However, My Treasure has been suffering from Seasonal Affect Disorder (SAD) . Now I tried being all sensitive and understanding, letting him be uncommunicative and sleeping all the time. He has a standing requirement to contact me daily, but I let that slide, since he was so depressed.
You know what? It is really hard to see someone you love feeling so down and be unable to help. He asked me very nicely to give him time to pull himself together, and I know he was sincerely trying to drag himself out of the doldrums. But it was taking forever! This started before Christmas, and here it was, the end of January, and, dammit, I was getting lonely and depressed myself!
I am basically a positive and sunny person, which is why my sweetie likes me. When I did manage to get him to speak to me, it was actually like talking to Eeyore in Winnie the Pooh. I responded by trying to be sensitive and caring. That is what you are supposed to do as a loving domme, right? Well I tried, but I let him have his space.
The one day near the end of January, It occurred to me that I had had enough, and so had he. His efforts to rise from his depression were obviously not providing the desired results. I decided to go with my natural inclination, and against the advice of friends who have experience with clinical depression. I ordered him to act like he was not depressed!
Here is my reasoning. Felix is submissive, and is used to doing what I tell him to do. Maybe he needs me to give him some motivation to actually move forward. So a direct order may be what he is waiting for, what he needs.
My experience as a corporate trainer, Naval officer and a parent have taught me that if a person performs an action, whether or not he is feeling it, he will often begin to feel it. Plus I get what I want, which is more time with a happier man. I know that you choose your attitudes. I think he needed me to order him to choose to be happier. He needed a firm hand and a clear expectation from me as to how he can please me. My allowing him to wallow was counterproductive and it would have eventually led to a break-up, i think. I was not helping him, and he was not giving me what I need.
I think it worked. I hear from him daily, and what is even more pleasing to me, what lifts MY spirits, is that happy lilt in his voice when he says, "Hi, Domina!" in the morning, and "I love you, Domina," when we say goodnight. All is right with our world, once again.
It's nice to see a post from you Ma'am. It's been too long. I read your post and remember hearing a sports psychologist talk to a group about the 'act as if' principle, as he called it. He talked about professional players needing to 'act as if' they are champions, or college students 'acting as if they were a good student', etc. His point was that if we acted, as you said in your post, we reflect those desired outcomes more readily. I think you indeed are correct in how you handled Felix's depression. I wish you well.
ReplyDeleteThis is the first post I have seen in awhile. Good news to see you blogging again.
ReplyDelete"My experience as a corporate trainer, Naval officer and a parent have taught me that if a person performs an action, whether or not he is feeling it, he will often begin to feel it."
This is also one of the basic tenants of behavioral/cognitive therapy for the treatment of depression - doing is motivating. Great instincts! Hard to beat life experiences. Maybe your friends with depression advised against it, but if any of them had decent therapists...the therapists would have cheered you on. You go Domme. Sometimes loving is to love someone enough to kick them out of a rut. Some of us battling that old "black dog" [as Winston Churchill called depression] have someone who has compassion mixed with the occasional boot in the butt. And it is good.
Thanks for validating my feelings, gentlemen. It is sometimes hard to know where the misstep is, and how to avoid it. I have made a number of mistakes in dealing with Felix, and that makes one a little gun-shy. Thankfully, this was not one of them.
ReplyDelete