Ventout

praefect · Nov 4, 2010

My slave gets wet when I get angry. When I get angry, it's a guarantee that I get domineering, bare my metaphorical teeth, so now she finds ways to trigger me. I don't thinks she consciously decides this. It subconscious, and manifests itself in forgetting to do things, such as pay the bills, for example. Or starting an argument about nothing.

She triggers me, I get pissed off, I get to a point where I let the id take over and she shudders away in ecstasy.

I can't begin to tell you how exhausting that is.

Things I've tried include:
Corporal punishment. Which is throwing gasoline on the crotch fire.
Ignoring her. Which just makes her more needy.
Talking to her about it openly. She vows to do better, but nothing gets better.
Anything I could think of, really, from open and honest communication to humiliation, degradation, pushing her way beyond the red line into terror and tears, all has shown itself to be reinforcing this behavior rather than curbing it.

This wouldn't be so much of a problem if I wasn't so exhausted. I'm emotionally drained. About half a year ago my daughter from a previous relationship died. I'm still dealing with that. Dealing with it again, actually. I thought I was doing better, but as it turns out, grief comes in waves. And one thing that sucks about M/s relationships is that I have to deal with that alone. She can't offer me any emotional support, no more than a child could offer support to a parent.

I don't really know what to do anymore. I wish I could take 3 months vacation from this relationship, but that isn't really an option either, now, is it.

sebastian · Nov 4, 2010

Hmm, sounds like you have a fairly unhealthy dynamic going on there. I don't have any experience owning a slave, sadly, but I'm pretty good with psychology, so let me make a few comments and maybe you'll find something useful in them.

1) Let me say right up front, my condolences on your loss. The death of a child is one of the worst losses a person can suffer. Let me urge you to speak to a counselor, a minister, or some other professional who has experience with grief counseling. It sounds like you're trying to handle your loss on your own, and it's not working.

2) A stray thought: your mention of her not supporting you any more than a child could makes me wonder: are you connecting your slave to your daughter subconsciously? Is some part of your problem that you want your slave to replace your daughter? Might your anger at your slave be an expression of anger at your daughter for leaving you? Is there some element of survivor's guilt here? Is she acting out because she resents your sorrow over your daughter? What I mean is, does she feel that you're spending so much time grieving that you're not giving her the attention she wants, so she's decided to force you to give her attention?
I'm just speculating here, and may be wildly off-base, but you might think about these possibilities.

3) Sit down with your slave and have a serious, non-d/s conversation. Take off her collar or do whatever else you need to do to emphasize that this is serious. Tell her that you're still struggling with your daughter's death and her actions are making it harder. You need her to support you right now, not make your life more difficult. You may have a parent/child dynamic in your d/s play, but she is an adult, not a child, and you have a right to demand that she act like one and give you support in this trying time.

4) She's being extremely selfish. She wants the gratification (sexual, emotional, etc) of being a slave who gets punished, and so she's forcing you to punish her. In other words she's taken control; she's the master and you're the slave. That's not what you signed up for, that's not what she says she wants, but that's what's going on. Even if you weren't grieving right now, this would be a problem you need to address.

5) Punishing a sub when you're genuinely angry is a very bad idea. Depending on what sorts of play you two engage in, getting angry at the wrong moment could lead to you injuring her or worse. If that were to happen, she would probably be upset, and I'm pretty sure you would be devastated. I know I would be in that situation. So for both your sakes, you need to find a way to not punish her while you're angry. If she pisses you off, send her away for an hour, a day, a week, however long it takes for you to calm down. Giving her that sort of time-out might help her realize the seriousness of her actions. When she leaves, take off her collar so she knows that this isn't play; this is real.

6) I think you should seriously considering telling her that if she can't behave more appropriately, you will suspend or terminate the relationship. That's an extreme step to take, especially if this is an important relationship for you, but if the relationship is actively undermining your mental health, it's time to call a break.

7) People often confuse discipline with punishment. While I don't have much real experience, the more I read and think about this, the more important the difference seems to me. Discipline is sexually and emotionally pleasing play designed to help a sub learn how to do something. For example, you can discipline your slave to learn how to handle a heavy beating, or learn how to kneel for long periods. In essence, discipline is training a sub toward something. Punishment is something makes a sub unhappy, and is designed to help a sub learn not to do something. It derives the sub of things the sub wants or forces them to do things the sub doesn't want, so that when the sub does something unwanted, she knows that she will experience negative, undesireable consequences. In essence, punishment is training a sub away from something.
So if you want to punish your slave, you need to use things she genuinely doesn't want. She wants extremely rough play, so using rough play isn't a punishment; it's an incentive to repeat the bad behavior. She wants attention and she wants the status of being a slave, so any punishments you use have to deny her that. So punish her with formal time-outs, either being sent out of the home or being forced to sit in a corner or something like that. She wants rough play, so punish her with absolutely vanilla intercourse; treat her like a classic romantic boyfriend would and make sweet, gentle love to her, in a limp, vaguely submissive fashion, telling her that you just want to please her and will do anything (completely vanilla) for her. Or give her a menial chore that she really dislikes having to do, something you normally don't require of her because she dislikes it. Or take her collar away for increasingly long periods, and explain that her punishment is to live as a normal vanilla couple would for a day, a week, a month. You need a break for owning her, after all, so take one the next time she makes owning her a burden.
The important thing here is to be absolutely consistent with your punishments. She needs to learn that every time she does something wrong, she will not like the consequences.

I hope some of this helps.

sillylittlepet · Nov 4, 2010

In a much less extreme way, I also get very turned on when my master is upset or frustrated
The difference is when I push my master's buttons it usually involves simply teasing him, I don't want to make him angry.
Hmm thats a little confusing...

In a sense, being angry and rough with me is part of the play that my master and I engage in. It sounds like this is the kind of thing your slave is looking for (because you being angry will result in you treating her more roughly). Like Sebastian said, it is not okay for her to seriously upset you. This type of activity should be part of the playtime, and like everything else is somewhat constrained. Your slave is taking it way, way too far
Hopefully that makes more sense. She wants to make you upset so that the rough way you treat her is more genuine, but she doesn't necessarily have to make you angry. I dont think she understands that concept fully

You said you've talked to her, but its not really getting better. Set out a plan instead. Give her limits of what she can say to upset you, limiting them to obviously things that don't do real emotional damage and are instead coy games. For instance, you want to play with her but she keeps shying away. You get more and more "frustrated" and eventually take her by force
again, this is all just a game. At no point should she ever say anything that could really hurt your feelings. No partner (and she is essentially your partner) should ever be putting down or hurting their significant other.

Again I agree with Sebastian, punishing her while you're actually angry is a terrible idea. Its much more unsafe and out of control. As a dom, you should be 100% in control of your actions and feelings. If she goes too far, send her away and let her know when her punishment will arrive. Make her punishments completely un-sexual and/or un-enjoyable.
She hates chores? She needs to do chores all day long, and not in a skimpy apron.
She loves looking cute? Give her the ugliest clothes to wear (plus no make-up) for a week.
She wants attention? She has to sit in a corner for X amount of time

I dont really understand why your slave cant offer you emotional support. She's your partner and obviously cares about you otherwise you wouldnt be together. Dont limit her just because she's your slave. She can be there for more than just domination
Also a child can and often does offer their parents emotional support, so I dont really know what you're talking about there either.

Very sorry for your loss, I'm not much older than a child myself, but I cant even imagine what it would be like if my younger sister or parents died. You should seriously look into grief counseling, there is absolutely no reason this is a bad idea.

praefect · Nov 5, 2010

An unhealthy dynamic. Yes, exactly. We used to have a great one. For 18 months things went as good as can be imagined. But ... a lot of things touched upon in both your posts.

Thank you. It's going to take a while before I write another reply because, well, it would be a long one. A very long one.

praefect · Nov 5, 2010

There is really nothing anyone can do to help me with my grief. I know what it is that I have to do, and that is to allow myself to feel. That was kind of hard when the first wave hit. Every time I focused on my loss I would let one tear go before my defenses kicked in and I emotionally detached. I felt nothing then. She was cremated, and I wasn't really able to let go until I visited the site where her ashes were scattered. And, with time, I got better.

Things were starting to resemble normal again. Though, I was still on shaky legs, if you will. The second wave, about a month ago, was incredibly hard. Much harder than the first one. It swept aside all my defenses as if they were nothing. Every defense I had built up since childhood, through all those experiences. I had never felt so much in my life. I was completely exposed to the world. Like a newborn. All open, no protection, no shell, no mask, no filter. It was quite the experience, in retrospect. I fell asleep crying and woke up crying.

That lasted about a week, or two. Then things started to normalize again. There will be more waves. They will be less frequent, and with time, less intense. It's the way this goes. There is no easy way out, no fix for it. It sucks, but sometimes that's just the way it is.

Emotionally she is very much distinct from my daughter. There is no confusion there. The only way that she is like my child is that for 18 wonderful months I fostered in her a dependence on me. I'm a sexual sadist... which is kind of a misnomer. It has little to do with actual sadism. It should be named sexually power fixated. Sadism is just a means to an end.

What we experienced, it felt like what I imagine a mind meld must feel like. My will became her will. My strength became her strength. I wanted all of her, and she wanted to give me everything, and I took it. It was wonderful.

But this desire to dominate, to possess, it comes from a place I can only access when I am fine. And when my daughter died, I couldn't do anything but dial it all back to zero. I can't will the "baring of my fangs". It happens by itself. And it doesn't happen when I am depressed, or exhausted.

So things were scaled back, and for a time that worked. There was nothing left of the power exchange anymore. And I know she felt lost, and lonely, because I withdrew and left her with her husband, my other slave. He's not like her. He's nothing like her. He doesn't understand, but he is understanding that I need time for myself.

Because he doesn't understand, because emotions and feelings and such are an alien language to him, because he is all extrovert and I am not, he can't relate to me nor can he help me with this.

But that's ok. He gives me space, which is what I need the most.

There were some incidents. I tried for support, with her, because she understands. She can empathize. I told her about my fears and my feelings and my insecurities and my pains. The reaction to that was that my fears and feelings and insecurities and pains became hers. The pillar was unstable, the world was falling, and there in my worst moments I had to spin gold out of hay, summon strength out of nothing, and support her, and tell her that everything was going to be fine. Everything was going to be alright.

When the playroom became my bedroom things went downhill further. That's when it started. I already had paid zero attention to whether or not they were doing their power exchange related tasks, and they weren't, and I was fine with that. He needs to be witnessed for it to have any meaning to him. Which is why he is more of a boy toy. A pain stud. A gimp. Not a slave. There is no internal dynamic going on there. Her on the other hand, she was lost. Everything she did used to have a meaning to her, and without my presence within her, she couldn't find that meaning anymore. It wasn't enough that I was there physically. It wasn't enough that I talked to her. She needed me to penetrate her mind again. She needed that power exchange again.

Now, when I get angry, I don't go hot. I don't get uncontrolled. I don't shout and wildly flail about. I go cold. I become more controlled. I become emotionally detached, and then without sympathy assert myself. I dominate.

Which is why my anger feeds her need, and why this dynamic has shifted into this. I'm better now, and unless the sky falls, I should be fine for a long enough time to climb out of this hole, but just because I am better now doesn't mean that the shift in the dynamic is undone by itself.

It's not healthy for me to reach this state like that. It's like exercising when you haven't eaten, and instead of fat your body starts to burn muscle mass. When I expend energy like this there is no exchange of energy taking place. And when I have no energy to give but use it anyways, I burn away my core.

And when I come out of it, while having asserted myself, and having reminded her of her place in the scheme of things, given her that security she craves, I am exhausted, not refreshed. There is no joy in this for me. Her whimpers and her submission are not beautiful to me like this.

And then I blame myself, for not being strong enough for her anymore.

Atlas fell to his knees and he is ashamed that they buckled.

When I was fine I had a sense of "my inner beast", that part of me, the id, the hunger for power, and its chamber within my mind, the inner cellar. When I go there now, within my mind, I do not sense it anymore, and what I see there in this darkest of places within myself is not fantasies that would freeze the blood of men, but cobwebs and dust.

This is my first power exchange relationship, and as I usually do with things of all natures, I jumped right into the deep end. This is sink or swim time. There is a way to fix this. I know it. I just don't know what it is yet and there isn't really anywhere I can look info up. No limits total power exchanges are rare. Dealing with grief within them rarely discussed or written about. I know I'm going to have to figure this out by myself and trust my instincts.

And right now they say, I need a vacation, and should I take it, I know, I will send her into dispair, triggering all kinds of abandonment issues. I promised her that I would never leave her.

And I will not give up on us. She might not be healthy for me, now, but I need her more than anything. I want her and I love her more than anyone in my life.

sillylittlepet · Nov 5, 2010

I cant stress grief counseling enough, these are trained professionals who are there to help you deal with your grief. You think you dont need one, but it sounds like you're not doing so great all by yourself.

A professional can offer much better help than we can, these are really serious and complex issues

I seriously hope you think about it very critically

sebastian · Nov 5, 2010

Praefect, your post is very moving and well-written. Your emotional struggles are very clear, and I wish you the best in dealing with them. I hope that the forum can help you in some small way. But I agree with SLP; you need grief counseling. You do not have to do it alone. You're the only one who can do the grieving, but counselors can help you find strategies for managing your grief and still retaining your sanity and your relationships. Men are taught that they have to manage emotional pain silently and alone, and that is a very destructive notion. There is no shame in being overwhelmed by the loss of a child.

Taking time for your own emotional needs is not abandoning your slave; it is giving yourself the room to recover your dominance. Even the strongest dom cannot be dominant 24/7; everyone needs room for the other parts of their personality, and right now you have to give yourself permission to not be dominant. The reason you can't find your inner beast right now is not that it's gone; it's consumed by grieving along with the rest of you. Give it time and you'll find it again.

praefect · Nov 26, 2010

I broke, and in retrospect, it was one of the best things ever to happen to me

If anyone cares to know, I'll gladly expand on that

sebastian · Nov 26, 2010

By all means. That's what we're here for.

praefect · Nov 28, 2010

I had already broken when I wrote the first post. I'm going to track back here a little bit and then move on beyond what I posted here already.

I have asked myself in my life what it means to break. I have felt close to it, at some points. I have felt stress, and pressure, and forces seeking to make me submit, I have taken on responsibilities more than I could handle, and have experienced hurt and harm and been scarred by life.

But that is life. I'm not complaining.

I think all of us feel like that, at some point. Like Atlas, being overwhelmed by the weight of the Earth on ones shoulder.

But I think few people actually get to the point where they do break. We find ways to avoid it. We change a situation, we withdraw, we strike back, we change.

So, the question to me remained. What does it mean to break. What happens when too much is too much and one does shatter.

I've experienced it. About... a month ago, now, I think. And it is turning out to be an experience of incredible value to me. It's changing me. I think it is changing me in ways that are good. The value of it is somewhere up there with my near death experience, seeing my life flash by my eyes, and being shown every mistake I have ever made. Mistake after mistake after mistake. That was all I was shown, and all of those mistakes based on fear.

I came out of that fearless. For a time I could not experience fear at all. I reached a new equilibrium eventually, but that experience was still profoundly changing.

And now, this.

Shattering.

So, what is it? What happens when one breaks?

I like astronomy. Bare with me here.

The birth of a star is a violent process. Gases condense and under the weight they crush into a swirling disk. Particles collide and bounce off each other or stick. Out of dust rocks are born and out of rocks mountains and out of mountains planets. Swirling around the center of it all, swirling in darkness, in coldness, around a deep dark weight. The star to be.

That weight at the core is the pain inside. The center the star not yet born. When it reaches critical mass, it ignites. To shatter is that. Let there be light,, and there was light, and everything in that maelstrom of heat and light is swept aside. Everything but the heaviest rocks. A shroud of dust and particles is lifted, banished, pushed far away, and what is left is left bare and exposed, and burning under the glare of pain.

It makes sense in my head. I like to think in images.

All defenses I had built up over the experiences of my life were swept away. As you child you play on a playground and a girl throws sand in your face and laughs, and you think, girls are mean. That is a defense. You expect it, so it doesn't hurt you anymore. And we all built these defenses, and some of them incredibly sophisticated and intricate as what we deal with in life becomes more complex. Some that take us out of the now, or take us out of the here, or take us out of ourselves. We withdraw, we detach, we disassociate, we believe. There are so many different types of ways we learn in life to shield our core with.

All of that was gone. I was reduced to the state of a newborn. For the first time in my life I felt submissive. For the first time I can remember, anyways. I wanted to reach out with my hand and ask someone to help me. Lead me. Show me a way out of this. I don't know what to do. And in the center of it, larger than life itself, burning brightly, the pain that swept it all aside to begin with.

I didn't reach that place, there are deeper places to fall to than I did. A shattering harder still, but I can now understand what makes a wounded man cry out for his mother.

I felt, fully. The world was clearer, and all of its effects on me more profound. Everything got close to me. There was nothing I could dismiss. The pain of others an unbearable addition to my own pain.

I felt, fully. I cried myself to sleep and cried myself awake. I loved and grieved the loss I felt.

And then, the shards started coming back together. The star burned off its fuel dimmed and the veil returned, but, different. Through my experience I was altered. And I am still in the process of being altered. I find myself returning to a place I once knew before grief became a part of my life. What I let out after being shattered, it was more than just the loss of one person. There was pain in there that was old. Ancient, even.

Naked, on grass, bathed in sunlight I sat, my arms extended towards the sun in mediation, I felt part of the universe and connected to all things around me. Everything mattered, everything had meaning, and everything posed a question.

Why.

I find myself returning to that. Too my teenage self. And I am really happy about it.

It's amazing, really. I haven't felt this good in such a very long time.

The entire dynamic of my relationship is changing again, too. awareness of what I have done wrong... such easy changes... and now it feels like the new relationship energy is back again.

Ventout

praefect

Member

sebastian

Active Member

sillylittlepet

Active Member

praefect

Member

praefect

Member

sillylittlepet

Active Member

sebastian

Active Member

praefect

Member

sebastian

Active Member

praefect

Member

Similar threads