In my last post about my punishment for taking His collar off in a fit of anger, I said that not wearing it has been sobering. It will be one week tomorrow without His collar, and it continues to be a sobering experience.

I do have to admit I’m also surprised by my own reaction. I would have thought it’d kick in all of my abandonment fears. I loathe the term “abandonment issues” –  it just makes me feel so broken and unfixable – but that is the easiest way to summarize that set of feelings that seem to plague me.

But instead of feeling abandoned or worried or fearful about the collar being off right now, I’m feeling more introspective and calm and – well – sober.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my choices, especially my day-to-day choices. When I look at my behavior, I realize how many day-to-day choices are not in alignment with who I am. I’m also admitting to myself how much I say, “When Master and I get to such-and-such point, then I’ll be this way or do things this way…” I keep holding a vision for how I’ll be in the future while still reacting in ways that keep me rooted in the past.

Sometimes I feel like two different people. It’s not that one is a false self, but when I get to a calm and quiet place like this it’s easy for me to distinguish between what is authentically me and what is not. And the question is…how do I choose to be?

I am collared, but right now I am not wearing His collar.

As he was leaving Wednesday night, he removed it from my neck and walked out the door.

My heart immediately sank and tears welled up in my eyes. “This scares me,” I said as he put it in His pocket. All I could think about was the conversation we had after the act for which I’m being punished. I expressed my anger and fears to Him, and he said, “You only need to worry if I rip the collar off your neck myself.” And here…it was happening (maybe not ripping but…).

About a month ago, I got mad during one of Master’s visit. He didn’t know it because my tendency is to just withdraw and get stoic when I’m mad. I didn’t express it while he was here. After he left, though, I started to let it out. I was so mad that I took advantage of the fact that the collar is broken and not locked at the moment, and I ripped it off my neck.

I thought of going into detail here on the blog about what happened and why it happened (my reasons). I’m very good at recounting and reliving the stories (over and over again). I know why it happened is not an excuse for what happened, and telling the story is dwelling on the details instead of facing the issue at hand.

Rather than trusting Master with my feelings and being transparent about how I was doing and what I was thinking, I withdrew. I didn’t want him to see this “ugly” side of me, and I took control. I chose to rely on ingrained, habitual ways of dealing with what feels like overwhelming emotion (and pain) rather than being in the moment and trusting that both of us could handle it.

It took me two days to even tell him I was mad (and during this time, I left the collar off). When I ripped it off my neck, I did so knowing the feeling was temporary and not some statement of not wanting to be His collared submissive. I wanted to feel better in that moment. A lot of my old habits are about that…feeling better in the moment without regard for longer term consequences.

When I finally did share that I was mad, I knew I couldn’t hide what I had done with the collar. Technically, I could have gotten away with not sharing it with Him, but I would have known. I felt very guilty for treating something I treasure so cavalierly.

For the past two days, I’ve found myself reaching for the clasp of my collar. I didn’t realize what a habit it has become to reach for and rub it in my everyday activities. I like rubbing the clasp as a reminder that I’m His.

The first morning without it, I looked in the mirror before I left for my meeting. I felt naked without it. I wondered if the people I was meeting with would notice it was gone. I was so worried six months ago when I was being collared about people noticing it and thinking it was an odd necklace. Now I wondered if they’d notice my unusal necklace was gone…and kind of wishing they did notice…like noticing someone is out of sorts and asking them if something is wrong.

I rub my bare neck and realize how sobering not wearing His collar is. At some level, I’ll always be His (collared or not) but I don’t want to just be His. I want to fully blossom and be the slave I am meant to be. I want to serve Him in all the ways I know are possible.

…and I can’t do that when I hide.

I’m a big fan of LOST. One of the many, many things I enjoy about it is the theme of free will.

This final season has so many good episodes, but my favorite so far I’d have to say is “Ab Aeterno.” I’ve watched it several times already, and I always dwell on this scene.

Jacob: “When [the people I bring] get [to the island], their past doesn’t matter. … [They died here, and I didn't help them] because I wanted them to help themselves. To know the difference between right and wrong without me having to tell them. It’s all meaningless if I have to force them to do anything. Why should I have to step in?”

I read a few slave blogs. At first, I drank them up and saw them as kind of a manual for how slavery is. I read entries about Masters who overpower their slaves when they exert their will. I started wanting that. I thought maybe that was the key to pushing my will aside and becoming Master’s slave. The day before Master collared me, I wasn’t sure if I was ready for the one thing I wanted more than anything in the world. I pleaded with him to break my will. I figured the only way I would give it up it is to have it taken from me.

He took my request to break my will seriously, but he won’t break it the way I think I want it broken.

From Day One, he has always told me I have a choice. There are times I’ve thought I understood this over the years, but I don’t always remember it. It’s a little too easy to think that just because he’s my Master that that single choice to submit to Him is the only choice I have to make.

As much as I value my submissiveness, I also value my independence. As I shared in this blog post, it’s what driven me to become a very successful businesswoman, to be a risk taker and to be persistent on this journey to discover and be who I am.

I wouldn’t thrive in a relationship where my will was taken by consensual force. It might look like I was submitting, but I’d really just be complying.

He could have been the one sitting on the beach speaking the words that Jacob spoke…and he’s expressed that to me in one way or the other over the years. I always think I get it, and I do understand it…but surrendering seems harder to do.

I feel like I’m on the verge of one of the most important choices of my life. At the very least, I’m at a huge fork in the road. The choice is very clear, and I know what I want. It’s not even a question of which choice I want to make. The final step is to make it. Yet, I hesitate and wish in all sorts of insidious ways that He’d make it for me.

In a recent post, I wrote how I’m still struggling to sort out my instinct to serve and submit from my habit to please at the expense of myself.

The word “compliance” popped into my head a few days after I wrote that post, and the light bulbs started to go on.

As a child, compliance could have been my middle name…at least that is how it looked on the outside. On the inside I was the rebellious child. I might look like I was conforming but really I was just trying to get whomever (usually parents) off my back. I didn’t really act out my rebellion in many overt ways, but I created a distance (and to some extent isolation) so that I felt the freedom I wanted to feel.

I got rewarded for my compliance, and I enjoyed the praise. I felt like I’d figured out the magic formula: I could comply and be the good girl and get their positive attention while not really giving in and doing my own thing, even if it was only in my mind.

There was a flaw in my magic formula, though. While I’d figured out how to please them and still not give in, I also felt invisible. I often felt like my parents didn’t get me or understood my point of view. Sometimes I’d get quite angry or sad and stew about how they didn’t understand me (which I’m sure you can only imagine how that was exacerbated by regular teenage angst as I grew). Instead of expressing myself, though, I kept quiet. I’d comply and retreat further in my world.

Without them knowing, I’d do my own thing. I figured what they didn’t know didn’t hurt them, and I could easily show compliance if I needed to. For many years, I thought I’d pulled the wool over their eyes. My mother has told me now as an adult that she knew I’d say one thing to her and do another. I was never really a bad kid, so for her it was a matter of picking her battles. Could she force me to do something if I was being so willful?

I felt such relief when Master first uttered the word submissive to me. For a woman who fights between wanting to be seen and feeling invisible, I felt both seen and heard in a way I’d never felt before. It’s been easy to associate all my past people-pleasing behavior to my submissiveness, but – for the first time – I’m starting to distinguish between how I comply vs. how I submit.

It took me a long time to find a therapist I clicked with. Years, in fact.

Every new therapist I went to seemed more interested in diagnosing me than listening to me….at least that is how I perceived it. An immediate deal breaker was when a therapist suggested anti-depressants in the first session. Could you at least learn a little bit about me first?

That’s why when I walked out of my current therapist’s office after that first session, I felt relief. She looked at me attentively. She didn’t take notes (she never takes notes during session…she makes them after I leave). She just looked at me warmly and invited me to share what brought me here.

It was a full year of talking before a diagnosis even passed her lips. It was kind of ironic because right before it, I was feeling really good, having released many things during that year and putting several things into perspective. I even had the thought that maybe I was done.

Then it hit. A flood of memories came rushing in. They weren’t new memories, but as real as if they were happening in that moment. Something was happening, and I didn’t know what.

She said she wasn’t surprised. She calmly reassured me that the memories were flooding back because I now felt safe. A year of sharing and – in essence – testing her (her words) to see if she was the person that could handle what was buried deep inside.

This was her first utterance of a diagnosis: post-traumatic stress disorder. As she started to tell me what it was, I just calmly listened.

Most people are aware of fight or flight. When we experience life-threatening danger, our primal brains kick in to get us out of danger. We either fight our attacker and defend ourselves, or we flee and escape the threat.

When neither option is available to us, we play dead. We freeze. Most predators are only interested in live prey (vultures or other scavenger birds are the only creatures who seek dead prey). So by freezing and playing dead, the predator will back off, and we secure our safety.

The natural response after such an experience is to shake and release the extra adrenalin and other biochemicals released into our system. By doing so, we return to “normal.”

What can happen, though, is that without the subsequent shaking response the trauma gets stuck…in our bodies/in our cells. We are – in essence – still frozen…frozen in that time.

We can proceed for years (some people can proceed for a lifetime) in this state. We think things are normal, but below the surface they are not. We are hyper-aware of danger. We create coping mechanisms to protect ourselves in everyday circumstances. We may have out-of-proportion reactions to everyday incidences. We may be moving and functioning in society, but we are frozen.

We are frozen until we start to feel safe again.

In our intimate relationships, we can start to melt in the safety that our partner provides. That is both a blessing and one of the hardest things to deal with. For an unaware partner, it looks like stuff is coming out of left field. It can also seem like reactions are way out of proportion to the circumstances at hand.

But when we are activated (or triggered, although activated more accurately describes to me what is happening…the trauma is being activated), we are not in the present moment. We are in that stuck place. It is as if our bodies were literally frozen in ice 10, 20 or 30 years ago and we are just now being extricated.

All those years have passed, but we don’t all of the sudden jump to the present moment. Our bodies have never completed the trauma cycle – the shaking and release so that the danger subsides from our bodies. We can’t move into the present until we finish the trauma cycle.

The challenge for us is that we start to experience the trauma again, and our deftly honed defense skills kick in. Depending on the situation, we could be re-traumatized (even accidentally) instead of allowing the cycle to finish. We think things are getting worse, when – if we have the patience to let the cycle complete itself – will get better…much better!

This is the hardest thing to do. I describe it as an old-fashioned fun house. Everything is distorted because the difference between present and the past is completely blurred. The danger feels so real, even though it is only coming up again because you are now safe. As much as I’ve learned about myself and what activates me, it can still sneak up on me…and my Master. It is also especially difficult as I try to change old coping behaviors. It’s like going through detox in some ways.

Sometimes I feel so guilty for what I put Master through. I’ve told him I don’t know what gives him the fortitude to endure the worst of this, but I am forever grateful that he is providing the safety and guidance and love that allows me to release the trauma so that I can shine through.

My nipples are still tender from Master’s visit yesterday.

Every twinge makes my pussy wet.

I play and pull and slap and tug on my own nipples. I’ve now even started masturbating with clothespins on my nipples. Each of these activities produces a certain level of pain that gets me off. Yet, nothing compares to the pain Master inflicts on me.

I’m thinking about that scene in the movie Secretary where she is trying to use a hairbrush to spank her own ass. I’ve always identified with this scene, although my feelings toward it right now are different than when I first saw it.

That scene describes – without words – the craving for something that feeds your soul. When I first saw it, I felt her desire to recapture the feeling she had tasted and seemingly lost. In the context of the scene, she was trying to recreate something that seemed elusive.

Given where I’m at in my relationship with Master, I’m not worried that the feeling or the fulfillment of that need is so elusive anymore. Now I view this scene with the eye that there is only so far I can go to inflict pain on myself. Even when I’m trying to inflict pain on myself, there is a part of me afraid of it. Can I really stand it? Will it be too much?

I’ve spent so much of my life avoiding pain. When I’ve felt intense pain, I’ve numbed it….anything I could do to manage it and keep it at bay.

I now seem to be at a tipping point. I’m afraid of it, but I want it. I’m craving it. I’m craving pain.

I have a punishment coming. I’m not proud of what I did to deserve the punishment. I don’t imagine or pretend it will be enjoyable, but there is a part of me that is craving it. I want to feel the pain. I want to feel His power over me and through me. I want my resistance broken down with every stroke. I want to open myself up to Him and let Him in in ways I haven’t allowed before.

I want to feel the pain.

When I first named and started actively exploring my submissiveness, I worried a lot about being a doormat. My journal from that time is riddled with the question: “Am I being a doormat? What’s the difference?” Vanilla folks seems to confuse submissiveness with being a doormat, so I guess it is not surprising that this is where my questioning started.

I don’t worry about being a doormat these days, although there are times when I wonder if I’m expressing my needs well enough.

I learned pretty early on to squelch my needs. Expressing needs turned into being needy which equated to being a problem. I got lots of praise for being a “good girl,” so suppressing my needs became second nature.

Conventional wisdom says, “Take charge of your own life and don’t be a victim!” and “Don’t blame others; make different choices!” But the hard part about behaviors learned as a child is that stuff was really done to you. The choices and abilities to “defend” yourself were limited. And now – as an adult – it is easy to get confused.

When we hear stories of abuse of children, we don’t question that they are victims. Blame is clear and easy to place on the adult who hurt the child. But what happens when those victims grow up? Why do the behaviors a child learned to protect themselves become dysfunction, co-dependence or any other word we can come up with to disparage our now adult behavior? I guess the theory is that if we make it “bad” then we will be more compelled to change it.

I find it very hard to accept responsibility for my behavior and habits that I do out of self-protection. The irony of these habits is that they are ultimately self-destructive. Sometimes it feels like I’m in an old-fashioned fun house where I’m dealing with a distortion at every turn.

Sometimes my submissiveness doesn’t make this easier to sort out. I’m less confused than I was 14 years ago, but I’m still struggling to sort out my instinct to serve and submit from my habit to please at the expense of myself.

When the man who is now my Master first uttered the word “submissive” in relation to me, I felt such a wave of relief. While I knew very little about the world of BDSM, the whole idea just resonated right down to my core.

I could have had many reactions to what He said. I could have told him he was nuts…that I was an ardent feminist and what the hell was he suggesting. I am very well-versed in that, so getting that kind of reaction would have been “in character” (so to speak). Instead, I immediately went to trying to reconcile how I felt as a feminist with how to deal with these feelings inside which now had a name: my submissiveness.

One of the reasons I didn’t fight the term was these feelings of submissiveness go back as far as I can remember. I distinctly remember masturbating between ages of three and four. I place it at that time because one of my earliest memories was masturbating in the room I shared with my baby sister (three years younger than I am).

We had these plastic, battery-powered night lights that were shaped like candles. The tip of the candle glowed and was slightly warm to the touch. I took that candle and put it between my legs and touched the warm tip to my clit. I imagined that it was a real candle and the flame was being held to me. I then imagined a doctor over me, holding my pussy lips open to examine me and using the light to get very close. The feeling of being exposed and opened arouses me even now. The doctor takes two needles and inserts them on the outside of my pussy lips. He then rubs my clit (as I did to myself) until I fall asleep.

Many of my young fantasies revolved around being told what to do. In fact, to this day I really like rape fantasies. I was never conflicted over them, which might be surprising. But I knew they were inside…where they were safe. As long as I didn’t express them outloud and receive some criticism or condemnation for having them, then I knew they were fine.

I wore leg braces as a child, and my mother recently told me more details about that. I was slightly pigeon-toed, which became noticeable when I started walking. To correct this, I needed to were leg braces at night to straighten my feet and point my still growing bones in the right direction. These braces involved special shoes connected by a bar between my legs (and it took all my energy when she was telling me this story to stop myself from saying, “I wore a spreader bar when I was a year old!?”).

I also resisted – as most people would expect – wearing such a device. The doctor said it could take up to year to correct. Apparently, I struggled against wearing them every night for a week. After a week, I would put my feet and legs up willingly for her to put on the shoes and the brace. Because I didn’t resist and my mother was consistent, it only took three months to correct.

I just smiled as I heard these details. Not only is this yet another early indication of my innate nature, but the initial resistance, the training and the ultimate surrender of my will is a cycle I’m very familiar with by now.