#wornbriefly

[wornbriefly]

What if keeping those parts of me alive is worth letting go of the part that wants to be loved?

sometimes I think maybe I don’t need love the way people say I should. maybe what I need is to keep the parts of me that wake up when someone calls me good girl, when I shake, when I’m raw and seen and trembling. maybe that’s my kind of aliveness.

I used to think love would make me whole. now I wonder if love just makes me quieter, smaller, softer in a way that feels like forgetting who I am. because when I’m touched the way I crave—when I’m pushed past the edge of language—I remember everything: my hunger, my want, my body.

and maybe that’s the trade. maybe keeping those parts alive means I stop asking anyone to stay. maybe it means I let go of the part of me that waits for good morning texts, that wants to be chosen, that still believes in being loved.

maybe I don’t need love to feel real. maybe I just need to keep burning.

[wornbriefly]

How Do I Kneel for Someone Who Already Walked Away?

I don’t know what to do with him. The man who couldn’t love me back then, the one who held me steady when I was drowning but also made me feel like I was too much the second I asked for more. He says he wants back in my life. He’s flying out at the end of the month, a whole weekend of him in my space, in my bed, in my head again. I keep telling myself I know better. I keep telling myself I learned something from how it ended the first time. But the truth is, I haven’t stopped wanting to kneel for him. That part of me doesn’t shut off. He knows exactly how to touch that switch, the one that makes me forget every reason I should walk away. And maybe that’s what I hate most—that my body still remembers him as the one who knew how to anchor me, even if he couldn’t stay. I don’t know if I’m strong enough to let him back in and not lose myself again. I don’t know if this is self-sabotage or if it’s just desire wearing a familiar face. What do I do with someone who couldn’t stay, but knows exactly how to make me want to kneel?

[wornbriefly]

This Body Wasn’t Built for Display. But I Offer It Anyway

I feel exposed when someone looks at my body. Not seen—exposed. There’s shame. Embarrassment. That twitchy, skin-crawling urge to hide. Like maybe if I stay turned just right, keep the light low enough, I can control what they notice. Maybe I can stay desirable by staying slightly out of reach.

But once I’m on my knees, something changes. In front of the right person—in front of my person—I feel beautiful. I feel like I have a purpose. I feel wanted in a way that quiets all the static.

I still get conflicted. About showing my stomach. My arms. The front of me. The parts where loose skin and stretch marks show up like proof. Proof that I’ve changed. That I’ve survived things. That this body has been lived in and fought with. Sometimes I feel like I’m only beautiful from behind—until I turn around and all my trauma is on display. I hate that it feels like that. But it does.

And still—I offer it. Not because I love it. But because I’m trying to live in it again.

Submission lets me experience my body differently. I step into it like a room I was afraid to enter. I move like it might actually be mine. It’s not about performance. It’s about belonging to something—someone—in a way that makes me feel real.

I still struggle to separate being wanted from being accepted. And honestly, I’m not sure I want to feel the difference. Because once you see it, you can’t unsee it. Once you realize you were only ever being wanted, it’s hard to keep handing yourself over like it’s safe.

But I crave being taken. I don’t need a pedestal. I need a grip. I need to be used like I’m already chosen.

The bravest thing I’ve done with my body? Letting it be recorded. And watching it back. Watching the stretch marks. The angles I avoid. The softness I wish I could edit out. Watching it all—and not looking away.

This body wasn’t built for display. But I offer it anyway.

[wornbriefly]

Submission in Recovery: Can I Trust My Cravings?

There are days I crave being hurt so badly it scares me. In recovery, we’re taught to question the things we crave most. We learn that some hungers are smoke signals for destruction. But what if the thing I crave isn’t a substance, but surrender, and the punishment I want isn’t about shame—but healing?

There’s something unnerving about desire in recovery. You’re trained to hold your cravings up to the light: What’s underneath this? What’s it trying to soothe? And for a long time, I thought if I craved something, it must be a red flag. That wanting was dangerous. That to be safe meant to be still.

But submission doesn’t feel still.

Sometimes it feels like fire licking the inside of my ribs. Sometimes it feels like sobbing with my face pressed to the floor, heart cracked open, begging to be seen—even in the parts I’ve always tried to hide.

And sometimes it feels like compulsion. Like I’m reenacting something I promised I’d never do again.

Before I got sober, I used to let men use me because I thought that’s all I was good for. I didn’t negotiate. I didn’t speak up. I thought “please” was too much and “no” would make them leave. And honestly? I didn’t care if they left. I just didn’t want to be alone with myself.

Now, I ask to be used. I choose to give myself. And that choice feels like agency. It feels like power.

But I still wonder: Is this healthy?

Some clinicians argue that kink—especially consensual BDSM—can be healing for survivors. A 2020 article in Psychology Today highlights how “consensual submission may allow trauma survivors to reclaim control over past experiences by recontextualizing pain and surrender in a safe, structured environment.”

For many people, submission becomes a space to rewrite the narrative: I’m not helpless. I’m not broken. I’m choosing this. But the line between healing and reenactment is thin, and sometimes invisible.

Trauma therapist and educator Dr. Jamie Marich writes:

“Trauma lives in the body… and the body often returns to what it knows, even when what it knows is harm. It’s not just about what you do—it’s about whether your nervous system feels safe doing it.”

That’s the part I’m still learning. Not just to say I’m choosing it—but to feel that I am.

Because there are nights when I want to be choked, slapped, told I’m nothing. Not because it turns me on—but because it quiets everything else. Because the pain gives me focus. Because when someone is hurting me, I don’t have to do anything except endure. That’s not submission. That’s surrendering to silence.

So I check myself:

Am I playing out old patterns, or consciously engaging in new ones?

Is this desire born from wholeness—or from the part of me that still believes I’m easiest to love when I’m hurting?

Does the scene make me feel more me, or less?

And the hardest part is, the answer shifts. Sometimes I really am seeking connection, power, transformation. Sometimes, I just want to disappear in a prettier way than I used to.

And still—some days I wonder if I’m lying to myself. If I’ve just dressed up my old self-destruction in prettier lingerie.

[wornbriefly]

When They Fetishize Your Damage

Content Note: emotional manipulation, kink, trauma, fetishization of mental illness

There’s a specific kind of danger in being desired because you’re fucked up. Not in the tortured-muse, soft-focus way. I mean the people who treat your trauma like it’s lingerie—something they can slip off slowly, trace with fascination, and then use to justify why they never had to earn your trust. People who think your wounds make you easier to control. Easier to break in. Easier to keep.

It feels intimate at first. They ask about your past with this careful, reverent tone. They say they want the “real you,” not the polished version. They tell you how much they admire your strength. But what they’re really saying is: I like that someone else already did the damage. Now I get to play hero without doing the hard work. They want someone broken enough to be grateful for crumbs. Someone who mistakes hyper-attunement for love. Someone whose trauma makes her easier to shape.

With Him, it started like safety. He asked thoughtful questions. He said he saw me—the whole messy, vulnerable, complicated me—and didn’t run. It felt like something solid. But eventually I realized he didn’t want me in spite of my history. He wanted me because of it. He liked that I flinched and apologized. That I second-guessed myself. That I kept trying to earn softness from someone who only offered it when I was on edge. The more I shrank, the better he seemed to feel.

This kind of dynamic isn’t always overt abuse. Sometimes it hides under kink language—caretaking, nurturing, D/s, emotional ownership. But what’s really happening is fetishization. Of depression. Of addiction. Of instability. There are people who seek out partners with trauma not to support their healing, but to claim it. They don’t want to understand your pain. They want to possess it. To wear your suffering like a badge of depth. Like they’re special for “handling” you.

The cruelest part is, when you’ve been through enough, it’s easy to confuse that intensity for love. When someone looks you in the eye and says, I want all your worst parts, it feels like being chosen. But it’s not love. It’s consumption.

If someone only wants you when you’re hurting, but disappears the moment you grow? That’s not devotion. It’s dependence on your brokenness. If they say they want “all of you,” but only seem comfortable when you’re small, that’s not intimacy—it’s control. And if their version of dominance requires your instability to thrive, it’s not kink. It’s cruelty dressed up as care.

You’re not a test of someone’s patience. You’re not a fixer-upper for someone’s ego. You’re not a story for someone to retell like they rescued you. Anyone who makes you feel like your trauma is the most interesting thing about you doesn’t deserve to touch what you’ve survived.