It started out exciting and fun. It was a small little toy that he could flick me with. I anticipated any pain would be well within my range to accept with pleasure. The first hit stung more than I thought it would, and still, I gleefully was excited. After a few more hits, I could feel myself approaching my threshold. I remembered my breath, remembering to accept the pain into my being like the gift it was. It was no use; it exceeded my ability to remain in composure. I started to squirm, turn away without control, my mind having to wrestle back control to expose myself to another hit, and with great effort attempting to remember my manners and express gratitude for the gift I was receiving. A few more hits, and my mind was fading, a part of me wanted to cry out yellow, but what fragment of my mind was left held on believing I could not be broken by this. Then the tears started coming to the surface, and again my mind held onto composure with every ounce of energy I had left. Then he stopped hitting my breasts. I thought I had passed the test, but no, next was my stomach. The sheer jolt of anticipated relief being ripped away from me was jarring. Still, I held it together. That is what I have been doing for years, holding it together. It was when he hit me above my clit that the ironclad grip that my mind had slipped, tears welled, and then when he told me to let go, it felt like letting go of my grip on the edge of a cliff into the abyss where time and space cease to matter and I descended into a madness that I have never felt before.

I remember the unbelievable fear that overtook me, where shadows surrounded me menacingly. At that moment, I couldn't have been smaller. I couldn't escape it. That piece of me has never been able to, living in a perpetual state of terror, silently trying to scream. In that moment, for the first time, that part was able to cry out, and in a single moment, all of her years of fear came out. It was unbearable. It was liberating. I knew I was often scared, anxious, and afraid, but this? This was beyond fear; this was being a small girl utterly terrified of being torn apart and no one coming to save her. I could hear his voice saying he was there, and my fear became more desperate. I wanted so badly to be saved, and yet he did not stop me from feeling into all the fear.

Then there was the sadness. The tears wouldn't stop. For once, the thought that I wasn't supposed to cry wasn't enough to stop me. It made me scared. I couldn't get caught crying. Yet it wouldn't stop. I'd almost gain my composure, and he would command me to let it out, and even deeper wells within would open, and poisoned water would come rushing out. Despair, loneliness, shame... it all mixed together in a concoction that felt like acid coming out. I didn't think it would ever stop. I never knew my heart ran so deep; I never knew I could cry like that.

None of that came close in comparison to the anger. I lost all sense of composure, and all the effort I put into holding my parts together fell apart. I became unhinged. All the time I spent breathing through anger erupted, and it was nothing short of rage. I wanted to hurt someone. Violence is such a forbidden and foreign temptation to me. I never knew a part of me held this. I wanted to turn around and tear into him with teeth and fists and dig my nails into him so deeply that he would forever be scarred. I have never wanted to inflict pain like that, at least not consciously. I had just a shred of consciousness to know not to follow through with the desire and sink my aggression into inanimate objects, and there wasn't enough strength or yelling to satiate this desire to destroy.

All of this was happening at once, a fluid motion between all these states, and containing all of them at once. It felt like an eternity passed, and finally, I felt calmness reentering me, or maybe just exhaustion as it didn't feel like my mind was done, but my body certainly was. I remember being taken to bed, parts of me still wanting to scream and cry and yell and hit but didn't have the capacity. I seemed to pass out for a moment, and my normal state of consciousness returned to me, but there was no way to climb up the cliff I had just fallen off.

For weeks afterward, I was reactive, emotionally expressive, and my relationships became strained. Through this, though, I discovered all the fear I had in letting go was unfounded, and there was space to be free to live into my emotions. I found my connections with others more fulfilling, and I do not carry the numbness and emptiness that used to be so prevalent in my experience.

Jason is masterful in holding space for rawness and vulnerability throughout the entire experience. I felt confident in his care the whole time. He guided me rather than directing, making his presence known without holding me back even in the times I wanted to be saved from the intensity of it all. In one night, I found more movement than in years of traditional therapy and self-exploration. It is an experience that I'm still integrating into my being, but even in this short time, I have found it transformative.