A few quick thoughts on my mental health

I haven’t been doing well lately. my mental health has taken a drastic nose dive. Back in the spring when Master and i decided that we were going to stop trying to have a baby i was doing well. The shit scared-ness of the idea of becoming a parent and the very real threat of postpartum depression was removed, i was relieved. After a short while my mental health fluctuated as i was feeling so many conflicting feelings, guilt primarily. We ended up changing our minds and decided to try once more after a few months of discussion. Enter Fall From Grace and my life affirming experience. i even managed to make it through the news that our sperm had to be returned to the sperm bank and the decision that Lee and i made to call it quits on the baby-making front. But that life affirmed feeling FFG gave me quickly fell off and i began to circle the drain. It began to affect my job and i have gained a significant amount of weight over the summer and fall but primarily since FFG which was August long weekend. Lee and i have hardly played and when we do i can’t take nearly as much pain if it’s not cathartic.

i have taken a temporary reduction in my hours at work and my MD has started me on an another medication on top of the one i’m currently on. i have also started seeing a psychologist with whom i will be doing an intensive group therapy called Dialectical Behavior Therapy which is basically CBT (cognitive based therapy not cock and balls torture!) with a mindfulness component. It starts next month but the problem is that they hold the group class in a room that is used for a lot of prenatal classes and such so i’m slightly concerned that it will be triggering for me to be in there.

Master and i have been looking at tightening up some of our rules a bit more to help with structure in my life too. i mentioned to Her the other day that i’d like it if we could work on position training again. i think having the positions to work on would help ground/reconnect me on when She’s not home by incorporating it into my day.

Struggling with depression takes all of the drive out of you. You have no desire to do anything; you don’t care what happens around you. Struggling with borderline personality disorder means my emotions are unstable, i’m impulsive and my reactions can be wildly out of proportion.

Lee bears the brunt of my outbursts. She knows that when it happens there is very little that can be done and nothing She will say or do will ever be right but She stays with me and loves me and owns me in spite of all that. She is an amazing and strong woman. Sometimes i wonder if She’s not the crazy one for staying aboard the crazy ride that is elle.

Waterboarding may have just save my life....

NOTE:  i wrote this right after the last post but never published it. i'm not going to reread it or i will start editing it and i want it to remain my original feelings so i apologize if it's not the easiest to read.

So on with the show: Waterboarding may have just save my life....

....And, well, our car breaking down probably contributed too.

That is about the craziest thing that i have ever said and may ever say. Hear me out though.

Backstory...
If you've read much of the blog you know i have chronic depression as well as other stuff. i've talked about it before but short story is i've had depression and borderline personality disorder for over half my life now. i've attempted suicide more than once and been hospitalized about half a dozen times (mostly just short stays). i haven't been actively suicidal for many years now but i still often have days where i wish i would just disappear. i've have told Master before that i were to become ill in a way that could kill me (for example, cancer) i would just let it run it's course and take me though.

Onwards...
Our fourth wedding anniversary was two weekends ago now. We went camping at a provincial park in Ontario about 3 hours from home and had a great time. About an hour and a bit outside the city on our way home the fuel pump in our car suddenly died while i was driving. We were very lucky that it happened where it did because i lost power, which meant no steering or brakes once the engine stopped getting fuel. Had it died about 15-20 minutes earlier the highway that we were on would have been much more dangerous (cliffs and lakes= dangerous place not to be able to stop or direct your car) and rather than a tow truck it could have been an ambulance or hearse picking us up.

Car fixed and off we go to Fall from Grace Friday evening. Saturday afternoon we watched a water torture demo. Afterwards we were talking to the guy who did the demo and i mentioned that i was really interested in trying waterboarding so he offered to do it with Lee. He already had two other people that he was going to do so i had a bit of time to stew in my thoughts. i missed the first one as i went for a walk but watched the person before me, i was nervous but not too scared.

When it was my turn my hands were handcuffed i was tied to a coffee table with my arms overhead one end and my bound feet at the other end. A third person straddled across my midsection to hold me down. The the demo guy held one of Lee's shirts over my face and Master poured a bucket of ice cold water, quarter of a bucket at a time, over my face. She'd pour some, the shirt would be removed, they'd give me a few breaths then do it again. It was one of the scariest feeling that i think i've ever had. immediately after i was probably "suffering from" some sub space energy but i felt happy and grateful to be alive and i felt so full of love for both Her and life in general.  After the subspace wore off and i thought a bit about it i wasn't too sure if i liked it. It's dangerous and kinda scared me. Sunday i watched someone else have it done and at that moment i realized that i loved it cause i was envious of the guy that was being waterboarded.

i have told Mater before that there have been times in our play that She stops just before it gets really intense, that i wish She would push a bit further and make me go to that uncomfortable and sometimes scary place and that's exactly what it felt like and more being waterboarded. The last time they put the cloth back over my head, the guy who was holding it down stood in a way in which i couldn't easily clap (which was my "safeword") and that terrified me almost more than the fear of drowning itself.

In the days following i have had more time to process my thoughts and feelings. Add the close call with the car to the waterboarding and you get one very introspective elle. As i explained to Master, doing the waterboarding made me realize something very valuable. i fought to live, i struggled with every ounce of energy i had to LIVE.With my depression there have been many times where i hoped i would die, begged to die and have actively tried to end my own life so for me struggling and fighting to live has made me really think. i half jokingly told Master that if my depression starts to get bad again to waterboard me and i will feel better instantly.

i'm still processing all of my feeling and we have other big things going on in our lives right now that i don't think i will talk about today

i ended up with a fairly large bruise on my forearm from banging my arms on the table trying to get free and the handcuffs bruised my wrists a bit too. We have documented the bruise as i am considering seeing about getting a tattoo done of it as a lasting reminder that there was a moment where i fought to live, once i can figure out how i would explain that to the vanilla folks in my life.