Sunday, August 19, 2012

Attempt 5 and the Mental Institution


Two weeks ago today, I cut my arm in an attempt to end my life. My Master interrupted me by coming home earlier than I expected. He talked to me a bit but he did not make me go to the hospital. He talked me down and got my mind focused on other things. I am still coming to terms with the fact that this was the fifth time in my life I tried to commit suicide. The cut wasn't deep enough to cause me to die, but it was about my intent tha made it an attempt.
The only problem was I wasn’t okay. Over that week, I began thinking about other ways I could kill myself and I began to think about the old prescription drugs I had my Master remove from the house. I knew he probably didn’t really rid of them and they were in his car. During the night on Thursday, I quietly got up and went outside. I popped the trunk to my Master’s car. Sure enough, the pills were in the trunk. I noted that the bottles were pretty close to empty so I combined a number of bottles in two pill bottles. One was completely full and one was half full. I took the pills back into the house and hid them in our guest bathroom.
I went back to bed and I waited for the perfect time. On Saturday last week, I was feeling like that time was drawing near. My Master noticed the change in my behavior. He questioned me about it and eventually I admitted that I had a plan. I then showed him were the pills were and he took them. We talked for a bit then, he made me go to the hospital.
I was then admitted to a mental institution associated with the hospital. It was one of the scariest and hardest things I have ever had to do.  I couldn’t see my Master except during visitation hours and I could only talk to him for 10 minutes at a time. Just about everything was considered contraband from shoe laces to dental floss to ink pens. 
It was a co-ed ward and I had to share a room with another woman. We had our own beds and a wall separated us but we had to share the bathroom. Most of the people on my ward were either there for suicide or they were a recovering drug addict. I spent most of my first day there balling. I was still scared and I wanted to go home. I felt very alone and I was uncertain about actually being able to get help there. Legally, I could not leave. If I tried they could get a court order to keep me there because being suicidal is against the law.
I did have a psychology technician notice I was crying in my room. He can in and talked me for a long time. He listened to what I had to say and he didn’t make me feel stupid. He told me that I am not the first person to have come here with the same life story. He then convinced me to go out and socialize with other people. I wandered into one of the rooms with no one and started to watch TV. He sat down next to me and talked me about what was on.  
I began to calm down and I started to talk to other patients. The suicidal people were the cool people but there were ranges of coolness. I quickly became one of the coolest people in there.  I am sure it had something to do with the men on my ward finding me attractive and the fact that my life story was pretty fucked up and even included a pedophile.
I decided as I went to bed last Sunday night that the best way to get out of here is to accept that I am here and accept the help they are offering me. On Monday, I went to all the group therapy sessions and I was social most of the day. I didn’t feel the social pressure there that I often felt on the outside. I guess I had no one to impress and everyone had a story to tell. I didn’t feel so odd when I was there. I felt like a normal person who just happened to have been through some really tough shit.
They did change my medication. I think the change is helpful. I learnt a lot during the group therapy sessions like how to relax and just cope with life. I got released on Tuesday evening.  When I left, I felt 100 times better then when I went in. I felt this drive for life and to make a difference that I didn’t have before.  As I was leaving, my only regret was not doing this sooner. Going to the mental institution was probably the most helpful thing I have ever done for myself. Overall, the experience was positive.
Today, I am at home and still in my pajamas. My parents have stopped talking to me because I was in a mental institution. My mother called my suicidal feelings stupid and she told me that I shouldn’t have told anyone.  That hurt a lot, but my parents were never going to win awards for exceptional parenting anyways. My brothers and sister have been amazingly supportive. They all took my side and confronted my parents. We are all on the outs with them right now.
I am nervous about restarting work on Monday. I am uncertain of how that will go. I know I am still not functioning at 100% and I am coming to terms with the fact that I may never be back at the level I was before all of this.  I have therapy on Monday after work so hopefully that will help to unpack things a little bit more for me.

I am having passing thoughts of suicide now, but nothing like I was feeling before and I don’t have a plan. I am keeping an eye on that and communicating those feelings with my Master. He has been amazing.  I am just so glad I have him with me to be with me as I get better. I do not trust myself, so we have opted to lock up our extra over the counter medication and the prescriptions we are using. We have also locked up our sharp knives and sex toy box. My Master has the key, which is the way we both want it.

Emma

Thursday, August 2, 2012

3 Week Update

I have been on medication for about 3 weeks now and it got upped earlier this week in an attempt to get me ‘stabilized’.  This process has not been easy and therapy has been challenging at times. I don’t know how I am doing. I am still here so I suppose the masses would view that as a plus but I am not sure if I view it that way.

The theory on how this happened is my crappy year with the death of a family member and my layoff caused my body to dig up things I have long since buried and repressed. It turns out my normal childhood was far from normal and probably closer to the Little House of Horrors. Sadly, I confirmed these things with my siblings. They expressed to me that they had also repressed things until like me their neat little worlds came undone.
I think somewhere inside of me I was hoping that my past wasn’t real and I was just losing my mind or had a false memory. I feel like my childhood explains why I am the person I am today. Not the suicidal person I am now, but the servant who likes pain and doesn’t say no.  I was conditioned to be that way.
I don’t know what this knowledge means for my future, my kink, or even my relationship. My Master has promised to stay by my side throughout this process. He wants me alive and happy. Right now, I am just trying to take everything day by day and resist the urge to hurt myself.

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Struggling


I have been struggling a lot lately and the thoughts of suicide have not been getting better.  On Thursday, I talked to a clinician over the phone as part of the EAP (Employee Assistance Program) coverage for behavioral health issues. The clinician wanted me to go to the hospital. I declined, because I just don’t want to be locked up like that.

Yesterday, I was pondering taking the old prescription medicine we had in the cabinet and I even fiddled with the containers while my Master wasn’t home. I became very uneasy and unsure of myself. I wanted to take the pills but I knew that it may not work and my Master would be upset.  I decided to lie down and go to sleep. My rest was very agitated but the sleep seemed to help.

Today, my Master and I went shopping. There were unattended children who were playing with a cart and decided to ram it into us. I asked where the children’s parents were and after I found the mother, if you can call her that. She became very defensive and started swearing at me. She wanted me to mind my own business, even though her children were assaulting us. Then the boyfriend or whatever started threatening my Master and my Master starred at him until he walked away. Stuff like this is why I hate humanity. After I got home my head was still racing from the poor parents which seemed to reflect my view on not wanting to be part of this world. 

I paced around the bedroom at home for a few minutes while my Master was in the other room. I cautiously walked over the toy box and I pulled out the knife which has a razor end. I walked into the bathroom and I sat down on the counter. I starred at my right arm for a moment and I focused on a blood vessel that was popping out from the surface. I slowly put the knife up to my arm and I started to push down on the tip. As, I felt the tip enter my skin I heard a clatter in the bedroom. I thought it was my Master. I put the knife down quickly and I got up to see.

It was just my cat and the cat was glaring at me. It was then that I realized that I might need help. I located my Master and I told him that I think I might have to go to the hospital. He agreed and quickly got dressed. On the way to the hospital, I started to have second thoughts about getting admitted into the psychiatric ward because I didn’t want to feel trapped. I know that once I voluntarily enter the hospital for this problem I cannot leave until I get cleared by the doctor.

I convinced my Master just to drive around for awhile and then he asked if I wanted to walk around somewhere for a bit. I agreed. After we got some water, we went to a walking trail we had not been to in sometime. We wandered around for about an hour and we got lost a couple of times. I talked about my woes of life and took in my surroundings. At the end of the walk, I was feeling better.

We decided to grab some dinner and we got it to go and ate at home. Since walking seemed to help ease my desire to do self-harm my Master is going to buy me a treadmill so that I can walk at home too. We had a talk about how he can’t protect me from everything in the house and that it is okay for me not to be in the hospital so long as I don’t try anything stupid. I agreed, so as of right now I am still not in the hospital. I am feeling and thinking those thoughts as the evening goes on, but I am hoping that with rest things will get better. I see my therapist again on Tuesday. I am hoping to be able to make that appointment.


Friday, July 13, 2012

Slipping

*My apologies for the slightly incoherent blog. *

Despite my outward appearance of everything being put neatly together in my life things have been slipping for me lately over the past several months.  I have been having problems with depression, which have become increasingly worse. Over the past couple weeks, I have started to have thoughts of suicide and I find myself contemplating my own demise. It has been bad for awhile for a variety of reasons.
My diet change was hard. I had to give up all the foods that made me happy. I know it is not good to comfort eat, but I don’t even have that as an option my life anymore. I lost 20 pounds as a result. I am now down to a size 0. I can’t go out in public without the generalized public making negative hurtful comments. When I am grocery stopping, I have had obese people stalk me around the store. I have had obese people ask me if I intend on throwing up my food later. I have had them tell me to eat a sandwich. I have been told more times than I can count that I am not a real woman.
I realized the other day, that the older I get the less I fit in with other people. Why? Because I don’t have kids to talk about and I can’t have kids. I realized that despite all the effort and sacrifices I made for my step-child. That will never be good enough for the mommy brigade and nothing I have ever done has allowed me to form a bond with my step-child because her mother decided to use a fucked up form of parenting.  I wonder how such stupid people can pop out kids like candy and how well equipped people can try for years and never become parents.
I had a death in the family in late winter, the day before my birthday. It was a member of my immediate family.  My Master told me of the death and left to go to work 15 minutes later. My parents had already arrived at my house by the time my Master told me. I got to spend the evening with my grieving parents while my Master opted out. He also wasn’t there the next day as he had to go to work and wouldn’t call in for bereavement.  Eventually, he did use his bereavement days but he was still largely focused on his work. He didn’t seem to have much time for my loss.
A couple months later, my job got outsourced to India. I got called into a meeting with HR with most of my team. My supervisor also lost her job. I got told my some of the management that was still employed that the reason why I was rehired was to write the process documents for my department. So that the jobs could be shipped overseas, I finished those documents a week before I got notified of my job loss. I may have single handedly been responsible for most of my department losing their jobs and I didn’t even know I was getting setup. I felt like a complete utter failure.
I got laid-off with notice, so I still had to walk into this office every day until I found outside employment.  After I received that paperwork, I got a lot worse. My Master once again was busy and stressed out with work. He didn’t have the time to help me work through this and process what happened. I felt alone and uncertain of what to do.
I began having trouble sleeping and I would wake up completely soaked in sweat. Every day, when I would walk into work I would worry that someone was going to grab me and hurt me. I felt myself getting slowly and slowly more paranoid.  I felt myself isolating myself from those around me and I lost interest in all of my hobbies.  I didn’t see the point in continuing them. I lost interest in everything.  I don’t care about keeping up with household chores or serving my Master. It doesn’t give me the joy it once did. It just doesn’t matter to me anymore. 
Since the lay-off, I am no longer with that company. I have changed jobs twice since then. The first job was terrible. It was hostile and I felt couldn’t deal with the aggressive and second-class nature in which I was treated. My Master ordered me to quit. I have since found another job, which appears to be a good fit and that is the only plus I can think of.
Despite, things looking better on the job front I am still finding myself going deeper and deeper into this depression. My Master has also wanted to move out into the countryside, which sounds reasonable except for the way he wants to do it. He wants to take on tent living or buying a rundown house and doing repairs as we can afford them. That sounds like hell to me. It sounds scary to live in a tent or a boarded up house. People prey on those that are weak and we would be prey in that situation.
My Master finally took notice this week. My Master is making some efforts now to be there for me. But I honestly don’t know how much that will help, because he wasn’t always there for me. One of the reasons why, I wanted to be a slave is because I didn’t want to be alone or make choices alone. However, because my Master got engrossed in his work that is what happened. My Master tells me that he wanted to give me more latitude and to see how I would function and that is why he became so focused on his work, not surprisingly I failed miserably.
I opened up to him about my thoughts of suicide and we went to the doctor today. I now have a prescription for an anti-depressant. My doctor thinks that the depression is most likely a manifestation of past trauma. I am now going to a therapist once a week for the foreseeable future. I suppose in order for me to get better, I will have to face the demons that have haunted me throughout my life. I just don’t know if I really want to face that. I have always runaway from problems and more than anything. I just want the thoughts to stop. I want to feel safe and I do not feel that in this life. I don’t know what the future holds for me. Right now, I am just struggling not to get institutionalized.  
If I continue down the path I am on, I know I am going to get institutionalized. I am trying so hard to find something to live for, something to find meaningful and I keep coming up empty. Life just seems like an endless series of struggles for nothing.  I’ve noticed today, that the world tends to hate me until I tell them I don’t want to be a part of their world anymore. Then all of a sudden the world seems to care. 
Human nature is a fucked up thing.

Sunday, July 8, 2012

Grammar Nazis

One of the things I find humorous about the internet discussion boards and social networking sites are the Grammar Nazis. I think that the Grammar Nazis are a bit ridiculous because nitpicking over comma usage or a misspelled word on someone’s post as a way to showing they are right shows me they have a serious problem accepting other people’s opinion on things.

But that is not what I find to be the funniest thing about Grammar Nazis. I think it is hilarious when they misspell something or if they are a moderator of a group and they correct a post for grammar and spelling and the post still contains errors.  I find this funny because the very same thing they would nitpick at someone else for doing they are doing themselves.  It is like the pot calling the kettle black to me.
Oddly, one the most common misspelled words by Grammar Nazis is your and you’re.  If someone is a Grammar Nazi, I would think that they could at least use the proper your or you’re in a sentence. This however is not the case but they will harp on anyone else for misspelling a word.
They also seem to have a problem capitalizing the first word of a sentence. One would think if you’re a Grammar Nazi, it would be pretty important and more important than a long winded post about disliking someone attempting to show respect by using a slash with lower case and upper case pronouns.
I do understand people getting upset over texting speak on a discussion board, because that is hard to read. Especially as you start to get old like me. These days, I find myself having to Google what certain acronyms mean because I have no clue. Unfortunately, this sort of short hand is becoming more and more relevant in our society where people want things done faster and faster. I opt not to go Grammar Nazi on these people, but if I don’t know what they are saying I will ask them what the acronym means.
I could go on and on about the inconsistency and humor I find in Grammar Nazis, not because I think they are right but because they don’t get it right either. I think that accepting people with their grammar errors and misspelled words is a better way to handle life. None of us are perfect and that is just part of life.
-emma

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Fourth of July

On this Fourth of July, I am lying in my Master’s bed naked and writing a blog about the lack of freedom in my life. I opted not to be the typical free American that does as she pleases. I opted to give my life over to someone else because that is what makes me feel like I have a purpose in this life.

I have no desire to have a relationship as equals or to be free. I feel at peace when my Master makes decisions for me. I dislike the whole decision making process. I like to be told what to do and given a clear path. I don’t like the freedom nor do I want the freedom to go out and do what I want. One of the most calming things my Master has ever said to me is that I have no goals and no ambitions beyond what he gives me.
I like to be kept busy with chores and doing other things to serve my Master because I feel more content.   If I am off doing something for me or not doing anything, it tends to lead me down a path of self pity. Provided I am not sick, I am most happy in a semi-structured schedule from dusk till dawn. Unfortunately, my health is not the best so I have more free time than I want in a perfect world.
I don’t really feel having a lack of freedom in my life is a bad thing. It makes the world clearer for me and my Master’s home functions better because there is one person in charge rather than everyone having equal say.
-emma


Thursday, June 28, 2012

Prepping for a Job Interview

So on a more upbeat note; I decided to post a blog about prepping for a job interview. I work in the business field. I look younger than my age so I have to make myself look the roll so to speak before an interview.
1.       I tie my hair back into a bun. I was actually told by one of my instructors in business school that women should pull their hair away from their face during an interview. This way the interviewer can see the woman’s face. I decided to try it to see if my instructor was blowing smoke or on to something. It turns out he was on to something.

2.       I wear my glasses. Apparently, glasses make a person look smarter. Therefore when I am doing an interview I leave my contacts at home and put on my glasses.

3.       Light make-up only. The interviewer should be able to see me and who I am not 10 layers of make-up that make it look like I am about to have a night on the town.

4.       I neatly trim and shape my nails. I remove any nail polish. I do not wear fake nails because I don’t want to send the message I am not willing to get my hands dirty.  Not to mention, fake nails drive me bonkers.

5.       No perfume. I hate perfume in general, but the interviewer could have a fragrance allergy so any perfume worn could give the interviewer a headache or even a migraine. This does not make a good first impression.

6.       Wear clothes that fit. By fit I mean clothes that are neither too tight nor too small. For me this is difficult, some clothing items I alter myself and some I pay a tailor. When it gets into reconstructing a dress shirt to fit me, I pay a tailor. It is worth the money because first impressions are important.

7.       Buy a portfolio. I put my resume, schedule of interviews, ink pen, and stuff along that line in my portfolio. It looks more professional than walking in holding a couple copies of my resume. I bought my portfolio for 15 dollars, it was worth the investment.

8.       I drive by wherever it is I am interviewing at the day before, because nothing is worse than getting lost or not being able to find the place I am supposed to interview at.

9.       Make sure all alarms are turned off on and the cell phone is set to silent. The last thing, I need is a reminder to go off during an interview or for someone to call me. I seek to eliminate that as a possibility. I check my phone beforehand to make sure this won’t happen.

10.    I give myself a pep talk in the mirror. I know it sounds stupid but I will stand in front of the mirror and tell myself a few times that I can do anything. It helps me build my confidence to convey who I am as a person to a potential company.

Monday, June 25, 2012

1, 2, 3, 4

The following blog is about my four suicide attempts and the reasons behind it. This is a deeply personal topic for me and although I do not find it distrubing, some people may. Therefore this is your warning.

You know that love of life that so many people talk about and live for, I don’t feel that. Most of the time I feel like I am simply existing and I do not feel alive. I suffer from depression and I don’t remember a time when I liked generalized life. I do remember distinctly the moment when I first wanted to die. I was 6 years old. I don’t remember why it was I wanted at 6 or the reason. What I do remember about it was I was in the backseat of my parents’ car and my mom was driving. She was rambling about how God will send for us when it is our time to die and we will be ready. In that moment, I felt ready to die and that feeling has never faded.
When I was 13, I made my first attempt at suicide. I took a lot of Tylenol. I am not sure of the exact amount but I suspect it was over 100. I got very sick and I was throwing up. After two days, I was still throwing up and my skin was turning yellow. My elder brother stopped by my parents’ house to visit and see how everything was going. When he saw that I was jaundice he demanded that my parents take me to the doctor. My dad took me to the doctor that day. My family doctor thought it was an acute case of food poisoning and I had to get a shot everyday for about a week.

The reason I attempted suicide in the first place is because my home life left something to be desired. My room was next to the living room and my dad would turn up the TV so loud I couldn’t hear myself think which resulted in me not sleeping.  I also had the majority of the chores dumped on me while my twin went out and did his youth activities. At school, I was dating an older boy (imagine that) and the girls were jealous. So they started a rumor that I was a lesbian. Since, I was not sexually active with my then boyfriend.  I was mocked relentlessly for being a lesbian. I had girls start chanting ‘gays okay’ while I walked by, not because they really thought it was okay to be gay but because they were being an ass.
In an attempt to rectify the situation and get help or guidance or something, I attempted to talk to my mother. I prefaced my question, in if she ever head of someone wanting to commit suicide because they were overwhelmed with life and people at school were being mean to them. Her response was that was ‘stupid’ and she never heard of someone committing suicide for that reason. She went on to explain that she didn’t believe in any mental disorder.  
I felt alone in the world and I knew I had no one to turn too. Any attempt I made to get help would probably be put to rest by mom and her belief that these things are not real.
My feeling after the attempt was one of isolation. I felt alone, but I had one person that cared. One person that came over to my parents’ house everyday to make sure I was okay. It was my boyfriend at the time. He cared and when I saw how much he cared I felt like I had something to live for. So I decided that I wasn’t going to attempt suicide again.
As much as I would like to say that is the end of my story with attempting to end my life and my hatred of life it is not. I was only the beginning. 
To understand my next 3 suicide attempts, you would have to understand the journey to that point. When I was 15 as I was browsing the internet one day, I discovered the world of BDSM. It was interesting to me and it seemed like a different world, a simpler world.  I talked to various men online over the following year. They were all older men and well over the age of 18. I ended up chatting with a man shortly before my 17th birthday about things.  I met him shortly after my 17th birthday and he took a couple pictures of me. He threatened to show those pictures to my parents if I didn’t leave my parents home to go be with him.
I left in early May and I traveled to his home. I really wasn’t sure what I was in for, but I thought I was ready for it. I spent the next nine months of my life getting beaten into submission, shared with groups of men and women, locked in cellar, and etc. I wanted to please him but I found it to be impossible. He was always angry and would lash out at me. I suffered broken bones, I was suffocated to the point of blacking out and when I woke up the whites of my eyes were completely red. My eyes stayed that way for weeks.
Eventually, I gave up on trying resisting anything, because it hurt less when I didn’t put up a fight. Saying no or physically trying to stop something from happening was like encouragement.  He could at this point get me to do nearly anything he wanted. While I was underage he had me convinced that if I tried to get help, if I tried to tell someone that I would get locked up by the police and never see the light of day again.

It wasn’t until I was 18 that I had the courage to leave and I called my parents for help. This time, my parents were there for me.  I went back to my parents’ home in rural Oklahoma. I tried to put him out of my mind but he still called me frequently and emailed me a lot. I did not tell my parents what I was doing while I was gone and they didn’t ask.
I lived with my parents for 3 months before I moved out into my own apartment. I was having trouble with the change and the responsibility that came with living on my own. I was at work when I got a frantic phone call from him and he told me that the police executed a search warrant on his residence because of a report of an underage girl. This time, he had courted a 16 year old but she went back home to her family the week before. I heard several different stories on the terms in which she left so how or why she left I cannot comment. 

None the less, he was pretty mad and the police found pictures of me. Later on that afternoon, the chief of police in the town my parents lived in got a phone call from the detective over the case. I lived on the Kansas/Oklahoma boarder and my apartment was in Kansas. The chief of police had my parents’ phone number and gave it to the detective.
The detective called my father, who gave him my telephone number. I met with the detective a few days later after I hired a lawyer.  I was honest with the detective because my lawyer told me I lied, even a white lie then I could get into trouble. The police department executed another search warrant while I was getting interrogated by the detective, because I told the detective about hiding places for pictures other stuff in places they did not look.
He was extremely pissed off when the second search warrant was executed, however he had already removed the items from those places.  A short time later, the actual charges were filed against my former master.
He really wanted to get out of this but it is difficult when there is photographic evidence of something happening.  He called me a lot during this time and he was increasingly desperate. He would yell at me and tell me he was going hurt me. I believed him. 
He convinced me that what I should do is try to kill myself, because it would be the best thing for me. He had me convinced that being labeled a minor in a pornography case would ruin me for the rest of my life and my life wasn’t worth living. Over the following weeks, I attempted suicide 3 times. I tried to drown myself once and slit my wrists twice. I never had the strength to push down hard enough on my wrists to get deep enough to cause any real damage, even though I can still see light scars from that today.
My twin noticed the marks on my wrists which lead to my now sister-in-law coming over to talk to me. One of my male friends voiced a concern about it around that time too. I expressed to them my concerns and for once in my life I felt safe, like no one was going to hurt me. I stopped with the suicide attempts at that point.

This fall it will be 10 years since my last suicide attempt. I have struggled with depression over the following decade. But I found a wonderful Master, that doesn’t beat me or terrorize me. I feel like I have something to live for with him and even though I still hate life. I have moments where I feel alive and I feel happy. I live for those moments.

The point of me writing this is because one thing I have realized is that I did not pull the strength from inside me to stop myself from wanting to kill myself. It was that one friend, that one person who cared about whether or not I lived or died. In retrospect, I learnt something from those 4 attempts and that is one friend can save a life.

Monday, June 18, 2012

Weight Loss Control


So I have been on a fairly restrictive diet due to my hypoglycemia. The diet works to control the blood sugar issues. However, I have been dropping weight. When I started this diet I weighed in at 128 and size 6. Now 6 months later I weigh 108 and a size 0. I am one pound from being considered underweight for my height based off the charts.
I am going to start increasing the amount of calories in my diet in the hopes that I stop dropping weight. I can’t just go out and eat anything because of my medical condition so I have to evaluate and make choices that are right for my body.  Increasing the amount of protein, which was recommended to me by my doctor, seems like the most reasonable path.  I am going to add in a cheese stick with my morning and early afternoon snack. That will add 160 calories to my diet per day and increase my protein. Hopefully, it doesn’t cause havoc to my blood sugar levels.
We shall see how this goes.

-emma

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

The Passport Photo

I recently had to get my passport, since my Master and I will be traveling abroad this summer. I found the experience of getting my passport photo done relevant to my relationship. Because I had to take my collar off for the picture. There are a lot of requirements for passport photos under the new guidelines and while I think that some of the rules are overkill I can understand their purpose.  

The actual act of having to take my collar off and sit down on the counter to have my picture taken while not smiling was slightly unnerving for me.  I almost felt like I was being processed into part of the system where everyone has to look and be the same. In a way, that feeling was correct. I also felt like I was somehow betraying my Master and taking my collar off. 

 My Master was not with me when I was doing this, because he was at work. I did text him right away to tell him that I removed my collar for the picture. I didn’t think I would be in trouble due to the circumstances but I could see myself being in trouble if I tried to hide it from him. In the end, I didn’t betray my Master. I obeyed him by getting my passport stuff done and I got to put my collar back on as soon as they were done snapping the picture.
-emma

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Ponytails


Whenever my Master and I go to an outdoor event, my hair is pulled back in a pony tail. For me it has been a functional thing, because my hair blowing in my face is counterproductive to whatever is I am outside doing.
My Master also sees a pony tail as functional. When we are festivals or things of that nature, I tend to get sidetracked and wander. My Master will reach out and pull my pony tail if I get too far ahead. Pulling my ponytail makes me stop and refocus myself on him. 
Pulling my hair like that is an easy and non-intrusive way for him to remind me of my place without making a scene in public or in front of family. He doesn’t pull my hair hard. He pulls it just enough to get my attention.

-emma

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

On being thin

I am a thin woman, I have small breasts, and I only stand 5’3” tall. What does that mean? I get to be the verbal punching bag for overweight women who are jealous, insecure, or any number of other things. I have always been small. I have never been overweight, but like any woman in the world I have had days where I felt fat and days when I felt too skinny. 

I do not eat what I want, when I want. I have an eating schedule and a very restrictive diet. I can’t go off my diet even for a day because if I do it will make me physically sick. My body simply cannot handle the change and the change will mess up my blood sugar. I am hypoglycemic if I eat too many carbohydrates during a meal or if I don’t have my snacks on time. This causes me to get a severe headache and I will have difficulty speaking.  
I would love to be able to eat what I want. That would be amazing to me. I would love to have a donut with chocolate icing for breakfast and a cheeseburger with fries for dinner, but I can’t do that. I would love to be able to have the desserts I make on the holidays instead of just looking at them, but I can’t do that.

 I absolutely hate it when someone who is overweight comes up to me and tells me I need to eat a sandwich.  I am on a restrictive diet which means I can’t do that. I am not going to sacrifice my health because someone thinks I need to carry few more pounds.  If they even took a moment to understand what my life was like with my health issues then maybe they would understand, but I doubt it.
Moving on I am not exceptionally curvy. I do carry most of my weight on my hips and legs but still I am lacking. I have been told directly by a number of overweight women that I have the body of a 12 year old boy or that I am not a real woman. I happen to find this rather insulting and I do have feelings. I do worry about how my body looks just like every other woman on the planet.

Let me take a moment to clear some things up, I am a woman because I was born a female. It has nothing to do with my bra size, the size of my ass, how much I weigh, the length of my hair, whether or not I’ve ever had a baby belly, and etc.  It doesn’t matter if I am thin, average, overweight, or whatever. I am still a woman.

People who say, they can insult me because of my size because they are overweight and get picked on by people who are not me, need to simply grow up.  It is immature and belittling other people to make you feel better says a lot about your character or lack of character. I don’t make fun of anyone’s size. I don’t tell overweight people to lay off the donuts or anything like that. I don’t question whether or not they are a real woman, nor do I attempt to make the very thought of being with them in a sexual manner an act of pedophilia. 

I respect overweight people therefore I do not make fun of their body type. I would appreciate the same respect.
-emma

Sunday, May 6, 2012

An Overview of my Early Training with my former Master

One thing I get asked a lot is what my early training was like with my former Master, because as my Master often says. I was pretty well trained when he got me. He just had to put on some finishing touches, so to speak. Let me preface this by saying I do not recommend anyone treat their slave or anyone else in their life the way I was treated. I do not condone violence in anyway, but through violence is how I developed. 

I reason why I have always skirted around this question is because it was and still is difficult for me to form into words.  I don’t know the best way to describe that time in my life, so I will do my best to make sense. I suppose I should start by saying I was young when I went to be with my former Master. I was underage and he was in his 40s. He had been a bachelor most of his life and he had very specific ideas of what he wanted, how he wanted it, and etc. I had to learn to fit inside that box or face the consequences.

He expected me to do as I was told, be quite, keep the house spotless, never get ill, never mess up, and etc. If I failed at any one of those, I would get punished. I would get beaten with closed fists, kicked, slapped, and so on over anything he saw as my fault. If I really made him angry he would lock me away for a time.

My desire to please and to stop this from happening was somewhat futile. He would look for reasons to punish me. He liked hitting me and it aroused him. He didn’t want to hit me because he was in charge or because he could. He wanted a reason and something to point to as the reason why this was happening.  He wanted me to hate it and he wanted me to feel bad about whatever it was I did and feel deserving of that sort of treatment. I learnt to pay very close attention to everything I did and my appearance. I didn’t want him to find a reason to punish me but oftentimes I found myself dealing with situations outside of my experience so on a first try if I failed. I was punished.

We did not have open communication in the relationship. I wasn’t allowed to speak to him in less spoken to and I spoke in the third person.  It was difficult for me because I felt like I wasn’t able to let him know how I felt about anything and it created a no compromise situation. My mental state, health, and generalized well-being were not taken into account with any of his decisions. It was simply about what he wanted with a disregard for anyone else.  The purpose this served for me is I learnt in a relatively short time that my own personal thoughts and opinions did not matter. What mattered was how he felt.

I may or may not go into more details with this in the future. My concern with talking about this openly is someone will decide it is a good way to train a slave and start beating their slave. I can honestly say I do not believe anyone deserves to be treated the way I was treated regardless of the perceived benefits of doing so. This is also a very difficult subject for me to speak about.

-emma

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Serving in an Unfamiliar Situation

I think for some people the fear of the unknown can leave uncertainty or even an unwillingness to step outside of one’s comfort zone and do something new or different. As a slave, I am often faced with unfamiliar situations and dealing with those situations can be challenging. Over the years, I have learnt how to deal with unfamiliar situations in a manner that fit my relationship with my Master.

I am generally the one who does all the detail planning on our trips, meals, and things of that nature. This gives me a chance to do research on the area to figure out the places to go and the places not to go. I always have a backup plan just in case the first plan doesn’t work out. Once I have my plan developed I will go over it with my Master before the trip and make any needed chances. This works out well for us.

In an unexpected situation that is unfamiliar to me, I tend to rely more on my Master. I will tend to ask him more frequently if something should be done or if I should do something before I make an attempt. The reason for this is the unexpected situation may have us both outside of our comfort zone so it is important that we communicate effectively.

One thing that has never been allowed to me during the course of our relationship is using discomfort with a situation to be a way in which I could opt out of a situation. I do not always want to face with unfamiliar things, but without being faced with unfamiliar things there is no personal growth. I could see myself getting stuck in a role so to speak with what I could do for my Master if I was never pushed outside of my comfort zone. I feel that if I got stuck in a role, which would mean I am only acting in areas which are familiar to me. It would greatly affect my ability to serve my Master.

-emma

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Pet Peeve, Affairs

Quite possibly, one of my biggest pet peeves is people who attempt to justify their actions for cheating on their significant other is because the person they are having an affair with is their “Master.” I do not think an affair can create an M/s relationship. The only thing an affair does is give the parties involved a little trill and an escape from reality.

It’s not so much the thrill or the escape from reality that rubs me the wrong way about an affair. It is the lying and the blatant disregard for their significant other, their children, and their family. An affair costs money and when someone is having an affair they are taking money off their families table.

I hear from people in an affair that money is tight so they can’t leave their unhappy marriage. I always think to myself, “Did they ever consider saving the money they are spending to fuck around on getting out of that situation and spending the time they are using to fuck around on earning money to get out of the situation?” These people seem to have never considered that their choices are part of what is keeping them in the situation they are in. We cannot have everything all at once and sometimes we have to make sacrifices to be able to get to the point of being happy.

The lying just tells me the people involved in an affair have no respect for others. If you are unhappy in your relationship, then state you are unhappy and leave that relationship before pursuing the next. If you think your significant other is going to beat you or hurt you for leaving, ask yourself this, what do you think your significant other is going to do when they find out you were fucking someone else?

If someone has the time to fuck around when their primary relationship is abusive, they clearly have the time to make an escape from that relationship. There are shelters and aide available for people in that situation. Personally, I have been an abusive relationship and I never had an affair. I left.

Anyways, all in all I think people who have affairs need to grow up and take responsibility for their actions.

-emma

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Spring is Almost Here!

Spring is almost here and I am excited! Today, I made my corned beef and cabbage because it was St. Patrick’s Day. I have never liked the meal, but I make it to please him and I only have to do it once per year. I decided to attempt to make the meal in a crock pot, I got the idea when my co-workers were talking about making corned beef and cabbage for work in a crock pot since we don’t have ovens.

Anyways, the corned beef and cabbage turned out excellent. It was very tender and falling apart. It wasn’t tough like all my previous attempts at making the meal. The flavor was also good. In the past I had covered my corned beef with ketchup, but this year there was no need. It was truly an amazing meal.

Today, I also had the time to get my garden planted. We bought a couple more pots to expand our garden this year and I am looking forward to refining my gardening technique this year. This year I am growing tomatoes, cucumber, bell peppers, brussels sprouts, green onions, romaine, kale, blueberries and raspberries. I will be posting pictures soon. It was too dark by the time I finished to take a picture.

-emma

Saturday, March 10, 2012

Our Ancestors Workload

As I was driving to work the other day, I was pondering about how life was hundreds of years ago when the wife typically stayed home versus the way things are now. Before I left for work I loaded the dishwasher and started a load of laundry. These two things I was not doing by hand and would be completed when I got home from work.

Hundreds of years ago, not only would I have washed the dishes by hand but I would have also washed our clothes by hands on a wash board. I used a wash board once, as part of a school project to help us understand the hard work our ancestors did. Using a wash board is not easy and it was a lot of work.

It was easy for me to see why; it was expected for a wife to stay home a long time ago. The time it takes to do chores back then took longer than they do now. They didn’t have the advantage of technology to help them get their chores done like we do now. It was also easy for me to see why; it is more socially acceptable now for a woman to work outside the home. Simply put, the demands to keep a home running are not as high as they once were.

I’m not saying there is anything wrong with being a housewife or a house slave. All I am saying is I can certainly see that the housewives of the past most certainly worked harder than the housewives of today. I also think people who work outside the home also do not work as hard as our ancestors. Our workdays are shorter and we also have modern technology to help us get the job done faster and easier with less people.
I think that with the help of technology it is easier for people to balance working and maintaining a home. It does take some degree of planning but I firmly believe it is easier to create that balance in this day and age then it would have been hundreds of years ago.

-emma

Saturday, January 28, 2012

The Value of Mornings

I have never really seen much value in the morning. It has always been viewed from my perspective as a drain on my day. I put all the value of a day in the evening and what I do in the evening. The whole showering, eating breakfasts, packing lunches, and etc I saw as part of work. Interestingly, I didn’t see dinner as part of work. I found dinner relaxing and something I do on my time.

I am in the process of shifting around my thinking. The morning is a valuable part of my day. It is the start of my day, where I can do things for me and my Master. The things I already do have a positive impact on our day like cooking breakfast. It is just a matter of me seeing it as bonding time we spend together, much like the time we spend together in the evenings.

I am also rethinking my morning commute to work. I hate the commute to work, but I don’t mind the commute from work. I have always viewed the morning commute as part of work, but the ride home was not. I don’t really have any logic to justify this mindset, but that is how my thought process worked. Now, I am working on looking at my morning commute as a drive to my place of employment. It is time for me to lower my stress levels and relax.

I realize that shifting around my thinking is going to take time, but when I starting thinking that the morning is part of my day. I suddenly felt like I had I a lot more time in the day for me and my Master.

-emma

Monday, January 16, 2012

Woes of Change

Being on my new diet is difficult. I have somewhat limited options on what I can eat and I am pretty much having to relearn how to cook for my new diet. My diet is low fat, low carbohydrate, and low sugar. My Master was on the Adkins diet several years ago, but he could have fatty foods which more or less made up favor wise for the lack of carbohydrates. Many of the recipes I had for that diet won’t work because they are high in fat and lack a decent vegetable/ fruit element.

I have been experimenting a lot in the kitchen and I have been faced with mostly failures. I feel like I did when I was in junior high and starting to experiment in the kitchen. Failure after failure, it literally took me years to get a decent grasp on cooking. (My parents were the boxed meal people and we had no spices in my house when I was growing up. So learning how to cook did take a great deal of perseverance on my part.)I did come up with a chili, stuffed broccoli, and whole wheat dough recipe that aren’t half bad. But they are still in the tweaking stages.

This whole thing is making me very depressed. It sucks whenever we go out to eat and there are one or two things on the entire menu that I can actually eat and at some places there is nothing. Then the wait staff will always ask if we want an appetizer. I tell them there is nothing on their appetizer menu I can eat. Then they tell me their chips and spinach dip is good. I am sure their chips and spinach dip is good, but that doesn’t change the fact that I can’t eat it.

Tonight because I lost some of myself moderation, I had one piece of sugar free candy, a Clementine, and a serving of wheat thins. I realize this does not sound like binge eating to a normal person, but it spiked my blood sugar up over 200. Since my doctor believes I can control this with diet, which is true I can if I don’t do crap like I did tonight. I don’t have anything to get my blood sugar down, other than waiting and hoping it goes down. It did eventually go down.

I suppose this is just one of life’s challenges that I have to face. Unfortunately, I don’t think I am doing a very good job of facing it.

-emma

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Addiction

One thing I have struggled with for years is my addiction to soda pop. It was the caffeine in the soda I had an addiction to and I could never quite kick the habit. I was able to cut down in the past but anytime I ever found myself in a stressful situation, I would find myself downing a couple sodas. Whenever, I tried to quit I would get caffeine headaches and I would feel like I couldn’t live without it.

Since at the time, soda was having no real health impact on me, my Master sought to limit my intake but not cut off my intake. He was okay with me having a couple extra sodas to get through an extra long day at work and not say something I shouldn’t in front of my family.

All that has now changed, I found out that my soda intake was raising my blood sugar and caffeine could also have an effect on blood sugar. I have been feeling like garbage for the past few months and that spurred me into action. I was able to finally quit, my soda pop habit.

I was expecting all these withdraw symptoms to make my life hell for a few days, but the withdraw symptoms wasn’t as bad as the blood sugar issues it was causing. I think what changed is I had a motivating reason to stop with the soda. Not some lone threat of one day getting ill from it, but a real treat that makes me like crap.

I think I have a better understanding of addiction now, I can see that a person cannot stop until the addiction reaches a point where the person feels their life is in danger or they truly feel it is for the best.

-emma

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Uninspired and Food Woes

I guess I have been feeling uninspired with blogging lately. Every time I try to sit down to write a blog, my mind goes completely blank then I find myself playing jigsaw puzzles on the internet. I feel like I am in a lull. Nothing is terribly interesting to me right now, except food.

I changed my diet over the past couple weeks, so I am eating 3 meals a day and having 3 snacks per day. This means I am eating smaller meals. The purpose of this is an attempt to keep my blood sugar levels at a steady level throughout the day. It seems to be working. I am also limiting the amount of carbohydrates I eat per meal, as not to cause a spike in my blood sugar. So now my diet is low fat, semi-low carbohydrate, and low sugar.

I have been getting terribly sick of steamed broccoli, cauliflower, and salad. My recipes for broccoli are filled with carbohydrates, so I have to revamp our menu. Perfecting a recipe to our taste takes time, but I am getting more flavors into our foods. This makes me happy, but it seems like every day, I am on the internet finding new recipes and modifying them. Hopefully, I will have a new recipe to post, but right now I don’t have anything that is up to par.

I have found that going out to eat is next to impossible. My Master got me a book that tells me the calorie count, fat, and carbohydrate count in the foods at different restaurants. I am figuring out how to make it work. I am starting to think of it as my weekly challenge to find something to eat at a restaurant.

One thing that has happened since I changed my diet is I have lost weight. I have lost just over 5 pounds. I am not concerned about the weight loss at this point, because I am still within the healthy weight range for my height. If it dips down to low then I think I will have to start adding more calories into my diet.

-emma

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Maintaining Family Ties

One thing I have noticed over the years is some people use this lifestyle as an excuse to cut off ties with their family. There are a variety of reasons for this from every member of their family being ‘toxic’ to just needing to only focus on the relationship with their partner and/or any children born of that relationship. I do not think it is necessary to cut off family ties for a relationship. My Master and I consider keeping family ties important, but I think it is important to do so in a healthy manner.

My Master and I do have boundaries when it comes to dealing with family. We won’t bail them out of jail or pay for their way out of debt, but we will listen to their life woes. We try to be at our siblings and parents significant life events. My Master’s siblings are all wed, but we make it to my siblings’ weddings and we even went to say farewell to my brother when he was leaving for his deployment. While my brother was deployed, I wrote letters and sent care packages.

What I do and how I handle my family is all very typical. I do not feel cutting off family ties would in any way help or improve my relationship. In my previous M/s relationship, I didn’t have contact with my family. It was seen as an inconvenience and he really did have me convinced that my family must be comprised of bad people.

The truth is the only bad person was the person seeking to isolate me from my family. My family is a little crazy, but what family isn’t? Family emergencies never happen on a schedule or at a convenient time. Making the time for family is worth the investment.

I suppose the key to having a successful relationship with family is pretty simple and can be broken down into 5 steps.

1. Setup boundaries meaning don’t bail them out of difficult situations that they created. Some life lessons they have to learn themselves. But be willing to talk to them about the situation.

2. Do bail them out of atypical situations, like if their car broke down or if they are drunk at the bar and their ride left them.

3. Be a good sibling. Call your siblings and make time for them. Go to their significant life events if you are financially able. Missing a couple hours of sleep for one night because a life event is not a good reason.

4. Be a good daughter or son. Call your parents and make sure they are taken care of. As our parents age, they may need more care from their children. This may mean having to go check on them every day and bringing them meals.

5. Have an emergency fund for family emergencies. If your family is like mine, they are all over the country. We have a fund to pay for emergency trips we may need to make. This is used for illness in the family, death of a family member, and even a mental breakdown of a sibling.


-emma

Our New Year Traditions

My Master and I have been together for awhile now and one of the traditions we have is on New Year we do the completely vanilla new year’s toast and kiss. We do this every year and it has become something of a tradition for us. Truth be known, our new year’s toast over recent years has involved sparkling grape juice. I don’t drink alcohol.

We have never over the course of our relationship gone to a party or a social gathering to ring in the New Year. I think it is safe to say my Master and I are not social butterflies. We prefer to stay home and celebrate just the two of us. We do not have to deal with drunk drivers or drunken friends. I have always wondered what it would be like to go to one of the big New Year celebrations outside where everyone counts down to midnight. But as I watch them on TV in their heavy coats and seeing their breath in the air. I find myself content to be at home in the comforts of my warm home and in the loving arms of my Master.

-emma