Don't Panic!

I don't know what happened yesterday. I'm still as baffled by it as I was when it happened. We were playing along fine, not doing anything new, and then wham, I freaked out and all reason left me. I wasn't thinking, I wasn't feeling, I was just not present. I flailed about but didn't actually try to defend myself or fend him off. It seems now as if I didn't have any control over my body. My mind was gone and in its absence the body just went crazy.

Master seems certain it was panic because I was blindfolded and I rely on my sight very heavily. In part, I think this is true but I don't think that is the whole of it. I'd been blindfolded for quite some time lying on my belly while he worked my backside over. It was when he rolled me over onto my back, sobbing from what he'd done to my backside, that the fear really set in. Then he bent over, his face close to mine, probably nearly touching as I could feel his breath as it whooshed out of his nostrils. He ordered me to open my mouth and he spit into it, ordering me to swallow it. This is something we've done many times but somehow, being blindfolded made it terrifying. I struggled to comply, gagging as I did so. He spit again and that's when it happened. Maybe it was panic, it's just not panic like I've ever experienced it before. I couldn't verbalize, my eyes were shut tight behind the blindfold, my legs flopping around as my arms and hands twitched and flailed helplessly on either side of my head. I wasn't restrained in any way, just lying blindfolded on the bed on my back.

He instantly removed the blindfold, I couldn't open my eyes, was afraid to I think. He ordered me to open them, he had to repeat the command a couple of times I think, before I complied momentarily. It seemed to take me a long time to be able to open my eyes and keep them open. It took even longer to get my breathing under control, which prolonged my panicked feelings. He was so calm and in control as he ordered me to breathe slowly and to look at him. "In through your nose and out through your mouth slooooowly" Each shaky exhalation a little slower than the last. It took a while before I got my hands under control; they always seem to begin to twitch when I panic and don't stop until it's completely passed.

Sometimes I think he's the only person in the world who can gentle me down as quickly and efficiently as he did yesterday. He knows me so well and has a broad knowledge of human psychology. He never seems surprised or ruffled by anything,his sense of calm is soothing to me.

He sat down next to me on the bed once I was calmer and petted and soothed me to help settle me down even more. Once I was breathing more normally he pulled me up and held me to him, cuddling me and reminding me that I was safe and I was with him. He's been with me through enough flashbacks and body memories to know I need that reminder to help ground me in the here and now.

That's probably the worst thing about panic, you loose your sense of who you are and where you're at. If it's a panic brought on by flashbacks you're actually reliving the experience. Just writing about all of this has me feeling a bit jittery and panicky, it's so easy to bring a panic on by just remembering how it feels. I hate that.

Later on, over lunch, I explained to him that I think it was a combination of things that caused my reaction yesterday. I thought it was just a combination of being blindfolded and having him in my face (I'm claustrophobic) that set it off. I'm sure now there was one more deciding factor. Being on my back, having my nude front exposed always makes me feel vulnerable, then add a blindfold and trigger my claustrophobia... it makes sense today.

He made sure I didn't think of it as a failure and that I knew he wasn't disappointed in me or in such a swift ending of the scene. His reassurances helped me recover and continue on in another direction. Then we spent the rest of our day doing some much-needed shoe shopping and having a nice quiet lunch at a favorite restaurant. After that was family time and Master's excellent barbequed pork chops, smoked with applewood. The house still smelled of applewood smoke and peppers this morning when I woke up. Soothing scents indeed, reminding me just how fortunate and blessed I am.

No, yesterday wasn't a failure, it was a lesson. Things may not always go to plan, adapt, modify, and overcome when they don't.

Age Play, Not Just A Role

Maybe I assumed it, but I thought he understood and knew exactly where I was coming from. When we first started doing this he would tell me to "grow up" to signal he needed me in grown up head space once again. To me that signifies understanding on some level. I guess I read him all wrong on this one. Maybe it was wishful, or hopeful, thinking. I wanted so badly for someone to understand and to know I'm not crazy, I'm not mentally ill, and I don't have multiple personalities. This is just another facet of me.

I often think of a prism when I consider my personality, there are many facets, none of them are whole by themselves. Sometimes I can "focus" on one facet, my inner kid, and that becomes the dominant part of my personality for a period of time. My inner kid is still me, it isn't another part of me, doesn't have a different name, different body, or different personality. It's just me, only younger, more vulnerable, more pliable, and more playful.

I sink into a childlike state of mind and sometimes I can get "stuck" in that state of mind. I don't know why, it just happens. I try to control it. I try to keep it in check and only let little bits out every now and then because it's usually not an appropriate time to let it out. Last night I let it out a little when I begged Daddy to let me watch a movie I wanted to see. I even went in to promise him I'd be a good girl and that I'd make him happy (in this case a euphamism for offering sex). I felt like he "got" where I was in my headspace but looking back, I'm not sure he did. The only signs, as far as I'm aware, are my speech patterns, word usage, and body language. Unless I'm dressed for it, which includes pigtails, Hello Kitty barrettes, and specific clothing, there are no other (to my knowledge) signs that I'm in a lil head space.

Last night I got stuck in lil head space. At first I thought Daddy and I were going to cuddle on the couch for a little bit but he wanted to go up to bed. So I finished the stuff I was doing and came up to bed too. The problem started when he wanted sex with his wife/slave not his lil girl. I tried hard to grow up and be what he wanted but I just couldn't seem to do it. He was unaware of my growing distress because I sort of shut down and withdrew. I tried to be brave, tried to not get upset. Unfortunately my emotions got away from me.

Afterwards I felt as if I'd had the rug pulled out from under me. I'd believed all along that he knew what ageplay was for me, I thought too that it was similar for him. He thought all along that it was the same for me as it was for him. That while it wasn't exactly just role play or "pretend", it wasn't exactly "real" either. Apparently we missed something in our communications about the subject. Maybe we were both too focused on our mutual enjoyment and avoiding causing further traumas or triggering old ones.

I'm thankful he kept at me until I was able to talk about it. He let me cry it out and then held me while we talked. I was so scared. I thought for sure that since he hadn't known that it was real for me that he'd think I was mentally ill or that it was a multiple personality issue. I hesitate to write this because of possible misunderstandings. I don't want to be thought of as mentally ill because I'm not. Multiple personality disorder, aka Disassociative Identity Disorder, is a disorder where the facets of a personality fracture into separate and individual personalities as a means of coping with traumatic situations (generally happening in childhood). Granted, I've had some traumatic childhood experiences but I've never been able to disassociate in any way other than to sort of shut down and not actively participate in what is going on. I've always, always been mentally present through everything including those traumatic experiences. As a side note, I think this inability to disassociate plays a hand in my not "flying" in sub space like others have described. I'm just always there.

I don't know where we'll go from here. He said that if he's not in the mood to be Daddy and I was in lil head space he would be happy to cuddle me. I want to trust that he means this but I'm kind of scared. I misunderstood him before, what if I am misunderstanding this time? Part of me wants to keep my inner kid under lock and key now, never expressing that side of me again. Last night was upsetting, and scary. I don't like feeling that way and I don't like being stuck in lil head space without Daddy.

Duh!

I had a 2x4 moment today while reading through my s-type only e-mail list. It was while reading a response to a question about how to separate one's submission from one's daily life that it happened. The responder stated that there are so many things we do each day that are acts of service, though we may not see them as such, they still are.

He has been saying much the same thing to me for the past six months, just not in as many words. It seems to have been a gradual process that ended with a sudden "Duh! Now I get it!"

It felt like I'd zoomed way out and had a bird's eye view of the bigger picture of my life with the Boss.

My working full-time has had some very positive benefits that far outweigh the perceived negatives. The Boss has told me over and over that by working full-time I've taken some serious stress off his shoulders. He no longer worries about what might happen to me and our youngest daughter should something happen to him. He has a lot more money to make ends meet with. But more than that, a benefit I'm not sure he's made the connection to, his blood pressure. It's always been high and has never really been controllable with medication, at one point they had him on three different medications which left him with very little quality of life because he was so sleepy all the time. He'd stopped taking them all because he didn't like the side effects or the cost. Just a few months ago he saw his doctor and his blood pressure was normal, all by itself! The next visit did see his blood pressure a bit elevated and the doctor put him on one medication. The next visit, that one medication was controlling his BP just fine. I think all that stress and worry were making his already high BP uncontrollable.

So, while I may miss being able to serve him as a housewife, cooking, cleaning, & greeting him at the door when he gets home from work, I'm still serving him. My service has just changed and it's far more valuable to him right now than my housekeeping services.

SM as Relaxtion and Calming Aid

As an effort to keep the M/s active in our relationship and to help maintain my head space, Master promised to give me "collar time" every night, if possible. What this means is he puts the collar on me each evening and I wear it while wearing nothing else in our bedroom. We may have sex, we may do SM, or I may just service him orally. Whatever we do it's been set aside as Master/slave time, even if all we do is cuddle and talk. I am really enjoying this new ritual and I think it's good for both of us. He seems to be exerting more control over me than he was and I'm feeling happier.

I've learned something new!. SM can be used as a calming aid or as a tool for relaxation. Okay, so it's not new, but it's new to me.

Yesterday I was extremely upset over something that had happened at a store. I was livid, embarrassed, ashamed, and disappointed that I'd let our youngest down. Granted, it wasn't something I had control over at the time, I still felt as if I'd let her down and disappointed her. No worries, it was nothing illegal and nothing I'd actually done.
I immediately set to trying to sort the issue out over the phone. When I got home I was still on the phone, by the time I finished that call I was angrier because the answers I got were vague and noncommittal. I made another call and yet again, more vague and noncommittal answers telling me I had to call yet another number. I couldn't make that call because it was after office hours by that time. I did, however, call another store where this problem originated and supposedly they're researching it and will get back to me. I didn't feel as if my problem was going to be resolved and I still don't. I was still upset after making those calls and needed some time to try to calm down. I wasn't able to be friendly and chatty, I wanted to sit and brood about the problem.

He saw that I wasn't calming down as quickly as he'd have liked me to so he ordered me upstairs. Once I got up there I was ordered to present my bare bottom. I thought I was going to be punished for sure despite my trying to maintain a respectful tone with him. Instead he spanked and punched my bottom and thighs, using SM to calm and relax me. It lasted maybe 5 minutes but it was enough to switch gears in my brain. It turned me on too. *grins*

The only other time he has used SM like that was when I needed an attitude adjustment. It was done as punishment then so I've never really thought of it as being an effective tool for relaxation and calming. I'm thankful he thought of it. I did need a quick change of attitude and wasn't able to get to it on my own. That's one of my personal pitfalls, I'm too emotionally charged and my emotions get away from me too quickly. They build on each other, growing until it's all out of proportion. I'm learning to control them and sometimes I'm successful, I just wasn't last night.

It Was a Good Day

Yesterday was spent with the Boss and my Sir. It was a great day, we had fun, we cuddled, we teased each other, and fooled around. The Boss and my Sir are developing a nice rapport, it's fun and rewarding to watch this happening.

I love being with both of them and being able to spend "group" time. My relationships with them may be a v-type triad with me as the joining point but we're still a unit. What one person does affects the entire unit. The unit needs to spend time together to develop rapport, trust, and comfort. They both need to be able to trust that the other is taking care of me and treating me well and that the other isn't harboring jealousy or resentments.

I need to see them together, getting along, and developing some sort of bond or friendship for my own peace of mind. Knowing that they genuinely like each other goes a long way toward helping me relax and not worry about creating jealousies and resentments in either of them. I work at keeping things even and balanced, I try to not neglect either of them. Actually my Sir gets the short end of the stick more often than not now that I'm working full-time. I need to fix that as best I can so our relationship doesn't wither and die from lack of attention.

Poly isn't easy. Sometimes I think this type of poly is more difficult than others. We don't all live together so we don't have the benefit of having a lot of face time to deepen bonds.

I haven't even covered my/our relationship with m'Lady. Granted, our relationship with her isn't sexual or romantic but it's still a close, intimate relationship. She's family and I answer to her as a dominant partner, her opinions matter a great deal to us. We wouldn't consider adding another to the relationship unless they clicked with her too.

We never set out to be this way, it just happened. All we can do is try to keep up and make it work. There is no set model, no guidebooks, no instruction manuals, not really. How many people are in a multiple dominant, single submissive dynamic? Honestly, very few. I do value those who are in D/s poly dynamics, that are outspoken online, no matter what their dynamic looks like. It helps to see how others interact, what pitfalls they come across, and how they manage their relationships.

Sometimes I feel like I'm so far out of what society views as "normal" that I'm jumping without a parachute. I can't tell my family or my kids about the other loves in my life. I can't share that with anyone but our intentional family and my D/s lifestyle friends. It gets pretty lonely sometimes.