Seemingly a paradox

Isn't it strange that I'll let Mistress strangle me to the point of unconsiousness without any hesitation, and really can't come up with anything she would possibly want to do that I would refuse her, but I still gets angry and resentful and acts up when she asks the most mundane things from me?

The other day she wanted me to put another sweater on little S after I've already put her in her stroller, and I threw a hissy fit and stomped away, closing the door to the bedroom so that I could lay on the bed and sulk. While at the other times I let her bind me, gag me and beat me, with no problem. How does that make sense?

We talked about it yesterday, and it suddenly occurred to me that it was perfectly logical. The same force drives both of these behaviours. I want to please. I want to live up to her expectations and be as good as I can be. However, if I don't get very specific directions, I make up my own idea of what those expectations are, and the acting out happens when she gives me what I feel is contradicting orders.

If she strangles me, I interpret the situation so that I surrender and follow and doesn't fight back - to the point of fainting before I say anything. Because that's what I've learned she wants. If I was in a martial arts setting, training with peers, I would have no problems saying no or tapping on someone to make them stop what they're doing. Because that is "good behaviour" in that setting. And with the stroller - I had made the interpretation that the goal was to get little S ready for her nap and out in the stroller in the most effective manner possible, and thought I was doing that. I was already doing my best. When she went in and changed details in what I was doing, I felt criticised, corrected, deemed unworthy, in essence worthless and unjustly punished. That interpretation made me both ashamed and furious, and I withdrew.

"Ok" Mistress said when I tried to explain this to her, "then it's really only a matter of changing your interpretation of the situation, of being very clear about what I expect of you?"

And I wanted to leap with joy, to raise my hands in the air and shout. Yes! That's exactly it! I think I've been trying to tell Mistress this for something like... five years or so? Yes. Tell me what you want of me. Tell me when I do something wrong, and most importantly - tell me what you want me to do differently. I'm very good at following orders. I just need them to be precise and possible for me to follow.

It's when the parameters are fuzzy, as they usually are in day-to-day-life, that I derail. I need clear feedback, and help in defining the situation, if you don't like my interpretation of it. Just assume that I do as best I can to please and that if I'm not pleasing the only thing I need is to know what you want me to do instead.

I think that in play-situations Mistress takes much much more care to explain her expectations to me, and correct me if she doesn't like what I'm doing. In everyday life, things are simply supposed to flow along, and when they don't she doesn't really make the interpretations that's what's missing is clearer orders and more disciplin and control. I think she thinks I'm just being stubborn or willfull or disobeying her on purpose. And it might that feeling, that idea I have that she thinks that of me, that sparks my anger the most. Because it's really really not so.