Moody Too

Many of us bloggers religiously read each other’s posts. This is particularly true in the enforced chastity genre. There are relatively few of us who post regularly and are clearly speaking from experience and not fantasy. One of us is Thumper. His blog, “Denying Thumper” has been around over six years. He has been very forthcoming about his most interesting life. Monday and yesterday he wrote posts about his current struggle with depression and panic attacks. This drew a flurry of comments from other bloggers and his general readership, including me. He opened a floodgate of admissions from other guys that they suffer from depression and lost sleep too.

I’ve mentioned my struggles with depression and self-image over the nearly-seven-months I was out of work. I had a few big “melt downs”, as Mrs. Lion calls them, about being unable to pay the bills and about my employability. For almost the entire seven months I had a knot in my stomach. It was made worse by the fact that I kept landing in-person interviews and then being rejected. I sound much younger than I am. I have a rather impressive resume so I got a lot of calls from hiring managers. Almost every call resulted in an in-person interview. After seeing me, I was rejected time after time. It’s not that I am inarticulate or that I look horrid. I was because I am not under forty years old. How do I know that’s the reason? Because hiring manager after hiring manager told me on the phone that I was perfect for the job and they just wanted the in-person interview to follow their process. Some of these people were nearly rude; they would cut the interview short with an obvious excuse just to stop wasting time on the old guy.

In the beginning I thought I wasn’t right for these jobs. After a while I realized that wasn’t the issue at all. It was my age; one thing I am powerless to change. My days were filled with applying for jobs I found on Monster or Career Builder. After some of the aborted interviews, when I got back to my car, I cried. I wanted to just give up and curl up into a pathetic ball. I couldn’t do that because we had exhausted our meager savings and the bills were piling up.

I stopped sleeping well. Shortly after falling asleep I would wake up in a panic, sure that we would be homeless and no one would ever hire me again. Then I would turn on the TV, softly, so I wouldn’t wake Mrs. Lion, and watch reruns for hours. Finally at four or five AM, I would finally fall asleep until the alarm at 6:30.

Fortunately, the depression was situational. Now that I have been back to work for three weeks, the gloom is lifting. I still get those knots in my stomach when I worry whether I am capable of holding this job. Intellectually, I know I am doing a good job. But I can’t help but worry. I’ve stopped waking up in a panic and I actually sleep through the night almost every night. For the record, I can’t take anti-depressants. I react very badly to them.

I’m very lucky to have found the job I have. The company is truly age-blind. They have lots of people over fifty. The only drawback is that this is a contract position. I am hoping that eventually it will be converted to a full-time job. In the meantime I am working and earning exactly what I want. Crises averted, at least for now. I still worry. When this contract ends and I haven’t been hired full time, will anyone else give me a job? I don’t think I could face another ordeal like the one I just finished. Sooner or later I will have to stop working. I have no idea what will happen then. It’s just one more concern.

I decided to write this because I think that too many men don’t share their feelings. Every day I write about our enforced chastity and FLM experiences. I discuss what I have learned about topping and bottoming. I try to provide information others can use. Yet, over the last seven months I didn’t really share the pain I was feeling. I know I alluded to our difficulties and made repeated assurances that they didn’t affect our kinks. That isn’t exactly true. The financial and my emotional problems didn’t stop us, but they made it more difficult to continue. Mrs. Lion was much more forgiving and less strict because she was aware I was having a problem.

She didn’t know how bad it was. I knew that she was very worried too. She hides her feelings, but I know her well enough to see under the veneer. She knows me well too and knew I was not sleeping and I was worried. I didn’t tell her how depressed I felt. I didn’t want her to feel worse.

Did Thumper start a chain of “true confessions” in the enforced chastity blogosphere? Maybe. If so, it’s a very healthy trend. One of the things that has bothered about our blogs collectively, is that we give a very unbalanced picture of our lives. I understand that you aren’t reading my blog to get the day-to-day drama in our lives. But you do need to know that Mrs. Lion and I are people who have to deal with many other things that have nothing to do with our power exchange or with sex. Tomorrow, I will be back with my usual post about the ongoing saga of our lives in enforced chastity and FLM. Thanks for taking the time to let me share this with you.

6 Comments

  1. Author

    Great post..
    Thanks

  2. Author

    It definitely sounds like you had situational depression, but that’s not even remotely close depressive disorder or anxiety. Both are caused by chemical imbalances in the brain and they are entirely different animals than the feelings you experienced while you were unemployed.

    I’m very sorry that you were feeling down, but this post really feels like you’re capitalizing on Thumper’s honest posts and the raw emotions that he expressed. Neither sit well with me. It’s opportunistic and downplays the very real situation he is in right now. Also, you could have helped alleviate the anxiety you were experiencing about your finances simply by not traveling, eating out, ordering new toys, etc. Hearing about your fancy camper, truck and car while you’re openly admitting to not paying your bills was a turnoff to me and many other readers I would think.

    I appreciate your attempt at sharing more of your feelings and I look forward reading more of the emotional side of your relationship.

    1. Author

      “…his post really feels like you’re capitalizing on Thumper’s honest posts and the raw emotions that he expressed. Neither sit well with me. It’s opportunistic and downplays the very real situation he is in right now.”

      My post was inspired by his. I credit him for that in the first paragraph. My emotions are real. I don’t see how you can judge whose are more raw. Why is expressing my feelings downplaying another blogger’s? I don’t see how a post in my blog is opportunistic or in any way downplays his situation. If anything, my post provided identification by offering my experiences. We aren’t playing “Who is more depressed”.

      It definitely sounds like you had situational depression, but that’s not even remotely close depressive disorder or anxiety. Both are caused by chemical imbalances in the brain and they are entirely different animals than the feelings you experienced while you were unemployed.

      So, by reading two Thumper posts and one of mine you can conclude that his are chemical in nature and mine aren’t? My one post is sufficient for you to analyze me and the seriousness of my depression? Wow, you can tell all of my depression came from my lack of employment? I am pretty sure that wasn’t the only issue. Nothing like psychoanalysis based on less than 1,000 words. Great work!

      Hearing about your fancy camper, truck and car while you’re openly admitting to not paying your bills was a turnoff to me and many other readers I would think.

      FYI, because you should know, All those “fancy” things we own were purchased when I was securely employed. The loans on these items don’t disappear when I lose work. They added a lot of pressure to a bad situation. We could afford the payments until my long unemployment. We even maintained them for much of the time I was out of work. The situation became desperate when I couldn’t find a new job in a reasonable time. Travel with our RV to places we had prepaid over a year ago doesn’t cost much at all beyond the small amount for fuel. We did go to inexpensive chain restaurants a few times, so shoot us.

      I appreciate your attempt at sharing more of your feelings

      I thought I was a good enough writer to actually share them, but glad you appreciate my try.

      1. Author

        I wasn’t diagnosing you. You said in your post that your depression was situational. Of course it’s not a pissing contest. Depression sucks for everyone.

  3. Author

    I think this is why more people don’t share their feelings when they are depressed. Too many people are quick to say, “You think you have it bad, let me tell you about the time….” It’s not a pissing contest. My depression is not any more or less anything than anyone else’s. It’s just there. If I broke my leg in a car accident would you ask if the accident was my fault? If it was my fault is my leg any less broken?

    Lion was baring his soul and you just marched right in and stomped all over it. I don’t appreciate that.

  4. Author

    Bravo, Mrs. Lion.

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