Thursday, May 19

Repulsed by my kink

This should have been the post about Caoilfhionn's Lowewood Boarding School experience. About how many housepoints she won and lost, how the netball went, how mean the teachers were and just how much of a pain it was to sheep dog the new girl Ellie.

But as immersive as I like to get in my roleplay I couldn't escape real life and my weekend abruptly came to an end after breakfast on Saturday morning. News of the worst kind: a sudden and tragic family bereavement. There I knelt, dressed neatly in my uniform (tie perfectly knotted, white knee socks pulled tight and my Byron badge proudly displayed) on the phone, first to my sister, then my Dad. The news was compounded by the fact that my family had been trying to contact me since Friday afternoon, but in my immersive state I hadn't been checking my phone.

Catching sight of myself in my uniform I was almost sick. For the first time feeling ridiculous to be a 29 year-old dressed as a school girl. How weird was I? Just what did I think I was doing? Wrenching my tie off I flung it on the floor in anger and disgust. From below I could hear girlish laughter as the others made their way to assembly and felt disorientated. It all felt so wrong. What were they all doing?

I won't bore you with the details of hastily arranged flights, many tears and hugs and packing in a daze. But as I visited each classroom to bid everyone farewell, now in jeans and t-shirt, I continued to feel alienated and disorientated. Looking at rooms of school girls attentively listening to their teacher. I wanted to laugh at the craziness of it all. Wanted to ask them did they not feel as stupid as I had felt earlier. In relief I escaped from the 'school', not at all bothered that one of my favourite kinky roleplays was now repulsing me

Nor was it just the about the Boarding School. On Saturday night, back home in Ireland I started getting flashbacks to the water boarding I went through. The lack of control and sheer terror was as potent as it was at the real event. I questioned why the hell I went out of my way feel such depths of despair and misery when real life could do it so easily.

And as our parish priest led us in the rosary at the wake, my grandmother leaning on my arm for support I felt another kind of revulsion; self hatred for daring to ever try to play a Catholic scene.

Looking back on it all now I know it was an extreme reaction to the circumstances. I'm still kinky. The same roleplays still work for me. And they work because being taken to 'role played' depths of misery and despair is a safe place that I can come back from. The nightmare ends with the fantasy. Reality isn't a easy to shake off.

But although I understand it and accept it, I still feel frightened to have felt such strong abhorrence. To feel that way about a part of my life I have been actively embracing for the past 2 years. When I next group role play will I feel the same unease? Can I do immersive roleplay again without checking my phone every hour? Will I freak out?

I don't have answers to my own questions, but I will find out; slowly and carefully with my  most trusted play partners. I can't make reality go away but I hope to escape to my fantasies. To embrace my kink again without any revulsion.