Darker days approaching

Autumn is in high swing, and more or less over night (more, since it has to do with the clocks being set back one hour for winter) my yearly winter depression started looming.

Last year and even more so the year before that, I had it bad, but that's no wonder since I was exhausted. Stress accounted for a lot of it, but the fact is that I've been down during the winter for most of my life, and so has my mother. It's probably hereditary in one way or another, either by learning history and conditioning or more biologically, a vulnerability to lack of sunlight. Either way, here it comes, depression train approaching station.

I made a poster yesterday, when I was contemplating what I could do to lessen this. What approach was needed, what can I do? And I came up with three words that encompasses the things I need to get through the coming four month with sanity, relationship and self respect intact:
Acceptance.
Patience.
Trust.

I need to accept that this is how it is right now, that even though I can do some things to make it better I can't make the problem go away, nor does wishing it so or being angry at it make anything better. It is as it is. My brain works this way, and I'm not to blame for that, no more than I should blame myself for my brown hair or being 5"5. The more I fight against reality, the deeper I sink in the quicksand. This is how it is.

And I need to let it take time. It's going to be like this for awhile. That too is as it is.

And I need to trust in the sun coming out eventually. It's all going to be okay in the end. Even though it might take awhile, and even though it might not be precisely as I wish it would be in the meantime.

Right now, I'm going to drink coffee with Mistress who's working from home. And I think I'll enjoy it, and there's a good chance I'll actually feel what the coffee tastes like. I'm not going onboard the depression train just yet.

Bad decisions and consequences

There was this discussion on Fet about punishments, and a few posts described really harsh things. I contered with a very low key account of getting a few swats on my pants for being uppity. I consider our relationship to have a "punishment dynamic", since there is punishment at times. But the thing is that the stuff she does to me for positive for more positively associated reasons are way more bloody and painful than the corrections I get.

She came home Friday six days ago, and as always things were a bit weird after she's been gone. I had a hard time finding my bearing, kept clinging to her and at the same time got bouts of anger and insecurity. I don't handle separation well, it's not as if I have very healthy patterns from childhood in the attachment area of things (yeah, I'm a shrink, I think like that).

Anyway, come Saturday when the kid was asleep, she pointed me to the bedroom, had me lay on my stomach and proceeded to tie me down, hands and feet to the bedposts. "I'm going to beat you" she said, and my stomach did a happy and scared flip, "there's not going to be any peace and quite around her 'til I do, anyway." And then she did, a lot.

She ended it with a volley of blows with the thick rattan on my ass that made me try to faint and fly at the same time. It wouldn't have surprised me one bit if I had started to levitate. And if I remember this correctly, it simply ended with her untying me and cuddling on the sofa. Or was this the time she fucked me silly? That might have been the day after. It was good, anyhow.

Two days later I marvelled over the tenderness I still felt, and when I checked in the mirror, there were actual bruises. I had bruises on my ass! That hasn't happened for forever, no matter what agony she puts me true, I never get to show it off, 'cause it simply doesn't show. But this time it did.

So that's the stuff she does just because she want to, and to keep me her good, calm, submissive little slut.

Now this morning, when Mistress hade left for work and I was about to herd the kid through the door on our way to the pre-school said kid had a complete meltdown over Mistress choosing black pants for her. She didn't want black pants, they were ugly, she only wanted pink pants, pink and purple were the only pretty colours, why couldn't she have pretty pants, she hated us, she wasn't going to play with anyone at pre-school, and oh why did she have to have ugly clothes??!!

My interest in taking off all her layers of outdoor clothes that covered the black pants in question was non-existent. I tried some halfhearted attempts of compromising, offering her other pants to change to at lunchtime when they go inside, but it failed because we actually didn't have any other suitable pants. They were in the hamper. I sighed and was preparing myself for ignoring her wailing and bodily drag her to the pre-school.

And then a memory came to me, of when I was around four or five, and had a fight with my mom over a pair of pants. She wanted me to wear some sort of bib-and-brace overalls, and I just refused. They were baby-pants! Ugly baby-pants! I remember my mother pleading with me that I had worn them last week and liked them just fine, and I remember how utterly illogical that argument was in my ears. That feeling of having to wear something that didn't fit who I was, that felt demeaning and wrong and humiliating. It's only a snapshot, and I don't know how it went, but I'm guessing I lost the fight since I remember it so vividly. Or, equally likely, I didn't have to wear the pants but my mother reacted with coldness and hostility and punished me by withdrawing her love because I voiced my opinion.

Anyway, I know what it feels like having to go around in clothes that makes you feel bad and makes you feel ugly. I don't care that the pants in question was gorgeous and supercomfy and that Mistress has an exact copy of them, they didn't match little S' view of herself. And suddenly I thought, what the hell, we'll fix this. And I got the kid in the car instead of the stroller, and headed for the nearest mall on the way to the pre-school. We were going to buy pants!

Only, the shops didn't open as early as I had hoped, but then I was on a mission, so we went ten minutes in another direction, found a supermarket with a small clothes aisle, and eventually a pair of pants. That were actually in a set with a cute matching top. And then we got a pair of warm winter mittens, and three pairs of gloves, because those always get dirty or lost, and it's good to have a few to change with. And it was really cheap, too. On the way out past the register little S got a balloon too, for free, and we made our way to the pre-school quite happily. I was pleased with little S getting new clothes and with being able to leave a contented child for the day.

And then I got home and texted Mistress about my adventure. The first text was rather optimistic, like "oh, and I got some clothes for little S, wasn't that great?". The next one, ten minutes later was more along the lines of "Uhm... I just realised I should have asked first. I should have asked for permission, shouldn't I? Sorry..." That one got a terse answer, that yes, I should definitely have asked permission first.

Epic slut fail.

So now I got punished. And remember those bruises on my butt? If she does that simply for maintenance, what does she do when I spend money without permission and goes on errands completely without telling her about it? Well... she docked the money for the clothes from my allowance this month, about a fifth of the sum I get for lunches and other indulgenses. And I had to complete a task that I was supposed to do today anyway, before lunch instead of whenever I wanted. That's the punishment.

And now I'm forgiven. I'm still a bit ashamed, and feeling greatful to her for holding me to her standards, and very much decided that I'll never to that again and always text her about my doings and plans, as I usually do.

I feel punished. And I feel contrite. And I feel very much that she owns me, and that I made a mistake, and that I should do better in the future. It does matter that she holds me accountable. It does matter that she meets out punishment. It doesn't, however, have to be cruel or nasty or bloody. A short jerk, a disappointed voice, a reminder that she's not pleased with my actions. It makes me thankful to be hers, and it makes me feel safe and secure and looked after.

A good call

Uhm... And then it turned out that well, I had jumped to conclusions and she had in fact kept her promise and not done "that thing". It was a misunderstanding, completely my fault too. So yeah... It only makes me glader I sat on my ass and wrote a semi-bitter blogpost about it instead of starting a fight.

In fact, when I had posted yesterday, I sat down and breathed and meditated a bit, and after a while I decided I'd rather sit with her than all alone in the living room, so I got out to where she was working at the kitchen table and simply sat down beside her, on my knees with my head in her lap.

And yes, when she finally stopped working and we were curled up together on the sofa, she asked me what was wrong and I said that I was upset and sad from before, and it was then I found out that my freak-out was completely unnecessary. It did make me a bit relieved still, especially about that broken-promise-thing, but it wasn't this big deal it would  have been if I hadn't already decided I could live with it.

Pet peeve

I was formulating a question to one of the groups on Fetlife, maybe Master&slaves or Owner/property, silently in my head. But while I was wording it, I also imagined the potential responses, and realised I already knew them.

It's not like it's a new or unique problem.

The thing is, there's this thing Mistress does that I really really hate. I'm not going into what it is, but it's a stress relief thing, something she does when she gets overwhelmed with stress or emotions, kind of to re-boot the system or something. It could have been something like nail-chewing or smoking or shouting loud profanities. It's a sudden outburst that makes her feel a bit better in the moment.

But, as mentioned, I hate it. With a vengeance. Everyt time she does it, I get an instant emotional reaction, I get furious and panicky and feel betrayed and a whole chorus of negative voices goes on in my head. I see that particular action as something destructive, bad for her and for me and a bad example for the kid, only making her feel worse in the long run and simply... simply a bad thing to do. I get an emotional reaction close to how I would feel if she hit me in anger, or destroyed something pricey. I get scared and insecure and angry.

We've talked about this. A lot. For a very very long time, ever since we first fell in love, as a matter of fact. She knows how I feel about it, and I think she agrees in theory about that particular thing being a bad example for the kid and not helping in the long run. She's even promised never to do it again. In fact, she has repeatedly said that she wont do it again, and when she still did, she finally made a serious, carefully worded promise to not do it.

And she's usually extremely good at keeping her word, extremely good. It's a corner stone of her personality. She doesn't lie, ever, and she doesn't make promises she can't keep nor does she break a promise once it's been given. Except for this one thing. Because she still does it. And I still hate it.

And when she did it again an hour ago, one of the things I started to do was whining my plight in an imaginary opening post on Fetlife. About how my Owner did this one annoying thing and wouldn't stop even though she knew it made me feel bad, and how I didn't know if I could live with it, but I can't leave her, and what shall I do to make her stop doing it!!!!

And yeah. There's only two answers to that question. It's either "suck it up, buttercup, you're owned and you can't make her do a damn thing" or "if you can't take it, leave - why are you with her if that thing is so unbearable?".

And that's it, really. I don't have to ask anyone else about this. I can't make her do squat. That's the long and the short of it. If this thing she does is so deplorable to me that I can't stand living with her and raising our kid together with her, then I have to leave. Or, on the other hand, if I'm not going to divorce her over it, if the reality is that even though it makes me feel yucky all over it's something I actually can live with, then I better just shut up and stop trying to bully her into changing.

She knows how I feel. Telling her one more time wont make any difference. It doesn't matter what I do or say or feel or think, there's not a thing I can do to make her behave in one way or another. If I could influence this, I would have by now.

So I give. I guess I'll tell her that too. I give in, I don't care anymore, I wont say another word about it. I'm still going to feel yucky, but I wont keep the illusion that if I manage to convey to her just how yucky it makes me feel that will influence her to not do it anymore. I think she knows how it makes me feel. I just think that isn't changing the situation.

I choose to be hers, her slave, her property, her wife, her best friend, hers, no matter what. If she wants to do this thing, then well, that sucks for me, but then that's the way it is. I still belong to her, I still want to belong to her, and that means accepting whatever she throws my way. I wont fake anything, but I wont badger her or argue with her or try to punish her anymore. I'm hers, and she can do whatever she want to. Including this.

(Even if I really do hate it.)

I accept it.

I accept it.

It's okay.

It's going to be okay.

A better day

It's funny what a difference it did that we talked a bit on webcam this morning. Little S seemed happy too, even though it's a little bit strange with mommy on the computer and not in hugging distance. And for me it ment that the day seemed somehow normal. I could start my day with her, and just now we talked a bit again, and somehow anchoring my day with Mistress in the beginning and the end of it, everything feels more like it should be.

Half is done now. Friday she'll be back.

The tough and the weak

I miss her. Insanely. I cried today when I finally got to see her on the webcam. I can't remember if I've ever acutally cried from missing her before. And in a way it made it easier. It's not as hard and difficult when I don't have to be strong and brave and tough it out.

This time I don't have to. I don't have to be as strong, because the work isn't as hard. I don't have to go to school or be at home all day alone with the kid, and I'm not even half as tired as I used to be just a little while ago. For the first time in a long while it's not unusual for me to get through a normal day and not be crushed by fatigue and despair some time after dinner.

And I don't have to be as brave, because finally (finally!) both me and the people around me have a realistic view of what I can and can't do (okay, everyone except for my mom, but I'll leave her out of this...). No one is expecting me to not be a wreck when Mistress finally gets home. It's part of the equation. I don't have to feel guilty, and I don't have to hide it. It's okay, it can be what it is.

I'm not normal. I wish I was, or at least that the things that makes my life difficult could be toned down a little, but I'm not. What's new and exciting and uplifting is that I no longer have to act as if I'm normal, and I'm no longer expected to react as if I was. How I'm in fact wired, what really happens with me and my brain, is taken into account now. There's no longer this glaring mismatch between the map (how everybody else works) and reality (how I react in real life).

Which means I can skip the brave face and stay vulnerable. Stay present. Stay in touch with my emotions. And that is so much less work than dealing with the side-effects of the brave-face-approach. The brave face means walls and detachments, means self-sufficiency and loneliness, means independence and distance.

I hate the brave face. I love the privilege of weakness and dependence and softness and crying after Mistress because I miss her so so much, and I need her so so much. I love the freedom that comes with the luxury of openness and vulnerability and honesty and humility. I'm allowed to miss her. I'm allowed the weakness that comes with that feeling now, when I don't have to perform to the utmost of my ability at all times any longer.

I still have to tough it out, though, because today is Tuesday and she'll be home Friday afternoon. Two days down, three more to go. 

Going away

Tomorrow morning Mistress leaves for Spain. She'll be back Friday, and even though I really don't like her going away from me, it feels a lot better than the last time she travelled. One of the main reason is probably that this time neither I nor anyone else thinks I'm okay with it, and expects me to be perfectly all right when she gets back.

We have all kinds of support in place, the biggest one being my in-laws coming and living with me and little S from Tuesday to Thursday. And we're going to talk every day, and I'll have a schedule, and there's food in the fridge, and everything is going to be okay. Except that I'll miss her like crazy.

Yesterday she whipped me, hard and deliciously cruel. Today we made our version of sweet love, including a whole lot of nipple pinching and strangling. I feel safe and loved and treasured. It's going to be okay. And at least she'll be home soon. 

Broken down

I took the car today, to have lunch with a friend. I really didn't need to, I could have taken my bike, but it was raining and I was feeling tired and grumpy. Or the bus, but truth be told, I fell asleep and when I woke up I would just make it in time with the car.

I had a lovely lunch with an old friend I haven't seen in ages, and when it was time for her to return to work I offered to drive her. When we got there, I turned the engine off while we finished our conversation, we hugged and said good bye and I turned the ignition key, and got nothing.

The car wouldn't start. And that turned a so far good but a little low day in to a rather horrid one.

In the end, I got home again around six-thirty, and the worst part of the whole day was the look in Mistress' eyes. She looked so sad, and defeated, and tired and angry and well, just generally frazzled. Most of it has nothing to do with me, or with the car, but knowing that decisions I've made today, like taking the car at all for instance, made her day worse makes me hate myself a little.

I don't know if she's angry with me for any of it. I texted her as soon as it happened, and she was informed of every decision I made and I did as she told me to when she had any input, but in the end I still feel guilty. Like I should have done better. I know she hates it when unexpected things happen, and especially when she's not in control of them. I think she would much have preferred being the one waiting by the broken down car over having to leave work early and pick up the kid and fix dinner and play nice and be in a good mood with a cranky four-year-old.

And now her mother called. Today we know whether her dad has skeletal cancer or not. Today is not an easy day.

---------

Mistress is still on the phone with her mom, but she just gave me a thumbs up. The relief is immense. 

A day in the life of a stay-at-home slave

I'm having trouble accepting just how good things are right now. That's a first world problem if I ever heard of one... But really, it scares me a bit, because how it is right now is something I could live with forever. And that's a bit troublesome, because right now I don't do much.

I'm a stay-at-home slave for the moment. I mean, I'm not even a stay-at-home mom, because that would require my kid to be, you know, at home. But she's not, she's almost full time at pre-school. I usually get home around nine thirty after dropping her off in the morning, and then I go pick her up after four in the afternoon. And really I'm not a housewife either, because doesn't a housewife do like all the housework?

I once read a study where a lot of couples in Sweden had filled in surveys about the amount of housework they did, each person in the household answering separately. And of course, in heterosexual relationships with kids the woman did an insane amount more of the housework, many more hours per week more than the man, unrelated to their professional workload. Except for if the woman worked full time and the man was unemployed, those couples were statistically most equal, since then the men did roughly half...

So yeah. In that scenario, I'm the guy. Mistress works full time, and she still does all the laundry, most of the grocery shopping, all the planning, always cleans up after dinner and do most of the vacuuming. I vacuum occasionally, clean the bathroom, cook dinner, sometimes empty the dishwasher, shop some groceries and do strange errands like picking up parcels at the post office or getting shoes mended and other odd things, and usually leaves off and picks up the kid, but at best one can say I do half. Which is an enormous improvement compared to last year, when I did literary nothing, since I devoted all my energy to getting through school.

But the thing is, I love this. Finally, for the fist time in my life or at least since I was five, the demands placed on me are equal to or lower than my resources. I'm not exhausted. I'm enough. What I'm capable of doing without getting sick is for the first time enough for the tasks that I need to fulfil. I've always felt like Bilbo in the Lord of the Rings when he explains the effect the Ring has on him as thinning him out, like to little butter on a to big piece of toast. I've always felt stretched, always felt that what I am and what I do and what I manage isn't enough. Naturally, since it hasn't been enough, since I have lived my whole life with an undiagnosed neurological handicap.

I love being Mistress' stay-at-home slave. I love it so much. For the first time, we have a routine that actually works. And it shows on Mistress too. She's been able to go to the gym. She had lunch with a friend the other day (they realised that they hadn't seen each other alone for two years, and they live 20 minutes apart...). Even though I regularly have depressive thoughts about not doing enough for us as a family, Mistress seems to appreciate the things I actually manage to do a lot. And that means the world to me.

I like my days. I get home in the morning, I drink coffee and rest for a while, and then I usually do something - go to the gym, or to a pony I've started to take for walks in the woods. She's young and she's much to small for me to ride, but the owner appreciates that she gets attention and exercise, and I appreciate the equestrian company.  Then I have lunch, either at home or a lunch date with one of my friends, and around two I go rest. I always rest in the afternoon, and it's a really good thing for me. I usually start with a mindfulness-exercise laying on the bed, and after that I just roll over and sleep for an hour.

And then it's time to get myself ready, take a shower if I haven't done that, prepare dinner and straighten things up a little bit, and then go get little S. Mistress comes home around five, she plays with the kid and I finish dinner or the other way around, we eat at five-thirty, Mistress cleans the kitchen while little S and I watch telly and then usually they play until bedtime and I go rest again (I rest a lot). But the other day I actually went to the store and got milk and bread and stuff, that was a bit of a milestone too.

And then we have our going-to-bed routine that takes from six-thirty to seven-thirty, and after that it's time for me and Mistress to hang out, talk about our day and cuddle on the sofa.

I love this routine. I have no idea how I'm ever going to be able to stuff another full time job in to this family again. Last year we both worked more than full time. No wonder we're exhausted. That was crazy. Now, when I'm left to my own devices most of the day, I can rest, exercise and meet friends as much as I need to during the day, and have just enough energy over for my family the rest of the time. I get why I got sick, and I definitely get why I haven't been to the gym, eaten healthy or had much of a social life the last couple of year. I had, obviously, school instead.

I like this. I'm going to take a nap now.

Oh, and this was my 200th post. Yey!