-
moonlight wrote:
What Tiger did to me *showed* me that he cared and valued me. He cared enough to wind me up, break me, and then put me back together.
Janet wrote:
Aha! Okay, this answers the question I was going to ask (namely, "If someone were to do that to me, I'd feel like I'd been set up to fail and it would big time piss me off and I'd resent the hell out of it -- could I ask you to talk about how you feel about the scene and how you feel now that it's over?").
That's another of the reasons I've been hesitating to post anything about the scene. I wasn't sure, entirely, how I felt about it. There was a *lot* for me to think about. He's pushed me through several things, but none of them, really, touched on some of the deep limits that I have/had.
I think that if it had been anyone else, I probably would have come out of it pissed as hell. There's still a part of me that doesn't understand how he could enjoy doing that to someone. But, I'm not a sadist. :)
There are times when what we call the "failure cycle" gets engaged by accident. (Mostly by my mistaking something he does as having the same meaning/intent that my ex did when the ex did it...they're very similar in a *lot* of ways...)
My reactions, during those...episodes...is almost entirely the same as what I had during the scene....with the exception of the rage. Instead, depression sets in and I get more and more silent as time goes on.
He, at those times, does *not* enjoy what is happening. He's come to grips that it is something that he cannot help me much with, since I have to learn to break that cycle and how to pull myself back out of it. He just gets to sit there and encourage and be rational and hold out a hand that I can take or not.
I don't have the same reactions to that scene as I do when it gets accidentally triggered in that I don't feel bad and there was no depression.
There has been, undoubtedly, some question in my mind since we started our relationship if he can stand dealing with the ugly side of me...the part that can become that enraged....and if he could control it.
Some of those questions have been answered. I'm sure there will be more, but I don't fear them coming out as much as I used to. I don't feel the need to control my reactions nearly as rigidly as I did before. I don't feel as much need to keep that rage bottled up away from Tiger if it starts to boil over.
Before, when the rage wanted to come out, my entire body would tighten and it was a true battle to stuff it back inside. If I lost control of it, I really feared hurting him. I still could.
But, he also proved that he can handle more than I have been letting out, too. Fear is a wonderful *and* a terrible thing. And most often the fear of something happening is far more dangerous than the actual thing happening.
- Janet wrote:
I hadn't interpreted the part about making you ask for five more strokes and take them as something that would be healing (reading through filters again!); clearly it was for you, and Argentium Tiger knew it would be.
Out of curiosity, what did you interpret it as? I'd like to know because I try to be very clear about the underlying motivations and emotions when I write about a scene. I'm affected, however, by my own experiences in that what is perfectly clear to me may be muddled to someone else.
It's very true that doing the extra five would have been more damaging to some people. I just have this...need to feel I've done something to please him in order to feel I've not failed. By giving me something simple to do...he gave me back that confidence that I *could* please him. Reinforcing it with touch and cuddling finished that.
One thing that might not have been very clear, now that I think about it... For me to be able to process pain and submission, there *has* to be a connection with the person i'm playing with. I have to feel their responses and pleasure or anger or whatever...to interact with them.
Tiger was, from my point of view, very deliberately withholding that. This played on another fear of mine whether he knew about it or not. Years ago, I tried to turn over my safeword for a scene to my ex. He immediately started out cropping me *very* hard with no warmup. I had never felt a crop before that, and he was being emotionally distant and I was not getting the interplay that I needed to process it.
In that scene, I became hysterical and it stopped. (I was tied for that one, fortunately.) By not being there emotionally and interacting with me, Tiger was dredging up that as well. I had failed to do a scene that I had agreed to with my then-owner. And there wasn't the ending of building my confidence back up like there was with Tiger.
I think I'd talked at some point with Tiger about my need for interaction and approval from the person I'm in a scene with. And that most likely accounted for the way the scene ended. Either that or he just knows me well enough to realize that on his own.
This, again, reinforced the idea that you *must* know not only the limits of your partner but also their needs...physical, emotional, spiritual... all of those things are important to some extent.
- Janet wrote:
Wow. Having read this post, I think I need to go back and re-read the original. Thanks, Moonlight, for both posts. Likewise, thanks to Argentium Tiger for his follow-up on safety measures he took to minimize the risk of harming you.
You're welcome. :)
