[This was the first post I wrote for this blog. The first draft was finished back in July. According to WordPress it’s had more than sixty revisions.]
I’m 57
Say what?! Yes, really.
In the past little bit 1months/years, I’ve been diagnosed with both ADHD and autism spectrum disorder, both “late” diagnoses. Also, C-PTSD2The “complex” kind. Because my childhood was just that special. another something new.
Prior to this, I was misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder and treated with mood stabilizers and other psychotropic treats for over 10 years. Those medicated years are hazy – a blurred decade of my life.
Result: My sexuality, fantasy life, and inner worlds were medicated into grey numbness.
Finally I told my psychiatrist I’d lost the ability to feel sexual pleasure or have erotic (read: spanking) fantasies, asking for a medication change.3I regret waiting so long. I’d been so scared about messing with my meds (the suicide stats on unmedicated bipolar disorder are frightening) that I didn’t tell any of my doctors. He noted I’d had no manic nor depressive episodes since I’d begun treatment 10 years before 4The lack of any manic episodes especially surprised him. Apparently, the meds for bipolar disorder don’t work that well. a few stops and starts and finally I started Welbutrin. On my return visit two weeks later I reported feeling calmer and more focused.5Sexual fantasies hadn’t returned, but he’d said that might take practice and patience. Practicing spanking fantasy was a fun assignment.
Hearing that he questioned me about my work habits and childhood, both school and home. The questions went on for almost an hour — though our appointments were usually twenty minutes. Finally, hearing I’d not slept well, he gave me a small blue pill, told me to wait, and walked out. Almost 90 minutes later I woke to him scrolling through my chart.
Me: “What anxiety med was that?”
Him: “It wasn’t for anxiety. It was a low dose of instant-release Adderall.”
Me: Blank stare.
Him: “How much coffee do you drink?”
Dude, don’t even come for my coffee.
Me: “A lot. I like coffee.”
Him: “Not surprising. Reading your chart I don’t know if you have bipolar disorder, but you do have severe Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder – primarily inattentive, possibly mixed hyperactive-impulsive.”
I froze — still, quiet. Nothing made sense — except the phrase “primarily inattentive,” a comment like “not working to potential” recalled long-ago report cards, the sort that throughout my childhood prompted beatings.
He paused. I still couldn’t say anything, so he explained that women/girls my age generally weren’t diagnosed with ADHD or ADD, especially if we were quiet and read all the time, but, based on my responses, I’d had severe ADHD all my life.
Since the Welbutrin was working, he increased the dose.
Dazed, I left. Over the next year tapered off all mood stabilizers and anxiety meds, and sleeping meds. I stopped carrying Xanax and, finally, let the prescription lapse. I ignored his recommendation that I restart therapy. My previous therapist had left the practice and I find therapy excruciating, especially the start-up part. I read a little about ADHD, seeing myself, past and present, in most of the symptoms.
Life was full — I got a new job as a tenure-track professor (yay?), and my mom was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
Then the pandemic happened, and I was overwhelmed and started on Adderall. Therapy was impossible — every practice in LA was overwhelmed. Responding to the shortage, my university psychiatry practice decided I wasn’t mentally ill. To cut their patient numbers switched my meds to my primary care doctor, and after 15+ years of treatment, I was deemed “healthy.”
Really?
I’m not mentally ill, but was struggling. Feelings, good and bad, flooded back, emotions I hadn’t realized I wasn’t feeling. Without medications’ dulling effects, it was like being thirteen again. Thirteen-year-olds aren’t fun to live with.
At the same time, we had to wipe Mija off the internet because a friend’s anti-racist work made them the target of an alt-right group. Horrible. Paul’s blog barely survived the purge. Mine didn’t. The Punishment Book didn’t. Neither did Pablo & Mija’s Treehouse. It was like I’d died/killed my digital self. I had to have emergency surgery in the middle of COVID-19 isolation. My mom died. I was in menopause…
It’s hard for me to live with me, so imagine how bad it is for Paul.
Really, terribly bad.
This is the hard part. I’ve dragged out this opening, literally burying the lead. But I think you need the above to understand the below.
As my spanking mojo came back, I went to Laura’s site and read stories, especially Paul’s and mine. Some stories I’d forgotten. Others are part of me. All are still *hot.* I mean, they’re our fantasies. Almost thirty years on, Paul’s stories and fantasies are my fantasies and memories, in addition to the ones I brought to this relationship. Re-reading them is fun.
Eventually, I noticed my partner in crime wasn’t, well, interested in us criming. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d really played or even teased each other. I put one of my uniforms on, partly for myself, partly because that was something we shared, that thrilled us, except now me in it didn’t thrill him. Were we too old? Too middle-aged? Did a schoolgirl who’s visibly greying not work for him? I asked, and he gently told me his head was in more of an inward bottoming mode, and he wasn’t feeling it. With everything going on I…well, I just accepted that was so.
But that wasn’t all of “it.” Over those years, when I was numb and needy and just difficult, Paul gave so much of himself, took such good care of me, worked so hard, and did everything he could to try and make me well and happy that he kept nothing back for himself. Gave himself no space, no time, nothing of his own. Tried to pretend everything was okay.6He was pretty good at it. As I didn’t realize and didn’t give enough (or maybe even anything) back to feed his heart and soul, he was left hollow. Yes, right, codependency. Finally, all the drama and medication and moods and outbursts and insecurity, coupled with the lack of space, both of us working from home in a small apartment, and no social contact with anyone but my family (dear lord, how did that happen?) for the three pandemic years, and I’ve, well, it looks like I’ve worn out his love for me. He doesn’t want to live with me anymore, and he doesn’t want his life linked to mine. Being near me leaves him tense and tired. Finally, he had to tell me what had happened, that I was/am too much.
Paul’s into what I still think of as “our” scene; it works for him with his play partners. But not with me. Okay, now, thankfully, with me, too. Not anymore.7Happily, this much has changed since my first draft.
He’s moving back to England in 2025 because he’s homesick and has never felt like he belonged here — something else I didn’t notice, despite a post he wrote more than 10 years ago saying exactly that. I missed it due to my inattention.8The moment he posted this would be the moment I’d time travel back to were it possible. Paul doesn’t want me to go with him — he wants to live alone, 6,000 miles from Los Angeles (and me).
That conversation started 18 months ago. We’re seeing an excellent therapist and, after a lot of work, are communicating better and rebuilding our physical and emotional connections.
But he’s still leaving and doesn’t want me to come. His/our/my life as it is/was is broken, wrong, over. Can it be reimagined or redesigned? Can we start anew? Is a new season possible? I think it could be, maybe someday. I’m holding on to that hope — it’s a slim one, but there nonetheless. Paul’s hope is that we can salvage our friendship and that perhaps I can be happy with what our therapist calls “a demotion” to being one of his play partners and friends. Maybe. I’ve tried and am trying, but I can’t visualize it; that much grace may be beyond me. So the next few months are Paul and my swan song to our relationship as we’ve known it. An ending worthy of our beginning.
Speaking of which, maybe because of ASD (even more recently diagnosed), for me, 1997 happened yesterday.
Paul’s the person I’ve loved most in the world for close to 30 years. We were both 29 when, after an exchange born from alt.sex.spanking, he whispered via email that he loved me. 9That looked like this: {I love you} in case you’re wondering. We were 30 on May 5, 1998 when we met in person; Paul traveled from the UK to LA and stayed a month in my dorm room with me, someone he’d never seen until he got off the plane. Though I’d arrived at LAX more than five hours early, I couldn’t even look up at him when he met me in customs. He was already hugely important to me, but I was also afraid that meeting in person would mark the end. It took a long time for our relationship to feel real, for me to believe I was loved and wanted.
I turned 57 this past July. Paul will be here when he turns 57 in February. Then he’ll leave and never come back. Yet, sitting here, I can clearly see 1998, see his hand pressed against the gate’s glass, mine reaching up to press against the other side, both of us tearful in the LAX terminal as he left after that first visit at the end of May 1998. I remember watching his handprint fade as he boarded.
Like it happened yesterday. Or earlier today.
Post 9/11, no one can say goodbye at airplane gates.
Re-reading our stories was hard, but once I started, I couldn’t stop. I still can’t. At first, I wanted to burn Mija and everything connected to this part of me to the ground. My impulse in crisis is always to push forward and try and effect change, to get past the problem onto higher ground rather than reflect and be still. No more uniforms, no more school girls, no more spankings. Mija has been away for a long time, and I’m so old now. Why would I be Mija again and always and always and always need to explain about losing Pablo? Why he left me? Need to admit I killed his love for me through combined selfishness and inattention. Better to feel…
…nothing?
Losing Mija did at least some of this damage. I think, no, I know Mija’s the best part of me. Being Mija on that messed up, fantastic, beloved newsgroup was wonderful; it literally gave me life at what was, until now, my darkest moment. I had access to a deep well of love and generosity toward Paul and a pretty large community. There were hard times, but nothing we couldn’t do if we tried. Plus, we had friends. Too many of them are gone too.10Recently and too painfully, one “friend” chose their relationship with Paul over friendship with me, despite neither of our wishing that. Our situation is/was already complicated enough.
I don’t want to delete Mija. I am Mija. What I felt then is what I feel now. I want to play again, write, create, and be happy in this kink that I love. Make friends again — friends who can understand and who experience this kink themselves. I want to take care of myself so I don’t hurt anyone else. That’s where this blog comes from. A place of hope.
I try and want to be brave and fair, but this is the hardest thing ever, and I’m too spoiled to be stoic. Likely too used to being looked after. Profound grief is hard to cope with. Daily, I remind myself that I can’t wish this away, I can’t ignore it, and time is passing.
While Paul’s feelings toward me have changed so much, mine toward him are the same — in fact, almost thirty years on, they’re far, far deeper; our shared memories mean I love him more. My physical skin literally knows him — from our first meeting, he’s been the only person who can always touch or hold me without me flinching or pulling back. He’s never made me afraid, never intentionally hurt me. Almost since the beginning of our relationship, I haven’t held anything back, so there’s nothing about me he doesn’t know. Finding the newsgroup and meeting Paul began the happy parts of my life, so much better than the years before I barely remember them. From his first visit, perhaps even before, he was my person, and I was always, to my amazement, his. Together, we always felt like home to me, wherever we were.
But our life hasn’t been that for him. I make him tense. He gave me so much, and in return, I damaged the only person who’s ever seen and known every part of me. I feel the truth of that all the time. It darkens my dreams.
And now?
For the past 18 months, now is too hard. Most mornings, I wake wishing I hadn’t as I remember how different the future will be. Days pass with dread. I feel constant pain, a heavy weight constantly pressing my chest where I once felt only the lightest brushing of feathers. Then, the day starts and gets better. Paul’s here, and I can hold him, and he holds me. He spanks me, and it’s still wonderful. Sometimes sweet and good, sometimes hot and overwhelming. These days my pain tolerance is lower. I cry (even more) easily. When he spanks me, I sob more than ever.11Impressive since I’ve never been stoic, at least not with Paul. We still play Scrabble, and he sometimes reads me stories at night. We laugh at the same jokes. We live with the most adorable, bratty, spoiled dog on earth. Daily I forget he’s leaving, that he doesn’t love me or trust me enough to see a way through this.
Yet somehow, I am so much in love.
I still hope our futures can change and that our lives will intersect in another season. Mostly, I know in a lot of ways, I’m lucky. Not everybody gets to love the way I do and be loved the way Paul loved me, the way we did back when we did those things we do.
Anyway. Now you know.
….I’m back, I hope. Mija, still, and again.
- 1months/years
- 2The “complex” kind. Because my childhood was just that special.
- 3I regret waiting so long. I’d been so scared about messing with my meds (the suicide stats on unmedicated bipolar disorder are frightening) that I didn’t tell any of my doctors.
- 4The lack of any manic episodes especially surprised him. Apparently, the meds for bipolar disorder don’t work that well.
- 5Sexual fantasies hadn’t returned, but he’d said that might take practice and patience. Practicing spanking fantasy was a fun assignment.
- 6He was pretty good at it.
- 7Happily, this much has changed since my first draft.
- 8The moment he posted this would be the moment I’d time travel back to were it possible.
- 9That looked like this: {I love you} in case you’re wondering.
- 10Recently and too painfully, one “friend” chose their relationship with Paul over friendship with me, despite neither of our wishing that. Our situation is/was already complicated enough.
- 11Impressive since I’ve never been stoic, at least not with Paul.
