These are the beatings we carry around with us like rosary beads in our souls, clutched close. We hunch over them, terrified of them but terrified people will see them. The guilt whether justified or not seeps out of us through every pore and sometimes we have no idea why we need it, only that we long for it.

It is a curious dichotomy; to long for something you hate. To need something that hurts so much. To breathlessly crave the tears and trauma.

I liken it to a livid, agonising boil on the soul that seems to pulsate. It will not let you rest, it will not let you sleep. No painkiller can take the pain away. It is urgent and insistent.

The only thing that will make it better if you lance it. Get the vile, stinking fluids out and away, make it clean again. And the only way of lancing the boil is with the cauterising, healing devastation of a punishment. A punishment administered by someone who loves you and cares about you and wants to make it better, and who understands that they need to be thorough and severe. No trace can be left. The pain is washed away by tears and so tears you will cry. You begin the process needing to be beaten because you deserve it. And you end the process with a cosmic clear slate, needing nothing from anyone and having the blessed luxury of being able to sleep with a clear mind.

I feel so sorry for those of us who are this way, but have no recourse to be able to remedy this themselves, or who have nobody to do it for them.

People who do not understand what we are, who we are, and what we do think having someone tell you to accompany them to a secret place and to fetch an implement of agony and bruising, welting damage is abuse.

It isnt.

It is the opposite of abuse.