Current reflections upon my submission

For all intents and purposes, I am a broken man.  Capable but helpless.  Potential for greatness bogged down by a life of shattered self-esteem, abuse, and failed expectations.  Adequate but inadequate: able to make someone happy but not attractive enough to be chosen. 

I am good at almost everything I set out to do.  I have experienced success academically and athletically, but this has never brought me happiness.  Life didn't always feel this way but I can see now the path that led to this road. 

At my core, I feel unworthy of love.  Being given up at birth and adopted into an unloving family were the start.  It was at a young age where I discovered I had to earn affection.  I had to succeed, to be the best at what I was doing.  This is what was expected of me.  Falling short of that goal resulted in passive-aggressive attacks and later on, outright physical abuse.  My sense of worth became precariously balanced on the head of a pin: when successful, things stayed together.  In failure, the whole world toppled down.  Expectations were never voiced, there were only reactions to the end results.  Little league, school, etc., this bled into all facets of life.

Eventually I became so terrified of failure that any change to my life became a source of high anxiety.  When I faltered I would punish myself internally, knowing the reactions would be negative.  When said reactions manifested themselves, the pain would compound upon itself.  After nearly a decade of this I found myself depressed, suicidal, and scared of life. A brief foray into drug and alcohol addiction helped me medicate through my high school years.

Upon reaching adulthood I was still scared and felt unloved and unwanted. I developed a means of coping through writing and philosophizing about idealized concepts of life and love. The notion of unconditional love was one that I often dreamed about. In my experiences, receiving love was always conditional.  Love had to be earned.  It was not something I deserved unless I proved myself deserving by meeting or exceeding expectations placed upon me.  In turn, I wanted to love unconditionally.  To give myself wholly to the one that I loved and be embraced for it.  This seemed natural and in some ways, it was the trade off for someone like me: I had to love and devote myself with all my being in order to deserve to be loved in return.

The vanilla dating world for young adults is not a kind one.  Unless you are physically attractive, successful, or brimming with confidence, your other qualities that deserve merit are easily overlooked.  The mind games and posturing often rival those of my youth. Guessing her expectations, being passive aggressively punished if I fail to meet them, dealing with being pushed away after disagreements and the like.  The idea that someone could love me unconditionally continued on as merely a dream. 

I started to think it would be easier if a woman was more demanding.  If she made her expectations clear and eliminated the guessing game. If she got mad she could channel her anger directly and we could then make things right.

Around this time I met my first Mistress.  Before our relationship started she was the one that spotted me as being well-suited for submission and everything sort of fell into place after that. 

I know this sort of paints a one-dimensional picture of myself.  I have a wide variety of interests and hobbies.  I delve deep into what I enjoy and try to share things with others that I believe they will enjoy too.  Over the years I have experienced success in a lot of ways: being on sports teams that finished top 5 in the state, performing music in front of large audiences, graduating valedictorian and magna cum laude.  I know why I downplay these things so much when representing myself.  First, they have never made me happy on their own.  Second, they have never felt like true accomplishments, they have merely felt like I met the bare minimum of expectations that were placed upon me.  Is it odd that I crave to be acknowledged but hate compliments?

With these things in mind, submission has become something completely natural. To meet every expectation and demand with the entirety of my being merely to be accepted.  To constantly feel I must earn her love with everything I do. To feel wretched when I let her down and normal when I succeed.  To accept anything she may throw my way and love her unconditionally.   To be my best at all times for her and to make her happy.

I no longer have dreams of my own.  My dream is to support her dream and help make it come true. 

This is what feels natural to me.  Therapists have told me this is wrong.  The women I have loved have loved this about me.  I have accepted this is who I am but sometimes wonder if I should change.

Ramifications of trained obsolesence

Lady Grey's most recent posts at http://womanincontrol.blogspot.com/  have gotten me thinking a bit more about the progressive escalation of D/s over time (I have blogged on this a few times over the years).  Something became readily apparent to me tonight in regards to my own submissive desires and how they have evolved over the years.

I train rather easily in the D/s lifestyle.  I have a good memory, high attention to detail, and can be reasonably intelligent at times.  This has been one of my submissive strengths over the years but it has also had major drawbacks.  If you as a sub are able to follow rules and instructions to the T, you don't give a Domme a reason to punish you. If your D/s relationship is based around sensual interaction for good behavior and physical punishment for bad behavior, a Domme that enjoys inflicting pain upon the sub is faced with the choice of denying herself something that gives her pleasure or punishing and attempting to justify the choice.  With newer Dommes, choosing the latter can lead to guilt and that guilt may reduce her pleasure in the moment or lead to negative feelings in its aftermath.  Being that I am not a masochist, a Domme can struggle with the "because I can" or "as a reminder of your place" reasoning behind punishment. 

As much as I dislike pain, as a submissive I crave the fear and exhilaration of intense D/s interaction, even if it involves pain.  By being mistake free in service (or as close as possible to this), I inherently reduce the intensity level of the relationship (often hurting the desires of both Domme and sub).  I frown upon subs that act out or misbehave merely to get attention.  I think this type of behavior is childish, selfish, and out of focus.  So where does a sub go from there? 

I think the answer to that question can be seen in my own fantasies of deeply sadistic Dommes. 
Some examples:
-A Domme that will enjoy punishing after perfect service because she enjoys the additional mental anguish a sub goes through when he doesn't deserve it. 
-A Domme that will ensure a sub will make mistakes or cannot serve perfectly and punish him for failing while taking pleasure in his added suffering from knowing he cannot succeed, e.g. being ordered to dust on top of tall shelves with your hands locked behind your back. 
-A Domme that believes perfect obedience is to be expected and should not be rewarded.

This type of situation is unpredictable and frightening.  It can also lead to a deeper level of subspace where you surrender to the situation. 

From a more realistic perspective, this most likely would be rather dangerous and fall into the "be careful what you wish for" category unless there is a strong and loving bond between Domme and sub.  That being said, I'm not sure if this desires is a strength or a weakness: the willingness to lovingly submit and endure through it all vs. my D/s relationships will eventually evolve to where I crave this, regardless of her wishes. 

The D/s has been absent for a while now in my relationship and I feel like it's driving me crazy.