Pieces

Normally I would pick a title that is cliche, something like “picking up the pieces” or “putting the pieces together,” but that doesn’t fit.  I’m just sort of noticing the pieces that weren’t there before.  I had either blocked them out, denied their existence, or just was too blind to notice them.  Sorry if this sounds like a repeat of an earlier post.  I am trying to figure this out.

I’m trying to wrap my head around the idea of being little.  I really hadn’t been exposed to littles until a year or two ago.  It wasn’t very common in my local scene and when I was only reading/writing on Blogger there wasn’t a lot of crossover between F/m and M/f.  Most of my references to them before that point came from Dommes blasting men who wanted to be littles and saying they had no desire to “raise another child.”  About the only cases where I found male littles being accepted were from pro dominatrixes that were mostly accepting of littles… for only $250 or more per hour.  In F/m they were also painted mostly as adult babies or people with lactation or diaper fetishes.

This caused a great deal of mental resistance to the idea.  I already perceived myself as a sissy, which had enough hate raining down on it that I didn’t really care to be associated with yet another undesirable label.  When I started interacting in more mixed groups I inherently came into contact with quite a few female littles.  I was able to talk to them and get a much more accurate impression about what it is about.  A while later I was also able to finally meet a couple of male littles that had partners that would allow them to let that side of them surface, albeit on a limited basis.  They were switches and would get maybe 4-8 hours a month of space time.

After some conversations with both them and some caregivers I was pretty firmly convinced that I was not one.  Littles are happy.  Littles are mostly non-sexual.  Littles are “submissive” in a childlike way, looking up to an authority figure.  None of these sounded anything like me.  “That sounds like PTSD,” I was told and I couldn’t argue with it.

What I currently perceive as my little space was something I had always mistaken for slavespace.  The behavior, the inability to resist or say no, and the frantic desire to please and be useful were linked to this.  I can count the number of people I have met that can truly enter slavespace on one hand.  You don’t find that many of them on the internet.  The ones I had met in real life through BDSM scenes were not allowed to use a computer, the internet, a phone, etc., so I had always felt it was like looking for an Amish dating website.  I did manage to interact with one who was currently not owned and another who was asked to read something I wrote and give their take on it.  Both were very emotionally aware and articulate and I came to learn that what I thought was my slavespace is very different than theirs.  When I really thought about it, it made a lot of sense.  While my external behavior and sexual response may have been similar, the internals didn’t match up.

While I have experienced what they had described when pushed VERY hard, the space that I was accustomed to thinking was it had to be something else.

So just what did that mean?  I pretty much ignored this question for over a year.
This year had a series of traumatic memories return to me.  I wrote them out and was able to somewhat heal from them.  Well, heal isn’t the right word.  I learned to accept the trauma that was responsible for a particular part of my current being.

Reaching my little space is entirely dependent upon triggers.  These triggers are nearly all linked to traumatic and pivotal experiences from my youth.  These include but are not limited to:

• Having my genitals made fun of.
• Having to wear any kind of winter hat, but most noticeably girls or womens.
• Having to wear earmuffs.
• Being put into isolation or time-out.
• Being deceived, tricked, or manipulated by false kindness.
• Phrases like, “this is for your own good,” “this is to keep you safe,” and the like.
• Being denied speaking privileges and other forms of communication.
• Being given an impossible task.
• Being called a sissy, girl, gayboy, fag, bitch, etc.

There is a mountain of abuse to draw from. There is a mountain of shame to draw from.
My little believes itself to be unwanted and lacking desirable qualities.  It feels twisted and ugly.  It tries to make up for it by desperately wanting to please.  If an authority figure gives it attention, it adores them and will do anything to please them.  My little will push itself neurotically to please them.  Failure triggers its fear of abandonment, so it will accept any form of rule or punishment as long as it won’t be left alone.

My little does not expect to be treated well.  Kindness creates cognitive dissonance and feels dishonest.  Fairness feels kind.  Cruelty feels normal and consistent with its view of itself.  Punishments feel justified.  “Reminders of its place” feel like favors, because it wants to stay pleasing always.

Because M managed to trigger this space in me when I was young (she would put a hat on me as a blindfold/mask), and I began my sexuality fantasizing around her, a lot of this got linked.  I realize now that my early masturbation fantasies were always about feeling helpless… they were all from my little’s point of view.  The end result is that my little is always aroused, and will constantly attempt arousal if locked in chastity.

This doesn’t sound like any little I have ever met before.  It differs greatly from my adult submissive space in the way that it thinks.   My adult submissive is a bit playful, very affectionate, and thinks rational thoughts.  My little, thinks only in desperation.   Everything feels desperate.

I feel pretty safe that I can abandon the idea of being a sissy.  I have no femininity in me.  I have no desire to be woman-like.  I never really responded to being forced to wear a bra, panties, stockings, or lingerie.  While I found them humiliating, they were dwarfed by the items that trigger my little space. The funniest thing is that I think being called a sissy was a trigger because of its level of cognitive dissonance at not wanting to be one. This changes things, but it doesn’t really feel any different.
I am still who I am.  I don’t even know if little is something I should advertise.  I also don’t want anyone to feel guilty for “bullying” my little.  I am just me… something I had pretty much come to terms with yesterday.

Trying to summarize things for my own peace of mind: I am not a sissy.  I am not a slave.  I am a submissive.  I am a little.  My little is a submissive.  These are the pieces.

I have to mull this over a bit.

Continuing the Journey to self-understanding

I’ve been interacting with so many new people lately, I feel like I’m losing my mind trying to keep everything straight.  That being said, I love meeting new people.  New views.  New questions.  New answers.  New perspectives.  I love to learn.  I love to share.

I’ve been getting asked a lot of questions lately about my role in D/s.  I’ve been answering them in the same way but the feedback I’m getting is new to me.  I’m learning more about myself.
I don’t think what I thought was my slavespace is actual slavespace.  I have way too much “self” in it, even if the external behavior is similar.  I do not think I am a slave.

I don’t think I am a sissy.  I don’t think I ever really was.  I think that my triggers got so twisted up that I couldn’t figure out what was going on.  I took on the name and wrote about it because I was hoping to come to terms with it and stop hating myself.  I was actually asked to define what a sissy was.  I described it as best I could, giving it a generic description and letting them know how there were different types.  I went on to describe how it differed from a transvestite and a cross-dresser.  The thought became clear to me: this isn’t me.  I don’t enjoy it for what it is, nor did I ever want it.  I am not a sissy.

I am really starting to believe that I am a little.  I am not a happy little.  My little doesn’t give me a break from the world.  Having unearthed the memories this past year about the hat and earmuffs humiliations, those experiences were trauma.  Those are my triggers to my little space.  I become that humiliated and bullied little boy, broken to shyness, desperate for love and acceptance.  These experiences were galvanized and sexualized by my experiences with M and my masturbatory habits that followed.  My little resembles a slave in the way that he is broken and will obey authority without resistance… and actually an eagerness to show how good he is and fearing the terror of being left behind.

My little is a submissive.  It is not just that my little has a submissive personality, but my little is a submissive.  This explains a lot.  The arousal.  The humiliation.  The mental space that has been so confusing to me over the years.  My little may even be a slave, or is at least broken to accept only the bare minimum of attention.  It believes all of the negativity it has been fed.  It cannot see itself in any other way.  It accepts its station in life.

I have a submissive persona that retains my adult self.  It is a bit more mild in its submission.  It responds to bondage.  It responds to body worship.  It responds to sex. This is a separate person to my little.  They think differently.  They behave differently.  They respond differently.

My mind is feeling rather stretched while trying to get to the bottom of this.  It shatters my understanding of myself.  I will have to sort through all of this and redefine.  What I know to be me, is no longer.

Thoughts on self and littles

Originally Written: 10/19/17

 

On my post from a couple of days ago, Thoughts on strong submissives and the appeal of D/s, Nora asked me in the comments if I would consider myself to have some little in me if I had the freedom to express all of my submissive self without having to suppress it. 

 

The truth is, I’m not certain.  What I know for certain is that in my slavespace, I feel like a frightened child, neurotically desperate to please while secretly hoping for bits of approval and affection.  If I “misbehave,” I willingly submit to the authority figure and accept their punishment as right, just, and deserved.  I don’t even have to actually misbehave, she just has to decide that I have.  No matter what the reason, I become sad, remorseful, and desperately wish to do whatever it takes to make amends.  I ache to return to her favor.

I discovered last year that this is a twisted version of a little space.  This was the feelings of my childhood.  Neither parent gave me much attention unless I achieved the expected level of excellence, and my mother did not protect me from my father, she delivered me to him.  Neither protected me from the world… I was delivered to it as well.

From the littles I have known, little space is supposed to be a happy and peaceful place of comfort.  My space doesn’t feel like this.  It feels like a place where pain is to be expected.  Perfection is to be expected.  I cannot control if I will receive punishment or reward… but too often the reward is “not being punished.”  This is my trauma state.

If I try to think back to a blissfully ignorant existence, there wasn’t much of it that I can remember.  Things turned sour when I started pre-school at age 2 and just got worse from there.  People made fun of my skin color.  They made fun of my Asian features.  They made fun of my uncut genitals.  They made fun of the fact that I was a “fake” kid with “fake” parents.  The events involving hand-me-downs and fur from my humility posts followed alongside them.  I was 4 when I remember thinking that I hated myself and wanted to die.  I wanted someone to save me and protect me.  My parents didn’t want a child that was weak.  Those times don’t sound like a little space.

Through hard work and natural coordination, I quickly rose to prominence in sports and academics.  For a while, I was the top athlete in my grade.  This earned me some praise, but I was scared of losing it more than I enjoyed it.  Something happened then as I was starting to get older.  My body began to change, but not in a good way.  I was always small for my age but then I got thicker and wider before I got taller.  Pretty soon I was short and fat.  My mother and sister served as constant reminders of this… and that people would judge me and treat me badly because of it.  It started with them.

I entered Middle School as a 4’1″ chubby kid.  My father didn’t care because I was still a top athlete.  But then I bloomed late.  Everyone else grew faster than I did.  Height began to matter.  These years were severely awkward for me as my body continued to get thicker faster than I was getting taller.  I felt grotesque and people treated me that way.  I had become a cold and mean person on the outside.  I managed to grow 17″ in 3 years and finally my body started to catch up in height and muscle development.  This doesn’t sound like it would be part of a little space either.

Over the course of that process I was a mess.  I went from being a happy and outgoing child when I was very young, to a bitter and sarcastic prick.  My savior was M.  She was so pretty.  She was popular.  While she was only two years older, she hit puberty early and towered over me for most of our time together.  M would protect me.  She would shield me.  She was my caregiver.  In exchange, I just had to do exactly what she said and accept that she would bind and imprison me, overpowering me if I resisted.  This is where I learned to crave the feeling of utter defeat.

While I would see M several times a month, that left a lot of time by myself.  What she was doing to me began to bleed over into my play time.  It wasn’t long before I began to act out scenes with my action figures.  This one is M.  This one is me.  I would make her character overpower mine, tie him up, and lead him around on a leash to his new life as her prisoner.  This embarrassed me greatly.  I kept it to myself.  I secretly looked forward to her next visit.  Deep down, it became increasingly clear that I was a freak.  This went on for about five years.  When I hit puberty she was my ultimate and only masturbation fantasy.  I was so ashamed.  Does this sound closer to little space?  I don’t know.

As playing with toys is often part of that… if I was playing with them like I used to, I would be completely humiliated and mortified.  I wouldn’t want anyone to see me.  I wouldn’t want anyone to know the true me.  Instead I would rather be utterly defeated, restrained, and forced to submit to her will.   Does this sound like little space?  Or is it just my submissive mental space?

It seems like this is one of those cases where things got so twisted up that it became a perversion of itself.  I struggle so badly to perceive myself outside of my own frame of reference and experiences that I have no idea how to answer the original question.

If anyone has any ideas, I’m open to hearing them.