And then some stuff happened

 I went to therapy eventually.  I realised I wasn't getting over it on my own and needed help getting unstuck. I couldn't stop seeing my daughter as that little helpless baby, that I tried so hard to keep alive with willpower and vigilance. I didn't need to do that any longer but couldn't stop doing it on ny own.

And I needed to forgive my Owner for not being there. The fear I felt when I thought I was dying alone in the hospital, that she had left me there and wouldn't make it back in time. That fear didn't lift, it just stayed with me, poisoning me. I felt utterly abandoned, and knowing that was unfair and irrational didn't help at all.

It's not the easiest thing finding a therapist when you're a psychologist. Someone who is good and competent and available but not a friend or a friends friend or a potential colleague,  or worse, boss. But I did, and it helped. And then about that time, there was a pandemic. 

Control versus dominance

And then we talked. Or actually we cuddled and Mistress asked me about the party and among the questions I told her I smoked. I know she don't approve but at the party I didn't care. Didn't think to much about it at all.

But then naked in bed with her above me looking reproachfully down at me, I suddenly cared. And got defensive. And we talked.

I want to be hers. I want to be owned by her again. But the truth is that it's not so at the moment and I can't pretend it is. And if I don't get the owned part I have a hard time seeing the point of the obeying rules part.

In a way I think it has always been a trade off for us. She likes dominance well enough, but it's control that is important for her. That is her main thing. And if she can achieve that by acting dominant, then fine. I can get a kick out of being controlled, by all means, but it's the dominance and my submission to it that is the point for me. And if I can get that feeling from being controlled, then fine. I'm up for it.

That means I abstain from smoking cigarettes, which I enjoy, because she orders me to and obeying her makes me feel submissive and owned, which I enjoy even more. But if she doesn't dominate me and I don't get to feel submissive and owned, then I'll smoke whatever I want.

Not in every moment of course, I'm not particularly high maintenance and even though I can be occasionally bratty it's not my habit to go around being disobedient.

But this has been going on for a long time. Regardless of what happened before, our power exchange died when the baby was born. It might rise from the ashes like a phoenix, but it went away when all the bad things happened.

I didn't die on that hospital bed after all, but lying there in indescribable pain for 45 minutes alone, convinced I was going to die without even saying goodbye, killed off other things in me. Or smothered them or whatever.

I'm better now, almost all back. Tentatively trying to trust again, to need again. To want something. But it's really really hard and we keep missing each other. So in reality she hasn't had a real dominant hold over me for two years. She still wants to control me, because that's her default, but it doesn't really work when the rest of it is missing.

A blast from the past

I went to a party yesterday, a friends' 40th birthday. A lot of the guests were people I met 20 years ago but haven't really spent time with or gotten to know since then.

Halfway through the evening I realised my head was full of anxious thoughts about not being included, not being good enough, not popular enough. Wondering where the cool people where, if I was missing something awesome somewhere. And above all feeling very insecure and lonely.

It wasn't that I didn't have fun. I did, at the same time. But when I became aware of my thoughts and checked myself I recognized the train of thought as something from a very long time ago. I used to think and feel like this all the time, when I was younger. Around the time when I actually used to hang out with this crowd.

It changed and in this specific kind of situations it changed because I became owned. Not just having a boyfriend, that's not the point, but being owned. That feeling of security and belonging made me stop looking for affirmation and popularity from the cool people.

BDSM is a thing here. It's not an official activity but even though I don't really know most of the people at the party I happen to know that at least half of them are into BDSM and a lot of them are poly. And it matters to me because as soon as I know that, and if it matches with my interests, it affects me. I get jittery. I get interested. Not necessarily wanting to date them, but they become... more important. And I would probably be a very easy target if anyone with the right disposition showed any interest.

Being owned protected me from that. And I had gotten used to that. And now here I were, feeling all strange and vulnerable and didn't realise until late at night it was because my protective bubble is gone. I don't have it anymore and I miss.

I want to be owned. But right now, at this time, apparently I'm not. And it sucks and I don't know how to get it back.