I'm wrestling with myself. With myself and my so-called submission. After my quick failure yesterday evening, I wouldn't be surprised if the sadist says he's had enough. He has battled my resistance before. This is nothing new. The incidents may seem small, but they are telling. We spoke the other night of what he considers the crucial point in the movie Secretary, when Mr. Grey gives Lee precise instructions as to what she may eat.
4 peas.
He tells her exactly what he wants and she does it.
Yes, it is arbitrary.
But it is the central point of the relationship.
He tells her what he wants and she does it.
He tells her quite clearly.
It is what HE wants.
And she gives it to him.
It does sound awfully one-sided that way. But it isn't. Because obviously this serves her needs, too. As it does mine. Lee and I both appreciate - no, need - the structure. It makes me feel safe. Even though the sadist scares me - and probably should scare me even more - he makes me feel safe by the scaffolding he has been trying to build around my life. Trying his damnedest, despite my persistent resistance. Resistance that was far greater and more commonplace - both to his will and in other areas of my life - than I realized until now.
Throughout the last 2 years, he often used the same example in explaining the value of getting a submissive to do or accept something unpleasant. To order a person who adores ice cream to eat a whole pint neither teaches, nor enforces, nor proves anything. But each night, as I scurried around in a panic, trying to get the light turned out on time, by the exact minute he had specified, I was reminding myself of the commitment I had made, of the focus of my life, of what I had willingly accepted as being important - to do as he ordered. To give him what he wanted. Which he could count on my doing, whether he was there or not. And when I struggled against making a daily schedule, and keeping to it, something which in fact would be very good for me, I was putting (what I thought were) my own needs above his wishes.
Consistently, I have done those things that I liked, that were convenient, that were pleasurable, that appealed to me, and resisted others that for whatever reason or no reason at all I did not want to do. Not because they were dangerous or stupid or illegal or any other rational reason. But just because I seemed to need to resist. (This is over and above things that I screwed up because of my ADD. That's a whole other problem. But put them all together and they did horrible things for the fiend's blood pressure.)
So why, you may ask, am I suddenly writing all this at what was around 5 o'clock in the morning when I began?
In my early morning resumed insomnia, after playing a few rounds of Addiction Solitaire, I went to check out some of my favorite blogs. And came across this new post from Vesta on the issue of power exchanges (do go read it). The topic is different from mine, as she is discussing the concept of deciding for someone else what is in that person's best interest. But something she said caused a gigantic floodlight to be illuminated in my head. I started a little comment which threatened to become inappropriately long. Here is what I wrote:
Thank you. I find this particularly thought-provoking as I realize how hard it has been over the past 2 years to submit to even the smallest things unless I want to or feel like. Not that these things are bad or unreasonable. It's just that I seem to *need* to resist. Almost on principal.
Which, in fact, is probably exactly what it is. Both in my submission and in other areas of my life - in areas and on issues where it is quite inappropriate.
From what you've said, I suddenly see that I am fighting old battles. My awareness of the battles isn't new - just my awareness of how they are playing out again and again.
Your example of your son and soccer really hit home. You were open to recognizing what he did and didn't want. My parents never were.
This is becoming too long, so I think I'd better continue it over at my place. But thank you ever so much for illuminating things for me. Whether it can save my relationship with the sadist, I don't know. It may be too late. But perhaps it can help me in other ways as I go on with my life.
Where I stopped writing, before deciding to write more fully here in my own place, was as I was getting into a discussion of my mother's blindness to my desires and needs when they conflicted with her own strong opinions. We're not talking life-threatening things here. What did it matter if she let me get the frilly party dress I wanted? The one that would have let me look like the other little girls? What did it matter if I got to take the ballet classes I wanted rather than the modern dance that she felt would be better for me? The interesting point there is that she preferred modern because it was freer, less regimented, less confining, whereas I think something in my little girl's soul knew instinctively that I needed the greater structure of ballet. Certainly, I knew that this was what I wanted to look like. But she never asked me. Never. And I honestly can't remember if I ever spoke up and told her.
So in the end, I think I have ended up with this odd dichotomy. On the one hand, I am still yearning for the structure of ballet. The structure that the sadist keeps trying to impose. On the other hand, I am still fighting for autonomy, resisting the very chains that make me feel safe. The cage I want to crawl into, a small kitten seeking the safety of captivity.
No wonder he has asked again and again if I really want to make a commitment to serving him. And before you all pile on to attack him and how you think he treats me, do believe me when I say that the issue is not this one man. This one sadist. This most remarkable, intelligent, challenging, stimulating, perceptive, awe-inspiring and, yes, dangerous man. The problem is my own. It is getting in my way. I am always fighting authority, as a compulsion, even when it is not necessary. Always needing to assert my own, individualistic view on things, even when it isn't that important. Even when it is counter-productive. Even when it affects my professional life and non-bdsm personal life.
Whatever happens now - and I fear the worst - for my general happiness in so many different things, I need to get this sorted out.
I need to make peace between my own, internal, warring demons.
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5 comments:
This - this need to embellish, to rethink, to augment - is a battle I fight, as well. I have a hard time with a direct command. I need to make myself visible, by adding or subtracting something. It's hard for me to learn to do A, without adding in my own B, C and D. I have a hard time with the virtue of obedience, which, as I was growing up in the 50s and 60s, seemed a mere endorsement of the status quo, while adventurous souls were changing the shape of the world around me. Who knows what makes a rebel?
And, of course, there is the problem of integration.
In regard to your particular situation, it seems to me that the majority of us who live some portion of our lives in an alternate reality have, occasionally, a difficult time passing though the veil that separates the two dimensions of our existence. While you were working, it was easier to keep the two-way worm hole, (to borrow from StarTrek), open, to slide between the two (or more) chambers of life with minimal fuss. I would postulate that it is more diffucult to accomplish that particular feat of sleight-of-hand without the anchor - or balance - of another set of demands - a job, in other words. So that it then becomes more difficult to slide back, from your road trip, for example, into the head space we tend to prefer, and which, in your case, is demanded of you.
It's a bitch, girl. Many hugs. - jcn
This all makes much more sense now!
I appologise if my comment on your previous post but one caused any offense to you (or your Sadist)
big big hugs. Everything crossed you can work this out, and that your spell holds strong xxx
Dear og,
how right you are! Many times did i tell Master, sometimes pleasanlty surprised, sometimes in pain, sometimes in plain denial, "my mother never got me A" or "never allowed me to do B".
And what was our defense at the time dear og? To pick up the pieces and go on. Pretend nothing happened. Pretend our mother's "denial" didn't affect us, that their "authority" did not count. That we were strong enough to go on and find happiness, within the limits set for us, our own way.
But these things come out og, sooner or later. Sometimes in the form of guilt, sometimes in the form of a reaction to Dominance. Just a reaction. Two seconds. But with permanent results.
The battle to submit to our need to submit will actually never be over. But as long as we are on the winning side...
cassie
I ate a full dinner tonight. The first time in days and days. A sign of hopeful signs...
(And thanks, you guys!)
Dear, dear OG... i know what you mean.
i have the same problem with my darling Sir. he loves me, he really, really does. and i know that he has my best interests at heart. but i still have to fight him sometimes - for no reason really; i just find myself doing it without really knowing why.
the only explanation i can offer is, simply, that sometimes i need him to make me do what he wants. and whether this is or is not part of your dilemma, i could not say. but i know it is part of mine. i need him not only to care enough to declare his will, but to then impose his will on me. i can't really explain it farther than that. and yet i need it.
i feel like a child at those moments, pushing at limits just because i can, just to see if they are real. it may be because when i was a child, my family kept me under such tight control that i was always afraid to even twitch. now i feel almost obligated to try, to keep pushing. maybe it's because i don't feel loved if i'm not controlled? maybe that's too simple. i couldn't say. but it's a thought.
- Angharad
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