Solving the Puzzle of my submission

I'm not really sure how to start this post.  I guess I just have to start typing.

Today I had a set of repressed memories return and everything sort of fell into place about how the hell I ended up this way and just how the space I perceived to be my slavespace gets triggered.

I don't like dwelling in this feeling set but I suppose unless I write it out, I'm not truly confronting it.  I have no idea what will happen in the aftermath and if that will change anything.  The whole chain of events leading up to this point have been an odd journey.

About a month ago I had the rug ripped out from under me in my home life and I felt completely wrecked.  As I stared to pick myself back up I started reaching out attempting to create some additional connections.  While I enjoy connections in their own right, I had the additional motivation of knowing that more people to talk to would help keep me in a positive mental state.  I did bond with a couple of new people that I adore interacting with.  A lot of attempts failed.  I ended up in a chat group that a friend recommended and got exposed to more M/f ideas than I ever had before.  Thankfully this time around I approached that side of the coin with an open mind and observed, listened, and learned.

There are a lot of ideas that I let slowly turn over in my brain.  I don't force them to a conclusion with my "mental masochism" as Lady Grey would put it.  I just let them be in my subconscious and when something accesses them I try to explore the meaning.  While I will credit Emdimensional for being the one to truly help me understand the concept of littles, it was being exposed to several of them in the chat and conversing with them that set some of these things in motion.

A few weeks ago I wrote the post, Inside of me, which was basically summarizing a sense that I had a "little space" of a part of my submission.  I let the idea stew because my little space is so vastly different from how I read about it described in M/f, nor do am I drawn to any form of age play or anything of that nature.  I don't seek a "Mommy."  I don't revert my interests or desires into a younger state.  It just didn't seem like it fit how I see it in other situations.

Today while I was giving it a tiny bit of thought as I was completing my work for today everything just hit me and a wave of memories and emotions blew me away.

This is kind of hard to write.  It fills me with shame to remember these things.

To provide a little bit of context and to stall for composure... my adopted father grew up dirt poor and the middle child among 5 siblings.  Money was always tight, they belonged to an Old Testament religion, and his father was a strict disciplinarian.  Hand-me-downs were the way of life.  They had one bicycle to share among the 6 of them.  Opportunities were infrequent.  Work hard helping the family business and binge on allowance day.  Waste nothing. 

By the time I was adopted, my family was solidly middle class.  A family vacation once a year.  My sister had access to music and sports.  I had access to sports (but not music?).  We never had to worry about going hungry or having clean clothes on our backs.  One thing stuck around.  My family was firmly entrenched in the idea of hand-me downs.  This ended up being a major problem for me as my sister and I were different genders.

"You're just going to grow out of them before next year, there's no use in wasting money on new ones."   Those words burn in my ears and make me shake.  Fuck.  It hurts so much to think about it. This was the default response if I attempted to reject hand-me-downs.  If I continued to act up it was followed by, "Stop being selfish and ungrateful, when I was your age we didn't have opportunities like these for me."  If I continued to act up I was spanked/whupped and locked in a small room.  The last part would repeat until I accepted the inevitable.

Apparently the memory of how quickly my sister grew out of things was their measuring stick.  When winter came around I had my own coat (usually a couple of sizes too large to get more years out of it) and boots (also a couple of sizes too large to last more than one year).  I was allowed to pick these out at the store.  In my earlier years... I don't remember exactly which... snow pants, hats, mittens, and scarves were hand-me-downs from my sister.  I was small for my age so everything managed to fit.  I was made fun of in winter by other kids for having a purple hat and mittens and snow pants that had a pink stripe on them.  I didn't want to wear them.  I "lost" them.  They were replaced by the next set of hand-me-downs.  Red with a pink stripe.

At some point I was able to convince my parents that hats were too itchy and made my head too hot.  I managed to sell this rather well.  The next day my Mom came home with a pair of bright red earmuffs.  I was so happy to not have to wear my sister's old hat.  I put them on and went outside.  My sister was playing with an older cousin and another older girl.  My presence annoyed them.  They started calling me gay boy and the cousin told me the earmuffs made me look queer.  They taunted me with this until I went inside.  I hid them away and never wore them again.  My mother was furious.  This was the birth of the "iron man" me.  I don't get cold.  I quit wearing snow pants.  I quit wearing gloves.  I wore a baseball hat in winter.  Eventually I was able to beg and plead for a pair of gloves that I was allowed to pick out.  They made my hands sweat and smell awful.  I didn't complain.  I was 4.

Unfortunately, the hand-me-downs weren't limited to clothing.  My parents bought my sister a new bike and I got her old one.  It looked like this but had flowers on the frame in addition to the seat.

I got made fun of.  A lot.  This was the trend.  When I learned to ice skate, I would just outgrow them, so I was given my sister's figure skates and they bought her a new pair.  I got made fun of.  When I wanted roller skates I got my sister's old ones with pink stripes and they bought her a new pair.  I got made fun of.  They taught me how to cross-country ski... with my sister's old pink skis and they bought her a new pair.  I got made fun of.  I got her old pink big wheel and they bought her a new one.  I got made fun of.  I got her old pink sled and they bought her a new one.  I got made fun of. 

Honestly, by the time I was 5 I just wanted to die.  I just wanted to be dead and then I wouldn't hurt anymore.  The racism was bad enough, but even the kids who weren't racist managed to make fun of me.

By the time I hit first grade I was a dick and it just got worse over time.

It's funny, because by the time M started putting a hat on me and tying me up, I hadn't worn a hat or mittens or a scarf in years.  She was the only one I would do that for.  She was the only one that sought me out.  She was the only one that wanted to keep me.  Even when she bound me and dressed me in girl's winter clothes, she never teased me for that.  I was her prisoner... her property... and that felt nice.

As I sifted through these memories it became clear as day as to what is going on inside me when it comes to submission.  My slavespace is actually little space.  The girl's hat and earmuffs are the trigger.  It had always been strange to me that things like panties or bras don't really do much for my subspace.  While they give a heightened sense of self-consciousness, when forced to wear them by themselves, they don't do much.  When I'm ordered into a hat and/or earmuffs, I'm basically a slave.

Why it was so difficult for me to see my little is that I just couldn't make sense of it, nor really understand it.  Most littles frequently want to be coddled and protected.  My little seeks my symbolic protector through the eyes of my younger self.  My little expects to be treated like shit and attempts to earn affection and approval by being pleasing in any way imaginable.  My little expects to be punished and beaten for failure and turns the pain inward because it is helpless against authority.  My little so desperately wants someone to love me... that it will do ANYTHING (within most hard limits), truly believing it will be rejected if it has a single lapse in effort.  It will accept any rules... and consequences... because that is all it knows how to do.

My little is a slave that responds more strongly to cruelty than to kindness.  The kindest thing someone can do for my little is to put a lock on me and tell me there's no escape.  Do that and it would never want to leave.

My little has some badass work ethic.  If I struck out at little league it was 200 hits a night off a tee.  If I struck out 5 times across a season it was off to the high school coaches or a professional swing trainer to make me "right" again.  If I made an error in the field it was 200 grounders off a pitch back every day until it's perfect.  If I wasn't the best player on my team, then I was selfish and ungrateful for having these opportunities.  This is the natural penance and effort required to be acceptable. No wonder I was/am so fucking neurotic and my little follows suit.

I don't really know how to feel about this.  I don't really know what I should think of this.  I feel like I should keep it a secret.  I am ashamed of it.  Fuck, I just feel so broken.