I received an email from a friend the other day who had poked his head in on my site and looked at the posting entitled: “The Nail Biter and The Heart Pounder”. He would go on to tell the true story of how he had always been a nail biter his whole life, but somehow, recently he had found a way to stop biting his nails. Maybe a better way to put that would be to say: He had found a reason to stop biting his nails.
He didn’t know what the reason was as to why he suddenly could face and defeat the challenge of biting his nails any more than he could explain why he started biting them to begin with. But he could tell me when his inner strength arrived.
It was during a trip he took to spend time with a dear friend of his. And now, he can open letters and packages without a knife.
As I read this email from him, my mind went into a full-out blitz of thoughts. I, too, am a nail biter. But I could list and chronicle the reasons why I chomp down on the cuticles. For my emailing friend, he would bite his nails without even thinking about it. But I would consciously do it.
For both of us, biting nails (and trying to stop) was and is a challenge. And that got me thinking about the other challenges we face in life and how we deal with them. There are many challenges, such as addictions, from smoking to drinking to drugs. But I’m not writing this posting to walk up on the old high school stage and sound like a guidance counselor. Instead, I might be able to relate it to something that we all share in common. Chances are strong that, if you’re reading this posting, you either know what the acronym ABDL stands for and you’re an ABDL-er yourself.
And my, oh my, what challenges those four letters have made us face, huh? But from the hindsight of challenges faced, our thoughts may lead to the clearer understanding that it wasn’t as difficult as we initially made it out to be. This is a healthy way of keeping one’s self in check, but the danger in such confidence after the fact is that we may make others still facing those challenges feel bad that they are making the same mistakes we did and that they’re blowing things out of proportion.
A few years ago, I saw a girl on FetLife berate another member for having posted a personals ad. This struck me as strange, seeing how this girl not only once posted personals ads herself, but actually made the entire “About Me” section of her FetLife profile one big, long personals ad. And she would update this “About Me” section every few days, adding more and more details to it about herself and about who she was looking for. I would see her update notices on my friend feed regularly. Two months later, she would meet a guy. And, to the best of knowledge, they are still together to this day – years after she posted a personal ad. So it worked for her and that was wonderful, only then to make others feel stupid for having done the same. That seemed kind of unnecessary.
Most people really aren’t trying to be judgmental or even sound that way. However, sometimes we do it, unknowingly.
I once read a FetLife thread on a group about how someone really wanted to go to events like CAPCon and Abdulia. But this person still lived with her parents, though she was done with college. The replies were supportive, except for one when an ABDL-er told her that she needed to stop using the excuse of “living with her parents” as to why event attendance wasn’t possible. This struck me as strange again, being as this particular ABDL-er still lived with her mother as well and was constantly paranoid that her ABDL stash would be found.
Now … what’s the line that could be drawn between FetLife replies and bad habits like biting nails? Maybe there’s no parallel at all. Or maybe, we tend to forget how difficult it was to find courage to face our own yet-unbeaten challenges.
Think back to some random day from your past when you were happy when you went to bed. It likely wasn’t a day when you just sat around and were bored. You probably had a lot to do and you got it all done.
So whether it’s biting nails or pursuing something you fear or whatever, remember that no challenge is ever an excuse. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. And it’s not about finding ways to avoid challenges. Being challenged in life is inevitable and no one is exempt from this … not even those with sharp-sounding comments. But being defeated is optional. And all you have to do is find the reason why your determination is more powerful than the challenge.
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