Bad girl on a good girl's pedestal

I knew my chosen career was about as conservative as joining a catholic nunnery.  It was steeped in tradition, customs, rituals, superstitions and despite the fact that we were in a new millennium I was still only, one of a few handfuls of women who were breaking into this very male dominated industry.  The majority of my co-workers were twice my age. They had traditional ideas of a woman's place, and for many it was not work along side them.  Each of these men dealt with the high level of stress in different ways; some had held fast to their own personal faith, others had used laughter as their medicine, and had amazing senses of humour, others by drinking their day away, some had a women on the side other than their wives to escape to and the closet or openly gay men may be found in the dark corners of one of the local gay clubs, trying to hide what they do from the hot young thing, they were trying to pick up; as much as I wanted to hide what I do for a living from the kinksters.
I needed these men to respect me as their peer but also as a woman.  I had to watch what I said, how I dressed and the amount make up I wore.  Physically I could not always do what they could do, but I could type up their paper work faster than they could and that opened some doors for me.  Instead of cursing and swearing at me for what I couldn't do, they were coming to me to ask for help, the tables were turning in my favour.  I'm not a very patient girl, but I knew over time my patience would pay off.  They started taking a bit of extra time to show me the ropes and their little tricks of the trade.  Mr. T gave me many tips on how I should communicate with my co-workers and supervisors, if I needed a specialised piece of equipment to do my job and the reason I needed it was because I was a girl, he would help me word my request in such away that I could get what I needed.  If I was taking the lead on some work, he suggested how I should delegate tasks.
 I didn't just want to be treated like one of the boys, I was the only female in this crowd and I knew if I could elevate myself in their eyes to where they respected me, they would treat me better than they treated the boys.  It didn't take me long before I found myself on a pedestal and I had a different understanding and relationship with each man I worked with and even with most of the contractors we worked along side with.  Some confided in me and shared sad and lonely parts of their lives with me, others treated me like their daughter or sister and tried to protect me, some were always trying to make me smile.  The thing with being on a pedestal is you aren't given much room to move and if a girl wasn't careful and she stepped out of line she was liable to fall off of her perch, a position she could never re-gain if she lost it.  On the other hand, I had this burning desire growing deep inside of me to let my hair down, to set aside the boring business suit, and release some of the stress.  If I was going to venture out into the world of BDSM I had to be very selective of who I shared the details of my life with. 
When John and Paula offered to take me to a play party at another submissive's place, I was excited to go along.  John assured me that I was not required to play with anyone and that being that I was with him, I was under his protection.  I was pleased to find out that it was customary to introduce people by their online name.  The name I had chosen at the time was insideofme, because I felt that is described where my desire to explore BDSM and where my submissiveness came from. Short for insideof me; I was introduced as inny , I couldn't get much more anonymous that that, so for now my career felt safe.  John later recommended that I consider changing my nic to something with less of a sexual connotation as I found I was attracting the wrong kind of attention.  So ever since then I am known as richelle or lippylilgirl.
The nature of my work, didn't allow me to talk about the details of my day over coffee with friends and even if I could nobody would fully understand unless they were there.  The high emotion, uncertain schedule,  long hours and being on call were taking their toll.   Mr. T knew exactly what I was experiencing.  He worked as a trauma nurse  at a major hospital in St. Louis.  Sometimes words aren't enough he would tell me, when that was all he and I had it was ironic that he would say that, but I knew exactly what he meant.  If only, we didn't live a million miles apart.  He would describe how at the end of an extremely stressful shift, where he did not always have control, where sometimes God decided the out come no matter how hard him and his team would try, he would need to have a scene where he could release his frustration and he could control the outcome.  I understood that raw emotion, but I wanted to hand the control over to someone else, to give it up.  There were times when my emotions were tied up in such tight knots within me that I didn't know how to release the negativity from my body, let alone my brain.  It was not uncommon for my boss to find me smoking behind the dumpster, out back, crying.  He would look at me and shake his head and say "Suck it up butter cup"  or no crying on the job princess.  I tried to explain that my shedding a few tears, on my own, away from everyone, was healthier than finding comfort at the bottom of a bottle.  The message was clear, I need to keep my feelings in check. 

 It's one thing to be physically tired; one can sleep and rejuvenate.  When you are mentally and emotionally exhausted, you can't turn your brain off at night.  Physical pain would be a great distraction and would be symbolic of all that I was dealing with, but I didn't like pain, but I wanted pain, but I didn't trust anyone to inflict pain on me, and I didn't trust anyone enough to go through the release of and the letting go of some pretty strong, twisted and messed up shit.  I wanted the bruises and the welts as evidence of what my heart was feeling.  I wanted a Dom to beat me through my tears, to make me scream and cry and not be a typical man and try and wipe my tears away rather be the one inflicting the pain on me, in turn being the one releasing the pain from me.  I never really allowed that to happen, I never found a Dom I could submit to like that so I have always held that back, stuffed it down and kept it for myself.  Maybe I was saving my tears for someone worthy.

At the beginning of our first year, a college professor told us he believed that after one of our major projects, a certain number of students would drop out, of those remaining; 50% of us would make it to graduation and of those, only 50% would remain in our chosen industry five years after school.  I didn't believe I fell into those stats of his.  In the end, I made it to 5 years, when I walked away. 
I no longer have the desire to experience pain, in the way that I wanted to back then, my pain tolerance wasn't never that high and it is probably even lower now.  However I do still get turned on by bruises and welts, I just don't know if I have the ability to handle what it would take to have bruises and welts to call my own.