(If you aren’t a goon, you might want to look up that post title. You also might want to look up what a goon is.  *grins*)

Since today is not a bad day, I thought I’d muse about the days that are.  All the musing, none of the emotion!

Some days, I’m just terrified.  I’m negative and scared and sure that I deserve nothing but abandonment and pain.  I don’t like myself, and nothing I do seems right.  I feel like I’ve lost control over my life, my body, my mind.  In a really, really, really bad way.

I’ve come back from these days.  Or, at least, I’ve survived them.

No surprise, it’s The Man who drags me back from The Edge of Emo.

But the question I’m stuck asking myself is WHY do I go back there?  WHY can’t I just stay put in Happytown.  WHY do I have to sink into self-sabotage and mess up my progress over and over again?

Sometimes I feel like an epileptic trying to build a house of cards.  I build and build and build, and my creation becomes complex and beautiful.  Then I have a seizure and afterwards, I rise into awareness with a pile of cards scattered everywhere.  And I’m just a mess.  Angry, confused, frustrated.

Sure, over time, I gain skill at building myself (er, the cards – gotta stick with the metaphor) up.  I can do it with more efficiency, in less time.  But… I always fear – and always have – another seizure.  I just…  I don’t know what to DO about it.

The questions that fly through my mind are:

Why do I do this?

How do I break the cycle?

Does the whole thing mean something I don’t understand?

Does it just take practice, time, or experience I haven’t yet attained and slooooowly bur surely I’ll get better?

Or am I waiting on some epiphany that will serve as an insta-cure? (Or, perhaps, more realistically, and epiphany that will let me make a huge leap forward?)

Additionally,  OMG AM I OVERTHINKING THINGS?!?!

And, luckily for all of you guys, I can’t even begin to muse on the answers. (Except that last one. That’s probably a resounding “Yes.”)

I guess I just baffle myself.

                I’ve had a hell of a time posting this.

I keep telling Antonio: “I have other posts all written, on things from religion to Fetlife to Twilight… And I wanna post those!”

He keeps telling me “Too bad.” 

So, I guess I really have to post about my past.  Blergh.

I want to.  But I don’t want to.  I don’t want anyone to think I’m seeking pity.  And, selfishly, I don’t want to think about these things.   It’s such a gift, to not HAVE to think about them 24 hours a day anymore…  I am so indescribably grateful.  But I think, for anyone who reads this blog to have a hope of understanding me, I’ve got to explain a bit.  Also, I keep commenting in Diary of Jane that I’m SO going to do it…

So.  Here goes.  (FYI – You’d better buckle the fuck up, ’cause it’s epically long…  Though I did include randomly placed, semi-related headers to make it seem shorter! w00t.)

 

THE BASICS

I was labeled many things in the course of my life.  (Today, Antonio sent me a thingy on blogging, and they seem to think bullet-points are a God-send, so I’m going to use them.  Yay!  A bullet-pointed list of my issues…)

·         Major depression (severe, recurrent, without psychotic features)

·         Dysthymia

·         Panic Attacks

·         Generalized Anxiety Disorder

·         EDNOS (Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified) 

I was… In short… A mess.  I was a panicked, puking, suicidal self-harmer.  I can’t fully describe the mental and emotional hell that was my life inside my head.  I mean, I knew in the grand scheme of things, I was lucky.  I wrote in my intro post how lucky I am.  I knew everything was right there.  I just couldn’t FEEL happy.  At all.  Ever. 

 

THE THERAPY

Needless to say, there was a LOT of it.  I’ve seen somewhere in the neighborhood of a dozen therapists and shrinks.   I spoke often about how I was stuck in a dark and solitary place, and I honestly didn’t have any desire to live.  My future was meaningless because I felt meaningless. 

I also talked about my need to have my life in control.  (I believe that’s where my anxiety and eating disorders stemmed from – my deep need to have my life under control.)

The thing is, I never once said I wanted to be in control of my life.  I just wanted it to be controlled.  It’s a slight, but crucial difference, and one I didn’t really appreciate at the time.  I was personally incapable of controlling everything in my life and the stress I endured as a result was paralyzing. 

I carefully crafted the biggest, thickest façades I could.  And for about 15 years, I hunkered down behind them.  And back there, alone and terrified, I became so lost and depressed.  When you’re hiding from life, it loses its meaning.

 

OMG, I SWEAR IT RELATES TO D/s…

My best friend (one of the few people who could see the real me, wasting away behind my walls) once said that in every one of my actions, I seemed to be apologizing for being alive and seeking permission to exist. 

Apologizing for being alive. 

Seeking permission to exist…

Yeah. Sounds about right.

With the help of those facades, I came across as self-reliant and bold and opinionated and ready to take the world on at a moment’s notice.  I needed to come off that way, or I’d have been beaten to a pulp by anyone who felt like abusing me. 

That’s the problem.  That abuse.  That potential was magnified in someone like me, who believed herself worthless. Being a woman with submissive urges who also lacked any semblance of self esteem, I would, 999 times out of 1,000, be brutally hurt by people I tried to trust.  (And probably partially hurt that 1,000^th time.) 

Over time, I realized not even this soul-draining pain could remove my desire to be submissive.  It didn’t change the fact that I can be having the worst day on the planet, hating myself and my place in the world, and a simple command could make it easier for me to breathe. 

I don’t know why, and at the moment, I don’t care why. 

It just became obvious to me that following orders was a calming, peaceful, wonderful, safe experience for me…  As long as there was an appropriate level of respect on his/her part and willingness on mine, I derived intense pleasure from bending to the will of someone important to me.

 

MY JOURNALS

I’ve been journaling for years.  I didn’t have a good reason at the time, I just wanted to ramble.  Now, I’m incredibly grateful.  There is no way to accurately recreate my thoughts from the past.  Not the depression, not the desperate lack in my life, none of it.

I often have *handface* moments looking over my writing. I couldn’t connect the dots. I was pretty blind.

A few of my “favorites” are:

I beat the hell out of myself, daily.  I hate, loathe, and detest myself with a passion.  I am convinced no one loves me.  I have myself totally resigned to getting walked on – so I can’t figure out why it hurts so much when it actually happens.  It’s as if there is some tiny part of me I haven’t managed to crush.  Some expectation of loyalty and love I have left intact.  How fucking lame. 

I’m going to get over this.  Or… rather, re-bury it.  I always do.  But while it’s here, on the surface, bleeding me dry, I’m really scared and really sad and really desperate.  And I just want to lie down and close my eyes with my head in someone’s lap, calm and safe, and focus on breathing.  And that has never happened.  Not once.  And it kills me slowly.  Everything is killing me slowly.

I want everything and nothing; I want to disappear but I want so badly to be seen; I want softness, sweetness, warmth and I want frigid pain; I want anything at all and I want something specific; I want someone here and I want to be left the hell alone.

All this shit is weighing down on me… And I feel like whatever doesn’t kill ME is just making IT stronger. Every time I smile, or hold back the fears, or silence the longings, I hear an evil voice that says "You’re faking," and I know it’s right. So I tell myself "I know, I know, but that’s okay because I can fake it ’til I make it, hey?"  And the little voice whispers with razorblades and honey, "You’re faking it, all right. But no one ever said you’d make it."

And I know it’s true.   I feel like someone has stolen my reflecting pool. 

I likely won’t post the worst and most depressed of my entries, for one because I’m selfish and it’s draining to go back and read them.  But I was a wreck.  I was suicidal and depressed and the queen of self-sabotage.  I have tried to kill myself.   More than once.

I might talk more about this.  I might not.  It engulfed me for years and years. I was a shadow of a human being.  I’ve had at lot of darkness.  And I don’t mean to dwell on it… I mean, I can talk about it more if anyone cares… I guess I’m just doing it to let you see how much better I am. 

The reason for that is probably really simple and really complicated.  I found my comfort zone.  I found the man I’m supposed to be with.  

Now, I know. I KNOW I KNOW I KNOW.  You shouldn’t “need” someone to “complete” you!  Omg, girl power, single and lovin’ it, zomg! 

That’s great and all, but that’s not me.  I DO need someone to complete me.   In my heart and soul, I have to serve, and serve this specific man, and that’s where I have a purpose in life.

 

SPEAKING OF ANTONIO…

Mmmm, Antonio.  According to some people in my life, he is probably wrong for me in a million ways, but to anyone who truly cares to look, they’ll see he’s right for me in the every single way that matters. 

He absolutely adores me, reads me like a book, wants me to be at peace, and knows I can achieve that through his actions, words, domination, and love.  He needs to be my Master as fundamentally as I need to submit to him. 

He is a skilled man and Master, with incredible insight and emotional clarity and passion.  He pays such close attention to me that the slightest deviation in my daily routine that could signal anything going wrong in my mind or life registers on his radar before mine.  He controls me and owns me and keeps me safe from everything – including myself. 

He let me heal by opening my eyes and my heart. He made me able to be myself because he believed more strongly in my worth than I do.  He does not doubt me.  And he makes me want to be a better, stronger slave and woman.

Did I always know I needed a dominant man?  No.  Does everyone need a dominant force (or, reciprocally, need to dominate)?  No.  Would just having anyone dominate me have healed me?  No. 

What I needed was THIS relationship with THIS man and THIS dynamic.  And since embracing that, I have become more than a diagnosis.  I am not helpless, hopeless, or alone.  I am a healthy, happy girl.  I am his.

You know how I mentioned I was looking for permission to exist?  He is it. 

Finding him was like looking into a warped mirror.  I didn’t see myself, I saw myself inverted.  Where I am very feminine, he is very masculine.  When I am weak, he is strong.  Where I am dark, he is light.  Where I am trusting, he hesitates.  When I am panicked and uncertain, he is calm and sure.  When I am down on myself, he tells me I shine.  When I think I’m ugly and unlovable, he thinks I’m the most beautiful human on earth.

But I hesitate to say I’ve found my opposite.  We are opposites in many ways, but not all.  We agree wholly on core values, and we share a love of everything from music to children.  We are standing together, looking at the same world, just from different (but not violently opposing) perspectives.  Most importantly, we see each other differently than we see ourselves.

He talks about this too.  Only he can say it in far fewer words.  He says we’re a yin-yang.  We embody every one of the four laws of yin-yang.  We are opposite, complementary forces, and we fit together in a fluid, balanced and perfect way.  We are separate and distinct entities, but we are only whole only when together.

 

THE MORAL OF THIS STORY IS…

            I wrote in my journal once, long before Antonio:

I’m trying to find my center.   But mistakes were made when I was created (or perhaps this is just the way nature’s mistakes turn out when they are accidentally saved at birth) and my center has all the weight and endurance of a shred of tissue paper, and my mind is a fucking hurricane.  So I’m chasing a phantom.  And I’m tired of it.  I think of fantasies of an actual life with all the fondness of a chapter that has already closed in my life.  I never got to live it, but it passed me by when I was a child.  It took one look at me, smiled sadly, and moved on to settle in more hospitable environment.  I was never the type to be loved.

Seeing Antonio and who he is for the first time, looking in that warped mirror, I was riveted.  Sure, of course I was enticed because he’s brilliant and kind and strong and masculine and intuitive and funny and attractive.  But it was something else that really caught my attention. 

It was like he was holding a small part of me.  My elusive center.

I wanted to stop him and say “Excuse me, but what the hell are you doing with that?  That is, very clearly, mine.”  But as soon as I saw it in his possession, I didn’t want it back anymore.  I didn’t need to own that crucial part of myself to be happy; I just needed to find it.  I wanted him to hold on to it, to hold on to me, and I wanted to stay as close as possible – to him and my missing piece, safe in its true home within his control.  So I did.  And this is where I am whole.