How many of us?

This may trigger some readers, please be aware before reading. 

This is something that I have been wondering for a long time. I've talked to some friends about the experience. Daddy knows, of course, Daddy knows everything. Without outing anyone who is not ready, my very good friend Monster's Nightmare talks about her experience on her blog. My new friend faerie talks about hers on her blog. Faerie says she is tired of keeping the secret, and it made me think maybe I am, too. And I wonder how many of us have been broken...

My father was largely absent from my life. He technically lived in the house, in the spare room where his wife had relegated him, until she required his services. He worked three or four jobs, all the time, because she spent money like water. I learned as I grew that it was a relief, likely, to have the reason to be away from her. She slept with a loaded Winchester under her bed and took pleasure in threatening him with it at regular intervals, that someday she'd come in when he was asleep and blow him away.

'She' is the woman who gave birth to me. She is not my mother, mothers don't do the things she did. She was an unwilling womb-donor. My mother is the woman my father married when I was 16. She taught me what is was to be a mother as I observed her with my brother and sister. She gave me some kind of foundation for how to treat my children. I am grateful for her presence in my life. I would have been lost without her....literally. She welcomed me out of a black hole and into her home when I was 16 - right before she married my father - how great a sacrifice is that?

The womb donor was schizophrenic. She was an alcoholic. She was addicted to street and prescription drugs. She was abusive in every way possible. Once, curious about a Christmas present she threatened me until I told her what she was to receive, then beat me into the corner for spoiling the surprise. It was our secret, though & when she opened it and acted surprised, she gave me a conspiratorial wink. Things like that were commonplace. She would take the money my father would give her for bills and food and go away for the weekend with her men - another secret, wink-wink. She would wake me at 2 or 3AM, and I would be made to bring her dresser drawers down one at a time, stand behind them while she directed me how to clean & straighten them, and told me I was a worthless pig, a whore, a slut ...words I had no concept of their meaning, and which still bring violent reactions to me to this day. Hour after hour, drawer after drawer, hurtful word after hurtful word.

She was very promiscuous. There was an endless parade of men in and out of our house. My father was never there, his main job was shift-work, made it easy for her. Some of her men friends liked little girls. She made me available to them. My first clear memory was at age 5. It stopped about 12 or 13. Sometimes she would leave me alone with them. Sometimes she was there, holding me down, telling me this is what the big girls do, and I wanted to be a big girl, didn't I? I learned how to dissociate just to be numb, to not have to experience things, and to be able to save myself from worse, reaction meant it got worse- never show them how much it hurts.

She broke me. I disliked touch and intimacy - they are still hard for me. I didn't - still don't - trust easily. I am a big researcher. When I started exploring I learned that my submissive nature could have been nurtured by my childhood, and my need to be pleasing, loved and accepted. I've tried to understand why I need the things in my life that I do having come from that.

The Daddy part - heck that's easy - he is reparenting that part of me. I am free to be that which I never was before, sweet, small, innocent, and treasured. I am free to see and experience my sense of delight and wonder in the world, and someone is delighted by it.  I am free to trust, and know that my trust will not be broken. I am free to enjoy touch, with love. Thank you, Daddy, I love you with my all, your love is unconditional and that is my miracle. YOU are my miracle, and I am forever grateful for you.

The DD part, that's a little harder. This is what I figure - my world was inconsistent. There was no sure footing. Things were variable. With DD, there is surety. There is structure. There are rules which do not change. They are enforced with consistency and love.

There is another part of it - why do I crave spanking when I am stressed, when I am hurt, when I need to feel my place. Again, this is what I believe... I learned to shut off my emotions to save myself. But that doesn't mean that behind my placid face I was not screaming. I can take any physical pain you can give to me. I crumble under emotional pain. Spanking takes that emotional pain, transfers it to my flesh and it disappears - it is a purge.

I wonder all the time, and I see stories like Monster's Nightmare's and faerie's that mirror my own, and I wonder just how many of us have suffered like this. I wonder how many of us have found the love and acceptance that we crave in this lifestyle. And I wonder if that is why we are so tolerant of the variances in experience, and expression - because we sense that kinship.