The Punishment Book

I wrote this to post over at This Thing We Do Forum, and then thought that it would be a useful post for the Punishment Book as well. I also want to encourage people--especially tops, we REALLY need some tops over there--to check out the forum and join in the discussions there, if they are so inclined. It's a pretty great place, or so the people who are members keep telling me. :)

W asked me to post about this, although I admit that I can't remember all of the specifics of what she wanted me to say. So I will go with my best memory, and add some things from my own perspective, and we'll see where that gets us.

We have been struggling for a while with W establishing her authority. I am frustrated. I feel like either I'm making myself follow the rules and behave--which undermines my perception of W's authority, because I feel like I'm the one in control of what happens, and whether or not we get into fights. Or else I'm breaking the rules, and causing W to respond to my behavior--that kind of topping-from-the-bottom thing, which makes me feel like I'm still the one in control of the situation.

W, on the other hand, is frustrated because she feels like she *is* establishing her authority. From her viewpoint, either I'm following the rules, or I am breaking the rules, and she is enforcing them. And then she'll get feedback from me, usually afterward, that says, "Well, but I felt like I was the one in charge of that situation." Which, frankly, undermines her confidence in her authority.

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.

i've read a lot of debate about safewords. there are those who are of the opinion that having a safeword makes this thing we do emphatically "kink" rather than discipline. i don't agree with that, not in the least. in theory, i believe that safewords are what distinguishes this thing we do from abuse--that i have the power at any point to say, "hey, this is hurting me in the wrong way, i need it to stop or else i will not be safe."

and a lot of the time, i can do that. i don't formally safeword, but i communicate with w and let her know when something is going wrong. that is a major factor in her willingness to do this thing we do. and it's a responsibility that i have, just as much as i have a responsibility to be honest about whether i've followed the rules, just as much as w has a responsibility to be consistent with enforcing the rules.

about a month ago, that fell apart, on both sides.

Most of us have inner children.  Some of us have inner teenagers.  With dissociative identity disorder (D.I.D.), those inner teenagers are a little more complicated to deal with.  They are more than that impulse inside, where someone can have a feeling, recognize it, and do something to make that feeling resolve, while still understanding the world in adult terms.  So when my inner 14 year old is active, she has all the reasoning and coping skills of an actual 14 year old.  You might think this would be challenging, and it is.  Or, as W. would say, "Boy, howdy."