How being abused as a child has affected my life

Letting go of shame, accepting what I need, understanding it, is the lynchpin to letting go

I was not born loving to wear diapers.  I was born in need of affection.  Aren’t we all?  But my perception of the yelling, of the stress that my mother felt, extended all the way into my life when I was still attached to her by my umbilical cord. Babies know.  Babies only feel.

I was born deeply in tune with my mother’s psyche, deeply in tune with her energy, and deeply feeling her feelings.  This is not true of all babies, at least I don’t think so.  I think it was born from a survival mechanism.  Most babies are free to just be babies, to just need.  Science shows that ADD is a “propensity to” in being hyper-sensitive, but this is not triggered unless certain environmental conditions are not met—chief among them are the attachment and attunement bonds that define a mother-child relationship.  Or at least should.

One of my mother’s coping mechanisms was to baby me…swaddle me tightly to keep me from moving around, literally and figuratively…and in her mind, somehow keeping me a baby allowed her to hang on to some semblance of stability of married life, but also felt easier for her.  And because a baby needs their mother’s love and care above all other things, this infant stepped into that role and stayed with it as long as possible, until it became consciously toxic, having been toxic from the outset.

Because of the stress of life of living in Japan as a white woman, a husband who was violent, prone to use his fists, a horrible, nasty shouter, my mother was in deep stress.  My father once told me a story about how he had wanted a Japanese companion he had become inappropriately attached to to come to his goodbye party.  She tried to explain to him how inappropriate it was—in any society, but particularly in the most protocol-rich society on earth.

That incident summed him up.  A gargantuan narcissist, totally unaware of his effect on others, always right, always what he wanted, with no thought for anyone else.

He was also incredibly stingy and cheap with others, so expected my mother to take us all home to live and fought tooth and claw to give her nothing.  We left Japan and I wasn’t even sure how aware I was of the divorce.  My older siblings, I was the baby, and at that time was just 3 years and 7 months, were aware and one of my siblings recently told me how devastated they were.  I must have known as I was very badly behaved on board the ship we cruised home on—being chased by the staff (you have to be naughty indeed to get disciplined by an employee), throwing the shuffleboard discs overboard (as an example I remember), or tearing through the dining room screeching before skidding across the plush leather banquette.

I do also remember that my mother’s penchant to dress me like Little Lord Fauntleroy, or mostly in rompers, was something I found humiliating.  I knew that I wasn’t dressed like the other kids.  She kept my hair long.  Everyone thought I was a girl.

My mother was not able to breast feed.  She had no milk.  I was a formula baby.  I struggled with potty training, but I don’t recall bedwetting as a problem for any of us.  I did shit myself in my sleep once when I was roughly 8 years old, and it was one of the only times that I can recall tenderness and silence between my mother and me as she stood me in her shower and gently and quietly and without judgement washed me until I was clean.

I had such horrible nightmares as a child.  My fear of monsters under the bed was so real I can still feel it.  I was so afraid of the dark, and in part, this was the result of one of the peculiar ways that my mother punished me.  For her, punishment needed to go on until I was broken.  Until I had the fight taken out of me, and I just cried like a baby.  She would lock me in her closet.   A closet stuffed full with clothes in those wispy thin dry cleaning bags…and on top of all of her heels and other painful shoes.  There was so little space for even a small boy to fit into, and I became so afraid of suffocating, of choking to death, from the plastic that kept sticking to my face.

She would leave me in there until I was long past crying. This was one of her favourites. At night, when I was alone in bed in our great big house, so far away, I would cry out for her, and she would never come, not here, or if she did it took forever…but ignoring it was what they taught people in those days, only I was terrified. So utterly, terrified. And I came to hate her for leaving me to face my fear on my own.

I was a difficult child, though I remember thinking, difficult for her.  My school reports were such a contrast to my home life, and she often remarked, and had teachers checking up on me, which somehow felt like a violation of my privacy. “But you’re so well-behaved at school…”

I was filled with rage.  Rage that I couldn’t love my mother.  That it wasn’t safe.  That she used my vulnerability to hurt me.  That moments of tenderness between us were often used for her to stick an emotional knife into me.  

I learned at a very young age to hide my emotions, to hide my feelings.  While this isn’t about being trans, I had girl spirit in me from the outset, and the mixed messages I received from her on this topic, and the disdain and teasing from others, taught me at the dawn of rational thought, that it wasn’t safe to love softer and more feminine things.

But there was something else, something which still lurks beneath the surface.  My mother molested me.  And this is hard to articulate, in part because I am not sure what is memory and what is not…the power of the mind to shut things out, to hide, is enormous.  Made all the more complex because of the mixed messages that came into my own childhood brain.

My mother tried to keep me a baby.  For as long as possible.  She used babying me as a way to quieten me, calm me, but also to control me.  And she touched me inappropriately as a small child.  She actively encouraged my continued use of a pacifier until I was 5, actively cultivated my use of a baby blanket until I was 12.  But the damage was done when I was about 2 or 3, and she played with me when she changed my diapers, physically, inappropriately, down there, and after.

If you want to know why I give 10% of my wealth to support causes which seek to end child abuse, this is why.  My therapist has pointed out that children respond to abuse as adults by either becoming abusers or their opposite.  I am grateful that I broke the cycle.

I believe that my father was sexually abused as a child too, in part because his father sexually abused me.  I was a really pretty boy.  And I was so soft and feminine.  It wasn’t until I was 16 that strangers would reliably recognize me as male. As a model starting at the age of 18, my look was completely androgynous, and that was always what the designers wanted for the stuff they had me wear.  It sounds like I’m making excuses.  And in part, maybe I am.

One of the sickest things about being a child and being abused, is that we accommodate them.  Stockholm syndrome is not just for prisoners.  I have understood that, and this blog is a part of that, but so too are the adventures I write about.  Becoming a dominatrix is part of my healing process.  I will work with adult babies because that too, will be a part of my healing.

My protective cloak as a child became to not let my mother touch me.  I withdrew touch.  She hated it, but if she put her hands on me, I would shout, “don’t touch me,” and if she insisted I would be so filled with impotent rage that I would lose it, break down, cry, scream, cause a scene.  Sooner or later, she left me alone.

I retreated into a world where it was safe, an inner world, and didn’t show anyone anything about me.  My friends growing up always remarked on how little emotion I showed.  I was deadpan in speech, totally even-keeled in energy…so hard for a person with ADD.  Serious.  So not me.  It nearly killed me.

I always thought that I wouldn’t die in a man’s body.  This hope to finally become a woman kept me alive.  And I imagined I would have a sex change at 80.  But one day I knew I couldn’t hang on any longer.  I turned to therapists galore, started this blog, and eventually found a dominatrix who could bust me open.  She’s the first person whose touch I really truly welcomed, and I just discovered how much I had been missing.

All of this has been bubbling to the surface lately driven by several different threads.  I want what I can’t have.  My love of the pro-domme or provider is driven in large part by the idea that she is unattainable.  So many women in my life are there precisely because they are not attainable.  I love them with a chaste love, and most of them I expressed my desire when we first met, but we ended up shifting into a friend zone.  This has not stopped us from flirting outrageously.  

I was invited by a woman that I am very fond of, and whom I tried to kiss once, to go away with her to a spa for a ladies weekend.  We shared the same bed, and our conversation the entire time was laced with innuendo.  She even called me a good puppy at one point…in full knowledge of how this would affect me.

But she noted that, “you seem to want what you can’t have,” and she wasn’t referring to herself.  And I couldn’t help but think she wanted me to respond to her…but I’m not a chaser, and having been rebuffed once, I won’t lean in for a kiss a second time, no matter how I feel.  I will ask her, though, if she wants something different from me than the friendship we have.  She was referring instead to my active play life with companions, or my budding crush on a married woman, or my very strong crush on a professional woman who would absolutely enslave me.

There is a toxic part of this wanting what I can’t have.  The idea that something is less desirable once you have it.  In the context of a human relationship, that is worrisome, as it means I would think less of someone who loves me.  And that isn’t good and is something I need to fix.  I’ll tell you what, dear reader, life without therapy is not as rich…for tackling the challenges of our own psyche requires a posse, and every moment tastes better when you keep moving, keep growing, keep overcoming.

Another conversation we had together over the weekend is what kind of services each of us would provide as professional dommes.  I mentioned, among a list of kinks that I look forward to working with, the adult baby.  She said, “no, I could never.”  I asked her why.

“It’s too emotional.  I feel so sorry for what has to sit behind that.  I don’t think I could handle it.”  I was really touched by her response, and I agreed.

And I thought about this kink of mine, this most shameful and hidden secret, and where it comes from.  And I realize that it isn’t that hard to figure out.  I never got to be my mother’s baby.  Obviously, I did from a mechanical standpoint, but the mechanics became toxic.  What I mean, is that quiet, deep and totally necessary bond between mother and child that happens when you are born and those first two years of life, when you are dependent on her for everything, comfort, safety, food.  

So, as I think about this, about wanting what I cannot have, the obvious link to my mother is hard to ignore.  I wanted my mother’s unconditional love.  I never got it.  Instead, I got something dangerous, unhealthy, and toxic.  And even though I hardly go there with providers, and I mean specifically within the kink of the ABDL scene (adult baby diaper lover), my energy is 100% consistent with this.

Every interaction I have with a domme, with many women, is about feeling nurtured.  And by the way, there is an enormous difference between being a “baby” (as most men are) in an adult relationship and being a baby in the sense that I am a baby.  My version of baby is to be innocent.  To play.  To seek to erase and step away from manipulation and ulterior motives.  To be completely open.  To be without guile.

And the safest place and the safest people for me to experience this with are providers, especially full-service providers. Providers bring their best selves.  They naturally create this warm, protective envelope.  And as a trans woman, who is now visibly vulnerable in society, are some of the most accepting and nurturing people out there.  And there is no irony in this at all: you can’t “have” and shouldn’t want to have your mommy…so choosing people who will never cross the line with you, is an important part of the package.

I don’t know what other people seek in provider-client relationships, and perhaps I will learn as I see more and more clients of my own.  But I do sense that there is a specific desire in them, a desire to “have”.  Is that true?

What is happening to me?  Little by little I let go of shame.  More and more people know that I am like all of this.  I share some of this with vanilla friends, including the darkest bits…but mostly it is with people who are safe.  And sharing these things, not to ask them to do anything about it, but to simply understand where you are coming from, is a blissful feeling.

It also allows me to think through human relationships and whether I would ever want a life partner again.  Or whether I can be fully fulfilled by the rich tapestry of friendships I am forming as I become a more honest and open person.  I have always worn my heart on my sleeves, but now I am also becoming my sleeves.  And this means communicating with people, checking mutual boundaries, and exploring what is possible.

And as I feel my way into real self-expression, I also feel freer by the day.  And the joy this brings is impossible to state.

The irony of my wife telling me that she could only marry me because I had such a healthy relationship with my mother is not lost on me…no wonder she feels so free to be abusive!  How did she miss the tension, me staying away from her, not wanting to go and visit her, to the point of taking the kids for the shortest possible visits?

Do I wish that I wasn’t abused by my mother as a child?  Do I wish that we could have had a healthy relationship?  Do I wish that my father had not been so violent?  Of course.  Do I wish that I had not been sexualized as a child?  Do I wish that getting into a crowded subway train or bus meant that invisible hands would be all over me, feeling me?  I hated it.  Creepy assholes taking from me, stealing my innocence, drawn to it, but seeking to despoil it.

But I am also conscious of loving what it feels like to be me, what it feels like to love and to yearn.  There is nothing so delicious as that feeling, and it was founded on all of my life experiences.  And yes, when I turn to a pacifier, or a children’s book, or a bottle of warm milk, or heaven forbid, a diaper, it is simply to feel the warm embrace of a love that I got too little of…and I am more than happy to provide that to myself, but sometimes someone joins in for play.  Bless them, and thanks.