Breathing In and Breathing Out

Bragging rights galore

2009-11-30T12:16:00.001-05:00

Yup. I stuck with it, and churned out text without stopping to worry about quality. Quality is for later. So I am the proud winner of bragging rights galore, along with the proud owner of more than 50,000 words of text that can be the foundation for the rest of this immense thing I'm calling my novel.

You'll notice how it was easy for me to hit 50,000 words without finishing, given that it's taking me this many words just to say that I finished it. Ah well, there are few times in this world when verbosity is its own reward.

post-punishment checklist

2009-11-21T20:13:00.001-05:00

what follows is a direct cut-and-paste of my checklist that i'm supposed to fill out immediately after a punishment. for a slightly more reflective assessment, check out this thread on this thing we do forum.

why did i get a punishment?

--i didn't eat lunch on friday, and didn't text. i didn't do the task you had asked me to do. and then when you said you were tired after work, i was trying to figure out how tired, so that if you were very tired, then i wouldn't be as bad so you wouldn't have to punish me. i did that because i was feeling scared at myself for letting myself break a rule... i guess i was scared to trust your authority, and scared about the idea of letting you be in charge. i didn't want to do that... well, i did, but i also didn't. so when you said you were tired, i wanted to back down. i guess that i wanted to make it so that you only have to punish me when you've got a lot of energy. but the fact is, YOU decide when you punish me. if you had decided to put it off because you were tired, that would have been your choice, and it would have been my job to accept it. i need to let you make the decisions, not try to make them for you.

how did i feel before the punishment?

--nervous. not sure what would happen. i also felt like i could accept the decisions you were making, and that i wasn't in control of what was going to happen. you are the one in charge, and i was able to let you. i realized that when you say i had to let you, it didn't mean that i had to be in control. it meant that i had to let go of control, because it's true, you can't force me to accept your authority. you can only show your authority, and wait until i'm able to accept it, or not. you can't control what i think or how i feel. that's my job. what you control is what YOU do, and i had to get to a point where i could understand that, and allow that to happen. it didn't mean that i'm in charge. it meant that i had to let go of being in charge.

how did i feel after?

--i guess i feel calm. i am trying not to be worried about the fact that there is going to be a next time. and another next time. and so on. i am trying to trust that you will love me even if i'm hard. i'm trying to believe that you will love me more (not that you don't already love me as much as you can, but you know what i mean)... trying to believe you will love me more if i'm not trying to be perfect all the time. i guess i'm also realizing that i can love YOU a lot more when i'm not focused on trying to be perfect.

what were useful things w did, and what could have been changed/improved?

--thank you for making decisions without asking me what to do. that helped a lot with me being able to trust that you are in charge. and thank you for taking care of me. you were firm, and i believed that you would follow through. i was working on not thinking through what i thought should happen, and then judging whether or not you matched up to it. so for the first time in a while, maybe the first time ever, i really was just ready to accept whatever you chose to do, and not criticize it in my head while it was happening. thank you for being who you are.

what did i learn/gain from this?

--i guess the biggest thing i learned that i haven't written about already is that i got a LOT less triggered by the punishment when i was not trying to be in control. when i trusted you, it wasn't as scary. i guess this is that trust fall thing you had been talking about. when i can let go, it is a whole lot less scary.

what i WANT to be true is for this once to be enough. i don't like to get punished. i don't like to do things i shouldn't do. i don't like to be anything less than perfect. the thing that has surprised me when i've tried it out is that i actually feel better when i'm not perfect. i feel safer, and less out of control when i stop trying to control everything.

NaNoWriMo Word War!

2009-11-12T21:07:00.002-05:00

Can we write a novel in a month? Should there be a contest, in which the person who's written the fewest words gets spanked? Tune in Dec. 1st to read all about it!

Or go to Coping in Crazyville--Writing and Whatnot to read any excerpts I've chosen to ~~impose on~~ share with the general public.

(don't worry, you're not seeing double, I just wanted this to show up in feed readers, too.)

The novel I'm working on has pretty much zip to do with spanking or discipline, but you might like it in spite of that, so check out the link and give me lots of positive feedback (until December 1st, at which point those with criticism can chime in as well).

It's funny what will bring me to tears.

2009-10-13T16:58:00.002-04:00

People who are interested in "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome" (or, in the UK, Myalgic Encephalitis) and Fibromyalgia might be aware of the article published last week in Science, reporting findings that a large percentage of people with CFS were infected with a retrovirus (67% in the initial sample, compared to about 3% of healthy controls. Later research showed closer to 95% of people with CFS/ME had the virus or antibodies to it.)

I've had this information rattling around in my brain ever since. It's a vindication--all of these years I've insisted to doctors that yes, this is a real, physical, biological illness, that no, the antidepressants aren't making it go away. I hope that the test becomes widely available, and that I can take it. And then I will at least take it to my current doctor and insist that she accept that the fibromyalgia I'm asking for help with is a real disorder.

At the same time, the news is worrisome. W and I practice safer sex, in the sense that we know our sexual histories, know we didn't have any STDs, and don't have sex with anyone but each other. It's not that we engage in any especially risky behaviors, but DAMN. If I'd thought I had a retrovirus, something that could be passed on to a partner by contact with bodily fluids, I would have been a damn sight more careful. So there's that. I'm worried that I've passed this on to someone I love. I'm terrified of what it would mean for us, if she comes down with it, since right now, her ability to work full time is how we have a roof over our heads. (Yes, I do get SSI. But two times $460 a month doesn't even cover our rent.)

And there's the worry about having kids. See, when I wasn't sure whether or not it was communicable, I might have made choices like not donating blood (just in case, because the last thing someone getting a blood transfusion needs is this!). But I was still willing to risk giving birth. Because who knows, maybe it *is* triggered in part by child abuse, and that's preventable. But if it's a virus, it's a whole 'nother thing. I'm not completely ruling out having my own biological kids, but it's one more concern.

Then there's the hope, which I am more fighting against than embracing. I just don't have the energy to be disappointed, so I'm not telling myself "if they can find the cause, then they can find the cure!" Instead, I'm remembering that they discovered HIV in the early '80s, and there is still neither a cure nor a vaccine for AIDS.

So, with all of that as background, I come to the point of my post. I was reading an article about the virus in the New York Times. It's not that the article had any new information--I've been reading and re-reading the articles all weekend. But in a discussion over the controversy around whether CFS/ME is biological or psychological, they had this quotation in defense of a biological origin:

“There is a group who are young, healthy, active and engaged, and all of a sudden they are laid low by something,” Dr. Schaffner said. “Everyone tells the physicians these are people who are functional and productive, and this is totally out of character. They are frustrated and often quite disheartened. You feel that medical science hasn’t caught up with their illness yet.”

As I read it, it was like being smacked. All of a sudden, for maybe 3 seconds, I could remember. I could remember how my body felt twelve, thirteen, fifteen, twenty years ago. I could remember that strength, the activity. I could remember deciding to bike 5 miles out of my way, on a whim, because I felt like it. I could remember volunteering, and building fences, and hiking. I could remember standing up on a moving bus, without clinging to a pole in the hope of not falling down. I could remember going out dancing, spending time with friends, just doing things because they are fun, without worrying that the fun I have today will lead to intense pain and fatigue tomorrow.

Just for a few seconds, I remembered who I used to be. I could only handle it for a few seconds. One of the basic realities of my life is that some things are just too much to handle, and I can either live the life I have, or I can spend time thinking about the one I used to have.

But for those few seconds, I realized once again that this is not a disorder caused by a desire to be sick. I really liked my life a whole lot better when I was well. I haven't gained anything that comes close to making up for what has been lost.

hypnosis

2009-10-08T08:56:00.002-04:00

i'm trying to quit smoking. well, it started out as me trying to quit smoking and quickly giving up on it, and then w stepping in. in the long run, it's a good thing, since i know i'm not gonna manage on my own. but in the meanwhile, she says that i'll be getting 50 with the bath brush for every cigarette i bum from someone else, and 50 with the *cane* for every cigarette that i pay for. (yes folks, that means if i bought and smoked a pack, i'd be getting 1000 with the cane.)

part of me thinks she can't possibly be serious. but knowing how much she hates smoking, and knowing that she's gotten better at follow through, i'm nervous.

so i decided to try downloading a quit smoking hypnosis thing. i've heard for years that people with DID are really good at self-hypnosis, but i hadn't thought i'd ever done it. but as i listened to the tape, getting really irritated with the guy, and it finally got to the quit smoking part (as opposed to the annoying beach thing, where i could only imagine being aggravated by glare and sand and bugs, instead of feeling relaxed!)

anyhow, it got to the quit smoking part, and i realized that hypnosis is basically repeating something over and over until your subconscious believes it and acts on it. and i was like, "that?! that's all self-hypnosis is?? well, i do *that* all the time!!"

it's how i make sure i wake up on time, if i haven't gotten to bed as early as i should and i need to be up. i just repeat over and over "wake up well-rested in 5 hours" (or however many hours). and while it doesn't substitute for actually getting enough sleep, i really do wake up fairly well rested right at the time i tell myself to.

so i guess i should try something like that, and something to cope with the many stressful situations that i now cope with by smoking. but dang, it would be easier to just keep smoking.

sunday "TEA party"

2009-09-13T15:54:00.002-04:00

someone over at this thing we do forum referred to their establishing authority spankings as "TEA parties" (To Establish Authority) and w liked this, so she took the idea for herself.

anyhow, i haven't posted in quite a while, and i thought i would just copy what i wrote as the follow-up to our weekly "TEA party" and post it here as well.

i guess it has been almost two weeks since the last ea. but i have done pretty well these past two weeks and not broken any rules or anything. i have eaten my meals even when i was super stressed out and when it was hard to figure out food, and i didn't get attitude even when i was feeling overwhelmed. i have really pretty much followed my rules.

so i guess i was feeling a little resentful about having ea, since i seem to be doing pretty well without it. but i didn't say much about that to w, since i know she would add a punishment on for saying that i thought we could just keep on skipping it. because it is her decision and she isn't going to let me weasel any more. and i guess it is right for her to do that, and it's what i need, it's just that i don't FEEL like it's what i need right now because i have been really GOOD.

it wasn't that big of a spanking but it was bigger than what they used to be if i hadn't broken any rules. it was 7 minutes in the corner, followed with 50 with the strap. she let me out of getting the cane because i've been doing so well. it felt like a really hard spanking, and i said something about that during it, but then the last five, she showed me how hard it would have been if i had actually broken any rules, and those last five hurt a LOT more than the ones she had given me before. so i guess i know it wasn't that bad. also, i am able to sit down now just a couple of minutes later, and my bottom is a little sore, but usually after a punishment it hurts to sit down at all.

i guess the thing that w has really been showing me lately is that she is absolutely going to follow through, and she is making the decisions and she is sure of herself. she even did a pretty good job of helping me to get into the right head space, since we spent the morning doing some reorganizing of the living room and stuff where i wasn't in the right frame of mind for EA to be effective. so it was a big help for her to do that.

i do feel a little bit like if i go for a while without breaking any rules, i should get a coupon to get out of an EA spanking, but maybe like that could come once a month... like, if i can go for a month without breaking rules, then i can get out of EA once. that way, i would feel like i got a reward for following the rules for a long time. and if i could go for TWO months without breaking rules, then i could get a coupon to get out of EA once AND a coupon to get out of a punishment once. like a get out of jail free card or something. and more rewards if i ever manage to go for three or four months without breaking a rule.

i am pretty proud of myself for not having broken any rules, but i guess it feels a little unfair to still get EA if i have done so well. i suppose w will say something like not having one last week, or right after we got home, is the same as getting a week free. i suppose that is true, but it doesn't feel that way if you are the person who is getting the spanking.

Taking the new system for a test drive

2009-06-14T23:41:00.002-04:00

(I also posted this at the Punishment Book, but I figured it was worth posting some real life stuff here, too. Don't blame me. I'm just copying Natty, my role model of the year. :P )

W and I revised our system (rules, consequences, stuff like that) this week. This was a planned revamp, because we discovered things need to get tweaked on a regular basis, and we had hoped it would work better to plan to do this, rather than just waiting until things jam up and then fixing it when it's in a mess.

The title of the post is my face-saving way of saying that in spite of knowing that 1, W has gotten fairly consistent with enforcing the rules, and 2, that the new consequences could easily be far more severe than W would get on her own, I still felt the need to break rules this afternoon.

We added some new elements to the system this time around. Among them, I am now responsible for getting things set up if I'm going to have a spanking. We also finally got around to writing the weekly checklists (these are in addition to daily checklists, which we've been doing for a while). And, after some discussion sparked from a thread on This Thing We Do, I am now supposed to wear a skirt, with nothing under it, when it's time for a punishment (this is both to help me get into the appropriate head space, and to make it that much easier for W to give me the spanking).

Oh, right, and I remembered having downloaded a spanking generator, and W had me alter the offenses and consequences to reflect our system. Yes, I am the one who plugged in the consequences, and none of them seem to have been "J must spend the next week doing nothing but playing Sims 3 and eating bon bons." Why is that? :-P

So you'd think that I would have been positively angelic, knowing W is going to be more on top of the rules when she has just reviewed them, and knowing the range of consequences available, and how much less they rely on the punishment strap (painful while it's happening, but it wears off quickly). No, not so much.

It started with getting ready for the Sunday session of "Establishing Authority." (W's authority, that is!) I had put off filling out the Sunday checklist, because the easiest way for W to read it would have been for it to be filled out but not yet submitted (it turns into a spreadsheet when I click submit, so it's handy for looking at overall trends in my responses, but not so useful to look over any single response). And I'd forgotten the kinds of questions on it (including things that require me to have filled out my daily checklists, and then to look those up to get the answers for the weekly checklist, which W checks).

So I had gathered all of the things I thought I was supposed to bring into the living room, tidied it a little, shooed out the cats, put on my skirt, set up the music, and went to my portable computer to fill out the checklist and couldn't get online. Time was ticking down, and before I could get the computer to recognize the wireless network, time was up and W was in the living room. I think, had I been prepared to answer the questions easily, this could have managed, because this was the first time we were doing the new system, and my usual checklist takes me about a minute to fill out. Unfortunately, the new one takes longer than I'd thought, particularly if I don't have the answers to the questions!

Meanwhile, W realized I had *also* forgotten to bring The Book (the notebook where we have paper copies of the rules, the pages of lines I've written, and all of the other written process stuff about our system). This would also probably have been forgiven, had it not been for the debacle with the checklist. After I finished filling out the checklist, and brought in The Book, W sent me to the corner while she looked things over.

When my first round of corner time (8 minutes) was up, she called me out, and looked at me very sternly. "If this checklist had been a test, you would have flunked." So she used the punishment generator to determine the consequence for not being ready on time. I can't remember what the generator had decided on, but W changed it to 12 minutes of corner time, this time with my hands on my head, and 20 with the bath brush.

So back into the corner with me. Let me tell you, standing in the corner is boring, and mildly uncomfortable (I'm far-sighted, so the close focus really is uncomfortable), but it's nothing on standing there with my hands on my head. Ouch. I was nearly in tears of regret about four minutes into it.

Since the punishment generator is a new part of our set-up, W hadn't noticed the line for "establishing authority" so instead, she generated punishments for the rules I'd broken earlier in the week, and reduced and combined those to come up with the Sunday spanking. I've learned from experience that it's best not to stick my nose in and tell her a different way of punishing me at that stage of the game, because she's more likely to add punishments. And as it turned out, I got less with her system, so all was well.

But this STILL added up to 52 strokes with the strap (part of the punishment for skipping a meal) and 15 lines (part of the punishment for not texting her to tell her about my meals). I was glad that she reduced the punishment, because it does seem really unfair to have gotten punished for both of those on Wednesday, and then again on Sunday. But she reduced the punishment from the original, and as it turned out, it was less of a punishment than I would have gotten had she used the "establishing authority" choice on the generator.

Still. It was 52 strokes with the strap, hard ones, followed by 20 even harder ones with the bath brush (why, oh WHY, did that thing EVER get used as a spanking tool?!?!) and then 15 lines. You would think this would have made me shape up, but not so much. I think a lot of it is knowing myself, and knowing that I'm probably heading into a phase of more testing, but trying to keep things in check because (shhh) I love W and want to make her life easier. Making her life easier isn't consistent with breaking rules because I need limits, particularly not in the middle of two incredibly busy weeks at work.

So in my post-spanking journaling, I mentioned that I was feeling the way that indicates I probably need more of a spanking; W decided it was best to see how things went. And I did agree that a just-because spanking was not really going to meet my needs in the way that a punishment spanking would. So I was getting a little stressed over that--knowing that I not only needed another spanking, soon, but that I needed the kind of spanking that results from me breaking a rule. The kind where it's clear that W has things under control, and if I slip up, someone is there taking care of things.

Being the imperfect person I am, this came out in steadily increasing "attitude." (Attitude is like porn: perhaps you can't define it, but you know it when you see it.) So around 5, when it was time to start thinking about dinner and the rest of our evening, W decided it was time to deal with the attitude. Back in the corner I went, hands on head, to be followed with 36 strokes with the bath brush (the *generator* told her to use the strap, but she was feeling particularly strict). She started with 12 minutes in the corner, but the attitude had ramped enough that I wouldn't stay still. I was fully prepared to point out that twisting my dreadlocks could be done with my hands on my head, following the letter of the punishment. W added 3 additional minutes of corner time, I continued fidgeting.
W went back to the punishment generator, and decided that I would get an additional 18 minutes in the corner, hands on head (this time, I stood still. I am capable of learning!). The generator told her to do 12 strokes with the cane, but W hasn't practiced with the cane, so she TRIPLED that to 36 more strokes with the bath brush, meaning I was about to get SEVENTY-TWO strokes with the evil bath brush.

For the spanking, I had to repeat "I must respect W's authority" after each line. (After 42 strokes, she changed this to "I will improve my attitude" for the final 30 strokes.)

And then I had lines: I must improve my attitude (18 times) and "I must respect W's authority" (36 times).

Let me tell you, sitting on a firmly spanked bottom, having repeated those lines to the tune of a heavy wooden bath brush smacking down on my bottom, I truly felt I had learned my lesson by the time I was writing them down. I wrote as neatly as I could (given that the part who was present doesn't have the neatest handwriting in the world), and I didn't fuss or fidget or deliberately insert wrong words, as I've been known to do.

Writing this, six hours later, my bottom is still sore even though I'm sitting on my very cushioned desk chair. Heck, it's still sore when I am walking around the apartment, and I'm glad I won't need to sit on a hard seat until tomorrow!

um what now?

2009-06-07T12:40:00.000-04:00

i was going through the sunday coupons and noticed one for smooth away "the latest way to remove hair." then i noticed they also have the smooth away vibe. do they mean what i think they mean? ;)

more spanko startles

2009-05-04T21:47:00.001-04:00

today was filled with spanko startles. there are the two mentioned in my last post, and then w and i were wandering around kmart and found these paddle ball games on sale... sans balls. bratz "hittin' pretty paddle balls." i don't know why we didn't buy them, since they were on clearance for $2.99, and seemed really sturdy.

then we were at an ostensibly vanilla shoe store, and w noticed a rather startling mural on the wall behind the checkout counter, featuring a woman caning a man--bare bottom, lots of cross-hatching. we weren't quite brave enough to get a picture, particularly since it was somewhat obscured by the cashier and some shoe boxes.

and then i came home and took a quiz on facebook, and the first question was this:

i wonder what the universe is telling me? :)

startles galore

2009-05-04T14:58:00.006-04:00

Well, ok, only two. But still.

The first one was in the New York Times Crossword for today. 40 down: Old schoolmasters' sticks. Answer: ferule

(Thanks to Project Gutenberg and Google Images for the picture!)

Then I was flipping through the latest offering from the Science Fiction Book Club, repeating the necessary mantra "Even if it's five books for $1, the last thing this house needs is more books!" when what to my wondering eyes should appear except this:

Only with more pictures, making it clear that the book is basically a bunch of pictures of a Superman-esque guy getting tied up and whipped by a Wonder Woman-esque woman. (The title below was a collection of photographs for afficionadoes of furries. The ad copy reads "Birds do it, bees do it, but no one does it like furries do it! Now you can join the fun as furries... display their hilariously kinky side in this playful and plush board-book.")

sunday spanking

2009-03-15T15:02:00.002-04:00

w was not happy with the post i wrote last week for my post-spanking journal, so she gave me a set of questions i have to answer after each spanking from now on.

i got my sunday spanking today. partly, it was just because it was sunday. but last week was not a good week at all. i broke a lot of rules, and i got a lot of punishments, mostly for not eating three meals a day, and for having attitude. i am also owed a punishment for going out after w was asleep one night, and for not being home when i was supposed to be another night (it wasn't technically against the rules, but i knew when it did it that it was wrong). w decided to wait until she's had more time to cool down because she does not want to punish me out of anger.

before this week's spanking i had a lot of attitude. i have been having a hard time lately, and pushing w's buttons a lot and also just not doing very well. it's complicated, because some of that is because i can't make myself trust that she isn't just going to go away and if i'm afraid of getting rejected then it seems like a better plan to push so that she will go away sooner, instead of having it come when i don't expect it. and some of the pushing and stuff from me i think is because if i'm having lots of flashbacks, i can stop having them if i am focused on being bad right now. back when i was growing up, i had to focus so hard on being good all the time, whether or not someone was paying attention, and i had to be in charge of making myself be responsible about things that my family didn't care about (like schoolwork) so i had to just be good and responsible all the time. so i can kind of remind myself that things are different now by being bad. it's not the best way, but it's a way that i can believe more than all the stupid "i am in a safe place" stuff. because you can tell yourself over and over that you're in a safe place but maybe you won't really believe it until you know for sure.

and even though i might not trust w to stick around or to be there if i'm not perfect, or to keep loving me, or to really love me in the first place... but i DO trust her not to be abusive or to hurt me on purpose or to do something that isn't safe. so i can work out my feelings by being a jerk which i know is wrong but i dont know what to do instead.

the other thing is that maybe she will give up on me and i might as well get that over with and i wont really believe shes sticking around unless i actually let myself be bad because only an idiot who has had the experiences ive had would just take someone at their word without testing. because LOTS of people tell me things but they usually dont mean it. so even though i know its wrong to test i still do it.

before the spanking i was resentful and resistant and full of bad attitude. i feel different now mostly i am willing to write and the fact i am writing should show that. i still have that feeling where i need to push because i dont trust that w will have the energy to keep following through with me and also she sometimes gets careless about how hard she hits so if a spanking is going to be just a little hard but not very then i dont mind getting it that much but if its going to be like the end of this weeks spanking, then i will do my best to avoid it, because the end of this weeks spanking hurt like crazy.

w has started giving a set number of strokes and that is useful. she also stopped a couple of times during the spanking to talk to me about things like the rules i'd broken last week and how i will have to do better. that was useful.

one thing that isn't very useful is that when i've got a lot of strokes, she goes light on more of them, so it's less effective. i think maybe she is worried she will hurt me in the wrong way but pretty much she can't do serious damage with anything we use. or maybe she doesn't notice how the strokes are falling. after she was done with the number she had planned i knew that it hadnt been all that bad even though it was a lot but a lot of them werent that hard. so i fessed up about that and she gave me 140 more and most of those were HARD and boy, if that were how she spanked all the time, i think i would be good more of the time.

i guess thats all for now.

2009-03-08T15:01:00.000-04:00

i got my sunday spanking today. it was also a spanking for breaking rules because i had broken some rules this week. my bottom didnt hurt before but it did after. but the spanking didnt really change my attitude.

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because i needed it

2009-03-02T21:25:00.002-05:00

i was feeling really out of sorts yesterday and today. i was doing my best to be good, but it was the kind of out of sorts where what i really want to do is test the limits. the problem is, there aren't limits i can test without doing something that is hurtful to me or w. basically, my rules are about safety or about being respectful to w and i was pretty good about meals partly because she reminded me yesterday and then today was a snow day for w and i didn't want to spoil it by picking a fight so i ate breakfast and lunch.

i guess what makes it hard for me sometimes is that there are other parts and i sometimes remember not to spoil things for them and the little kids really wanted to get to play in the snow and have fun with w and i didn't want to mess that up for them because this is the first time all year that it's snowed very much and it's not likely it'll snow this much again this year. so i wasn't going to ruin that for them they miss out on enough stuff as it is.

and since the only other rules i could break would have been things like not pushing w's buttons, and i didn't want to do something to make her stressed out, i didn't do that either. so i was feeling really out of sorts but i didn't have a good outlet.

i did let w know that i was feeling like that, and we tried some things like wii boxing which might have helped except i was too sore from a bunch of house stuff we did this weekend, so i couldn't play that very long plus that game isn't really good for me to feel like there are limits it's just good for me to get out aggression. so i was still feeling wound up and still trying not to break rules.

but w decided that i needed a spanking just because. she gave me 10 minutes to get ready and then i was supposed to come in for it and i did but i didn't really know how to get ready i guess because what it takes for me to be ready for a spanking so it will help is for her to be firm and a lot of times she is not very firm, so i get less and less ready, not on purpose, it's just what happens when she is not very firm i guess.

she gave me the spanking. she did a first part, but she could tell i needed more. she kind of talked too much right then i guess because it's not natural for her to be firm and just say she is the boss and if she decides i need a spanking i'm going to get it. i didn't know how to tell her that's all she needed to say, i think she wants to say something nicer i guess. but really, i just need to know someone is the boss and they will set limits when i need them.

i don't know if that is being submissive. i think it's just sometimes i need to push up against limits and know they are there it is like i need a container around me and i push against it but it is there and i guess when the rules and stuff are helpful then w can make that container strong enough that i feel safe.

when she gave me the second part of the spanking, she ended by doing that and it helped a lot i am not feeling so out of sorts. so even though i didn't want a spanking and i tried super hard to not do something to get one and to figure out how to make myself feel better without one i am pretty glad i got it because it did help.

trust

2009-01-19T15:23:00.002-05:00

i'm supposed to write about trust. probably trust and a write-up of weekly maintenance, but trust is the main theme.

trust is a hard thing, especially with discipline in our relationship. this week is an example of that. w had said we'd be starting to do "sundays" again this week. "sunday" is a code word for a weekly check in and maintenance spanking. we hadn't done that for a while, mostly because everything was all mixed up while we were looking for an apartment and then moving, and then things just kind of stayed mixed up after we moved.

i don't know exactly how i feel about the maintenance spankings. part of me knows they're good when they work, but they don't always work, and it's hard to figure out why that is, and how to make them work, and sometimes it feels like we'd just be better not trying at all.

i guess that's kind of how i feel about trust. maybe things are better if i can trust people to follow through, but when that doesn't work out then it feels like it would be better not to try trusting people at all. mostly, that's how it goes. i don't count on most people in my life for things. i mean, i trust them as far as i don't think people are out to get me or anything, but i wouldn't count on them to be there for me, and i kind of have a back-up plan in mind, in case someone i've asked to do something doesn't follow through.

but that doesn't work as well with the maintenance spankings, or with discipline. if it's going to be anything other than me just pretending i have someone i can count on, or pretending that w can help, then i have to be able to trust that she's going to follow through. and that's hard, in part because she has a hard time with following through.

right. so this week. the first problem was that we were both sick, which means we spent most of the weekend sleeping. and since we have separate bedrooms, that meant we were in different rooms for most of the weekend. so the sunday maintenance didn't happen on sunday, because neither of us was really up for it. when we checked in about it yesterday (sunday), w also pointed out that it makes a lot of sense to do it on the day before our week starts, which meant today (monday) would work as well. so she made a plan: we'd get up, have breakfast, and then at noon we'd have the sunday check-in.

the thing is, if i'm not actively acting out, she often forgets to check in about the rules. and this works for a while. i can go a good long while without freaking out, and hold things together. so noon came, and no word from w about the check-in or maintenance. and over the course of the next hour, i guess i started to fall apart. i had been doing well, probably because i knew the spanking was coming. but the further we got from when it was supposed to happen, the less i was able to hold things together.

i can hear people saying, "well, you should have just reminded her." but the problem with that is, part of what i needed was to be able to trust that she would remember, and that she would make it a priority. a lot of the time lately, it's felt like discipline only happens if i ask for it. and frankly, if i ask for it, it's kind of a form of self-discipline. and it means i can't really let go, relax, not be self-disciplined. if it only comes when i ask for it, it means i still have to be on top of my behavior.

and yeah, i should be able to do that. honestly, i *can* do that a lot of the time, but when i can be on top of my own behavior, i don't need the bother of a spanking. when i'm able to be self-disciplined, i don't need the external discipline.

so around 1:30, i was freaking out about several things, and as i got more worked up, it reminded w of the spanking that should have happened. which is kind of like remembering on her own, except that, if i hadn't been freaking out, she wouldn't have.

we're working on that. i explained to w that setting reminders for herself isn't "cheating," in terms of whether or not she remembers things. she feels like she should just be able to remember, but she really can't. but she keeps trying, which means that she has a hard time getting my trust, because she isn't able to follow through on things, even when it hasn't been long since she said she'd do them.

so we had a long talk, since we both know that a spanking just doesn't work well if i'm angry. and then we went into my room for the spanking. it was still kind of... not settled, i guess, when we started. i think we hadn't had a good check-in, and so the spanking was just a spanking, not really connected to my behavior this week. and that doesn't work very well, it seems kind of beside the point.

she gave me a fairly light spanking. and i guess i did something that wasn't good for her ability to trust me. because i was still angry and resistant, i said "ok, that's enough spanking." to her, that said i was upset. which i was, but not about the spanking, so much as about the hassle of having to get it, when it didn't feel like it was working. and i guess it was something that i do sometimes, just to prove to myself that she's not really in charge. because there are things i can do or say during a spanking that will make it be not effective.

i guess it's a kind of testing, because i can't really lie well, or fake things like crying. but i can say things that are true in a way. and it's not like i wanted any more spanking. so w stopped the spanking, but then she could tell from my attitude afterward that it hadn't been enough, so she made me lean over for more spanking. at that point, there was still the problem that it wasn't addressing my behavior over the past week, it was just... a spanking. but that one was hard, and i was definitely ready for it to be over. well... not exactly. my bottom hurt like crazy, and i knew i would be sore, but i also knew there was still unfinished business, for the rules i'd broken and not gotten punishments for.

so we talked some more, and one suggestion w made was pretty smart. from here on out, sundays will have the maintenance spanking, *then* we'll talk about my behavior (she's noticed that i bring up more stuff during or right after a spanking). and then if there is unfinished business, i get the punishment spanking, after the maintenance.

this seemed like a good idea to me, but at the same time, i really, really didn't want another spanking. but at the same time, i wanted a clean slate. after some more talking, w seemed to have forgotten this idea. she was trying to come up with ideas for a punishment for things that come up after the maintenance spanking (yes, she forgets that quickly). and i said that i thought the second spanking was probably the most effective option. lots of other punishments just aren't as effective if what i need is a spanking, and it leads to power struggles and neither of us getting what we need.

so then w decided that i would be getting the punishment spanking this week. i guess i had full on puppy dog eyes or something, since she started laughing at my expression. all i know is, with my bottom already sore and throbbing, the thought of more spanking was... painful. but for the first time in a long while, i really was in the right head space for a spanking to be effective. i was sorry for my behavior, and i took responsibility for it, and i believed that w was going to follow through. so she gave me a third spanking, for skipping meals, for having a bad attitude, and for challenging her authority and getting into a power struggle that wasn't good for either of us, on friday night. so we're starting off the week, and i have a clean slate.

i know there will be testing for a while, because the fact is, w hasn't had a great track record for the past few months. things have been out of kilter, and punishments haven't happened when they should, or how they should. but maybe i should trust that it's ok to test. that's hard for me to believe. i feel guilty when i test, that i should just trust her, should just believe she will follow through, without needing proof. but maybe it's a kind of trust to let myself test until i can believe that she really will be there to catch me when i fall.

just a quick update

2008-12-16T21:53:00.003-05:00

so, we finally got moved. this is good. if by "moved" i mean the majority of our stuff is at the new place, and we're waiting on additional reserves of energy to finish up with the move. but enough of our stuff is at the new place that it's all filled up with boxes, and we can't find anything, whereas the old place now has little enough stuff that it echoes when we walk in, and there isn't much to find.

there are advantages to the new place, but i'm not sure how ttwd will work out, since our usual spanking location, w's room, is right at the front of the apartment, facing the street, and isn't very soundproofed at all. for a variety of reasons, my room isn't a great place (mostly for my psychological well-being, and our general belief that i should have a space that is sort of my domain... but perhaps we'll rethink that.)

so that leaves the dining room (at the back of the apartment, largely without windows to the outside, but lacking in comfortable spots for w to sit while spanking me) or the living room (at the front of the apartment, near enough the front door that sound will carry).

or maybe we could get a louder stereo and imitate the neighbors' tendency to blast their music. i'm not sure what kind of implements would sound like the bass on a stereo, but it's a definite thought.

in the meanwhile, what with being busy with the move, we've been on hiatus from the rules. i'm not sure when we'll get back to them, because we're moved now, but unpacking is overlapping with getting ready for the holidays, and then... well, maybe in the new year. i'm hoping i'll be able to hold out that long. i know there are parts who need the rules, but at the same time, it's been hard enough to manage with all the things that need to get done, so having the little break is pretty nice.

so more writing at some point later, when we're more settled into the new place, but i thought i'd let people have something to comment on just in case anyone is checking for updates to the blog.

Christmas meme!

2008-12-04T08:50:00.004-05:00

Mija posted this meme on her blog, and I thought it would be a handy way of getting some kind of post up here while in the middle of the utter chaos of moving. Enjoy!

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags?
Gift bags--fabric ones I make myself. Partly, it's environmental, partly, it's easier to wrap things, and partly, it gives me an easy way to use those great holiday themed fabrics at the fabric store. I just need to make enough of them that I'm willing to let people keep them!

2. Real tree or artificial?
I broke down and got an artificial tree last year, when the cost for a real tree was higher than for a decent artificial one. The down side is, it's all the less likely that the tree will be taken down within a reasonable time frame!

3. When do you put up the tree?
It depends somewhat on when Chanukah falls, because when possible, we wait until afterwards. Otherwise, the tree generally goes up around the Winter Solstice (21st December).

4. When do you take the tree down?
It's supposed to get taken *down*? I do my best to have it down by Valentine's Day. Barring that, it's *definitely* down by Passover!

5. Do you like eggnog?
Mmmmmmmmm. Eggnog. I love eggnog, and I've even had homemade eggnog that was delicious.

6. Favorite gift received as a child?
This is a hard call. I think I got the Holly Hobbie Bake Oven for Christmas, and that was a great present. My all-time favorite gift, trumping the trip to Disneyland I'd gotten that same year, was a large paper grocery bag filled to overflowing with used books. I was in heaven. Yes, I am *that* much of a bibliophile.

7. Hardest person to buy for?
I think this varies from year to year. We generally do what we call a "sweatshop craft," where we choose one thing and make a whole bunch of it, which definitely makes it a little easier to decide what to give people (they get some combination of the things we've made that year). With my family, I traditionally give them a combination of the sweatshop craft and home baked cookies. So I guess that brings it down to W, for whom I need to get real presents for both Christmas and Chanukah. Then again, she's happy with pretty much everything, so it's pretty fun to shop for her.

8. Easiest person to buy for?
When I have money and time, pretty much everyone on my list is easy to buy for. The people who are picky about things either won't like anything I get, or have specific wish lists up and I can just choose something from that.

9. Do you have a nativity scene?
More or less. I have a Playmobil nativity, but I'm not sure if all of the pieces are going to survive the move. And the nativity has gotten mixed in with my other Playmobil toys, so I tend to just kind of mix and match if we decide to put up a nativity scene (last year's nativity included several pirates, and three Santas as the wise men!)

10. Mail or email Christmas cards?

Mail, all the way. Mail is more special, and while I don't often get letters sent off, I like to give people the thrill of real mail when I can.

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received?
The year I was 14, it wasn't so much the gifts I received (which did kind of suck) but the contrast between what I was getting and what my siblings were getting. We'd had a lot of money trouble that year, and so my mother didn't get too many presents. But people outside the family gave a TON of gifts. And somehow (I'm sure it wasn't personal), they got things that were perfect for all of my siblings, and then things that were just the opposite for me (watching each sibling in turn open up their heart's desire, and then getting a spring green, unadorned sweatshirt.... I am not making this up.)

12. Favorite Christmas Movie?
Probably A Christmas Story, although several others are on the list.

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas?
Depends on the year. I start when I have time and money, somewhere in late November or December. The latest I have ever bought a present was Christmas Day (although that *was* a Chanukah present, and was added on as kind of a joke).

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present?
Probably, although I can't precisely remember. Well, and if it's a magazine subscription, eventually the magazine gets recycled. ;)

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas?
Probably cookies, in the sense that I make a ton of them, and they are yummy. In terms of real food, finger foods are the best! I'm always busy, and it somehow feels like less of an interruption if the food is already in bite-sized pieces. But I also like to make Ethiopian food around the winter holidays, so that's another thing entirely.

16. Lights on the tree; colored or white?
Colored, definitely. White lights outside, colored inside on the tree.

17. Favorite Christmas song?
I like pretty much any Christmas song, so long as it's a nice version. But I was realizing recently that Carol of the Bells and I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day are both songs that I can listen to in pretty much any version.

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home?
Stay home, definitely (although we'll travel across town to have dinner with my mother in law, depending on our preferences for the day).

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer?
Well, I don't know about *all* of them. I can name Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donder, Blitzen, Rudolph, and Olive the Other Reindeer. And there's a song that refers to "Randolph," but I'm not sure whether or not he's a reindeer.

20. Angel on the tree top or a star?
It's either a star or a snowflake. It's been a while since I saw the Christmas ornaments.

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning?
One present Christmas Eve, and the rest Christmas morning. Although this gets complicated with extended family and then you add on Chanukah, so there are eight nights of presents as well. And a friend of mine and I had a long tradition of exchanging our gifts on the winter solstice.

23. Favorite ornament theme or color?
I like the decorations taken as a whole--our tree is *covered* with lights and ornaments, and there are decorations throughout the apartment. When it comes down to it, probably the *lights* are my favorite theme, because that's what ties together all of the holidays this time of year, the celebration of light.

24. Favorite for Christmas dinner?
Are you supposed to eat *food* on Christmas? When you've got all those *cookies*? Seriously, lately it's been Chinese buffet (traditional Jewish Christmas dinner) but every so often we get inspired to make a more involved meal. For a few years we were doing things like duck and goose, which were fun.

25. What do you want for Christmas this year?
For my fibromyalgia to let up enough that I can accomplish the move without collapsing either during it or after. And for the move to go smoothly enough that we are able to do a real Christmas this year. And to find time to do presents and cookies and all the traditional stuff.

26. Who is most likely to respond to this?
I doubt anyone will, but I'd be glad if they did!

By the content of their character

2008-11-05T12:19:00.002-05:00

I wrote this for my Livejournal late last night, intending to come up with something more polished this morning. But in the end, I think it was a good post as originally written, so I'm just copying it here.

The tears surprised me. I had been trying so hard all day, not to hope, to prepare myself for going to bed tonight, disappointed, not yet knowing who would win the election, having the outcome precarious.

And then, as I was counting up the tally on the Google election map, they announced it on TV. Obama won. McCain conceded. And I noticed there were tears in my eyes.

I voted for Obama because I believe he will best represent my interests. I voted based on the merits. Intellectually, race didn't matter to me. Obama was the better candidate. Whether he will live up to the promises he has made, whether he will fulfill the hopes that people have piled on top of him, he is still the better candidate to represent me. Intellectually, I was willing to leave it there.

But when they announced that Obama won, I noticed I was crying. And the thought that kept running through my head was, "This is someone who is like me. Someone who looks like me. Someone who had some similar experiences. Someone like me is going to be the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES."

I am still just... awestruck.

The cynical part of my brain keeps analyzing the speeches, keeps aloof, looking at the ways that news reports fall back on a series of cliches; I look at the representations of supporters on each side--white, downcast supporters of McCain; jubilant or crying multiracial supporters of Obama. I analyze, I criticize.

But inside, I feel like my heart has filled up with wonder. That this moment should occur, that I am writing about it right now, tonight... it's amazing to me. There is a level that cynicism and intellectualization can't conquer. Today, November 4th, 2008, a majority of the United States elected someone like me to be president. And I think about all of the little children who will spend the next four--or eight--years with someone who looks like them in the White House. Who will have this example in front of them, as they imagine the possibilities in their lives.

It's a spiritual moment for me as well, and I just want to say "Thank you" to the powers that made this possible.

Breathin'

2008-10-19T09:52:00.001-04:00

Cool! I found a version of the song that inspired this blog's name, and I thought I'd share it. I <3 the Asylum Street Spankers, and this song totally rocks.

Politics

2008-10-17T22:30:00.002-04:00

You preferred Obama's statements 100% of the time

Voting purely on the issues you should vote Obama

Who would you vote for if you voted on the issues?

Find out now!

I could've predicted this pretty easily. I did some interactive online thing last year to see which of the Democratic candidates was most in line with my beliefs, and according to that, Obama had voted the way I would have preferred on something like 85% or 90% of the issues. So then I checked him out more. Yup, Obama seduced my vote with his charismatic voting record. (And BOY am I hoping two things: one, that he wins, and two, that he continues to vote the way I'd want him to vote as much as he did as a senator.)

----------------
Listening to: Kelly Joe Phelps - Beggar's Oil

Domestic Discipline Name Generator

2008-10-13T23:33:00.002-04:00

To celebrate the one year anniversary of This Thing We Do forum, I put together a Domestic Discipline Name Generator. So now you can get a lovely name for all kinds of uses. Um, like if you're wanting to change your name, there's nothing better than "Trounce McChastisement" to generate respect for your new identity.

As for me, my brand new spanking name is Snarky Angel Halo.
Take The Domestic Discipline Name Generator today!
Created with Rum and Monkey's Name Generator Generator.

DD smart

2008-08-28T10:35:00.003-04:00

ok. so maybe, just MAYBE no one at dunkin donuts has heard about DD. but am i the only person who has noticed just how many times they use the term DD? are w and i the only ones who have this ongoing urge to yoink one of their oven mitt things that hang from the ceiling, and say "DD" with steam rising from the cross-hatched mitt?

Spanked

2008-08-19T18:12:00.003-04:00

or, "How to score a free book of erotica and then realize that you've committed to thoughtfully reading it while visiting friends and relatives."

(click the photo to see the book on Amazon)

A month or so ago, I got an email from Rachel Kramer Bussel ( here's her blog ), inviting me to be a part of an online book tour.

At the time, it seemed like a manageable thing to do. I knew I'd be away from home for part of August, but I figured I'd have time to read the book, write a thoughtful post about it, and then set the post to show up on my appointed date. Why I believed this would happen, I now have no idea. But I had made a commitment, and here I am.

The first complication ensued when the book didn't arrive until a few days before we were heading out of town. Now, some people are organized. Some people don't go away to a folk festival and have the ongoing leak in their bedroom turn into a gaping hole, and spend the next week arguing with their landlord about how "I have to think about what to do" is not the appropriate response to large, wet holes in their tenants' ceilings....

So, there I am. I have a brand new, gorgeous book of erotica, and instead, I'm spending my time fuming about what an idiot my landlord is. Oh, right, and also making sure the car is as ready as possible for a 1500 mile road trip. Oh, and packing for said road trip. Not to mention all of the various other things I was doing. So in the two or three days I had the book before leaving home, I only had a chance to glance at a few of the stories.

What does this mean for what I thought of the book?

Well, being the responsible person I was, I decided to take the book along with me on vacation. But also being who I am, there was *no* way I was going to read a book of erotica in my usual fashion (you know, the kind that involves a vibrator or a hand down my pants) while sleeping in a friend's living room.

So I read the stories more for content than for getting off. And I'm pleased to say that the stories were worth reading, even when I had both hands on the book.

One of the things that caught my attention was how many of the stories focused on the dynamics of relationships. Maybe it's because I so often skim until I get to the "good parts," but I don't remember noticing the characters in erotica as people who happen to engage in spanking (or sex) so much in other books.

I also really appreciated the stories that demonstrated an intersection between spankings and "real life." The three stories I'm thinking most of are "Daddy's Girl" by Teresa Noelle Roberts (an interesting take on Daddy/daughter role plays), "Pink Cheeks" by Fiona Locke (exploring the question of where life on newsgroups meets with reality), and "Page by Page" by Laura Bacchi (looking at what happens when a professional masochist begins to fall for her client). Sure, the spankings and sex in these stories were quite hot (also true of the other stories in the anthology, naturally!), but the characters shone through as people as well. (Okay, that is also true of the other stories in the book.)

I'm not saying I'm going to confine my reading of this book to times when I will have to keep both hands on the book, because, as I've mentioned, the stories are hot. And if something can get me warmed up and squirmy, even when I'm sleeping on the fold-out couch in someone else's living room, with them only an unlocked door away....

Stay tuned for tomorrow's post, over at Essin-Em. And check out the other great blogs that have participated in this book tour here!

Oh, right, and the contest!

Now, your prize will either be a nice postcard promoting the book (presuming I can find it again--I will send it in a friendly envelope so you don't have to explain to your mailman what kind of friends you have) or, if you're really lucky, a copy of the book itself. Plus, you get the invaluable knowledge that you were the first one with the correct answer. And you get to show off how good your memory is for erotica.

So, here's the contest:

Go to this page on Amazon, and search for "Betty Crocker Gone Bad." Choose page 17 (or browse the whole story--I'm not sure how much you can see without buying it). Read that page, or as much of the story as you are able, and then figure out where else it has appeared.

The first person to tell me where they saw the other version of this story, and to list three differences between the version in Spanked and the other source, wins the prize, whatever it may be. ;)

decisions, decisions

2008-07-20T00:03:00.003-04:00

specifically, do i write, or do i get another spanking?

seems like the answer should be easy, right? i don't want a spanking right now. pretty much i (the part) *never* want a spanking. but then, maybe there's some subconscious thing going on, because i keep on doing things that will earn me a spanking.

and it's not like there aren't parts who can write. there are tons of parts of this system... lots of people who live in my body, and who love to write. who would spend their days expressing themselves in words, and more words.

and it's not like the rules say it has to be *me* who writes. but somehow, i find myself stuck out here, and i really hate doing this.

so i go back to that first question: do i write, or do i get another spanking?

i don't FEEL like writing.

and i don't WANT another spanking.

but i guess i've gotten this far so i may as well try to write something, since why else would i bother to post anything in the first place.

part of the problem, maybe, is that i'm not even sure who i am. maybe that's hard for people ont he outside to get, or understand, or whatever. i know that i'm not one of the parts who feels really comfortable with writing. i usually can't even bear to look at what is happening while i'm doing it. i know some of the others can tell i'm around because i start to stare at the ceiling as i type so that i don't have to see it happening. so please forgive any typos, because i also really hate reading what i've written.

what's going on with me? maybe you want to know why i was getting a spanking in the first place. i guess it's because i didn't eat today, and i didn't journal, although maybe i did, i can't really remember. i know there was a fair amount of typing happening, but whether that was journaling, i couldn't precisely say. well, ok, so i do know that the specific kind of journaling, the kind the rule is aobut, that definitely didn't happen.

sometimes, i really wish that i could know why it is that i am breaking the rules. i'm not used to breaking rules for no good reason. i'm not used to pushing the boundaries. i'm the kind of person who always used to follow all the rules. but here i am, breaking them.

and really, this is all i can write just now. my head is hurting more and more, and i'm feeling nauseated. that is how much i hate to write. but maybe making myself do this was enough.

well, ok, so one of the reasons that i don't feel comfortable with writing is that it is really triggering and it makes me feel sick with fear to write things down, particularly things that are more specific and with details. i don't mind when some other part is writing a story, at least, mostly i don't mind, but i really don't like it when something about my life is getting written, and it is easier if writing just gets stopped generally, thanks. i'm pretty scared of someone finding out about the things i've written. well, like some specific people.... but i won't specify, because that feels like a way of making it happen.

Nerd Porn

2008-06-19T19:42:00.003-04:00

Natty mentioned something about nerd porn last week. Oddly, it was the same day that one of my friends introduced me to the little gem above (well, to the audio-only version of it, which I appreciate much more. So turn off your monitor and turn up your speakers for full enjoyment.)

So I thought I'd share that with you. Because we nerdy girls can enjoy it just as much as the guys do.

FLDS

2008-05-23T11:15:00.003-04:00

Texas Court rules that children of FLDS should not have been removed from their homes

I don't know if you have been following the whole saga of the group of Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints. Google that, plus perhaps "removing children," because I'm not up to describing the whole situation.

Now the courts have ruled that it was wrong to remove the children, that there wasn't sufficient evidence to justify taking them away. It's supposed to be a happy ending, the families reunited, everything just ducky. And I am frothing with rage.

I know that the bulk of the fury I'm feeling over this is on behalf of myself, as a child. But I don't think I'm just projecting. The assumption I see, over and over, is that the rights of parents to maintain control over their children nearly always trump the rights of the children to be safe, so long as there is reasonable evidence that the children will survive to adulthood. This is not right. It just isn't.

Yes, the I am furious over this because of my own experience. I don't think that invalidates what I want to say. So let me tell a little bit about where my own rage is coming from.

At least once during my childhood, someone called children's services. They came, investigated, and determined that there was nothing going on, or at least, nothing that required intervention. But they were wrong. I know for certain that there was physical abuse (it did stop short of breaking bones), emotional abuse, verbal abuse, sexual abuse, and neglect (I'm ambivalent on that one, since some of the neglect was unavoidable given my mother's lack of resources).

But because children's services determined that the kids in the household were likely to survive to adulthood, we were left there, and there was no other intervention.

And this just increased my parents' ability to continue with what they were doing. They punished me for having said things at school that led to the investigation (I'm unclear as to what, exactly happened at school; my memory is that I said something, not even realizing it was a huge red flag for abuse, and a teacher called it in.) And what I learned was, no one was going to intervene. What was happening to me at home was justified. For reasons I really did not understand, I deserved the things that happened, just as my siblings must deserve the things that happened to them.

It was a hard thing to figure out, particularly as I got older. When I was not quite twelve, and my youngest brother was not quite two, my stepfather was taking care of him, and beat him black and blue, from the middle of his thighs up to his lower back. And it was hard for me to see that this was justified, because what the h*ll could a toddler do, to deserve that? His crime? Not laying down to take his nap.

The thing is, the response within the family was largely that it had been wrong to do that, not because it is wrong to beat a child, but because my youngest brother had a heart problem and didn't get spanked like that. I mean, no one ever said that it was wrong to beat *any* toddler that severely. The only reason my brother shouldn't have gotten that "spanking" was because he was sickly.

I tend to shy away from describing my childhood as a time of unalleviated horror. It wasn't only horrible. And in many ways, my family did love me.

Would I want to have not spent my childhood with them? I really don't know. I can't imagine who I would be, or what my childhood would have been like, without that thread of abuse. I don't know who I would be, if that hadn't happened. Maybe it did make me stronger, or at least, more fierce in my anger at people who are treating children badly. It definitely made me more determined to succeed in school, because that was the only way I could imagine escaping: to get into a college on the other end of the country. But I'm pretty smart. I'm willing to bet that, even without the abuse, I probably would have been able to succeed in school. Heck, I might have done better, had I been responsible for less at home, had I been able to sleep soundly at night.

I'm not saying I don't love my family. In spite of all that was bad, there was also good. I do love them, and I wouldn't want to have had all contact cut off. But what happened was not ok. And when I see similar things happening, or the possibility of similar things happening, I am livid. The burden of proof should rest on the ones who are more powerful, to prove that they are not being abusive. Nobody, nobody has a right to abuse someone else.

What is more, having spent my adult life trying to understand that what happened to me when I was growing up was not justified, I shudder for the kids in these households. I was able to escape, because for all of her flaws, my mother also had times when she encouraged me to think for myself, and to protect myself (odd, from a woman who also would beat me harder if I tried to protect myself from her; strange, from a woman who felt it was right for her to have a full adult relationship with her teenaged daughter). And I spent enough time at school, around people who showed me a different way of living, that the thought was able to enter my head, "This is not right. This does not have to be happening." It was a very quiet thought, for a very long time. But it was there, enough that I could imagine escaping.

But the kids in the FLDS compound? They are being told that not only do their parents believe this is right, deserved, what they should do. They are being told that God ordains this. They do not have contact with anyone who is not a member of that sect.

Ok. So the court doesn't want to separate the children from their parents. Then they had damn sure better make certain they are keeping tabs, offering other thoughts, both to the children and their parents. But nothing I know about how children's services works, or how the negotiation between the rights of parents and the rights of children happens, leads me to believe that there will be any surveillance. The court has determined that these children are likely to survive to adulthood, so they are on their own.

And the message they are getting from this, in part, is that what is happening is justified; that when an adult tells them something is ordained by God, or is for the children's own good, or any of that garbage, then the children will believe that to be true. Because they have no evidence that says anything different.

testing

2008-05-22T15:53:00.002-04:00

i really wish that when parts are feeling the need to test people, there were some way of letting the people KNOW they were being tested. because, damn, i doubt people would do the same things if they knew what was behind the words the parts are saying. and double damn, it's hard to convince the other parts that their fears aren't true when every test they set up appears to confirm they are right.

the one today... she came out as my therapist was talking about how the rules and structure are a bad idea, and how we should stop because it just seems to generate testing (by the way: this is the first time she has ever said this; before, she was all for the rules, although she was a little doubtful about the spanking, but didn't seem to object beyond wanting to be sure it wasn't abusive.)

so then the other part came out. and was talking about how she just needs to learn to stop expecting people to help, because they pretty much aren't going to. that she should be willing to accept that other people will do things when it is easy, or if they see it as part of their job, but aren't going to help her to feel better. what did she want/need to hear? that it is a good thing to look for help, and she does not need to cope on her own. but my therapist was saying that she DOES need to stand on her own (i don't *think* in the same way this part was thinking, but i have nothing to prove that wasn't what she meant.)

the therapy session ended with that part saying she just wanted to understand what was wrong with her, that kept her from deserving help. my therapist said she would help her to understand what was wrong that kept her from deserving help. i'm pretty sure, once again, that my therapist didn't mean the same thing that part heard, but... there it is. and now that part is pretty much at the point of quitting therapy, because she has put this together with other things my therapist has said to mean that she (my therapist) basically wants us to suck it up and just convince ourselves that things are different than they are.

then, after therapy, a friend called. he wanted to talk about having picked up his new car, but that part was out really strongly, and was feeling ready for rejection at the drop of a hat. the friend commented that i/she sounded sad, she said "therapy," he said, "oh, ok. just wanted to tell you about picking up my new car. we can talk later." now, i figure he was respecting my space, and not intruding. i figure, had she said she wanted to talk, and needed some support, he would have been glad to do it. but what did she take from it? that people don't want her around when she is not doing well, and only want to talk to her if she is listening to them talk about what is going on in their lives.

i wish she had subtitles or a voiceover or something, letting people know what she is really saying when she says things. because what keeps happening is that a bunch of parts come out, and test people, and somehow, people keep confirming their negative beliefs.

2008-05-21T13:48:00.001-04:00

and let me add it's not just that i'm a jerk. if it were just me i could understand why no one is helping but they are also not helping the parts they claim to like.

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2008-05-21T13:43:00.000-04:00

what sucks is i can't even make w happy by killing myself because i can't think of a method i am sure would work and i do NOT want to get stuck in the hospital being told i am manipulative and histrionic again. and i guess it is manipulative to say how much i want to be dead if i have no idea how i would do it. i just wish if the pain won't go away and no one can or will help that the pain could just kill me and i wouldn't have to keep living with it. but no one can help and even people who insist they want to admit they wish i could just kill myself like w said last night. i don't know what is wrong with me that makes me unworthy of help.

Proof i was right

2008-05-21T10:10:00.000-04:00

she said outright last night that she wished i could kill myself and leave the others behind. how long will it be before she admits that she wants all of the inconvenient parts dead so the only ones left are the ones who take care of her and don't ask for anything in return?

Whom? Whom?!

2008-05-08T13:49:00.000-04:00

Here is a serious contender for winning the 'ignorant graffiti masquerading as intelligent' contest. Or something. Not sure why they used whom in this case, really.

sunday

2008-04-27T23:20:00.002-04:00

i'm supposed to write about the sunday maintenance spanking, but i really don't feel like it, so that's all i have to say on the subject. maybe i'll write more about it later.

sunday maintenance

2008-04-20T13:35:00.002-04:00

another sunday, another sunday maintenance spanking i need to write about.

i don't know why it's so hard to write about these. i guess partly it's because it's pretty much the same every week, and i'm afraid it'll get boring: we checked in about last week, talked about my behavior, and then i got a spanking.

the main problem with my behavior last week is one i can see posing a problem this week, too. that is, i have really been feeling the need to push up against the edges of the limits. it's like i *need* to be breaking some rules, and need w to step in and enforce the rules.

but there's the problem of me also not wanting to hurt w's feelings, or make her unhappy... i really don't want her to be unhappy. and the problem is, very often, the way it works with the rules is that it's like she takes it personally. i mean, some of the things (like me being directly mean to her, or picking fights, or pushing her buttons) are definitely things that, on the surface, are about me wanting to hurt her feelings. the problem is, that's not my *goal*. it just kind of happens.

but there are other rules that it also seems like she takes personally. like bedtime. that's one that really is mostly about me--we've been sleeping in different rooms, so me being up late doesn't keep her up late. but in trying to set a tone for the discussions, w often personalizes things, saying that i'm keeping her up late, or something like that.

that came up partly when we were talking about how i need some rules i can break without it being about her, so that i don't need to intentionally break the rules that *are* more for her benefit. and i pointed out that it seemed to me like any rule i broke would wind up being personal.

so it's a frustrating thing. i haven't been able to figure out what it is that puts me in this state of needing to break a rule. well, i guess part of it is that every so often i need a spanking that's hard enough that i can still feel the effects after a couple of days. and it's been a while since i last had one of those, and i'm guessing that i'm gonna keep pushing until i wind up getting one of those.

but the weird thing is, it's not like i *enjoy* them, not those ones. pretty much any spanking i'm getting, after one or maybe two swats, while it is happening, i'm pretty sure it's been "enough." that i won't need another spanking for a really long time. but it's way less often that i can feel the spanking for a while afterwards, and when that doesn't happen, it's like i'm not able to bring the limit testing to an end, at least, not on my own.

but at the same time, i'm really wishing i could think of a way of testing the limits without hurting w. but the rules that are more likely to get me spanked are things like picking fights with her, or stuff like that. or skipping meals, but i've been trying hard not to do that one, because i do recognize that it's bad for me to skip meals.

anyhow. so that's what's been going through my head after this week's maintenance spanking.

Startle

2008-04-14T15:16:00.001-04:00

Hm. What message are they trying to send with this t shirt? And how do they think the nice lady is going to hang onto that coffee cup? Does this explain why NONE of the seats in that coffee shop are padded?

sunday maintenance

2008-04-06T18:19:00.002-04:00

well, w wants me to write after each sunday maintenance spanking. this time around, i'm really not sure what to write about. it's been several weeks since i earned a punishment spanking, but she's been keeping up with the maintenance spankings.

deep down, i know that is probably a good idea. i mean, i know that when the maintenance spankings aren't happening, i don't do well. but i don't know why that is. i can't say what it is about the maintenance spankings, exactly, that helps.

the thing is, they make me more grounded. they kind of remind me that w cares about me and will keep me on track, no matter what.

but at the same time, it's a little strange, getting a spanking when i haven't done anything to be punished for. i mean, just because i know it works, doesn't mean that i like getting them. and spankings are usually seen as something that is either about sex or about punishment. and neither of those things is true with a maintenance spanking. i get them whether or not i have been bad. but they aren't about sex.

i don't know. they're weird. they do make me feel better, at least when they are over. i guess i feel this sense of being able to trust that w will follow through, be consistent, really be there for me. maybe there is a way we could do that without me having to get spanked. maybe just the check-in, and then i would only get a spanking if i'd misbehaved over the week before. but somehow, i guess that wouldn't wind up working.

it's pretty confusing to me. i know the spankings i get on sundays aren't as bad if i've followed the rules as they would be if i hadn't. and i know we're both relieved that we've had several weeks of good behavior.

the check-in before the spanking is also a good time for me (or whichever part is out at the time) to get any last bits of the week of my chest. so i can bring up things i feel guilty about, and we check in about them. it doesn't always affect how hard the spanking is. sometimes, it's just... i know it's something i feel bad about, and i guess it feels good to have the chance to talk about it with w. maybe i could talk about it just as easily in a different way... or maybe not. somehow, the corner time before a spanking, knowing i'm about to get the spanking, lets me sort through my thoughts and, i don't know, any bits and pieces i feel guilty about bubble up, and so i bring them up and talk about them.

and it's not like we don't talk throughout the week.

i guess the other thing i want to write about is how we are talking about this, at least some, with our couples' therapist. and i don't know how i feel about trying to explain to her what we're doing. i do know it's good, and it feels right to me. and really, it's not about sex.

oh, right. the maintenance spankings. how they can be something that isn't sex, and isn't punishment. i guess it's more like getting a vaccination or something. like, a little bit of discomfort, to prevent a larger amount of discomfort later? or to prevent having something go really wrong?

not sure. just thinking things through. i guess that's all i have to say right now.

therapy stuff

2008-04-03T17:44:00.002-04:00

i keep trying to start this post, and then erasing it. i guess a lot of it is about having trouble figuring out where to start, and how to talk about it. anyhow. this post is about things that i probably would've written about over at jigsaw analogy, but i'm not particularly wanting the comments that are meant to be sympathetic, but that just kind of grate on me. the point of saying this is, if you're looking for something about DD or sex or the usual topics of this blog, you're going to want to wait around for a different post.

ok. i will try to just start writing.

one thing that came pretty clearly into my mind after therapy today was this: usually, when i tell my coming out story, i talk about how i figured i couldn't be a lesbian, simply because i didn't find men repulsive. i liked guys perfectly well, and figured the only reason i wasn't attracted to them was, hey, who is attracted to high school guys? (sorry, any high school guys who are reading this blog. i'm sure some people do find you attractive. sorry to any guys who went to my high school who are reading this blog--it really wasn't personal. turns out, i'm a lesbian.)

anyhow.

but there was another reason, something i had trouble acknowledging to myself, something i never talked about. and it is this:

not only was i not repulsed by men, but i got physically ill when having sex with one particular woman. the thought of doing it repulsed me, i hated it, i wished i could find a way to make sure it wouldn't happen. at the time, i thought it was because i wasn't interested in having sex with females. but the fact is, it wasn't the femaleness that was making me ill.

maybe another part could put this into touching words, or make it something more readable. but i'm the one who is writing this, and it's something i need to get out of myself. i'm finding i need to talk about this, even though i'm really not sure how to do it.

you know how "they" say that homosexuality is somehow caused by sexual abuse? i'm pretty sure that's not the case with me. the fact is, what the abuse did was make me not want to have sex at all. made the whole concept of sex really repulsive and unpleasant. it was something i hated doing. i did everything i could to distance myself from it. and when those memories come up now, i still can't stand the thought of sex. i get angry at w, because we are in a relationship that, on the surface of it, includes sex. we haven't been having sex, but the undercurrent is there all the same.

other parts have been trying to get me to see that the feelings i have are about being triggered, rather than about anything that is happening in the present. and when i can pull back a little bit, i see that that is true.

but it's complicated. what triggers me, what makes me feel ill, what makes me want to escape any way i can think to escape is this: i, me, the part, am in a situation that has some similarity to what happened when i was a teenager. that is, i am in a relationship where i am expected to take on the role of a partner.

well, honestly, no. w doesn't expect me to take on the role of her partner. that's messed up, right? that the person who met me when i was an adult, the person who got into a relationship with an adult, can have the boundary of not asking me, or the other non-adult parts, to be in a relationship of that kind with her. whereas, when i was a teenager, when i really was too young for it....

my first serious relationship? it was with my mother. it started... i don't know for sure. some parts probably started when i was in middle school. it was definitely going on by the time i was fourteen. it's hard to say where it started, or ended, because in a lot of ways, the sex was the least of it. the sex was just one part. there is so much more than that in a relationship. and the complicated thing is, a lot of that stuff would've been fine as part of a parent-child relationship. just... not all of it.

i keep hearing those voices in my head, telling me that i'm making this up. but the fact is, i really can't see that i gain anything from making up something like this. i don't get any more sympathy than i would from anything else. i don't get more attention. probably, this blog would get waaaaaaaay more hits if i could be writing about sex, you know? so it's not like talking about the abuse gets me attention, or positive reinforcement.

thinking about this stuff doesn't make me feel good. i feel much better after therapy sessions when i talk about my life right now; after therapy today, i felt (and still kind of feel) like i was choking, like i was about to puke. the contents of my stomach were utterly unwilling to stay there. i feel ill.

having this stuff in my brain makes it difficult for me to have sex, or even to think about sex. (and it intrudes on the other parts, who, sure, maybe i made them up too, but... oh, right, still no real advantages except i can be in therapy for longer.)

makes it hard to sleep. makes it hard to eat. makes it hard to have a relationship, because the sheer fact of the relationship existing makes me want to be dead.

so i'm telling the voices that they are not working in the real world. i have no reason to be making this up.

the thing about all of this is, it makes me feel horrible, but i do still also love my mother. that really makes things hard. in some ways, the stuff that happened with other people, when i was younger, is much easier to deal with. i mean, i really don't particularly care about those people, other than the obligatory love for family members. if we never spoke again, there would only be a kind of theoretical regret for what could have been.

but my mother? that was a relationship. there was good so mixed in with all the bad that i don't think i'll ever be able to sort it out. there were things that were totally appropriate, and they were so thoroughly mixed in with the inappropriate stuff that maybe i did like, and the inappropriate stuff that i definitely did NOT like.... how to figure it out? i hear myself (well, other parts, actually) talking with her on the phone. and i understand why they do it. visiting with her. spending time with her. being grateful for the gifts she gives.

and the thing is, the gifts no longer come at a cost. so it's likely that the gifts when i was a teenager had very little to do with what else was going on.

because there's another piece to this: i am beginning to strongly suspect that my mother is further up on the dissociative scale than i had thought before. i've started to notice how often she will express one strong opinion, and then a day or two later say the opposite, and really not remember the other state. and we're talking about things like whether or not she likes muffins, or enjoys a particular author, or likes a particular color. not things where someone would want to deny their opinion. and my mother being dissociative explains a lot about how inconsistent things were with her, and how she could at one moment be one way, and at another, totally different.

not that it excuses anything, but... it explains it. and the mother i generally interact with is not the one who was abusive, and i think she honestly doesn't remember it. not in her usual states, not in the states where i talk with her.

but it explains part of how other parts of me are able to have a relationship with her. but it also makes everything that much more murky. i mean, how much of the stuff that has become tangled up with emotional incest really would have been fine, if it had only been the non-abusive parts of my mother i interacted with? and there is no way to know.

it's a tangled mess.

2008-03-27T13:22:00.002-04:00

Reading the ny times style section today. There is an article about vegan strippers and the place where feminism and veganism intersect. Interesting how livid (some) feminists can get about other people's choices. I would be more erudite but i am typing this on my phone, not a medium that lends itself to erudition. More later.

Too zoned out to make a more coherent post. But here's a link to the article I was talking about.

Responding to Wakeman

2008-03-26T10:25:00.004-04:00

Natty got several posts up about this before I managed to, but I'm not bitter or anything. ;) (her posts are here, here (same post as at the pb, but definitely worth scrolling down to the comments, and here.)

And since Natty got her posts up before me, I feel *totally* justified in focusing on the things that really bugged me about the article. There were some good sides to the piece, and for a moderately mainstream examination of DD, she did portray a couple of different viewpoints.

HOWEVER. Whether because she wound up writing for Bitch Magazine, or because of her own biases, the structure of the article, the framing of quotations from her sources, and her choice of sources she quoted at all really reinforces one end of the spectrum of domestic discipline.

By beginning and ending the article with an extended discussion of sources like "Loving Domestic Discipline" and the people who believe in the whole "surrendered wife" thing, readers unfamiliar with the range of approaches to DD are likely to come away with the idea that those attitudes define DD. Throughout the article, Wakeman failed to draw a distinction between the different ends of the spectrum. For example:

The crux of domestic discipline is that women's behavior is inherently rife with transgressions, and the discipline provided by their intimate partner will be a leveling force... In addition to disciplinary spankings, MrLovingDD also advocates "maintenance spankings," which, he explains, "help to build on the existing levels of the woman's obedience, respect, and honesty.

Mija... describes DD simply. "To be really trite, take the Volkswagen ad. 'On the road of life, there are passengers and there are drivers.'" In their figurative VW, Pablo... disciplines Mija....

"I decide that there's some sort of goal I want to achieve and he enforces it," explains Natty... who writes about her DD relationship on a blog called The Punishment Book....

(Yeah. Cause Natty is the *only* woman writing there. Hmpf. ;P )

By framing the quotations from Mija and Natty this way, Wakeman implies that they believe gender is the central dynamic in domestic discipline. I think, had I not already known Mija and Natty, I would believe that they also believe the point of domestic discipline is to rein in women, whose behavior is "inherently rife with transgressions." Now, I don't presume to read their minds, but I'm pretty sure that neither Mija nor Natty really agrees with MrLovingDD.

The repeated focus on the male/female dynamic set a tone for the article that rubbed me the wrong way. It reinforced the (imo) misogynist beliefs of the LovingDD types, and undermined the feminist possibilities of other ways of doing "this thing we do." It would be as though she were writing an article about Christianity, and framed it to imply that all Christians are of the Jerry Falwell type, even when she was quoting people with more liberal views.

In order to do that, Wakeman had to exclude a portion of the DD community. In her mind, it is a small section, perhaps not relevant to the larger discussion. Buried between parentheses in the middle of the article, she noted

Theoretically, a man can be the submissive in a heterosexual domestic discipline relationship, and a DD relationship can be same-sex, but based on both Internet presence and the couples that I interviewed, it's far more common to find heterosexual, female-submissive practicioners.

Let me speak up as one of the people interviewed for this article. I am in a same-sex relationship, and we practice domestic discipline. I have a blog, and I am one of the writers at the Punishment Book. And I have some opinions as to why it's far more common to find heterosexual, female-submissive practicioners of DD.

Groups like "Loving DD" specifically exclude couples who don't match their vision of why domestic discipline is necessary in relationships. They deny that anyone who practices outside of the male-dominant, female-submissive paradigm is truly engaging in domestic discipline, because they adhere to the misogynistic belief that women should be sumissive to their male partners. All women. All partnerships.

Last fall, when W and I were struggling to figure out how to navigate this thing we do, we tried joining a couple of other bulletin boards. We tried a few, and weren't having much luck. I finally snapped when the moderators of the least annoying board I found moved my introductory post to the BDSM forum, insisting that because W and I are both women, what we do is kink, and not discipline. So I started This Thing We Do, and discovered a lot of other people who have felt excluded from other DD forums for a lot of reasons.

Just because people are excluded doesn't mean they don't exist. Fifty years ago, there weren't many black people in Ivy League insitutions. Was this because black people weren't intelligent enough, or because they were specifically kept out of those institutions? Yet, there were those who made an argument that intelligence was inherently tied to whiteness. Right now today, same-sex couples are denied the right to marry, with the argument that marriage is about heterosexual partnership. Does this mean that same-sex couples don't exist, or that they don't make long-term partnerships, or that they don't do any of the things straight couples do? (Well, according to my mother, the big difference between my lesbian relationship and my sisters' straight ones is that W and I spend a lot of time working on communicating well. But I wouldn't argue that it's our homosexuality that makes that happen!)

So okay. Some of this is irritation at all of the ways my relationship is dismissed, and most of that is not Wakeman's fault.

But at the same time, I am annoyed by this exclusion as a feminist. People tend to fall back on gender as an explanation for behavior at points where gender is not, in fact, the cause. Whether it is domestic discipline or the discussion of who is responsible for doing the grocery shopping, gender cannot be the answer.

Very often, I will hear straight people talking about their relationships, ascribing the challenges to the differences between men and women. Some of our (perhaps less enlightened) straight friends say they wish they weren't straight, because they think their relationship problems would go away if there weren't those gendered differences.

I am here to say that relationships--straight, gay, polyamorous--are WORK. They take work. They take HARD work. And they take a lot of it. And domestic discipline takes work. It isn't going to save you the trouble of learning how to communicate with your partner. It doesn't excuse you from being able to express your needs and desires. All DD is is a tool couples can use.

Taking gender out of the equation forces me and W to look at ourselves. It forces me to take personal responsibility for this need. I do not need it because I am a woman. The reason W does *not* need it isn't because of her gender, either.

Accepting myself for who I am is a radical act. It challenges the idea that there is only one way of doing things, only one way of being a good (take your pick: feminist, woman, Christian, pagan, black person, abuse survivor, healthy adult...). And it does challenge me to think about why it is that I have these needs. If the answer is not "because I am a woman," then I'm left with a lot of work to do on understanding myself and who I am.

I suspect some of the reason that W and I were excluded from other forums is that some people don't want to have to do the work of understanding themselves and their relationships. It is easier sometimes to exclude dissenting viewpoints, in order to not have to examine your own experiences too closely.

And Wakeman's article gave those people an out. It left a broad path by which readers of the article can dismiss DD as misogynistic, and reinforced the tendency of feminism to exclude what isn't comfortable. It also allowed those who believe that DD works because "women's behavior is inherently rife with transgressions" not to challenge that belief for themselves.

I'm not completely certain why this thing we do works, but I know it's not because my behavior is any worse than W's. I don't know why I need external discipline, but it's not because I am submissive to W.

To me, the best of feminism comes when it challenges our assumptions about how people interact with each other in the world. Wakeman's article, for all of its positive sides, doesn't do that for me.

coffee and a spanking

2008-03-23T09:14:00.003-04:00

w and i are doing family stuff today. so i hoped maybe we would be skipping the whole "maintenance" thing this week. no such luck. last night, i got this text message:

what time do we have to get up for coffee and a spanking?

so here it is, not even nine thirty in the morning, and i've had a spanking already. it wasn't a very hard spanking, but she said i wasn't allowed to squirm, which really seemed to make it hurt more. and it's hard to control that involuntary response.

as the spanking was ending, it was like something loosened inside of me. like some knot of something untangled. not sure how to describe it. what it meant was, as soon as the spanking was over, i grabbed hold of w to hug her. i needed that hug as much as i needed the spankings.

what was going through my head? well i guess it was that for a little bit, i felt safer than i have in a long time. it's ironic that this would come from a spanking, because, you know, there's all that stuff where they talk about how it's re-enacting abuse or something, or else it's sexual.

that's not at all what went on with me.

maybe it's that some parts in the system have really been thinking about how spankings happened when i was growing up (well, beatings that were *called* spankings). and how even when it's really bad now, the worst spankings i've gotten from w, are nothing compared to the kinds of things that were doled out to little kids in my family. there's one particular memory... not gonna get into it right now, but i'll probably post it before too long, either here or at my other blog. i know there are parts who want to write about that one, but it's hard.

anyhow.

some of the release was just... it felt like a little barrier being taken away from my ability to trust w. like, i was able to trust her just one bit more, and that came with this feeling of release, like i had to hold onto her really hard, because all of a sudden, that was more possible for me.

because, yeah, for me, having this disciplinary relationship is a key part of my ability to trust w. the fact that she keeps on being consistent. that she will enforce the rules even when i don't want her to. that we have built up our ability to communicate, and our trust in each other.

it's not like discipline or the rules solve any of our problems.

and actually, thinking about the initial text message... it's not like i'm not still in charge of a lot of elements in our relationship. i am the one who suggests lots of the rules. and we work together to figure out when the rules are working, and when they need to be changed.

and also, there's the fact that we take my mental health into account. when the reason i haven't followed the rules is because i just couldn't handle it, then we decide together, on a case-by-case basis. because the fact is, it probably *would* be a replication of abuse to ask me to ignore what's going on inside of me in favor of following rules (specifically in this case the daily tasks; safety-related rules still have to be followed).

i think it's the communication we have to do for the discipline that helps this to re-write the patterns i learned as a child. no matter how i behave, it's clear that w still loves me, and respects me, and cares for me. and she's not going to go over the top just because she is frustrated. she's shown over and over again that she isn't going to cross those lines. and i really appreciate that.

not sure what else to say, so i guess i'll leave it at that.

Sunday maintenance

2008-03-09T14:31:00.002-04:00

well, this isn't exactly just about the maintenance end of things, since i'm pretty sure the spanking i got was also kind of a follow-up spanking to the one that i/we got on friday night.

but it was the sunday afternoon spanking. so w and i were talking beforehand, and i (jamie) admitted that a lot of why i didn't do my tasks last week was because sometimes i just need to push at the limits, and also that i kind of suspected the punishment wouldn't be very bad (and the spanking she gave grace on friday night just wasn't that bad).

and a lot of other stuff i can't remember or don't want to share in a public forum, but the part that matters for here is that the spankings are often just not particularly bad, and much as i HATE to get a bad spanking, once it's happened, then i am more in control of my behavior, and it's a LOT easier to be good and follow the rules without fighting, for a couple of weeks afterwards.

so i admitted that to w. and she followed through with a really, REALLY hard spanking. it was only 10 minutes, which is shorter than lots of the spankings she's given me recently, but BOY was it harder. most of the time, i can sit down on my desk chair pretty much straight after a spanking, and barely notice it. now, it's been most of an hour since the spanking, and i'm sitting down gingerly on my well-padded desk chair, and wincing at the thought of having to sit on anything harder.

and i guess the effect of a really hard spanking is this: i do NOT want to earn another spanking like that. i really, REALLY do not. and for as long as i can remember what this felt like, which is easier with a hard spanking, it will be pretty easy for me to follow through. well, presuming i can continue to trust that w really will follow through on another spanking, even if it hurts.

we're trying something new with tasks, and having them assigned by particular days, and particular parts. hopefully, that will work.

so, here's the list:

sunday: sort laundry with w's help (whoever is out, i guess)

monday: jamie: do laundry

tuesday: little kids: sweep living room and dining room; therapy; maybe go to a movie after therapy

wednesday: jamie and grace: thoroughly clean the kitchen (see notes); couples' counseling

thursday: ellis: see what's going on with the vacuum, fix it if possible; therapy

friday: jamie: vacuum all floors in the apartment.

My rules

2008-03-08T18:38:00.002-05:00

Yup, another really long post. How exciting!

Anyhow, I was going to post this over at This Thing We Do, but then it turned out to be four pages long, so I'm posting an abbreviated version there, and the whole thing here.

General rules:

#1 most important: It's okay to be mad. It's NOT okay to be mean. This means it's good to let out anger in safe ways, like writing, playing the "explosion game," talking, drawing, hitting something safe, writing, etc. It is BAD to let out anger in ways that hurt other people, OR yourself. Even "accidental" hurting like breaking your foot by kicking a concrete garbage can. (Um, can I just clarify, I only did that *once*.)

Also in this category is not saying "whatever" to W. (As in rolling my eyes and saying "whatever." The consequence for that is getting my mouth washed out with soap. I suppose were I the type to swear at her, that would also be cause for getting my mouth washed out with soap, but it has yet to happen.) And I should do my best not be a punk or deliberately jerky or difficult. This includes “button-pushing.” This is hard to quantify, but we both kind of know what’s going on when it happens.

We have to eat three nutritious meals every day. A bagel is nutritious. A donut is not. Use your head. If you can't eat, a smoothie is an acceptable substitute. Soda is not. If I have "tummy yuck" that rule can be suspended.

Bedtime is 11:15 on school nights, 12:00 otherwise. An adult, or W, can decide on a change. "Not wanting to fight" is NOT an acceptable reason to suspend bedtime. Consequence for not following this: go to bed as much earlier the next night as I delayed the previous night. Even if the part who is out the next night isn't the one who delayed the previous night, this rule remains in effect. If you resist a second time, it's 2 minutes earlier per minute than the first earlier bedtime.

As a system, we're responsible for doing at least one "job" a day. If it's mostly the little kids out, these are things like feeding the cats or taking out the trash. If it's teens, it's washing dishes, sweeping, etc. Adults: grocery shopping, laundry, errands, major housecleaning, etc. (There have been several versions of this. Currently, it's that W will give us a set of jobs to get done during the week, and we work on them as we're able. Or that's the theory, anyways.)

NO LYING or OMISSION OF TRUTH.

I cannot read W’s mind. She cannot read my mind. I need to accept that neither of us is a mind-reader, and to be willing to say what I’m feeling, and believe her when she says what’s going on for her.

Meta-rules:

The book (where we keep notes about what works, process-related stuff, copies of the rules, and the pages of lines) gets returned to W’s bedside table. Do not destroy or hide the book. If you do destroy the book or “lose” it, then you are responsible for replicating everything that was in it, including all of the pages of lines.

Non-adult parts are NOT allowed to rescind the rules. It isn’t fair to take advantage of W’s desire to do the right thing by insisting that the rules are not helpful. It’s not acceptable to trick W into thinking that you are someone who is allowed to negotiate when you actually aren’t.

System-related rules:

No part is allowed to “go away.” You can stay inside the head, but NOT try to get rid of yourself. We are a system, and each part is important. We have to learn how to work together, even if it’s hard.

We all have to work on being clear about which part is active, internally if nowhere else. In safe situations, we need to let trusted people know who we are.

NO ONE is allowed to run away or hurt the body. Not at all. Or to plan or threaten to do this.

No one under 14 is allowed to drive the car. No exceptions. If someone under 14 needs to switch in, we GET OFF THE ROAD FIRST. This rule is not negotiable.

No one under 20 is allowed to leave the house alone after 9 PM (except for specific, time-limited errands, like going to the store; this is only with permission). You are not allowed to trick W into thinking you’re an adult. If someone DOES sneak out, another part is entirely correct to tell W. This is serious: it’s about safety.

There’s a LOT of process-related stuff throughout the notebook, about consequences that do and don’t work, and stuff like that. One thing I want to say is, it’s kind of nice to look back and see all of the progress that *has* been made, even when it seems like there hasn’t been much. Anyhow.

I’ll try to go through and summarize what’s there.

Consequences that work:

Spankings are effective with most of the parts who do things that would earn them a spanking. They are more effective depending on the position (ie, bent over the bed vs. lying across the bed in front of W). Lighter spankings are less effective (except with the younger parts, who really don’t need a very hard spanking for it to be effective). There’s a balance between long/hard, and it’s hard to put my finger on exactly what works best. A spanking that is too short, or too light, isn’t effective. One thing that would help spankings to be more effective is for W to not worry about whether it will hurt me/us. She really is not going to be able to cause serious damage.

Writing lines can be effective. It helps when it’s used to reinforce a rule that has been broken a couple of times. They work better after a spanking, rather than before, or in place of a spanking, although writing a LOT of lines can sometimes be a punishment in itself. Writing just a few lines, before a spanking, lends itself to resistance and that being ineffective.

Corner time works well mostly as a way of focusing my mind before a spanking. It helps when there’s a short lecture beforehand, making clear WHY I am standing in the corner, and keeping me focused.

Losing computer games is most effective as a punishment for Jamie. Less so for the others.

Losing the computer might be effective, but it also seems to induce some serious upset/panic, so I’m not sure whether that’s because it’s a serious consequence, or because it really is too much.

Mouth washed out with soap: as a consequence for saying things that are not okay, this is really effective.

Being “grounded” is probably an effective punishment, except that lately, I haven’t been getting out of the house for much other than therapy. But it’s still a thought in general.

Early bedtime: very effective as a response to not going to bed on time. I’m gonna rat the rest of us out, and point out that in the last bedtime negotiation, you said that bedtime would be 11:15 UNLESS RULES WERE BROKEN that day, in which case it would be 9:45.

Having extra chores, either when I didn’t do the ones I was supposed to, or as a consequence for being a jerk. This is a complicated one, because it needs to be balanced between being strict and being reasonable. But maybe if I remember that I can say “red light” or something similar if I get overwhelmed (rather than pushing limits), this would work.

Process-related stuff:

One thing that comes up a lot is that it’s better to be too strict than not strict enough. Giving me extra chances results in harder pushing of the limits. We do have a safe word (red light/yellow light), and we WILL use it if we need you to stop or slow down. Anything else is mostly either a response to the punishment, or being manipulative (I think you know who I’m talking about there!).

TELLING me what to do is better than asking, particularly in the context of discipline.

Doing the consequence sooner rather than later, or making it clear that there will be a consequence (and following through on that!) is better.

W is getting MUCH better about following through on consequences, and not negotiating over the rules. That helps a LOT.

Maybe it would help W to think of her role in discipline as though it were improv. If she doesn’t commit, it won’t work. I trust her to be safe, and not to hurt me. And we’d all much rather that she made a mistake than that she did nothing.

We all respond to direct questions, and our lies are much more likely to be by omission than outright lies. So asking a direct question will help to hold us accountable.

New plan for Sunday maintenance:

Do it on Sunday afternoon.

Check in about the week that just went by, and talk about what went well, and what didn’t go well.

Corner time, with something to focus on (ie, about how the past week went).

Spanking.

Check in about the week to come (discuss anything that’s happening, and also give a list of tasks for the week).

JA journals for 15 minutes, and comes back to spend time with W.

Why can't I be good?

2008-03-07T22:35:00.003-05:00

that song has been running through my/our mind all day. all week maybe. trying to figure out what's going on, why i/we push so hard against the rules.

the current one that we've been pushing hardest against is the one that we asked for. we asked w to give us tasks to get done each day. yeah, something a responsible adult wouldn't have to ask for. something i was expected to intuit even as a teenager--you know what needs to be done, so you should just do it. but i wasn't. i couldn't.

it's a complicated thing. some of it is because there are parts who get triggered by particular tasks, like putting away plates. some of it is because lots of us are terrified of beginning to seem to function as an adult, because the more we do that, the less it feels like we're able to get support. some of it is because, in the midst of everything else, it's so hard to be able to focus enough to break tasks down into their various pieces any more. i know i used to be able to do that, but it hasn't been happening for a long time. and some of it is because if w gives us specific tasks, that means we're not responsible for getting everything done, and it gets a little less intimidating. and helps the more, er, über-responsible parts to be able to back off before the entire house is clean, and every other concievable task has been done. presuming i/we did the task, that would be all that needed to get done.

so we asked w for some help with getting tasks done. and then discovered some problems. i don't think any of the teenaged parts really trust her to follow through with consequences. but at the same time, there's a desperation to break some kind of rules. i think even if i/we trusted her completely, we'd still be breaking the rules sometimes. i've seen it with the little kid parts: sometimes, they just need to be reassured that it's safe to break the rules, that w will still be there for us. but more, that the response to rule-breaking isn't going to be catastrophic.

had i not done expected tasks when i was in high school, things would've been out of hand. and it would have included a lot of emotional abuse, and i think there are parts who say that there would also have been physical abuse. honestly, even had i completed them, had they not been done to exacting standards, it still would have been bad.

even though i should be old enough to understand this without experiencing it, i can't quite understand emotionally that things are different, not without pushing at the rules to see what happens.

and some of it is being desperate for the reassurance from w, that she's really going to follow through, and keep on dealing with me, even if it's hard.

so i didn't do my tasks this week. and they're the same tasks, more or less, that i didn't do last week. and tonight, i got a spanking for it.

i had done some of the task (washing some of the dishes), and since w didn't say anything about consequences when she got home, just commented on the number of dishes i had washed, i kind of fell apart. it was like, "well, ok, see, i knew that she wasn't going to follow through on consequences, if i made even a token effort."

there'd been a lot of arguing to that effect. one of the things that's really hard to admit is, we don't all get along inside. and us teenagers are probably the worst in that respect. ellis is too responsible. she tends to want to do all of the work we're supposed to, and to push really hard to make sure that gets done before the fun stuff. jamie tends to like to do things that are rebellious just kind of because she likes to do things that are rebellious. and grace... well, grace kind of has trouble letting go of the idea that no one is going to help us if we look like we're even a little bit ok. and a lot of the rules center around either self-care (eating, sleeping) or around daily functioning (like tasks). and so we argue and fight.

i guess it's kind of like if we were sisters or something, not that i was ever this... communicative with my actual sisters. and not like we were ever that close in age. jamie is 14, ellis is 15, and grace... not sure exactly, but somewhere around there in age. we are kind of stuck with each other, and we have a few things in common (like, oh, living in the same body) but aside from that, we're really no more alike than if we were sisters. which is inconvenient, because it's not like we can go off and spend time elsewhere, you know?

oh, right, so back to the spanking. w hadn't said anything about the task not being finished, and so i wasn't doing so well. that was mostly grace this evening... seeing it as confirmation that even the least little bit of seeming to be ok, and i'm back being expected to cope without help.

so when w asked whether i was ready for bed, and then told me we had "unfinished business," i felt a serious wave of... relief? kind of. mingled with being nervous, because it's not like i wanted the spanking, no matter what my behavior might have indicated. i guess it's a matter of the difference between "want" and "need." i definitely needed it, but i most certainly did not want it.

so i got the spanking, and it's over, and i can only hope this will mean that i'm able to have a good week.

i can hope.

but now for a kind of gross analogy (thank you, jamie): limit-pushing is kind of like a zit. it builds up and builds up. and a spanking, or other consequence, is kind of like popping that zit. sometimes, doing it just once works fine. apply a little pressure, pus goes zooming out (ew. i hate writing with other parts!) and everything is ok for a while.

other times, it takes more than that, and the pressure builds back up again really soon.

but i (ellis) am going to add that sometimes, it will seem like the zit didn't get sufficiently popped, but then after an hour or two, the pressure backs off on its own. you know, just for the record.

one thing w talked about, and our therapist has been talking about, is how ellis needs to not have to be responsible for everything all the time. she was crying today about feeling like she has to be too responsible, and feels like she has to figure out how to get all of us to cooperate, and it's hard. and the thing is, ellis does not cry easily. and i guess it is hard on her. on the other hand, we (that is, right now, grace and jamie) also realize that ellis won't often let the rest of us do anything fun if she feels like there is work we ought to be doing. and she's not very good at listening to the rest of us, or feeling like we've listened to her if we haven't just fallen into line and done exactly what she wants. i mean, yeah, she is pretty smart. and she's made some good decisions. but she's not the only one who can make good decisions, and sometimes, things she thinks were a bad idea turn out to have been the best choice we could have made. just for the record.

perfectly imperfect

2008-03-04T15:45:00.002-05:00

Natty recently wrote a post about the ways that a discipline relationship helped her to be able to give herself permission not to be perfect.

It really resonated with me, and I found myself with more to say than it seemed fair to fill up the comments section of *her* blog with, so instead, I'm writing here.

For me, and I mean this collectively, I've worked for at least the past 20-odd years on being perfectly imperfect. What I mean by that is, somewhere late in grade school, and definitely by middle school, I realized that being *too* good meant that I wasn't appropriately demonstrating that everything was ok. It was vital for me to seem to be like the other kids at school. Home was something of a different story. At home, not only did I need to maintain levels of perfection that, looking back, were *insanely* difficult, but I needed to behave as though I was not, in fact, doing so. I needed to look as though I didn't consider myself to be especially good, or smart, or hard-working. So I guess some of the perfect imperfection happened at home, too.

So what could I do? I didn't have the space to make mistakes with this. It wasn't something I could really do through trial and error. I had to figure out how to be perfect without ever calling attention to the perfection (not that I achieved it, naturally. Not bragging here!)

I started by reading. I would read stories about normal kids, or kids who had access to magic but were otherwise normal, or kids who lived in the past but were otherwise normal. I would see that they made mistakes, or misbehaved. I memorized how they would respond, and practiced it in my head. Then I began to write my own stories, stories about kids who were normal, or maybe they had access to magic or lived in a different world, but were normal. That is to say, kids not going through abuse.

I did this for a couple of years, until I felt like I had some sense of where the boundaries were. How to be a little snarky in safe situations (ie, school), but not cross over the line into misbehavior.

And I learned to create a semblance of normalcy. I learned to put out a vibe that let people think that everything was ok, that the reason I didn't go to parties or really hang out except for at school functions was more that I was introverted, and not that there were things going on behind the scenes that made it impossible for me to be a normal kid.

I learned it well enough that I don't know if any of my teachers realized that the hard work I put in to doing well in school was that the only, absolutely the ONLY escape route I had been able to see was getting into college and leaving home. Because I practiced being like the other smart kids, the ones who had always known they would go to college, the ones who had some reason to be confident it would happen, the ones whose families might even be helping them to figure it out. I constantly watched the signals, figured out what to do by guesswork.

A lot of what I mean by talking about being perfectly imperfect is that I also did everything I could to act as though mistakes weren't life-shattering. By high school, I had a good sense of what "normal" looked like, and I was getting pretty good at imitating it. I don't mean that I tried to fit in much with the other kids, because there wasn't a snowball's chance of me doing that. But I *did* know that there was nothing wrong with being different, and I figured if I had the persona of being quirky, that might mask the deeper differences beneath the surface. So I was a nerd, I didn't bother trying to be fashionable. I made myself not care about not being able to do lots of normal teenaged things.

By adulthood, I realized another thing. Someone who had gone through my childhood was gonna have issues. I had issues up the wazoo. They were causing some problems.

However, I also had a community where this was... I guess normal enough. I knew lots of people who had issues, and I knew what to do. You go to therapy. You work to heal. And I knew what healing looked like, and did my best to copy that. Probably, if I didn't have DID, it would have worked.

The thing with being perfectly imperfect, though, is that the point is, you have an obstacle (lets say, oh, fibromyalgia and DID). And you accept it. And you do all of the right things, and choose to overcome that obstacle. By sheer force of will, in the Zen sense of force of will, which is to say, by accepting it and working through it, and doing all of the right things. You know, by walking with a cane and resting when necessary, but somehow, being able to continue to overcome. By going to therapy and support groups and writing in your journal and deciding that you're going to communicate with the different parts, and somehow, being able to make it all work.

I am desperate for that vision of perfection. The version where yes, these things are here, and there is something I can choose to do that will hurry me along to the place where I can continue to be perfectly imperfect. Someone with flaws, but who is able to be... I don't know. Perfect, without being perfect.

So then there's discipline, or rules, or this thing we do. And I still strive to be perfectly imperfect. I expect that maybe just by having the rules, or by breaking them very rarely, and then getting punished, then I will miraculously be able to have self control, and not need the rules any more. That I will be able to stand on my own, needing only the help that makes other people feel good for helping me, and not the help that makes other people (W) frustrated and overwhelmed.

Part of being perfectly imperfect is being able to be helped easily, with the first thing a person tries. Or, if not that, it's being able to explain clearly what it is that I need, and how to give it to me.

The fact is, though, I'm not perfectly imperfect. I'm just plain old ordinary imperfect. I hate that like poison.

I break a rule, get punished, and break it again. And again. And again.

W gets exhausted and frustrated, and I'm not able to make myself trust that she's not going to give up on me, so I marshall all of my persuasive abilities to get her to agree to stop having the rules. And then I am furious with her for giving up on me.

Or I go to therapy, and I learn strategies, or I talk about the things in the past. And somehow, it doesn't get through. I find myself unable to use the self-care strategies, and instead, spiral into things like not eating, or pulling away from the people who might be able to help me. I close off, I shut down.

Even when everyone around me insists I really am working hard, and making progress, I find myself unable to accept it. Instead, I push myself to get better faster. Or, more likely, I get furious with myself (myselves) for being unable to get better faster. I struggle to make myself do the right things, and fail. I push myself to do more, and fail.

Not quite sure where I was going with this. I guess the point is, I'm never going to achieve that level of perfection, the one where I am flawed yet perfect. I'm just going to be plain old ordinary imperfect. And I'm not sure how to allow myself to accept that.

not sure what to say

2008-03-02T22:04:00.001-05:00

w wants me to write more. i don't feel exactly comfortable writing here is part of the problem, but the places i feel more comfortable, i don't think it's appropriate to talk about spankings.

so i guess i'm writing here.

maybe i should say something about the whole different parts thing. i don't know. not sure where that fits in, or what's ok to write.

the last post i, in the sense of "someone who is in this body" did, that was mostly jamie, and some of me. i guess i started coming out during the earlier "sunday night" spanking which i guess will now be a "sunday afternoon" spanking. i'm grace by the way.

anyhow, i guess since i was out, and there was stuff going on that i don't know what it was, so it seemed to w like i wasn't feeling any better, or that i was feeling worse. but more, that was just kind of a switch in who was out. not that the spanking hadn't worked. but i couldn't figure out how to explain that.

then we went out to a coffee shop to see some of our friends. i walked there, but someone else came out for the social stuff (not very social, since the friends are really pretty introverted, but i guess for the being around people part). but that didn't last too long, so i came home early.

i was having a hard time, but i wanted w to have a chance to spend time with the friends. so i just came home. feeling really crummy, and i *did* try to think of who to call, but there really wasn't anyone, so i didn't call anyone. just kind of buried myself in a book. good thing i had a book i wanted to read.

but then, for a whole lot of reasons, when w came home with dinner, i chose not to go eat right then. partly, it was not being up to being social, since one of our friends had come home with her. partly, it was because... i guess because it's a way of being able to express that something is wrong? i don't know. it wasn't exactly deliberate rule-breaking, and yet, refusing to go eat dinner breaks one of the big rules, and i did it... except not entirely on purpose, if that makes any sense.

but anyhow, pretty much as soon as our friend left to go home, w came in and sent me into the bedroom for a spanking. which i got. and then we talked some, which was good. and then she sent me in here to write, which i am doing. still not sure that i'm really ok being the one writing here, but i guess it doesn't really matter, and those who aren't interested aren't required to read.

maybe someone else will be out later and write something that's worth the time it takes to read. i don't know.

Blogging for Choice

2008-01-22T08:14:00.001-05:00

Today is "Blog for Choice" day, and I figured it was worth it to me to have my say on this.

In an ideal world, babies would only be concieved to parents who were prepared--mentally, physically, emotionally, financially--to give them the care and support they need. In an ideal world, no fetuses would have genetic or physical disorders that would leave their parent(s) with the choice between subjecting them to unknown pain and suffering, or having an abortion.

I am pro-choice because this is not an ideal world. And in the actual world, people have to make choices between imperfect alternatives.

I am pro-choice because I believe every child who is born should be wanted. I am pro-choice because I believe it is wrong to subject a child to a life of suffering if there are alternatives. I am pro-choice because I believe that the life of people who are already alive is more important than the lives of people who are not yet born.

The suggested topic for today was "why is it important to vote pro-choice?" So, on that, I will simply say that, even if you and those you love will never need to make a choice about abortion (and who can say for sure they won't?), there are still people who will need to make that choice.

What is more, I find that the people proposing anti-choice laws are unwilling to stop with abortion. When choice is restricted in one area, it is more easily restricted in other areas. So I vote in support of other people's right to choose, in order to protect my own right to make choices in my life.

Calling all spanko inventors

2007-11-17T16:12:00.000-05:00

Okay, so the other day I was reading about this thing called the 3rd Space Gaming Vest.

Even though I'm not too interested in video games that involve punching (aside from the occasional punching of the keyboard when I notice that I missed a TOTALLY obvious word in "Word Whomp Whackdown"), I think this product has possibilities.

It's a vest you wear while playing a video game, and it has pneumatic pockets that expand and contract when you get hit in a game.

Now, it seems to me that if we've made it this far into 21st century technology, it's not too long before someone figures out how to make, oh, I don't know, a pair of PANTS that will do the same thing. So that those of us who are sadly away from our partners can interact with them on a more visceral level.

Or there could be a whole shelf full of spanking related video games. Maybe a game based on playing school, and different behaviors, if they caught the eye of the videographic "teacher" would then result in various penalties.

I'm a writer, and an historian. But I'm not an engineer.

If you are, maybe you should buy one of these, and then figure out how to make it useful to spankos. I'm sure you'd make a ton of money on it!

Search Engine Round-Up

2007-11-08T08:05:00.000-05:00

Like lots of us, I have a little widget on my blog that tells me how many people come here, how they get here, and what search terms send them to my blog.

The thing is, with a name like "Breathing In and Breathing Out," I sometimes feel a little worried that people looking for something totally innocent wind up here instead. (Same thing, strangely enough, goes for my other blog, Jigsaw Analogy.)

But there's a good batch of search terms today, so I get to do one of those fun lists of how people found me!

Google seems to REALLY think people should read the story Cheaters Never Prosper. Not sure why that's such a favorite, but people landed there after searching for the following:

smacked bare bottom

missy bottom hairbrush

her spanked her with the hairbrush ruler (hm. How does a hairbrush ruler work, exactly? And this searcher should get spanked for poor grammar!)

laura spanked in front of

you need to be spanked for your bad grades young lady (I wonder if they were disappointed to realize the story was about two adults, with no report cards at all?)

get the strap young lady

pull your pants down for a spanking

severe caning stories

severe caning (I think these last two might have been happier to find Collective Bargaining, but who am I to argue with Google?)

Then there are some of the usual terms:

spankings hurt (Well, isn't that kind of the point?)

spanking stories head girl (Imagine the school where "spanking stories" is the name of a house! What are the other houses? "bondage tales"? "figging fables"?)

i spank woman (me use grammar)

And then there are the ones that make me wonder whether the person was actually looking for something on, I don't know, BREATHING. (I suppose Google is not actually able to figure out content or intention, no matter how wise it seems....)

breathing out process

when breathing hurts

breathing in

breathing in and breathing out (These last two may have been actually looking for my blog. Hard to know for sure.)

Silliness

2007-11-06T15:09:00.000-05:00

Noticed this as I walked along the street today. And I just have to ask: how much does a pink bottom cost, not on sale? And does this mean the top is blushing, or just pink? I have a top who is often pretty pink....

Discipline forum

2007-10-15T00:49:00.000-04:00

W. and I have been looking for a bulletin board type forum where we could discuss this whole discipline thing with other people. And we haven't run across or really heard of any forums where our particular ways of doing discipline (or, you know, of being non-Christian, non-straight people) really seemed to fit in.

So after seeing from some comments to a post I made on the Punishment Book that other people were also interested in the idea, I figured I could make a forum myself (I was setting up an unrelated website anyways, so it wasn't difficult to just add another domain on, and put the bulletin board there.)

Anyhow, I got the forum up today--www.thisthingwedo.com/forum.

It's a board for those of us who do some kind of discipline, but don't want to be told things like "anything with a power exchange or spanking is ultimately about sex, and if you think differently, you're just deluding yourself" or "men spank women because women are weak and God made men the heads of households for a reason" or all of the other things that people say. Beyond that, it's got space for discussing those real-life concerns, such as how our physical and mental health fit into this thing we do.

Please, if you are interested (and feel like having a non-blog space for talking about this stuff), join up.

role confusion

2007-10-14T23:25:00.000-04:00

or, How DID Further Complicates DD

It's been a while since I last posted here. In part, that's because W. and I were away over the summer, so we just weren't doing much that inspired posting here.

But a larger part is that I (in the collective sense) think of this as a blog for adults, and the adult parts of my system just haven't been around that much lately.

That said, I (Ellis) feel more comfortable writing here than I do over at The Punishment Book. I know the adult parts of my system would prefer I not be going to any "adult" sites, I figure better one that's registered in my own name, than one that is shared.

I suppose I could try to make this a really coherent and linear post, where I sound all erudite, but it's a blog, and I figure it's okay to write however things come out. So the topic is role confusion.

I mean, on the one hand, here I am in this adult body. I look like an adult. There are adults who live in here along with me. But I, myself, am fifteen. People who know me, and know teenage development, insist that the things I do that frustrate the adult parts (and W.) (and me for that matter) are actually totally appropriate for a fifteen year old.

But I'm used to living in an adult body. I can buy cigarettes or alcohol, because my legal i.d. says I'm in my 30s. (And, trust me, I routinely get carded, for whatever reasons.) I can drive a car. I can access the entirety of our household budget with my ATM card. I am used to making the decisions about what happens in my life.

I have spent most of my life functioning as an adult, and resenting a lot of what that has meant.

Maybe some history of how I came to be a fifteen year old stuck in the body of a woman in her 30s would make sense here. There are those who say that DID/MPD is caused by a person (unconsciously) splitting themselves into different parts in order to continue "normal" functioning in the face of traumatic experiences. I don't have a good gauge on what is, or is not, traumatic, but I do know that most of the time I was growing up, the best way to get through was to be able to totally separate different strands of my experience.

So, why would I have split off when I was fifteen? I think part of it was that none of the other parts who were around then were really able to cope with what was going on at home. Specifically, it's that someone needed to be a partner for my mother.

I guess you could call that the initial role confusion. My mother didn't have a lot of other options for someone to be a partner, and there, living in the house with her, was someone who had a body that seemed adult, and who sounded pretty much like an adult a lot of the time. We had moved to a new town midway through my 9th grade year, and I didn't really have any friends. So there I was at home most of the time, and I guess it just seemed natural for my mother to turn to me with all of the needs an adult has in a relationship.

And here's the hard thing. It's not like it was really clear what was and wasn't okay. I mean, which elements would I say shouldn't have happened? I just don't really know.

But I do know that all of the elements taken together added up to something that, had it not been with my mother, would have clearly been a Relationship, capital R. And it was a Relationship with clear evidence of domestic violence (although, I suppose since it was from parent to child, it was child abuse). Clearly, when one person in a relationship is an adult, and the other is a teenager, the balance of power is off. And when the person who is an adult is physically and emotionally abusive on top of that... well, it's not a great situation.

Okay, so fast forward, oh, fifteen years. And I (collective I) get into a relationship, on equal terms, with W. And then we move in together. This is when I (Ellis) started to get really triggered, a lot of the time. I would be absolutely FURIOUS that W. wanted me to behave as her partner. I felt (sometimes still feel) trapped and desperate. I would think, over and over, "At least with Mom, I knew if I stuck it out for a few more years, I would be able to just leave, no strings attached. But there's no out now."

So there's all of that emotional stuff going on. It's hard. Oh, my GOD, it is hard. I know it's hard for W. I mean, she has every single right in the world to have an adult partner. She is a loving, generous, really great person. I sometimes forget that, in the midst of my own stuff, but even I can recognize it's true. She deserves to have a partner.

And then here is this person, who lives inside the body of her partner, who is sometimes the only part who is present, who desperately needs her to NOT treat me as a partner. And it's not just about sex. Had my mother just come into my room at night, but been a mother during the daytime, then things might be much easier. But that's not how it was.

Okay. So on top of all of that, W. and I have been trying to maintain the structure and rules that I so desperately need.

Last week was an example of what happens when role confusion and DID collide with the best of efforts a couple can put into DD.

Over the summer, the rules and structure had pretty much not been in effect. We were travelling, and consistency just wasn't something either of us could manage. And then we got back home, and the habit from the summer of not doing discipline was stronger than the habit from before of doing discipline.

So I was getting really, um, out of kilter. Not doing well. Not being able to structure my own life. And things have been really chaotic for me internally, including the fact that none of the adult parts has been present at all for well over a month, and not much before that since somewhere at the beginning of August.

So W. and I discussed bringing back the rules. And for a couple of days, it did help quite a bit. Then things kind of blew up, due to something W. wrote and didn't intend me to see, but which was in a place where I couldn't really avoid having seen it. It basically talked about how much W. misses having an adult partner, and wishes that I (Ellis) weren't the only one present lately. Given that I'm not stupid, I had already been suspecting she felt that way, and feeling pressure to take responsibility for the role of adult partner. I mean, that's the kind of thing I was created to do--the things no one else wanted to cope with doing. But it's also the kind of thing that I've been working on NOT having to do any more.

So things were difficult last week, to say the least.

On the other hand, I have to give W. some huge credit. Despite the fact that I was fighting and testing in stunningly TESTY ways, despite the fact that I was doing everything I could to just push her to the point of giving up on the rules (something she has done in the past), she managed to hold firm to them, and be as consistent as a person who is coping with (currently) untreated ADD could be.

I got a punishment spanking every single night last week, each harder than the last. I continued to resist, and push, and just try to get to the point where W. would give up on the rules. Much as I was desperate for her to be consistent, I couldn't trust that she would be, and I just needed to "get it over with" as soon as I could.

But I was also working very hard, when I could, on figuring out what I could tell W. that would help her to understand me, and what I need, and why I need it. Just because I was testing doesn't mean that I wanted to be testing, you know? Just because I believed W. wasn't going to follow through doesn't mean that I didn't hope, deep down, that she would.

I have to say how incredibly grateful I am to her that she did manage to be consistent, because it's building up a little store of reasons to trust her in my mind.

Those of you who also have "trust issues" will know how much of a long haul we're in for. Much as I'd like to be able to say, "Oh, we had a good discussion, things are great, now I trust her...." Well, that would be naïve. But, slow though the process is, we are building trust, and that is a good thing.

And we are working on ways we can clarify the roles in our household, for both of our benefit. It does get complicated, like it does for anyone else doing discipline. I mean, most of us have quite a few roles in our relationships. But I guess with DID, that gets just a bit more complex.

It's all in the context

2007-05-17T09:06:00.000-04:00

My mother always used to say that parents who said "This is going to hurt me more than it will hurt you" were doing it all wrong. She believed that the child was the one who should be "hurt" by a punishment. Mostly, it was a joke. But there was an element of truth to that in her approach.

But I've seen a different way of doing things since W. and I have been using "discipline" in our relationship. It's not that W. should be in greater physical pain after a punishment (although there has been the occasional mishap), but that part of the power of the punishment comes through the knowledge that she really does not enjoy doing it, and is only doing it in order to help me. I can see the emotional pain she experiences, and that, nearly as much as the discomfort of a spanking, helps to reinforce the lesson.

I posted at Jigsaw Analogy about a memory of a particular punishment from when I was a child. W. was disturbed by it, because the implement my mother used was one that W. and I sometimes use as well (although, come to think of it, not during punishments). But, for me, the context is far more important. W.'s goal is not to cause pain without consideration for my emotional state. She is careful not to hurt me (aside from the "hurt" caused by the specific punishment). She pays attention to me, and throughout a spanking, whether punishment or play, it is entirely clear to me that she loves me, cares for me, and will protect me as well as she is able to protect me. Even if I don't enjoy a punishment from her, I feel entirely safe. I am not afraid she will lose control and hurt me more than I am able to handle.

I think that, in a lot of ways, discipline in our relationship is helping to re-write my childhood experiences. It is allowing me some space to not have to imagine millions of rules, and follow each and every one of them, in order to stay safe. It is allowing me (and, even more to the point, my younger parts) to understand that adults can set and enforce consistent limits, and that it can feel safe and grounding to have these limits set out explicitly.

Discipline, on W.'s part, is very much an act of love. She does not hit me in anger, or because she feels like I am out of her control. She doesn't hit me to make me afraid, to make me feel guilty, to make me be obedient. She spanks me, or provides other discipline, so that I can feel more secure and so that I can know someone else is helping me to maintain limits. She also spanks me, on occasion, so that I can find a way to let go of what one of my little part calls the "mad bad angry feelings." Whether or not it would be a reccommended therapeutic technique, a spanking can clear the air; it will help me to release the tangled feelings inside, in a way that nothing else can manage so satisfactorily. Perhaps it's the release of endorphins, perhaps it's the sense of being cared for as I release the feelings. Whatever the reason, a spanking can help immensely when I am unable to relax my control over my emotions in a different way.

Mija posted at The Punishment Book about finding your "someone." I've been thinking about that process, and remembering how fortunate I am to have W. Neither of us is perfect, and we didn't come into the relationship with perfectly matched desires. But I've found that the love we have is enough to keep us working through our differences, and finding ways to meet each others' needs.

W. is my "someone," and I wish I knew how we managed to find each other. I'd hesitate to say it was fate, although there was an element of that. I wouldn't say it was out of being willing to settle, because in so many ways, we had each adjusted to being single, and were willing to accept that we would continue being single for the foreseeable future. Neither of us, I think, was especially desperate for a partner. But when we met, we were ready for each other. We were able to talk about what we wanted in a relationship from the beginning, and we were able to trust each other enough to be vulnerable. It helped. Sometimes, it felt like diving off a cliff and hoping there would be water in the lake below, but it has been worth it.

Finding your "someone," I think, takes a lot of time. There is no perfect match, already made, waiting out there in the world for you. Instead, there are a lot of people who are compatible in some ways, but not in others, with whom you can build a relationship. Years down the road, you may find that, hey!, this person really is quite perfect, and I have exactly what I hoped for. But it takes trust.

If I were giving someone advice on a new partnership, I'd say, "Share yourself; let them know what you want, trust them with your secrets." Perhaps not all your secrets at once, but give them enough of yourself so they will be able to see where the other parts are coming from when you are able to share those as well.

Revolutionary Acts and Calculated Risks

2007-04-22T00:53:00.000-04:00

Or, Notes From My Activist Self

I often say that happiness is a revolutionary act. My experiences in this world could have left me unable to take joy from anything. Many people who live with the scars of childhood abuse, or who struggle to cope with debilitating physical illness, or, honestly, who are unable to come to terms with their sexuality, kill themselves. Others numb themselves with addictions, or they cut themselves off from life to cling to the pain they have known. They are unable to move past what happened into the possibilities of their futures. To continue, not only to live, but to take joy in life... that is revolutionary.

Happiness is not just accepting those occasional moments of grace, when joy bursts through you unexpectedly. It requires work. To get real happiness, and not just the ability to put a smile on your face regardless of how you feel, you have to be at peace with yourself.

To do that, you have to come to a point of self-acceptance. And one aspect of self-acceptance is being willing to be seen by other people. Which leads to coming out.

I have been coming out for what seems to be my entire adult life. I came out as a pagan. I came out as a lesbian. I came out as a survivor of childhood abuse. I came out as a spanko. I came out as a person with an invisible physical disability. I came out as a person who grew up poor and on welfare. And then, when I thought I had finally gotten done with coming out, I faced coming out yet again, as a person with Dissociative Identity Disorder.

Am I out to everyone I see, about everything I am? Of course not. Sometimes coming out isn't relevant, and sometimes, while relevant, it's a risk I (or W. and I) are not willing to take.

However, as much as I can, I push my comfort levels to be as visible as I can be. It is always a calculated risk. I have grown accustomed to adding up the positives and negatives of a particular moment of coming out, and deciding whether to say something. Or not.

I believe that self-acceptance is vital in this process. If I whispered, ashamed, "I am _________," and then hurried away before someone could reject me... they would reject me.

I do my best, instead, to say confidently, "This is who I am. I accept myself." And then to be open to hearing the other person's response. To make it easier on myself, I choose the people I come out to carefully. I don't go up to someone preaching on the street and tell them about my deep pagan beliefs (okay, I don't often do that). I don't tell the person ranting about how "all those people using benefits cards should get jobs" about growing up on welfare. I am as out as I can be, but I take care of myself (myselves).

Even with people I know well, whom I trust, it can feel mind-numbingly terrifying to think of coming out. The point of a calculated risk is to weigh the difference between what I fear will happen, and what, on cooler reflection, I actually think will happen. I ask what I have to lose by saying one particular thing, at one particular moment, to one particular person.

When I am sure that, objectively, nothing that bad will happen, I take the perilous step of trusting someone with who I am.

Visibility is a revolutionary act. I come out, not only for my own comfort, but so that other people will need to hide less of themselves. I come out, not only to tell my own story, but to allow other people like me to know they are not alone. I come out, not only for others who are like me, but so that people who are not like us will learn that we are just as human as they are.

We told our therapists about spanking

2007-04-21T07:28:00.000-04:00

And we are still in therapy. With the same therapists. And it's all right.

It started because my therapist had suggested to one of my teen parts that it was entirely okay to ask W. for help creating and enforcing limits. And since the three of us were going to meet to discuss the process, and to define rules and consequences, well, mentioning spanking seemed à propos.

W. was perfectly comfortable telling my therapist about spanking. It didn't seem to be an issue for her, she felt that it was an important thing to discuss, and that it was information my therapist could use. And it did seem like the right thing to do, rather than trying to be all evasive and sitting with the discomfort of knowing we were leaving out a huge chunk of how it is that rules and consequences work in our relationship.

So we told her. She did mention the obvious concern (re-traumatization), and I said simply that I was confident that spanking itself is not re-traumatizing. There are other issues at play, and there are many things I have to work through in therapy, but spanking is actually fairly peripheral.

However. W. stopped going to therapy last summer. At the time, she said it was because we were broke (we were) and that if only one of us was going to be in therapy, it should be me (I agreed). But, given W.'s procrastination in going back into therapy when we could afford it again, I guessed that there were more reasons she was not in therapy than just the money.

And there were. As it turns out, a big one was her discomfort telling her own therapist about spanking and discipline, combined with her desire to process through how she feels about her role in that.

But W. needs support she can best get in therapy. And she's got her own things to process that have somewhat less to do with me. She even agreed that she needs therapy. So she finally went back to see her therapist a week or so after we'd "confessed" our deep, dark secret to mine.

She told her therapist, and once again, it was fine. Her therapist didn't seem to think the spanking, per se, was an issue, so long as each of us is comfortable with our role.

I guess the lesson is, just because you're worried about what other people will think, it doesn't mean that they will respond badly. And I guess it's like any other kind of coming out. In my life, I've found that the difficulty is not in how people respond, but rather in getting myself to a point where I'm brave enough to tell them in the first place.

With one exception, W. and I have had incredibly positive experiences coming out as lesbians. I have found that the people in my life are caring and supportive when I tell them about any of the other boxes shoved into my mental "closet." I wonder, at times, whether our experiences are positive because we are fortunate in our community of friends and family, or because, on the whole, the world is a more accepting place than we give it credit for being.

But as we make our decisions about what to tell to which people, the hundreds of positive experiences we have had can often be outweighed by one bad experience. We balance the relief of openness against our dread of what might happen, what we have heard happened to other people, what has happened to us.

And so, even though most of the time, everything is all right, there is still a level of terror in coming out.

I think it's important to remember to tell the stories where everything went fine, to help other people feel more confident about making their own choices. So take this post as one more piece of evidence. You can tell your therapist, your non-kinky (to your knowledge) therapist, your therapist whom you found by calling (non-kinky) referral service, that you spank or are spanked, and even that you and your partner do this in the context of discipline. And thus far, the evidence has been that it's okay. If you already have a good working relationship with your therapist, chances are, this will not cause it to fall apart. (I am basing this on a sample of two. If you have other experiences to add, please feel free to comment.)

Spanking again

2007-01-22T14:52:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking more about the spanking/abuse thing, and realized a big source of my discomfort in talking with people about it.

It's not just the association between spanking and abuse. (Although I was pleased to read yesterday about legislation in California that would make spanking young children a criminal offense!)

It's that the people I know who can accept spanking between consenting adults see it as something sexual, and I agree with their belief that my young parts should definitely not be having sex. So if they are getting spanked, and spanking is either sexual or abusive, then what we're doing is wrong no matter how you look at it.

And the thing is, it's definitely the younger parts who need spanking. Not all, or even most of them. But one of the little kids, and a couple of the teens, really feel better if they get spanked occasionally, and it helps them to feel safe, and to cope with their feelings, and to let go of feeling bad about having done bad things.

There are also a couple of adult parts who feel much better, and are better able to let go of guilt over having done things that I shouldn't have (or, more often, forgotten to do things that I should do!), if I get a spanking.

And, of course, there is the adult part who likes spankings as foreplay.

Okay, so I've lost where I was going. I think it's mostly that there's still a lot of struggle with perception, and it becomes harder as I think about the different ways that I expect people to think about spanking. My friends that I'd talk about this with might be kink-friendly, but they tend to hold pretty strong views about how children should be treated. And I agree with them, kind of. Children shouldn't be spanked... and yet, I know from deep personal experience that I have some children and teens inside me who really do need to be spanked, and so I have a lot of confusion about the best way to deal with that.

On the other hand, my doubt and confusion aren't stopping me from requesting, or W. from giving, the occasional spanking. Neither are the doubt and confusion keeping those spankings from helping me to feel more centered and at peace. So there is that.

Spanking vs. abuse

2007-01-02T21:49:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking about this subject a lot lately. I think part of what makes it difficult for me to figure out is this: it's not something I feel comfortable talking about with lots of people I know (well, really, none in real life). And more than that, it's not something I feel comfortable talking about with my therapist.

On the one hand, that's not too much of a problem. W. and I talk about it, and I write about it here and over at the Punishment Book. But on the other hand... it feels a whole lot like the "secrets" I had to keep when I was little. And that's a big piece of why it's so very uncomfortable for me.

The thing is, I do feel some shame to be an adult woman who needs disciplinary spankings. And I know that, with external children, I'd be inclined to think it wasn't a good idea, that there are lots of other ways to bring children up.

But... there is the simple fact that, for me, spankings work. They help me to focus, to behave, to feel in control.

And there is this: I do believe that there is a difference between spankings and abuse. I can tell with my own thoughts about it, that spankings, per se, are not the problem.

Even more, I can tell from the feedback from my kid parts. They do not perceive that W. ever "hurts" us. They articulate this with specifics: she doesn't yell, she doesn't hit us in the head, she doesn't punch us or pinch us or slap us. The spankings are controlled. They are understandable. She is calm when I get them. She is nurturing and caring.

And, as I said to my sister when I was eleven or twelve, it wasn't the spankings I objected to getting. It was the context, the way they were delivered. What was abusive was not being hit, it was the way the hitting (spanking, whatever) was delivered.

But. There is always that but. I can't talk about this with most people. I expect they would immediately decide it was abusive, unhealthy, something that I shouldn't be doing. They wouldn't look at it from the perspective of something that normal people do, as something that can be part of a healthy relationship. They would see it as a very unhealthy power dynamic. And I don't feel secure enough in my role in this to be able to make it clear to them that I believe it is healthy. So I just don't say.

I guess I wrote this post mostly so that my kid parts could know I talk about it somewhere, and that it's not a bad secret, just something we choose not to mention to most people. I guess it's that it's something private, rather than a bad secret. But it's still a struggle, because it's hard to make it clear to them that there are different reasons for not talking about things, you know? And also, that I'm not entirely comfortable with having them write a post to this blog, or to the PB, because these are, in my mind, more adult forums. But I don't want to write about spankings at Jigsaw Analogy, because while you can find this blog from that one, I don't want to make the people in our life who do read that one have to know about this part of my life.

It's all very complicated, to say the least.

So, in the hopes of getting some responses: has anyone talked about spanking (in the context of DD) with their therapist? Any advice? Warnings? Wise words?

Thanks.

On a lighter note / Seasonal fun

2006-12-08T16:55:00.000-05:00

Every year, we bake gingerbread. And after the first year, we realized it was even more fun if we had a theme. Two years ago, that theme was "adult" gingerbread (aka "kinky gingerbread").

Here are a couple of shots of that gingerbread.

This is "Sugar Mama's Toy Shoppe." If you zoom in, you can see that some of our friends are quite skilled in the art of carving jelly beans and sculping with fruit roll-ups. There were, of course, many licorice whips and candy canes.

And here is a picture of my own work: a naughty schoolgirl, molded with fondant. The picture is a little dark (we didn't have a camera with a flash that year, more's the pity!), but if you peer closely, you can see her bending over a bench (sesame candies), with her (rice paper) skirt neatly on the floor beside her. I doubt you can make out the redness of her bottom, but it's there. She's a repentant naughty schoolgirl now. (Actually, I think she's a long-since-eaten naughty schoolgirl, since we made a point of making everything edible, and most of the human figures were made with chocolate fondant, so they were pretty popular when it came to gobbling up the display!)

Enjoy, and may this inspire your own creativity!

Missing things

2006-11-05T23:18:00.000-05:00

I miss "Sunday nights." I miss the freedom to just play without worrying about whether it's going to give me flashbacks, or put out W's back, or re-enact abuse, or just plain worrying.

I miss being able to be intimate without having to first stop, and put barriers around all of the parts of my mind that have spent the last several months just fiercely triggered.

I don't know what happened. It used to be, I could find those barriers easily enough, and I could have stretches of weeks, months, even years where I wasn't constantly having to beware of the lurking bits inside my brain, those land mines where, when you put your foot down just wrong, days and weeks of terror would ensue.

It's not that it was easy, don't get me wrong. But there were times when I could just be, and I really miss that.

What's harder is that, even when I've taken the time to put up all of the barriers, to get myself into exactly the right frame of mind, there's still W to think about... still finding a way to communicate that, yes, this is a safe time, yes, it's worth it to take down her own barriers for the sake of that connection. And instead, we end up having to talk and talk and talk about things, making sure that each of us is okay, that our needs are being met, that everything is fine.

Sometimes, I just want to pretend nothing happened, that I'm normal, that I'm fine, that we can just do things without having to think about them incessantly.

Sometimes, I wish I could just stop thinking about it, ignore the potential damage and pitfalls, and just go ahead and do things. Because it's certainly not that my body doesn't want it, you know? But I haven't figured out a way to grab hold of those fleeting moments when actually having sex, or a spanking, or even making out... I don't know how to grab hold of those seconds when it's possible to start, before my mind becomes aware of what's about to start, and begins showing me images of, well, similar things with a whole nother power dynamic. And so instead, we've just been avoiding it.

Damn, but I wish there were another option, for any piece of it, really.

But right now, it's "Sunday nights" I'm missing the most. That sense of structure, safety; the chance to relax, to let go of stress, to focus on physical sensations, to be utterly in the moment. The lingering effects through the beginning of the week. And, of course, the prospect of actually being able to do something other than desperately look for ways to fill up my days; the notion that I can be held responsible and accountable for things.

Apologies

2006-10-18T12:13:00.000-04:00

Just a quick note on something. Generally, I far prefer to read a blog where the person has edited what they've written before they post. It may not seem that way, but most of my posts here have actually involved some refining and polishing. It's easier to read, I think, and a general courtesy to the reading public.

But I'm finding it far easier to write if I just go ahead and write and don't think about it. And I'd rather be writing and trying to connect with people than making a good blog with excellently readable posts. So for a little bit, I'll just write them, and they may not be nearly as well written, but I do think that the posts will have something interesting to say, and that it will offer a different kind of thing than my more polished posts. Sometimes, the editing just serves to hide what I really want to say.

So my apologies for having a less "writerly" blog for the time being, but hopefully, you'll stick with me. Thanks.

As if my usual doubts weren't enough

2006-10-18T11:14:00.000-04:00

Much of what I've written about in this blog has been about my process of coming to terms with spanking, and its role in my life. It's a hard process to accept all of the various elements, to admit that I need it, and to understand that it's okay.

And now I'm in the middle of coping with the idea that there are different parts of myself, and it feels like all of that work I've done on this issue has kind of disappeared. Because, somehow, it's like it doesn't count if there are different parts operating.

One of the biggest things is that I feel very... strange about spankings if the "reason" I need them is that I was abused as a kid. It's especially hard when I'm reading a book on healing from childhood stuff, and the person writing it states unequivocally that s/m of any form is just re-enacting childhood abuse, and should be something you try to heal from.

Now, on some levels, I can feel very clearly that this isn't true. I've gotten a lot of strength from having s/m as part of my sex life, and I've had a lot of good examples of the healing power of intimate relationships that are fundamentally based on "safe, sane, and consensual."

But there are other levels, and those are more... confusing. Is it okay to spank an inner child if that inner child really does understand the world as a child would? How about an inner teenager? Am I re-enacting abuse? Is the reassurance and grounding that I experience when there is consistent, reasonable (physical) discipline in my life just because those parts can't understand "appropriate" treatment, and feel less tension once a punishment has occurred?

Perhaps some of the doubts are because, in terms of interacting with actual, flesh-and-blood children, I wouldn't hit. Mostly, this is because I think there are better ways to raise children, and that the lines between acceptable and unacceptable are blurry and way too easy to cross. I don't know that I think spanking children is inherently abusive, but I think most of how it operates when I've seen it in action is abusive, if that makes sense. It's too easy to act in anger, to work out frustrations. And it's not like a spanking can be taken back. Once it's been given, it's happened, and it leaves no room for the person giving it to say, "Whoops, I was wrong, you didn't actually deserve that punishment."

And some of it's the fact that different parts respond differently to spanking. I can recognize that in a lot of ways, this is perfectly normal. Lots of people have a variety of different responses at different times. But when one of my child parts is out, then both W. and I agree that, say, sex is absolutely inappropriate (partly because it's triggering to that part, and partly because, well, it's really like being a child, and that's just yucky).

So where do we draw the line? If something is sometimes incredibly sexual, is it okay to do that with a child? But then again, there are different ways of doing things... say hugging. That's definitely part of sex, but there are different ways of hugging that aren't sexual at all.

I also have to take W's feelings into account. It's hard for her to grapple with the ways that spanking works for me. She wasn't "into" spanking when we got together; she is often very uncomfortable with the role of disciplinarian. But neither of us would feel comfortable with me getting that need met by someone else, for many of the same reasons we struggle with figuring out what to do with the different parts of me. I mean, if a main reason we're uncomfortable with spanking-as-discipline is that it's too close to doing something sexual with a child, then going to someone else for a spanking is awfully close to infidelity.

And I often worry that the things I'm asking for aren't fair, and that I should just learn to figure out other ways of coping. And, certainly, there is some of that in there. It's not 100% W's job to take on raising these kid-parts of me. But it's not 100% not her job.

I have a much easier time acknowledging that it's not fair for W to have to be coping with the results of my childhood than I do in acknowledging that it's not fair for me, either. It's kind of sad, because, let's face it, even if I did fail to keep myself entirely safe as a child... I was a CHILD, and even if I thought I could do special magic things to keep myself safe, and even if they seemed to work (or did work some of the time) it wasn't my job to be able to prevent the adults in my life from hurting me. And staying at home even though things were bad wasn't actually saying that I was willing to accept what was happening. I didn't have other options--a five year old, or even an eleven year old, really can't survive on her own in the world. Just because I chose to stay, because on considering my options, I decided that the most likely way of succeeding as an adult was to stay at home so I could finish school and get into college... that doesn't mean it was okay what happened after I made that choice. Looking back, it was definitely the best of available options to stay. But that doesn't mean the available options were good ones. And it doesn't mean that I'm supposed to immediately be healthy and happy and not have any after-effects.

(Okay, that was really rambling, but this is a blog, and that's okay. Back to the original topic.)

So I have these parts. And some of them really do seem to need spankings in order to feel balanced and whole and... just not wildly out of control. The really ironic thing is, compared to my siblings, I was hardly ever hit as a kid. And it wasn't the spanking, per se, that I minded.

Thinking about it... I absolutely do NOT want the emotional environment that I experienced. I'm really not turned on by being emotionally or verbally abused.

When I think about punishment spankings, the context is very specific. I want clear rules, and consequences for breaking them. I want the person (W) giving the consequence to be calm and authoritative. I want the consequence to not be overwhelming. I want that sense of, "Okay, I messed up. I want to remember to not do this again. I want to have the consequence as a reminder, and as a way of closing off the stream of guilt that comes from having made a mistake or done something bad." I want the recognition that I'm still loved, but that someone cares enough about me to notice when I've done something wrong, and to give me closure on the incident.

I didn't get that at all when I was a kid. I got hit, not as a consistent response to anything I'd done or not done, but as a reflection of the people who hit being out of control, or me being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Although sometimes it bore some relation to my behavior, the relationship was tenuous at best. I didn't, and couldn't, know what the rules were. I couldn't predict what would happen. I didn't get a chance to learn from my behavior, because the adults in my life just erupted, and then didn't address what had happened. I got hit because they were angry and had the power to hit, not because it was something that would help me to be a better person. I got hit for being a child--for crying, for forgetting to do something they wanted me to do, for making a mistake. Our house didn't have any rules that I could articulate, so, obviously, the spankings I received weren't related to deliberate misbehavior.

They might have used the phrase, as they hit me or pinched me or whatever, "That'll teach you not to (hit or pinch or whatever)." But what it taught me was that the reason I couldn't hit or pinch was that I was a kid, and that I didn't have the right to exert power over other people.

And then, when I was a teenager, and babysitting my younger siblings, my mother couldn't seem to understand why I didn't just spank them when they misbehaved. Because, of course, by fourteen, I was supposed to magically transition from being forbidden to hit to being one of the people who was allowed to hurt others (but only when I was the oldest person in the house, of course!). For whatever reason, I really couldn't make that transition.

I don't know. It's a lot to process through. I'd really appreciate comments on this if you've got any thoughts on it.

National Coming Out Day

2006-10-11T23:17:00.000-04:00

Today is National Coming Out Day, which got me thinking about the different ways that I can think about coming out.

Obviously, most people who know me know that I'm a dyke. Coming out as a dyke has never been much of a challenge for me: if I get a decent sense that the person in question isn't likely to do violence, then I don't bother to hide my sexual orientation (I may not bring it up unless it's relevant, but I don't hide it). I often don't mention the specifics of what I do in the bedroom, but much of that is because 1, what I do in the bedroom involves my partner, and I prefer not to share things she'd rather not have shared, and 2, what I do in the bedroom rarely has any bearing on, say, whether I want my produce bagged in paper, plastic, or not at all.

There are other kinds of coming out. I am comfortable in many situations being "out" as a pagan; I've had to become comfortable being "out" about having an invisible disability (and in making it more visible so that I can, for instance, get a seat on the train, rather than getting glared at for falling down).

It's harder to come out about things like having grown up poor (although I've gotten more comfortable with my "white trash" roots as I've gotten older. Kind of. In a theoretical way.)

It's even harder to come out as a survivor of childhood abuse, especially because when it comes down to it, in a weird and twisted way, I'm FAR more ashamed of things that are presumably not my fault than I am of things that I have done of my own free will. I struggle with both denial and shame. (Is it a hope that I made everything up and it didn't really happen? Is it the fear that it was all my fault? Is it just believing that either I'm a horrible liar, or someone who is so flawed from the experience that no one would ever like me, or something I can't even put my finger on?)

And then, having come to various degrees of peace with the ways that I've needed to out myself, life throws in one more. Two weeks ago, my therapist "officially" diagnosed me with dissociative identity disorder (formerly known as multiple personality disorder).

On the one hand, it's not like it was a surprise. I have been working at not covering things up in therapy, and I'd been suspecting something of the sort myself already. Certainly, as a diagnosis, it makes far more sense than me being Borderline or bipolar. I have the symptoms, and it explains those little quirks that sometimes make life difficult for me.

On the other hand, if shame and denial are a struggle just with accepting that I experienced abuse, they're a much larger hurdle with accepting this.

I've been lightly passing off my struggles this past year as "being crazy." In some ways, this is true, if you go with the first definition of crazy--being cracked, precarious, fragile, falling apart. But I can also recognize that dissociation is perhaps the most adaptive way I could cope with what happened (whatever happened) in my childhood.

I know that I'm on the high-functioning end of the kids in my family (given that I haven't been able to cope with a job for most of the year, or with routine things like eating, this is a sad statement; I'm still on the high-functioning end). So, obviously, there was something going on, and none of us are crazy in the same ways. But all the various ways that we're crazy point towards abuse as the cause.

I'm rambling, mostly because it's difficult for me to manage to write anything at all, but I realized it had been a very long time since my last post, and this seemed like a time I would be able to manage to get something written.

As a PS--I finally got fed up with Verizon, so I'm switching my email address to a gmail account; and since someone else has "Dyke Grrl," I'm using jigsaw.analogy {at} gmail.com.

Getting a Little Bolder

2006-07-15T10:21:00.000-04:00

It started with the library fines. I’ve been needing some naughty girl spankings—the kind that aren’t quite a punishment, but have that aura to them. So when I admitted that I’ve gotten a little phobic about the library, W offered to check my fines. Twenty-two dollars, which is about what I thought they were. I suggested that this would make a good pretext for a spanking.

W, of course, never does these things the way I expect her to. So her thought was that the spankings would be tied to my paying off the fine. She told me to take a dollar to the library every day, or I would get one smack for each dollar I still owed.

Unfortunately for this plan, she also mentioned (thinking it would make me laugh) that the librarians had put a note in my file, saying “Puts books in book drop to avoid paying fines.” Sadly, instead of making me laugh, this just increased my little library phobia, because I always thought the librarians at our local branch were a little mean, and not the nice, friendly librarians I’ve always dealt with, and then I heard about that. So I continued avoiding the library for several days. And each night, W turned me over and delivered 22 smacks with the wooden spoon, quick and hard. On Tuesday, I did stop by the library, and pay $2, and avoided the spanking.

On Wednesday, we decided to get out of town and have an adventure. W wanted to go swimming, and since I’m allergic to chlorine and neither of us felt like being out in the sun at the beach, we went looking for a swimmin’ hole. We drove quite a ways, and never did find the swimmin’ hole we were looking for. But we did come to a little rural park, wrapped around a pond, and filled with nature trails. It was the middle of the week, and the day had gotten drizzly, so we were the only ones at the park. As we walked around one of the trails, W said, “Twenty wouldn’t take that long.” I figured she was just joking, and we continued with our walk.

We got into an even more secluded spot, and W noticed a conveniently placed log. She sat down, and told me to give her the backpack. She told me to get ready, and when she told me, I would pull down my pants and lean over the log beside her. I couldn’t struggle or complain, or it would just take longer.

I looked at her nervously, trying to figure out whether she was really serious. I wasn’t convinced we were the only ones in the park, or that someone might not have arrived since we started hiking. She told me to get ready by unzipping my shorts. Then she looked both ways, and said, “Okay, drop ‘em.” I complied, and leaned over.

The 20 smacks took less than two minutes. My bottom was blazing sore as I pulled up my shorts. Then W grabbed my belt loop and tugged me close to her.

She slid her hand up my thigh, and slipped her finger into my underpants. I gasped and looked at her, trying to determine whether she really meant to follow through with this next stage (I should know by now: she generally follows through). As her fingers slipped inside me, I realized she was serious. She stroked and rubbed, and I struggled to stay on my feet, and to not make incriminating noises. She was done pretty quickly (for us), and we continued with our walk.

Fast forward to Friday. We decided to get out of the apartment and find somewhere with air conditioning and cushy chairs. As we walked towards the subway, we were trying to figure out how I could be feeling less tense and on edge. Nothing was quite fitting the bill. W suggested a spanking, and I said maybe, thinking she meant “a spanking when we get home.”

SMACK!! Out of the blue, she smacked me with her 32-oz. bottle of Snapple. She did this once or twice more. “Why did you do that here?” I asked.

“It’s working,” she pointed out, “You’re smiling now.” And then she reached for my cane. The sturdy, hollow metal stick I use for balance and support. She gave me half a dozen good whacks with that, and then returned it.

My bottom was tingling, and I had to admit that it had helped. I was less tense, and I was able to make it through the rest of the evening without having a shuddering panic attack.

I’ve learned a few important things from this. First, W is willing to do many things that are normally outside of her comfort zone, simply to help me feel better. Second, a plastic Snapple bottle stings more than you’d think. And third, a cane designed for walking offers far more “thud” than “sting,” and makes an impact even through denim shorts with handkerchiefs in the back pockets.

On a More Serious Note

2006-07-08T22:17:00.000-04:00

I’m starting to work on quitting smoking. There are many good reasons to do this: the cost of smoking, the danger to my health, the fact that W and I would like to start trying to get pregnant (and both of our unwillingness to subject a baby or child to cigarette smoke), and, of course, the fact that my smoking is a definite source of tension in our relationship.

It’s a difficult thing for me. Arguments about the dangers of smoking aren’t helpful for me in quitting, because, honestly, they are precisely why I started smoking. Five or six years ago, I was becoming more and more violently depressed. When I’m that severely depressed, the urge to hurt myself is nearly insurmountable. I finally decided that, if I was feeling suicidal, it was better to smoke—something that I knew could kill me, but not in an immediate way—than to stop eating, or to start cutting. So that’s where the smoking started, as something to do that would hurt me less in the short run than the other things I wanted to do at the time.

The problem is, smoking had sides I hadn’t planned on.
They never bothered to mention in all of those anti-smoking lectures in high school that nicotine actually makes you feel better. And the way I smoke adds to that: I go outside, I separate myself from the source of tension, I don’t try to do anything else right then, for a nice, concrete stretch of time. And I breathe deeply—in, hold, out… in, hold, out. I’m often not good at remembering to breathe, so this is a good thing.

I had started this week by trying to quit smoking cold turkey. And then the stress kept piling up. For one thing, withdrawal from nicotine, for me, seems to induce severe depression (um, yeah, because smoking suppresses many of those depressed feelings on a regular basis, so it makes sense that those feelings would emerge when I stop). And then things kept happening that really challenged my commitment to quitting immediately. I finally decided that perhaps cold turkey wasn’t the way to go. So I’m working on, I don’t know, slightly microwaved turkey. Room temperature turkey, perhaps.

As I see it, I have three types of issues to contend with in quitting. The first is the sheer physical addiction. My body wants the nicotine. The other times I’ve tried to quit (or not been able to smoke), this has cleared up in about two or three days. I don’t smoke all that much, so I think it’s perhaps a bit easier for my body to cope with not getting the drug.

The second issue is dealing with the habit of smoking. I tend to smoke while on the phone, at least for the first several minutes of a conversation; or I smoke while walking alone; or I smoke when I feel particularly tense or agitated or anxious. Not all of that is about addiction: much of it is simply that I’ve gotten used to doing it. Smoke breaks punctuate my day, and I’m soothed by the routine of them.

The last type of issue is the hardest to cope with: smoking serves a lot of purposes, and I need to be able to figure out ways to get those needs met without smoking. In some ways, I can deal with the addiction by just working through it, and with the habit by blowing bubbles (also something I do outside, also something that can represent a break in my routine).

But it’s hard for me to find a substitute for the desire to hurt myself. I have difficulty acknowledging the reasons I want to hurt myself, and while so many people blithely suggest that I do something self-nurturing to replace it, well, that was the problem in the first place. I’m not so good at that self-nurturing stuff.

And, as time has gone by, smoking has become helpful in more areas. It gives me a way to mentally separate from situations that I have trouble coping with. And that whole drug thing has a role, and helps to push away those emotions I’m having trouble dealing with. Smoking helps me to suppress anger, fear, sadness… I can numb those feelings to the point where I’m able to deal with them. And unlike cutting or not eating, smoking doesn’t seem to actually make those feelings more entrenched; it just suppresses them for the moment.

Smoking also gives me something I don’t have to share. I hate to acknowledge this one, because, well, it’s so selfish. But as I’ve moved into the reality of a full-time living-together being-married kind of relationship, I’ve had a harder time being able to manage that whole “sharing” thing. Growing up, despite having a ton of siblings, I mostly had a room of my own. I have almost always had a lot of personal space, and had to share surprisingly few things for someone from a large family. And, I hate to admit it, but I am sometimes desperate for something that is all mine, that I don’t have to share with anyone.

And as I examine the reasons I keep on smoking, I’ve also realized that some of it is a fear of moving on to the next stage in my life. Remember how I mentioned that I have to stop smoking before W and I can have a kid? Well, even though I mostly am desperate to start that process, there’s a big part of my less-surface brain that would rather put it off, just a little longer. It’s a scary move, and there are a lot of parts inside of me that would rather not make it. I’m trying to work out a deal with those parts, but it’s still something of a challenge.

In the end, I know it’s something I need to do. There are parts of me that wish W were willing to punish me for smoking, to help me quit. The problem is, I’m not sure it could work. I know how very much W hates smoking, and I think the punishments would feel very wrong, were they to happen; we’ve been reluctant to use spanking for things that are issues between the two of us, in large part because we don’t want to cross a line into abuse. Beyond that, I don’t know that punishment is the right approach in this case. On the one hand, I do feel fiercely guilty; but on the other hand, I really do need to learn about being more gentle and supportive for myself, and quitting smoking may well be a place to practice those skills.

So I’m not going to get a light-hearted (yet painful) spanking for smoking; but I’m going to figure out how to quit anyhow.

Story: How Was I To Know

2006-07-08T21:03:00.000-04:00

I wrote this story several years ago, before I met W. The interaction between Michelle and Janey is, I think, very different from my and W's interactions around smoking (and around public spankings, for that matter), but it's still a very fun story for me. Part of the fun of the Janey and Michelle stories, for me, is watching their interactions with their housemates. It's purely imaginary, since neither I nor my housemates would have been quite so... open about spankings. But it's fun to imagine and pretend.

Hope you enjoy the story!

"How Was I Supposed to Know?"
======================

"Well, how was I supposed to know you didn't have any underpants on?" Janey asked.

"Janey, I had zero reason to think you were planning on pulling down my pants and spanking me, in the BACK YARD at a PARTY." Come to think of it, if I'd had any reason to think Janey would make it to the party that early, I wouldn't have been smoking in the first place.

"I've told you. If you want to feel like you're being bad, fine, but come tell me, and I'll give you a spanking. You don't need to smoke." She looked at me for a minute. "Plus which, it wasn't that big of a party. Really, it was only housemates and their lovers."

I glared at her. She came over and rubbed my bottom. "Am I forgiven?" She smiled fondly.

I continued glaring. Finally, I allowed, "I guess."

"It was funny, wasn't it?"

"NO!!!"

"Well, let's go back down to the party. They're about to have cake. Maybe I should offer Liza a birthday spanking?"

"You do that."

....................................
Janey had thought she would have to work late, and she'd made plans to take Liza out for her birthday later in the weekend. So I assumed I was single for the night, and hung out on the deck, watching the barbecue heat up, and talking to Gwen, Samantha, and Sam's boyfriend, Kenny. When Kenny asked if I minded him smoking, I bummed a cigarette.

We were talking, and watching fireflies, and generally enjoying ourselves. Then I felt a hand on my shoulder. "What did I tell you about smoking, Michelle?"

Shit, shit, shit. "Um, that it's bad for me?"

"And…?" Oh, shit. She'd promised to turn me over her knee immediately if she caught me.

I stubbed out the cigarette, and stood to head up to my room. When Janey plans on doing something immediately, there's no getting out of it. But as I turned towards the door, Janey tightened her grip. She sat down on the bench.

"No, Janey. Please! Not here. Not right now!"

"Yes here. Yes right now," she said implacably.

I writhed as much in embarassment as from fear of a spanking. Janey pulled me firmly over her lap, and started smacking me over my shorts. After fewer than a dozen spanks, she reached for the waistband. Desperate, I fought her for the shorts.

"NO! Janey..."

She pulled them down, and must have been surprised to discover me bare underneath. Which, of course, didn't stop her from continuing. As usual, she spanked long and hard. I wriggled, and squirmed, and tried to get away from her hand. I was doubtless putting on a very good show for our friends.

Janey paused. "Hi, Liza. Happy birthday."

"Hi, Janey. Is this my present?" I looked over, and saw Liza leaning appreciatively in the doorway. I have GOT to get my own place!

"Well, it's a bit of a surprise, but it can be your present if you like. Any requests? If you go get a nice wooden spoon, I can finish her off."

By this point, I just buried my face in my arms. Liza and Janey continued discussing possible approaches for the rest of my spanking. Eventually, Liza went inside to get a hairbrush. If it hadn't been her birthday, I would have been livid. No, wait, even though it was her birthday, I was ticked off.

Liza brought her girlfriend out to watch. It had to be the most embarrasing moment I've ever lived through, at least in that house.

As Janey set fire to the backs of my thighs with the hairbrush, I heard Liza's girlfriend comment, "Hoo boy, I wish I'd known this was the kind of entertainment offered here at Liza's. We'd be spending more weekends here, and a lot fewer in Brooklyn!"

"I know. I should be here more on weekends," Gwen and Liza commented together, and then gave each other five.

Janey put the final touches on my backside, and put the hairbrush down on the bench. She gently rubbed my bottom, and then pulled up my shorts. I shoved my way through the crowd on the deck, and went up to my room to sulk.

Janey, of course, followed me. "I warned you about smoking," she offered. I know it was her way of apologizing, but it didn't seem very apologetic.

"You gave me a BARE BOTTOMED spanking in front of FIVE people," I pointed out.

"Well, how was I to know you didn't have any underpants on?"

Playing School

2006-06-26T15:07:00.000-04:00

I had a few days of feeling better last week, so I decided it was time to play.

On Friday, I was experimenting with making a pattern for a skirt for W. The first skirt I made fit me perfectly, which meant it would be a bit too snug for W., so I made another one out of the rest of the navy blue sheet I’d cut up. And then I realized I had two knee-length navy blue skirts, sized to fit each of us. I swear, this wasn’t actually intentional.

But given that I had the two skirts, I figured I’d go ahead and come up with a scene. So I walked to the dollar store and bought two ties to match the skirts, and then came home to write a note for W. from our “headmistress.”

Unfortunately, my timing was slightly off, so W. got home before I could finish the note or tape it to her door. No matter. I was in my study, so I waited until she was in the bedroom, and then slipped the note under the door.

The note read as follows:

As you know, it is your responsibility as head girl to maintain discipline among the girls in your house. It is still early in the term, so you may not be aware of one girl who is posing a serious discipline problem. I am bringing her to your attention, because we hope you can encourage her to behave properly, so that your house will not lose points. This would be a shame, as the rest of the form is quite disciplined and studious, and they stand a good chance at winning the house trophy.

J., the new girl in your form, has been a constant disciplinary problem. She rarely completes her prep work. When the teachers have set her extra work, she has ignored them, or responded rudely. Last week, she even swore at Mademoiselle.

Outside of class, she has refused to participate in any games, and she has encouraged the other girls in her group to do likewise. While they have continued to participate, discipline is eroding among her group.

You may have noticed several of her pranks. She, and the other girls, believe they are funny, but the senior class was not amused to find their beds short-sheeted, nor were the youngest girls pleased to find that the salt shakers had been filled with sugar last Friday.

In addition, I myself found her out of bounds without permission last Saturday, and also found her using the computers in the library after lights out this Tuesday. Matron has complained that her clothes are rarely in good repair, and that she refuses to mend them. I am sure you have noticed that her uniform is frequently quite sloppy.

Please deal with this situation before it gets completely out of hand.

Sincerely,

E. Bumsworthy
Head, Blyton House

While I waited for W. to read the note, I changed into my “uniform.” She called me into the bedroom, completely in role. The first thing she did was hand me a pair of her pants that I’ve been saying I’d mend for the last month or more, and tell me to mend them. I sat and did this while she changed into her uniform. (Perhaps we should keep this in mind for future mending tasks, because it only took a few minutes, and it’s more fun to do things like that as part of a scene!)

Then she had me stand and face her while she gave me a long lecture about my behavior, and about how I needed to behave better. She informed me that it was a special thing to be a member of our school, and a privilege to be a member of our house. Then she tallied up my various misdemeanors and let me know I’d get 100 strokes with clothes, or fifty without.

I was doing my best to be a surly student, although it was hard. W. was so reasonable and firm that I’m sure, had she really been my head girl, I would have caved and apologized immediately. Instead, I tried to stick to the role of a student who resented being sent to the school, and thought all of the rules were stupid and below her.

But W. made me lay across the bed, and paddled my bottom firmly for my various transgressions, lecturing as she went. When she was done, she told me she hoped she wouldn’t have to punish me again, and told me I would have to make amends to the people I had been so disrespectful to.

Afterwards, I checked in; W. had enjoyed the scene, because so much was already set up. I enjoyed writing the letter, and it’s always fascinating to me the way she can make a scene her own, even if it all started out in my head. I wouldn’t have thought of the mending (this is probably why mending sits around for months in our house!), and her lecture about the honor of the house was inspired.

We’d had so much fun that I wrote another letter on Saturday, in preparation for our usual Sunday “night” (which we actually had in the morning, because we were expecting a guest). That note from the head of our house complimented W. on her success in bringing such a change in my behavior, but let her know that I had a real problem with using too much foul language and slang. That brought on quite a lecture, and a much harder spanking. (I don’t know yet whether I’ll suggest the use of soap in the future… it might turn out to be like writing lines: more fun to imagine than to experience.)

We’ll definitely do this again. And I sadly informed W. that the reformation she inspired in me after those first spankings wasn’t going to be permanent… because where would the fun be in that?

Under the Weather

2006-06-07T21:51:00.000-04:00

Quite literally, as it turns out...

Sorry for not having posted. The weather has been rainy, rainy, rainy here lately, and combined with my usual springtime fibromyalgia flare-up, I've been spending most of my days in bed. I'd post more about that, but fibro has got to be the most boring thing going: I can hold up a book for a few hours a day, and I can occasionally sit up long enough to check email (most of that's been going towards finding a roommate, though). Other than that? Watching TV and reminding myself that these crummy weeks are the reason I don't have a job, and the reason we have cable, so I shouldn't be feeling as insanely guilty for not doing housework and otherwise being efficient.

So hopefully, I'll be able to post next week, because the weather is supposed to stop being quite so damp and dreary. (I often suspect, however, that the weather people just put some sunny days into the long-term forecast so people don't get depressed about the weather, so we'll see...)

Troubled

2006-05-29T08:13:00.000-04:00

Sometimes, I wonder how much of my response to things is because of having been abused as a kid, and how much is actually related to the situation at hand. Over the past couple of days, two things have happened that are still troubling me.

In the first case, it was all about tone of voice--I got intensely triggered overhearing my SIL putting her kids to bed, snapping and yelling at them as they got more resistant to laying down to sleep. I could understand that the situation was stressful--the kids had had an exciting day, and were in a strange bed, and we'd had dinner later than we should have; SIL had had a long and tiring day, hadn't gotten enough rest the night before, and didn't have the support of her husband putting the kids down for the night. But as she snapped and snarled at the kids, I couldn't help feeling that sense of impending danger that I felt throughout my childhood. SIL wouldn't beat her children, and I know she loves them, but emotionally, it's still hard for me to separate.

The second case is even harder. I was chatting with one of the kids who lives next door to us yesterday. He had on a sleeveless t-shirt, and I noticed a bruise near the side of his chest. It was a narrow, sideways u-shape. It's a shape I'm familiar with, peering in the mirror, or craning my head, the day after a spanking with the loopy toy. And try though I might, I can't think of anything other than a looped cord that would result in a bruise like that.

In neither case am I sure what I should do. I will definitely keep an eye on the kids next door; but would social services actually help? It's such a hard thing to figure out. And W. and I are trying to figure out how to approach tone of voice with her sister in a way that will actually help both the kids and SIL.

Yeah, so that's what's on my mind right now. I'm just not sure what to do.

The Rule of Silence/ Story: Revenge

2006-05-24T20:51:00.000-04:00

We don’t talk about these things. If there was one rule obeyed in our family, it was the rule of silence. As adults, I think each of us has touched on speaking, and then backed away, putting up walls of denial between ourselves.

My sisters and I, between the four of us, probably show nearly every symptom of having been sexually abused as children. Physical problems, mental ones, emotional ones: the signs are there, but we don’t talk about it. My older sisters talk almost constantly about their various physical problems, but have never mentioned sexual abuse as a possible factor. My younger sister? Well, she’s the one who does the acting out, sleeping around, making really unwise choices, having brief intense affairs, and all of that.

Four or five years ago, she asked me whether I had ever wondered whether I’d been sexually abused. Her timing was bad: I was on the way out the door to the first meeting of a class, and our younger brother was visiting. I meant to get back to her on it, but… well, I didn’t.

Part of it is because it’s all tangled up in shame and guilt and denial. As much as things happened to us, there are the things we did to each other. And it becomes difficult to confront, because I don’t know how to approach one part without acknowledging the others. I remember the sheer mean-ness of how we—me, my older sisters, my mother—treated my little sister because we were jealous of how her father favored her over the rest of us. We teased her, a lot. And none of us protected her.

And there is the anger I hold towards my next-older sister, who even if she didn’t sexually abuse me (she may or may not have, I don’t remember clearly enough to say), definitely taught me that she had the right to touch my body whenever and however she chose, whether or not I wanted her to do so. It’s something I’m not entirely able to forgive, and as I grow older, I still hold her responsible for it. She may have been hurt herself, she may have been young, but I still believe she should have been old enough to know better.

I worry, sometimes, that part of why I am reluctant to get clear memories of my childhood is that I, too, did things to hurt my siblings. I don’t know, and I also have no idea what I would do with those memories if I had them. The rule against speaking holds strong, and words are a weak tool for making up for sins I committed a quarter of a century ago.

The rest of this post is a story I wrote quite a few years ago, pulling together some memories I had on this topic.

================

Revenge
=======

Excitement flared as soon as I saw the door. I had to have that room. It HAD to be my room. A lock, and no one in the family had the key. Nothing could be better than that.

I got the room, not so much because of the lock, but because the room was roughly the size of a large closet, and only had a tiny window, which looked out on the blank wall of the neighbor's house. When we moved in, the room was mine. And there was no key to the lock.

For the first time in my memory, I could sleep every single night, safe behind my dead-bolted door. I had that room for six months.

The next summer, I went to visit my father for the first time. I was away for the whole summer. I was eight, and I mostly forgot what it was like, back home. At the end of the summer, I returned. I was nine now, and, with my hair in fancy cornrows and beads, and my ears pierced, I was a new person. Someone who could sleep at night for three whole months, with the door wide open, and not have to worry.

I took my suitcase up to my room, and got ready to show my family all the things I'd made and gotten that summer. But something was different. I looked around the room. My red white and blue quilt still lay across my bright red bed. My books were on their shelves. My toys were piled in their box. My winter clothes sat on the closet shelves. What was different?

And then I saw it. The lock was broken!

Mom! What happened to my LOCK?!

My little sister, the blonde haired, blue-eyed princess, the one everyone loved best, had been in the room. She locked the door. No one could get it open. She couldn't get it open. My stepfather got a ladder, and climbed into the room from outside. He broke the lock so she wouldn't get stuck in there again.

How could she ruin this for me? How could she RUIN it?!

I was furious. I was helpless. I wanted nothing more than revenge.

My revenge came within a few weeks. She said she had missed me. She begged and begged, and finally convinced me to move my bed out into the big room, and have it across from hers. We could share a room. We could be friends. I didn't want to be her friend. She ruined my lock.

That night, I heard the sounds, and I turned to face the wall. I didn't have to hear them. I closed my eyes. I didn't have to see the shadows. I made myself a story. I didn't have to be in that room.

Later, I heard her voice. "I had a nightmare. Can I get in bed with you?"

My revenge was ready. "No. You'll be fine. Go to sleep."

The next night, as we got ready to go to sleep, she begged. "I don't want to have a nightmare. Can I sleep in your bed?"

"No."

"Please, please, can I sleep in your bed?"

"No. Here," I gave her my stuffed cat, a present from my stepmother. "Sleep with this. You won't have nightmares if you sleep with this." It was a lie, and I knew it. But I was her big sister, and she believed me.

The sounds came again that night, and the next, and the next. I learned always to sleep facing the wall. I had to be invisible. If he noticed me, I wouldn't be safe any more. With her in the room, I was safe. He didn't love me, because I wasn't his real daughter.

She finally gave up begging to share my bed. We didn't talk about our
nightmares.

But she finally figured out how to get her own revenge. One day, we were playing outside, and both of us wanted the bicycle at the same time. I was three years older, so I was able to shove her away, and get on the seat.

"I hate you," she shouted,

"Why?" I asked, since that had stumped her in the past.

"I hate you because you're black." The words, lashing from the mouth of a six year old, couldn't have been her own. We didn't talk about me being black in the family, not openly. We both knew it was something not to talk about, even if we didn't know why.

It hurt. She hated me for something I had no control over.

Even if it wasn't really my skin color at fault.

She slapped me. I ran inside to tell.

She ran after me. Mom was at the store, or at the doctor, or somewhere not at home. My sister's father was taking care of us.

"She slapped me," I tattled.

"Because she pulled down my pants outside," she lied in retaliation.

My stepfather grabbed the excuse. Even though it would never occur to me to do that, he was happy to punish me.

"I'll show you what it's like to have your pants pulled down," he shouted, and yanked down my pants and underwear. My sister and brothers watched, without surprise. Spankings were common enough.

He quickly glanced around the room, and picked up an extension cord. He pushed me over the arm of a chair, and began to lash my bottom and thighs. "You'll never do something like that again," he warned.

The pain began to burn through my whole body. "I DIDN'T do it!" I protested. It did no good. He continued to whip me with the extension cord.

My body was on fire. I couldn't make it stop. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" I begged, but I couldn't stop him.

Afterwards, my bottom and thighs were raw with welts, but it was okay, because it was fall, and I wouldn't be wearing shorts any more until summer. No one would see the welts.

My sister and I kept seeking revenge. I pulled further and further away from her. She searched out ways to punish me for the things that neither of us could control.

I still hate her for making me lose my lock.

I still feel guilty for not sharing my bed.

I am finally learning that I hated the wrong person all those years.

Fear of Writing

2006-05-24T19:25:00.000-04:00

I’ve wrangled around with this entry a lot of different ways, and the words fight me every single time. I think the problem is that I’m so used to not writing about this issue, that it’s really difficult to find a way of facing it down.

See, the reason I haven’t been writing on my dissertation is that, separate from all the usual reasons people don’t write, I also have to fight intense terror of the act of writing itself. It’s been with me for as long as I can remember, and gets worse the more direct and real I have to be in the writing. Thus, writing a history dissertation becomes something of a problem, because I have to take facts and make my interpretation of them as clear as I possibly can.

When I sit to write, and it’s something that touches on reality, I struggle. When I’m lucky, I can find that clear space in my head, and write without connecting to what I’m writing about. Things focused on the present, touching only peripherally on my emotions, are the easiest. I can write lists and charts with very little difficulty. Stories are pretty easy, most of the time, until they become stories about myself.

But writing, real writing, writing where I take facts and state an interpretation of them… this becomes terrifying. I sit to write and my hands shake, my vision grows dim, the world tilts and spins around me. A filter intervenes, somewhere between thought and expression, to make what I’ve said as inscrutable as possible.

I thought, for years, that this was just a problem with academic writing. In college, both I and my professors were puzzled by it, because I could express my thoughts clearly in words, and I had definitely mastered the mechanics of writing… but my papers did far more to obscure my thinking than to express it.

And then, after college, I read over some of my journals, and realized that the avoidance and inscrutability were more, rather than less, present. I noticed that, and kind of worked on it, but mostly put it aside. I couldn’t really face the reasons that I find it so hard to put words onto paper (or onto screen, as the case may be). I hoped that the problem would go away, without me having to actually face it.

But I’ll keep trying to do this.

After I was in the hospital last February, I had voices in my head, repeating over and over “This is what we SAID would happen if you told. It’s what happened the last time.” And I could only respond, “What last time? I’ve never told.”

Then my brain would thrust forward a half-remembered event from my childhood. When children’s services came to investigate. The thing is, I always remembered this as being because my sister said or did something in school that made them come. But the image was persistent.

So I make my guesses. Perhaps I was the one who wrote something at school, something that made my teachers wonder, something that caused social services to come. I don’t remember what happened afterward, but I cringe every time someone mentions a social service investigation. I am terrified for the kids in the family.

When I worked in a high school, and was a mandatory reporter, I hoped I would never have to call children’s services. I remember my absolute fury in the training, because they instructed us not to tell the kid whose parents we were reporting that we were doing so.

And I have to wonder. Why do I remember the… violence coming towards me, if I wasn’t the one who told? Why am I the one who has such fear of putting things down in words, if it wasn’t me who made the mistake in the first place?

But I struggle with that, because it’s tied up with realizing that perhaps there was a time when I wasn’t able to keep myself safer than my sisters and brothers, when I wasn’t able to maintain that protective distance.

Rationally, I know that there’s nothing my family could do to hurt me now, no matter what I put into writing. It’s still hard, to get past that part of my brain that has kept me safe for the last quarter of a century. I am accustomed to writing around and through the barriers, finding ways of getting words out without alerting my internal censors to the danger.

I need to find a different way, though. I have a strong sense that the only way for me to get this dissertation finished and get on with my life is to finally face those censors directly, to address why they are there, and hopefully to put them to rest. It feels like dragons or monsters, lurking in my brain, waiting to attack as soon as I make the wrong move. And let’s face it, I can’t write clearly enough when I’m cringing, waiting to be attacked.

So I’ll give this a try, writing about those forbidden topics, trying to prove that it’s really okay, that I can say what I need to say without being beaten or yelled at. I can’t say that I’m looking forward to it.

The Punishment Book

2006-05-19T17:59:00.000-04:00

The women over at the Punishment Book asked me to join them this week. I am flattered and looking forward to sharing the space with them (um, well, not so much in the sense of looking forward to being punished, but, you know, to the self-expression part).

I posted an introduction yesterday. And then, last night, W. gave me a totally unexpected punishment, which I write about in greater detail over there. Because, well, it seemed to make more sense over there.

I've got some things running through my brain that I'm going to be posting about here, but there's thunder and lightning again, and dinner is getting close to ready, so I'll write about those things later.

Is It Okay To Spank an Inner Child?

2006-05-18T18:07:00.000-04:00

So, yeah. I posted three weeks ago about W’s and my conclusion that it’s okay to spank an inner child. But time goes by, and one goes through actual, rather than theoretical experiences, and things become less clear.

I have continued to be varying levels of cranxious. Most of it, I think, is the process of working through the feelings that therapy and my foray into craziness are bringing up. (No, I don’t really think I’m crazy. I just, you know, have issues to work through.) And when the emotional load gets to a point where I can’t ignore it, I don’t always manage to let the feelings out in a reasonable, responsible, adult kind of way.

Last weekend, after several days of hearing my inner child demand—ever more loudly—to be allowed to throw a tantrum, I let it out. And, boy oh boy, is my inner child childlike. So I threw all of the socks at the wall. And then all of the pillows. And then I dumped all of the dirty laundry on top of that. It wasn’t enough. That inner child had a lot of frustration and anger to let out.

So I proceeded to my playroom (and, for the dirty-minded out there, I really mean “playroom”—it’s where we’ve got the playmobils and the blocks and the arts and crafts supplies). I dumped out all of the blocks and rattled them all over the floor. It wasn’t enough.

So I did something entirely, utterly childish. I got out the finger-paints, and proceeded to paint all over the wardrobe. Boy, was it satisfying. My inner child finally felt like it had gotten a chance to do something bad. It wasn’t quite enough, though. Since my (by then inner) adult objected to writing “bad words” on the wardrobe, just in case the paint didn’t wash off, the child wasn’t entirely satisfied. So we got out some expensive Post-It brand poster paper, put several sheets on the wall, painted on them, and then used pens to write bad words.

And in a full display of maturity, my inner child decided that the “bad words” it needed to write were things like “uglybutt” and “fart face.” Silly? Sure. Satisfying? Very much so.

But on some levels, my inner child was destined for disappointment. Because as much as it wanted its bad behavior to be recognized and limited… well, W. didn’t quite comply with our plans. Partly, it was because she thought it was just silly and funny. I can see this, and, yeah, it was pretty silly and funny. Mostly, though, it’s because she felt that it was good for me to let my feelings out, and she didn’t want to discourage me from doing it.

I’d like to say that I think she’s right. But as I check in with that part of me, I can understand the disappointment. There’s a safety in having reasonable limits imposed on my behavior. It wasn’t safe for me to behave badly as a kid, because the response was disproportionate, dangerous, violent. So I have always fiercely controlled myself, and I have learned to turn all of my anger and frustration and rage on myself.

My adult side has trouble letting go enough to let this inner child out into the world. It’s an embarrassing part of me, especially when it doesn’t behave well. It’s messy and irresponsible and bratty. And it’s looking for limits, and I can either test limits or impose them. I can’t do both.

So we go back, W. and I, to pondering whether or not it’s okay to spank an inner child. (Or, for that matter, wash its mouth out with soap, or send it to bed early, or whatever.) If it were a real child, neither of us would consider those options. And if I’m behaving like a child, then shouldn’t I be treated like a child? So it becomes difficult.

Several times recently, W. has brought up the idea of couples counseling with someone we could talk to about the role of spanking in our lives. I admit that I’m incredibly wary of this, for a lot of reasons. But it’s still something to consider, and perhaps having a neutral person to mediate the discussions could help us to stop going over and over the same ground.

And, who knows, maybe they could help us answer the question:

Is it okay to spank an inner child?

Multitaskers

2006-05-15T09:25:00.000-04:00

Several years ago, back before I met W., I saw this bath brush on sale at Bath and Body Works while searching for a rubber ducky. I figured, you can't go wrong for $7. I bought it solely for the purpose of washing my back. Well, and also, as it turns out, as a back scratcher. No, really! Okay, I did have spanking in mind, just a little bit, but since I didn't have someone to spank me, it was mostly a vague fantasy.

Since meeting W. it has, of course, been tested out for spanking purposes. The back side is pretty noisy, but I think W. likes it anyways because she gets, um, a lot of bang for her buck. And the bristle side is shockingly wicked, yet pretty quiet. So the bath brush often ends up in the bedroom instead of beside the tub where it belongs.

More recently, we've gotten some kitchen-related multitaskers.
I saw the red item on the top for sale at Whole Foods. It is called, I kid you not, "The Switchit." It's a narrow silicone spatula with a metal core. The wide end has a pleasant sting and the narrow end hurts like holy heck. I admit, between the bright red color and the name, I bought this one primarily for spanking, although it's seen some use in the kitchen as well.

That wooden spoon is a different story. I've been on a quest for a wooden spoon that doesn't hurt... my hands, while I am mixing things in the kitchen. I bought this spoon, since OXO products are generally pretty good about being ergonomic. However, when mixing a stiff dough, this one tends to bite into my hands a bit more than I like. So once I'd gotten another spoon that I like a bit better, I tossed this one into the toy cupboard.

I brought it out last night as W. was mourning her hairbrush that cracked last week during a vigorous (but strangely unpainful to me) spanking. (I guess those drugstore hairbrushes with the little spiky things simply are not meant to be spanking tools!)

Oh. My. Goodness!!! First, the spoon is incredibly quiet for a flat wooden implement. Second, W. was delighting in the marks it leaves--a white spoon outline, followed in short order by a bright red oval. But third--that thing hurts like crazy, and leaves a lasting burn.

W. likes the control she has over it (no catching herself on the hand, as has been known to happen with the evil "loopy toy"). I like the fact that, also unlike the evil loopy thing, the spoon can be used at varying levels of intensity.

So there we have it: three great, inexpensive spanking toys that also have uses outside of the bedroom.

Story: Got Topping?

2006-05-12T19:27:00.000-04:00

I wrote this Janey and Michelle story for the SSC Short Story Contest a few years ago. I was reminded of it by facing the same situation at the grocery store earlier this week. Why is it they can have an excellent price on ice cream... and have nothing but vanilla on the shelves (or, in the case of this week, also Edy's brand Spumoni, which is just not appealing to me!).

Anyhow, here's the story:

Got Topping?
=============

I observed my flavor options for the ice cream that was on special this week, and pouted. "Vanilla. Nothing but vanilla. What is UP with this city?"

Janey ignored me.

"Not EVERYONE prefers VANILLA," I grumped. Janey continued to ignore me, but I was getting a few glances from other shoppers.

"I mean, really," I continued, trying to provoke Janey, "SOME people are a little more ADVENTUROUS, and would like MORE than VANILLA." I was either feeling feisty or premenstrual. Sometimes, it's hard to tell the difference.

"Okay, fine." Janey reached into the freezer, and plunked a carton of vanilla into the cart. She started walking away. Since my bag was in the cart, I figured I'd better follow along.

"I said, I don't WANT just VANILLA."

"No problem," she said, and kept walking.

She turned the cart into one of the aisles. "I can provide you with some TOPPING." She put a jar of fudge sauce into the cart, and walked briskly on.

Waiting in line, she said, "I'll be right back." She returned with a wooden spoon.

"What's that for?" I asked suspiciously.

"We need a special one, for the topping," she explained snidely. "It doesn't stop being vanilla unless the topping gets BEATEN in."

A woman my grandmother's age was behind us in line. "I don't think you should beat it that hard, sweetie," she suggested, "It might get all drippy."

Janey and I looked at each other, and tried not to snicker.

We got to Janey's house, and as soon as we'd put the ice cream in the freezer, she had me bare-assed and leaning over one of her kitchen stools so she could test out the spoon.

And then, to make up for the bottom-smacking, she gave me ice cream with hot fudge sauce. But she let me use my own spoon to mix it in.

My Bottom Smarts "Spanko Brunch" (Topic: My first adult spanking)

2006-04-30T17:21:00.000-04:00

Bonnie over at My Bottom Smarts has a wonderful forum that she calls "Spanko Brunch", where people can wrote about a topic she suggests, and then she posts a compilation of what everyone's said. This week's topic is "My first adult spanking," and this inspired me to write a response. (Why couldn't we have fun topics like this for grade school compositions? Oh, right.)

So, here's the memory:

Less than two months into our relationship, W. gave me my very first adult spanking. I can’t remember how I brought up the topic, but (in good lesbian fashion), I’m sure we talked and talked about it beforehand.

I can remember the day it happened. W. was coming to visit me (we were long-distance for the first 9 months of our relationship). We hung out at my apartment in the afternoon, but we were going to see Margaret Cho that evening. After some talking, she gave me a somewhat tentative spanking. She used her hand, and made my bottom very warm and rosy. And she made me very, um, squirmy and wet. It was delightful, and it confirmed that this was definitely something I would love to have more of. Mostly what I remember about it, and why I remember the exact day it happened, was that she was doodling on a piece of paper, and wrote our names. She decorated it with pink bottoms, with stars coming off of them. She handed this to me while we were waiting for the show to start. {{Shiver}} {{Squirm!!}}

Bonnie, thanks for suggesting this fun topic!

Having memories

2006-04-27T00:31:00.000-04:00

I guess the problem, right now, is not so much having memories, but having my adult mind giving commentary on the things I remember. Part of me approaches it like a logic problem: if this is true, and this is true, then this is the answer. But then I connect with it emotionally, and things start to go haywire.

I’m writing about the memories (in my usual vague fashion) behind the cut.

========================

I remember hiding in a closet, watching my stepfather touch a little girl. I remember the darkness, I remember touching the carpet. There were clothes hanging above me, shoes and toys on the floor. The closet was a safe place to hid, he couldn’t see me, he couldn’t touch me. I abandoned that little girl.

I always thought she was my sister, because my sister is the one he touched. But this memory is from Alaska. And the little girl he was touching… she was big enough that her feet were halfway down the bed when her head was at the top. When we lived in Alaska, my little sister was only a year and a half old. I was four. The two of us were the only little girls in the house.

========================

Sometimes, it’s memories of things I’ve been told that line up together.

My mother has always complained that I’m not very affectionate. She’s told me about the times when I was a baby, and she tried to cuddle me, and I just held myself stiff and wouldn’t snuggle.

Separate from that, she’s talked about how I started sleeping through the night when I was just a few months old. By the time I was six months old, I didn’t take naps any more. But I was a “good” baby, and if she put me in my crib, I would amuse myself, and not cry or complain.

My mother believes in spanking babies who are only a few months old, or at least she did while she was raising children. She was going through a divorce and found out she was pregnant when I was little; I know that she hit us more often when she was in stressful situations when I was older.

Was this when I learned to dissociate?

========================

And sometimes, it is just persistent physical and visual memories.

I remember being in the bathroom and scrubbing and scrubbing and scrubbing at my… you know. Over and over, trying to wash… something away. I remember there being blood. I remember wondering whether I had started to get my period, and then realizing that it was just temporary blood. I can still see the gold-speckled formica of the bathroom cabinet, the ratty bath mat beside the sliding door of the shower. I remember the little square window, high on the bathroom wall, that looked across to the corner of the neighbors’ roof.

I didn’t start having this memory until after the first time I masturbated, and part of me asked why it didn’t hurt like... why I didn’t bleed like…

========================

Most often, though, it’s just an upwelling of fear, nervousness, tension. I was talking about it with my new therapist last week. Just describing what I felt, emotionally, when I was having anxiety.

I explained that it’s not so much emotions as a sense of tension. Feeling like there are things going on, above my head. Like danger is lurking above me, and can come crashing onto me the second I let down my guard, make a mistake, do something wrong. Loud noises surround me, I feel the air as something comes towards me… and then nothing happens. Over and over, day after day, this happens to me. On a good day, it comes in bursts, and goes away in between. On a bad day, it’s there all the time.

After therapy, my internal voices started to rant. “Why did you say that?” they asked, “You know it’s all lies. Why are you lying?” My only defense was that I hadn’t said anything happened, just described what I was feeling. And I know for sure that’s what I was feeling. “You’re just trying to get sympathy,” the voices rant. “You know what people will think, if you tell them this is going on.” Of course, the voices have no good explanation for why I would make it up, but they’re making it unpleasant for me to talk about it.

========================

Much as I hate this process, I’m very afraid of the alternative. Because I know that if I don’t keep pushing at this, I will go back to not really believing anything happened. Over and over, those voices in my head convince me that I was making everything up, or that I’m making too much of the things that I know for sure happened. They tell me it wasn’t bad, that it wasn’t hard… they berate me for letting anything out, because even if something did happen, I shouldn’t talk about it, and I certainly shouldn’t write about it. Much as I hate remembering, I don’t want to make myself forget again.

It's Okay to Spank an Inner Child

2006-04-26T18:43:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was a particularly cranxious day. (Cranxious, of course, means that combination of cranky and anxious that is no fun either for the person feeling that way or the people they are around.)

By the end of the day, I was craving a naughty girl spanking, but (as often happens in that mood), I couldn’t find the words to tell W. what I needed. And so I was “hiding” in my study. W. came in to let me know she was concerned, but since she didn’t tell me I had to come out of my study, there I stayed.

Partly, it was just that I really didn’t want to try to go to sleep. And partly it was that I knew I’d just get more cranxious when faced with someone being soft and nice and trying to cuddle and nurture me.

I wanted to throw things around the room, stomp my feet, yell and shout; basically, my inner child was demanding a chance to be bad, bad, BAD!!! And my outer adult wouldn’t let it, or didn’t know how to make a compromise. Usually, I buy my inner children off with toys or similar treats. But this isn’t a good long-term strategy (my outer adult likes to have a place to live, and electricity, and all of those other things money has to be spent on). So there were no treats, and there was no chance for a tantrum, either.

I finally went to bed, thinking W. was asleep. I noticed that there was a text message on my phone, which had been charging in the bedroom. I checked it, and saw that she had asked me whether I thought a spanking would help; in her next message, she noted that she thought it would definitely help. I was sad at the lost opportunity for a spanking, but texted back that I agreed, but my phone had been in the bedroom.

Turns out she was awake, and she offered to give me the spanking. But the spanking wasn’t giving me the release that I needed—she was giving me a gentle, loving spanking, trying to help me feel better. But I so needed a naughty-girl spanking, to be sternly told what to do, not allowed to make any choices right then. I needed—desperately—for her to take charge. So we gave up, and turned off the light, and got under the covers.

And then my phone rang, with a friend asking whether she could stay the night, because she was locked out of her apartment. I started talking with W. as I waited for the friend to find out whether she could get in touch with her landlord or a locksmith, and then W. offered to come with me when I drove to pick her up.

As often happens, I was much more able to talk while I was driving. We discussed how I had been feeling, and what I needed. W. explained that she still feels ambivalent about ordering me to come into the bedroom, or giving me a spanking when I haven’t asked for it. But she also said that there are times when the main thing she wants to do is tell me to behave, to stop hiding, to stop expecting her to read my mind.

I’m not sure how to manage the divide there. In my ideal world, I could just say, “But that is exactly what I need you to do! Please do it! Please feel okay doing it!” But that’s not really fair, and so I don’t tell her this.

We also talked about the cranxious feeling. It stems from a desire to be a little kid, to be told what to do, to be given limits. And I find myself acting like a kid, pushing against the boundaries of appropriate behavior, just to see whether anyone will make me do the right thing. It’s such a comfort when it happens, and it gives me the strength to get through another day or week or month of being a responsible grown-up. But it also feels just a little weird, to allow my very child-like inner children out, and then to spank them. I wouldn't spank an actual child, and my inner children feel very much like the child versions of me. But W. reassured me that it is okay to spank an inner child. And, on further reflection, I do realize that inner children are capable of informed consent in ways that actual children aren't. Of course, I admit I'd rather I only had well-behaved happy inner children.

Even though I’m not supposed to expect W. to read my mind, or act as though I can read hers, well… I do feel very much like W. would prefer me to be all the grown-up; I get a sense that she hopes my little kid side (particularly the bratty, needy, cranky, misbehaving, limit-testing version) will be eroded by therapy, or by life or something. On some levels, I also wouldn’t mind if that happens.

But from my point of view, it feels like such a central part of me, the part where all of my inconvenient emotions are stored, that I’m reluctant to send it away. More than that, even though I rationally know perfectly well this isn’t her intent, it feels like W. is rejecting those emotional, inconvenient parts of my adult self when she talks about a time when I won’t need the naughty-girl spankings.

So I stay in this cranxious state, wishing I could figure out how to explain what I need. My fantasy right now is that I could let my inner children be the brats they want to be, throw a tantrum or break the rules. And then W. would sternly send me to the bedroom and stand me in the corner. After I’d cooled off, she’d give me a hard spanking, and maybe some more corner time. And then I could come to bed and sleep through the night, safe and forgiven. But I know that even if things went exactly as I described, it would be more difficult and more complicated than it is in my imagination. We’ll see how it goes.

Story: Six Out of Seven

2006-04-25T15:05:00.000-04:00

I realized it’s been quite a while since I last posted a story, so here’s one for your reading pleasure. This was one of the first Janey and Michelle stories. I wrote it originally for the soc.sexuality.spanking Short Story Contest in 2001. It’s veeerrrry loosely based on a true event (which is to say, I’d gone to a poetry reading with a friend, and the poet offered the statistic that inspired the story). And for the next half hour or hour, I kept harping on the statistic to the friend. Other than that, though, it’s all fictional. I was single at the time, for one thing, and for another, I’m actually very leery of public spankings.

Six Out Of Seven
========================

"Surveys indicate that one person in seven participates in some form of s/m sex," the poet commented. I listened to her poem, and then realized....

“Six out of seven people are vanilla?!" I whispered to Janey. "That can't be right!"

"Shhhhh, Michelle," Janey whispered. "Let people listen."

But as the poet left the stage, I had to repeat, “Six out of seven! No way!! A lot of people had to have lied."

"Michelle! Shut up!" A few heads turned our way.

"They *must* be lying," I consoled myself. I didn't think again about the statistic until we left. Every several minutes, as Janey and I sat in the café with our friends Liza and Sam, I would comment, “Six out of seven?! No way!!"

Janey rolled her eyes. "Michelle. We all heard. Be quiet."

"Nanny-nanny-boo-boo, you ca-an't make me."

"Stop being a brat and drink your coffee."

"I know you are, but what am I?"

As we waited for the train to go home, I commented again, “Six out of seven. No way!!"

"Michelle. Shut up. I mean it."

"Anybody want a peanut?" I asked, engaging in some subtle brattiness. "They had to be lying," I added.

Janey had finally had enough. "Why don't we find out?" she asked, her voice dangerous. "There are about fifty people in here. Let's see what they think."

"They wouldn't tell us!" I pointed out.

"No problem. Sam, Liza, you're both observant women. I want you to watch, and see how many people seem interested." Janey firmly grabbed my arm, and pulled me across her lap.

"Wait! Janey! What are you *doing*?!" I asked as quietly as I could, trying not to call attention to myself, draped across my girlfriend's lap.

Smack! Her hand cracked down, but over my shorts, it didn't make much noise. No one noticed. It was overalls, and she wouldn't take them off, not in public. Unfortunately, the shorts were baggy, and there was plenty of room to drag the legs up.

SMACK!! The slap reverberated through the station. SMACK!! I kept my face down, cheeks burning. SMACK!! SMACK!! Janey concentrated on the spanking. SMACK!!! I concentrated on being quiet. SMACK!!! SMACK!! After about a minute, Janey asked, "Do you two think you've got an accurate count?"

Liza smirked, "Yeah, I think we have pretty fair assessment."

Janey let go of me just as the train came. I hurried to be the first one on. The others followed me. Liza and Sam got seats halfway down the car from us. I glared out the window, and wouldn't look at Janey.

"So? What did you observe?" Janey asked the other two when we got to my house.
Liza and Sam giggled. "Janey, you won't like this, but Michelle was right. I'd say a good third of the people there were *quite* interested."

I smirked at Janey, stuck out my tongue, wiggled my hips, and said, "Ha-ha, ha-ha.
I was right, and you were wrong." And then I trotted upstairs.

Something in the Air

2006-04-21T20:21:00.000-04:00

So W. and I had a little bit of "Sunday night" last night. I had been dropping subtle hints (where "subtle" means "completely overt, but short of saying outright that I wanted to have a spanking scene"), and when we got home, I showed her this program, which is a simple thing that will calculate a punishment or determine a random scene for you. I think it's possible to edit it to reflect one's personal preferences, but we haven't gotten around to that yet.

So we chose an infraction ("snapping and swearing") and let the computer determine the specific punishment. I believe it suggested 45 smacks with the hairbrush, a dozen with the cane, and 7 minutes in the corner, nude, with hands on head. And so we went to the bedroom to play it out.

I wasn't fully in "scene mode" while we were making the bed and otherwise tidying the room, but it's amazing how quickly one gets into a submissive mind-state when one takes off one's clothes, and stands in the corner. It's not that I've never had corner-time before, because I have. And I think some of it has even included me being nude. But there was something about last night that made the headspace come all the faster.

After eight minutes in the corner (I wasn't being great at standing on both feet and keeping my face to the wall, so W. added a minute), I climbed onto the bed for my spanking.

Now, W.'s hairbrush isn't particularly heavy, and it's usually not too painful, but last night, it certainly built up some sting. Between that and her rather, um, familiar stroking, I was squirming around quite a bit by the end of the session with the hairbrush. Then it was time for the cane. She repositioned me, and gave me a dozen moderately lenient strokes.

After that we took advantage of my brain being in the right space and had some hot, delicious sex. That was quite nice, too, even if the sex left me more sore than the spanking did!

Bratty Sizzlebutt

2006-04-19T21:06:00.000-04:00

I was playing around online 'cause... well, just 'cause. And I found the ever-amusing Spanko Name Generator. My name (if the name I use is "Dyke Grrl") comes out to be "Bratty Sizzlebutt." Silly, and a great waste of time. Just thought I'd share.

Sunday Nights

2006-04-19T10:42:00.000-04:00

“Sunday night” has become a euphemism for spankings. Last fall, as we began to explore disciplinary spankings, we found it helpful to have a set time for me to account for the work I’d done the previous week. Friday nights weren’t great, because we were both tired, and also because we like to have a peaceful dinner together (or with friends). Saturdays, we often were out with friends, or otherwise busy. And weeknights, we’re often too tired or too busy for there to be time. Plus, Sunday night spankings started off the week with a clean slate, and gave me incentive to work well during the week.

For lots of reasons (aka, me spending time focused on mental health), the accounting for my work part has been put on the back burner for a while. But the spankings have continued in various forms.

I have been very grateful for the routine of it.

Sometimes, it’s a playful spanking. Several weeks ago, W. created a schoolgirl scene that was really fun. We imagined ourselves to be two girls just starting out at a boarding school. W. “convinced” me that we should do an “experiment” to find out what it would be like to get a spanking, since the school used corporal punishment. She had a variety of implements, and we discussed what the potential punishments would be for various offenses. Within our roles as new schoolgirls, we took on the roles of various figures at the school. It was very meta. Of course, W. was the really naughty one, and managed to convince me throughout the role-play that I should be the only one getting the spankings!

Sometimes, it’s a short, sexy spanking that quickly leads to other things.

And sometimes, it’s what I’d call a cathartic spanking. This Sunday, we had friends over most of the day. I walked them downstairs when they left. When I got back, W. asked if I was “ready.” Since we hadn’t specifically discussed spankings, I thought she meant “ready to go hang out in bed instead of in the living room.” I’m dense like that. Then she grabbed me by the belt and firmly directed me to the bedroom. This sent a delicious tingle through me.

We went into the bedroom, and straightened up the bed. As I was getting my side of the bed settled, W. rearranged the various items stacked at the foot of the bed. Yup, I thought, a spanking is in the works. She pulled me to face the wall, and instructed me to stay where I was. She left the room. (I get some points here, because my cell phone rang at this point, and even though I knew it was my mother calling, I didn’t pick it up.)

She came back, and praised me for having stayed in position. She arranged some implements behind me on the bed, and stroked my hair—occasionally gripping it firmly. She asked whether I was all right, and I said I was. She picked something up and… OUCH! It was the bath brush. Even through jeans (and the handkerchiefs I keep in my back pockets) that thing stings! She delivered several sharp smacks while I squirmed and wiggled. She moved my hands back up to the wall every time I reached down.

When I really squirmed, she stopped and shifted to hold my hands in position. She picked up one of the loopy toys and brought that down across my backside several times. Like the bath brush, it hurt even though my bottom was fully protected.

Then she put the toys down, and I thought we were finished. She climbed onto the bed, and told me to get over her lap. I did, and she continued the spanking. But this time, she had a goal. She held me firmly, and told me that she was holding me, that she was in control. And then she told me to “let it out.” She spanked hard and fast.

“Let it out,” she urged.

I resisted, I struggled. “I don’t want to.”

She wouldn’t let me twist away, she wouldn’t let me block out my feelings. I finally relaxed, and let the tears come. She rubbed my back and stroked me and held me. She told me how proud she was of me, she reminded me that I was (am) safe.

I hadn’t been expecting this kind of spanking. I’d had spanking on the brain for days (well, I’m re-reading the Enid Blyton books, and those are definite fodder for spanking fantasies), but I didn’t think I was telegraphing my desires so strongly. More than that, I hadn’t been more than usually edgy over the previous week, so I wasn’t feeling desperate for a cathartic spanking.

But I think W. knew more about that than I did (or at least, more than I acknowledged to myself). Because the spanking helped immensely. Even though I had ignored my need to let out some of the tears, she seemed able to read it in me. I think I’ve slept a little better in the days since then. And while I’m still coping with flashbacks and anxiety, it’s been a bit more manageable—I’m going for hours at a time without intense anxiety, and this is an amazing relief.

I’m glad that we have these “Sunday nights” with each other, no matter how they turn out. And maybe, if I’m nice, we’ll have an extra Sunday night or two during the next few days of school vacation.

That's what happens

2006-04-19T10:02:00.000-04:00

W. and I were at the warehouse store yesterday evening. A woman was near us in the aisle, and her kids were fooling around in the cart. One of them was standing up and leaning over, and she reached forward and popped him on the bottom. He said ouch!, and she commented, "That's what happens when you stick your butt out!"

We walked around the corner, and since there was no one in the aisle at that moment, I stuck my own butt out as I pushed the cart. W. gave me a smack, and said, "That's what happens when you stick your butt out!"

That smack stung more than I expected, because two days down the road, my bottom was still a little tender from our usual Sunday night spanking. (Two and a half days later, I can still feel it, actually!)

Bounded in a Nutshell

2006-04-14T11:51:00.000-04:00

I might count myself the king (queen) of infinite space, were it not for the bad dreams.

Last night, I dreamt that I woke up screaming from a nightmare. I noticed that W. hadn’t woken up, and I realized that it had just been a dream. I whimpered, and tried to wake her up, but I wasn’t really capable of talking. And then, as she wasn’t responding to that, I realized it was still a dream. I think I actually woke up at this point, because I got out of bed. I managed to get back to sleep, but kept waking up from nightmares (and not remembering the nightmares) all night long.

Last night wasn’t what I would call a “good” night.

Sometimes I feel like I’m being really ungrateful, to my psyche, or to the gods and fates that determine how well or poorly I cope. For the last week or so, I’ve managed to have sufficient self-discipline to be able to get through the days, getting a lot of stuff done so that we could have people over for a Passover Seder last night. For most of a week, I was able to make myself do things, simply because they had to be done.

On the one hand, I’m profoundly grateful for that capacity in myself. It’s how I’ve gotten through the hard times in my life: that ability to manage to get things done, and even to get them done reasonably well, regardless of whether or not I can actually handle doing them.

But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve found myself more and more often in a situation where very little absolutely has to be done, and in this state, I seem unable to force myself to do things that aren’t vitally necessary. So I kind of fall apart.

It makes me feel rather guilty, since if I am capable of forcing myself to do things when they have to be done, if I am able to suppress the panic and the flashbacks and that horrible chaotic overwhelmed feeling some of the time, why can’t I force myself to have sufficient self-discipline to do this all of the time? I have those voices at the back of my head, accusing me of just not trying hard enough, not wanting desperately enough to feel better. If I tried harder, those voices reason, I could continue to manage all of the time, and not just when there is a deadline.

Now, rationally, I know that this is unreasonable and unhealthy. Heck, rationally, I realize that this is probably why I ended up with things like fibromyalgia (the year before I had what turns out to have been my first fibro flare-up, I distinctly remember having the constant sensation that I was sucking the energy reserves out of the very marrow of my bones, in order to get done all of the things that had to be done).

I realize that self-discipline alone isn’t going to keep me from having flashbacks. I understand that it’s not even healthy to suppress them. But, damn, I really wish I could.

I am also resentful that I don’t seem to have a choice about the panic, about the memories. If I could choose, I would have more time to just get to be peaceful and happy and enjoy living my life. And I hate that it takes strict self-discipline to pull this off, because if I’m not constantly putting at least part of my mind to the task of holding off all of the negative stuff, there it is, in the middle of my brain-space, taking over everything.

I suppose I do have a choice, but I don’t seem to know how to make it. Or I don’t have the courage for it. Because I know there is a dream I don’t even remember, the one that I dreamt made me wake up screaming. And I cannot bring myself to, I do not know how to, I am terrified to face the content of that first dream.

I wish I could just let the past be the past, inert, over, done. I wish that the fact of my survival were able to give me the strength to face what I survived. (And the voices in my head sneer, “It was nothing, it wasn’t bad, why are you whining about it?”) In a more positive sense, I try to tell myself that nothing I remembered could be as bad as the struggle to not remember. But I don’t seem to be convinced.

It's like a train wreck

2006-03-30T13:33:00.000-05:00

For years, I had therapists who insisted that I would only have memories of my childhood when I was ready for them. I always figured that by “ready” they meant I would be able to cope with the memories; that I would have skills for dealing with them; that I would have a strong support network in place. I thought they meant that I could have the memories, but also live my daily life in between.

So I admit I’m feeling a little resentful. Through a combination of events, I don’t currently have a therapist. Most of my friends live in other states. I haven’t had the mental energy to keep up with my primary source of online support. My best friend has been getting increasingly volatile and difficult to talk to in the best of circumstances. So my tangible, daily support network consists of my wife. She is a wonderful, loving person. But I also realize that she’s not able to provide all of the support I need. And she really doesn’t know any more than I do about how I can cope with what’s going on.

On top of all of this, I’m getting very mad at the jerks on the Internet who feel the need to create websites about how people who forgot childhood abuse and then remember it as adults are making it all up. I was checking Google to see if there was an online version of The Courage to Heal. Most of the sites that came up were the ones debunking “false memory syndrome.” I suppose it’s my fault, for persisting in clicking on those Google links, even though I know the sites are going to be… um, wrong. And yet I click. On more than one site. On more than one day. This, from a person who generally doesn't even rubberneck at accidents when I'm driving!

The people writing these sites give me no credit whatsoever for being able to make up something that’s actually interesting. Really, now! When I was a kid, I created whole worlds! I can make up stories about things that are actually unique and original. So why would I bother to make up run of the mill physical, emotional, and sexual abuse? Why not come up with something like being kidnapped by fairies, or traveling through time?

In my more rational moments, I can laugh about it. I mean, where is the benefit to me in making up the memories? Oh, right, I really wanted to be unable to do anything I really enjoy because of the crippling panic attacks; I really couldn’t figure out how else to have nightmares every single night; I love shuddering and flinching during sex, and it’s a great way to build a healthy relationship. Yeah, that’s it.

So here I am, waiting (and waiting) for the people at the counseling center where I had my most recent intake to call me back. I would give up on them and go find a therapist on my own except for one thing. I am so emotionally drained, and having such a hard time getting myself to trust anyone right now, that I’m just not able to get the resources together to go find a different therapist. I need therapy in order to be able to advocate for myself to get good therapy. It was hard enough to manage to find the therapist who ended up dropping me after I was hospitalized. Going through the process all over again is more than I can bear.

Right now, it’s all I can do to hold myself together waiting for this stupid clinic to call me back, and talking myself into going and into talking once I get there. I suppose, in the meanwhile, it would be a good idea to stop reading the idiotic “false memory” sites, because I know if I keep reading them, I’ll manage to convince myself, once again, that I made everything up.

Long and rambling

2006-03-23T19:18:00.000-05:00

Behind the cut there is a rambling post about childhood abuse stuff and current frustrations with health professionals. It may or may not be triggering, and it’s definitely self-centered, so be aware before you read. Oh, and it’s not about spanking in any but the most general way.

When I was a kid and got hurt, or someone hit me, they would often say, “Stop crying, that didn’t hurt.” And if I didn’t stop crying, they would “give me something to cry about.” Which is to say, hit me harder, hurt me more than I was already hurting. I suppose it was intended to give me a sense of perspective.

Another way my mother would encourage me to have a sense of perspective was to say, “If people could survive Auschwitz, surely you can survive this.” I was an adult before it occurred to me to think that most people didn’t survive.

When I complained about someone saying something that hurt my feelings, they would remind me that sticks and stones can break my bones, but words could never hurt me. My family always said I was too sensitive. They say this even more now, when I object to them saying things that are categorically racist (black neighborhoods are dirty because black people are lazy; black men are in jail because they’re all criminals… and we won’t even go into their “joking” use of the n-word around me, or their delight in referring to me as a “negro” because I won the National Achievement Award for Outstanding Negro Scholars when I was in high school). Because, of course, they don’t see me as black, so they don’t mean me when they say that blacks are bad people. And if I take it personally, clearly, I’m way too sensitive.

Why do I bring this up?

Because I feel like my health care providers are doing exactly the same thing right now.

My doctor is one of those people who thinks that the problem with fibromyalgia is that the people who have it just have a low pain tolerance (and, by the way, don’t exercise enough). It doesn’t matter that I experience migraines, abscessed teeth, and broken bones as mild discomfort. Because he can’t see a testable cause for the subjectively greater pain of fibromyalgia, he has determined that the problem is a low pain threshold. These things don’t really hurt, he is essentially saying. (And then went on to comment on how if you have a headache and then bang your foot, you stop noticing the headache because of the pain in your foot. You know, why not go get something to really cry about….)

And then there are the mental health professionals I’ve been dealing with.

I was in the psych ward recently because I made myself admit to W. and one of my friends that I was feeling suicidal. I felt guilty for admitting this, since it felt manipulative to ask for help (I was nearly 15% sure that I didn’t really want to kill myself, after all). My experience in the psych ward was horrible—I had no access to any of the things that make me feel safe or comforted, but the staff there acted as though I was unreasonable to not say I felt safe there. When I commented that it felt like being in the psych ward was a punishment for asking for help, I had more than one doctor on staff tell me it wasn’t a punishment, and then sternly add, “Well, now you know what happens when you tell people you’re suicidal.” (I had managed to convince myself they hadn’t really said that, until W. mentioned one of the doctors saying it to her as well.)

The staff at the hospital misdiagnosed me (in not only my opinion, but in the opinion of everyone who knows me that I’ve talked about this with) with borderline personality disorder. They offered no help for the panic attacks and anxiety that caused me to become suicidal. The antidepressant they had me start ended up causing increased anxiety (this isn’t their fault: it’s an antidepressant that usually reduces anxiety).

And over and over, the therapists and psychiatrists I’ve seen have insisted that since my life now is good, I’ve got no real reason to be so anxious. They tell me that I have a low tolerance for distress, and that my problem is that I am unable (read that: unwilling) to just get on with living my life and choosing not to feel the emotional upsets. When I asked for something I could do to reduce anxiety and panic attacks last week, the therapist I was seeing gave me a handout for people with a low tolerance for frustration that said, among other things, that a good way to better tolerate “distress” is “With comparisons: Compare yourself to people coping the same as you or less well than you. Compare yourself to those less fortunate than you; read about disasters, others’ suffering.” Because if people could survive Auschwitz….

I recognize that these people mean well. They are probably trying to help me. But somehow, it feels like they’re doing exactly the same things my family did to help me when I was little. If my body hurts, it is because I am a wimp, and I should be distracted with “real” pain. If my feelings are hurt, I should be told that I’m too sensitive, and reminded that other people are worse off than I am. They should tell me there’s nothing to be upset about, rather than help me to cope with the things that are causing almost constant anxiety.

Rather than getting better services, more suited to my needs (which is what my old therapist said would happen if I went to the psych ward), I have been dropped by my old therapist, and shunted from one person to another. I haven’t had a therapy session that wasn’t either an intake for care, or a termination of services since February. I am likely to stay at the center I’ve been referred to now, and they told me today that I won’t be assigned to a therapist for three more weeks. On the advice of the psychiatrists, given the adverse effects of the meds, I’m not currently on any medications for anxiety or depression.

And boy oh boy, are my inner children ticked off at me. I forced myself to admit, over and over, that I was definitely physically and emotionally abused as a child, and probably sexually abused. This by itself gives me severe panic attacks after doing it, and I’ve had to do it over and over and over, without actually getting any help in coping. Instead, I’ve been informed that my life is good, I’m clearly successful and accomplished, I am in a good relationship, and I am able to be in contact with my family, so I should stop feeling so anxious and depressed. (The psychiatrist doing the intake today actually said that in pretty much those words.)

I keep taking the risk to trust people, in the hope of getting some help, and instead, they send me to someone else, telling me I should be able to manage.

It really frustrates me. And I can’t help but think, “Would I be getting more services if I were acting out?” But I’m trapped in being “good.” And because the mental health providers recognize that I’m not going to actually do anything to hurt myself or others, or anything impulsive or dangerous, they trust that they can leave me to muddle along on my own with less help than I was getting when this whole business started. And I can’t help but feel the same desperation I felt when I was a teenager, knowing I needed help dealing with all of the stuff that had gone on, and realizing that it wasn’t going to come any time soon. (Yes, rationally, three weeks isn’t very long. But emotionally, it’s about 2 ½ weeks longer than I can handle right now.)

Denial: Pondering my childhood, in five parts

2006-03-20T15:25:00.000-05:00

Denial, part 1:

My mother always insisted, “We’re not poor, we’re artists and intellectuals.” The thing is, we definitely were poor. Not working class, because working class implies that you have a job.

I have my ideas about why my mother chose to say this. She wanted us to think we were smart, to think that we could make choices in our lives. And, subconsciously, she wanted to pass on her internalized classism. She didn’t like poor people, she was ashamed of her background (rural and poor). She didn’t want us to be like the people around us—uneducated and uninterested in education. She wasn’t able to move out of poverty, and she didn’t know how, but she wanted to encourage us to use our brains and our talents.

There were some advantages to this. She didn’t encourage us to drop out of school to get jobs. She didn’t make fun of us for reading or drawing or playing instruments. She didn’t complain when I applied to colleges, and didn’t say that I shouldn’t go to a liberal arts college.

But she left us thoroughly aware that there is something shameful in being poor. And she coped with poverty through denial.

Denial, part 2:

The same thing was true of my race, although that wasn’t talked about very often. When my family acknowledges that I’m biracial or black, it’s always with the comment, “We don’t see you as black.”

Despite the fact that my skin is darker than theirs, despite my kinky hair, despite my black father… we are not supposed to notice that I am black. When I protest racist comments they make, I am reminded that they don’t see me as black. They are surprised when I mention experiencing racial profiling, I suppose because they expect the rest of the world to go along with their belief that I’m not “really” black.

In fact, the only time they bring up my race on their own is to explain that they could have gone to college or grad school, too, if only they had been able to take advantage of affirmative action. Because, of course, no one else in our family had the advantage of having black genes, so they couldn’t get all of the scholarships I got just for being black.

It doesn’t matter that the scholarships and grants I received were primarily need-based aid, which any of them could have gotten. And it also doesn’t matter that what fellowships I received were highly competitive, and not many other people received them, regardless of race. The fact that I had very good grades all through school, and that I scored well on standardized tests, and that I worked my butt off through high school and college and grad school… these things don’t count, and the only reason I have gotten where I am is because of affirmative action.

I am constantly reminded that my siblings are all really smart (they are, don’t get me wrong), and their failure in school was because they didn’t do well with the structure (this may be true as well). They are the ones who are talented (they are), and I’m just “good at school.”

Denial, part 3:

Strangely enough, my mother also denies that we were abused as kids. She will admit that we were hit, but she doesn’t consider it abuse.

I will grant this much. I don’t think anyone had bones broken. We weren’t starved. We weren’t burned often, and burns were generally on the lines of collateral damage.

But we regularly ended up with welts and bruises. We were hit with hands, with belts, with switches, with whatever happened to be handy when someone in charge got angry. We were yelled at, belittled, demeaned. And even though some of the apparent neglect was because, despite her best efforts, my mother couldn’t afford to meet all of our needs… some of the neglect was because she chose not to respond to our needs or to admit that we needed to have attention and care, and that we weren’t mature enough to carry the burdens she laid on us.

Denial, part 4:

Why, then, would it surprise me that no one in our family would even hint that at least we girls were sexually abused?

I struggle with my own disbelief. I can intellectualize it: I know that I, and each of my three sisters have between us virtually all of the signs of having been sexually abused as children. I know that when I first had consensual sex, it caused almost intolerable panic attacks (because consensual sex requires you to actually be in your body during sex, which is terrifying). And I can realize that there’s really no benefit whatsoever to me in making up a history of abuse.

But even in my own mind, I find it nearly impossible to actually believe that I was sexually abused. I dismiss the visual aspects of my panic attacks, assuming that it’s marginally possible that I’m making things up or misinterpreting what I see. I ignore the content of the “nightmares” I have when I need to relax my mind enough to fall asleep, because I have no evidence that they are memories rather than products of my imagination.

Denial, part 5:

When I say something to someone that indicates I was abused, I feel almost intolerably guilty. I am assaulted with voices in the back of my head that shout that I am a liar, that it isn’t true, that I am being manipulative. Despite the fact that I know I’m a rotten liar, I feel every moment that I am deceiving people when I talk about abuse.

I am baffled by the way that my mind tries to bury any evidence of abuse, and to minimize the things I remember. Intellectually, I know that it makes sense. This is a defense mechanism. I kept myself as safe and as whole as possible when I was a child by blocking out things that no child should have to cope with. Even though I know how much these defenses are hurting me now, it is so hard to let them go.

Because it does feel safer not to remember.

I can feel the rage and terror welling up behind those walls. I thought I had come to a degree of acceptance, to an ability to connect with my family on my own terms. And I’m so afraid of losing what little love they give me, if I were to admit even to myself that they hurt me over and over again when I was small. To admit that they probably recognize that the things they say to me now can only work to erode any confidence and pride I feel in my accomplishments.

I don’t want to be angry, I don’t want to feel the fear. And yet, I’m getting to a point when I can no longer tolerate the weight of my defenses.

Just a quick update

2006-03-12T20:56:00.000-05:00

There hasn’t been much spanking going on in our house lately. I wish I could say that it were because I haven’t needed it, or even that we’ve been too busy, and had guests too often.

Unfortunately, the problem is more complicated than that. I have needed spankings. But the window of opportunity is slim, because I’ve been having panic attacks almost constantly for the last month or two. I was having them pretty often before that, as well.

Part of me knows what’s going on. My brain has decided, in the absence of any input from me, that it’s time for me to start processing through stuff that I would rather keep buried in the back of my head. Actually, my goal is to drop it into some mental bottomless pit, and never hear from it again.

I approach the problem intellectually and logically. At least, that’s my goal. There are two rational explanations for what’s going on.

Explanation one is that I have a serious mental illness, one that keeps me from being able to trust people, that makes me uncomfortable with touch, that keeps me constantly on guard against making mistakes of any kind, that gives me nightmares. And that I have had this mental illness since infancy.

Explanation two is that I was abused starting when I was an infant and small child, causing me to have all of the problems listed above.

Most people who know me say that explanation two makes more sense.

But there is that constant voice in the back of my head that insists nothing bad ever happened, and that I’m just making things up. The voice in the back of my head isn’t able to give me a good reason for why I would want to make things up, but it still insists that it’s true. It warns me that no one will believe me, and that no one likes someone who tells lies, and so if I talk about things that might have happened, or even if I admit them to myself, then no one will love me ever again.

Intellectually, I know this isn’t true. Unfortunately, these problems go on at the emotional level, and there is no reasoning with my emotional side. It points out that blanking out anything bad has kept me safe all of my life, and it’s got no intention of letting me talk right now.

Or maybe it does, because I assume that the panic attacks stem from my emotional side, and if those aren’t a demand to remember things, I don’t know what is.

My intellectual side, the side that I understand, the side I can control, spends hours every day trying to puzzle things out. Trying to figure out what really happened, what could have been so bad. And the scary part is, even with the things I know for sure happened, that I do remember, or that family members have talked about, things were pretty darned bad. So there’s another part of me that is afraid to remember.

Because if the things I know for sure happened are as bad as they are, there is no way I want to remember the things I managed to block out.

So there have been panic attacks, and while there have been a couple of spankings, it’s been difficult, because it’s been hard to get into the right head space.

Tonight

2006-01-30T00:16:00.000-05:00

Tonight, she gave me exactly what I needed, and it took hardly any time at all.

Honestly, I didn’t think I needed much of a spanking. If she hadn’t been in the mood, or if she had been tired, it really would have been all right. And, a little bit, I was more interested in a bit of down-time, a bit of alone-time than I was in a spanking. But at a quarter to nine, she came into my study to make sure I knew it would soon be time. Fifteen minutes later, she told me firmly to come into the bedroom, because it was time.

We’ve processed a lot, in the last month or so, about what it is I need from a spanking, how they can actually meet my needs. And we’ve had trouble with communicating; I hadn’t been doing a very good job of describing what I needed, and W. was spending a whole lot of energy doing things that weren’t actually meeting my needs. I am sure she was quite frustrated, after giving me hour-long spankings, to find me feeling exactly as needy and cranky as I was before she started. Not a good use of our limited energy.

But tonight, it was exactly what I needed. I came into the bedroom, and she told me to get the loopy toy. I dug it out of the cupboard, and began to climb onto the bed. Instead, she told me to walk around to her side of the bed. Then she told me to turn around.

It had been a casual sort of day, and I pretty much assumed (note the vanity) that she just wanted to admire my backside before beginning. Instead, she guided me, gently but firmly, until I was directly in front of the wall. She lifted my shirt and fastened it up, and then pulled down my underwear, so I was standing with my bottom bare, facing the wall.

Immediately, I slipped into the submissive state I hadn’t realized I was needing. I felt safe, I felt controlled. I felt the tension of anticipation combined with the relaxation of not being in control. She stroked my back, stood against me, made it clear that she was there, held me very much in the present.

After a few minutes (or seconds) of waiting, CRACK! Something smacked against my bottom. Facing the wall and standing on my feet, I found that I couldn’t twist away. She smacked my bottom again, and then again. The pain was intense, and my hands went back to cover my bottom. She removed them, put them back on the wall by my head.

After several more smacks with what turned out to be the bath brush, she picked up the loopy toy instead. That slashed against my bottom several times, and then I thought it was over. But she reminded me that not quite enough spanking is as ineffective as no spanking at all.

She said she was going to give me five more strokes. Unless I tried to squirm away. Each time I squirmed, I would get two more. I got at least a dozen strokes before I managed to take five in a row without stamping and twisting.

Afterwards, we checked in. In part, I needed to express that she had given me exactly the right thing.

But W. really needed to check in, to make sure that I really do need this, that she isn’t doing something wrong by spanking me. And we talked for two hours about that, and about what it means that there is another person in this equation.

I still have a hard time reckoning with that—that these spankings that meet my needs come from an actual person, who has her own responses to what is happening.

I don’t claim to understand all of how she thinks and feels about this.

I know she is uneasy with the notion that she is taking the bath brush or a loopy toy or whatever to her wife in a non-playful, non-sexual way.

I know there’s at least a part of her that wonders whether what she is doing, what we are doing, is wrong, bad, unhealthy. And I suspect that she would not be disappointed if this need went away, or if I found different ways of meeting it.

And boy oh boy is that hard for me to grapple with. Because, of course, I feel hurt, angry, rejected when she says something that makes it seem like my need for disciplinary spankings is unhealthy, is something that would just go away with sufficient therapy.

For me, for the most part, when I can get past all of the built-in aversion to admitting that I need someone else to take over part of my life, when I can acknowledge that part of me, it’s more like acknowledging that I’m a dyke, or that I’m left-handed. Which is to say, it feels like a natural, normal part of myself. And telling me that therapy would “cure” me of this is like saying that therapy would “cure” me of my perverse need to identify as biracial, so that I would fit into boxes that other people were more comfortable with.

However, I can acknowledge that, unlike in my pre-relationship imaginings about what a spanking relationship would be like, there is an actual person doing the spanking, and that she’s going to have feelings about what it means to hold that power, to be in control in those ways. The problem is, I really don’t know what to say to her, and I don’t (quite) believe that the most healthy response is for me to just marshal all of my evidence that will convince her that this is exactly the right thing to do.

Not that my feelings of justice go so far as to stop me from doing this at least a little bit, but it doesn’t seem like the best approach. Because, obviously, I’m going to tell her that it’s right, whether it “really” or “objectively” is or not. Because, you know, it works for me. But probably if I were deeply committed to, say, being an alcoholic, I would also be marshalling all of my arguments for why that was the right thing to be doing. And given my own difficulties with insight, I’m not really sure what to tell her.

Except, of course, what I did tell her tonight. Which was that I appreciated the effort to think about the scenario; that the emotional effect for me was kind of like if she had brought me flowers—unexpected, lovely, and quite appreciated.

Better Not Pout

2005-12-28T10:15:00.000-05:00

W. yanked open the door to the guest room and snapped, “Get into the bedroom!”

I looked at her blankly.

I had been stressed and tired, and by the end of the week, it had spiraled into a sharp bout of depression. Everything was going wrong. Christmas was going to be horrible, I was sure. Chanukah would be even worse. I didn’t have the energy to do anything, nothing I tried to do was working, and the house was a wreck. W. asked Friday afternoon if there was anything she could do to help me feel better.

I asked her to cancel with her mother for Christmas Eve and Day, because I wasn’t feeling up to it. This is more reasonable than it might seem on the face of it, since they’re Jewish, and Christmas isn’t really their holiday. Or so I told myself. And if Christmas is my holiday, and it wasn’t going to be good, then I didn’t want to bother.

To make it all worse, W. seemed to be mad at me, and she went off with her friends on Friday night, leaving me home alone. It was a sign, of course. She was angry, she didn’t really love me. The usual litany.

So logically enough, I went to hide in the guest room. I felt crummy, and all I really wanted was for W. to come in and make everything better. And instead, the first thing she asked when she saw Saturday morning was if I would do her a favor and stay out of the bedroom for about an hour. “Ah!” said my brain, “She really doesn’t care about how horrible I’m feeling.” And so on.

In my depressed state, the best way I could think to be open to conversation was to walk into whichever room she was in for long enough to get something (say, a book), in the hope that she would ask me to stay and talk. You know, giving her a 30 second chance; really helpful.

By late afternoon, I was feeling incredibly frustrated. She didn’t seem to be responding to my overtures. I couldn’t convey that I was angry and hurting. So I did one of the more stupid and petty things I have ever done. I gathered all of her stocking presents from my sock drawer, and dropped them in the kitchen, where she was baking cookies. “I didn’t feel like having Christmas, but here are your stocking presents,” I blurted, and went back into the bedroom. She just looked at me and sighed, and let me go off by myself.

Somehow, I had decided she wasn’t going to respond to me at all. So I stared at her, blank and numb, when she told me to get into the bedroom. “Now!” she snapped.

I followed her into the bedroom, trying to figure out her plans. Usually, when I’m depressed, she is incredibly gentle with me, and it drives me utterly insane. Usually she coaxes me to talk, and I struggle to do so, and we spend hours on it. But not that evening. She was sitting on the bed. The bathbrush, the blue flogger, the loopy thing, a belt, and some other toys were beside her.

I just stared. Was she really planning on spanking me? It was so out of character. I didn’t want a spanking. I wanted to be held and comforted, even though I knew I wouldn’t be able to accept the comforting. W. had other plans.

“Come on, you know what to do.” But I just stood there.

“You know you need it.” Slowly, reluctantly, I climbed onto the bed. The depression still had hold of me, and I couldn’t force words out, couldn’t tell her that I didn’t want the spanking, couldn’t tell her why I was so unhappy. Honestly, I really didn’t know the answer myself.

When I had pulled down my pants, I nuzzled my head into her lap, trying to convey my need for comfort, my preference for cuddling over a spanking.

She rubbed my back for a few minutes, then arranged me for the spanking. She gave me a short warm up with the blue flogger, and then started the spanking in earnest. The strokes came hard and fast.

“Let it out,” she whispered. But the last thing I wanted to do was cry. My eyes were sore and my head ached because I had been sobbing off and on all day. She switched to the belt. “Come on, sweetie, let it out.” Her left arm held me tightly against her lap. I couldn’t let go.

She held me more firmly and switched to the bristle side of the bath brush. It hurts just as much as the flat side, but is far quieter. I tried to pull away, but she was holding me too tightly. My right hand went back to cover my bottom, but she put it back in front of me. There was no escaping.

She paused, rubbed my back, stroked my hair. And then she picked up the loopy thing. My bottom lit on fire, and I couldn’t escape. Finally, I relaxed, and let out some of the tension and frustration. She continued for what felt like a long time, but can’t have been more than a few minutes.

It was all over in less than fifteen minutes. Afterward, she held me, and I explained how I had been hurting and frustrated and overwhelmed, how I had felt like Christmas wouldn’t be nice, how I was discouraged and pre-emptively disappointed. I also explained my dismay at one of the gifts I had received that seemed to be a joint gift from W. and one of our friends. I had felt guilty at not wanting it, at the prospective expense to the people who had given it. And I had felt resentful at getting something that was both expensive and not something I wanted or could really use. W. explained that she hadn’t actually paid anything for the present yet, and we discussed how I could manage to avoid having the friend spend the money without giving offense.

The tension drained out of me. I was able to apologize for my rather snotty behavior. I gave W. the chance to explain that when she left me (sobbing over broken cookies) on Friday, she had been going out to finish her shopping for my presents. She had only been going away because she wanted to do things for me.

It was amazing—fifteen minutes of spanking, five minutes of talking, and I felt better. My eyes and head still ached from crying, but the depression was gone. I wasn’t so angry, I wasn’t so despairing, and I was ready to make a pleasant Christmas celebration. So we went to get the last supplies for the presents I was making, and drove around to look at Christmas lights, and came home to have a mellow and pleasant evening, just the two of us together.

And a note to myself in the future: if broken cookies make me break down sobbing, odds are I have PMS, even if I don’t think I do.

Story: Cheaters Never Prosper

2005-12-04T21:20:00.000-05:00

I wrote this story several years ago, as a break from grading student papers. It's another of the "Janey and Michelle" stories. Hope you enjoy!

Cheaters Never Prosper
======================

I stared at the paper. What was I supposed to do? Clearly, large chunks of it had been plagiarized. But I couldn't bear to face the facts. I put the paper down, and went back to checking my email. Maybe I could come up with a solution if I didn't think about it too hard.

"Hey, Michelle." Janey stuck her head in my study door. I looked up guiltily from the email. "All done with grading?"

"Well, no. I just needed a break."

"What's up? You said you were determined to get it finished with by tonight." Janey sounded peeved, but also concerned.

"Well...." I couldn't quite explain myself. Janey walked over and leaned on the desk.

"How many more?"

"About five. See, I got to this one right after I took my lunch break, and I haven't been able to read another one since. It just really bothers me."

"That bad, hunh? Or maybe it's so good, and you're dying of jealousy...."

"No. It's that it seems mostly lifted off the Web. And I can't decide what to do."

"Can't decide?! That's called plagiarism. The kid flunks."

"Well, but I called her, and she said she didn't mean to...."

"Didn't mean to... get caught," Janey snorted. Then she looked at me. "Wait! You're considering not flunking her?!"

"Well, I mean, it's a lot of pressure, and she might not have realized...." my words faltered off at the furious, disgusted look on Janey's face. "What?"

"It's people like you who allow cheating to go on. This kid was cheating, Michelle. It's not something you should let your students get away with."

"Well, I was going to have her write a new paper, and I'd drop the grade by two points."

"No. That's not acceptable. She cheated. She can't have the equivalent of an extension. Because I know perfectly well that students' grades get dropped by that much, if they were just two weeks late. You're going too easy on her."

"But Janey, I don't want her to hate me. If I flunk her, she'll hate me."

"And what about those other students? Is it really fair to them, if you let her get away with this? I know that most of them handed in rough drafts, and busted their butts to do well on this paper. I saw some of the kids in your class in the library until midnight last week. How about this one? She pops online, gets a few different sources, and thinks that will count? And now you're going to let her have a second chance? I don't think so."

"Well, if you put it like that.... But what if she is mean to me?"

"So what. Okay, let's go upstairs."

"What? I still need to do these papers."

"It's Wednesday, and you don't have to turn in grades until Monday. You're fine. Come upstairs. We need to have a.... talk."

My eyes bulged. We don't normally "play" on weeknights. Although, it wasn't a school night anymore. And it was earlier than usual, too. I logged off the computer and followed her upstairs. She motioned me ahead of her into my bedroom, and then shut the door firmly behind her.

"Now, we've got to talk about this whole cheating thing."

"What?! I didn't cheat!"

"But you were all set to think of a way to let someone else cheat. And that 's really worse, because you're in a position of authority. Look, Michelle, I know you feel guilty about flunking the student. So I'm going to let you have the punishment you want for doing it, and then you can do what you need to do in clear conscience."

"Okay." I still wasn't quite sure about it, but I was starting to feel less tense.

"Now, you know that cheating is wrong?" Janey took on her "teacher" persona, so I followed suit.

"Y-yes, ma'am." I hung my head, stared at my toes.

"And you know that cheating needs to be punished?" I nodded. "What was that?" she asked, sharply, "I didn't hear you."

"Yes, ma'am, it needs to be punished, but..."

"But nothing. This is a serious offense. You'll get a firm handspanking over your..." Janey broke character. "Hey, have you ever considered a school uniform?"

"No! Absolutely not!"

"Okay," Janey sighed, and got back into character. "A firm handspanking over your pants. Then we'll pull down the pants, and it will be the ruler over your underpants. And then those will come down, and you'll get the strap on your bare bottom." I nodded, back in character myself. "Okay, assume the position." I leaned over the edge of the bed. Janey didn't walk over.

"What now?" I asked.

"Let's go downstairs. I've got a good idea for how this can play out."

"Where downstairs?" I asked, suspiciously.

"Your study. It'll be nice and private. Besides, it's what I have in mind. You wait up here for five minutes, and then come on down."

"Geeze, Janey, get me all set up, and then call it off? This isn't funny."

"Just you wait, Missy, this is going to be better this way."
I sat down on the bed. Four minutes later, I went downstairs, and jotted a note to the housemates on the white board: Playing in study, all is well, don't interrupt, -Michelle.

I opened the study door slowly, to find that Janey had tidied things away enough to give a semblance of order near the desk. She had twisted her hair up in a severe bun, and had found some bizarre reading glasses. It took me a few seconds to catch on that she meant to make this like a principal's office. Or, knowing Janey, like a headmistress's office.

"Well, young lady," she said sternly, and picked up a piece of paper from the desk. "This says that you were caught helping another student cheat."
All of a sudden, I started to get into the scene, and felt both nervous and aroused. "I wasn't really going to help her, ma'am," I protested.

"But you didn't stop her. This is a serious offense, don't you think?"

"Y-yes, ma'am."

"The official policy requires suspension."

"But, but, I can't be suspended." My voice cracked just like there were a real danger.

"Okay. But you need to find out how serious this is. I think that corporal punishment would be in order."

I hung my head. "I've never been spanked. What will happen?"

Janey snorted, as herself, but quickly became the headmistress again. "You will lean over the desk. I will spank you firmly with the paddle until I feel like your bottom is warm enough. Then you will pull down your pants, and get a thorough spanking over your underpants, with the ruler. Then, just to make sure you're never going to allow this to happen again, you will get an even more thorough spanking with a strap, on your bare bottom. Do you understand?"

"Y-y-y-yes, ma'am. And I won't be suspended?"

"Not if you take your punishment well. Lean over the desk."

I walked over, wondering what she meant by "the paddle." Then I realized that she'd made a detour into the kitchen on her way to the study, and had a particular wooden spatula she's had her eye on since we last went to the kitchen store. It came in the package of wooden spoons, and, so far as I could figure out, was good for little but spanking. But I'd insisted that she buy her own spanking implements, and left the spatula in the utensil drawer. Clearly, Janey was getting bold.

Janey smacked my bottom with it repeatedly. It didn't do much, because it was too light, so she gave up on that pretty quickly. I had a suspicion she 'd use it the next time we started out playing in the kitchen, and I had nothing on but a bathrobe, though. Well, presuming the curtains were drawn, and my housemates were out! Hopefully..

"That's enough of that. Take down your pants."

I complied. SMACK!! The ruler crashed down on my bottom. We played with the ruler often enough that both of us were familiar with its impact. SMACK!!! Janey was making up for the failure of the paddle. My bottom started to get warmed up. "What happens to cheaters, miss?"

SMACK!! SMACK!! SMACKK!!! "Well?" Janey panted.

"They get punished," I responded. She gave five more smacks with the ruler, then put it down on the desk.

"Let that be a lesson. Pull down your underpants."

I found myself getting very much in character. I held on to my underpants, and started to beg. "Please, ma'am, I'm sorry. I've learned my lesson. I promise. Please, don't spank me. Please. I'll be good. I promise."

"Begging won't get you out of this. Pull down your underpants, or I'll give you five more with the ruler, and we'll try again."

I pulled down my underpants. Janey stood to my side, and doubled the strap that usually serves as the shoulder strap on her satchel. I knew from experience that it hurt, but it wasn't unbearable. The leather thudded into my bare bottom. I wiggled, but Janey wasn't even bothering to lecture. She balanced one hand firmly in the center of my back and continued spanking me.

She put down the strap, and said, "Pull up your pants. I want you to go sit on that chair while I write a note for your parent or guardian to sign when you get home." I looked at her, trying to figure out what she was up to. I sat gingerly on the chair she'd indicated.

She handed me the note, and whispered, "Kitchen, in about a minute."

I sat and counted out the minute. When I went into the kitchen, Janey had changed her hair back closer to its usual style, and was mucking about with dishes. "Hi," I said, trying to figure out what was going on.

"Hi, sweetie. How was school?"

I blushed. "Well...." She raised an eyebrow. I handed her the note.

She read it. "Oh. I see. Go upstairs to your room."

I turned to go up, and she was right behind me.

"What have I told you about school?" she asked, sounding play-furious.

"Um, to be a good student?" I guessed.

"I have told you, over and over, that if you ever get punished at school, you can expect more of the same as soon as you get home. I guess you'd forgotten all about that, hadn't you, Michelle?"

"Well, no, but..."

"No buts about it." Janey sat down on the chair I usually use to pile my clothes on. She patted her lap. I went to lay across it. "Bare bottom," she snapped. I stood again, and pulled down my pants and underwear. Or I started to. All of a sudden, I was a little reluctant to get yet another smacking. "NOW!" she snapped.
I decided I didn't want to use my safe word, and pulled them down. "You may as well take them all the way off." I complied, and lay down over her lap. Janey began to smack my bottom. Her hand got harder and harder. I started to squirm. "Hold still!" I tried. The smacking went on. I wiggled. "Okay, you're nice and warm. Go get the hairbrush."

My stomach clenched. My bottom was burning already. She glared at me. I walked over to the nightstand. I walked back with the heavy, solid hairbrush. Then I stood in front of her. "Please, I'm really sorry. I really am. Please, don't spank me!"

"You should have thought of that sooner. Lean over. If you weren't smart enough to not stop cheating, well, I guess I'll have to teach you." She began to whack my bottom with the hairbrush. It really started to hurt.

"Cheating is serious. You need a serious punishment to teach you to never do it again," she said, and "Now I'll give you five more hard ones, just to remind you."
It wasn't the hardest she'd ever spanked me, but it did hurt a lot. She let me up. I stood in front of her, pants on the floor, bottom burning. "Okay," she said calmly, "Now, I want you to go downstairs and email that student. Let her know that she's failing." I couldn't tell whether this was Janey, or my "mother" speaking. I looked at her quizically.

"Look, Michelle, the sooner you do it, the better. I'll wait for you up here." I reached for my pants. "Don't bother with those. Just put on your robe. I'm sure you'll want the kind of comfort only your girlfriend can give you when you're done," she smirked.

I slipped on my bathrobe and went down to write the email. It was still uncomfortable. I sympathized with the student. I wondered how she'd cope with the failing grade. I wished I didn't have to do it. But then, I remembered Janey's comment about the other students. It certainly wasn't fair to them for this one student to get away with cheating. I sent her a firm email, including the number of lines in the first couple of pages that I'd easily found online. More than two thirds. I started to get ticked off. I hit send. Then I went back upstairs.

"You did it?" Janey asked lazily, sprawled across my bed.

"Yeah. Thanks. I guess I just needed a reminder."

"Uhm-hm. Take off that robe." I complied. "Turn around." She had that girlfriend-commanding tone in her voice. I complied. "Oooh. You're going to have a few little bruises. I hope you don't mind."

"Well, gosh, Janey, now is a great time to ask, isn't it? No, I don't mind." Amazingly, I no longer felt the slightest bit guilty about having to fail the student. So I curled up in bed, to get the kind of comfort any good girl deserves when she's had to do something hard.

Story: Collective Bargaining

2005-12-03T23:08:00.000-05:00

I was inspired to post this story because Pink of Pink Bottomed Girls requested some ideas. I wrote this story several years ago, and posted it to the SSS newsgroup. It's fiction--sorry to those of you who might want to transfer!

Collective Bargaining
or, A Voice in the University Community
====================

The latest membership meeting of the incipient graduate students’ union was nearly finished, when Marjorie stood up. “Okay, everybody, it seems like we’ve got a credibility problem. We’re telling the university that we need a union because it will enhance our status as professionals. The problem is, apparently, a lot of you have incompletes. If we’re not getting our work done, then how can we convince people we’re professionals?”

The room erupted in irritated whispering. Marjorie continued, “I know, I know, everyone’s got a very good reason for all of their incompletes. But the fact remains: we’re acting like kids, and waiting for someone to make us get our work in. The administration is never going to take us seriously if we can’t even manage our time well enough to do our own work!”

The buzz continued, as people thought about this, and continued to voice their excuses.

“So, what should we do about it? We shouldn’t expect the faculty to nag us to get things finished on time. So, I’ve got a proposal: the union should have a discipline committee. And the discipline should be…” she paused, and then went on, “I think the punishment should be a sound paddling, and then five strokes of the cane for every incomplete. It would certainly inspire us to get our work done, but it wouldn’t cost us any money.”

The air in the room electrified. Eyes widened, and graduate students looked around the room. A hand went up in the back. “Ummm, who would administer the discipline?”

“I think there should be four members of the committee, freely elected by the membership of the union. If someone has an incomplete, the committee member of their choice could administer the discipline after the next meeting.”

People considered the suggestion. I wasn’t sure what I thought. On the one hand, I thought, it would encourage people to get their work finished. On the other hand, I had three incompletes, and I certainly didn’t want a paddling or a caning. But, after discussion, we decided it was the best move. Most people thought it would provide us with incentive to finish our work, and any incentive seemed like a good idea. The graduate students voted overwhelmingly in favor of Marjorie’s idea.

Just as everyone began to stand up, a guy in the front row raised his hand. “Marjorie, since this was your idea, I think you should be the first to go.”

Marjorie blushed. “But, um, I thought we agreed there would be a grace period until the meeting next month. And, well, we don’t have a discipline committee set up yet.”

But the woman sitting next to him said, “I think you should go first, just so people can get an idea of the consequences for not getting their work done.”

Marjorie stalled, but she finally acquiesced. The meeting officially ended, and we agreed to take a break while Marjorie selected someone to give her the punishment, and while the guy in the front row went to his car to get a cane and paddle he “just happened” to have in the trunk.

Very few people moved from their seats. Five minutes later, when everyone was back in the room, and the pamphlets and empty coffee cups had been moved off the table in the front of the room, Marjorie and another woman stood at the front of the room.

“Ummm, this is Helen,” Marjorie offered, and then stared very firmly at her feet.

“Hello.” Helen spoke calmly, with great assurance. “I think this will help to set the tone for the rest of you. Depending on how this works out, I may decide to run for the discipline committee.” She smiled at us, and added, “I haven’t had a single incomplete since coming here, and I’m well on my way to finishing my dissertation. I am very much in favor of discipline.” She motioned to Marjorie, and Marjorie leaned across the table.

I was in an excellent position, in the front row, well over to the side. I could see both Marjorie’s red face and her bottom, in profile.

Helen placed the paddle and cane on the table. She pulled Marjorie’s pants and underpants to her knees. “In my experience, discipline is most effective when applied directly to the skin.” She lifted the paddle, and (to my great relief) she stood on Marjorie’s other side. I watched people on that side of the room shifting into the few empty seats, and even standing up, for a better view.

SMACK!! I think everyone in the room gasped. Helen caught my eye, and I shivered. The paddling continued. Even though I could see her bottom turning bright red, Marjorie took the paddling well. She only squirmed a little bit. Helen continued the paddling, and Marjorie began to grunt and sniffle.

No one else in the room moved as we watched. I know I wasn’t the only person planning on a more rigorous work schedule. Finally, Helen put the paddle back on the table.

“Marjorie let me know she’s got two incompletes,” Helen announced, “so she will be getting ten strokes.” If it’s possible, the room became even more still.

Helen held the cane, and flexed it. She turned slightly towards the audience, and waved it briskly in the air. I flinched as I heard it whistle. Helen turned back to her task, catching my eye again. I felt an unpleasant electric shock in my chest. Somehow, I suspected Helen would easily win a position on the discipline committee.

Without warning, the cane lashed through the air, and landed on Marjorie’s bottom. “OWWWwww.” The next four strokes came almost without warning. Marjorie’s knuckles turned white, grasping the far end of the table, and she cried out with each stroke.

“Oh, no more, I’m sorry, I’ll get it in, I promise, I promise.” Marjorie’s voice was barely more than a whisper, but I could hear her desperation. Helen ended the respite, and the cane was a blur as she delivered the next five strokes. Marjorie didn’t cry during this set. Instead, she desperately repeated, “Nomorenomorenomore,” almost as a mantra.

And then it was over. Helen lay the cane on the table, rearranged Marjorie’s clothes, and then led her gently towards the bathroom, shutting the door behind them.

The rest of us regarded each other nervously. I know I wasn’t the only one squirming. But, gradually, we returned to normal. Except, instead of our usual post-meeting drinks, most of us either went to the library or home to our computers. And I don’t think we were checking email….

Name That "Toy"

2005-10-18T20:41:00.000-04:00

Miracle of miracles, our digital camera decided to start working again, for reasons I cannot discern. So I finally got a chance to take a few pictures, among them some of the so-called “loopy toy.”
Here is the item in question:

I made this because I was reading a description of something similar for sale, and said to myself, “I can make this with under $2 worth of supplies, in under half an hour.” And so I did, although it was closer to 45 minutes if you include the time it took me to go to the 99¢ store.

When I remember to buy duct tape, I’ll post illustrated instructions on how to make it, but basically, you make loops of cord (such as is used to connect speakers to a stereo) and secure them with layers of duct tape. If you’re feeling all creative, you can pad the handle created by the duct tape with some cotton fabric.

W. has dubbed it “the loopy toy.” But calling this a toy is, to me, a misnomer (a word which here means “utterly misleading name for something that makes my butt HURT!!”). It is possible, marginally, to use this in a way that doesn’t create instant, stinging, uncomfortable pain; it’s even possible to give fairly hard strokes that don’t leave welts that sting for several days afterward. But mostly, when used with any force, I feel it for days.

My challenge, should you choose to accept it: come up with another name for this. You can, if you like, make one yourself and experiment with it. I just want to call it something other than “loopy toy,” a name that makes me think of pool noodles and Saturday morning cartoons and friendly, fuzzy things. Which this is not.

Story: Caught

2005-10-14T18:16:00.000-04:00

It's dreary and raining, like it's been all week. I'm going to console myself by posting the very first Janey and Michelle story I wrote. I particularly like the deus ex machina whereby they found out about each others' kink.

Caught
=========================

"Michelle, I have a confession to make." I looked up from the book I was reading. Janey looked... different. Not really nervous. But not like herself. Then she added, "Or, perhaps, you have a confession to make."

I raised my eyebrows in a question. She didn't add anything. "I don't know what you mean," I said, puzzled.

"I was using your computer while you were at class, to type up that grant proposal," she said. My heart paused for a second, but then I thought, 'no, she wouldn't look through my private documents....'

Then she continued. "I had saved the document to your hard drive, just using my name, because I didn't have a disk with me. But when I came back from lunch, I couldn't remember which folder I put it into, so I just did a search for files titled with my name, so I wouldn't have to dig through your private stuff." I started to blush uncomfortably. "Imagine my surprise," she said, "When I discovered that there are about a dozen files under my name. And I only saved one."

She hadn't! She couldn't! I looked at her face. She had....

"You didn't...?" My voice caught.

"Oh, I read them. The first one was a bit of a mistake. I thought it was the letter, so I opened it. But then, um, the story caught my attention." My mouth was dry. I just stared at her. She added, somewhat wryly, "I think we need to talk." I continued to stare.

"Well, are you going to tell me about the stories?"

"Ummm...." My mouth was still very dry. I swallowed. "I just wrote them, you know, to see if I could."

She raised an eyebrow. "They were very specific. And quite graphic. Try again."

I stalled. "What did you think about them?"

"We'll talk about that later. Tell me why you wrote them." Her voice was firm. I hadn't heard her like this before. Although I was desperately embarrassed, I was also getting a little bit turned on. Even if this was going to be the end of our relationship, there was a kind of a thrill in getting caught.

"Well, um, I kind of have these fantasies," I said, and paused.

"Yes, you clearly do," was all she offered.

"And, well, I just wanted to, um, imagine what it would be like, if you..."

"If I?"

"If you and I did those kinds of things together." I licked my bottom lip nervously. Now she'd say I was weird and perverted, and that would be the end.

But she folded her arms across her chest, and frowned at me. Not in a distant way. "Don't you think you should get my permission before writing things like that about me? Or perhaps you thought I'd never find out."

"Well, I didn't think you'd ever find them," I admitted.

"But now I have." The look she gave me left me half-turned on, and half-terrified. Maybe she had fantasies like this. Maybe she'd act them out with me. Oh, shit.

"So, what did you think?" My voice cracked a little, but there, I'd asked the question.

She smiled at me. Relief flooded through me. I like our relationship, and I'd rather not lose it. "I liked them. A lot. I think we should talk."

"About what?" I asked innocently.

"About doing something to make it more than a fantasy," she said calmly. I swallowed. "You've never done this except for fooling around at parties, have you?" I shook my head no. "Neither have I. I guess we're all talk and no action. But if the stories you wrote really reflect what you like, I think we’ll do just fine together."

"So you'd spank me?" I asked, nervously. There. I'd said it.

"Oh, yes. I think I'd like that. And I'd do the other things, too." I blanched. Some of those fantasies were a little more heavy than I really thought I could handle.

"There's no one in the house right now," she said, calmly. "Perhaps I should give you a little taste of what we're talking about. Besides, I'm a little ticked off that you'd write stories like that about me, and keep them on your hard drive, where anyone could find them." My heart began to thump. She sat down on the ottoman, and patted her thighs. "Come here."

I got up from the armchair and took the three steps to the ottoman. I stood in front of her. "Well?" she asked, and patted her thighs again.

I awkwardly knelt on the floor beside her, and then she helped me to position myself across her lap. I could hardly believe this was happening. She rubbed my butt gently for several seconds. Then, I felt one of her hands leave, and she brought it down--neither hard nor soft--on my bottom. I let out a little squeak of surprise.

She paused. "Is this okay? Just say stop, and it's over."

I blushed even more furiously. "No, it's fine. I like it. I was just a little surprised, that's all." My reward was a sharp crack on the bottom. And then another, followed by several seconds of hard smacks. She stopped, and rubbed my bottom a bit.

"Maybe we should pull down your pants," she suggested. "I don't want my hand to get sore too soon."

I stood up and turned to face her. I couldn't believe I was about to pull down my pants for a spanking. I hadn't done that since I was a kid, and I certainly hadn't enjoyed it then! But this was different. She wasn't doing this because she was angry, even if she had given the excuse of the stories. All of a sudden, I remembered that it wasn't the spankings I hadn't liked when I was a kid. It was the lack of power. But I didn't feel powerless now.

I slowly unbuckled my belt, and then unbuttoned my pants. I pulled them down, just about to my knees. "That's enough," she said. "Get back over my lap for your punishment." The care in her eyes was enough to remind me that we were both adults, and that this wasn't really a punishment. I lay back down over her lap, and she began to smack my bottom, hard. I had forgotten what it was like to actually get a spanking. I began to wiggle my butt a little bit, writhing to get away from her hand. She stopped.

"It's okay," I panted. "I like it."

She didn't say anything, but then I felt her fingers slide under the waistband of my panties. I wasn't sure what to think. I mean, sure she'd seen me naked before. We were lovers. But to get a bare-bottomed spanking from my lover... was I ready for this? But I didn't tell her to stop, and my panties joined my pants, at my knees.

SMACK! Her hand cracked down hard, several times. My bottom began to burn. It was really starting to hurt. "I think just a couple more," she said, breathing hard. The spanks covered my bottom and thighs.

"Your butt's nice and pink," she said, happily. Then I felt fingers between my thighs. "Oh, my. And you're very wet."

I sat up, wincing slightly at the touch of the rough fabric on my tender bottom. I slid my fingers under her skirt. "You're pretty steamy yourself," I commented. We smiled at each other.

Story: Road Trip

2005-10-07T15:48:00.000-04:00

I've decided the blog is getting way too serious, so I thought I'd dust off a couple of my less serious stories and post them for your enjoyment.

I posted this story to the SSS short story contest in 2001. It was inspired by a road trip in horrid traffic, but the events are otherwise completely made up.

Road Trip
======

Hot. Sticky. LOWS in the 90s. Janey called. “Let’s get out of town. I’ll finish work at noon tomorrow. How about you?”

“I should be done with this paper tomorrow morning.”

“Good. I want to get into the ocean.”

Janey made reservations for a camp site. She has a friend working at a state park, so we managed to get one.

When Janey came by early Friday afternoon, I was in the living room, eating a popsicle and watching television. She knew from my guilty start that the paper wasn’t done. She turned off the television. I finished my popsicle quickly.

“How much more?”

I bit my lip. “I’ll work quickly.”

“I’ll put together a bag for you.” Janey went upstairs. I typed. Janey went to the store to get road food. I continued typing. By three-thirty, I finished, and we drove away.

Of course we ran into traffic.

“Why can’t all these people go somewhere else? Why can’t they drive faster? Why do they have to tailgate?”

Janey made soothing comments. She even let me choose all the CDs we played. It wasn’t enough. “I HATE traffic. Why couldn’t we go earlier this week?”

No response.

“When are we going to GET there?!”

Janey half-smiled, half-snapped, “You won’t like what happens if I pull this car over, Missy.”

And then it started to pour. “This is stupid. I hate rain.” Janey glanced at me, and kept driving. “These people don’t like to be outside in the rain. They can go home. I HATE traffic.”

“Michelle, enough. Take a nap, or talk to me. Stop whining.”

I glared out the window. How can she be so calm?

We needed to change lanes. No one would let us in. “Why can’t these idiots learn to DRIVE?” I flipped off a particularly offensive motorist. Janey put her signal on again, and pulled off at the next exit.

“Where are we going?”

“I’m pulling over.” She pulled to the shoulder in a small wood. She unbuckled both our seatbelts, and got out. Tropical air rushed into the car. Janey walked around, opened my door, and then the back door of the car. She pulled out the hairbrush.

“I’m sorry. I’ll stop whining, Janey.” Even that was a whine.

“Get in here. NOW.” Reluctantly, I climbed across her lap. My bottom was immediately on fire. The brush seemed to stick to my sweaty skin. She paddled my thighs until I was nervous about whether I’d be able to sit at all.

Hairbrush smacks and drumming rain filled the car. I finally stopped wiggling and kicking, and lay across her lap.

“Janey, I’m sorry, I won’t whine anymore. I promise.”

“Good,” she said, finally. “Now get back in your seat, and think about what I’m going to do when I get you to the camp site.”