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…shame if you were to lose it.

I’ve been on a somewhat bumpy mental health journey these past 15 years — one that Paul, unfortunately, has had to go on with me. It’s been and continues to be… well, something less than ideal. Short version – I’ve gone from being diagnosed as having bipolar disorder (complete with 7 years of super heavy meds that probably left me calmer, but stripped much of my kink away) and anxiety to not being bipolar — my diagnosis is now having ADHD and anxiety, plus, most recently, adding autism spectrum disorder to mix. Hopefully I’ll have the understanding and focus to write about this someday, but suffice to say I’ve been telling two therapists (couples and individual) versions of this for the past several months. Those versions have less spanking, but extra angst.

Over on her Blog That Is Not a Spanking Blog (tho of course it is!), Marie recently wrote a post about spanking stories, drawing a distinction between fantasy and its importance to her and a number of us in the scene. I like the distinction she draws between erotica that’s kind of “wank fodder” vs stories with full-blown (stop it!) narrative, but for me, the backstory, at least for the types of vignettes I like, is always there.

I’ve got a thing for stories. Text is my jam.

Books were and are incredibly important to me. I can’t remember a time I wasn’t reading stories — novels — pretty much from as far back as I could remember. I read (present and past tense ) fast and hard, devouring books like they’re going to be taken away, which, when I was a child, they all too frequently were. Some though, I read to the ending then flipped back to the first page, beginning the book again. They were my escape from abuse at home and my awkwardness that provoked bullying at school.

The Favorites¹You’ll note that many (all) of these are about children who are orphaned, creating a home and family for themselves as part of the plot. Wonder what that could mean Dr. Freud?

• Mandy by Julie Edwards
• The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
• A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
• The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
• The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane by Laird Koenig
• Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell
• Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery

Those special books were always there comforting me, even, no especially when I was most isolated.

Until they weren’t.

When I was 12 I received an “F” as my midterm math grade. In addition to strapping me insanely hard with a belt (fuck), my parents stripped the books from my bedroom, sent a note restricting me from the school library, and basically didn’t let me read anything apart from assigned school books for two months until my semester grades came out. I also couldn’t watch TV and was confined to my room much of the time. We’re talking the early 1980 here, so of course there was no computer or internet in the house. The record player (yes, I’m that old) and radio were in the living room and kitchen.

Alone in my room for those weeks, or months, I had nothing to do other than school work and staring at the walls until bedtime. I did a lot of staring, In bed, where in the past I would sneakily read to my younger sister, I began to whisper remembered and re-imagined versions of these favorite books, eventually combining plots, mashing up characters, and occasionally working in my sister and me.

Like Marie, I also started to write stories down and then hid my notebooks, finally throwing them away. The stories have always held space in my head. The most lingering of them became parts of the Saint Clare school stories.

Something I wrote back in October, 2011 for my currently-off-line el tercer ojo blog:

Firsts Fridays: Fantasies

[I’ve plucked this Friday Firsts from the Shadow Lane members’ chat. Tony Elka asked this question about first fantasies.]

What’s one of the first fantasies you can remember having, before you ever were consensually spanked (or before you spanked someone)?

I’ve had spanking fantasies as far back as I can remember. I know, because I remember what house we were living in then, by the time I was 4. They always centered around a father / guardian figure (not my father) who would have to take time out what they were doing to fix some mess I’d gotten into (rescue me I suppose) and then would deal with me by spanking me.

I had these fantasies for years and years. In the first clear memory I have of one, my guardian was Johnny Cash (who, by my parents’ accounts, at age three I used to tell people I was going to marry). Later it would become heros from books — everyone from James Bond (who of course would have sent me away to a boarding school most of the time — I’d be in trouble for running away — the boarding schools represent a whole other long strain of fantasies) to Nancy Drew’s father. What they generally had in common was they weren’t, generally, fatherly. They were distant, exciting and had, for a series of reasons usually due to some bizarre bit of orphaning, been saddled with responsibility for me.

As I’m writing this I’m aware that there were two fantasies going on. First was the spanking one but second was somehow losing my parents and having them replaced. Or rather having both my parents taken away but only having my father replaced. I know exactly what to make of that one.

Later, when I got to my teen years, I discovered both thrillers and romance novels. This was an odd collision as both appealed to me. I had fantasies for years about being kidnapped by cruel sadistic killers who, for some reason, would keep me alive to abuse physically and sexually, impressed on some level by my obedience (HA) and bravery (HAHAHA). At the same time I had fantasies based on Joanna Lindsey (she did include some lovely spankings and threats) – style brooding semi-violent heros who would beat and tame me.

These fantasies didn’t evolve much. There were variations — if a friend showed me the paddle her dad used on her and her siblings, I’d imagine getting in trouble at her house and it being used on me. I always had fantasies about teachers — sometimes if I liked them they’d have to adopt me (again note the theme of getting rid of my parents) and, of course they’d have to spank me. And then there were the boarding school stories – the best of which are the origin my Saint Clare stories. They are about girls, generations, uniformity, and identity. The idea of belonging, especially F/f kinds of stories. 

Somehow in my head, spanking and love became equated at a young age. My desire to be spanked by someone reflected my desire to be loved by him or her. The serial killer fantasies aside, that’s still where my fantasies go — a desire to be special enough to someone that they want to punish me, want to make me better somehow.

Reading that over, it’s still pretty true.

My fantasy self is someone who is constantly striving to do better, to be better. Spanking, discipline, scenes, fantasies — those narratives are always about someone who sees me, sees my struggle and possibilities and is helping me help myself. It’s about not being alone, but also being believed in. This is where fantasy, scene and reality start coming together in ways that may not always be good.

My real self thinks everyone works harder than she does, and mistakes exhaustion for laziness. I struggle with the sense of not being good enough, not being deserving, having to prove myself. If I succeed I don’t often take time to enjoy it, but quickly decide the bar isn’t high enough. In my fantasies, the bar is always a reasonable height and there’s a sort of external force making sure I keep it in focus and don’t get distracted by playing volleyball on my run up to it.

There’s another fantasy narrative that spanking fulfills – guilt and a yearning to be forgiven, for the slate to be clean. It’s that I can do something wrong, maybe even something terrible, apologize, atone, and be forgiven. A lot of my fantasies center around that theme. The idea of forgiveness, that I can somehow prove how sorry I am by accepting punishment. I see the connection of that to my childhood. There the cycle was my doing wrong, being punished, apologizing, and things settling down only to have whatever it was thrown up at me, along with every other terrible thing I’ve ever done the next time my parents were angry at me. Nothing was ever past.

Reading this over, there’s no ending I can find. So what’s your inner fantasy world? Where did it come from?

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  You’ll note that many (all) of these are about children who are orphaned, creating a home and family for themselves as part of the plot. Wonder what that could mean Dr. Freud?