Okay, so November and December has played out like this for me; first a nasty cold that lasted about a week. Immediately after that, another nasty cold that lasted for about a week. At the end of that Mistress was travelling for a few days, and I made the extremely stupid decision to eat an ice-cream that turned out to be covered in hazelnuts. I'm allergic to hazelnuts. In the end I ate horrible allergy medicin for ten days, which had all kinds of icky side-effects, including mind-numbing fatigue.
Eventually I could stop eating those horrid pills, we hade a nice, slow mini-vacation at my in-laws place and I was starting to feel like human again. Two days after we got home little S got a stomach bug and was a puking, pityful mess for two days, and right after that her cough got worse and she too got a cold. And well, I followed suit, got the stomach bug and now the cold.
I hate viruses! I hate winter! I hate being sick. I haven't been to the gym for over a month.
And if I ever thought I don't contribute to the household or ease Mistress' burden? Well, I'm wrong. When I'm under the weather, it shows.
I want to go to the gym! I want to have sex! I want to feel healthy and not worry about spreading viruses to people I meet.
Also, my mom had a stroke this week. Not a big one, she lost part of her vocabulary and felt dizzy and confused but not more than that, and she's already recovering. But it scared the hell out of us, and I'm probably a bit in denial still. I'm not really ready to think through the ramifications of this, and neither is she I think.
Anyway, sucky month in a lot of ways. I'm longing for spring.
Dec 19, 2013
Dec 9, 2013
Shame
Shame is one of the most destructive feelings I know. A lot of the crap that has happened to me, and most of all the crap that I have been instrumental in allowing to happen, has been caused by shame.
And I'm ashamed all the time. Or at least very often. For a very long time in my youth I didn't have any memories. Every time something would pop up in my mind, there would be something shameful associated with it, and I would immediately shut it down. That feeling, that dread coursing through the body, the wish to disappear, to cease existing, it's awful. At times, it has controlled my life.
I have two major things I'm ashamed of, and one is not being liked. I grew up knowing I wasn't loved (as an adult, I've started to think that I probably was, but that can't change my experience as a kid), and I was bullied in school on top of that. I had two best friends, both of whom betrayed me horribly, first one at twelve and the next one at fourteen, and contributed to the bullying. So that's one. The other one is not being good enough.
I have ADHD, but no one knew that. I grew up trying harder than everyone around me, and still coming up short. I was always late, didn't do the things I was supposed to, forgot stuff, didn't clean up after myself, made a mess, broke stuff, and so on. I was constantly not living up to the expectations from people around me - people like my parents and teachers, who saw a smart, talented, charming kid who for some reason just didn't seem to care or try very hard. While, at the same time, I was working like crazy to get through each day, and not letting anyone see that I was struggling. Because of shame.
If I hadn't been ashamed, maybe someone would have known what my life was really like. Maybe I could have told an adult about the bullying. Maybe I could have explained that I did my very best and still couldn't manage to do homework - that I did care, a lot, but just couldn't make it work. If I hadn't been ashamed. But I was ashamed, and I much preferred being labelled lazy and unambitious than having people know I couldn't do it.
And that haunts me still.
I've been sick lately, on top of my ongoing issues with mental fatigue and burn out. I'm getting better, but it's a bumpy road, as always. Mistress has taken two day off of work and we've gone to her parents for a mini vacation. Today I took little S on a shopping trip so that Mistress could get some time for herself and work, and after lunch I accompanied my mother in law to the vet with one of the dogs, a big rottweiler that doesn't particularly like other dogs and last time had made a big fuss while waiting for the vet. I'm pretty proud of how I handled it, there was no wrestling matches or incessant barking this time, but after that and picking up som groceries, I was pretty much wiped. I spent the afternoon in bed, and at dinner time I was all kinds of woozy, feeling sick and dizzy and thinking I wouldn't survive the evening.
On top of that, Mistress had asked me earlier to take care of little S after dinner so that she could work some more, and it made me rather panicky, because I really didn't think I would be up for it. And again, that made me overwhelmed with shame.
Every time I'm asked, especially by Mistress, to do something that is beyond what I can do without feeling seriously ill or paying a heavy price afterwards I get terribly ashamed. I'm awashed in it.
In the end I did take care of little S while Mistress worked, we had a nice time playing a game on the iPad together, and it wasn't so difficult. It helped that little S was in a good mood and stayed focused on the game.
And then eventually the day was over with little S going to bed downstairs with grandma, and I started to relax and feel like maybe, maybe I was okay, maybe I had made it. And the first thing Mistress says to me is along the lines of "oh, we said we should work tonight, we need to do that thing with the survey job".
And at that point my head exploded. The shame got to me, the camel's back was broken by the last straw, the last drop made the glass of water overflow in a cascade of liquid anguish all over the kitchen floor, and I could feel my brain changing gears in to crazy mood.
Because in my mind her even suggesting that I would be up for anything more strenous at that point ment I must be a total failure. A let down. Not good enough. That nothing I had done, nothing I had achieved or managed or made myself do had been worth anything. No matter how hard I strain and press myself, it's not even close to being enough. I'll never be enough. I'll never do enough. I can't be good enough, I can't be loved or worthy of love, I can't achieve anything that makes me fit to even live and breath, I haven't earned my keep, neither as her wife, her property nor even as a human being. I need to work 'til I drop and die and be done with it, because nothing else will cut it.
So yeah. It wasn't a great conversation starter, as such. To my credit, all I said was that I wasn't up for it, that I was hurt and upset that she suggested it, and that I wanted to go lay down in the bedroom, alone. That might not sound like a very tempered or reasonable response but compared to what my brain was screaming at me, I was positively cheerful.
And then I did just that, went and laid down, and instead of rehashing every slight and every shameful moment and debating with myself whether I was right to be hurt or not, I did a mindfulness-exercise, a simple but thorough body scan. I can do that now, that's pretty cool actually, even with my mind on fire with anguish and panic and shame I can redirect my consious focus on something of my own choosing.
The feelings are still there, the discomfort and panic and adrenalin surge through the body, but I can still focus my attention on my left toe, my left foot, the leg, the knee and so on. It takes about twenty minutes to go through the whole body, and by then the panic has subsided, the raging fires of despair has died from lack of things to devour, and everythings a little more settled. It's a neat trick.
We talked about it, of course, afterwards, and we'll figure something out. But shame. I hate it. It's the least constructive thing ever. I'm working on it.
And I'm ashamed all the time. Or at least very often. For a very long time in my youth I didn't have any memories. Every time something would pop up in my mind, there would be something shameful associated with it, and I would immediately shut it down. That feeling, that dread coursing through the body, the wish to disappear, to cease existing, it's awful. At times, it has controlled my life.
I have two major things I'm ashamed of, and one is not being liked. I grew up knowing I wasn't loved (as an adult, I've started to think that I probably was, but that can't change my experience as a kid), and I was bullied in school on top of that. I had two best friends, both of whom betrayed me horribly, first one at twelve and the next one at fourteen, and contributed to the bullying. So that's one. The other one is not being good enough.
I have ADHD, but no one knew that. I grew up trying harder than everyone around me, and still coming up short. I was always late, didn't do the things I was supposed to, forgot stuff, didn't clean up after myself, made a mess, broke stuff, and so on. I was constantly not living up to the expectations from people around me - people like my parents and teachers, who saw a smart, talented, charming kid who for some reason just didn't seem to care or try very hard. While, at the same time, I was working like crazy to get through each day, and not letting anyone see that I was struggling. Because of shame.
If I hadn't been ashamed, maybe someone would have known what my life was really like. Maybe I could have told an adult about the bullying. Maybe I could have explained that I did my very best and still couldn't manage to do homework - that I did care, a lot, but just couldn't make it work. If I hadn't been ashamed. But I was ashamed, and I much preferred being labelled lazy and unambitious than having people know I couldn't do it.
And that haunts me still.
I've been sick lately, on top of my ongoing issues with mental fatigue and burn out. I'm getting better, but it's a bumpy road, as always. Mistress has taken two day off of work and we've gone to her parents for a mini vacation. Today I took little S on a shopping trip so that Mistress could get some time for herself and work, and after lunch I accompanied my mother in law to the vet with one of the dogs, a big rottweiler that doesn't particularly like other dogs and last time had made a big fuss while waiting for the vet. I'm pretty proud of how I handled it, there was no wrestling matches or incessant barking this time, but after that and picking up som groceries, I was pretty much wiped. I spent the afternoon in bed, and at dinner time I was all kinds of woozy, feeling sick and dizzy and thinking I wouldn't survive the evening.
On top of that, Mistress had asked me earlier to take care of little S after dinner so that she could work some more, and it made me rather panicky, because I really didn't think I would be up for it. And again, that made me overwhelmed with shame.
Every time I'm asked, especially by Mistress, to do something that is beyond what I can do without feeling seriously ill or paying a heavy price afterwards I get terribly ashamed. I'm awashed in it.
In the end I did take care of little S while Mistress worked, we had a nice time playing a game on the iPad together, and it wasn't so difficult. It helped that little S was in a good mood and stayed focused on the game.
And then eventually the day was over with little S going to bed downstairs with grandma, and I started to relax and feel like maybe, maybe I was okay, maybe I had made it. And the first thing Mistress says to me is along the lines of "oh, we said we should work tonight, we need to do that thing with the survey job".
And at that point my head exploded. The shame got to me, the camel's back was broken by the last straw, the last drop made the glass of water overflow in a cascade of liquid anguish all over the kitchen floor, and I could feel my brain changing gears in to crazy mood.
Because in my mind her even suggesting that I would be up for anything more strenous at that point ment I must be a total failure. A let down. Not good enough. That nothing I had done, nothing I had achieved or managed or made myself do had been worth anything. No matter how hard I strain and press myself, it's not even close to being enough. I'll never be enough. I'll never do enough. I can't be good enough, I can't be loved or worthy of love, I can't achieve anything that makes me fit to even live and breath, I haven't earned my keep, neither as her wife, her property nor even as a human being. I need to work 'til I drop and die and be done with it, because nothing else will cut it.
So yeah. It wasn't a great conversation starter, as such. To my credit, all I said was that I wasn't up for it, that I was hurt and upset that she suggested it, and that I wanted to go lay down in the bedroom, alone. That might not sound like a very tempered or reasonable response but compared to what my brain was screaming at me, I was positively cheerful.
And then I did just that, went and laid down, and instead of rehashing every slight and every shameful moment and debating with myself whether I was right to be hurt or not, I did a mindfulness-exercise, a simple but thorough body scan. I can do that now, that's pretty cool actually, even with my mind on fire with anguish and panic and shame I can redirect my consious focus on something of my own choosing.
The feelings are still there, the discomfort and panic and adrenalin surge through the body, but I can still focus my attention on my left toe, my left foot, the leg, the knee and so on. It takes about twenty minutes to go through the whole body, and by then the panic has subsided, the raging fires of despair has died from lack of things to devour, and everythings a little more settled. It's a neat trick.
We talked about it, of course, afterwards, and we'll figure something out. But shame. I hate it. It's the least constructive thing ever. I'm working on it.
Dec 7, 2013
Having my collar sawed off from my neck - a unique slave experience
And now, ironically, I'm not collared anymore.
Well, I'm "collared" in the sense of being just as owned as before, there's been no relationship drama. There has, however, been rather a lot of health drama, with me having allergic reactions and then most probably having reactions to the allergy medication, and well, I don't know, possibly also to the new mattress we got a couple of days ago.
The end result has been me having fatigue, dizzyness, nausea and also looking like a watermelon in the face, bright red and swollen. The most annoying part for me, apart from the fatigue that has really wrecked our schedule, has been incessant hot flashes, were I've been simultanously been dripping with sweat and feeling like a pressure cooker while my feet are icicles, no matter what I do with them. Thoroughly unpleasant, the whole thing, and more than a little scary.
Yesterday when I'd been laying in bed more or less since 10 AM, trying to get up every now and then only to go back to miserable featal position, Mistress had enough and started a de-allergenprocess. I got out and stood in the snow storm for a while, and we hauled the new mattress out to storage so it could get rid of it's new-matterss-stink on it's own for a while. But the first thing she did was getting out the key to the collar and starting to unlock it.
She was very clear that it wasn't any kind of punishment, but since I had been swelling around the neck and getting red in the face on and off for more than a week by then, she wanted to be sure I wasn't somehow reacting to the collar. I haven't had it off for more than a few minutes since she put it on this spring, so if it was doing something to me, we wouldn't really know until she took it off and kept it off me for a while.
Well, it was a good plan, but the tiny tiny little screw in the locking mechanism wouldn't budge. Okay, so she went and got the extra key. And then she oiled the lock, and tried again. But no. It was stuck, and when she worked on it it only got worse. In the end, she gave up.
And went and got the saw.
So yeah. Yesterday I spent an uncomfortable twenty minutes with Mistress holding a hacksaw to my neck, and with a very firm grip on the collar sawing it off of me. Slowly and with great effort, I might say too, because it was a thick one and didn't much want to be sawed in two. It was bizarre, a little scary, a bit painful and a lot sad at the same time. I don't have my collar anymore. It's in the trash, and my neck is all bare.
Ah well. I'm still hers. We'll get another collar. Right now, my main focus is getting back on my feet and to stop looking like an overly ripe watermelon. 'Cause that look is so 90's.
Well, I'm "collared" in the sense of being just as owned as before, there's been no relationship drama. There has, however, been rather a lot of health drama, with me having allergic reactions and then most probably having reactions to the allergy medication, and well, I don't know, possibly also to the new mattress we got a couple of days ago.
The end result has been me having fatigue, dizzyness, nausea and also looking like a watermelon in the face, bright red and swollen. The most annoying part for me, apart from the fatigue that has really wrecked our schedule, has been incessant hot flashes, were I've been simultanously been dripping with sweat and feeling like a pressure cooker while my feet are icicles, no matter what I do with them. Thoroughly unpleasant, the whole thing, and more than a little scary.
Yesterday when I'd been laying in bed more or less since 10 AM, trying to get up every now and then only to go back to miserable featal position, Mistress had enough and started a de-allergenprocess. I got out and stood in the snow storm for a while, and we hauled the new mattress out to storage so it could get rid of it's new-matterss-stink on it's own for a while. But the first thing she did was getting out the key to the collar and starting to unlock it.
She was very clear that it wasn't any kind of punishment, but since I had been swelling around the neck and getting red in the face on and off for more than a week by then, she wanted to be sure I wasn't somehow reacting to the collar. I haven't had it off for more than a few minutes since she put it on this spring, so if it was doing something to me, we wouldn't really know until she took it off and kept it off me for a while.
Well, it was a good plan, but the tiny tiny little screw in the locking mechanism wouldn't budge. Okay, so she went and got the extra key. And then she oiled the lock, and tried again. But no. It was stuck, and when she worked on it it only got worse. In the end, she gave up.
And went and got the saw.
So yeah. Yesterday I spent an uncomfortable twenty minutes with Mistress holding a hacksaw to my neck, and with a very firm grip on the collar sawing it off of me. Slowly and with great effort, I might say too, because it was a thick one and didn't much want to be sawed in two. It was bizarre, a little scary, a bit painful and a lot sad at the same time. I don't have my collar anymore. It's in the trash, and my neck is all bare.
Ah well. I'm still hers. We'll get another collar. Right now, my main focus is getting back on my feet and to stop looking like an overly ripe watermelon. 'Cause that look is so 90's.
Dec 1, 2013
"I like your collar"
We went to a party yesterday, a rather unusual event. Even more unusual, it was Mistress that declared she wanted to go, and even RSVPd and everything. My dad came and babysat, and we actually had a great night. It was a friends birthday party, and for me it had an eery feeling of deja vù - this is our old friends. The friends from ten, fifteen years ago, the once I've been afraid of losing since I got pregnant, and busy and tired and sick.
But they're still there, we still get the invites, we're still included and welcomed, and showing up made me feel both as if no time has passed since I was twenty and trying to move away from home and spending all my money on LARP-ing and commuting to my boyfriend out of town, living on oatmeal and spaghetti. And, on the other hand, my God how grown up we are now. A lot of the gang are married, mostly to each other as a matter of fact, those who wanted children are about to have their second go at it (and all the pregnant bellies makes me super-jealous) and most of them have a job instead of ever-on-going university-studies. I kind of like it.
I like the adults we've become. Myself included.
But as per usual, around ten PM I was getting drowsy and Mistress decided to herd me home. We did the good-bye rounds, and as I was hugging a guy I've barely had talked to during the night, I noticed he was eyeing what I thought was my blouse (a pretty blue silk one with a sequined hemline), then for a moment suspected was my cleavage until he said in a kind of low key voice "I like your collar." "Oh" I said, speechless for a moment, and then with a sheepish smile "yeah, I like it too".
Silence.
I had no idea how to continue that line of conversation. What do one say? Was he implying what I thought he was implying? Or was he just complimenting my jewelry? But no - complimenting jewelry you do in a crowd, when you meet, if it happens to be appropriate, you don't specifically wait for a quiet moment and point it out. Not if you don't know what it it is you're trying to say.
"Nice" he said.
"Yeah" I said.
More silence.
"Have you worn it for long?"
"About a year."
"Great!"
"Yeah, I think so too!".
By then the time for the usual quick "bye, nice to see you!"-hug had run out, the flow of people in the room was shifting, and also, I was embarrassed and blushing furiously and couldn't make coherent words anymore, so I just kind of backed off a little, and Mistress hugged her way around the good bye crowd while I was tying my shoe laces and waiting for my face to regain it's normal colour.
I was so outed, one might say. And I really really like it.
I don't want to be secretive, showing one face to the world and my friends and another to Mistress. I don't like this feeling of having a secret life, a secret agenda, being one on the outside and another on the inside.
When my kink-side started appearing I was five, fantasizing about spankings and masturbating without knowing what I was doing. But I always knew that I couldn't talk about it, that I was strange and odd and unnormal. Eventually, it grew in to sexuality, the adult, mature version, and I knew a little more, but it took about fifteen years from the first inklings until I got to see that I wasn't alone. Fifteen years of shame and confusion and knowing I was different.
Since then there's been another almost fifteen years, and I know very well by now that I'm certainly not alone. In fact, not all that few of the friends I tried to hide things from have turned up on the kinky side of the line during the years since then. I'm not ashamed, and I honestly don't think it's that much of a secret, anymore.
But it's still not talked about. It's not something that is reflected by people around me. It doesn't "exist", in the conversations, in the assumptions people make, in the mirrors that my friends eyes turn into when they look at me.
So for my collar to be seen for what it really is, not just a pretty piece of chain around my neck but a significant symbol, as meaningful and telling about my life as my wedding ring, communicating something important about me and about my relationship to Mistress, that felt good. A little bit bewildering in the precise moment it happened, but good.
Also, now I'm deadly curious about my friend and his young wife and their story. Perhaps there's breadcrumbs laying around the 'net, now that I know what I'm looking for? *goes sniffing*
But they're still there, we still get the invites, we're still included and welcomed, and showing up made me feel both as if no time has passed since I was twenty and trying to move away from home and spending all my money on LARP-ing and commuting to my boyfriend out of town, living on oatmeal and spaghetti. And, on the other hand, my God how grown up we are now. A lot of the gang are married, mostly to each other as a matter of fact, those who wanted children are about to have their second go at it (and all the pregnant bellies makes me super-jealous) and most of them have a job instead of ever-on-going university-studies. I kind of like it.
I like the adults we've become. Myself included.
But as per usual, around ten PM I was getting drowsy and Mistress decided to herd me home. We did the good-bye rounds, and as I was hugging a guy I've barely had talked to during the night, I noticed he was eyeing what I thought was my blouse (a pretty blue silk one with a sequined hemline), then for a moment suspected was my cleavage until he said in a kind of low key voice "I like your collar." "Oh" I said, speechless for a moment, and then with a sheepish smile "yeah, I like it too".
Silence.
I had no idea how to continue that line of conversation. What do one say? Was he implying what I thought he was implying? Or was he just complimenting my jewelry? But no - complimenting jewelry you do in a crowd, when you meet, if it happens to be appropriate, you don't specifically wait for a quiet moment and point it out. Not if you don't know what it it is you're trying to say.
"Nice" he said.
"Yeah" I said.
More silence.
"Have you worn it for long?"
"About a year."
"Great!"
"Yeah, I think so too!".
By then the time for the usual quick "bye, nice to see you!"-hug had run out, the flow of people in the room was shifting, and also, I was embarrassed and blushing furiously and couldn't make coherent words anymore, so I just kind of backed off a little, and Mistress hugged her way around the good bye crowd while I was tying my shoe laces and waiting for my face to regain it's normal colour.
I was so outed, one might say. And I really really like it.
I don't want to be secretive, showing one face to the world and my friends and another to Mistress. I don't like this feeling of having a secret life, a secret agenda, being one on the outside and another on the inside.
When my kink-side started appearing I was five, fantasizing about spankings and masturbating without knowing what I was doing. But I always knew that I couldn't talk about it, that I was strange and odd and unnormal. Eventually, it grew in to sexuality, the adult, mature version, and I knew a little more, but it took about fifteen years from the first inklings until I got to see that I wasn't alone. Fifteen years of shame and confusion and knowing I was different.
Since then there's been another almost fifteen years, and I know very well by now that I'm certainly not alone. In fact, not all that few of the friends I tried to hide things from have turned up on the kinky side of the line during the years since then. I'm not ashamed, and I honestly don't think it's that much of a secret, anymore.
But it's still not talked about. It's not something that is reflected by people around me. It doesn't "exist", in the conversations, in the assumptions people make, in the mirrors that my friends eyes turn into when they look at me.
So for my collar to be seen for what it really is, not just a pretty piece of chain around my neck but a significant symbol, as meaningful and telling about my life as my wedding ring, communicating something important about me and about my relationship to Mistress, that felt good. A little bit bewildering in the precise moment it happened, but good.
Also, now I'm deadly curious about my friend and his young wife and their story. Perhaps there's breadcrumbs laying around the 'net, now that I know what I'm looking for? *goes sniffing*
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