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Thursday, September 20, 2012

You Never Stop Learning

Master and I have lived together for 12 years now, and we are still quite happy with each other. In the past couple of months we both put a little more emphasis on making the power exchange a bit more blatant in our relationship. It had sort of fallen into the background. It wasn't dropped or anything, but due to my being bedridden for 2 years, with extremely high levels of pain and severely curtailed mobility there just wasn't a whole lot of blatant stuff going on. I mean I still handled the things I could do in the manner that master prefers. I still referred to him and he continued to have final say on everything. There just wasn't a lot of daily requirements such as tasks or him requesting service such as my getting his dinner plate, or a drink of water. This occured because I could no longer stand or walk for more than 2 minutes when the changes in my pain levels first started (summer 2010). Over that first year it progressed to my being able to stand for 5 to 7 minutes, but no longer than that. This was very distressing for both of us and of course the situation brought on one of the most severe bouts of depression I have ever gone through.

In my last entry I mentioned how my doctor had switched me to Cymbalta and how it was positively affecting my pain, depression, and my life. It has continued to help me a great deal which has allowed me to develop a social life again! YAY! I'm still working on the "scene reports" (for lack of a better description) of my experiences as the Fall Ball. I have all the basics down and am working on filling in the details, once it is complete I will post it in a series so it isn't a single entry that is 20 pages long LOL

I made new friends with the leaders of our local munch group (as well as some of the members) and thanks to the lower pain level (which increased my mobility again) I started going over to visit Skyclad Mistress a few times a week. I went swimming in her apartment complex pool multiple times. We went shopping together for dresses and lingerie for the Fall Ball, and lots of other fun things. Basically I started having a more normal social life again and it feels fantabulous!

With the relief of much of my depression's symptoms, and the lowering of my pain levels, master and I started talking about ways to once again make the power exchange more blatant in our relationship. As my symptoms improved, I am once again able to do more things around the house without hurting myself or causing a pain crisis. Master is choosing to move slowly with re-implementing service, tasks, play etc. so my physical strength and tolerance can grow and I'll have less chance of a setback. Two years of being mostly bedridden does a number on the strength of one's muscles. Anyway part of this includes writing in my journal again, the written notebook, on a daily basis.

As a result of writing in the journal, and having talks with master we have grown a bit over the last few weeks. It crossed my mind a little bit ago that we have both discovered new things about each other in these last few weeks. This realization caused me to start thinking of how people say things like "you learn something new every day" and other phrases in a similar vein. Master and I have had our issues and rough patches over the past 12 years, just like any couple will have, with the last two years being fairly rough due to my health; but we still have a close bond with each other and can still discover new things as well as continue to grow. What I am finding is that my fear that those two years would result in us growing apart did not come true. Instead we have grown closer together and have learned better means of communicating with each other. I think this is just wonderful because communication is so necessary for bdsm relationships (well any relationship really, but definitely with a bdsm one). With good communication disagreements or arguments don't occur as often and the people involved in the relationship get their needs met more easily. There are apparently always ways to increase good communications skills within a relationship, even one that is 12 years old. :)

I find it nice that even after 12 years together, we still aren't bored with each other and continue to grow as separate people AND as a master and slave and as a couple. We have had some really great talks in the last few weeks and have demonstrated that growth with each other. So now I have another thing to be very happy about thanks to the Cymbalta easing both my pain and my depression. Not only do I get a social life back, go out at least a few times a week, attend parties/munches/events, but I also have a deeper level of trust and intimacy with master again, like we used to have. Some of it kind of stalled during the last 2 years while I was bedridden most of the time. We are once again able to share our thoughts, feelings etc. with each other more readily and openly because the depression is a great deal less severe in me.

I am grateful for the return of a social life, but I am even more excited about and grateful for the ability of master and I to begin growing with each other (while enjoying each other in lots of ways--including the deliciously evil ones LOL) and once more having our m/s relationship be more active and thus grow as well.

Of course being able to play again and make love more frequently doesn't hurt either *wink*

Things are looking much better!

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Returning To This Blog

I last wrote in this blog back in March of this year (2012). In that entry I discussed how the power exchange between master and I was different from what I was accustomed to and trained to in the past. We had recently talked a great deal about these things and I found that my decision to let go of my expectations (based on past experiences) turned out to be exactly the right thing to do.

Sadly my depression continued to worsen, as my constant level of pain remained very high (between a 7 and 8 as the normal constant level with spikes to 9 and 10 regularly) as well as my ability to move around remained extremely low. Master did continue to make service type requests of me (such as getting him a glass of water) if my back allowed it, sadly this did not happen very often. Not because he did not want to request service (he did want to; very badly even!) but because I physically could not do it. As a direct result of the constantly high levels of pain and severely decreased mobility (pretty much bed-ridden all the time) my depression hit a level I have not experienced before. This, despite taking anti-depressant medication on a daily basis. Apparently this medication just stopped working.

My doctor replaced it with a different medicine and it helped for a couple months, but not longer than that. I didn't realize that this medication was not really helping me. I wanted so badly to think that I was improving that I ended up in denial about my actual state of depression. I started to use old coping mechanisms from childhood; the ones that helped me to survive even if they did hurt me at the same time. I started dissociating from the people around me. Since I was stuck in bed all day every day, I spent my days surfing the internet. I read blogs, web sites that were supposed to be funny (and some really were!!), YouTube videos and such. I don't recall most of what I read or watched because I wasn't really paying attention. Instead I was using the web as a means of dissociating from my daily life and condition.

In addition to the dissociation, apathy also hit me very hard. I just didn't truly care about doing anything. I read the same book for weeks at a time, over and over, because I just didn't care enough to get a different book off the shelf. It was very bad. I had mentioned these things to my doctor at every visit, but I was ignored. Finally master came to an appointment with me. With him being there the doctor was much friendlier and actually listeened to what master told him (which were the exact same things I had been telling him [the doctor] for months! Anyway the result is that they switched me to a different anti-depressant, Cymbalta. In addition to helping ease depression symptoms, Cymbalta is FDA approved to help treat the pain of fibromyalgia and the muskuloskeletal pain of low back injuries.

I did not expect the Cymbalta to do anything for my pain. After a couple of weeks of taking the Cymbalta at the 60mg dose (half of the usual daily dose for depression) I started to notice changes. I was able to stand for a couple minutes longer, my pain wasn't feeling as "sharp" or "intense" as usual, and my overall constant pain level was lower than usual; instead of 7 -8 I was hovering around 6-7 most of the time. As more time went by these changes continued to get stronger. As a result I had to admit that the Cymbalta must be doing something because it was the only change in my medicine or routine. I began to get excited, though I tried not to get my hopes up too high just in case this improvement was temporary.

Well, it's been just under 4 months since I started taking Cymbalta every day. I haven't had any major side effects, or allergic type reactions to the medicine either. Instead my pain levels continued to change. I am so freaking excited!! I am feeling impatient to find out if the increased to usual dose of 120mg a day will lower my pain even more. Anyway since switching to Cymbalta I can now walk around a store for an hour (dress shopping for the Fall Ball held by Submissive Round Table in FL) without having to sit on the floor. I did have to sit in the dressing room and then againon the chairs near the front door. But instead of needing to sit and it taking 3 or 4 hours to actually help, I only needed to sit twice and neither one was an emergency! I babbled all the way home to Skyclad Mistress's house and for the rest of the night. I was just so excited when I realized what I had done. The pain crisis I was epxecting did not happen even though for the past few years a pain crisis was my usual reaction.

Thanks to this less intense and lower pain level I've actually been able to do more. Even better my desire to *WANT* to do stuff has returned as well! I've been going out to a friend's house to hang around, chat and swim in the pool that the apartment building has. I've been doing more at home such as cleaning, cooking, moving laundry and stuff. I haven't felt this low level of intensity in at least 10 years or so. It is just fantastc! As a result I find myself loving Cymbalta a whole lot more. I am so very very happy with the results!

The Cymbalta made it possible for me to go to my first weekend bdsm event. I was able to stay through the entire weekend! Since this entry is already very long I will write up my experieences at the Fall Ball in another entry.

Man am I a happy camper! LOL

Sunday, March 25, 2012

WOW Far Too Long

It has been a very long time since I have posted to this blog and I feel badly about that. However, things in my life have been rather hectic at times. My chronic pain has gotten worse. I fell and got a new fracture line on the left SI joint on Christmas Eve 2010. I've continued to struggle with depression, specially since I'm pretty much bed-ridden. I had to have a cancerous tumor removed from my right breast in the summer of 2010. I did some fundraising for a family friend who's son was badly burned in an accident, which made my chronic pain even worse. I now can not stand for more than 3 to 5 minutes without extreme pain and having my legs give out dropping me to the floor. This, of course, brought about another tough bout of depression which I am currently trying to fight my way out of and not doing very well. I've been in bed since April-May 2011. As a result of the decrease in my ability to walk and the higher pain levels the overt actions of the power exchange in my relationship (such as play, any formal times, lengthy task lists etc.) took a back seat. We both still knew that Master owned me and that he had final say in all things, but overt behaviors became more erratic (such as getting him a glass of water) based upon my pain level.

Since we had some issues with keeping the power exchange at a more obvious level (rather than just the quiet knowledge of who has final say in everything) I wasn't posting here. We haven't played much in the past year either and we both really miss it. Master and I have spent time communicating and thinking about this. In the past, when the more overt dominant behaviors would drop away in the rush of daily life, I was usually the one to bring it up. I would tell Master that I missed it. We would talk about it and end up with a list of tasks I was to perform, rules to follow etc. As a result he would either try to be a bit more overt or he wouldn't. The latter would quickly replace the former and we'd be back where we started. So a while ago I decided to just stop bringing it up. It didn't change the fact that I was owned, nor that I would do things the way I know he prefers them done. It didn't change the fact that he is in charge and what he says goes in 99% of the situations we faced.

We started talking about this tonight and Master told me that when he feels like he is being prodded to do something it gets his back up and he ends up not doing it because it felt like he was being ordered to do it and he does not like feeling that he is being ordered to do something. I thought that might be the case (took me a while to figure that out), so about a year ago I decided to not bring it up and to just see what would happen. I did continue to follow the rules and do things the way he wanted them done. He still had the right to order me to do stuff (which he occasionally did) and he still had final say in all things. After a short while I started to notice that he was giving a few more orders here and there. I did not try to make a discussion about this requesting more than what he was giving at the time. Instead I just enjoyed it and obeyed. I did thank him when he gave an order, or mention that it felt good, but I did not take it further than that. I was curious to see where it would go if allowed to grow on its own. Over the last few months, this has continued to become more frequent. He continues to be very understanding of my physical limitations, but he has taken me to task verbally for my tone of voice, or taking a joke a bit too far and other things along those lines.

In February we attended the Valentine's Day party for our local BDSM group. We had an absolute blast! It was a lot of fun. My pain made it that we had to leave after only a few hours, which made me feel a bit bad, but overall I just felt wonderful for having gone and we had a great time! Around the same time we also started getting back on IRC and reading stuff on FetLife more often. I noticed that as we, once more, entered a bit more into the community itself (interacting with other bdsmers) his dominance continued to become more overt. I've noticed over the past 11 years that when Master and I participate in bdsm discussions, attend group activities, or hang around the chat rooms (including the gorean ones), that it brings the power exchange part of our relationship more to the fore-front of our minds. As before, this is now the case and this resulted in our discussion tonight.

Tonight we went out to eat at Mellow Mushroom Pizza (great food by the way!) and we talked a lot. One of the subjects we toched upon was the power exchange part of our relationship. We have both learned a lot about each other and how we fit together within our relationship as well as the power exchange parts in the past 11 years together (it will be 12 years in June). I have learned that Master is more quiet in his dominance. He isn't one to be micro-managing, or barking orders all day long. He prefers to teach the slave his expectations and preferences and then expects the slave to follow them whether he gives a specific order or not.

However I tended to focus on having tasks or orders given on a fairly frequent basis. I don't like micro-managament so I'm not talking about that, but I mean things like getting him a glass of water, or doing certain household tasks and things like that. I was used to having a dominant that would give those orders or give me a list of tasks to be completed for the next day on top of my regular daily stuff. So for me, there was some adjustment needed to adapt to Master's more quiet style of dominance as well as for me to realize that I do not need daily lists of tasks in order to feel owned and submissive. Also, within myself is the fact that I need to have limits and have them enforced, including punishment as necessary. Again my past experience differed from what Mastere preferred and as I am his first live-in slave he was still learning what worked for him the best and what didn't work for him. Master does not punish easily, nor quickly. My past experiences and his preferences in this area were not fully compatible. So this was another area that we had to work on and grow together within.

So over the past few months as I have noticed him giving more orders, rather than bring it up I just went with it. I was curious to see how it would develop if I let it grow naturally, on its own and in whatever manner Master wanted to go. I am happy to say that it continues to grow naturally. I'm also happy to say that I've managed to reach a point within myself that I do not need a daily list of things to be done (though I do enjoy it when it occurs, like when Master used to send me daily emails).  I would still enjoy receiving emails with tasks in them, but I no longer need them to feel like i am serving Master.

While talking tonight Master told me why he would often pull back when I brought up the subject of wanting/needing/missing more overt dominant behaviors. I had figured it was something like that but it was nice to have his explanation. We had a very good conversation. He told me that he had intended to continue with the more overt dominant behaviors becaues he noticed that I responded to them very well.

It is still pretty amazing to me how I can still learn new things about Master; even after almost 12 years together. He has said he will try to help motivate me to fight this depression and apathy, to help me get back a better quality of life despite the pain. I really hope he continues to do that as I have proven, more than once, that I can't do this all by myself.

So here we go again and I will try to write in here more often as Master told me he wants me to write a journal entry every day, whether it is on paper or on one of my three blogs. He doesn't care which method I use, so long as I use one. His reasons for this are fairly simple; in the past I have always done better when I was writing every day and since I've stopped I seem to have more difficulty in fighting my depression, working things out in my own mind, and more.

I love you Master and I thank you for your patience and your love!