It seems that, if we are going to work this out, it will perhaps happen here where it all broke apart.
I don't know what to say, and I don't know how to move forward. Clearly everything I've offered so far has been viewed as manipulative.
That is the reality. I can't change the way He sees me now. I can only work to see if I can try to repair and rebuild what I've obviously destroyed.
Realizing that walking back through the "history" of this disaster is going to seem like I'm making excuses, I want to say, up front, that I haven't got a single excuse for anything I've done. I was wrong, have been wrong, and stand convicted of all the horrible things that He says I've done through all these days and weeks and years. So, the history is just that -- history, and like all history, it reflects the biases of the teller.
My "craziness" goes back a long way. The words that document it are all in the archives here. If anyone cares, its readily available. I'm not going to reprise all of that. It doesn't seem germane or helpful.
This year has been terribly difficult -- a year of surgeries and illnesses and huge life changes. The outcomes have been ultimately good from a health perspective, but getting here has been a battle. Of course, it wasn't my battle. Only Master and T had surgery. The changes for me have all been peripheral to their journey.
I've had more control this year than is the norm. I've been caretaker and decision maker and manager and keeper of all the bits and pieces. I've tried to offer that as a service. I'm not sure I have been successful in the doing of that.
I've tried to be upbeat and hopeful and patient and optimistic. I've played cheerleader, keeping us focused on the future -- the goal. I've sorted clothes and taken all the photos and celebrated each medication that we crossed off the list. I've been the support "staff." That is the role that was appropriately mine to play.
I went to Denver. By the time I left, I didn't want to go. I was afraid. There wasn't much of anything that I could point to and say THIS is what I am afraid of. I was just wishing that I didn't have to leave and afraid that I wouldn't be able to come back. That sort of nebulous, crazy, emotional weirdness doesn't make any sense to anyone. I know. It just seems crazy. It was a pretty good trip. The baby is delightful. I was lonely and ready to come home way before it was time.
I took a book with me to read on the plane and at the airports and late at night in the hotel. It was given to me at a Catholic school teacher conference I attended recently. It is called "Rediscovering Catholicism," by Matthew Kelly. I don't know why I decided to read it. I've long since left my Catholic upbringing behind. Still, I teach in the Catholic school system, and part of me thought maybe I should "update" my understanding of this particular group of people. Too, I thought, as I read, that I could posit counterarguements and logical dissents to each of his points. What happened, instead is that I got more and more agitated as I read. More uncomfortable and more distraught. More "convicted" of all the evils and failings and sins he writes of. There is an old saying about being raised Catholic: "give us a child until they are seven, and they are ours for life." It is worse than an alcohol addiction. There is no "one drink" for a recovering Catholic.
Poisonous mix: fearful, tired, strung out -- and then stupidly filling my addled brain with the very worst voodoo Catholic bullshit. I did it. To myself. No one to blame but me.
I came home, but I wasn't really home. I was already lost.
Everything else is what it is. I wasn't good in our only play session. All the fear and all the anger and all the panic boiled up and poured out as incoherently as everything else. Convinced that I am bad and unloveable, it was easy to believe that He didn't love me -- and that was the worst of the bad things I've done.
I set up another blog thinking maybe I could write there, and He could read and decide what should be public and what not. I thought it was a small way of putting the control back in His hands. He thinks that is a dumb idea. So. That's that.
Now, He won't play with me. Now He doesn't trust me. Now He says that I am controlling and manipulative. Now He is polite and careful with me. Now He is looking forward to me going back to school.
I am sad. I am lost. I am afraid. I don't know what to do. I don't even know what name to use...
Thank you all for reaching out. I am sorry that I have not got anything more to offer than that.
sue (?)
while this may seem somewhat simplistic, i suggest you have a complete physical, both general and female doctors; and that you talk to some kind of counselor. i know you feel your poly lifestyle doesn't lend itself to traditional psychiatry, but try. it sounds to me like you need to talk something out, there is something deep down eating at you. figure that out and the rest may take care of itself.
ReplyDeletemy dear stranger/friends, my heart goes out to each of you in this confusing and distressing time. i've been reading and thinking as this has unfolded. what i am reminded of is that when the creaky, paranoid voice starts up in my head, it is my job #1 to remember that 99.9% of the time, that voice has nothing - absolutely nothing - to with actual circumstances in my current life. the fear that fuels that voice in me is a longstanding beastie that uses whatever is handy to tell me the same old tired stories about how people are disappointed in me, about how people are hiding things from me because i don't matter enough to them, etc. in a word: tedious. and in some other words: patently untrue. it's just a fearful perspective grasping at anything to keep it's fires burning bright. it comes and it goes. the less attention i give it, the less it comes and the faster it goes. the worst thing i can do is buy into the stories and start making lists of pros & cons, as though fear is rational and something one can simply outsmart by being preemptively smarter. this is, imho, an over-thinker's disease. the only thing for it for me is to say, "oh, here's that fear again." and then turn my attention elsewhere, preferably somewhere that engages me in something useful & positive & out of my own head. i don't know if this is helpful at all, or if you'll find it overly simplistic, but i can say without hesitation that compassionate self-understanding & taking the teeth out of it by not giving it too much attention has made a world of difference in my life.
ReplyDeletemy very best to each of you.
Like the other commenters I want to help, and want to hug you all and tell you that it will be all right because you all love each other and because I KNOW you are good together and that this is a blip.
ReplyDeleteIn this case Tom was hurt too. But he seemed more hurt by the suggestion that swan was rejecting his need for bdsm/spanking than by the jealousy.
Sue, you were jealous and afraid of losing your place. That made you suspeicious and unhappy.
None of those things are good things. But they aren't beyond resolving. And they come from good feelings, the love you have for each other.
When I fight with my Master, a big fight where we have said things that are damaging, the only way is for me to submit to him again. To put all the control back in his hands. To humble myself and ask forgiveness. To apologize and if possible to open myself and explain what I feared. And for me to let go of things that don't matter, not try to defend things I might have said or done.
Maybe it's not that simple here. If not, I apologize for presuming. I was trying to help.
sin
I'm so sorry, Swan. When you feel you have tried your very best, and failed, and no one has understood how badly you tried and how badly that hurt you, it hurts very badly indeed. I think the problem is that He feels the same way about loving you the way you need as well. Now you are trying to go back, and he is afraid to. You both can, and will, I think, but it takes time. One foot in front of the other time...you know how to do it, you've done it many times this year... Keeping you close, and sending you strength.
ReplyDeleteOh Swan! My heart breaks for what you're all going through, but for you most of all...maybe because I can totally identify with what you're thinking. Maybe it's a girl thing, maybe it's a slave thing.
ReplyDeleteI'm totally with Impish1...time is what you all need. It sounds like things were said on both sides that have caused pain, yet above it all there is still so much love. Once upon a time, in a bad emotional trauma of mine, I had someone tell me "Take it day by day. If you can't, then take it hour by hour. And if you can't do that, take it minute by minute." Hang in there Swan, I'm confident it will all right itself in time.
butterfly