I'm ashamed of fetish (femdom)

I think I may have the exact same issue as another member who posted here several years ago. I have ADHD which makes it even more difficult and the symptoms of it might be exaggerated by experiences and traumas. I am more of a socially oriented and submissive person as well but to a pathological extend as I constantly fear that people will reject me. I have been fantasizing about woman being the dominant one from really early on, but the experiences of being bullied and so on have induced a lot of shame, including shame about my sexuality and feeling as there is something wrong with me. I have started to use femdom as a way to punish and re-traumatize myself and I have never even had a girlfriend because... well because of the shame and my mental health in general.

It seems I have my ideals about what kind of person should I be and I even have some of the healthy qualities. Then there is also the knowledge of societal standards which make me not just ashamed but frightened (experiences). I repeatedly end up in a state where I am passive and unmotivated, anxious depressed, cannot even leave my room and this is when my fantasies get stronger - I just wish someone worth it would take control of my life and I could do anything for them. This repeatedly leads to suicidal ideation.


I am undergoing a CBT therapy and I really cannot see how I would tell this even to my therapist. I know that if I would be OK with this and completely honest and open, the influence it has on me would largely diminish, but where do I start? I don't feel like joining a BDSM forum because I don't want to center my life around this, and around sex in general, but I may have no other choice unless I want to live an unhappy life full of shame.


Thank you!

Hello OneTreeinTheForest: I noticed this is your first post here on MSF. So... welcome to the forums. I hope you find being here to be of benefit.

I was glad to see you're participating in CBT. But I do think (IMHO) you need to talk with a therapist regarding what you're struggling with. I don't know if the therapist you're seeing now is the right one to do that with. You'd have to be the judge of that. But either with your current therapist, or perhaps with another one, I think this is something you need to talk through at-length and in-depth.

I'll tell you I'm an old man now. But I've waged a life-long struggle with my gender identity as well as having proclivities that would place me within the ABDL community as well. Actually, I've read this combination is not unusual. (By the way, I was bullied, both verbally and physically, throughout high school as well.) Of course, way back when I was young, these sorts of things simply were not talked about and there was no internet. And, at least where I lived, there were no therapists the average person could see. So, I literally spent decade upon decade hiding as deep in the closet as I could get. And in many ways, I think it destroyed my life. Plus, I in turn, destroyed the lives of a number of others who deserved infinitely better from me. Perhaps had I had access to the kinds of therapies that are available nowadays, at least some of this could have been avoided. All of this anxiety, depression, fright, shame and hiding you've mentioned (which is what I experienced and did too) is (again IMHO) no good and no way to live.

I will suggest one does have to be careful about what therapist one chooses to disclose this kind of information to. Therapists, like everyone else, have their prejudices. And they don't all know everything there is to know about everything. My own (admittedly limited) experience with therapists over the past few years has convinced me disclosing to the wrong therapist can do more harm than good. Unfortunately, sometimes it's a chance you have to take. The best you can do, perhaps, is to interview a few therapists prior to going ahead with them to try to get a feel for whether or not they're going to be supportive. Then, if the therapist you choose turns out not to have been the best choice, keep trying to find one who is. Sometimes it can take some time, and a few tries, to find the best therapist for you. (If there's an LGBTQ+ organization in your area perhaps they might have a list of therapists and that might at least be one place to start?)

Anyway... these are my thoughts with regard to your post. Hopefully other MSF members will have other perspectives they can offer. My best wishes to you.

Hello Skeezyks!¨

Thank you very much for sharing your experience!😊

I am not sure if I can afford trying out different therapists, the one I currently have is publicly funded and the usual waiting times now are one year. I was either lucky, or have looked really distressed in time of the assessment🙃 She would probably try to be helpful, though I have noticed that she tends to be too focused on her own interpretations and she is trained in CBT but may lack some other theoretical knowledge - I have already slightly suggested that some experience might have led to a pain-pleasure association and she didn't pick up on that. She approved this, but said that it's probably not relevant to the formulation, i.e. to my thinking styles and core beliefs.

The main problem here is that she has a student with her now and I can hardly imagine talking about this to just one person. This is the first time I have opened up about this even online and anonymously.

I hope that you have been able to process things well and that you lead a happier life now(?)

@OneTreeinTheForest Yes, having a student sitting in on your sessions would certainly complicate things. I recall being in a psychiatric consult situation where there was a student present. The circumstances in that case were such that it wasn't a major stumbling block for me. But I can see where it would be in your situation.

I have to admit that, when I first replied to your post, I failed to notice (or at least take into account) the fact you are in the U.K. I know, from reading posts here on MSF over the years, that accessing mental health services there can be a long, drawn-out and frustrating affair.

You know, one thing I did fail to mention in my reply is that there is no shame in having a fetish. (Look who's talking! You probably didn't need me to tell you that.) There are more types of fetishes than I, at least, even realized existed until I began looking into them. Plus, since most of them are considered harmless in-&-of themselves, there's little research being done with regard to them. So no one really knows why they occur. What's problematic is the guilt, shame, anxiety and depression that can develop over having one. And, since there's really no known cure for a fetish, the answer is often simply learning to accept one has one along with learning to incorporate it into one's life in such a way that it does not interfere with living one's day-to-day life. I will say that, as I've gotten older, my own struggles with these sorts of things have diminished to a significant degree. But it admittedly took a long time for that to happen. So that's not of much comfort to someone your age.

I wish I had something else to suggest to you with regard to your situation. But, unfortunately I don't think I do. I recall you mentioned not wanting to join a BDSM forum. And, based on what I've read on other forums on the internet, I think this may be a wise decision. On the other hand, one thing that has been important to me in my life has been simply coming to the realization that I'm not the only person in the history of the world who had the kinds of struggles I've had. There were many decades during which I thought I must have been the only person in the world who had ever had the kinds of thoughts and compulsions I had. Learning there were others, many others, just like me was liberating. It didn't change anything in terms of my circumstances. But at least I knew I was not alone. But, then, I think I'm just starting to ramble now. Please forgive me. It's the sort of thing that happens when you get old. Best wishes...

Thank you!

I am not from the originally from the UK, but I live here now. The whole healthcare system is not great here and the waiting times are awful, but at least accessible compared to some countries. And I didn't know that therapy can be publicly funded so I cannot complain.

I have originally replied to someone who had been going through the same dilemma, but a moderator has edited my post and posted it as a new thread. I don't know whether I should join it or not... Perhaps I don't want to because of shame and stigma, but I am also not fan of meeting strangers around explicit topics and this is something I don't want to put to the forefront and let define me. I also know that a large part of 'this' is due to past traumas and I have a feeling that this could sound offensive to members of the BDSM community. I don't know if these are legitimate worries and I certainly do need to find a way to confront this.

What exactly have you heard if I may ask?

@OneTreeinTheForest Oh... I really haven't heard anything really specific. But I read posts on an ABDL forum I found a while back (I'm not a member... just a snooper) I just recall reading various members' posts where they said that other fetish-related forums they have been on tended to be "clickish". And it was easy to run afoul of other members who seemed more interested in arguing than in being supportive. So it's all simply an impression I've developed over time.

You've mentioned past trauma you've experienced as being a possible cause of the BDSM-related difficulties you're struggling with. Perhaps trying to resolve those past traumas (without getting into the BDSM stuff) is the key to all of this? We know there are no cures for fetishes. So, there is a sense in which talking with therapists about fetishes is kind-of pointless. And I don't think a lot of people who have fetishes seek therapy for them. Trauma work, however, is something that can help (I presume. I can't say as I can attest to that personally. But, again, it's an impression I've developed reading internet articles as well as posts written by other members here on MSF.) So maybe just do what you can to put your BDSM-related struggles "on the back burner", so to speak, for the time being and try as best you can to work through those past traumas. If you can resolve those, perhaps it will turn out you really never did have any true fetishes to begin with. But if you find you still do, you can figure out how to handle them then, once you've done as much as you can in the way of trauma work. I don't know... just a thought.

I'm quite certain there are great trauma-work resources out there, probably including workbooks, that can be helpful in resolving past traumas. And I presume if you were to post a request, here on MSF, for recommendations regarding these types of resources, you might get some excellent suggestions. I do know there are lots of members here who have dealt with, and are dealing with, past traumas.

One other thing I might just throw out here is that, in my own case, I have a lot of "stuff" (I'll spare you the details) I can't do anything about that continues to swirl around in my head like a merry-go-round. And a technique I've come to rely on for dealing with all of it is something that is referred to as "compassionate abiding". It's a Buddhist practice I learned reading the writings of the Buddhist nun Pema Chodron. However, here's a link to a mental-health-oriented description of the practice:

Relieve Distress By Allowing It: Compassionate Abiding 101 | Mindset: Perspective Is Everything

May it be of benefit.

Telling therapists is tricky. I've only had a lot of luck with one. She said if it helps you and its not hurting you or anyone else, then go for it. And she was super accepting and I was able to tell her everything. The therapists after that were not as accepting. The 2 therapists I had after her I was able to tell about a couple of the AB things I used. The first therapist was kinda the same way of "if it helps it helps" but I couldn't tell her about the DL side and I didn't stay with her long because of other reasons. The second therapist I told her about the same 2 AB things I used and she asked if I did anything else and I lied and said no. I think she was aware of the community though. She wasn't accepting though and tried other ways to break me of the habit. I told my current therapist one of AB things I use and she said it was weird and that just caused me to shut down in the session and then she felt bad and I haven't brought it up since. I doubt I'll ever be able to bring up any of this stuff with her. But that first therapist knew everything so therapists like that are out there.