My Answers :) - & My Past...

So I asked you guys last night if you had any questions for Questions Month.  I got three so far.  Please feel free to add more in the comments, even if you don't read this post. :)  They can be for me, the Duke, or both of us. :)  Here are the questions and answers so far. :)

--- Lindy Thomas: If you could live anywhere in the world what part would you choose? What's one thing both you and the Duke pack when travelling?

Hi, Lindy. :)  I am not sure, I love where I live in Canada.  I live on the eastern side.  Snow storms suck... but I wouldn't trade it for floods, earthquakes, hurricanes. :)  The spring and summer here are beautiful.

We usually pack clothes. :P  Laptop, and something to read.  Sometimes an implement, but rarely as we're usually staying with family when we're away.

--- An English Rose (Jan): I have been asking about people's clothing choices and funny enough you have just written about that so for you I will ask. How hard is it living with family? I admire you, I couldn't do it. Also is there an implement you fancy trying and haven't yet done so?

Hi, Jan. :)  Hehehe, sorry to take your original question away. :) 

And living with family is very hard, but it is also a blessing.  My Dad and I usually get along, but sometime he'll all the sudden be very upset with something and take it out on me since I'm the one who is around.  I find that very hard.  Mom is always in bed, I mean, ALWAYS, every minute of the day, in bed, and the Duke is at work a lot of the time, so I'm here alone with him a lot, well not counting kids. :)  Mom is hard... I share why below... but it's a hard read, so please don't feel you have to read.  She just reminds me of too many bad memories, and she refuses to leave her room and join the rest of the world.  She never leaves it, watches tv all day, and only comes out if I make a food she wants for supper.  Otherwise, if I make something she doesn't like, she makes Dad make her something and bring it to her.  So I can literally go weeks without seeing her at all, and this has happened often.  It's weird.  And then she'll come out after being mia for weeks,  and be upset that my daughter won't hug her for the two minutes she's out.  *sigh*  She doesn't get it.  I also find it hard because if I tell my daughter do to something, my Dad, before I even get a breath in, will tell her again to do it without giving her a second to obey first.  That riles me up, I've addressed it a few times, and have to address it again.  I don't want her to feel ganged up on, and it's me I want her to have to obey first, not him.  I know he means well, but it drives me insane.

Please don't get me wrong, there are blessings too, my daughter has more people to love, my Dad helps me with dishes and laundry and shoveling.  It's less lonely in the house, but then I also lose a lot of privacy and it's very hard to get time alone with the Duke.  I miss being able to just make love in the day, do a spanking without having to use only quiet implements, leaving the bathroom door open, running from the shower in just a towel, etc.  I definitely pray a lot to be a good daughter, most importantly a good wife, and a good mother, and not go crazy in it all.  There is really only one day I did, and the Duke was super supportive.

And I would love to try a riding crop and I'd love to try something leather.  Leather is definitely out of our budget, but I dream of trying a strap especially. :)  Oh, and I'd love to try a rattan carpet beater, one of the pretty Victorian ones. :)  They are sooo pretty. :)  Something like these.  Especially the one on the right. :) :) :)  But the one in the middle would probably be more practical spanking wise. :P

--- Roz: What is your favourite movie? Favourite childhood memory? Favourite implement?

Well, I probably would have listed something from Jane Austen, or another BBC Period Piece Romantic Drama, though I love pop culture movies too... but I have to say since last week I'm very addicted to the Fifty Shades movies. :)  Especially 2 and 3.  I can't wait for Freed to come out on DVD.  I love the dynamic, especially in 2 and 3.  I love the protection, care, safety, dominance, love, raw emotions, etc.  It's so great.  I find the first one is more straightly focused on getting her to be submissive, and the second two are more about learning who they can be together, so that is probably why I like them better.

My favourite implement... hmmm... Probably the Pocket Paddle from Blondie's, but since we can't use that anymore with people in the house, we often use a thin dowel that's 15 inches long.  It delivers enough pain without making much noise. 

I had to save the childhood memory until the end.  I almost pretended I didn't see the question to be honest...   And Roz, I know you would never want to make me feel panicked, so please do not feel guilty for having asked it.  In theory, it is such an absolutely innocent question, and I know that is how you meant it. :)  You are such a sweetheart and kind soul.

But to be honest, I can't answer that question because there is no happy memories... sorry... I sometimes elude to my past... but wonder if I should just put it out there and finally just admit it.   If I have shared a happy memory in my posts, it was for want to try to make it a happy memory.  I wish my childhood had been good.

This may be choppy, I won't get through it without tears, so it may not all make sense, but I find I don't ever talk about it, and wonder if sharing will help.  Please don't read further if you cry easily and don't want to cry. :) 

SERIOUSLY, Please Don't Read Further If Things Upset You Easily.  My past is not an easy one, and I still only skim the surface, but it's still a hard.  I am scared to share, but here we go.

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I may end up pulling this down later, I still am uncertain sharing it.  I'm always afraid people will think I'm lying, and so I find it very hard to share my stories with people.  These details are sadly all true.

I don't have a happy memory from childhood.  Not one that I can come up with.  My mother was very abusive, mostly emotionally, but also physically.  My childhood was nothing but fear.  I have since been told I was brain washed by her and that I had PTSD.  I have a brother who thinks PTSD is a made up condition, so no one in my life but the Duke knows, and I do all I can to hide it from others because he judges other so severely, and I'm not sure I could handle it.

Even the parts of my childhood that might have looked good to others, were so filled with fear for me, that that is all I remember.  I still carry scars on my forearms from my mother's fingernails digging into me.  She always kept them long, and they were always sharp. :(  Thankfully over the years, especially during pregnancy, a lot of my scars faded, even ones not from abuse, so that I have less reminders.  She used to love to throw things at my head, and hit me in the face.  To this day, over 20 years later, I am still head shy.  I think that is why I fell in love with the character of Christian from Fifty Shades.  I've never read about someone with the same problem, and that is making me a bit brave to share.  He can't have his chest and back touched, and I can't have my head touched, especially if someone comes at me at a speed I find too fast.  The Duke can come at me, and I'm okay, but that could be because he knows this about me and comes at me slowly.  Other people have to warn me, come slowly, and still, I cringe.  People have only found out if they've gone to touch my head or face and I panic, I don't think I've ever willingly told anyone before you guys now.  A doctor can check my throat when I have a cold, but if they have to check my sinuses, or press around my head to figure out my headaches, I have to intentionally focus on my breathing so that I don't hyperventilate or throw up.  It's getting a lot better, but not perfect yet.  In our early years of marriage, the Duke couldn't even come at me in the dark at all.  Not for a hug, not for a kiss, not for intimacy.  Now, as long as I knew he was already with me, or he talks to me to let me know it's him, he can.  But in the early days, I would panic and demand he turn on the lights, even if he'd been with me, even if he spoke.  I can't even tell you why it happened and why it's better now, I don't know.

To show how much fear I lived in because of her constant beatings and emotional abuse, it made me afraid of everyone... my grandfather collected a 5 gallon bucket with large tadpoles to show me one day when I was probably about six years old because he thought I'd like them.  There was probably 30-50 in it.  They were amazing in memory, but back then I was freaked out of my tree and couldn't enjoy them.  I started shaking.  When he asked if I like them, I stuttered through clattering teeth. "You're not going to throw them on me, are you?"  His response was "Of course I'm not going to throw them on you!  Why do you always think such bad things?"  We were done looking at them, I'd upset him and he took me back to the house to my parents.  Looking back, I see he was upset because he thought I thought he was a beast.  I just didn't know people could be good back then.  I'd ruined his gift, many of his gifts, because of my fear. :(

Reading Fifty Shades finally last week was such an unexpected blessing.  I felt my heart just falling in love with Christian, not because he was sexy, or dark, but because of all he went through, with the pain he still carried, and I echoed so many memories.  I do not have burns, my scars are from fingernails, and my mom didn't have to sleep with guys, but she was heavily medicated, addicted to prescription drugs, and she was mean, as mean as the pimp in Fifty Shades, in fact, she has said many worse things.  I will never forget some of her words, or pet names for me.  She only ever once told me as a child that she loved me, one day when Dad demanded it, and she told me it with pure hatred.

Reading Fifty Shades was so freeing (it shares so much more than the movie) in that it allowed me to talk to the Duke about somethings that I'd never been able to find words for before.  It was a very tearful conversation on my end, but it was so freeing to be able to admit how I'd felt.  He knew there was abuse, but I hadn't been able to share how scared I was, how I felt, some of the instances that were too much to process, and how I can still, to this day, if I think too long on it, be that little girl again, right in the moment, and it takes a few minutes of concentration to get back to my 39 year old self.  I am almost done Fifty Shades Darker, and I hate to think I'll reach the end of these books someday.  Walking with Christian and his journey has been such a balm to my spirit.  I feel so less alone.  I feel like, even though he's fictional, someone out there understands me.

My mother lives with us now, as I shared above.  They had no where to go, and I couldn't just say no when they asked.  BUT, I panicked when they asked.  I spent over a month in panic attacks, crying, praying there was another way.  The Duke and I set many, MANY rules that had to be agreed upon before they were allowed to move in.  She is not allowed to bring up the past, ever.  Her version is flowers and hearts and all happy memories, and any bad parts she recalls she says were my fault.  I can't handle the lies.  She also is not allowed to fight with me, or fight with my Dad in front of us.  I don't want to see her anger, ever.  She says I'm overly sensitive because of this, but I don't rise to the challenge.  I'm not overly sensitive, it takes a lot to get me worked up, I just won't put up with her lies and manipulations.  And, as you can imagine, she is not allowed to be alone with my daughter. She has shown again and again that she's changed in many ways, but I still can't take the chance that she's pretending to have changed.

I gave you way more than you intended for this answer, and I am sorry.  And if anyone read to this far, I am sorry if I shared too much... I tried to share briefly, the whole story is way too much, I still had to tame it down, I still am not ready to share so much, but this is a small jist of my childhood because I feel I have hid too much of who I am.  I'm sorry there are no happy memories to share, but I promise, once I grew up, once I left home, there were MANY happy memories.  And the Duke alone has given me a lifetime of memories to make up for all the bad.  He is so healing and healthy for me.  I am finally so loved, and the great thing is, I love him with all my heart in return.  Something I was worried I'd never be able to do since you are said to not ever be able to show and experience love if you had no inkling of it before the age of five.  I am glad they were wrong, or I have it in my past, and don't remember it.  Either way, I'm so blessed in my marriage with the Duke.

I know the things online can seem made up, but I try to be honest, always.  But it's okay if anyone doesn't believe this post.  If you don't though, could you please just skip commenting for this post?  It was very hard to share, and I'm not sure I could handle attacks right now as typing all that out has left me very raw.  Thank you.  Or, if you feel you do need to comment any doubts, please start it with "I DOUBT" and I'll skip over your comment until I'm more prepared to deal with it.  Thank you.