Dom, and her primary function was to be somewhat of an introject of him and bring us back to him. We had just learned of her months before COVID even happened, and it may have been likely she was always going to try reaching out to him again and COVID just gave the opportunity for her to.

-Rogue

Great observation and point. This was going to happen as long as we didn’t connect with Essie and all align, and typically these things do happen at the height of stress. It’s not surprising or shameful. We were in the process of healing, after all.

We found ourselves back with the man so willing to be there for us when we found out we had DID, our listener/Dom, again. He was all too happy to have had us come back into hand, too.

-Raven

Straight Through

September 7, 2026 / / 0 Comments

From the Wild Collective Heart series: Part 19

Content Warning: Trauma, dissociation/DID, spiritual possession narratives, family invalidation, psychological distress, and references to mental health treatment.

I excelled at therapy. I treated it like high school and really worked at it. The alternative was to sit in the trauma with no relief, and so the incentive to help myself and be supported was high. Also, I had that whole pesky narrative to disprove for all parts of me, the one trying to strip us of our humanity and frame a well-known mental health condition as spiritual possession or not even real.

Our mind was broken. Our body was broken. Our spirit was seriously questioning everything we’d known to be true. That person online had joined the wagon that I was possessed, along with my family, before he blocked communication with us. From all sides, my world collapsed. The only way out was straight through that bullshit and into understanding myself and listening to my inner parts. Supporting myself.

-Raven

I was there in therapy, but mainly just checking out the psychologist to make sure they were safe for us. I didn’t really feel hopeful much could change and get better. My whole life was a trauma loop just waiting to come back around. If not for Raven, we wouldn’t have chosen therapy for ourselves at all. We would have kept in the loop, in the shame, and in the crazy-making for the rest of our life. I love her more for making us do the hardest things and acting as whatever we needed to heal. A parent, a friend, a sister, and a guide.

-Rogue

And they entrusted me enough to make solid changes in our quality of life as a DID system and as a people. That’s so difficult for many internal people to do.

-Raven

Yeah, but it took an enormous amount of patience from you to get us aligned with similar goals and safe enough to need at all.

-Rogue

Thank you.

-Raven

I Became Who Would

September 6, 2026 / / 2 Comments

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

Sketch

September 6, 2026 / / 0 Comments

From the Wild Collective Heart series: Part 17

Content Warning: Psychological abuse, coercive sexual dynamics, food restriction, sleep deprivation, dissociation, and family abandonment.

He’d called me a pig and told me to snort for him. I laughed my ass off and left. I didn’t know yet who he was or the damage that had been done. I just knew my Rogue was into something, and it was time to get her out of it.

After some investigating, I learned this guy was our support person from a website promoting trained mental health support with kind and compassionate listeners available to chat.

So… why was he in our email? He was acting as our support person and our Dom?

Sketch.

I started watching and reading, desperate to get a grasp on the reality of our current events. I looked at anything and everything around us. Books, rooms, emails, pictures, whatever was in front of me, trying to piece it all together. I had parts of myself I never knew of and traumas I had never been exposed to coming out through the seams of our skull rapidly.

I watched our body collapsing along with our mind. I had skin rashes, my hair was falling out, I’d lost 55 pounds. We weren’t eating. We weren’t sleeping.

He’d supported all this by telling us we were a pig and needed to put down the fork. Giving us an article about how eight hours of sleep wasn’t necessary. Broken-up sleep patterns were superior time management.

I looked like a ghost, a zombie in the mirror. I felt terror. My family was in tatters, and it all hit at once. The past abuse coming up in us. My family turning away and choosing to side with my father.

I begged for help. I told my mother, “I am not okay and I need help.”

My mother spoke to me as if I was dead, as if I wasn’t speaking to her.

She said, “It’s like she died and I don’t have a daughter anymore.”

And I knew I was on my own.

-Raven

I’m No Victim. I Clap Back.

September 5, 2026 / / 0 Comments

From the Wild Collective Heart series: Part 16

Content Warning: References to childhood physical abuse, choking, coercive control, dissociation, BDSM, emotional manipulation, and abandonment trauma.

I liked him well enough. He was a bit crazed like me. I found him relatable in that he could be incredibly psychopathic, and at the time I was viewing myself as potentially fucked up enough to be so myself.

Turns out numbness and a purely evil tongue when triggered does not make a psychopath, just a hurt girl dealing with her own complex trauma responses. I have tons of empathy and go numb and into survival fighting when triggered.

It had been how I coped, trying to put myself in other people’s places to understand them and relate so that I didn’t have to carry more pain over how willfully and diligently they chose to hurt the shit out of me.

But I’m no victim. I clap back.

The last time I clapped back at my father when I was younger, his rage pinned me to the wall, his forearm choking me as he screamed red an inch from my face. He apparently was teaching me never to stand up for myself against his authority.

I blacked out. I still wonder if I was choked out or had I just dissociated. Probably both.

Clapping back at my ex Dom meant he’d punish me until I was exhausted and just wanted it to stop. Assailing me with criticism. Threatening me he’d leave, which was my biggest trigger. Abandonment wounds for the win.

He’d actually leave too, which was a pain I cannot yet put to words. I fought and kept fighting it and then submitted. At least I fought. That’s what I held onto to comfort myself after.

Otherwise though, I loved the BDSM.

-Rogue

I Liked to Read

September 5, 2026 / / 0 Comments

From the Wild Collective Heart series: Part 15

Content Warning: References to childhood sexual abuse, coercive control, sexual conditioning, dissociation, and punishment.

I looked for peanut butter when I woke back up. Carried it with me, licking my fingers from the dip. Where I found myself was nice. Clean and warm. The windows let light in and weren’t covered up. No terrifying dogs to navigate around. No Auntie though, no one to tell me where I was and for what.

I started talking to him and realized, oh, this is a handler. Okay, so there was someone to tell me what was up.

He was very kind. Usually handlers get to business faster, and I pushed him for it a bit because the waiting made me nervous, like I couldn’t be done with the job, and I sure wanted done with it.

It was very hard to figure out what he wanted me to do, too. I had to tell him I didn’t know a lot of things he’d been talking about, which was a scary admittance because I was unsure if he’d punish me for it.

He recommended some books about sexual chemistry, and I glanced through them. I liked to read. They were interesting, I guess, like how to read sexual energy between partners and how to respond to it.

So then I wondered, was he a client of ours and I’d misread the whole thing? Still wasn’t sure, but was leaning toward that due to the books he’d given me.

Then I learned he was training me.

Definitely handler.

Those first weeks I got my footing and learned how to make him content. He’d leave afterwards or punish us with accusations. I got worn out real fast and couldn’t keep front long enough to gather what he was up to.

-Bear

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Content Notice
Audience: Adults (18+).
Rating: Comparable to an R-rated film. Contains mature themes, sexual and sensual material, trauma, and spiritual content.

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