Friday, August 8, 2008

The un-training of kitten

How, in fact, do you do it? How do you un-train a slave? Is it like deprogramming someone who has been brainwashed by a cult? Three-days-a-week therapy to wipe away the effects of well-meaning but misguided parents?

I still twitch when I feed Marko. I carry his food down to the basement family room. To the dungeon. I sit on the floor while he eats, I sit on the floor by the maybe-or-maybe-not Eames chair. I watch him eat. And I twitch.

I sit on the floor, and I watch my sweet nervous cat eat, and I feel him there. The pervert who played at being my master. The sweet philosopher who was such a comfortable companion. I sit, and it starts. I am helpless. Helpless against the swelling and dripping of my cunt. And helpless against the memories.

Did Pavlov ever work on this? Did Pavlov ever try to release his dogs from the urge to salivate at the sound of the bell?

Do I want to be set free? Let my body cling a little longer. Let it pretend that I am still owned.

There will be enough time for wandering lost in unwelcome freedom.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

You could always try untraining yourself... reward yourself for NOT doing something. Someone who had as long and regimented a LDR as you did definitely has the self-discipline to institute your own reward system. Maybe even get one of those chart things like parents get for kids with chores... hang it up in the kitchen or your bedroom and make a mark each time you don't fall into a routine you had with him.

Just a thought.

Paul said...

Oatmeal Girl, one of the best ways of deprogramming, is to break learned habits.
Is it possible to feed Marko somewhere else.
This is a method used to break other addictions, it may work.
Warm hugs,
Paul.

Anonymous said...

Yes, new habits will produce new thoughts and different reactions. You CAN do this by making different choices, and you ARE strong enough to resist the lure of being drawn back to the familiar.

All the best to you as you make your way through this new territory.

oatmeal girl said...

listener42 - welcome to our conversation! your ideas are theoretically good. but the problem is that i DON'T have a good system of internal discipline, which was one of my reasons why i so welcomed the philosopher's control. whether as my owner or as my boyfriend, the structure he imposed was incredibly helpful.

paul - haven't you ever had cats? no, you can't just feed them somewhere else. even a wuss such as Marko is quite stubborn about where he will eat.

but you are both right. i need to be more creative about confronting this problem.

anonymous, you are clearly talking about more than just where i feed Marko. thanks for teh reminder, which obviously i need again and again. it's not so much no academicians and musicians, as no more people who are emotionally unavailable - or at least be perfectly clear going into anything that both i and the other party understand where we both are.

of course, that could be asking a lot... :-) do we ever really know where we are? or where things will go? but we can try. and yes, i can be better at rading danger signs.

still, broken hearts take a long time to mend... and there will always be scars.