One thing I’ve been working on as part of my treatment for dependent personality disorder is learning to trust my own judgment. My natural inclination before was just to assume others knew better than I did, effectively placing everyone up on a pedestal until they did something that demonstrated that they no longer belonged there.
As one would expect, this had a way of resulting in all manner of pandemonium. There were a number of unfortunate incidents that occurred, both mucking up my happiness and/or safety and resulting in extreme disappointment in the individual. To be fair, with a few notable exceptions, I was not led to believe these people were perfect. Most had made no claims to that effect.
Skyspook has been extremely supportive, helping me with my therapist’s assignments, often insisting that, slave or not, I choose for myself, and in decisions that affect us both to at least give him my opinion so he can make better choices that serve both of us. I hate it, grumble, twitch, bemoaning my fate as the unluckiest slave in the world, saddled with an autonomy that makes me profoundly uncomfortable. Example:
Me: I think I’m hungry.
Skyspook: What would you like?
Me: Anything would be fine.
Skyspook: What do you want? A snack or dessert?
Me: Anything would be fine.
Skyspook: Snack or dessert?
Me: Dessert.
Skyspook: What kind of dessert?
Me: Anything would be fine.
Skyspook: Page. What. Do. YOU. Want?
Me: Like as my ideal fantasy? Like if I were to fantasize about food right now, what would be in the little cartoon bubble over my head?
Skyspook: Yes, Page.
Me: (wringing my hands and sighing) …Pie?
I immediately felt something shrivel up inside of me. My desire was there, outside of me, subject to modification, rejection, or even ridicule.
Skyspook thought pumpkin pie sounded good, so he bought a small one and some whipped cream, and we each had a piece when we got home, but I couldn’t shake the ache that it was wrong, that I had been selfish, that somehow he would have chosen something that he liked better for himself and enjoyed it more had I not been involved.
*
Last night at the urging of my friend Fran, we went to an M/s munch to meet some new folks. The discussion topic was when Masters make mistakes, how it can affect the dynamic with their slaves, whether Masters also need to find ways to make things right or even atone, much in the way that a slave is expected to be punished when he/she errs. It was an excellent conversation, and I found my mind and mouth shooting off on tangents, stimulated by what the others were saying, their beliefs, their experiences.
While it’s easy and quite a lot of fun to put my Master up on a pedestal, if I’m going to do that, I have to be prepared for those moments when reality intervenes on the fantasy, when he’s accident prone, cranky, absent minded. I still want to see him as a work of art because he is. While he’s obviously human, he’s an amazing person. I adore him. To be happiest, I have to learn to see him both as a work of art and a flawed dynamic lovely human being. So far, so good.
*
Self-acceptance, on the other hand, it’s a bit trickier. Sometimes I can get there in my mind, where I acknowledge my flaws and shortcomings as human and foster the kind of love I often have for others, when I freeze in sheer terror at the notion that I am no worse than anyone else.
If that’s the case, if the world is full of people as fallible as I am, then the world is doomed.
It’s easy to prefer the beautiful lie of others’ superiority to the frightening truth, that no one has the instruction manual to life, we’re all subjective and prone to pettiness and myriad failures, and no one really knows what we’re doing here.
It’s like suddenly I’m staring at streets where there’s no one behind the wheels of the cars careening towards each other at full speed.