The Sadist Who Emotionally Abused Me

TW: self-harm, emotional abuse

I don’t think much about my past relationships or intimate encounters. Some of them were beautiful, others were traumatic. They all shaped me in terms of relationships, but also who I am as a person. And there are some encounters that I’d rather forget and not reflect upon what they mean for who I was then, and who I am now. Unfortunately there are many of those because I have never really been single ever since I started dating, and I am also polyamorous. So I have been with quite a lot of people through the years. It is not something that I am ashamed of.

The last few days, I have had a specific person on my mind. And thinking about it now, I realize how messed up the whole situation was. And not only that, how most people probably never have been in a similar situation. So this might just be an interesting read for some, a warning for others, or maybe something that a few people can even relate to.

M

At the time I met M, I was dating my first Master. I was working as a community leader on a website that offered emotional support to millions of people with the help of volunteer active listeners, and for free. I had met my Master there and he was living in Asia, I was living in Sweden. Although we met in real life, most of our interactions happened online, via Skype and video chats.

Our relationship was very sexual, but he was also my main emotional support. Because I am one of those people who helps a lot of other people but is unable to actually ask others for support, this was new for me. With him, I felt safe to be myself. That turned out to be the wrong decision but that is a story for another time. It has a similar conclusion as the story I want to tell today: not all that call themselves sadists or Dominants, are safe people.

He was out travelling with family during the holidays which left me to my own devices. That is usually not a huge problem when I have something meaningful to occupy my time with. And I did have that. But I wasn’t as self-aware about my mental illnesses as I am now, and things got out of hand really quickly. Now, M and I were friends. We had a few things in common and I supported them sometimes. They were struggling with their gender identity, but also with different serious mental illnesses. We often talked about music and worked on a few projects together, mostly in the LGBTQ community of the website.

They had just been through quite a difficult situation with another woman. At the same time, they talked a lot about their own sadistic sides and kinks. I wasn’t in the best shape myself. Christmas and December are the worst times of the year for me, with many triggers, many flashbacks. At that time, that also meant uncontrollable self-harm, and suicide attempts. So I was sort of glad that I had someone to keep me company. But because my Master wasn’t around, I had no one to veto me, no one to keep me grounded. My chats with M became more and more sexual so we eventually moved over to Skype.

There were all the red flags. They openly admitted that they were a sadist. They were unstable at the time. They seemed quite obsessed with me right from the beginning when things became a bit more intimate. And a lot of the time went to me supporting them. I knew that they were heavily into drugs. But some of those things were actually a turn on for me. I have always had a thing for rebels, and sadists are intriguing. I liked that they were fucked up, because so was I. So why not mess things up together. I was in a mindset where I wanted to get hurt, where I just didn’t care about the consequences. Basically, I was like a bull, chasing the red flags instead of the logical human being who avoids them.

The One Time We Had “Sex”

And then one night we started talking via audio first and then later turned on the video as well. We were both really messed up that night and I remember some of the details but not all. There was sex, for sure. I remember not showing myself naked but still being totally clothed. They pushed me to self-harm and got off watching me hurt myself and then told make myself come too. That was basically it. I was crying. I faked an orgasm. It met a weird need for me, otherwise I wouldn’t have consented. Because I definitely consented. But it was all very unsafe, very fucked up. Don’t do drugs, kids! Don’t consent to sex when you are mentally unstable, kids!

We fell asleep together but I woke up after a few hours, realizing that I was covered in my own blood, saw M covered in their own jizz, sleeping on their sofa. And I just ended the call. I knew all of it had been wrong. I didn’t want to be with this person. But I wasn’t ashamed. I just knew that what had happened, should never happen again. Only, M didn’t agree with that sentiment.

They started telling me how they were demisexual, how they were in love with me, and how they were expecting us to be in a relationship now. I first tried to let them down easily, because I wanted to continue to be with my Master at the time and I wasn’t interested in an additional relationship. When they still pushed, I put up stronger boundaries and was very clear with what I wanted and didn’t want.

They Broke Me

They wouldn’t let go. And they manipulated me, they pushed. They became psychotic and I spent hours with them in calls, trying to convince them to reach out for help. Looking at it now, I should have walked away. I could have asked one of our mutual acquaintances to support them. But I didn’t. I felt responsible for them deteriorating even more and I wanted to help. Then, one night, something in me broke. They were manipulating me, they were pushing me. And they threatened to break me. So I dared them.

Why did I do that? Self-harm, for sure. But part of me was also intrigued and very drawn to that strong sadistic streak in them, and my bratty side just wanted to see what they got. Only, I didn’t expect them to actually be able to break me. We had been friends for a while and they knew a lot about me. And being the manipulative sadist that they were, they had also been able to read me. So they went all in and within minutes had pushed me into a space of emotional flashbacks, visual flashbacks and absolute despair. It was self-harm and I had a hard time to disconnect from the conversation. Part of me felt like I deserved the treatment.

But eventually I did disconnect. I blocked M. And you’d think that that was it. Unfortunately it wasn’t. I was in a very bad mental state for days, I was in constant flashbacks, I was a danger to myself. My Master was around again and I was with support. He was not too happy with my choices but recognized my pain. We had quite a few fights later but at that time, he focused on my struggles and I will forever be appreciative of that.

The Aftermath

M continued to try to contact me, thinking that we were in a relationship. I blocked them everywhere I could but they created new accounts and tried over and over. My community leader work got badly affected by it all because I had to try to keep out of drama. But the real drama was still to come. M decided to copy a transcript of our conversations on Skype. Not only were there private details about my life and my struggles, they also had sex chats, and the chat when they actually broke me. Additionally, there were also a few things that I shouldn’t have said about my work and the people I work with. M shared that transcript everywhere they could.

They were now full-blown psychotic, in a delusion, where I was the enemy and had to be destroyed. The website I worked on had hundreds of thousands of members. I was the most popular and most known community leader. They basically wanted to destroy my reputation. The transcript got shared in group chat rooms with hundreds of participants, in private chats, in forums. It was all a huge mess. And you can’t imagine the effect it had on me, my mental health. The shame, the guilt, the anxiety. I of course had to try and sort it all. Long calls and meetings with admins, with HR. I had to take a break from my work. And in it all, I had to stay professional. It was a nightmare.

In all my time in that work after that incident, the transcript haunted me: three more years. I handled it professionally in public, making sure people understood that I am also only human. It put a dent in my reputation, but for most people, it made me more able to understand mental illness and mental health struggles. And the important thing was, and still is, for me that I never got unkind. I wasn’t unkind in the transcript, and I was never unkind toward M. They eventually got help, and ended up in a psychiatric hospital for almost six months. The episode with me was only one part of a long time of psychosis, drug abuse and messed up relationships. They are not part of my life anymore.

Lesson Learnt

I am not sure why my encounter with M has been on my mind lately. It might have to do with that it is December and it happened in December. It might be that I am in a bad place generally, and the urges that drove me to them are awakening. And I also haven’t processed any of it yet. The pain it caused me, the traumatic experience. And the only way to process things is to talk about it, to think about it, to meet the feelings and thoughts around it.

Mental illness and drugs aside, they were not a safe Dominant, nor a safe sadist. Mental illness doesn’t mean that someone isn’t safe. But if a person takes drugs and seems mentally unstable at a time, then consenting to playing with them is the wrong decision. Always. I was in no state to consent myself. But as we were both in a bad place, there was just no way for things to go well. If either of us had been in a “sane” state, they would have put a stop to any sexual or intimate connection.

I do have a thing for sadists. My current Master is one. But sadists are manipulative and get pleasure from hurting other people. The night M broke me, showed me how those skills and needs can turn into abuse, easily. And because a masochist has a need to get hurt, and finds pleasure in it, they might not be able to set a stop to it. I definitely couldn’t for too long, and have therefore created new trauma for myself.

If there is any positive coming from my connection with M, then it is that I have become painfully aware of the importance of taking it slow when engaging with a Dominant who is also a sadist. And to make sure that I ask around if they are safe, and to discuss my interactions with them with someone who I trust. And I hope that my story might help some people to remember the importance of those things as well. Because there is always a risk that consensual play can turn into abuse, emotionally, physically and sexually.