Mistress to slave is the difference between night and day. The Mistress is the Queen, the commander, having ultimate control of another's life. The slave gives oneself willfully, openly and completely to another. To go from having all of the power to no power at all has been quite an adjustment for me, but a bittersweet transition nonetheless.

I have been a Mistress for the past five years of my life, first discovering that life at just the age of sixteen. Granted, back when I was sixteen, I hadn't even blossomed into a woman. It was the power and the control that I craved. It was what excited me, what drew me like a bug to a light in such a new world.

It was a difficult thing for me, this concept, at just sixteen. When you are sixteen, you are still a child - you are told what you are to want, how you are supposed to behave, what you should like or dislike. But, I knew what I was. I knew what I liked, an idea in which I found I didn't know how to express or control.

My parents thought I was rebellious while my teachers and instructors thought I was a leader. I had so many conflicting thoughts in my head that I felt lost and scared. I felt as though I was the only one out there in the world whom had thoughts of wanting to control every person that I met, to have them serve me.

When I felt my desires were not being fulfilled, I became quite an angry person, almost overly violent at times. I would lash out at my family when my mother would tell me "no" and took a lot of my anger out on my younger brother. I loved my brother, but he was easy prey as I saw it. He did what I asked of him as long as I rewarded him with being allowed to play a video game or board game with me.

Then, suddenly my little brother wasn't so little anymore, and he wasn't putting up with being "bossed" around. That didn't please me and that was when my moods became erratic and violent.

He and I started fighting physically - it was not uncommon for one or the other to have a black eye at some point in time during the week. I found that I rather enjoyed hurting him, trying to make him cry and humiliate him for denying me the simplest thing of fetching me a glass of water. Home life was chaotic, but school was a different story - that is where I excelled.

My father thought that it was just a phase - siblings being siblings, and teenagers being teenagers. My mother though, she thought I had a mental illness of sorts and forced me into counseling. I went to my first session with the doctor and sat there, staring at him from the plush brown chair in which I was sitting, not saying a word. I refused to speak. How dare my mother do this to me?

I eventually did talk to the counselor though, and was pleasantly surprised that he understood. He told me that I wasn't sick and that all people were different. He taught me how to control myself and my desires. Family life went back to "normal" with an occasional fight with my brother. I was already a Mistress by that time and I learned that my brother was an alpha male.

I turned my need for control against myself then, needing to be in control of every aspect of my life. My grandmother died that year and I was struggling a great deal with the good doctor's orders, wanting nothing more than to revert to old ways and use my control negatively towards others. It was a very difficult time in my life, still only at the age of sixteen.

I took that control over myself and poured it into my studies. I always had straight A's in school, was the "teacher's pet" and was highly involved in extracurricular activities. I was the President of the International Club, Co-President of the science club, the Leader of my Future Problem Solvers Team, a Section Leader in the bands, and a leader in so many other activities, using my need for control in a more positive light for the first time in my life.

But, as it had always been in my life, good times never lasted long. I ended up with an awful nickname as a result of my need for control the summer after my seventeenth birthday during a marching band practice. I was strict on my section; I wanted them to be the best, to be successful - to be proud that I had helped them to achieve that.

The director had called for us to go to Set One (the opening place marks for the first piece of music). My section was to make an arch that went through an arch of the brass section, but one of my flautists kept missing her point and causing the double arches to look more like an ink blot in human form.

As a Section Leader, it was our job to discipline our sections. If one person in the section failed in my mind, they all failed, and I then punished them all together. I had them run a mile and do twenty-five pushups for their failure at hitting their marks. One of the men on the brass section then called me Mussolini because of my discipline style of my section. It was an awful nickname to have growing up and it stayed with me throughout my high school career.

But, my section was the best section in the band and I ended up receiving the John Philip Sousa award because of my passion for music, my desire and passion for the band to succeed, and for my leadership. It was a great honor to win the award, and is one of my proudest achievements in life.

By the time I was eighteen I had complete control over my need for control over others. I was then married at the age of eighteen to an alpha male; though, I never knew he was an alpha male. To say the least, that ended badly with a lot of heartbreak and lawyer fees from the divorce when I discovered that he was having an affair. When I had confronted him about it, after he had denied it, he finally confessed to me and said "I am a man and a man can do whatever he likes and have as many women as he wants."

After the divorce I went back into trying to control others. I felt I didn't have control over my own life and needed to feel control elsewhere. To me, control was my security blanket. I felt as though I was okay and doing fine as long as I could control something or someone. And, up until a few months ago, I let my inner Mistress reign.

Now, I am no longer truly a Mistress. I am a slave, a switch at times in the terms that I myself have my own slaves, but I am owned. I have a Master, one whom I respect and trust a great deal. I don't believe that I could have allowed myself to even consider the idea of becoming a slave if it had been for a different person.

I began to entertain the idea that I wasn't truly a Mistress, but rather a switch or slave, because of a dear friend and new people that had come into my life that I trusted and respected a great deal - one of which being my Master.

I spent a great deal reflecting back on my life, questioning - searching for the reason why. I came to a few conclusions.

The main, and almost only reason, why I had been a Mistress is because I felt my life was out of control - I needed stability and something to depend upon. I had never been able to rely on anyone in my life; I could only ever rely upon myself. My parents were always far more busy with their fighting with one another than to bother with me (even though my parents are now divorced, they still fight just as much as when they were together).

I had also lost a great deal of people in my life to death that I truly loved, and that helped steer me towards a course of control. I felt that maybe if I had control, that bad things wouldn't happen. But, bad things were going to happen whether or whether not I had control over others. You have to have the bad in life in order to truly understand and appreciate the good.

Then, there was the big shock and denial moment that I had a few weeks ago. I had a dear friend tell me, not suggest, but tell me that I was a slave. I flat out denied the accusation and got pretty defensive. I didn't want to admit that I was because I didn't want to give up that control that I had so readily come to rely upon.

But, I was a slave, I always have been. I have always aimed to please people, to receive approval and acceptance in life by everyone. It distresses me a great deal when I fail to please someone or make them proud. For instance, when I had to drop out of college due to the finances, it shamed my family to no end. And that, in turn, made me ashamed and embarrassed. I started to truly believe that I was nothing (there are times in which I still feel that way, but that is a completely different topic of discussion).

I also like to have direction in life, to be told what to do. I think that is why I excelled so much in school and always went above and beyond what was expected of me. I aimed to do as told because of the praise I received and making my teachers proud - I needed that approval and acceptance from them in my life, because I had never had that anywhere else in my life. To this day I still have never had true acceptance from my parents - I always thought that family loved unconditionally, but I have had to learn the hard way in life that it simply is not always true.

Now, as a slave, I feel honored to be such for my Master. I feel at peace finally in my life, as though a heavy burden has been lifted from my back that I had been carrying around for years of my life. I feel free and able to live - to reach for new heights, to grow, to expand my knowledge.

I strive to please my Master, I want nothing more than for him to be happy and be proud to have me as his slave. It pleases me to please him. I find that I no longer can say "I can't." Before, "I can't" became the easy way out. It allowed me to not be as vulnerable to being hurt or shaming myself further in life. But now, I want to say I can and hop to a task with gusto - it gives me purpose and fulfillment.

And, if I fail, I am grateful to receive punishment. I learn that way. It is about discipline and improving ones self. As my Master has stated "I take to slavery like a fish to water." It comes naturally and I finally feel as though some void has finally been filled. I now feel a desire to continue to strive to do my best, not just to please my Master, but also to enjoy living and do what I love in life - to finally be able to breathe in order to stop and smell the roses.

I find that I now have the motivation to go back into writing, to put true effort into it and not fear failure because I now know that with failure, you learn and you grow, you improve. I find that I have once again realized my dreams and goals in life. From all the years of putting up walls to protect myself, from using control, I feel safe to give that control away and tear down those walls because I trust my Master completely. I never need to question his purpose or authority over me; I willingly serve, and am proud to serve - it is a great honor.

I find that I can now enjoy life. I have fun and enjoy being a slave. Master may make some "strange" requests, like crawling to fetch the paper with my mouth to deliver to him, but I find it amusing and fun. I feel that because of my Master and one of my new dear friends, I have found myself - the real me. I shall serve my Master for as long as he wishes me to do so, whether that is days, weeks, or even years. I can't imagine it any other way.

The fruit of slavery: bitter or sweet? It is both; a bittersweet journey and life. There are so many sweet things as a result of slavery, but yet, there are some bitter. There is joy, happiness, satisfaction, purpose, reason, understanding, anger, fear, hurt, disappointment, respect, kindness, friendship, and caring. A gamma of emotions put into one beautiful package - to truly live, that is how I feel as a slave; it is, at its base, to be human.