I had a dream last night that Master was lying on the bed with His legs open. I went straight to suck on His dick then realized that I didn’t ask permission to suck it. I stopped and asked, and He told me to proceed. I was sucking when He told me that I needed to get Him off three times with just my mouth. I was sucking when I dozed off. Master wasn’t happy, and I was wondering if He was going to punish me for that. I think that dream was just emphasizing how tired I am at the moment from working long hours. I did think it was interesting, however, that I was worried about displeasing Master even in my sleep.

I shared this dream with Master this morning. He replied that He wouldn’t be unhappy with me for falling asleep if I was truly that tired. His response itself didn’t surprise me, but the contrast of my feeling in the dream and His response did.

Master can push me and expect a lot from me, but He always has my best interest at heart. He would not demand something of me that would be for His pleasure at the expense to my true needs (like sleep). Even if He pushed me beyond those needs for a moment in time, it would be with a greater purpose in mind. The feeling I had in the dream is not one that comes from Master but from myself. I am the one that pushes myself to serve others at the expense of my own needs.

I worry so much about not living up to people’s standards and expectations of me. One mistake – in my mind – wipes out anything I’ve done well. I often find myself trying to guess what will please someone because if asking what they would like would be failing to anticipate what they need. It seems silly even typing this out (nobody is a mind reader!), but it is what is going on in my head often times. Even the logic that nobody is a mind reader sways me from this deep-seated need to please and be perfect.

When I first started exploring my submissiveness, I was very confused about this need to please and my submissiveness. Was I being submissive in all situations? Was it a misplaced, and I needed to discern when/where to be submissive? Or was it just my nature to serve and I couldn’t help but act this way? In essence, was it all one in the same?

It’s clear to me now that they are not the same. One is surrendering to serve someone you trust, who has your best interest at heart. The other is borne out of a belief that you are not enough and struggling to fill a hole inside of yourself.

The difference is clearer to me, although filling that hole is difficult. Maybe it is not a matter of filling the hole but dissolving the belief and changing the premise of being good enough. The one thing that is true is that another – not even a Master – can fill it.

I posted to FetLife last night asking about others’ experiences/reactions to cumming on command.

I got so mad at one response where the guy liked it and wanted more “stories.” This is my life, dammit!…not some show for your entertainment.

I was getting dressed this morning and sat down on the bed for a moment. “What am I feeling?” I asked myself.

Stunned…and I feel turned around. I’ve fantasized about our wills becoming one, but I didn’t realize this is what it meant.

Nothing/emptiness – that empty feeling after He fucked me to more orgasms than I thought were possible. He’s touching that place that I’ve longed for Him to touch. I find myself feeling very passive…let Him reach that place. My job is to be open and to let Him in.

Being an object – part of me fears my brain is being bypassed. I know it is not in this case but this experience is making me rethink what it means to be an object. I guess there’s an implication with the word object that an object is inanimate. As His object, I am not inanimate at all…I am an extension of Him…an object as valuable to His being as His own soul. Object is sometimes used to mean lack of worth, and this is not the case at all. The sheer intimacy of it makes it valuable…to both of us.

I understand my will vs. His will and Master/slave in a totally different way after this experience. I didn’t expect Him to be in me like this. I’m not panicking that it happened; I’m just trying to orient myself. I always figured aligning our wills (more specifically mine to His) would always be about me making a choice to follow Him. The idea that my responses, my actions would be so automatic, so part of the very fabric of my being…didn’t occur to me.

…and now the fact that I’m having a hard time cumming on my own…it is just jarring to be on the other side of this and trying to orient myself to an idea I had no idea was the intended outcome.

I often feel like there are two people inside of me.

One part of me feels like a scared, little girl. She reacts as if everything hurts her or is about to hurt her. She’s defensive. She worries about people being mad or upset with her. She bends to make sure they’re happy. She believes she won’t get what she wants, and she pouts and can get demanding in her own way – even if she thinks she’s not.

The other part of me feels like a maturing young woman. She’s grown but still blossoming. She may be a bit naive, but she adjusts/learns quickly. She’s calm and peaceful. She doesn’t feel the need to convince people of things one way or the other (although she also tends to keep good ideas to herself when people would welcome them). She’s acutely aware of her surroundings and perceptive to non-verbal cues and meanings behind what is said. She has a strong desire to serve but not as a means to prove her worth.

The little girl is louder than the young woman. She has more energy in any given moment, especially when she senses a danger or a threat. Everything is immediate, and problems have to be solved right now.

The young woman is patient. She senses when the time is right. Her energy is sustained and can last a long time because she doesn’t expend it all in spurts. She discerns whether threats and danger are real and – when they are not – is skilled at hearing the fear that others perceive and helps them to calm down. She has an innate ability to be in the flow and realizes problems untie themselves when living and reacting in the present moment.

The little girl may express herself more, but the young woman is always present. The little girl has been around longer. She likes the young woman, and she sees herself as the gatekeeper – keeping the young woman safe from all the dangers she sees.

The young woman sees the little girl’s pain. She helps and guides the girl and looks for ways to comfort her. She knows that taking care of the little girl is important because she’s benefited from her protection. Even though she knows the girl’s protection is no longer needed, she waits in her usual, patient way for the little girl’s voice to quiet down.

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.

I got my haircut last week. I’ve been not-quite-completely-happy with the style for a while now. The past three times I’ve gone to get it cut, I’ve consulted  Master on his thoughts about my hair. He’s given his opinion, but he’s more fine with the style than I have been. I think I’ve also been driving him a little bit crazy with the details of how to change it. Ultimately, I know what he wants: shoulder length for easy grabbing, no bangs and overall flattering.

It’s fun for me to send him a pic after my haircuts. I find it playful…everything from me doing many takes trying to get a good self-portrait of myself with the cell phone to getting his response.

When I sent a picture this time, it was – of course – only of my face. We had, however, discussed the length of the back of my hair. When he replied, he said, “Hmmm….I want to see the back now ” Master will be directive – even commanding – when he wants to be, but his style of dominance is more along the lines of stating his preferences or desires and me being aware enough to act to fulfill his desires. So, even though he didn’t say, “Take a picture of the back,” I knew this is what I must do.

I have to admit, though, my instinctive, first response was, “He’ll have to come to my house to see it” – not in defiance but more because taking a picture of my face with the cell phone is hard enough let alone one of the back of my head! But, I also knew that is not what he was saying. He knew he could come by. He even knew it would be difficult for me take a picture of the back of my head. Yet for all those complications, his desire was simple and clear.

So, into the bathroom I go where I used a hand mirror and the sink mirror to take a picture of the back of my head. It was indeed awkward to hold the mirror just right and then hold the cell phone to take a picture of the hand mirror…but it worked! I sent the picture off to Master. I admitted my first reaction to him, but said I knew he wouldn’t appreciate a smart mouth saying, “you’ll need to come over and see it” and so I just figured out a way to take the picture.

He called me shortly after receiving the pic and said my reaction was exactly like he’d expected…that I’d balk at first but then just do it. We laughed, and he said I’d done well.

I felt happy that I’d pleased him, but I also reflect on my reaction and realize there is a part of me that still “fights.” This interaction about my hair was lighthearted but that “fight” also appears in our more serious discussions.

It’s hard for me to imagine outright defying him but there are these moments of resistance – and depending on the subject or aspect of my life – the resistance is deeper than I admit to myself. It seems so ironic since my desire is to be owned and to be owned by Him runs so deep…but ultimately I guess resistance is just human nature shining through. The emphasis on our individuality is so rooted in our culture and even in our primal instincts. As if that’s not hard enough to overcome, though, we also have warped senses of individuality. Our identities get so wrapped up in the way we see ourselves and are complicated by the beliefs we adopt based on past experiences. As much as I may know those warped views of myself are not me and I say I want to let those mis-beliefs go, there is that part of me that holds on because it is the only identity I have really ever known.

Every time I serve my Master – no matter how big or small the task – I feel that old identity breaking down and my true essence shining through. I’ve chipped away – even blasted through – many walls of resistance and mis-beliefs about myself in my quest to be who I AM. Yet as I get closer and closer to the core, the fight and the panic seems to get bigger and more overhwhelming. I hold onto the old even though the only comfort it brings me is familiarity. I fear my deepest desire because I only have glimpses of how I will be. Sometimes when it seems so overwhelming, I question the path…and sometimes I even question Master (even if I do so politely).

In the stillness and the quiet, I take a step back from the panic and realize that I will never reach my heart’s desire if I try to fight every time I meet my own resistance. I will just be forever slaying demons that way. Instead, I know what I want…and I know what He wants…and I surrender.