Submissive Self-Evaluation

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about my life and about who I am.  This is something I constantly did in my younger days and back then I was always trying to become someone better.  It also kept me feeling a constant inadequacy.  At some point I finally matured to where I was no longer constantly forcing change... I just learned to be.

It's been a while since I delved into myself and I think I'm due for an honest look.

I'll start with the easy part.

Physically, I have many flaws.  I am short.  Not like midget short, but below average height.  I am not particularly good looking and while I'm not sure what really gets women attracted to a man, I'm definitely not a pretty boy.  My penis below average size.  I am out of shape right now.  I have a large build and I just haven't been exercising or watching what I eat over the past year or so.

In response...
I honestly can't do anything about my height or my natural build, nor my facial features.  This is just something I have accepted as me and try to make up for it in other ways (personality, obedience, etc.).  What I may lack in penis size I can thankfully make up for with endurance and effort.  That may sound like bragging but who really wants to admit they have a small dick that can go for 4+ hours?  It's more of a relief that it's not a small dick that goes for three pumps.

I just started working out again.  My body responds very quickly to exercise and I'm able to burn fat and build muscle at a crazy pace.  Within 1 month I will be much happier with myself than I am now and within 3 months I will feel good about myself.  I just wish I had the ability to drop mass.  I either have a 6-pack or a keg with nothing in between...

The thing that keeps getting worse over time are my joints and I know this affects my value as a submissive.  I played many sports growing up at a competitive level and I have managed to injure most of my joints to the point where they have become chronic and affect my day to day life and have robbed me of my flexibility.  Prolonged uncomfortable bondage isn't really possible without having the potential to cripple me for a week+.  I do just fine with being restrained for long periods, but women of the cruel nature that I so crave are more the types to restrain me twisted up like a pretzel and I may fail because of that.

I have one other large negative physical quirk that I am trying to fix/change.  I used to love the smell and taste of vaginas.  The scent was comforting to me.  The third Domme I served (for about 4 months) was a front wiper.  One day when I was chained to the bed she straddled my face and I started to lick her when all of a sudden something wasn't right and my gag reflex went off, causing me to vomit in my mouth.  This was several years ago but the scent that once made me feel warm and safe now tends to trigger my gag reflex.  We have been slowly working towards repairing this but in many ways I feel like I'm a ruined sub until this has been reversed. 

Overall:
I will get myself in shape.  The rest of it I'm kind of stuck with.  Some helpful "nudging" by Mistress would assist greatly in terms of diet and exercise, but ultimately this is up to me to take care of.  On the upside, I still look much younger than I am and I still get carded if I go to see an R-rated movie.

Personality.  This is a tough one because some of my strengths are also weaknesses.  I do have some weaknesses that are never strengths.

Sense of humor.  This is one of my defining characteristics.  I like to laugh, I have a quick wit, and I appreciate deep levels of humor.  If I'm not in subspace I can be kind of a brat sometimes and occasionally my sense of humor falls into the realm of inappropriate.  In the past I have had the brat beaten out of my through swift punishment and I learned how to keep it under control.  The downside is that I am male so it inevitably returns if not reminded every so often.

Intelligence.  This is my best friend and my worst enemy.  The positives are that I'm a fast learner, I have a great memory, and I have the ability to evaluate and analyze situations on the fly and make sound reactionary decisions.  The negatives are that I occasionally get arrogant if I get "on a roll" and I can be stubborn when I believe a certain course of action is the best or most correct choice.  While the negatives could be beaten out of me I feel stupid for not being able to control them on my own.

Work ethic.  I bust my ass to learn and master things.  I delve into every possible aspect of something and practice again and again until I perfect it.  I expect the best of  myself and I put in the effort to make it happen... but this occasionally leads me to obsession.  When I get obsessed and focused on something I inevitably fail as a human being.  Tunnel vision towards something other than Mistress is probably the worst imaginable thing to have.  As I wrote in an earlier post this week, I have no problem dropping hobbies for what I truly need and desire, so this rarely is a problem if the D/s intensity stays up and then my work ethic is a strong positive.

Honesty, integrity, and straight-forwardness.  Everyone knows what good things come from these traits but they can be ugly when honesty isn't going to go over well, integrity leads to stubbornness, and being straight-forward seems uncaring.  I need to use more care and think outwardly about others before allowing any of these traits to take over my words and actions.

Primary weaknesses... this is probably going to be one of the hardest things to write about honestly but here goes.

Insecurity.  I have abandonment issues.  These stem to my early childhood and sometimes it feels like I can't escape them.  I will do anything, endure anything, and sacrifice everything to not be left alone.  Reacting to my insecurities has led to some of my positive characteristics, but insecurity is never, ever, ever sexy.  I know that I have to be more confident with myself... believe that I am someone worth knowing, worth loving, and worth keeping... I'm just not sure with how much I'll be able to change this with things as they are.  I fear these issues will never really go away, just become less of a problem.

Depression.  God, how this has fucked up my life for as long as I can remember.  I have a fairly decent grasp on my depression, I know how to fight it off before it starts, I know how to deal with it after it has shown up, I just don't know how to get rid of it.  My depression is rooted in my abandonment issues as well as physical and emotional abuse that I received while growing up.  What makes it harder is that I go through periods of feeling "needy," and other periods where I need some form of obsession to keep my mind occupied. Thankfully I have found a way to keep my stress levels low enough to keep my ulcers under control.  They only really flare up when Mistress and I fight.

When I am at my weakest I just need to be loved.  The best therapy I have ever had for it was to be over Mistress's lap, chains locked on to show me that she wasn't going to let me go, and in a calm voice, being scolded for feeling this way and reminded that she loves me and I will be hers while she spanked me.  The last time this happened I believe I felt the most love I have ever felt for another person.

If depression does rear its ugly head... it's a tough battle for me to overcome.  I lose sex drive.  I lose motivation.  I lose hope.  Even worse, and I know I will probably come off as really fucked up when I say this, but when my depression is full on I start having severely negative thoughts that randomly jump into my head like, "I would rather be dead," or "I'm fucking worthless," often accompanied by a recollection of an event where I made a bad decision or hurt/wronged someone and now regret.  I know those thoughts aren't real, but at their worst, trying to brush them off 30+ times a day really puts a downer on everything.

Next up is a topic I dread to face, which is my station in life.

I have a four year degree from a major university.  I have been very gifted academically and finished near or at the top of my class since elementary school.  Many things indicate I should be a success in life.  My depression and insecurities have haunted me for as long as I can remember (they started at around age 5) and for most of my teen years, they almost took over my life although I continued to succeed on an academic level.  Back then I was always living in fear of an unhappy future.  When I learned to cope with my depression, it was in the form that most of my therapists had tried to get me to do all along... and that is... live day by day. 

That's what I have done.  I lived day by day but at the expense of the future.  I try not to let myself get tangled up into negative thoughts and worries about the economy, etc.  The problem is that I stopped trying to change my station in life and just tried to get by without being pulled under. 

When I graduated college I was with my first Mistress and she was ill.  I needed flexibility and money right away so instead of going and applying for careers, I took a job in a field I had interest in right out of the gate.  I did this with the fear that years later I would still be stuck in that dead end job because I was able to get by and be afraid to shake up my life and try to advance in a career.  The problem is... years later I am still stuck in that dead end job.

On some levels it is fulfilling.  I enjoy what I work with, I am very knowledgeable about it, I enjoy imparting that knowledge onto others, and it is a small business (~8 employees) where I'm able to use my problem solving skills to try and improve how things are done.  Each year I'm able to come up with several measures that end up saving $20k+ per year.  Each year my raise has been somewhere in the realm of 25 to 50 cents.  Each year at my review I'm told that there just isn't enough money flowing in to get a real raise to a decent wage.  Each year it means that there's a few weak links that continue to mismanage things so badly that we struggle to be profitable.  Each year I'm told I will be given more work that is better suited to my skill set. Each year they bring in someone new who fails at what I was supposed to be doing.  I'm reaching my burnout point and that would probably be a good thing.

I live paycheck to paycheck.  I have enough savings to cover ~2-4 major emergencies, but I'm not in a position where my income would be called "gainful." 

I am great at coming up with excuses for why I don't improve my life (the economy sucks, etc.)  The reality of it is that I'm scared to make changes when I have found a way to survive day by day.  I need to fix this.  I wish I had the support and pressure from Mistress to work at this but again, that's just an excuse for my own weakness.

I need to change for the better.  I need to find where to start so that I can make those changes without unbearable amounts of anxiety.

Lastly... I will look at myself as a submissive.

In my submission I have always tried to be like clay.  To be shaped into whatever she wanted me to be.  Lately I feel a bit like certain parts of me have been run through the kiln, taking a solid form that can no longer be changed and that the rest of me has lost its shape.  I don't know if those parts that have taken form can be changed but I hope they can be.  I also hope that Mistress is able to help reshape what has been lost.

My depression plagued me a lot this past year and my rocky relationship with Mistress did its part as well.  My impulse is no longer one to do things for her without her asking because I am often scared of how she will act towards me no matter what I do.  If decisions are left until the last minute there's no way I can fuck up.  This is a terrible, terrible state to be in for a submissive.  I'm fucking ashamed of myself for being this way.  Is it unfair for me to need the D/s dynamic for me to return to my former self?  A self where every impulse relates to her.

We had some of our first D/s activity the other day in the shower and it seemed almost foreign. 

What I can see...
I need to change.  I need to have a healthier state of mind.  I need a healthier body.  I need to be stronger. 
I wish that she would take charge and bring out the best in me.  It is weak and unfair of me to need this, I should want to be the best I can be for her.

I will keep trying.