Sunday, October 17, 2010

The Whole Point

I received a comment on one of the blog posts today, and it just struck me as so honest and so profound that I wanted to share it with those of you that follow the blog:

I read both TFR and HOC on the FF site, and ordered all three avaialable books from Amazon in mid-Sept 2010. I've related to Ethan's story because I was briefly held at age 7 and assaulted. I was a little girl and he was 47, supposedly a trusted adult at a public place. Because it happened on a military post, he was court-martialled, and died in federal prison for the kidnapping conviction. I've been psych- hospitalized three times at age 17, 26, and 32. I tried to kill myself twice - Ethan sitting on the roof trying to will himself to jump was such a powerful image! After a near-fatal OD, I carried a loaded handgun for 6 years -that was my "emergency exit".

After 25 years of good and bad and fair therapists, I am 43 and much calmer. I met a man in of all places, an outpatient therapy group, and he has been very kind, while we're dating non-intimately. Your books have taught me that we all seek emotional intimacy in different ways.
Mine was to totally withdraw socially for too many years.

Needless to say, it did not work.

Thank you for HOC, Ethan's tale, particularly. You are a gifted writer and an amazing human being. Slainte!
First, to the incredibly courageous person who posted this comment - thank you.  You have no idea what it means to me that by sharing Ethan, it helped someone cope with their trauma.  I've gotten dozens of messages since The Forbidden Room first went up - about people dealing with sexual trauma, or people wanting to experiment with BDSM but being afraid to do so.  The whole point to putting out the series, while it does have erotic elements, wasn't to feed the lust of readers but to show Ethan overcoming his vulnerabilities.  Getting messages like the one I received today tells me that i have, at least in part, succeeded in getting that message across.

Ethan is such a huge part of me that it was difficult to get his story out.  It took me a long time to figure out what love was, what intimacy was - but it's something that we all deserve and we all need in our lives in one form or another.