We are getting it sorted

Tuesday, 25^th October

I met with Ingrid today, we had arranged to meet to talk about his birthday. I came to her flat, I cried on her sofa. The poor woman did not know why I was crying, until I finally calmed down and confessed everything. She could not give me any advise, but she offered to mediate. We have arranged for her to come to the house tomorrow.

The meditation group leader noticed the atmosphere between the slave and me, he had noticed the slave had been quiet last week as well. I told him we are having a rough time, it was my fault, we were getting professional help. He offered his help as well. I am very grateful, but I do not deserve their help. I feel very much the slave has turned on me, he is using his silence as punishment. I will never use silence as punishment again.

Wednesday, 26^th October

At breakfast I told the slave that we have to get ourselves sorted, we cannot carry on like this, and certainly not travel to Canada if we are not ok. Ingrid had suggested we write down in bullet points what bothers us, so we sat down separately and did that before she arrived. She had a word with the slave in private, he had closed his shutters on me. We sat on chairs in the corridor, Ingrid said it was a neutral space and free of distractions. She took our pieces of paper. Mine only said: Please forgive me and let me love you again. She showed me his paper. It was blank. Ingrid asked him gently if he had anything he wanted to say to me, in any language. He could not get a word out. She asked me to sit out of sight of Ben, and fetched the photo of us, the day after the wedding. She asked Ben, could he maybe tell that Owe how he felt. After a while he started to talk, very quietly at first. Why he did not write anything down is, he had nothing to say. He has forgiven me, but something in his brain did not allow him to show it, to be happy. His control mechanisms did not allow him to.

Ingrid invited me to join them again, and finally my mind cleared and I was able to explain how the photos of my Master had brought memories back, probably false ones, which made him a perfect Master, and I was trying to be like him. A lot of stuff came out, some surprised me. I am not going to repeat it here, I cannot, it is too painful. I said some things which hurt Ben. Good that Ingrid was there. He took it, he had nothing he accused me of. He admitted, I was not perfect, but he was happy. He does not want 4 weeks like that again, it is good to have some time, but it was too much. He had retreated and could not get out of this fix. Ingrid said it is typical behaviour for someone on the autistic spectrum. It was exhausting. Ingrid left and Ben and I went for walk. We walked to the supermarket and bought some food, and then went bus surfing. We got on a bus and got off at a random stop, found another bus, etc. It was good to do something so different. We were quite tired when we came home. Ben did not want to eat much, so we found some soup, which he had a few spoons of, with his shake. He has not managed to put any weight on yet.

We took a shower together and then sat and watched some tv. I think we are ok. He fell asleep on the sofa, I have to wake him. He is too heavy for me to carry him all the way to his room.