This is a really vital thread and I have to give credit first to Tessa for launching it and to you Red, for being this amazingly open-hearted, bringing us this close to your pain:

Quote Originally Posted by Flaming-Redhead
If I take an honest look at myself, I'm barely even submissive. However, upon reading the ad /by Lord Hemloc/ it touched something way down deep in my soul. The problem is that deep inside my soul there's a hole you don't wanna see. It's an ugly, foul, black abyss where madness rules, and if I listen to the whispers of the demons that dwell down there for very long, I begin to long for death to come and take me. This madness interferes with my need to submit, and it is definitely a need because when dominance is withheld from me I am greatly frustrated and unhappy. I imagine this is quite confusing to my dominant since I resist him at every opportunity.

The things you're touching on are sensitive and hard to own up because the standard image of a sub is someone who happily gives up a huge chunk of her freedom with one bold stroke, signs the slave contract and allows herself to be Dominated. Yup. that one has a pull on me and on both of you - at the same time i think we get it's half fantasy, at least in that "pure" form, and real life and your real person enters in with their obstacles. In fact I don't think many people here could give a fully rational reason why you wish to submit, it's just a part of you, something you discover, and like Firefly, I sometimes have to tell myself "okay, this is what you want, and no matter what you think or excuse, this submissiveness is in you and has to be embraced".