From the Wild Collective Heart series: Part 28

Content Warning: Trauma, dissociation/DID, coercive control, sexual coercion, psychological manipulation, trauma bonds, and emotional abuse.

I didn’t really have the capacity to take our ex Dom seriously at the time. I tried, but I could see he wasn’t really taking things seriously himself. He was just using us and getting away with what he could.

Sometimes I think all the tricks he pulled on us were what made him feel powerful. Not “owning” me in any devotional sense or caretaking sense, but deceiving me. Kind of weird to me that he’d pick someone easy to deceive and then play that fantasy out hardcore. But we all have our fantasies.

We’d bounce back, which we found incredible. We had no idea of our own resilience because we’d never seen ourselves, our gifts and talents, our anything. We lived a life of survival.

The drawback is that sometimes it looks like resilience when it’s actually hypervigilance or a crash waiting to happen. But when our nervous system is regulated and our basic foundational needs are met, we can really succeed. Especially when we feel reciprocally loved back in a stable way.

For a time, we thought he did love us. He said as much and acted like he was struggling with not having us come to him, acting like he wanted us to be there with him in person at some point, even if it was years down the road.

It’s pretty painful to me because I have a lot of sweetness to give, and I gave it to the wrong person. I hate that. I really don’t like that he messed with my gut, my intuition, and my sweetheart head like that.

Oh sure, he wanted the sex, the adoration and worship, the devotion and unconditional love.

He just never wanted to reciprocate.

He called us fake a few times, and it pushed us to show up for him more and try to cure his loneliness with more.

I hate that he messed with our innocence, our naïveté, and our hope like that. Those things ain’t flaws. They are beautiful and deserved protection.

Just my two cents.

I didn’t much like him pretty quickly.

He wouldn’t let me orgasm for too long, until everything hurt and all the darkness swallowed me up, and when I begged until exhausted, then he’d act like he was saving me. My body responded to him and I couldn’t help it.

I’m real quiet usually.

But on this thing, I’m glad we’re speaking about it.

-Lily