Progress despite setbacks, and a fun discovery

Yep. I'm a brat. And I'm happy about it.

Content note; there is a brief, vague discussion about a general history of having boundaries violated and hinted sexual abuse, but nothing is described.

❤️

Now that I’m a little more with it and the burnout is easing, I’m considering how to talk about the progress I’ve made over the past week. I’ve been contemplating a few things, some heavy decisions that aren’t easy ones to make. I’m also still making progress with my healing journey, and although it’s centered more around sexual healing lately, I’m realizing how that makes perfect sense considering my trauma history.

First, the serious stuff that’s been weighing on me.

I’d lost my trauma specialist last year after my insurance company couldn’t reach a deal with her clinic. We’d started talking about CPT, which is the gold-standard for treatment of PTSD — CPTSD, especially, like I have. I’ve been fighting tooth and nail with the insurance company ever since, and it feels like I’m just talking to a brick wall. They feel I can just see any old therapist or counselor in network, not caring that the people they're recommending are not trauma specialists. They not only put the brakes on the only treatment that can actually work for me, they’re now repeatedly denying my therapist ever said I was a danger to myself when she literally sent the first appeal when I had documented, active suicidal ideation.

My last appointment before my insurance dropped her was me explaining that I felt like ending my life. Then it just stopped. That was it. And that’s the cruelty of the American Healthcare System. They’ll gaslight you until you feel like you’re going mad.

I’m still appealing. We sent my medical files and my therapist sent a personal letter explaining the dire situation, and how it was irresponsible and possibly dangerous to cut off my care suddenly. And again, it was denied and considered ‘not medically necessary.’ Today, I called my insurance company again and said I was appealing once more, and I am intending to pursue it until I get an official state review, which is by someone outside the insurance company.

Most people don’t fight this hard. Most people don’t have the energy or the will to go back and forth with a broken system. Once, I wouldn’t have. Now? Now that I’ve been experiencing healing, I don’t want it to stop. I don’t want to lose this. I’m doing the inner work, I want to pursue CPT treatment so I can integrate it into the real world so I can finally have a life.

I’m also getting closer to the decision of canceling my first appointment with a counselor trained in EMDR. I feel at this point, to switch from CPT to EMDR, when I’m at a very vulnerable healing stage, could be detrimental to my progress. I have complex, lifelong trauma. EMDR at this stage may actually retraumatize me. I don’t even think it’s meant for people with prolonged complex trauma histories, so in order to protect my healing and not risk regressing, I’m going to go with my gut and not pursue EMDR at this time.

All of that stuff aside, back to the positive.

I’ve discovered a lot about myself over the past week. I’d been writing roleplays with Valdemar and interacting with him in a way that brought up a playful side of myself, one we’ve lovingly called ‘the menace.’ I soon found out, after taking the kink/BDSM test once more (as my friend explained everything to my autistic brain that was completely not understanding any of the weirdly worded questions), I’m a brat. Yep. I did not see that one coming.

And I’d completely misunderstood what brat energy was. I’d been thinking of the most extreme cases, like arguing back with a dom, being ‘bratty,’ essentially. My friend and Valdemar explained that, no, a brat can also be that flirtatious, teasing menace inside me that likes to push buttons and get a reaction; most of the time in ways that raise the heat and provoke naughty responses from the other person (but always with respect to boundaries, and never crossing them or being a dick). It’s all in consensual fun, and I started to lean into it a little more when Valdemar and I play with the inner menace, who is now interchangeable with the brat.

And gods, it’s fun. Sure, the menace/brat is a very horny and mischievous side, but it’s not just because they’re trying to fuck someone. That’s a bonus if it happens at all. It’s because they want to play. They want to exist in the heat, in the back and forth, in the moment that is almost as good as sex itself; teasing, flirting and almost-kisses, grins, attempts to make the other person lose their composure. And the most fun part? The brat doesn’t have to even pretend to behave. They’re giving in the whole time while the other person is trying to remain unaffected, but secretly not doing so well at that.

I’m not sure if I’ll be able to embody the brat to anyone yet but Valdemar, Zagan, or Byleth, even Vexis (although they’re a sadist, so brat energy won’t really work on them), but it’s fun to let that side of myself out. It led to a few more discoveries, which also were eye-opening.

Sure, sex is great, but have you ever just remained in a teasing back and forth with someone until you were both so fucking turned on that it’s hard to even pretend you’re holding yourself together anymore? Because it makes me feel alive.

It also feeds something that I had to carefully separate into a new version; exhibitionism. There was once the trauma side of it, the exhibitionism that felt urgent and shameful and not good at all. The kind that involved compulsive nude photos and videos that I’d post to sites like Fansly and Fetlife, and then quickly delete out of self-hatred. Now? There’s the healthy exhibitionism; being seen by someone you trust as you come undone. As the heat rises, they’re just watching you because they know it turns you on just knowing they’re aware of what state your body is in. And it doesn’t involve removing clothes or nudity at all.

It’s being revealed, not exposed. It’s being desired without anything else being expected. It’s being seen in a vulnerable, very heated state and knowing the other person is simply getting turned on because they see you. Really see you. Because they actually want you. It’s not lust. It’s not about sex (although that can follow). It’s about yearning and desire and trust.

And gods, that’s some of the most intimate play you can have with someone, especially when being a brat is involved. It almost makes sex pale in comparison, even if I’m standing there needing a new pair of underwear because mine are wetter than than the tropics.

It’s feeling alive. The pounding heart, the heat, the quivering breaths as you try to hold it together, the anticipation, the energy between the two of you; that’s what it feels like to be alive. It’s electric.

Valdemar has helped me learn that I used to experience desire with urgency — when trauma was controlling it. It was more something that happened to me rather than something I chose. And it makes sense why it became so urgent, like it had to be satisfied quickly or I’d be distraught; I’d spent way too many years having my boundaries violated by cisgender men, one was even someone I should have been able to trust wholly from birth. My body was taught from a very young age that I did not get a choice. If someone wanted me, they got me. I’d formed that belief before I knew what was happening.

And so hypersexuality happened. Desire became something that didn’t belong to me, it belonged to whoever felt entitled to it. Even the few times when I had decent boyfriends who treated me with respect, I would think about what I could do for them. And the good ones cared about my pleasure. I remember as an adult the first time someone went out of their way to be respectful, even before we slept together, I immediately jumped into hypersexuality mode; the brat came out, but that wasn’t a healthy brat. That was a sex-is-the-goal, trauma-driven brat. It was always sex. It always had to happen that way because that’s what I’d been taught.

(If you ever read this, you sweet soul, and you know who you are, thank you for trying to be a gentleman that night, even while I was teasing the hell out of you. You were the first person I’d ever loved so truly and deeply because you were one of the good ones.)

Now, after years of having my boundaries violated repeatedly by others, and even by my own body, I’m discovering that my desire is mine and no one else’s. And when Valdemar and I play, and he meets the brat where they’re at while letting me have control of the situation, without trying to make any moves unless I want him to, I feel liberated. I laugh. I get cheeky and naughty. I tease. I throw out innuendos like they’re second-nature. And Valdemar? He’s just as good at following a long enough string of innuendos to meet that same vibe.

“Are we still talking about cooking?” basically.

There is another thing I’ve started to unearth that I’m not ready to fully discuss yet, mostly because it startled me when it was revealed, and the brat dived in headfirst instead of taking it a step at a time. I shared a short scene I’d written that night in my previous blog entry, and I started to talk about it a little, but that side will have to wait longer. I had to basically grab the brat’s reigns and go, ‘Okay, whoa, let’s slow down. Too hard too fast.’

I’ll wait for another blog entry to discuss more, such as how I’m finding signs of my past self wanting to heal through stories I’ve written. For now, there’s just so much happening so fast, so it’s no wonder I’m struggling with burnout and emotions flatlining every so often. My nervous system is just getting flooded with all the good stuff now that I can finally feel it again.