(no subject)
Gods, I feel wrung out. Drained. These last couple days have been a trial, and it isn't over yet.
Sebrawyn has been having difficulty controlling her instincts. Every time she felt herself slip, she strove to keep it leashed, and I could see it taking its toll on her. I didn't help matters, as initially I was encouraging her to do just that... but after I clued into what was happening, despite my assurance that she needed some release, she kept holding control and wearing herself down.
This came to a head the other night. She approached me and said she was heading to Mojache alone. I knew she'd been concentrating on writing the response to Tizze -- after she'd had me read her friend's letter as she couldn't concentrate on it -- and would be weary from the effort. She may have thought she was being natural, but I could hear the careful, precise wording she chose with every sentence, striving to sound as civilized as she could. So I told her she had to stay home for the night as the risk was too great. She didn't take this well, and no matter how I tried to reassure or deflect her, she grew angrier and more feral. I kept my hands on her despite her warnings and she bit me -- hard enough to break skin. As before, I hauled her into the hut -- enduring another sharp bite -- and pressed her down on her back until she submitted. I hoped it would be over then, as it had been the last time she bit me, but I suppose I didn't play my role.
She sought to soothe me, inundated in the wolf mind as she was, and reinforce our bond as mates, but gods, my mind was anywhere but my pants at the moment. This distressed her, however, and she left to curl up by Ghost. The last thing I wanted was for her to feel she should be punished for what happened in the heat of the moment due to my pushing an issue, so I coaxed her back to bed -- but she insisted she was going to protect me. When I didn't feel the tension leave her body once we lied down, I knew she was going to protect me by distancing herself, and resolved not to let that happen.
I stayed up all night, and well into the day, watching her... but eventually, in a quiet moment, exhaustion got the better of me and I dozed off. I awoke some hours later, after the sun had set, to an empty hut and empty clearing. She had taken Ghost and fled.
I don't know if it was the light, my exhaustion, or the fact that I haven't tracked in a while, but following her trail was difficult even in the soft earth of the shore. I'm rusty, horribly rusty, and it was exactly the wrong time to be unsure of the trail I was following. She eventually responded to whatever I was projecting through the ring and I was terrified she'd realize what I was doing and bolt. I pleaded with her to stay where she was, hoping against hope I was following the right track. Eventually Ghost found me and led me back to her, where she stood, filthy, frightened, and utterly miserable.
She put up resistance when I asked her to come home with me, expressing how scared she was that she'd hurt me again and that she couldn't trust herself, but eventually agreed. She wouldn't stop crying. Her guilt and horror was palpable even as she tended to my wounds. She's so scared of herself and what she might do, and her strongest inst and first reaction is to try to control it into submission, which we've seen doesn't work. She can't control it. She's terrified she might do it again, or do something worse. She's building a wall between the two parts of herself, and that is going to cause such turmoil in her that I tried everything I could to break it down.
I tried to reassure her, to emphasize that I know she doesn't mean to hurt me, but the words are hollow when the evidence is so stark. The most hypocritical of all -- and gods, I felt it every time I insisted on it -- was telling her she needed to stop trying to control it and just let it be... that trying to control it all is what brought us to this point. I'm not blind to my own actions. I try to control everything. She rightly said that I would have been doing exactly the same thing in her place, every bit as stubbornly. Even as I spoke with her, there was a part of me actively rebelling against such advice. I unravel anytime I feel I'm not in control of myself; advocating that she should relinquish control feels like a betrayal.
But is it?
Even after the experience that opened me to An'she, I wrote it off. I'd just lost my fear, I told myself. I was using the power opened to me. But I wasn't. I found comfort in the warmth of An'she's light. When Ren took me, I placed myself in his hands and trusted that he would help me through the ordeal... and he did. That willingness to let go, to fall backwards and trust that someone will catch me, is counter to everything I've known and done, but it's there in me now nonetheless. Somewhere... somehow... I found the capacity for faith. And now I'm advocating it to someone who wants nothing more than to have ironclad control of every aspect of herself at all times right now.
It's like I've stumbled into a parallel universe.
I did eventually convince her, terrified as she was, to let go and let the instincts flood her again, and for now, at least, she stayed. We'll take it one day at a time, and I hope to help her have only positive experiences from this point forward. I'll be there to support and comfort her until she finds her balance again and, hopefully, learns to trust herself. It's going to be a very delicate process.
And all this says nothing about why her teeth are suddenly sharp. Her bond is deeper than any I've seen, and she's taken so much of the wolf into herself... I suppose it's only natural that little things would change. But gods, it's strange. I don't know what else will happen. She says the instincts have plateaued, but who knows how much further this will progress?
Gods, I just want a month where I'm not tied up in knots about something. A week. Some length of time that I can collect the frayed edges of my sanity and be whole again. She doesn't need me falling apart on her.
Sebrawyn has been having difficulty controlling her instincts. Every time she felt herself slip, she strove to keep it leashed, and I could see it taking its toll on her. I didn't help matters, as initially I was encouraging her to do just that... but after I clued into what was happening, despite my assurance that she needed some release, she kept holding control and wearing herself down.
This came to a head the other night. She approached me and said she was heading to Mojache alone. I knew she'd been concentrating on writing the response to Tizze -- after she'd had me read her friend's letter as she couldn't concentrate on it -- and would be weary from the effort. She may have thought she was being natural, but I could hear the careful, precise wording she chose with every sentence, striving to sound as civilized as she could. So I told her she had to stay home for the night as the risk was too great. She didn't take this well, and no matter how I tried to reassure or deflect her, she grew angrier and more feral. I kept my hands on her despite her warnings and she bit me -- hard enough to break skin. As before, I hauled her into the hut -- enduring another sharp bite -- and pressed her down on her back until she submitted. I hoped it would be over then, as it had been the last time she bit me, but I suppose I didn't play my role.
She sought to soothe me, inundated in the wolf mind as she was, and reinforce our bond as mates, but gods, my mind was anywhere but my pants at the moment. This distressed her, however, and she left to curl up by Ghost. The last thing I wanted was for her to feel she should be punished for what happened in the heat of the moment due to my pushing an issue, so I coaxed her back to bed -- but she insisted she was going to protect me. When I didn't feel the tension leave her body once we lied down, I knew she was going to protect me by distancing herself, and resolved not to let that happen.
I stayed up all night, and well into the day, watching her... but eventually, in a quiet moment, exhaustion got the better of me and I dozed off. I awoke some hours later, after the sun had set, to an empty hut and empty clearing. She had taken Ghost and fled.
I don't know if it was the light, my exhaustion, or the fact that I haven't tracked in a while, but following her trail was difficult even in the soft earth of the shore. I'm rusty, horribly rusty, and it was exactly the wrong time to be unsure of the trail I was following. She eventually responded to whatever I was projecting through the ring and I was terrified she'd realize what I was doing and bolt. I pleaded with her to stay where she was, hoping against hope I was following the right track. Eventually Ghost found me and led me back to her, where she stood, filthy, frightened, and utterly miserable.
She put up resistance when I asked her to come home with me, expressing how scared she was that she'd hurt me again and that she couldn't trust herself, but eventually agreed. She wouldn't stop crying. Her guilt and horror was palpable even as she tended to my wounds. She's so scared of herself and what she might do, and her strongest inst and first reaction is to try to control it into submission, which we've seen doesn't work. She can't control it. She's terrified she might do it again, or do something worse. She's building a wall between the two parts of herself, and that is going to cause such turmoil in her that I tried everything I could to break it down.
I tried to reassure her, to emphasize that I know she doesn't mean to hurt me, but the words are hollow when the evidence is so stark. The most hypocritical of all -- and gods, I felt it every time I insisted on it -- was telling her she needed to stop trying to control it and just let it be... that trying to control it all is what brought us to this point. I'm not blind to my own actions. I try to control everything. She rightly said that I would have been doing exactly the same thing in her place, every bit as stubbornly. Even as I spoke with her, there was a part of me actively rebelling against such advice. I unravel anytime I feel I'm not in control of myself; advocating that she should relinquish control feels like a betrayal.
But is it?
Even after the experience that opened me to An'she, I wrote it off. I'd just lost my fear, I told myself. I was using the power opened to me. But I wasn't. I found comfort in the warmth of An'she's light. When Ren took me, I placed myself in his hands and trusted that he would help me through the ordeal... and he did. That willingness to let go, to fall backwards and trust that someone will catch me, is counter to everything I've known and done, but it's there in me now nonetheless. Somewhere... somehow... I found the capacity for faith. And now I'm advocating it to someone who wants nothing more than to have ironclad control of every aspect of herself at all times right now.
It's like I've stumbled into a parallel universe.
I did eventually convince her, terrified as she was, to let go and let the instincts flood her again, and for now, at least, she stayed. We'll take it one day at a time, and I hope to help her have only positive experiences from this point forward. I'll be there to support and comfort her until she finds her balance again and, hopefully, learns to trust herself. It's going to be a very delicate process.
And all this says nothing about why her teeth are suddenly sharp. Her bond is deeper than any I've seen, and she's taken so much of the wolf into herself... I suppose it's only natural that little things would change. But gods, it's strange. I don't know what else will happen. She says the instincts have plateaued, but who knows how much further this will progress?
Gods, I just want a month where I'm not tied up in knots about something. A week. Some length of time that I can collect the frayed edges of my sanity and be whole again. She doesn't need me falling apart on her.