A Quickie

i've been trying to update for a day or so, but it's been an incredibly emotional place for me lately, and my thoughts have been too theoretical to type coherently.

Here's a teaser, though. i had a very strong, deep need for humiliation, expressed the need, was deeply humiliated, reacted to that (either the need or the expression of it, haven't figured it out yet - not the humiliation itself though, had a long, long talk with Padrone, and now i have a better sense of what is going on mentally, but i honestly have no idea how to think about it coherently, or how to word things clearly.

About anything, i'm afraid.

Had a nice Thanksgiving, cooked, stuffed myself, and worked. Shopped a little yesterday, things like that. Typical for me, until i get the kind of job i want and then i won't have to work over Thanksgiving break anymore! :)

i'm so lucky to have such a wonderful Master. He opens his heart to me, shares not only his thoughts but his feelings, discusses his own needs and desires and where they come from, and usually has an uncanny ability to tell me what i need to hear in order to find my way to acceptance, peace, and the ability to cope and deal with things that upset me about myself.

Padrone, this is short, and may not make sense to anyone other than me and You but i know it will to You. i am so deeply grateful that You made the opportunity for us to talk last night, even though Your circumstances weren't ideal for it. i am also deeply grateful that You give me time to work through the difficult things. You are a wonderful and amazing man, and the best Master i could ever hope for. i love You.

Needs and neediness

So spirited has me thinking, again. Your questions made me think about what i have struggled to accept in my submission, and why. So i'm going to type my own experience and thoughts here, just to get them out of my head!

Why do we need what we need? Why does our need deepen like it does so often? What does that say about us as women, as individuals?

And maybe most importantly of all - how do we reconcile the things we need with who we think we are?

i have to say that pain, the physical sensation of it, has never really been something i ever thought much about needing. Maybe that's because the need i have isn't necessarily for the pain itself, it is for the intense connection i feel when i surrender myself to the pain for the pleasure of the inflictor. i've always been a pleaser, so when my first Dom wanted pain, i took all i could just because he was a sadist and needed to give it. It's far more emotional than physical, for me.

What has tripped me up in my journey has been humiliation. The struggle to accept my need, to understand it, to realize that it is simply part of who i am and not something i can ignore or fight without creating major issues for myself, has been a struggle of immense proportions between who i want to be and who i am. Maybe it should read "who i want others to see, and who i am", i'm not sure how to word that exactly.

So i am going to talk about my own journey into acceptance, as far as i have gotten, of this deepening need for humiliation of mine.

i guess the most natural place to start is with the why. Why do i crave humiliation, even though i hate it with a passion? What is it inside me that makes me need to be degraded and debased in grand fashion? The answer, when it came to me, makes sense to me although it may not to anyone else. As a victim of childhood sexual abuse and incest from a very young age, and as my psyche really seems to equate "love" with "sex", and "abuse" with men, i have known for a long time that i have to relearn what being loved is. The problem is that i spent FAR more years with crossed wires, that now they can't totally be "uncrossed". So there is a part of me that needs to reaffirm Padrone's love for me by being humiliated by him. (yeah, i know i'm screwed up, but at least i understand the crossed wires, mostly!)

Another big part of the why is the fact that i have really huge emotional scars from the abuse - not the least of which is the need to be perfect, and the knowledge that no matter how hard i try i won't ever be perfect, and so i need to show the WORST i am, and i need for Padrone to understand just how poorly i see myself at times, in order for me to accept that he sees me totally differently. Ugh, i really don't have a clue if that makes sense or not.

But i was so put down by my mom when i was a kid, for anything that was....not even bad, just less than perfect - *her* idea of perfection - that i honestly can't fully accept that Padrone doesn't need that kind of behavior from me. It can drive him insane at times when i get upset when i fail in my obedience. i know it can, and i really am working on that, and knowing how we see things differently helps tremendously, but the bottom line is that i don't want Padrone to ever think badly of me. My history is wrought with people who i have disappointed who have never, ever let me forget it. Even my brother mocks me still for the one time i let the water boil out of a boiler when i was cooking - he says every time i see him "at least i don't burn water". It gets old after 30-35 years, yanno?

But i *am* the one who "burned water". i *am* the one who disappointed, whose true colors aren't what many folks in my life want to see, whose true self is rarely seen and has never been accepted or made to feel acceptable the few times when it has been. i need for Padrone, now and then, to see just how ugly i view myself, at times, and accept me anyway, care for me anyway, love me anyway, and be proud of me anyway.

Sometimes i feel the need to be "punished for living". i can't explain it any more than that, but humiliation, and pain to a large degree, helps me purge the guilt i have always felt - victim's guilt yes, but also guilt for some of the major mistakes i have made, and even guilt for decisions made.

Sometimes it is merely a way to say "look, Padrone...see how low i will become, for Your pleasure and amusement? See how far i will go to prove myself to You? See how much i will take to show how owned and surrendered i am?" Sometimes i need simply because it expresses who HE is in a way that words never can. i think the need for pain may be something similar, in that one respect at least.

For me, it's just natural that the need deepens and grows. i kind of think of it as an affirmation that my needs are being met on one level, and it grows to the next level then. Sometimes, with humiliation, familiarity creates a cushion from the sharp sting of it - the more one does some things, or experiences them, the less effective they become as means of humiliation. So the need for more deepens. Maybe with pain it is similar. Whatever creates the need for pain, maybe the familiar kind of pain loses effectiveness over time? i don't know, just a random thought there.

i really used to struggle with the idea that i was abnormal because of my needs. And of course, it's definitely not "small talk" topic, that's for sure! But i have come to accept, with Padrone's help and guidance, that what we need isn't something common to all of humankind, and so we aren't going to feel "normal" all the time. What does it say about me as a woman to need the kinds of things i need? i used to wonder about this to the point of worrying (i know, no surprise there, Padrone). But now i realize that, when i finally opened this door, recognizing and accepting this need even though i didn't understand it or trust it to be good for me, what i did was open a door to emotional health.

Yeah, i know, it sounds insane. Maybe it is, but i realized that there are things i can't ever change about myself, my emotional life. Things from my past have shaped me and wired me to the point that there are some things that just are. But i had no really good, effective way to deal with them, until i finally gave in to the strange craving to be deeply and terribly humiliated. As that has happened, i, somehow, have been able to see, to understand, and to let go of some things that i never dreamed possible. i've also learned confidence in areas of my life which i thought were doomed. i know it is strange. i know it is really a bizarre, backwards way to look at things, but for me, going back into the terrible self-worth, expressing it freely, temporarily....being cared for, about, and held safely while i am doing it, and afterwards as i come back into myself....has been the key for me to accept all the things i have kept hidden all my life.

And i think that answered the last question i asked at the first of the post. i have reconciled what i crave with who i am simply because i accept that it is a path along the journey to emotional health - a place i could never have reached without it. i would have always been needy in ways that would potentially damage our relationship, had i not found the way to reconcile the girl i have always thought myself to be with the woman i am learning that i am - or at least have the potential to be.

Padrone, words can't even begin to express the gratitude, the simply overwhelming trust, and peace, i have in my life now, simply because You have gotten to know me. You have learned about me, not just things that have happened in my life but also who i am...not simply the facade but Your woman as a whole. You have accepted, loved, and comforted me. You have shown Your feelings for me over and over, constantly and consistently. i truly have no words to express how that makes me feel. i am simply Yours, gratefully and devotedly and proudly - Yours.

Escalating needs

i've been thinking lately about changes and growth in relationships. i remember when i was with my first Dom, and he told me about things he had done and seen with others, and i remember not saying a word but thinking....there is no WAY i would EVER do anything like that!

The funny thing is, even though we were together less than a year, the things we would do at the end of our relationship were almost unrecognizable when compared to what we did in the beginning. And there were things that, because i was blindfolded during much of the time we scened, i didn't recognize as being humiliating. i mean, how humiliating can it be to be written on with lipstick, if the wearer has no idea what the lipstick spells out?

And i guess that's what has been on my mind lately regarding my relationship with Padrone. We've been delving into humiliation in a pretty big way, and once that door was cracked, there was not only no shutting it, but there has been a widening of the crack. The needs have escalated, the expression of our needs and the fulfillment of them has gotten more intense and... more ....i don't know the word, more strong or intense or something. That's only natural i suppose. But it has made me think....what if?

What if the need deepens and grows until it is too big to be managed? What if it becomes unhealthy? What if what i crave, or what he wishes to do, unknowingly harms? What if i can't trust myself to know when to beg for a break? What if my need to give, to suffer, to empty myself and be filled by Padrone becomes something i can't judge to be good or bad?

i know those things won't happen. i'm thinking hypothetically here, and maybe i am on the brink of a bit deeper insight into what those who go off the "deep end" experience, and why they can't/don't/won't see the dangers of what is happening to them. Maybe i am learning to understand, just a tiny bit, the "addiction" to ... whatever. Some call it control, some call it subspace, i call it being emptied and refilled....the name doesn't matter, and it could possibly be any of those for any of us. The key to not being "lost", to being able to safely give and know that we won't be harmed, is knowing that our Master holds us as dear to him as his own heart.

There is not even a speck of concern about any of these things happening to me, as long as Padrone owns me. Padrone is the most caring, concerned, controlling, loving, and protective man i know, and i am extremely safe, cherished, and securely held as is humanly possible for me to be. He is cautious where i would rush into something. He is protective where i would give even when it harmed me. He is absolutely wonderful to me, and i truly think that because i have what i have with him, i am able to see the other side, to wonder, to ponder, and to learn.

Padrone, i love You, and i am grateful to You for the security which You have granted me simply by being who You are. i am grateful that i can explore my needs, the escalation of them, and express things like i did this morning and know that You hear without judging me for them. You are so good to me, and i am forever Your owned property - Your schiava.

Quick and Dirty. Or Clean.

This week's post is a short one, because i'm a bit irritable and feeling really bad that i couldn't spend the kind of time with Padrone that we both need, and that he asked for tonight. i am so very sorry, Padrone.

i've been really busy with work, the ex who got fired last week and is hanging around more than ever, making calls about jobs, studying for certification test (studying more tonight, Padrone), daughter's schooling, and the few chores i have managed to find time for in between.

It seems that, this week specifically, Padrone and i have had so little time together. And a circumstance change next weekend will mean we will have to give a bit more .... thought, i guess .... about when we'll be able to talk. It's alright, we've been through the same thing for years, sometimes it is worse than at other times, but i always feel badly when i can't meet the need that he is so patient about when he feels it and i can't be available.

Anyway, i truly hope that tomorrow is a better day and we can connect in a deep way, a way that centers me and refocuses each of us and truly energizes us in our relationship. i need it. i need to give of myself to Padrone, to be used to meet his own needs. i really need to pour myself out ....empty all of me, and be refilled with Padrone's control. I don't know if that makes sense or not, and it really doesn't express what i want to say but ... it's the best i can do tonight.

Padrone, i am so sorry about tonight, and i am sorry this blog post is short and a bit hurried. i will try to type more tomorrow - i'll be rested and off work - things that have been scarce lately as You know.

i love You, Padrone.