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.