Laurel says:

>>> Unfortunately, most of my deepest emotional problems cannot be articulated by me even out of subspace for several minutes. <<<

Um hum. I can relate--and how! Four or five years ago, it was very much like that for me (provided you turn the "several minutes" into "several hours to several days"--g). For me, part of the reason for this inarticulateness was the unfamiliar intensity of the submissive experience, especially during play (and I should probably stress the word "unfamiliar," because while it hasn't lost its intenseness for me, it's become a welcome, intimate friend). It threw me for a loop, just as my other first experiences with altered consciousness threw me, because I hadn't experienced it before. But slowly, as I got used to being this high (or this deep--g), I learned that I could still think during it, still do during it, still talk, without the high lessening. (Actually, what happens, I think, is that I rise to the surface for a moment when I think, do, or speak, but then bob right back down after the action is completed). I've had to do this, because my darling master likes to be "entertained" during play. (This is another subject, but people were talking recently about the paradigms through which they see their submission and masochism, like liege and servant. My main paradigm is not visual: it's simple obedience, but my primary secondary paradigm [if you get what I mean by that mouthful--g] is that of entertainment: I am primarily put on this earth to entertain my owner, and I do my best in that regard. What's interesting is that I suspect Donald also sees his dominant role, after "He who must be obeyed," as that of an entertainer, too. He works hard [although he would say it was hardly working--g] at entertaining me! As you can probably imagine, it sometimes gets pretty lively in Donald's and Rosie's house--g.)

The second reason for my inarticulateness (and I don't know if this applies to you or not, but it might) was the nature of the emotional problems that were coming up. They were extremely painful and not the sort of thing my conscious mind wanted to deal with or articulate. And often, the memories and experiences and feelings seem to come from a point in my life when I was pre-verbal, so they were damned hard to describe in words. But these emotional problems, as they were described and explored (Donald refused to ignore them and go on with the play as if nothing had happened), began to lessen in intensity and occurrence. This happened very slowly over a period of years, to the point where I am now, where I have maybe one really big incident a year. You know, I never did fully understand or even fully remember what these bad feelings were about (other than the fact that their source was probably in very early childhood), but that didn't seem to be necessary to get freedom from them. And quite frankly, this is one area where my curiousity does not get the better of my more-rational impulses. As the problems seem to have abetted and gotten better, I have no residual desire to know where they really came from.

>>> I maintain really poorly under torture. :) Course, you've given me reason to try now. :). <<<

Well, if you're the type who likes to challenge herself, you may find this sort of thing an interesting experiment. I'm not the sort that likes to challenge herself, especially while having sex, but then, I "maintain" that I wasn't given much choice in the matter.