Acceptance

April 18, 2011

Acceptance

i seem to have been struggling with this a bit recently - both with accepting others' views and choices and with feeling accepted myself. It's a weird combination of feelings, that i'm finding myself increasingly judging and criticising certain others within the lifestyle at the same time as feeling myself increasingly isolated and marginalised. Yet i don't really know what to do about it.

Much of it stems i believe from being a busy wife and mother, especially from having a toddler and baby twins, and dealing with the daily challenges of William's special needs. This has meant that the vast majority of my time, energies and thoughts are devoted to the children and William in particular, meaning that my slave identity has become rather neglected (as i posted about before). Sir has taken measures to try to alleviate that somewhat by ensuring that i get time almost daily to chat with like-minded friends on the BDSM chatrooms and by starting up my training again as and when we can fit it in. But still i find myself thinking (and 'saying' through blog posts) certain views about certain others in the lifestyle which have gained me some criticism or at the least reminders from others to be more tolerant, less judgemental, not to compartmentalise others so  much or over-generalise my opinions onto the lifestyle as a whole. Most of the time i am surprised to receive those comments, but on rereading my posts i can see where they have come from, and i never mean to be judgemental or critical, it just seems to be the way i am thinking at the moment.

Then there are the difficulties i have been experiencing on the chatrooms recently. It goes without saying that in any chatroom environment there will be people you don't particularly get along with, those who do not like you, who may even be jealous of you or go out of their way to be critical of you and try to wind you up. To be fair there's only a few people like that towards me in #P&H and it never used to bother me too much, but now i find myself getting overly upset by any little negative comment they might make to or about me, wondering if more people in the room are secretly thinking the same things, and even questioning friendships i have in there. It's been making me feel like i don't fit in anymore, that i don't belong in the 'online' BDSM environment because i am in a real-life relationship and not really interested in the scening and other activities which take place in the channel, but also that i don't really fit in the 'real-life' BDSM community either because it is difficult for me to actively serve my Sir at the moment, we don't go to munches or play parties or community events, much of my slave life is on hold for the foreseeable future, so how much of a slave am i?

i know people will say that true slavery/submission comes from inside and i do still have those feelings and desires and feel the same way about my Sir and our relationship as i did before. i'm not questioning my decision to be collared or anything like that, i'm just struggling with feeling accepted and with accepting (some) others, and not really sure what to do about it. Meanwhile life rushes on with so many things to do and think about and important decisions to be made about William's care and what to do for the best for him. Maybe i should concentrate on those other things and not fret about my submission for a while?