Fangy?

There are as many "reasons" and explanations for participation in BDSM as there are people who do it. Not only that, but I suspect that, if a person gets into it and does it for awhile, the reasons and rationales might very well change and evolve. I think that has been true for me. But then, I think that could be said about an awful lot of things in my life. I've learned. Along the way.

In the early part of my wandering out into this, I looked back along the way I was traveling pretty frequently, noting the mile markers and the signposts -- keeping track of the distance traversed and noting the changes. In the beginning, that looking back to shore was instructive. It was also, I think, reassuring. I needed to know, at the outset, that I hadn't gotten out so far that I couldn't find my way back. I know that I'm mixing metaphors, but I wanted to keep track of the "bread crumbs" I had dropped on the trail I was following. Somewhere along the way, I quit watching the trail behind me, and simply began walking into the future. At some juncture, the past became less important than what was ahead of me -- and, as well, less important than where I was in the moment.

I had an acquaintance many years ago -- not really a "friend" -- but someone with whom I associated fairly regularly in the context of my worship community. He identified a group of women within the meeting as a particularly strong and "vociferous" bunch, and came to refer to us as "fangy" women. We took it as a descriptor that was honorable.

I have been wondering about that fangy-ness lately in the context of our M/s relationship and power exchange in general. I am quite certain that, in coming into the place of "belonging" to Master, I have not lost ANY of what is my essential self, and that SELF is capable at an essential level of a definite wildness. I know about my fangs, my claws, my rangy nature, my wariness, my inclination to go to ground when pushed too far... Those drives run deep in me and I embrace them because I worked hard to come to own them for myself in years when I lived hidden and solitary in the midst.

He owns me not because I am tame. He owns me even though I am wild. Not every man would take on a wildish sort; it takes a certain confidence and surety. Easier, I imagine, to snag a "girly" without the drive to snap and tear when driven to the edges...

That wild nature shows up in a variety of ways, but is often mistakenly labeled as "negative." Far too often, women and girls are taught to be nice, complacent, polite, soft, forgiving, quiet. When their honest pains and hurts and injuries cannot be addressed openly, when they cannot express the real emotions of their lives, damage occurs. I believe that there are legitimate and valid "negative" emotions (lists sometimes vary, but this will do):

apathy, grief, fear, hatred, shame, blame, regret, resentment, anger, hostility

I freely own my emotions -- all of them, and I most enjoy reading those who claim participation in this lifestyle and still claim the full range of their emotions. I rejoice when I know that kaya and morningstar and danae and magdala are all fully "on the path," and still fully capable of joy and rage and grief and silliness and all the rest of it. I wonder, sometimes, if the "sluttiness" that is the unending (and sometimes tiresome) fare on some blogs is a cover for genuine human emotion that is too scary and too raw to deal with in the undisguised form, and so it gets dressed up in fetish garb and paraded around on a leash. Maybe not. Maybe I am imagining things.

I do know that I've been genuinely, fiercely, legitimately (at least I think it has been legitimate) angry lately. Angry with the medical establishment that leaves women with so few options for managing difficulties with our reproductive health except to opt for surgery that amounts to castration; angry with my surgeon who gave me evasive and misleading answers to my very direct and urgent questions about my eventual sexual function post -surgically, angry that there are so few treatment options for women in my circumstances and that those that do exist are "off-label" and therefore not paid for by any sort of insurance coverage; angry that because of my lifestyle situation, I cannot even talk about my pain and fear and sadness with anyone outside our family...

I've got a recent email correspondent who suggests that my anger needs to give way to forgiveness. It is the "wisdom," that finds favor in some circles, that holds that anger harms the one that is angry as much or more than it harms anyone at whom it is aimed. If that is your belief, I honor it for you and advise you to stop reading right here...

...because I am of the opinion that all of that is just so much happy horseshit.

I am angry because I cannot have orgasms anymore -- and I was doing that just fine last year this time thank you very much.

I was told by people who were supposed to know, and who I had to trust, and who I questioned carefully on the subject, that I would not lose anything significant in that arena -- and they LIED to me. Did not tell me that there was a significant risk of ending up without my sexual functioning intact. Did not warn me that I might never, ever find my way to sexual vitality again, or that, it might only come at significant effort and cost... I am MAD AS HELL!!! I intend to stay mad just as long as I feel like being mad. I doubt very seriously that forgiving any of the aforementioned folks will restore my orgasms. To tell you the truth, if I thought that gnawing their legs off, WOULD bring back anything approximating normal female sexuality to me, I'd be having leg of doctor for dinner -- in garlic sauce, with the best red wine I could find!

Anyone who wants to pray for a more forgiving spirit for me, knock yourself out, but don't send me any notes about it. Please.

Actually, as I think about the whole business of this particular exchange, I have a variety of reactions:

• I again realize that the act of blogging exposes me to friends and supporters, but too, it opens me to those who have reactions that are not always aligned with me and with us exactly. Many who read here must find that they are made uneasy by the situations that are laid out on this screen month after month after month. Some judge, some snipe, some exhort, some feel the need to try and "fix" things, some probably just watch in horror, some are openly critical, every now and then there is even that mouth breathing bottom feeder sort... I know all of that intellectually, but am continually caught off-guard by it as well. When I write, I am usually just thinking out loud, working stuff out for myself. I never anticipate the reactions that come back, especially when it brings people in who cross over my boundaries. I know that I am most likely more sensitive to that than is really reasonable. Writing makes me seem way more accessible to people than I actually am. I don't know how to warn people ahead of time how prone I am to snap if you push me too hard or too fast -- how prone I am to take offense at presumptions and arrogance.
• I find that I am extremely protective of parts of who I am, and most especially the parts of me that growl and snarl and snap and bite. I need that wild and angry part of me -- that feels like something that I have earned and learned over a lifetime of growing up, and I am not willing to lay that down, or have it judged wrong or wanting. It feels righteous and strong and healthy. I am willing to have it held and curbed by a strong hand, under the right circumstances, but not groomed into "French poodle" sissification. In the end, I bend to only One. He's earned the right, all others best tread lightly. If you don't have claim to the territory, do not even go there.
• I am proud of my darkness, of my rage and my sorrow and my regret and my fear. Just as I am proud of my joy and my wistfulness and my dreaminess and my gentleness. When there is lightness and sweetness in my moods, I don't feel embarrased. I do not apologize for the sunny bits. Those parts of who I am nurture and support and dance, even as the feral, fangy edges prowl the shadows. It is all me, and all as valid and valuable.

I don't know where all of that ends up. I don't know if it matters. I don't know if it makes any sense. I guess I believe that it is not my anger that is at the root of my depression. I could be wrong. I will find the way our of the darkness. And when I come out of it, I am sure -- I hope that I will still be wild and fangy. And I will still be wildly angry (perhaps) at those who betrayed my trust last December. I'll survive this, scars and all, and grow and thrive. But forgiveness is for those who would be food.

swan

keeping our heads above water

I often feel I'd like to write something about our present experience, but am not able to find words or energy to do so.

There is so much in flux here. We are all effected by swan's sincere mourning of her very real loss. At times this means holding her. At times it means probelm solving. At times it means confronting angry behavior when that behavior becomes extreme. It always means reassuring her that her faimly is with her, cares, and that her presence in our family is permanent, committed, and unending. It is not contingent on her health. It is not contingent on her sexual functioning. It is not contingent on her age. It IS. Just as my love for her IS. Just as my attraction to her IS.

I have found her, I believe, the best medical care we can to help with this. I am now trying to help her get the care she needs for her depression and to support her through all of this. The recent roller coaster of her feeling stigmatized at seeking and beginning aniti-depressant medication, to feeling better a week later, to developing an allergic reaction a day later, to dealing this week with the side effects of suddenly discontinuing of her medication, and the attendant disappointment, has been difficult.

I wish I knew a better love making technique that would make her feel as she did...or at least feel better now. I wish I was able to more effectively help her sensually re-integrate if that is what is needed. What I am doing is clearly not the answer. Is the answer about my love-making? I don't know.

Meanwhile as sue goes through her integration into a wonderful new school experience, (thank god she has this in her life) I am going through one of the most professionally intense times ever. This weekend I/we have a fundraising event Saturday and a huge advocacy event on Sunday. When I say "I/we" I mean that. My work is "cause-based" and both t and sue have become very invovled in the cause with me and will spend much of their weekend working by my side. We have had numerous working weekends lately, and much time too devoted to dealing with a care crsis in my parents' lives (I'm the only child of an 86 year old mother with Alzheimer's and an 88 year old father). Poor t is, I think, just trying to hold onto both of us and do whatever she can to help and support us both as she works and lives her life too. It would be easier if all we had to do was just worry about the sexual health crisis Sue is undergoing.

Oh yeah, and then there is the other big change. Twelve days ago I went to the Dr. for my quarterly check-up. My Dr. spent little time with me. She told me that my liver scan had showed I have fatty liver syndrome. This appears to be something most middle-aged Americans have and in and of itself, it is not a major problem........not a problem, that is, if you don't drink alcohol. Well I do.....or I did until 12 days ago. I have not had a drop since then (Dr.'s orders) and am determined I will not again (I love drinking but somehow I suspect life would just not be the same without a liver). But this is a big change. I drank daily for years.. and in some quantity. Those of you who are old friends know that this has been a bone of contention in my reltionship with t and sue for years. I have quit twice before amidst much melo-drama and angst. This time for whatever reason it has been pretty easy. I just stopped drinking. I must have been ready to do this. I am now very taken with tea. My God I've become a "tea-totaler." I have over the years in maintaining my health, and dealing with my diabetes, given up the foods I once enjoyed, and given up smoking, but I always felt if I was careful about the carbs in what I drank......I could still drink!!!! Now I can't even do that. I'd like to say that I don't have aculturated masculine imprinting that says that drinking is macho, but I'd be lying. Sitting about watching football, grunting and scratching, to a nice cup of orange peako tea is well...... as sue joked yesterday, I may soon start making lace doilys. I've threatened something even more emasculating...that if this keeps up I could become a Republican:) So that is another big shift that is in our lives...and by the way...not all negaitve in its impact. I've lost 10 pounds since I quit. I hope that continues.

So this is an overview of the context of sue's life as she has been sharing about it. There actually was a pretty neat spanking and sex sceme last Sunday. Goodness knows when we'll have time for that again -- likely a week from tomorrow.

I still feel unendingly Dominant, but our life circumstances too are intervening in ways that make its overtly sensual/erotic expression difficult. Fortunately my life affords me ample real opportunities to be "in control."

You know admidst all of this, I hope we can get to the point of recognizing that we are together as a Triad, something that five years ago was only a dream. That, yes, we have middle-aged health crises, but we are together for them, and in love, and loving, and supporting each other. I wish we could realize that so many of those who share our lifestyle are at best living in long disatance "sometime" relationships, if they have any sort of real time relatedness at all. That we are, while not rich, wealthy enough to have good late model cars, and a nice home (2 side by side:), and food, and medical care and opportunities like we have tonight to go to the theatre for a comedey (Spamalot.)

There is much we've lost and that we would have back if we could. I'd love to drink again. I can't. We have so much and we need to become happy and fulfilled with the gifts we have. We can do nothing with what we lack.

I hope this doesn't come off as "look at the bright side, the cup is half full, not half empty," patronizing platitudes. That is very much not what I want to say.

We have real loss, real grief, real feelings.

I will assure that we get through this, even if at the moment all the answers are not clear to me.

I will make our lives fufilling.

Sheesh, I fear this post may sound inane, but I had to finally end my silence.

T and sue, I love you so much. While things are not easy now, I wake up each day grateful for you both and your love, submission, and devotion to me and each other. I love our home and our lifestyle. Tonight as I don my leathers and we three go arm and arm into the Theatre confounding our right wing community's theocratic values, I will be thrilled and proud to be with my loves and the Dominant of our family. We have challenges in our lives as we go through yet another of life's passages. We too are able, all three of us, to be leaders and advocates in bringing enlightenment, and joy, and peace to others as we create freedom from the tyranny of bigotry of religious orthodoxy, and exploitive hatred that is about to be rolled back in our society..... a rolling back we will get to see, be part of, and to benefit from.

I love you both. Too I am grateful for so many friends here who have been so good to us, and espeically sue as she has struggled this past year.

We will survive, grow and become well and fulfilled (not to mention very well-spanked--well they will:)

Tom

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined.

The Dialog in my Mind

There was a fairly common experience, I think, among those of us who were of a certain age in America during the "women's lib" era -- we spent a lot of time getting comfortable with our own physical selves, and encouraging each other in that. Some wrote books about it, and the rest of us read those books. We got out our hand mirrors and sat down and took a good look at what our "girl" parts were all about. We took back the business of birthing our children, and nursing those children We claimed our rights to control the how and when and what of our own sexuality.

I spent a lot of years with a female body that I knew and understood in very specific and intimate ways; a body whose tides I'd come to understand in the ebbing and flowing. I'd learned the vagaries of that body, and I mostly trusted its responses. For fifty years, that body and I traveled the path together. Then, last winter, I was surgically removed from the vehicle that has carried me for a lifetime as a woman. I was promised, by my doctor, and by a goodly number of other folks as well, that there would be very few negative changes that I'd notice as a result of that surgery. Turns out that promise was vastly overstated. I am left without the woman's body that I've known all my life, and I am finding it very difficult to dwell in the strange shell that I now occupy.

I need to learn a new body, a new physical geography, a new "sensual" language, and I have no clue as to the vocabulary or syntax, and no idea where to begin. I long to be led into some re-acquaintance with my body; some re-awakening of what it might be like to "feel" this body that is mine.

I want, and I feel silly and selfish in this wanting, help in that process. I feel utterly incapable of teaching myself the things I need to know about this. I went and got the G-spot book, on my doctor's advice, and read it from cover to cover. I've been doing all the recommended exercises to strengthen and tone the muscles. I've got that "information" part handled I think. And I sort of believe that I'm healed up inside from the surgery itself. Too, the sex doctor says that I'm "replete." That seems to mean that all of my hormones have been restored to the place where they ought to be -- or close enough.

Still, I'm not getting much out of things sexual these days. Part of that, I imagine is the depression monster. Fix that and probably things would get better. It was beginning to look that way before all hell broke loose there over the weekend. I'm willing, now, to be sort of patient with that process, believing that there is likely some "better living through chemistry" sort of solution to the imbalance that is turning my psyche into a rodeo ride at unpredictable intervals. However, that doesn't speak to the place where I cannot come to rest completely in my own skin.

I feel as if I have come away from my moorings in a very real physical sense -- as if I need to have the orientation points redrawn and re-established. I cannot do it for myself. I have tried. Over and over, in the quiet darkness, I have sought and searched the ways in which my own hands and fingers might bring the sensory awareness back to my hungering flesh, and thirsting mind. It is like trying to tickle myself. Fruitless.

I need the hand and the guidance of the One to whom I have given my whole self, my whole life, my all. I know He would gladly and joyfully do anything (ANYTHING) to bring me back to the fullness of the pleasure we once shared together. I've seen the desperation in His eyes, and heard the frustration in His voice as I struggle in wordless, clueless helplessness -- unable to give Him the map He needs to know how to take me and so us where we so desperately want to go.

There is that imagining, I think, in all of us who enter into this dynamic, that dreams that Masters can fix anything; solve any problem; protect us from every disaster. It is the unspoken bargain that we make when we step into this life -- the hope that we have (hidden away somewhere deep inside) that the power they hold over us, somehow can be brought to bear on the outside world as well. I know that much of my "feeling" about this parallels the kind of response that I think Lenora pointed to in her piece on Grabbing On last month. There really has been a space here where I've been metaphorically almost waiting for Him to grab me and say something like, "OK. That's enough! Here's the path we're going to take to bring you back to your experience of your sexuality..." and then introduce some sort of plan for that to occur. He's the Master after all, isn't He??? I know; I know -- it isn't fair or reasonable, but then, given the way I've been lately, no one should probably have been expecting fair or reasonable from me.

I think that what I want is some sort of process of sensory "reintegration." I think I probably don't just WANT it. I think I NEED it. I need to be stroked. I need to be tickled. I need to be scratched. I need to be pinched. I need to be kept warm. I need to be made cold. I need to hear and not hear. To smell and to taste. To hurt and not hurt. To strain and to rest. I need to come back into my body. Not all of that probably has to be directly sexual. Maybe not even most of it. I feel like it needs to be deliberate and directed and inescapable and intense enough that I somehow cannot avoid, ignore or escape it.

Not tonight. Not tomorrow. Not right away. Our schedule in the next bit of time is -- crazy. We've been this long. It will keep.

swan

Good News -- Bad News

The good news is that after 7 days of taking prescription Wellbutrin, I was feeling significantly better: lighter, calmer, happier, more settled, and more hopeful about life in general. I had more energy and more willingness to just ride with the ups and downs of things.

The bad news is that on day 8, a general sort of itchiness that I had been not particularly paying attention to, broke out into an all over, major, full on, ugly looking rash, and agonizing itching that portended a BIG TIME allergic reaction to the drug. A weekend on antihistamines, and a call to the doctor has me off the stuff and awaiting another appointment (no time available that fits my work schedule for two weeks) before something else can be prescribed...

So we are back to square one.

Sigh.

swan

The New School

Jack, my good friend, asks if I would write about my new school, and my new kids, and how it is all going. Now, while I can't imagine why any of you could possibly want to read about my days with my 41 sixth graders, I can surely babble on and on about them all and the absolutely amazing school that I have tumbled into...

The place is simply the most phenomenal educational setting I have ever encountered. It is not fancy, mind you. The building is old, and there is peeling paint and no air conditioning and certainly there are plenty of places where the "facilities" are far shinier and more impressive. BUT -- the energy and the vision and the execution and the pure dedication to the idea of education is simply stunning, and the community wrapped around the place is alive with the reality of it. I have spent the first weeks in a continual state of WOW -- when I haven't been just exhausted from trying to keep up with it...

Because everything happens at a breakneck pace there, I don't think there is any such thing as a normal schedule, and events and opportunities and demands come flying from every direction. It is intense. So far, I don't think I've missed much.

One of the very first BIG DEALS, three weeks into the year was that we hosted an International Exchange program during which some 70 students from Germany, Hungary, Russia, and The Netherlands (along with their teachers and chaperones) visited our school and worked on various art projects with our students for a week. They stayed with our families and toured the city. It was an incredible event. There were lots of extra projects going on around our building, lots of interactions between our kids and the visitors, lots of special assemblies and just general disruption. The lead up to it all meant a whole lot of preparatory work. One of the last bits was that the very last Friday, just before the impending arrival, we got word that classrooms should all be decorated to "welcome" the visitors." OH SURE! So, I put my kiddos to work doing the "10 minute bulletin board drill." Now mind you, these kids had been with me just about three weeks at that point. We were still getting to know each other. Things were not fully established, but they were pretty sure they had fallen into the clutches of a mad woman. I sent two of them to the office to obtain as many of the posters for the week as they could get their hands on. I had the others line up chairs across the front of the room so that I could "chair walk" and staple blue construction paper up over the top of the existing bulletin board. "After all," I told them, "the stuff we were putting up only needed to be up for the coming week -- after our company left, it would come right back down. No need to take down our perfectly good bulletin board." The two girls returned from the office bearing armloads of posters which could be cut up for our purposes. The inside of said posters had nice, big, stylized doves carrying olive branches -- symbols of peace and friendship. Every student set to work cutting out a dove. In no time at all we had 20 doves, and a half circle "world" with the motto for the week: "A week to change the world." We stapled our world up at one end of the banner board, and started putting up the doves in a great flock across the front of the room, flying toward the world -- most of them with hand written messages of friendship and welcome from my kids. The whole board was soon a charming flight of doves in flight from our classroom doorway across the whole front of the room. Total time spent: approximately 16 minutes flat. The whole crew was pretty amazed. And THEY owned that welcome! It was a first taste of how my classroom works -- organized chaos!

Since then, we've built models of cells from "found" stuff they collected and brought from home. We've learned how to analyze statistics by studying the "Great Homerun Hitters" of baseball history. We have delved into the ways of historians and anthropologists with a trunk full of treasures like you might find in your grandmother's attic, and we are currently exploring the nature of permeable mebranes with eggs that have spent the last two days floating in vinegar and are currently soaking in water as they balloon to rather remarkable size. We're having a grand time.

You might be surprised to learn, Jack (or maybe not) that I have a "bad boy" who's name is Jack. Imagine that! He is the leader of the pack, so to speak. One of Bad Boy Jack's (how awful can you be when you are only 12?) really horrible, rotten, defiant behaviors is that he simply refuses to tuck in his shirt. This is a hot button issue for our principal. So, I need to get this under control, or I am the one who is going to catch it from the boss. For the past couple of weeks, I've been hitting Bad Boy Jack with my brightest, most radiant smile every time I catch him with even the merest whisper of his shirt tucked in -- and in the chirpiest voice I can manage (and with an utterly straight face), I go on and on about how wonderfully mature, and responsible I think he is being to decide on his own to set such a great example for all of his buddies and start wearing his shirt tucked in! When I started this routine with him, he looked at me like I had lost my flipping mind, but I just went right on as if it was the most normal thing in the world, and then proceeded with whatever I was planning to teach. He would be left just shaking his head. Pretty soon, all his pals began to tuck in their shirts, AND remind him to tuck his in -- since he was setting the example for everyone else. So now, since his buddies have bought the story, his reputation is on the line, and he's caught in the fraud. He's not entirely sure whether I have really suckered him or not. I'd love to just giggle at the poor kid, but the fact is that it has worked. He mostly wears his shirt tucked in; he thinks I'm on his side; his buddies think he's pretty cool; and I'm getting a huge kick out of twisting the little devil's psyche in knots...

Now, on another note, I've had several parents (of girls) report to me in the last 24 hours that the boys are playing the "penis" game in class, and that this is embarrasing the girls. If you are not familiar with this particular little bit of "frolicsome fun," the object of the game is to say the word "penis" in progressively louder voice until someone either refuses to say it or until someone gets caught. Of course, in a classroom, the "thrill" (if you are a 12 year old boy) is that saying PENIS out loud in school embarrasses many of the girls around you to death, and of course risks serious consequences if you get caught. So, playing the game is a way to prove that you are a "manly" man. Tomorrow I'll get to yank some young fellows up short and see if we can't remember our manners. AHEM!

So, Jack, that's the report from the new school. Aren't you glad you asked? Anyone else want to play junior high with me?

swan

Just Keep Swimming

If you happened to ever see the animated movie "Finding Nemo," then you might remember the character of Dory who was voiced by Ellen Degeneres. Dory was the ditzy, skinny, blue fish with the sunny personaliy and no practical sense of direction who somehow always ended up in the right place anyway. Her advice to Nemo's father when things got tough was to "keep on swimming, swimming, swimming -- it's what we do."

I'm thinking that Dory is the model for what I'm doing these days: just keep swimming, swimming, swimming. Everytime I think that things might slow down just a bit; settle enough to get a breather; come to a place where I could think about what would work to make things feel calmer and better; give us a chance to talk and really reach some resolution -- another hurdle comes at us at full speed. That seems to be the way of it; life never sends just one challenge. There is the escalating issue of elders with significant cognitive decline and the need for that to be addressed soon, more of our own health issues loom and dictate even more lifestyle changes, work life changes have changed our routines just enough to have us unsettled and "off" kilter...

Around it all is the sense that the world spins too fast and with a tinge of meanness that grows steadily more ominous. We recently got word of some input to a planning process that is going on with Master's agency. The word came to us in such a fashion that it felt as if there might be something insidious in the information -- we were immediately thrown into worrying about whether it was "about us." It turned out that it wasn't that at all, but it put us once again into the space where we were made aware of the edge we walk -- how vulnerable we are to gossip and vindictiveness should someone choose to use our lifestyle against us.

And, through it all, we keep swimming. It is what we do.

swan

I am Depressed

I am depressed.

It is terribly hard for me to write those words.

I have fought and avoided saying that; fought admitting the truth of it for many months now. I am ashamed to have to say it here, but it is a fact, and it is overwhelming much of my life right now. It keeps me mute here much of the time; keeps me from saying anything of substance a good part of the time; prevents me from contributing around the circle in any very meaningful way; and too often brings me out sounding and feeling angry and bitter. The simple reality is that I am often envious of those who by virtue of age or luck have their femininity intact, their sexuality undiminished -- and I am often threatened and prone to see enemies where none exist.

I cannot sleep. I am beyond sad. I cry at things that mean almost nothing. I am ready to fight at the slightest provocation. My anger is wide ranging and without bounds. It pours forth as my joy and happiness used to. I lie awake in the darkness of the night, alone with my hurt and my rage, and imagine using His many and varied knives to cut my flesh simply so that I might watch the blood flow... I consider the potential for suicide and homicide. I have not acted on any of that, but the thoughts are there, and they scare the heck out of me.

This morning, in just a few minutes, I will leave for the doctor's office to seek help with this problem that I cannot fix by myself. I am terrified, horrified, embarrassed. I feel broken and lost and weak. I've tried to "choose to be happy," hoping that if I pretended happiness, it would take somehow, but the depression is only getting worse. He will be with me, otherwise, I don't think I could do this.

I am sorry if you have gotten caught in one of my rages, one of my tantrums, one of the barages I've sent out in all of this. None of you have deserved any of it. I apologize. I know I should have been better, stronger, more balanced. Please forgive me.

swan