Control and Power

1. Sex as Power

Why do I use sex to feel in control?

Using sex as a way to feel in control often stems from a history in which control was taken from you. If your trauma involved coercion, manipulation, or powerlessness, your relationship with sex becomes layered. Instead of experiencing sex as connection, it may become leverage—a way to reclaim authority over your body, emotions, or relationships.

Sex becomes a stage where you dictate the pace, the tone, the access. It becomes a space where you cannot be overpowered, dismissed, or ignored. On the surface, this can look like empowerment. Beneath it, however, lies a survival strategy. The body remembers vulnerability and uses sexuality as a shield: “If I’m in control, I can’t be hurt again.”

But this form of power is fragile. It does not heal the wound; it manages it. It offers temporary confidence, not lasting peace. True power is not found in performance—it is found in emotional safety, self-respect, and internal alignment.

Healing involves reframing power: not as something you exert over others, but something you build within yourself. When the wounds beneath the behaviour are addressed, sex stops being a battlefield and becomes what it was always meant to be—connection, not compensation.

2. Fear of Losing Control

How did being violated make me obsessed with power?

Violation shatters predictability. It teaches your nervous system that safety is fragile and that vulnerability equals danger. In response, your mind becomes hypervigilant—constantly scanning for threats and clinging to control as a way to prevent future harm. Power becomes a psychological shield.

This obsession is not about dominance; it is about protection. You were once overpowered, so your brain learned to associate control with survival. When your boundaries were violated, your sense of agency was taken. Now you guard your autonomy fiercely, sometimes excessively.

This can create patterns such as:

• avoiding emotional dependence
• micromanaging interactions
• needing to initiate or control intimacy
• withdrawing at the slightest sign of unpredictability
• equating vulnerability with danger

This is not personality—it is trauma architecture.

Healing begins when you relearn what safety feels like. Through consistent relationships, emotional regulation, and trauma-informed work, your nervous system learns that control is not the only path to safety. Over time, vulnerability stops meaning violation and becomes a doorway to trust.

Your obsession with control is not a flaw—it is a scar. And scars can soften.

3. The Dominance Mask

Is my control just a cover for fear?

Often, yes. Dominance can be a mask worn by those who fear being powerless again. When you have been emotionally hurt, manipulated, or violated, your mind develops layers of protection. One of those layers is control disguised as confidence. It may appear as independence, assertiveness, or emotional restraint. Internally, it is fear of being at someone else’s mercy.

Dominance keeps you one step ahead. You set the emotional rules, the pace of intimacy, the depth of disclosure. It creates the illusion of strength, but what it truly protects is the part of you that still feels fragile, exposed, or unsafe.

Fear often disguises itself as:

• perfectionism
• extreme independence
• detachment
• sexual assertiveness
• emotional control

Beneath each is a longing for safety.

The goal is not to eliminate your assertiveness, but to align it with authenticity. Real power is not about controlling others; it is about regulating your inner world. When healing occurs, strength becomes calmer, softer, and no longer rooted in fear. You can lead without dominating, love without controlling, and trust without collapsing.

Dominance does not mean you are strong. It means you are protecting a wound that deserves care.

4. Surrender Fear

Can I let go without being taken advantage of?

Yes—but surrender requires discernment, not blind trust. Your fear is valid. If you have been hurt before, letting go can feel like walking unprotected into danger. Your nervous system links surrender with vulnerability, and vulnerability with violation.

The answer is safe surrender, not reckless surrender. You do not let go with everyone. You let go with people who show consistency, emotional maturity, respect for boundaries, and predictable behaviour. Healthy surrender is built gradually, not instantly.

Safe surrender looks for people who:

• honour your boundaries without resistance
• ask rather than assume
• respond with patience when you hesitate
• create emotional safety before physical intimacy
• communicate clearly and respectfully

Surrender is not about losing power; it is about sharing it. It is mutual, not sacrificial. When the person and the pace are right, surrender becomes trust rather than exposure.

You will know it is safe when your body feels calm, not conflicted; when your voice is welcomed, not silenced; and when your boundaries are respected, not negotiated.

You can let go without losing yourself—when you surrender into the right hands.

5. Strength vs. Wound

Is my toughness really pain in disguise?

Toughness is often a carefully forged armour, shaped by pain. What the world sees as strength—your independence, resilience, and emotional control—may be your way of keeping pain contained. The issue is not the toughness itself, but that it has become both shield and identity.

When you have been wounded, you learn to harden. You become the one who does not ask for help, does not cry, does not break. Toughness becomes survival. Over time, however, survival-mode strength turns into emotional constriction. Love becomes difficult to receive. Softness feels unsafe. Rest feels unfamiliar.

True strength is not the ability to endure endlessly; it is the ability to heal. It is the courage to set the armour down long enough to breathe.

Your toughness protected you. But if it never softens, it will also isolate you. Healing asks you to separate the part of you that is genuinely strong from the part that is protecting a wounded inner child.

You are not weak for having wounds. You are strong for surviving them. You become stronger still when you meet them with softness rather than avoidance.

6. New Power

What does healthy power look like for me?

Healthy power is internal, not performative. It is grounded rather than defensive. It is rooted in self-respect, not control over others. Healthy power allows you to move through life with clarity, calm confidence, and emotional stability—no longer driven by fear or trauma patterns.

Healthy power looks like:

• choosing rather than chasing
• setting boundaries without guilt
• speaking truth without aggression
• being vulnerable without feeling exposed
• giving love without losing yourself
• receiving love without suspicion

Healthy power is measured by emotional regulation, not dominance. It is the ability to remain steady, honest, and present—even when life feels uncomfortable.

When your power is healthy, you no longer use sex to compensate, control to protect, or dominance to disguise fear. You act from alignment, not old wounds.

True power is quiet. It does not need validation, performance, or intensity. It is grounded in self-trust and self-awareness.

Your power does not come from how tightly you hold on—it comes from how confidently you can let go.