Updated August 23, 2006
My life has changed very much over the last thirteen months; I have discovered that many of the people that I was attempting to work with for the purpose of providing advocacy to transsexuals and transgendered individuals did not really want my assistance, they just wanted someone to sneer at and belittle as the "new person in town". When I asked for help for some advocacy work that I was hoping to do, I was pretty much ignored; I was not given any information or assistance that would have been useful to me in any way, so I eventually decided that I had had enough and left them to fend for themselves, which is what it seems that they wanted all along anyway.
Due to the negative interactions between another person who is a member of many of the homelessness and poverty advocacy groups that I belonged to over the last few years, and to the fact that being in this person's presence was often enough to trigger me adversely, I cut all ties with her in mid-March of this year, including my participation in those advocacy groups, because my health is far more important to me than a relationship of that kind could ever be.
In late July of 2005, I was surfing the net on a forum site for transsexual and transgendered people and read a note there that sparked my interest; the particular item was a phrase, specifically "leather family", which led me to ask that person for further information. I was able to chat through Yahoo Messenger later that night with the person who had brought the leather family concept to my attention.
As a result of that chat, armed with the information that she passed on to me, i was able to read about BDSM, dominance and submission, Master or Mistress/slave dynamics, etc., which only heightened my already thoroughly aroused interest. The second website that I was given was also a site linked to a Yahoo group; I joined that group at 5:30 am on July 26, 2005... that group proved to have been the first step on an interesting journey that seems to have no end in sight.
Since that time, I have joined many other groups that all have BDSM in common; several of those groups are support-oriented, a few are targeted primarily to survivors of abuse who are involved in the BDSM community, whether online or in real life. I am presently subscribed to about thirty groups and own two others. I have offered to be a support person for those that wish to have one; I now communicate, on at least a semi-regular basis, with several people as a support person and friend that they can talk to and trust, in many cases because I know how rough life can be through my own experiences and trials.
From the moment that I first discovered my interest in BDSM, I knew that I was what is defined as a switch, i.e, a person who can either top or bottom, be dominant or submissive in a relationship, yet I also realized that my interest, at least at that point in time, was primarily on the bottom or submissive end of the D/s spectrum. It is only in the last few months that I have begun to express an interest in the top or dominant perspective within the D/s spectrum. What is even more interesting is that I am finding that I want to express both interests at the same time, which could lead to a lot of fun in the weeks, months and years ahead!
I have been involved locally with people who share my interest in BDSM since i joined that first group; I go to two or three play parties on a monthly basis (the first of which I attended the day after joining the group)and attend at least one munch (a meeting at a restaurant, bar or pub where we can discuss our lifestyles with people who share those interests; street clothing is usually preferred as there are not many places where fetish wear is appropriate because of the ordinary citizens that pass through these very public spaces). I also volunteer at two play parties every month and I am hoping to be involved in the formation of a new local munch.
Since last summer, I have been involved in two relationships that were intended to be M/s, with myself as the slave; the first fell apart because of differences in sexuality, the second because of a lack of communication, compounded by compatibility issues, and a marked difference, between my former training mistress and myself, in our viewpoint on alcohol and our level of consumption of the aforesaid alcohol on a day to day basis.
I had gone down for one visit in March of this year, and that visit was okay; we had a great time, including a lovely play scene involving her, her significant other and myself. That visit ended because her mother had a stroke; I returned to Toronto shortly afterward.
The next visit did not take place until early June, and started off wonderfully, with her offfering to collar me, with the intent of having a friend of hers create the collar, and arrange a ceremony when the collar had been received. Then everything changed. She began to publicly humiliate me, at first in subtle ways, but more and more and more obviously as time passed. I had never, in the duration of that relationship, shown myself to be untrustworthy in any way, yet for some strange reason, for most of the time that I spent there during that visit, I was not allowed to be more than a few feet from her, i.e., I was on a very tight leash, as if I could not be trusted to do something on my own.
Even the way that we played was different; once I proved that I could handle her whipping me with her full strength, she no longer had any interest in impact play, but instead concentrated on nipple twisting, which she knew would get to me, as nothing else could. Due to everything that was happenening, my ability to trust her was fading fast, and over a period of about four days in mid-June, was completely destroyed. On three different occasions during those four days, one or both of our lives was in jeopardy.
I ended the relationship, and returned to Toronto; the first few weeks after I returned were pretty rough, especially the night that I returned, as I came very close to diving into a bottle of liquor myself, which is not like me at all. A few good friends were a really big help in the time that it took for me to find my feet again, and to be able to go through each day without fear of being triggered by anything related to that relationship. Another thing that has helped a lot has been my getting back into my regular activities here in the city, as well as adding a few new ones along the way.
I have also been interested in Wicca, Paganism and other alternative religious practices for many years. I am a person with a strong desire to preserve natural habitats, parklands and other greenlands for our children and grandchildren. If we do not make an effort now to make sure that there are places such as those that I have mentioned, where future generations can go and enjoy the wondrousness and joy of nature in all her glory, then this will be a sad world indeed for them to have to live in.
I have been expressing a desire to become involved with others locally who are interested in Wicca/Paganism, etc., yet I do not seem to be having any luck at this time in finding a group where I can feel at home. I will keep trying, in the hope that I will find one soon.
In the last few weeks, I have joined twenty-three Wiccan or Pagan email lists, and have started gathering information, from many different sources, for later use. I know what my interests are, but I need to take the time to find my own path, what resonates within my soul as being right for me, and that is a slow process, one that may take many months, even years, to discover.