This feeling inside of me started with a lack of desire to role play at D+X. But to understand that, I should explain role playing there in a little detail.
I started role playing at D+X over ten years ago. It has a pretty strict setup as far as role playing goes. There is a large organization called "The D+X Institute" that takes men and transforms them into women. Forced feminization is the primary thrust of the role playing here, although there are ways to play here as a voluntary transformee. Once you get transformed you go into one of the departments. These departments are more or less fetishes. Catacombs are dungeons for those that like being slave girls. Office Services for those that like to be secretaries. Personal Services for whores, Media Services for cam girls, Healthcare Services for nurses... so on and so forth.
There are two basic roles at D+X. The 'Girl' game and the 'Staff' game. The girl game is for those that want to go through a transformation from male to female and then be 'forced' to take classes on learning how to be a girl both in general and in their specific department. The 'Staff' game is for people to roleplay the opposite of the girls. Teachers, administrators, visitors/patrons of the Institute. People that get to order the girls around and 'force' them to be girly.
At the time I started to role play I just assumed the Staff were people simply interested in helping out those that wanted to play the girl game. I knew they weren't like paid actors, but I just thought they didn't want to role play a forced feminization from the girl side so they played it from the other side. Forcing feminization on someone else. There are a few people that fall into that category, but for the most part the 'staff' are players who've played the girl game and shown aptitude at role playing. They may very well be submissive girls on the inside, but they play the part of the strict mistress or sex hungry patron so that those playing the girl game have someone to play off of.
I played long enough that I got recognized as one of those that could play as staff and then was more or less pushed into the role. I say more or less because I looked at it as an extension of my character. What she would do. So, my character the girl named Caitlyn became the staff member named Miss Caitlyn. It was the same character though. In social settings I would often bring up having gone through the program and recalling my time 'as a girl here'.
A quick aside because I'm using the term 'girl' a lot... this is strictly adult. We don't even toe the line of under age. All characters are 18 or older. 'Girl' is used more as a power dynamic as opposed to an age dynamic. Just thought I'd put that out there.
So my character became Miss Caitlyn. And I've continued to play 'Miss Caitlyn' ever since. While I started over ten years ago, I haven't been playing there for over ten years. I've taken quite a few hiatuses. I've stepped away because I had a hard time feeling feminine. I've stepped away because I was stressed out in real life or work life or school life. I've stepped away because of migraines and COVID. I've stepped away because of depression. But I've always come back and always knew I'd come back, after the first couple times at least.
I last 'came back' to D+X this past April. Around the time my migraines got back under control. And I've played pretty steady ever since up until early September. And then I just hit a wall. I'd log in, read the posts, and then have nothing in response. I sent out a message on September 8th to all those that I was playing with that I was having a hard time but it didn't feel like a "I'm going to leave again" type problem. But it's almost a month after that and at least a month after I started stalling out and having trouble and now I'm wondering if this isn't something new and even more problematic.
You see, I've tried other role playing. I role played a couple campaigns at Rachel's Haven. I played two small stints at Locked in Lace. I've played two small campaigns with Jennifer years and years ago in private. I've played two different patrons on D+X, one that lasted for years and one that was a brief flash in the pan. I've played a second girl at D+X but she barely got out of arrivals before I dropped her as I lost interest. And more recently, I've played a bit on Discord with people from D+X that didn't want to have a scene there.
And of course there's all the time I've played Dungeons and Dragons in 'Real Life'. But for the most part, I've played as the same character for years and years and years. I didn't find much joy in playing the other characters or playing at other places. I don't find much joy in playing on Discord. I thought that that was mostly me being an exhibitionist.... I wanted there to be an audience to watch what we were doing. But now I'm not so sure. I think it's just me not wanting to role play.
Now, before I just jump to the conclusion that role playing is dead to me, I have to consider that now is a unique time. I've still 'just' recovered from two years of almost constant debilitating migraines. Two years where my adult life was more or less put on hold. It's hard to even remember what that was like since I now am only having one or two migraines per month. I'm also stressing out for the first time in a very long time about work. Oh, I've stressed about what's going on AT work a lot but I'm now stressing out about getting a job. About getting back TO work. And that's taking up a lot of mental bandwidth. And there's of course the fact that the mental health drugs I'm on are taking away a LOT of my sexual energy.
But it's not like these things are taking away the parts that I need for role playing at D+X. I need to be able to tap into my feminine side and I need access to my creativity. I still have both of those. This same time period has been one of my most prolific when it comes to writing a longer story.
When I've stepped away before, I've had trouble being creative in this space. I would often still cap, but I wasn't as happy with them. By the time my capping caught up and I was feeling good about it, I'd head back and start role playing again. Well, I haven't capped steadily for thee or four years now but that same kind of energy has gone into these longer form stories, and like I said I'm still writing and feeling good about it.
Here locally, in my home town, I don't have a lot of friends. None really. I hang out with my family. I have A & E. A is still down in Dallas but E has moved around the world to Thailand. I could drive down to visit A... but I don't' want to. That's strange as I almost always WANT to.
I bring that up because I'm not sure if this role playing glitching is me just hunkering down and isolating myself. Maybe I'm just wanting to feel 'alone' or isolated and when I get my life back on track (job) I'll return to 'normal'.
I primarily wrote this to see if I could come to a conclusion. I haven't. I don't have a conclusion. But I do know that I need to let those I am playing with at D+X know that this might be a long term absence. I can direct them to this post for the long version. I also need to let some people on Discord know the same thing. I feel bad about practically ghosting everybody but it's taken me over an hour just writing this note out to myself in order to get my head around it. I don't think I could have been coherent with someone else in a normal amount of time or a normal conversation.
If I'm honest with myself though... I think this is it for me and role playing. It's been to big a part of my life to just say "I'm Done" and walk away from it, but I think that's what's going to end up happening. I'll walk the walk first, I'll take the measures and do the deeds... I'll get myself back in order and make sure this isn't a job/stress issue. But if it isn't that... I think I have to say goodbye to a whole community.
And that's really sad.
No comments:
Post a Comment