Clarifying

Some things get simpler when you overlay a power exchange dynamic on a relationship. There are rules and protocols and expectations. Routines define the way the days and weeks pass, and that sameness can create a sense of stability and security. That can be very good. Knowing how the power flows eliminates a lot of uncertainty and the need for pushing and pulling that can develop in less defined power structures. But power exchange can make some things tricky. That is especially true, I've discovered, when the "slave" part of a power exchange dynamic has an "issue." Unless the dynamic has pathways to address that possibility, there can be blockages that are very difficult to clear.

That has been my story, and it has been a story that I have been ... reluctant to tell in plain language.

I've been mad. I've been mad at Him. The anger hasn't been entirely rational, or even entirely all about the same thing all the time -- once it got started though, it seemed to attract things to itself. But, I'm His slave. I have had no idea what to do about dealing with that anger. It has seemed wrong to me, and on the few occasions when I've managed to work myself up to trying to discuss it with Him, He's cut me off from that path with just a very few words (that sound that Masters seem to have). Other people don't seem to GET mad at their Masters -- or if they do, they sure as heck don't talk about it openly. If you are reading in the same places that I've been reading, slaves are all happy and joyous all the time, and the Master-types are unfailingly good and just and most of all "RIGHT."

Fact of the matter is, I am slave. I am also a critter with a way too highly developed sense of justice, and when something gets to feeling "out of kilter" to me, there is just no amount of internal talking that is going to quiet down the voice in my head that WILL insist that the way things stand -- just isn't right/just/fair. I KNOW that, within a power exchange dynamic, there is a deliberate choice to make things unequal, and I've agreed to that, but that fits into my inherent sense of justice. Still there are lines that can get crossed that can fall into territory that feels "unfair" -- even inside of that dynamic. That's where my heart and head have been -- for a long, long time. How and why isn't important. That it has felt that way, is. What in the blazes do you do when it feels like the One who holds your whole life in His hands is way out of sync with your heart, and you can't find anyway to bring that to a reasonable place of resolution? How does "property" DO the business of being "mad" at the Owner?

So, it has been way easier to be sad. Sad has seemed an OK emotion for me, as slave, where anger has not. If I got sad, He seemed to accept that emotional state, and supported me in seeking some sort of "help." It wasn't real or truthful or likely to get me anywhere productive, but it seemed somehow more "appropriate," and acceptable.

There's just one problem with that. I can go to therapy until I'm 198, and tell everyone that I'm "depressed," and take a gazillion different kinds of pills, and I'm going to get nowhere at all as long as the root problem is that I'm ANGRY rather than SAD. As long as I keep swallowing that anger -- stuffing it back inside somewhere, and refusing to allow that it is real and genuine and deserving of its moment out in the light, it is going to just keep festering and showing up in violent and inappropriate disguises. Sad and mad are not interchangeable.

I think that the crappy therapist did something right, albeit entirely by accident. He made me furious. Once I got over the shock of living through the absolutely awful session with him, I started to burn and seethe and boil over with the pure injustice of having to have gone through that experience. As the "noise" around here began to devolve towards finding another therapist who would be better, so that I could do it all again, I finally found a voice I've been lacking for the last couple of years. The horrible thought of repeating that experience made it worth risking His displeasure to actually tell Him the truth -- "I am NOT DEPRESSED -- I'M MAD -- AT YOU, and here's why..."

That conversation has not been easy. It has not been particularly light or fun or pleasant. I have had to struggle to hold onto my sense of my own center, so that I could speak directly to what I have been angry about without getting lost in the face of His much quicker ability to spin words and toss phrases and ideas around. I've had to listen carefully and intently to my internal longings, so that I could finally share those with Him. I realize that, as difficult as this week has been, I have owed us both the truths that I have not been telling.

I have no illusions. I don't kid myself that a few conversations, however intense, will change everything and set us back on the path to the M/s promised land. I do think that we have a chance now to move affirmatively to correct problems that really exist between us, rather than expending energy on a strawman of an issue that has been paraded as a masquerade to cover up the difficult challenges that have been too daunting for us to want to tackle within the context of our M/s.

I've been afraid of my own losses and diminishments, and I've been too willing to doubt His capacities and intentions. I'm not liking the results of my being fearful and doubtful. I can choose to go forward clinging to a label that has me sick and weak and mostly unable to cope (with all the deficits that will imply and bring to our life and relatedness), or I can reject that description and deceit and choose to confront the issues that cause me to be angry and uncomfortable until I find a way to accommodate or resolve the questions that lie between He and I. One path seems to leave me weak and continually in the role of victim; the other gives me back the option to go forward into the life I have chosen with courage and joy. That seems like a clear and obvious choice to me.

I do appreciate all the care and concern that has been extended by so many here. I recognize that all the angst that I've poured out here over all of this may seem baffling and perhaps even blatantly dishonest. I wouldn't blame a single person who, at this juncture, simply throws up their hands and says, "The heck with this chick -- she's flat crazy!" I might do the same myself under the circumstances. All I can do is assure people that I have not intended to deceive, but have honestly struggled to know how to cope with the very real pressures and dilemmas that have arisen for me while living within what I have perceived as the covenants I made. I intend to continue to do that. What I do not intend to do anymore is accept the labels that would have me identify as "sick," or "depressed," or "ill," or "crazy" anymore.

swan