I Grew Up Inside This- and Didn’t Know What It Was

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:01]I didn't go looking for that world.

[00:00:05]I recognized something in it.

[00:00:09]I grew up inside a dynamic I didn't have language for.

[00:00:15]I spent many years searching for a reason my mother was so wicked.

[00:00:22]I searched relentlessly for a way to make sense of her abuse.

[00:00:29]And why I could never please her.

[00:00:33]I kept looking for the variable I could change.

[00:00:39]The adjustment I hadn't made yet.

[00:00:43]The version of myself that would finally be enough.

[00:00:50]From the outside everything looked intact, successful, stable enough that no one questioned what was happening underneath it.

[00:01:05]Behind closed doors.

[00:01:09]But inside the home there was a structure, predictable chaos that revolved around one person.

[00:01:21]Everything oriented around her moods, her reactions, her approval.

[00:01:30]There was a strict structure and if anyone questioned the dynamics, severe punishment would follow.

[00:01:40]Not always loud, not always visible, but precise enough that you learned quickly where the edges were and what it cost to cross them.

[00:01:55]I remember the moment it became glaringly visible.

[00:02:01]The year was 2007.

[00:02:05]My mother had been drinking.

[00:02:08]Not out of control, but enough that the layer she usually maintained slipped.

[00:02:17]Less composed, less curated, more like her genuinely bitter and caustic self.

[00:02:27]She had blueprints laid out across the granite kitchen bar.

[00:02:33]A new house, bigger than the one they already had.

[00:02:38]More land, more space.

[00:02:42]She was showing me where everything would go on their 99-acre property.

[00:02:49]My stepdad walked in and made a simple suggestion.

[00:02:55]Switch the placement of the pond and the pool because of drainage.

[00:03:00]It was neutral, practical, logical.

[00:03:06]There was nothing in it that should have required correction.

[00:03:13]She did not respond to the suggestion.

[00:03:17]What she did was, she snapped her fingers, pointed down the hallway, and said, "Go to your room."

[00:03:28]And he went.

[00:03:31]No hesitation, no pushback, no recalibration, just immediate compliance.

[00:03:43]And that's what stayed with me.

[00:03:46]Not what she said, but how quickly he disappeared inside of it.

[00:03:55]That didn't feel shocking.

[00:03:57]It felt familiar in a way I had not yet named.

[00:04:03]Something in my body tightened.

[00:04:06]Not necessarily confusion, but recognition without clarity.

[00:04:16]Like my system already understood the rules, even if I could not articulate them.

[00:04:24]I told her, "He worships the ground you walk on. Why aren't you nicer to him?"

[00:04:32]She said, "Because I don't have to be."

[00:04:36]As she held up her wine glass, her words slightly slurred.

[00:04:43]She didn't defend it.

[00:04:45]She did not justify it.

[00:04:49]That answer did not carry emotion.

[00:04:55]It carried position.

[00:05:00]There was no awareness in it.

[00:05:04]No reflection, just certainty.

[00:05:10]I left that house with something unsettled in me.

[00:05:15]Not just about that moment, but about what it confirmed.

[00:05:22]I called a close friend and I told him what had happened.

[00:05:27]I asked him why anyone would stay with someone who mistreated them.

[00:05:36]And he said to me, "Because he likes it."

[00:05:44]And something in me rejected that immediately.

[00:05:50]I had experienced control as something imposed.

[00:05:55]I had experienced cruelty on every level from that woman, and it didn't feel like anything I would ever willingly choose or wish on someone I didn't even like.

[00:06:12]But that answer didn't leave me.

[00:06:18]It didn't resolve.

[00:06:20]It stayed in my body as friction.

[00:06:25]Because some part of me knew he wasn't entirely wrong.

[00:06:33]And that's what I could not reconcile.

[00:06:37]So, I started looking into it.

[00:06:42]Not totally from curiosity, but from a need to understand what I had been inside of my entire life without being aware of it.

[00:06:55]I needed to know if there was something I had missed or something I had normalized without realizing it.

[00:07:09]And what I found didn't feel foreign.

[00:07:14]That's what stood out.

[00:07:19]The dynamics were similar.

[00:07:22]Control, submission, power exchange, but the structure was different.

[00:07:31]It was named, agreed to, contained.

[00:07:37]There were boundaries, awareness, choice.

[00:07:44]That distinction mattered more than anything.

[00:07:48]I was not cos playing love and marriage.

[00:07:52]I would, however, fulfill a consensual agreement and step into a defined role as a dominant woman.

[00:08:05]As I eventually stepped into that role, not because I was seeking it, but because I needed to see it up close.

[00:08:16]I needed to understand it from the inside without projection, without assumption.

[00:08:25]I asked my friend endless questions and could feel the hesitation in him.

[00:08:31]The discomfort of being seen more clearly than he expected.

[00:08:38]He eventually admitted he saw a dominatrix for discipline and humiliation.

[00:08:45]That shocked me.

[00:08:47]He was an alpha male, owned multiple businesses, and an adventure sport enthusiast.

[00:08:56]High functioning, highly capable, and yet, this was where he went to release stress, shame, deep self-loathing.

[00:09:16]He was one of my favorite people in the world, and at that time, I could not imagine what drove him to seek discipline and humiliation.

[00:09:29]I was fascinated and deeply intrigued.

[00:09:35]He eventually asked me if I wanted to accompany him to a session with his Domina.

[00:09:44]I said yes.

[00:09:47]I was nervous.

[00:09:49]I was excited.

[00:09:52]My friend arrived to pick me up before the session.

[00:09:56]And I met him completely unprepared.

[00:10:03]I was wearing jeans, flip-flops, no awareness of what I was walking into.

[00:10:12]He looked at me and asked, "Is that what you're wearing?"

[00:10:18]I was confused. My outfit seemed fine to me.

[00:10:23]No one had mentioned a dress code.

[00:10:27]I asked if I should change.

[00:10:30]He said, "No. We do not have time.

[00:10:34]And we cannot be late to serve her."

[00:10:40]She opened the door.

[00:10:42]There was nothing exaggerated about her presence.

[00:10:46]Nothing performative.

[00:10:49]She wasn't trying to be powerful.

[00:10:52]She was just grounded in it.

[00:10:55]Fully located in herself in a way I had never seen modeled.

[00:11:03]And I felt it immediately.

[00:11:06]Not intimidation, exposure.

[00:11:12]She sees everything.

[00:11:15]She asked me what I was open to.

[00:11:18]I said no to everything she listed.

[00:11:23]Not out of resistance, but out of lack of reference.

[00:11:28]And perhaps a little fear.

[00:11:32]I was out of my element. I didn't know what most of the activities were that she listed.

[00:11:40]Yet.

[00:11:43]She seemed disappointed that I would not be her submissive.

[00:11:48]She soon thought of a different role for me.

[00:11:53]Then she told him to leave the room.

[00:11:57]And I watched a man I knew as capable, strong, self-directed, drop to all fours and follow direction without hesitation.

[00:12:15]Something in me went still.

[00:12:21]Not judgement, not confusion, recalibration.

[00:12:32]This wasn't what I thought it was.

[00:12:35]He wasn't being overpowered.

[00:12:39]He was choosing to yield and that's different.

[00:12:45]Then she took me into her closet.

[00:12:49]And something shifted there in a way I did not expect.

[00:12:56]She began dressing me.

[00:12:58]No commentary, no explanation, just movement.

[00:13:06]There was no need to explain anything.

[00:13:09]She wasn't asking for permission.

[00:13:12]She wasn't performing for approval.

[00:13:17]I had never seen myself that way.

[00:13:22]Not because I couldn't, but because no one had ever shown me how to exist in my body without distortion.

[00:13:33]Femininity in my world had not been something embodied.

[00:13:40]It had been controlled, weaponized, distorted, used as leverage, not expression.

[00:13:50]So standing there, seeing myself differently was quite welcome.

[00:13:58]It felt slightly disorienting.

[00:14:02]I can still recall the sensation.

[00:14:06]Wolford silk stockings grazing my legs.

[00:14:12]The awareness of my body without tension, without bracing, without trying to anticipate someone else's reaction.

[00:14:25]I was 27 years old and it was the first time I experienced myself in my body without distortion.

[00:14:35]I was finally allowed to be beautiful, empowered, sensuous, not because someone told me I was, but because nothing was interfering with it.

[00:14:52]My awkwardness dissolved, my fractured self-esteem softened, and I stepped into the role of a powerful, embodied woman.

[00:15:07]Then she placed the flogger in my hand.

[00:15:12]I expected hesitation.

[00:15:15]There wasn't any.

[00:15:18]It wasn't confidence.

[00:15:21]It was recognition.

[00:15:25]I followed her lead, watched, mirrored, stayed present, and what held my attention wasn't the act.

[00:15:35]It was him.

[00:15:37]A man who held control in every other area of his life, choosing to release it.

[00:15:47]Not collapsing, not losing himself, not being diminished.

[00:15:54]He was regulating through surrender.

[00:15:59]Letting go of something he carried constantly.

[00:16:06]That's when it became clear.

[00:16:09]Power is not what most people think it is.

[00:16:13]It is not fixed.

[00:16:16]It moves.

[00:16:18]It shifts depending on what each person is holding, and what they are no longer willing to hold.

[00:16:30]I had grown up inside control that was never acknowledged.

[00:16:36]No boundaries, no awareness, manipulation, bullying, and force were normalized in my childhood home.

[00:16:51]Everyone adjusted around it.

[00:16:56]Everyone compensated for it.

[00:17:00]My stepfather and I were the victims of a dangerous woman.

[00:17:05]He was a willing victim.

[00:17:08]I spent years trying to escape that woman's wickedness, while he found a way to stay inside it.

[00:17:21]What I was seeing now had edges, agreement, containment, awareness.

[00:17:31]The same dynamic, but a completely different level of consciousness.

[00:17:38]And for the first time, I saw my mother clearly.

[00:17:43]She was not powerful.

[00:17:46]She required control to maintain her position.

[00:17:52]Without control, there was nothing stabilizing her.

[00:17:58]That's not power.

[00:18:00]That is dependence.

[00:18:05]There are places in my life where I can now see how these dynamics continued to play out in more subtle ways, in more socially acceptable ways, but still rooted in the same misunderstanding of power.

[00:18:29]I did not understand power growing up.

[00:18:34]I saw the abuse of cosplay power.

[00:18:41]I adapted to it.

[00:18:43]I learned how to read it, anticipate it, survive it.

[00:18:51]But that was the first moment I saw it without adjusting myself to stay inside it.

[00:19:00]And once you see it that way, you do not participate the same way again.

[00:19:08]I had been liberated.