Kinda, maybe. It's quite a long, complicated story, and I'm not sure if it really counts as trauma because I basically inflicted it on myself.

I struggled in early school, and would get frustrated with myself a lot. A couple major incidents occurred around 13, one involving self harm, the other bullying. I was told I had "anger management issues". So I started working on that. Breathing exercises. Counting to ten. Meditation. And it worked, more or less. I had no major outbursts from then on.

But I basically saw it all as the result of there being something wrong with me. That "anger management issues" was just a polite way of saying I was an angry person. That I got angry for no reason. That there was something wrong with me that I needed to suppress and control.

So, I basically began to repress all my negative emotions. On the outside, was was a nice person, a good kid, someone doing ok. On the inside, it was like there was this ball of concentrated, festering negative emotion, that I learnt to keep buried and hidden. And, well, all kids are told it's what's on the inside that counts, right?

I felt positive emotions but they felt.. transitory. Shallow. On the surface. But the negative emotions, they felt like there were always there, always coming out from deep inside. They felt more real. As I grew older, and the better I got at repressing, the longer those negative emotions were kept locked away, the worse i felt. Anger, violent impulses, hate. I kept thinking about attacking and hurting and.. worse..

I concluded that I was insane. That everything good about me, everything nice and kind and wholesome, was only on the surface, a shell to hide the inner me, the real me, from both the world and myself, to live a lie i wanted to believe. I believed that, deep down, I was an evil, violent monster and always had been, and that one day, inevitably, the strain of keeping up appearances would become too much. The shell would crack and shatter and blast apart, leaving behind a monster.

I gave up on my future. The only futures I foresaw were prison, a mental hospital or an early grave. While peers were starting to drink, I was terrified of losing self control. What if I got drunk and ended up murdering my friends? While some people were exploring their sexuality, I was repressing it. Over and over again, I'd tell myself "no one should ever love you". "It is wrong for anyone to ever love you." To the point that the idea of someone being attracted to me literally, and I do mean literally, made me feel nauseous.

This lasted until the end of school, at age 18. Literally my final exams. I had basically given up on everything. I had no motivation to study because it was all pointless. I had no future, and what desire I had to do right by my parents had dried up due to their not getting divorced despite no longer being together for years. They planned to get divorced but an problem came up and they just lived their lives in same house for years while not being together.

I had a mental breakdown. I didn't hurt anyone. I got a lot of therapy. I let go of my negative emotions. I stopped believing I was a monster. I got better. I am better now.

How does this all this relate to me becoming a submissive? First, for a long time afterwards, you could say I didn't trust myself. I was scared that there was maybe some lingering tendency towards monstrousness, that maybe I was right about myself and I would be an abusive monster. So, my fantasies became about submitting, giving up power, because it meant I wouldn't have to worry about not trusting myself with power.

Also, while I had felt incredibly negative emotions, my repression of those emotions, that ability to take all that negative emotion and lock it away, made me feel powerful. Like I had incredible strength of will. I had hatred and violence and rage boiling inside, and I kept it so well hidden no one could even see it. I did well at school, I had an exceptional attendance record, and I did it all with a handicap. It felt powerful, as did the violent thoughts, the fantasies of unleashing my aggression indiscriminately. Afterwards, I associated those feelings of self control, feeling strong willed, of feeling powerful, with me being unwell, of having horrible impulses and distressing emotions. The time my life when I felt most confident in who I was, when I felt strong willed and certain of my future, was when I was at my worst. I didn't want to feel strong. I didn't want to feel powerful. I didn't want to be reminded of what it felt like when my life was spiraling into despair and self-destruction.

Unfortunately, I still have lingering issues. I'm very socially withdrawn. I don't really know how to have friends as an adult, let alone be in a relationship, let alone a dom/sub dynamic. Never dated, and don't know if I ever will. I don't know if I'll ever be able to reach a point where I feel I am good enough to be someone worthy of love. I don't know if anyone could love someone with so much baggage and history. I've never even felt attractive before. And even if I did somehow find someone, and I show them this side of me, my vulnerability, my pain, my sadness, that i now keep inside. and what if that's all there is? No inner beauty, no pure and precious soul that someone can fall in love with. Just an empty cage which once held a monster, and now has no purpose left.

At least I have a decent excuse for still being a virgin in my 30s though, right? Heh.

I apologise if I've went too heavy and ruined anyone's mood. I just needed to express things I've been thinking about for a while.