In and Out of the Black Pit

by Julian

Several years ago, I let it be known that I was looking for a boy, and Andre approached me. He was younger than I normally like them -- 21 -- and I did worry that he'd be too young, that he wasn't old enough to know what he wanted and to understand what committing to a long-term master-slave relationship would be about. I'd been burned by youngsters before. But he was intelligent, respectful, articulate, and seemed to be exceptionally self-aware and stable. He was also cute, sexy, passionate, sincerely submissive, and incredibly service-oriented, and perfect for me in many other ways. How could I resist? It was like a godsend, after a line of unsuitable boys who didn't last for one reason or another.

We did a trial period of about nine months, living apart and seeing each other on weekends, and I found long-distance ways in which he could serve me. During this time we got to know each other pretty well, and after a great deal of negotiation, we determined that what we both wanted was a full-on ownership dynamic, no holds barred. He begged to be allowed to come and join me permanently, and I acceded. He moved in, and for the next year things were wonderful. We fit each other in so many ways, I couldn't imagine a better boy. He couldn't imagine a better master.

Then, slowly, they began to get less wonderful. Andre began to have mood swings, getting depressed and tired and down a lot more often. Some days it seemed impossible for him to be happy. We'd discuss it, and I'd ask what was bothering him, and what would help ... and he'd think, and come up with something. Sometimes it was an external problem that couldn't be helped, but often it was something not quite right with our process of M/s -- he felt that he needed more micromanagement, or more attention, or more rules, or more structure ... and of course, because by that time we loved each other a great deal, and I wanted to help him to do his job happily, I'd try to make those changes.

Sometimes I'd do them even when they weren't what I wanted to do, telling myself that this was just a temporary thing to help him get his head together. Inevitably, though, that would lead to resentment on my part, and I'd rescind the program. And, truth to tell, these changes didn't seem to be helping beyond a few days anyhow. Making sure that he got a lot of sleep helped, but only because sleep deprivation made things dramatically worse.

The months went on, and my formerly stable and reliable boy became more volatile. He still had the occasional good day, but more often he was sullen, or logy, or weepy. Some days he stayed in bed all day crying, and forcing him up only meant that he staggered around the house in a fog, unable to properly do more than the simplest chores. Some days he was so irritable that processing check-ins became long wild-eyed rants about what a bad master I was, and how if I was only a better master this wouldn't be happening. Other days the rants were mostly self-loathing and concentrated on what a bad boy he was. At first I took these all personally, because the whole situation had caught me off guard. One day, though, just before launching into a tirade of how awful he, I, and everything else was, he said, "I think that I'm hysterical, and I'm not sure if what I'm perceiving is true."

At that point, I finally had to concede the point to the Universe: my boy was suffering from mental illness, and it was getting progressively worse by the month. It took one burden off my shoulders -- this wasn't about me, or our relationship, or the M/s -- but laid another one squarely on them. If Andre was my property, I was responsible for him. That meant that this problem was mine to handle and make decisions about.

We talked about it, and I found out how devastating it was to him to see himself as broken, defective, crazy. I also discovered, finally, that this was not a new thing. He'd mentioned offhand that he'd had difficult and stressful periods in the past but he had not made the absolute truth clear: that he had a recurring problem with severe chemical depression, and had been treated for it before, and that it was likely to recur again. I felt betrayed by the omission of this important information, because without it, I'd suffered through months of fear that the M/s, or our relationship, had caused these problems. This is a warning for submissives with mental illnesses who are looking for a dominant, especially for a full-time live-in position or for ownership: be up front about what you have, and how it should be handled. It's better to have a dominant say, "I'm sorry, I can't handle that," and send you off, than to have them feel betrayed when they inevitably find out. I didn't send Andre away -- I felt that there was too much good in our relationship and I had a deep hope that he could be fixed -- but it would have saved me a lot of heartache if I'd really understood beforehand. It's important that the dominant knows what he can expect from the submissive.

Andre admitted that he'd been so happy in our relationship, in my service, living as my slave, that he'd hoped that the depression would never recur, and so didn't bring it up. In the past it had recurred during times when there was a plethora of extant issues to blame it on -- "I'm depressed because my current boyfriend sucks, or because school is so stressful, or because my family has rejected me for being queer, etc." It was when it recurred when his life was, as he said, the best it had ever been, that he was able to realize that it wasn't externally caused at all. "If everything is so great, why am I miserable? Why is everything great one day and terrible the next, when it really hasn't changed?" Chemical illnesses are confusing things, because you think that there ought to be a reason for the way you feel, and you try to find one. Since the world is an imperfect place, it's not hard to find any number of things that are wrong, but blaming them isn't the real truth, and fixing them doesn't fix the problem.

It was also clear that this recurrence was quickly becoming the worst he'd had yet. There were days when the depression was so bad that he lost touch with reality. We tried adjusting his sleep cycle, and eating better and getting exercise, but nothing seemed to stop the terrifying slide into madness. I wanted to send him to a psychiatrist, but we both had fears about that. He'd been put on SSRIs as a teen and had a bad reaction to them, and feared that the shrink would want to try that again. I worried about finding a psychiatrist who wouldn't be horrified about our relationship. How much of his life would Andre have to hide from the person who was nominally trying to help him?

Part of the reason that I really wanted a shrink who would respect our power dynamic was that I was clear that this, like everything else about Andre, was my decision to make and my responsibility to make it. I wanted to have absolute access to information in order to do this. I wanted to be there when the shrink described options, not just hear about them secondhand. I wanted to be able to bring up my concerns and have them addressed. I also didn't want Andre bullied into agreeing to something that I didn't feel was the right choice.

We lucked out, at a friend's suggestion, and found a psychiatrist who was kink and queer friendly. The psychiatrist put him on Welbutrin, and within days there was a drastic improvement. I read up on the drug and its side effects, which I suggest that any dominant who is charge of your submissive's health care should do. All such information is online or in the Physician's Desk Reference, or comes in flyers with the medication itself. Become familiar with the way that the drug works, and that way you can see side effects when they come.

One big problem was that he hated taking the drugs. Every morning when he took his pills, it was a reminder that he had a mental illness. He desperately wanted to quit taking them, even though he knew intellectually that they were needed. He resented it terribly, and probably would have quit several times if I hadn't ordered it. For the first year, my will was what kept him on them.

I've heard this as a problem from other medicated individuals. On the drugs, you feel better, so eventually you convince yourself that you're all better and you don't need them, and you quit and slide down into being ill again. Sometimes he'd forget, and by the end of the day he'd be unbearable. I learned to ask him, when he was acting out, if he'd taken his meds ... and more often than not, he hadn't. (The question, however, would always hurt and upset him.) These days, he's pretty good about it, and is slowly getting used to the idea.

Neither of us wanted medication to be the answer to the problem. We both hoped that it could be resolved some other way, but we tried other ways and it didn't help. Andre still occasionally cherishes the idea that all his problems could be solved with the application of enough structure, rules, and stern management on my part -- in other words, that I could force him out of his mood problems. I've learned, though, that this is not possible. You can't beat someone out of chemical illness. You can't micromanage them out of it. Some things are beyond the control of dominants. If he came down with a ruptured appendix, I wouldn't try to command him to be better or to attempt major abdominal surgery, I'd take him to the hospital and have the experts in ruptured internal organs fix the problem. Similarly, treating this as a medical problem and not a character flaw is important for the self-esteem of both master and slave. Part of being in charge is figuring out what you can do yourself and what you need to outsource. As long as it gets done, even if not by you, you've done your job.

The problem isn't completely solved; it's an ongoing one. I keep an eye on his moods, and I am now requiring him to log days when he falls back into that dark place. Sleep deprivation for days at a time can still counteract the medication, and his medication may need periodic adjusting. But Andre is my most prized possession, and I want him to run smoothly. It's worth the work. When he's on his game, he's the best boy I've ever had.

If I had to give useful information about dealing with a sub who has mental illness, I'd start with this: Don't give the D/s or M/s dynamic too much credit. Don't assume that it made your sub crazy, and don't assume that it will fix the problem, either. If the problem is chemical, then they would have had it no matter what. Separate it, in your mind, from the dynamic, and how well you are or are not "doing it", in your mind. If you want the power dynamic to help, put it to work making sure that the submissive does what is proven to help, and doesn't slack off. Don't assume that you are inept for not being able to stop it, or that they are weak or intractable for not making it go away and cease to inconvenience you. If they could make it go away, they would have done so. Ordering them doesn't help. Brain chemistry laughs at your orders.

What you can do is to train the slave to be self-aware, and aware of their mood levels. They need to learn to be able to usefully and realistically self-assess, so that they can tell you what you have to work with on any given day. You, the one in charge, are going to have to carefully feel around and find out what can be expected of them at any given level. Sometimes they can be pushed through a bad day. Sometimes it will make them collapse. I'm not going to say that it's easy, because it's not. Patience is your number-one resource here. It will be hard. Kinky sex might help, or it might set them off. It might help one day and set them off the next. Endorphins may aid things, or the illness might make the intense sensations and psychological intensity of S/M unbearable. To say the least, it's going to cramp your style. This is not work for just anyone.

Any slave or submissive, but especially a service-oriented one, may have trouble with feeling useless when they're ill, and it may affect their self-esteem. A good message to give them is this: "We are a team. Right now, the primary job of this team is working together to get you through this and into a more stable space. When you're there, you can serve me. Right now your job is to work hard to get better."

Should you release them from the power dynamic in order to give them space to heal? That would depend on the depth and intensity of your dynamic, the severity of their illness, and the promises that you have made each other. I know a good friend who had to release her submissive (diagnosed with psychosis) because her sub was no longer in control of herself enough to obey her mistress's commands, or at least not to fight them. When it gets to that point -- when the sub loses touch with reality and with self-control to the point where they cannot prevent themselves from disobeying, or can no longer competently manage the emotional complexities of a relationship -- it might be best to let them out of the collar.

If the illness includes paranoia of any sort, please keep in mind that as the center of your slave's life, you will be the main focus of that paranoia. Regular reality checks are in order. That's another reason to be involved with their therapy, especially if there is talk therapy. If you're there regularly as a caring, thoughtful, self-controlled individual who is clearly not abusing them, and who is interested in their treatment and committed to helping them get better, when they launch into paranoid rantings about you whilst alone with the shrink, the shrink is more likely to say, "That doesn't sound like your partner. Are you sure about that?" than to assume that you are the Bad Guy.

I think that there also has to be an out for dominants who simply can't cope with a slave with serious mental illness, and that out has to be blameless. If you can no longer deal with running herd on this person's illness, if it's gone on too long without improvement and you're just Done, you have to be able to step back from it. This is especially true if the situation is now affecting your own mental health. If the stress is getting to you, you won't be able to properly hold down the top side of a power dynamic anyway (which requires self-control, stability, and confidence), and you'll be the opposite of helpful to them. Better that you release them and step back before the illness takes down two people. It's a matter of knowing and admitting your limits. You can't do everything. Sometimes life gives you more than you can handle, and the correct response is to say, "I can't handle this."

Andre and I have made promises to each other, and I would not abandon him unless I had tried everything and it was the end of the road, and he was beyond the point where I could have a useful effect on him. We're lucky -- we've managed to stabilize the situation. Some people I know aren't so lucky, because modern mental health techniques cannot help everyone. I'd also caution submissives with mental problems who are looking for a dominant: Having a dominant, or a D/s relationship, will not make your mental health problems go away. If you have any illusions about it fixing you, stomp on them now. In fact, in such a psychologically intimate, heavily scrutinized, and cathartically intense relationship will probably bring everything right up into the open and onto the table, right quick. It's best to get what help you can first, so that you can come to a new dominant with those pages of your Owner's Manual filled in with plain English. They can't take charge of you without that information, and you owe it to them if this is what you want.