It's been...eventful...and I barely know where to start. It's been about my emotions - the spilling over of them and the repercussions of them - and it's been about intimacy through a shared dynamic, and it's been about accepting my own faults. It's been about so much that at the moment it's just a smattering of disjoint thoughts.
There is a recognition as well that you can't share what you can't put into words. If your perceptions and growth can't be expressed coherently, maybe you haven't quite reached the place where you need to go. Yet, I want to record something here and see where it goes, how it expands and grows in my mind. It feels like I have a palm full of seeds that could grow into a very good crop if I tend them well. Right now my thoughts are just separate seeds living right beside each other but not amounting to much until put into the ground and watered; left to mature and reach for sunlight. Still, I have the seeds. That's a start.
First of all, a situation occurred where I felt alienated. Experiencing a sense of alienation - whether true or just perceived in that light - shatters me. I know it shatters me and my mind protected me this time by telling me, first, that I wasn't troubled by it, and soon after that, it told me that I needed to stand up for myself. If memory serves me rightly only a few days before this event (perhaps seeing it coming and getting ready?) I pulled from my file the long article my psychologist had given me about 'The Subjugation Trap'. As I read it, it was blatantly obvious this time around that I fell firmly into the category of a subjugated person, potentially. The reason for this is that I wasn't assertive. I'd blended into people to keep the peace in many ways and according to the article I needed to learn to ask for things in a way where I was listened to. I needed to see myself as my own person.
I made notes. I began cue cards to keep me on track in my own mind. By God, this time I was going to get this right. When the time came to speak again my physiological responses weren't really under control but I wanted to talk. I decided to say as little as possible in the hope of staying in control of myself. But, in this power dynamic of mine there's always going to be a way to show me that I'm not the one in control and eventually I had to speak first. It came out as 'girl language', formal speech, an immediate and resounding red flag that I was upset and feisty.
I found myself making statements and asking questions in the most direct way ever that I can remember. This was, I'd agree, akin to waving a red flag at a bull and I'd say this conversation was as close to a 'fight' as we have ever had. (Still, I was proud of myself for making those statements!) I'd punched some accusations and statements over the net and he volleyed some others right back at me.
It's not usual for him to say all that much in one mouthful and as the words spewed out I could feel the bile rising. I was angry. As I do, I tried to settle myself. I was aware of my quickening breath and the tightness in my chest. I knew all too well that my brain was going haywire both with the messages being inputed but also with an emotional state now out of control.
I don't think I am what you want.
Yes, it is embarrassing now to look back and see how I played the feminine card. A little alienation on my part catapulted into the mix of words that had us both smashing balls with Exocet missile capability.
More was said, a good airing of grievances on both sides, but as we know in this dynamic, amongst people who have a tendency to be a bottom or a top, the Top prevails. Thank God for that.
Stop the shit.
Bimbo was wrong.
Get back to pluggiz.
Talk later.
My anger has a beginning and an end. It burns out. It didn't burn out immediately but the next morning the thought began to occur that he had a point. I had deceived. I hadn't played by the rules. I hadn't just been deceiving him but I had been deceiving myself. My goals weren't achievable until I took responsibility myself for my erroneous thinking about my strategy and stopped being slack, falling back into thinking traps of justifying my actions. He'd removed himself from the deal because the contract with him was broken and I did need to accept the fact that I'd erred. I had. It was my fault, looked at that way.
I always understood that if he knew every last piece of information about this subject that he'd correct, punish; insist. And, whilst I did the right thing about 98.5% of the time, I wasn't working to the rules laid out. I was achieving results, but not as fast I should have been. I know that.
This business of thinking of our arrangement as a contract - something that he emphasized - really challenged me. It was, somehow in my mind, taking two people with a range of emotions, strengths and weaknesses - human beings - and reducing that relationship to a commercial transaction. I found it galling and even insulting.
But as time has gone by I begin to see that there are concepts of a power exchange that I hadn't quite entirely understood related to the intimacy of the arrangement; another grievance of his at the time of the conversation that seemed so rich. By withholding all the information, by not being entirely honest, I'd denied the opportunity for intimacy that a power exchange dynamic provides. I don't necessarily mean sexual intimacy but the intimacy of two people sharing their lives; their frailties, their needs and their desires.
I'd failed to reveal myself and my weaknesses. I'd not revealed my failings for fear of abandonment (and thus was abandoned...). I'd made it impossible for him to do his work as he'd agreed to do. He'd removed himself from the arrangement because I'd made it clear that I wasn't willing to pay. I simply had not kept my bargain.
The whole experience - unpleasant as it was - had taught me something important, and rather than wanting to walk away from me, he'd seen it as his responsibility to me to pull me up. Maybe, he'd learned something else important about me too; that this fear of abandonment is not something that I can easily control; that it lives in my psyche and shows up without invitation. Fear has its own logic.
I'm not always easily dominated. I need relatively tight control. A partner needs to know that there will be times when it looks awfully like I want to throw in the towel. I don't. I am just hurting. I need someone who can withstand those moments, set me straight, and put me back in my place. I need someone who understands that I very much want to grow through this dynamic. I need someone to tell me to 'stop the shit'.
There's more to say, so much more. This is enough for today.
There is a recognition as well that you can't share what you can't put into words. If your perceptions and growth can't be expressed coherently, maybe you haven't quite reached the place where you need to go. Yet, I want to record something here and see where it goes, how it expands and grows in my mind. It feels like I have a palm full of seeds that could grow into a very good crop if I tend them well. Right now my thoughts are just separate seeds living right beside each other but not amounting to much until put into the ground and watered; left to mature and reach for sunlight. Still, I have the seeds. That's a start.
First of all, a situation occurred where I felt alienated. Experiencing a sense of alienation - whether true or just perceived in that light - shatters me. I know it shatters me and my mind protected me this time by telling me, first, that I wasn't troubled by it, and soon after that, it told me that I needed to stand up for myself. If memory serves me rightly only a few days before this event (perhaps seeing it coming and getting ready?) I pulled from my file the long article my psychologist had given me about 'The Subjugation Trap'. As I read it, it was blatantly obvious this time around that I fell firmly into the category of a subjugated person, potentially. The reason for this is that I wasn't assertive. I'd blended into people to keep the peace in many ways and according to the article I needed to learn to ask for things in a way where I was listened to. I needed to see myself as my own person.
I made notes. I began cue cards to keep me on track in my own mind. By God, this time I was going to get this right. When the time came to speak again my physiological responses weren't really under control but I wanted to talk. I decided to say as little as possible in the hope of staying in control of myself. But, in this power dynamic of mine there's always going to be a way to show me that I'm not the one in control and eventually I had to speak first. It came out as 'girl language', formal speech, an immediate and resounding red flag that I was upset and feisty.
I found myself making statements and asking questions in the most direct way ever that I can remember. This was, I'd agree, akin to waving a red flag at a bull and I'd say this conversation was as close to a 'fight' as we have ever had. (Still, I was proud of myself for making those statements!) I'd punched some accusations and statements over the net and he volleyed some others right back at me.
It's not usual for him to say all that much in one mouthful and as the words spewed out I could feel the bile rising. I was angry. As I do, I tried to settle myself. I was aware of my quickening breath and the tightness in my chest. I knew all too well that my brain was going haywire both with the messages being inputed but also with an emotional state now out of control.
I don't think I am what you want.
Yes, it is embarrassing now to look back and see how I played the feminine card. A little alienation on my part catapulted into the mix of words that had us both smashing balls with Exocet missile capability.
More was said, a good airing of grievances on both sides, but as we know in this dynamic, amongst people who have a tendency to be a bottom or a top, the Top prevails. Thank God for that.
Stop the shit.
Bimbo was wrong.
Get back to pluggiz.
Talk later.
My anger has a beginning and an end. It burns out. It didn't burn out immediately but the next morning the thought began to occur that he had a point. I had deceived. I hadn't played by the rules. I hadn't just been deceiving him but I had been deceiving myself. My goals weren't achievable until I took responsibility myself for my erroneous thinking about my strategy and stopped being slack, falling back into thinking traps of justifying my actions. He'd removed himself from the deal because the contract with him was broken and I did need to accept the fact that I'd erred. I had. It was my fault, looked at that way.
I always understood that if he knew every last piece of information about this subject that he'd correct, punish; insist. And, whilst I did the right thing about 98.5% of the time, I wasn't working to the rules laid out. I was achieving results, but not as fast I should have been. I know that.
This business of thinking of our arrangement as a contract - something that he emphasized - really challenged me. It was, somehow in my mind, taking two people with a range of emotions, strengths and weaknesses - human beings - and reducing that relationship to a commercial transaction. I found it galling and even insulting.
But as time has gone by I begin to see that there are concepts of a power exchange that I hadn't quite entirely understood related to the intimacy of the arrangement; another grievance of his at the time of the conversation that seemed so rich. By withholding all the information, by not being entirely honest, I'd denied the opportunity for intimacy that a power exchange dynamic provides. I don't necessarily mean sexual intimacy but the intimacy of two people sharing their lives; their frailties, their needs and their desires.
I'd failed to reveal myself and my weaknesses. I'd not revealed my failings for fear of abandonment (and thus was abandoned...). I'd made it impossible for him to do his work as he'd agreed to do. He'd removed himself from the arrangement because I'd made it clear that I wasn't willing to pay. I simply had not kept my bargain.
The whole experience - unpleasant as it was - had taught me something important, and rather than wanting to walk away from me, he'd seen it as his responsibility to me to pull me up. Maybe, he'd learned something else important about me too; that this fear of abandonment is not something that I can easily control; that it lives in my psyche and shows up without invitation. Fear has its own logic.
I'm not always easily dominated. I need relatively tight control. A partner needs to know that there will be times when it looks awfully like I want to throw in the towel. I don't. I am just hurting. I need someone who can withstand those moments, set me straight, and put me back in my place. I need someone who understands that I very much want to grow through this dynamic. I need someone to tell me to 'stop the shit'.
There's more to say, so much more. This is enough for today.
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