Casua sui
I am going to pick up where I left off last post earlier than usual. There is something of a more personal nature on My mind. I am going to divulge why I choose to remain outside the system of professional licensed therapy. As much as I’d like for this blog to be so popular right now it reached everyone in my graduating class, I ‘ll settle for whom ever is in attendance to disclose My reasoning for this decision.
I received My Master’s degree in the science of psychology in counseling in 2007. I wanted to become a sex therapist. In the final semester I relayed this information to a senior professor. It took much courage to divulge My want for a career in this field. I came clean and revealed to her that I was a dominatrice.
Considering that nearly all graduates would go on to become addiction or school counselors she was taken off guard. Her reaction to the admission was a mix of feigned stoicism and congeniality- shocked and fake says it plainly. Factor in her that she was counseling for almost as long as I was alive and spent time in a convent, (I learned this later) One could say her well trained psychotherapeutic poker face was put to the test. As much as I wanted to believe I had done the right thing her jaded expertise failed at convincing Me. The transition from the world of BDSM to the real world was not going to come easy. Whatever knowledge I had accumulated in the biz would have to be fought for on a whole different front if I was to secure a career as a helping professional to those with sexual “disorders.”
What the DSM says is abnormal is common place to Me. I knew there would be a conflict to practicing with a license. I chose to persevere in spite of the perceptive discrepancies. I applied to a center for sexual health that included on its website a welcoming invitation to all those in BDSM and GLBT that wasn’t a front for AIDS testing. It was a step in the right direction however I was mistaken in believing that my own uniqueness would be met with as much sincerity as My intentions. Again I hesitated to include the truth of My identity in My application and cover letter. Cleverly situated in the verbiage as it was the word Dominatrix is a flag. No shocker, My resume didn’t make it past the receptionist.
Green as I was to the process of breaking into the world of psychotherapy at large I thought My personality would dominate along with My sincerity. I was wrong ……right now I am thinking of that scene in MONSTER where Charlize Theron’s character tries to get hired…. beyond disheartening, it’s down right cruel. I made a mistake in communication because there wasn’t any. To My chagrin the screening of applicants was all in the receptionist’s hands, not another credentialed psych minded individual. My appeal for an interview through this person turned out to be as good as getting a discount on a traffic ticket from a cashier at the DMV. Within the rejection letter from her was a recommendation I get more experience. The feeling of disappointment forced Me to revisit the early years of my trying to get jobs with no experience. Upon evaluation I used what I had learned from Bandura. I put into perspective what I was really up against- that our best attempts, in order to be successful, have to be properly matched to the task. But there are other factors more powerful to procuring employment. And we all know the truth – it’s not what you know, but who.- other times, it’s a lottery. Ironically My first job came without the benefit of either. I won that position on my positive attitude and good looks. Or so I’d like to think. In reality the guy probably thought he could bang Me.
Good looks are in fact a hinderance to the inexperienced, midlife, career minded person. It proved to be another flag that worked against Me. During My internship at the psych hospital the female director who agreed to supervise me would take issue with My attributes over My abilities. Her smug dismissal of Me made it abundantly clear that she took pleasure in squashing hope over extending it. The casual sneer on her oh so ugly face when she uttered reproachably “ this is not working out ” is something I readily recognized as pure wickedness. And the way she gloated as I relayed a plea for another chance at the hard won goal of meeting the requirement for licensure with her approval ! It was met with this quip of abrupt condescension and a further denial: “I know what you need but you won’t get it from Me. ” How she toyed with it all when she added, ” maybe you can come in for one more day but after that you’re through.”
At that moment I knew somebody needy of this brand of mean treatment, submissive or slave or masochist, would be hard pressed not to, on impulse, prostrate and kiss her probably even more hideous feet. There had to be more than a clash of personalities to account for her sadistic delight. Her skill in relegating humans to degradation rather than uplifting them flagged Me to the hypocrisy that was running unchecked at this facility. Patients there will forever remain sorely neglected. Mental Health is totally out of reach with a staff that prides themselves on a revolving door policy. I didn’t need to spend another 1,000 hours to figure this out. I was smart enough then to realize, and comforted now to know, that humiliation is useful to psychotherapy, BUT ONLY in the case of those who ask for it !
Desperate and vulnerable and angry as I was in that moment I left in silence. Struggling to keep my hopes intact, the torment refreshed My memory that this was indeed part of the difficult transition I cautioned Myself about. I knew for better or worse, it might not come My way at all. And so, in the end, it didn’t.
I want My readers to be assured that My intention is and has been to prevail. It wasn’t hubris or a lack of resolve that kept me from My pursuits to be in the world as a professional therapist, it was the acquired knowledge of those people, those places and those things that forewarned Me. If I had learned anything from the numerous sessions I sat in on, it was the words born out of AA and how they applied to all life situations. I am happy to use them here in explanation of an avoidance of a mistake instead of an excuse for one.
Since that time I have read many books to secure the roots of these thoughts in richer knowledge, in more fertile soil to grow myself bigger, better, stronger- to enrich my life with creative solutions to the problems of being and to bring more truth to what and how I have lived thus far. I am confident I will explain it all using Becker. From his expositions on Rank’s vital lie to his references on Kierkegaard’s call to faith, I am secure in knowing the dread of cuming clean and at the same time, not dreading it. In other words, I am prepared to let go in spite suffering through it. Without courage One is inclined toward conformity. In giving Myself over to struggling and suffering, I succeed in resisting the impulse to abstain from it with creature comforts and its restraints on free thinking and being.
Becoming the licensed therapist would’ve been a forfeiture of My freedom to be and to think. How could I base a practice on principles which counter My knowledge about perversity? How could I enjoin myself to a league of ignorant misinformed theoretical masterminds to counsel the complex and brilliant insidiousness of fetish fiends? Who would I impress? Could I succeed in making this impression with credentials like those who ousted, denied and patronized Me?
No. If I am to attain any guru-o-n-i-c self importance it will surface in and of itself…what Becker refers to as the casua sui project. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causa_sui
Watch Me grow slaves and be careful what you wish for.
Copyright@2010 Cum-Clean-Now.com
Thank you for sharing your experience. As I read your post, I couldn’t help but thinking that you would have been better off had you not “come clean.” In fact, it seems to me that you are not quite sure yourself. That said, you seem to value intellectual integrity/honesty with yourself far more than the “success” you could achieve by just “playing the game.” That is very admirable,
More successful? What connotes more success than your obvious defense of what’s threatened in yourself by My refusal to be a player in the game. I am an innovator and you miss the point entirely, but I appreciate your admission not matter how repressed——- how arrogant of Me to make such an assumption. I rarely give thanks to slaves but I will to you for giving to Me the op to exercise true psychoanalytic omnipotence in this judgment call I have made against you. Cum clean now slave.