A Quick Update

Just an update: Brad’s surgery went well and we are all happy that that’s over.  Now we just wait and see if once he’s back  to normal if the back and knee stuff goes away.  The physical therapist says the pain in those places is likely because of a change in gait due to the original source of pain.  He needs me to do a lot of things for him right now, so I am having fun teasing him about how he is the one who is high maintenance now.  Well, I suppose turnabout is fair play…  have a good weekend everyone!

 

relationships: isolation and connection

This isn’t about spanking really, well, it’s related a little bit.  I am wondering if I  would be able to be successful with this lifestyle if I were not regularly writing.  I’m writing for my blog right now, if I wasn’t I could be writing in a journal.  I could be writing just for myself, or to also share thoughts with Brad.  I’m not sure if I would have the same drive to write as often if I didn’t have the blog. 

I love my blog.  It’s opened my heart and mind up in ways that I am not always sure what to think at times.  I’m thankful for that but also it can be overwhelming.  Often my posts  will come from the extremes of my emotions.  It’s freeing and scary and enjoyable and frustrating all at the same time.  Not every time, but sometimes.  I mentioned that writing for the blog has opened me up, the difficult thing is that it forces me to remain open (if I want to write meaningfully).  I’m not used to constantly exposing my thoughts, emotions, intense events, and daily life in such a public way.  I’m anonymous in the sense that you wouldn’t know me if you saw me on the street.  I’m still Ally though, and Ally experiences acceptance and rejection the same way I do.  We are one person.  

The openness is just the beginning to learning about myself, TTWD is the other vehicle that forces me open.  And yes, reveals aspects of myself to me that I’d either rather not see or did not realize were there.  I had no idea how uncommunicative I was until I wanted to communicate in the worst way.  I had no idea the level of mistrust and anxiety I felt about relationships, until I was required to trust on a deeper level.  I’ve begun to see my relationship with Brad change slowly as I change, and he changes too.  We had a great little honeymoon period there for a while, it dipped, and now I can feel us getting back into the swing of things.  Slowly but surely it’s working.  There are and will be hard times for us, and times where everything feels at a standstill.  Regardless, I love watching the changes.  What I was wanting to get to with this post was the paragraph in my book that grabbed at me.  I didn’t really give much of a lead in, but it is about relationships, and I’ll bet on some level we can all relate.  Here it is: 

“Trauma can put us in the double bind of both wanting to withdraw from close relationships and to seek them desperately.  The profound disruption of basic trust- the common feelings of shame, guilt, and inferiority, and the need to avoid reminders of the relationship trauma that might be found in social or intimate life- may all foster withdrawal from close relationships.  But the terror of rupture and emotional, psychological, or physical abandonment intensifies our need for protective attachments. The traumatized person therefore frequently alternates between isolation and anxious clinging to others.”

T. Dayton

I had some awareness about myself in this area, but not this plainly. It explains a lot, and more than I care to admit.  I haven’t yet figured out the rhyme or reason as to why one relationship might make me more anxious than another.  At first I thought it might relate to how important they were in my life, but it doesn’t always work that way.  It is true that my husband is the most important person in my life, he is the most constant, I have no fear that he will leave me.  Not a bit, but I do struggle with trusting his feelings for me.  I have two amazing real life friends that I hang out with on a regular basis.  I have no anxiety in these relationships at all.  I have more examples but I won’t get into them….   Anybody else identify with this?

my take on shaving, sort of

I can’t help but get in on this…. I read FD’s post, Meow’s post, CD’s post, and Chloe’s post.  And all the comments that followed.  When I first saw the topic of shaving come up I pretty much turned around and walked away.  I really don’t have an interest in talking about any of that in relation to myself.  I’m not trying be rude, the subject just isn’t on my radar.  However, when Meow said something about shaving and it blurring the lines between women and prepubescent girls, it caught my attention.  I have not thought about it that way before.  I always assumed that it was a preference issue for a myriad of other reasons.  So many women out there are getting waxed for their own reasons and not their partners.  I don’t know or understand much about age play.  In my opinion, if couples want to do the school girl thing, it’s not an issue.  It seems to me like the characters are teens anyway.  I also see all that as more of a D/s dynamic type thing and not a sexual attraction to a child.  But if a man wants his partner completely shaved so he can fantasize about a  prepubescent girl, I think it’s dangerous.  I’m not saying fantasy is illegal or acting out the fantasy with a consenting adult is illegal.  I do think it is very dangerous. In my opinion, it’s opening the door to the next step.  Furthermore, why would a man be attracted to a child anyway, is that healthy?   I don’t have the answer to that, maybe there is someone out there who understands this, if so I welcome your comment.  

I realize that probably no one reading this would condone sex abuse, but I am going to talk about it for a minute.  I have in the past worked with many elementary school aged children who have been groomed, molested, and raped.  Fathers, uncles, mom’s boyfriend, friend’s father, neighbors.  It’s not sexy.  I’ve had enough training to know that sex offenders don’t just one day decide they are going to go after a child.  It starts with a thought, thoughts progress to fantasies, and fantasies are entertained.  There is a fine line here.  This is really not about shaving, but about attraction to a child, maybe I’ve veered off course a bit.  When I was 13 I came awfully close to being raped by a 30 something year old guy that I had no business hanging out with, he’d already gone to jail once for housing runaway “jail bait”.  This guy was smooth and all my friends thought he was great.  I think he tried something with every one of us. His father who was in his late 60’s asked me once if he could kiss me.  Ugh…no way and I was out of there quickly.  Neither happened and I was unscathed by those experiences thankfully, and maybe it makes me a bit touchy about the subject.  At the time I had no idea how much danger I was in and what could have happened.  Looking back, when I think about those guys, it’s such a turn off. 

Maybe because I am a mom of a young daughter, I’m more sensitive to the topic.  The thought of any guy fantasizing about her is very disturbing to me.  I could care less if someone wants to shave it all, or if their partner wants them to, for whatever reason.  But if he wants you to look like a child because children are a turn on, I’d be very careful. Those are my feelings on the topic.  I welcome your opinions…

Smile, it’s Friday!

A few of us around here could use a good laugh.  This should at the very least bring you a smile, I promise.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-94JhLEiN0

on hold

We are in limbo…again, next Friday is another surgery for Brad and he is having a lot of pain these days.  It pretty much takes over our lives when this happens.  Correction, it takes over his life and we have to work around it.  For whatever reason, the past four weeks or so I hadn’t put two and two together. Maybe because his pain isn’t as visible as before.  I’ve been banging my head against the wall trying to figure out why things feel so off between us.  We just aren’t connecting well. I didn’t realize how much he was hurting until last night, he just doesn’t talk about it a lot and I tend to assume he’s moody when he’s tired or hurting.  We had a good discussion last night about it all. I told him that I was just going to put any issues or needs on hold until he has recovered.  I feel at this point he is pretty much unavailable and he agreed, but said he was available in small doses.  As long as we are both on the same page here I can wait.  It doesn’t work well for me to be spanked knowing that he’s just doing it for me and is suffering through it.  I just can’t enjoy it that way.  I feel bad for him and I only end up more troubled than I was in the first place.  If he wants to initiate spanking I most definitely will roll with it happily, but I can’t ask for them at this time. I think it’s counterproductive. I feel good about this decision, it takes off a lot of the pressure I’ve  been feeling to move things forward.  It’s all just on hold for a week or two.

In the meantime I am reading a book about relationship trauma.  The doctor who wrote this book coined this term, it  basically means trauma that occurs within the context of a relationship  (especially a  caregiver or someone you love).  The book is very explanatory about how our experiences affect our brains, especially when we are young.  It has been great in helping me understand some thing to avoid as a parent so that I don’t screw up my own kids the way that I experienced.  It’s also teaching me a lot about myself, as the book is about regaining balance as an adult. Dealing with things you weren’t able to deal with as a child because they were too frightening or overwhelming.  Little minds can’t process things the way adults are able to and it affects the way you see yourself in world.  I don’t know if I will post about myself in this area, I might but it’s awfully raw for me.  We’ll see.

That’s all for now, have a great day everyone!

when it’s not enough…

I wrote this several days ago about events that took place last week.  I considered not posting it, it’s kind of embarrassing to me.  However, there is an important lesson to be learned here.  Don’t provoke your man, it might get you what you want, but it won’t really be what you want. It is a mistake.

“I knew you were in the mood for a severe beating”….. is what he said.  Well, I am not sure that I would have phrased it that way, but if that’s how he wants to put it…

This weekend was not among my most shining moments.  I was desperate and irritated, and lonely.  And yes, I did some bad things, on purpose. Sort of.  How did this all start?  I’m not entirely sure, it was a slow build.  I know that I have been feeling neglected.  It’s not all his fault, it’s been a busy week for us and sometimes it just happens that way.  I did get spanked this week, all in fun, and it was even a pretty good one, but still just not quite enough.  I must be high maintenance in this area, I need a certain amount of action to keep me happy and to retain those submissive feelings.  I try to be gracious about it, to not be hounding him all the time about what I need.  In this case, I had a growing deficit and so the spanking this week didn’t begin to cover it. 

How was I bad this week? Brad had started complaining about not being able to find the post it notes when he needed them.  There is a place in the kitchen where they should be, but normally they are laying on the counter, or they may be under some papers or something.  It became a half joke that always putting the post it note pad back where it goes should be a rule.  It’s funny, but it really is important to him.  He is very organized and writes notes to himself all the time.  He wants things to be where they are supposed to be.  I recognized this as an opportunity to mess with him a little bit, and probably get some attention directed my way.  I would leave the post its here and there, for about three days.  He would always comment but that was  it.  Finally, Friday I was losing my mind, I was either trying to annoy him or flirt with him, looking for some consideration.  And then came out the major attitude.  (Turns out this was flirting with disaster.)  This was partially on purpose, but it was genuine frustration too.  It sure got his attention and he tried to get me back to the bedroom right then.  I resisted, (I hear your collective gasps, let me explain) our kids were in the room, that was a problem for me.  They are young, but not stupid.  There wasn’t much he could do. 

I knew a spanking was coming later and my desire the attention was fading quite quickly.  I was already regretting this turn of events.   Even worse, the hated wooden spoon that I had so far avoided for quite a while made an appearance.  Just seeing it come out reduces me to internal whimpering.   All in all, it wasn’t the worst punishment spanking I have ever received, but I had bruises.  And it still wasn’t enough.  Inner turmoil was starting to set in, what was going on with me?  I couldn’t figure out what it was that was keeping me so…..so discontented.  There was a lot more going on underneath the spanking problem.  After some thought, and talking through it with a friend, I figured a few things out.  My submissive feelings were missing, and I missed them.  There were some relationship things going on that were preventing those feelings from coming back.  I was very frustrated with both of us. 

Saturday night, as the issues were being brought into the light, I wrote Brad a note telling him all the things I was feeling.  That I had provoked him. I felt like we were far apart, I was missing those lovely submissive feelings, and I needed more from him.  I passed this note to him on my way to bed without a word.  Not five minutes later he came in and to make a long story short, (without the spoon) I got more than I needed. Well, not really.  I needed it all.   And it was enough.

It was the next night when I asked him if he had anything to say about my note, that’s what he said with a smile, “I knew you were in the mood for a severe beating”.

Love our Lurkers follow up

I said this to my commenters already under the LOL post, but it’s worth saying again. I thought yesterday was so much fun. As Vesta said, it is a bit like a party. I even found some new blogs by commenters that I will go back to. Thank you Bonnie for organizing the day.

complications

 I was interested the other day when  I read Meow’s post about how the thrill of spanking had gone, but was now coming back for her.  I’ve been thinking about my own reaction to spanking these days, and how it has changed in the past couple months.  I am not concerned really, I recognize it as part of the cycle that most feelings are subject to. 

Spanking started as only an enhancement to our sexual adventures.  It blew our previous sex out of the water, and it had already been good.  My voracious appetite for spanking and sex has lasted quite a while.  My sex drive has slowed down some recently, but I still desire the spanking, just for different reasons.  I’m inclined to agree with Meow that incorporating DD into our relationship has added new levels of complication to the act and emotions of spanking in general.  Five or so months ago we started incorporating DD into our lives and along with that came a whole other world to learn about. Also, with DD came many new additions to our list of reasons for spanking, dynamics surrounding those different reasons, and the whys.  Along with DD comes punishment spankings, the prospect of maintenance spanking, submission/just because/reconnection spankings, and whatever else you can think of.  There is so much more going on, so many processes going on at once at any given time, and the focus is not sexual for me.  It has definitely been a distraction from the sexual realm.  There are times when it is just about sex, but the times that are not complicate the motions we go through.

 Lately for me, the spanking, no matter what kind, has been about the spanking and what am I getting out of it, what is happening, and it has been anything but sexual.  It’s not turning me on the way it used to.   This is further complicated by the fact that spanking is all about sex for Brad, even when it’s not for me.  It’s like two trains heading down two separate tracks that merge into one.  Crash! We slam into each other and it’s a disaster.  There are lots of times too where we narrowly miss each other, crash is avoided but leaves me feeling unsettled.  (I don’t mean to give the impression that this is happening all the time.  It just happens to be a small piece of what we are going through right now.)  Anyway, I think that we are going the right direction at this point together.  A night that was supposed to be fun turned into anything but…but at leasst I was finally able to see what was bothering me and let him know.

Love our Lurkers IV

Hi everybody!  If you have visited and read, but never left a comment, now is the perfect opportunity.  It would mean so much to me to hear from you…  Even if you just want to say “hi” and that’s it.  Come on…you know you want to

my little girl

I put a lot of effort into encouraging my daughter to feel good about herself, inside and out.  She is only 4 but I still think it matters.  I think my little girl is going to be ok…

Ally: Hey D, do you want to dress up and go take pictures today by the creek?  

D: Yeah!

Ally: You can be my model, it’ll be fun. 

D: No I can’t!

Ally:  Do you know what a model is?

D: No

Ally: It’s someone who poses for pictures and they are on tv and in magazines…

D: Oh………. I think we should put me in the newspaper… I should be in lots of them so everybody can see how pretty I am!

 

If you saw her, you’d agree!