Healing some more

I finished that article, and for the first time in a few years it felt GREAT!! I am so very proud of the article, its one of my best I think. There seems to be a maturity to my writing that was not there before. I think its because of my experiences in the last 9 years, and how much I have changed from what I was before. I look back over the past 5 years and am amazed at how different I am now, from what I was in June 2000. Most of these changes have been for the good and I believe I am a much better person than I have ever been. As a slave, I have reached a place where my need to please, serve and such are very strong and they come naturally again. I do not have to force them, or coerce myself or anything, it just comes on its own. I missed that a great deal, but was terrified to do it again. Now, I'm not afraid and my desires are stronger than they were before.

I know I still have issues and areas that need work, but I know I will make it and some day those too will be gone.

Working Out The Writing Problem

Well, Master has given me a new task. I am to work on one essay/article per week and preferably finish it. The finishing part depends on how far along the article is in rough draft form. He chose "Common Myths About Slaves and Slavery" as the first one since it is entirely written as a rough draft and just needs to be flushed out a bit and the re-written. If I do not have it completed by Friday night, I will be punished.

I have had to use the tape recorder a few times when thoughts came to mind, rather than trying to write them down and thus losing them. It has come in very handy and has helped me a great deal. I still feel afraid and nervous while I am writing, but at least I can still write. I think it is affecting the writing itself though. It seems to me that the article is convoluted and confusing in places and in others I missed the mark completely and I know it.

I find myself going back and forth between fear and anger over this whole thing. My mind knows Master won't yell at me, or manipulate me through fear over my writing, but my heart can't seem to believe it completely. I keep getting odd thoughts like "He's going to be mad that I'm sitting here wasting my time writing when there are other things I could do" and I keep expecting him to start yelling at me, or to take the notebook away. But all he does is smile when he sees me writing, and its a happy smile, not a sarcastic or snide one. Slowly I am relaxing about it and as this week has gone on, I've had less trouble writing with each day. Maybe this will work. I sure hope it does, I really do.

I miss writing and working on the web site on a regular basis. They were such a part of me, part of my identity, who and what I am. Without them something was missing, something large and I had no choice but to adjust to that. Now I'm trying to change it back, and it is really hard. The web site is like 6 months behind on updates, and I have something like 50 articles in varying stages of writing.

It pisses me off to no end, that one person...one measly little person, could so easily take away so much of what makes me Raven. That I allowed it to happen makes me every angrier. I knew what Jack was doing but I just couldn't admit it to myself. The idea that I was in such a situation again just blew my mind and I couldn't accept it. Its taken a real long time for me to get back to myself as far as I have and some things have changed for good most likely.

Master's patience, understanding and guidance have been so wonderful. Without them I don't think I would have healed as much as I have. Without him, I would have succeeded in shutting off my submissive nature out of self preservation. I am so glad to have him and so lucky too!

Difficulty with Writing

Anyone who knows me, knows that I greatly enjoy writing. I write all kinds of things. Poetry, prose, fictional stories, non fictional stories, essays and educational articles for topics that interest me and that I have experience in. My web site, Leather and Roses, means a great deal to me because of my enjoyment of both writing and learning. My main reasons for continuing to work on the site are:

1. I enjoy helping others learn and LnR has a large number of educational essays on BDSM related topics designed to help others learn. (over 1000 pages)
2. I enjoy writing essays and articles that explain bdsm related topics in a way that is easy to understand and non-judgmental.
3. I want LnR to be a non-biased web site. One that contains many different points of view, rather than just one point of view. This is because each relationship is different, and what works for one person doesn't not work for every person. So by providing varying points of view, I make it easier for people who are learning bdsm to find what will work for them.

In Arizona, Jack told me that he was proud of my abilities as a writer. He said he was proud of the web site. He also said that he would never take either of those things away from me as they mean so much to me and because I am good at it. As time went on he broke that promise. When I wrote or worked on the site, he started complaining that I was ignoring him, ignoring the family, and not fulfilling my duties as his slave . On a couple of occasions I was punished for things I wrote (both in essays or in my journal). I developed a major fear of Jack and his reactions to things, and after a while I stopped writing or working on the site in order to appease Jack so I would not be yelled at, punished, completely ignored or any other number of negative (and harmful to me) responses he would give me. Because of this I quickly developed a mental block about writing. I did not realize it was there, nor how strong it was until I moved to Florida.

When I tried to write here, I would start to shake. I'd feel panicky and terrified to be caught. Master tried to soothe me by telling me the same complimentary things Jack told me. But my recent experiences made it impossible for me to believe him. The writing block continued. It reached a point where I no longer even tried to write because I was starting to have anxiety attacks when I did try. Master chose to follow his instincts on this one and leave it alone for a while. This was to give me time to heal a lot of the other things that were wrong with me at the time. He figured that if I healed everything else, the writing would come back.

Well I have managed to heal a great deal of the issues I came to Florida with and am proud of myself for doing so. About 8 months ago Master realized I hadn't added any article to the website that I had written myself since the abuse articles I put up in 2000. This really upset him. He was not angry with me, he was upset that someone had gone so far to erase my desire to write and replace it with a fear of punishment for writing and thus a fear of writing. He asked me to write an article for an IRC channel we were taking part in on a regular basis. The channel was doing an "E-zine" kind of thing and wanted me to write something for it. I decided to write an article on the Value Of A Slave. So I opened Word 2000 and tried to write. I got the introductory paragraph in but then hit that same fear based block and couldn't do it. I started shaking and sweating. I told Master I could not do it and begged forgiveness. Well, he was out of patience and gave me an order to write the article no matter what and gave me a time limit. This made the fear worse at first, but I kept telling myself that he was doing this to help me, not hurt me and that he wouldn't punish me for it. It took a great deal of effort but I got the article done in a rough draft form.

Since then I have done 10 more rough drafts or outlines of different articles. I can do that much easily again. The block reappears when it is time to do the re-write and clean the article up of any errors and unclear statements. So now I can't do that part, and so "Value of a Slave" remains unfinished in my mind, but is posted on that ezine site.

I was speaking to a friend of mine, Fire-Soul, today and we got on the topic of writing. He came across an article I wrote on LNR and said it needed to be updated. I read it and could clearly see where it needed updated. Ideas popped into my head, I started getting excited and then BOOM there was the fear and I just couldn't think of a single thing!!!! I told Fire-Soul of this reaction and he said I should write notes when ideas hit me. I told him that when I try to start writing them down, the ideas just disappear, they're just gone. So he came back at me with the idea of using a tape recorder, since I told him I can speak about my ideas, the outlines and even whole paragraphs of an article. He said I should talk to the tape recorder so that when I go to sit down and actually write it, I can use the tape recorder to remind me of what I wanted to say. I think that is a wonderful idea! I can't believe I hadn't thought of it myself. That's probably because I try hard not to think about having lost something that meant so very much to me. Hell, being able to write the way I could was *ME*. It meant so much to me, gave me a purpose, a goal. It satisfied so many needs in me like the need to learn new things, the need to help others learn new things, the need to create things that others would enjoy (be it a story, poem or cross stitch). I really have missed not being able to write the way I used to. So I will use the recorder and see if it helps. I think it will because the tape will be my memory of what I wanted to say or where I wanted to take the essay, rather than my mind.

My hope now is that by using the tape recorder, I will eventually reach a point where it won't be necessary anymore unless I start interviewing others to put their experiences and points of view on the site. Ohhhh, interesting idea!

Ok..That's enough for today. Thank you so much Fire-Soul, you don't know how much this means to me. If it works, I owe you big big big time!!!

Raven

Thoughts that hit over the holidays

As you may or may not know, I am helping a close friend of mine as she heals herself from a very abusive relationship that lasted 7 years. Lets call them Jill and Phil. Phil treated Jill very badly, so that even now (months after having left him) she still fees this need to contact him once a while, though he does not know its her. Part of me wants so badly to tell her not to do this because it will be bad in the long run. But then I think, I was still talking to Jack after I left him. Of cousre he blamed everything on me, and I always felt like a completely waste of skin every time I spoke to him. But it was like this cumpulsion. Part of me so badly needed his approval, needed him to say I did something right finally instead of something wrong. Of course that never came, and eventually I had to realize it never was going to come. Jack is just incapable of seeing how hard others try to mak him happy. He never truly appreciates what others do for him.

Over the Christmas holidays I found myself wondering time to time if he was having a good holiday. And every time that thought crossed my mind I mentally kicked myself in the ass. I should not care if his holidays are good or if they suck for the rest of his life. Why can't I stay angry with him? Is it becuase I was trained so well that he is not wrong, I am? Is it because I can't shake the belief that I was the failure?

I know I was not the failure, I know I did every thing I could do to please him, no matter how humiliating it was to myself. But it was never enough. Sometimes remembering this makes me so angry!! and I know the anger is a normal. I know I did the best I could, but sometimes I just don't believe it. I think this is a common pitfall that submissives in general tend to fall for.

Ok I'm falling asleep..going to stop here.