Finding Love: Chapter 7: The Delusional Fantasy
What was wrong with me that I couldn’t have and keep love?
I last left off in Chapter 6 where I worked up the courage to send my Pleasure Dom lover a picture of my tits which helped me begin to overcome years of shame about my body. I’ll advise you to begin at the beginning of our encounter, aka, Chapter 5, OR, if you want to take the full Finding Love journey, start with Chapter 1.
Day 8…
“I was free in a way that I’d never been before and I wanted more…”
By day 8 of our love affair, I was transformed, revivified by this filthy, slutty man who I hadn’t yet met. There was lots of texting, a few calls, and endless hours of basking in the glow of my glorious inner slut who shone like a phoenix, risen from the ashes.
Something in me was awakening.
But this wasn’t your average slutty affair…No, it was much more significant than some mere fling because it began to unlock some of the questions I’ve been exploring about love and my particular capacity to partake.
Specifically I wanted to know what was wrong with me that I couldn’t have and keep love?
Some Backstory
I’m on the tail end of a 4-year freefall into chaos… You know those awful, painful chapters that strip you of identity, disintegrate you into a puddle of goo, and then birth you anew into something entirely different? It’s been exactly that.
Husband left, finances tanked, mental health tanked, stability tanked, my kids fucking tanked and I was alone, also tanking while trying to hold it all up… It was depressing, scary, awful, and devastating and we were all properly flattened.
Life as we knew it was over and we all plunged into what I refer to as “the dark era”. For 4 years you could mostly find me in my nest on the couch trying to conserve energy and holding on for dear life.
It’s so easy to blame him for leaving, but nothing’s ever that simple.
I think about my role, how living with me affected him, and I know he was lonely. We all have our shit, and I guess for him, it was easier to run away than to face the hard thing. But for me, I know now that my issue around love is not a him-problem or even a man-problem, it’s a me-problem and if I wanted to truly experience love and connection, it was up to me to figure it out.
The Backstory To The Backstory
It’s worth mentioning that I’ve always struggled with this feeling that something was wrong with me, like some integral quality to being a happy, well-adjusted human was missing from my genetic make-up. I felt so lonely and unloveable so it’s only natural that I spent the majority of my life assuming that finding love would solve it, cure it, and make me finally feel whole.
The problem was, the unlovable-ness I felt was desperately seeking validation from other humans that it wasn’t true. But nothing was ever enough to convince me and so I loathed myself for this unloveability. It occurred to me that perhaps I needed to love myself, but I couldn’t understand how to do that if I felt unloved by others. I was trapped.
I was convinced that my unloveability was because I was ugly… too big in my 5’10” frame. I was ashamed of my body’s size and shape and pinned the blame on her. Hello eating disorder, hello rehab… I lost my entire 20s to this lie and it just about killed me.
But even still, I couldn’t figure it out…
And then, love finally happened. When I was 27, I fell madly in love with my husband. And I felt insanely whole, like, at long last, all was right in the world. But eventually it faded and instead of seeing through the delusion, instead of realizing that no human could possibly make me whole and healed, I blamed him for not being enough.
I had that big love, but it didn’t solve shit and as I ventured deeper into my spiritual studies, it was becoming clear that A) Nothing external to me could save me or make me whole and B) There was something inside me that was obstructing the flow of love. So much so that I’d begun to question whether or not I actually had the ability to love and be loved…
Was it too late for me? Despite my clarity that another person couldn’t save me, I could feel the hooks of my delusion infecting the soft folds of my brain and everything in me wanted and still believed that Prince Charming would come and make it all better and the happily ever after stuff would be mine.
Wasn’t I more evolved than this? I knew better, and yet, this dirty little secret remained and like a glittering distraction, it shielded me from the real truth that would set me free.
It whispered and coaxed and lured and screamed: “ROMANTIC LOVE WILL SAVE YOU AND MAKE YOU WHOLE.”
But this lover of mine, he wasn’t available for happily ever after. Did that stop my delusion from projectile vomiting all over his pants? Nope.
The Fantasy
On the morning of day 8, Jon texted…
After a salacious salutation, he wanted to know what sort of sexual fantasies I had. I’m guessing he expected something simple; scenarios a Pleasure Dom such as himself could surely fulfill. Obviously, I wanted to be tied up and spanked, but happily ever after was pushing its way to the front to plead its case.
I’m not sure what came over me, but I told him the truth, even though I knew it could ruin the game. I hesitate to share it here because, well, the cringe-factor is insanely high, but for the sake of the plot, I feel obliged to share.
“I fantasize about love. I feel consumed by hunger for my soul’s counterpart, utterly devastated by its absence. I know that this type of thinking is delusional and damaging to “real” relationships, as no human can live up to it, and so I repress it. But it doesn’t go away, the hunger gnaws at me, makes me want to consume and devour and feast…
I fantasize that I have a soulmate who will satiate my hunger, quell my longing, bring me the right kind of love that will fill this ravenous void.
I can’t unleash this insanity anywhere because it’s a recipe for toxic shit, resentment, and disappointment, but I don’t feel normal. I don’t feel like I can have normal love because it doesn’t satisfy me.
I want to be saved from this despair by a man who knows exactly how to please me, to take care of me, heal me from my pain and help me face my fears because his mere presence activates me into higher and higher potential.
I fantasize about being man-handled by a masterful lover who will help unlock the secrets to my body. I sometimes wonder if or suspect that a massive burst of evolution might come from me becoming masterful in the sexual realm… I realize this isn’t sane or healthy, but that’s what I fantasize about…”
I held nothing back and it almost felt like it was beyond my control - I couldn’t contain myself and be a good, well-behaved girl. Something in me knew I needed to be cleaned out by confessing my sins.
The Shame
Immediately after hitting send, the shame spiral ensued…
This again. Shame. I was riddled with it on the physical, emotional, and mental levels and it was proving to be the common denominator between me and my unloveability.
I felt so gross and humiliated at my admission, certain I’d ruined the game with my boner-killer of a fantasy.
But… this man surprised me.
He said something sweet - “I don’t think that’s so wrong. I hope to be the one that helps unlock the secrets to your body.”
It was reassuring, but he was distant for the remainder of the day and so I assumed that he was putting some space between us, preparing to bail.
The next morning I texted him in our strange language of love, a vernacular that was fast becoming normal for me -
“Do you still love your little slut? I’m feeling your energy has withdrawn a bit after my fantasy confession… it’s all part of my evolution, that’s all.”
“Not at all baby girl!! Daddy loves his lil submissive slut. I’ve had a couple busy days and a long drive with a friend yesterday. I love that you told me your feelings. That makes the bond stronger - I very much want you to!! Daddy is actually CRAVING his baby girl!”
Another UMMMM, WHUUUUT??!!? moment for me…
I could tell this man my most secret secrets. My shameful secrets that revealed how unevolved and unhealed I truly was.
There was something about confessing my shame to him that was setting me free. The way he received it, the way he reassured me in the face of my wretched vulnerability… He allowed it, didn’t make a big deal about it, and loved me anyway… Every time my shame was triggered, my confession and his receipt of it seemed to melt it away.
It made me so fucking hot.
I rewarded him with a picture of my tits to show my appreciation.
“I LOVE that pic! Your eyes, hair, and nipples look amazing. MINE!!”
“I’m your slut. Nobody else’s.”
“Good girl.”
“I’m trying so hard to be a good girl for you, but you know how disobedient I can be.”
(hoping he’d threaten to spank me)
“You know how strong Daddy’s hand will feel on your bare ass when correcting your attitude.”
(yessssssssss!)
“Yes, I’m aware and eagerly anticipating your guidance.”
Emotional upheaval aside, this slutty little love affair was proving to be a powerful experience for me. Being vulnerable, being honest, and being committed to staying in integrity with myself were ingredients for massive insight and growth.
LOVE
By the end of week 1 with Jon, I was up. I was out of my nest and off the couch!
I texted a couple of friends: LET’S GO OUT!!
This was highly unusual behavior as my energy and motivation had been so low for so long… But that weekend, I was out amongst the humans, slutting it up, radiating and pulsing with LIFE. I was swimming in the currents of ecstasy and love that had been let loose in my body, enjoying being ALIVE.
With shame falling away, love was beginning to flow and god, it felt so good. I was literally starving but had no idea just how bad it was until I began to receive actual nourishment.
Love… I could feel it, but it couldn’t be… I hadn’t even met the man. Sure, we threw the term around in our dom/sub dynamic but I didn’t know his last name or whether he had a dog or what kind of music he liked. The vast majority of our exchanges were slutty sexting - not real life shit, so surely this couldn’t be real love. Just the rush of something new and exciting.
But it felt like some massive kink that had been clogging the cord that plugged me into vital life force energy had suddenly been removed and WHOOOSH! The energy rushing through me was insane; I was so animated and alive. My joy and gratitude was immense.
I was home. And I was in love but not in the way I spoke of in my wounded and delusional fantasy.
I was in love with the way it felt to be alive… With the way it felt to be me…
I believe this is what they call “self love” and it was like no other drug in the world. And the love I felt for him, for inadvertently and maybe even accidentally Prince Charming me through the haunted forest of shame and safely back home to myself, was real and pure and delicious.
Paradoxically, my fantasy was coming true - that devastation I felt at the absence of my soulmate, that vacuous void of my soul’s missing counterpart…
It was never anyone but me that I longed for.
It was the absence of my own love that filled me with despair and made me feel wrong, but never once did it occur to me that my distaste for being alive was so rooted in the shame I carried. It never occurred to me that the reason I felt ugly wasn’t because I was ugly… It was because of shame.
But you just can’t know these things until you’ve had an experience that brings epiphany and the capital T truth appears.
I’d found a place with this man where I could heal the shame that fueled my self-loathing and the rejection, abandonment, and betrayal of self in my quest to be loved that paradoxically left me starving for love.
And there we were, dancing like a couple of unabashed sluts around the core of the despair and darkness that had kept me enslaved and ravenous for my entire life.
As the light shone in, the shame began to dissolve and love began to flow. I couldn’t believe that being a naughty little slut would be integral to my healing journey.
I was fast falling in love with myself, with my body, and with life, and the painful suffering I’d endured for so long began to abate. It was nothing short of miraculous.
And Jon… He was the catalyst, the awakener, the bringer of energy that was so big that it burst the dam and helped set my love free. I was certain that this man was no coincidence. He was karmic in nature, a beautiful synchronicity sent by life to help me heal and to launch me into an era that was proving to be a goddamn delight.
But it wasn’t just luck at having found the right person at the right time for the thing I most needed; my behavior inside of this experience was committed to staying in integrity with myself, to being aligned with my wants and needs and to being devoted to that above all else. I would not betray myself despite the way my shame deceived me into believing that I had to compromise to receive love. Not again, not ever.
It was my commitment to my own integrity coupled with aligned behavior that set the flow of self love free.
Amazing Grace, albeit sweet, is also a big effin’ slut with glitter on her tits and high fives for all. And Prince Charming? Well, he’s a huge slut too, obviously.
Stay tuned for Chapter 8.
