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Self Sabotage

Currently, I am working on a book which discusses our struggles to incorporate a Gorean flavour to our dynamic. This has always been something that I’ve craved ever since I knew the books existed. Writing the book has forced me to realise that there were two occasions when we genuinely got close to what I craved, yet in both instances I panicked and (unintentionally?) sabotaged what we had. I’ve been thinking about the why for the last few days. Both were for slightly different reasons, I believe, so I’ll look at them separately first.

He came home and without any warmup or preparation time ordered me to strip and then tied me over the bench. He told me that for each of the four offences I would receive five strikes of the heavy cane and that I would receive an extra five on top of that because of the number of mistakes.

I have to admit that when He said that I relaxed a little. After all, He had hit me many more times with the paddle than that just for fun. Even when He had punished me before, He had given me bigger numbers. I had no idea of how hard He actually could hit me with that cane when He was motivated to do so.

I was in tears before the first five were over. I honestly thought I couldn’t take the whole twenty-five. I was strapped down and didn’t have much choice though. It hurt so much that I felt as if I couldn’t even beg. I didn’t have the energy that would require. All I could do was sob and try to get through it. When it was over, I was in agony.

This may sound brutal, and it was, but it also fulfilled the purpose I had always wanted punishment to serve – it made me afraid of more. In the Gor books, part of the reason the girls obey is because of the fear of the whip. I’d never got to that stage before, though I’d longed for it, but that day I definitely did.

For a few hours, I was content. In my place, suitably chastened and eager to please. Then something started to shift in my head. My brain started to rebel against my happiness. It told me that it was wrong to feel like this. I shouldn’t want to feel intimidated by the one I loved. I tried to fight these feelings and hang onto what I so desperately needed, but I couldn me.

Instead, I found myself in tears, telling Him that it was too much and that I was frightened. Inside I knew that what I really wanted was for Him to hold the line and tell me this was how it was going to be from now on, but He just couldn’t. Seeing me that hurt, that afraid was just too much for Him. He rescinded the escalation protocol and I’ve never had such a severe beating since.

I felt the lack of strictness and severity though from that point forward. I was always asking for more harshness, yet not able to adequately explain what that looked like. The incident with the cane set off a long chain of events that eventually resulted in our punishment dynamic becoming almost non-existent. Things got worse and worse until one day it all blew up.

After that, we agreed on two things. One was that a reset of the dynamic was desperately needed, and the other was that there needed to be a defined punishment dynamic again. To mark this, He set up a recollaring ceremony and informed me that from that point forward, He would punish absolutely every slip whether it upset me or not. I had been struggling very badly with self-esteem for months and every punishment seemed an emphasis of my failure, and depressed me further.

He wanted me to be able to accept discipline and move on afterwards without sinking into a self-destructive spiral. To aid this, he ensured that wherever possible, discipline would be given as close to the offence as possible. If I had to wait, that pause would be enough to send me into a panic and then a resulting depression.

We both worked very hard at making things work and, for a few days, it did. I got into a more submissive headspace than I had in years. Unfortunately, this resulted in a conversation which had unforeseen consequences. I asked Him if He would mind if I used third-person speech. He wasn’t clear about what I meant at first, so I explained. He was still unsure but said I could try it that evening to see if it was something that would please Him.

Unfortunately for me, He liked it so much that He told me that He wanted me to use it exclusively. I wasn’t to refer to myself in the first person at all. Somehow that snapped in my head, and I panicked, though I revealed nothing of this to Him at first.

For a day or two, I tried to do as He said. Of course, I messed up a lot. Speaking only in third person was a massive change. I’d struggled enough when He’d ordered me to make other, simpler speech changes such as cutting out swearing. I was bound to make mistakes, particularly at first.

It became harder and harder to cope as the days went on. There were a few things going on here. One was that I started to panic that He was finding this constant need to discipline me unpleasant. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I managed to at least halfway convince myself that He would be much happier if He didn’t have to punish me all the time. I started to get depressed about it all. What if I never improved?

Another issue was that I knew that third person speech was not usually required of girls in the Gor books in the same way. Yes, there were instances where girls were made to speak that way. But they were also allowed to use first person pronouns at times without censure, particularly after they were trained. My brain rebelled against this departure from the “rules” of the books and no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t stop it. I tried to remind myself that the will of the Master was everything but something inside of me refused to accept that.

If those two things had been all that was wrong, maybe I would have got over them, eventually. But, then, my Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria also started to play its tricks on my brain too. Perhaps even if I did get it right, I thought, He would despise me for it. Maybe, He thought it was childish to speak that way and would miss having conversations in an adult fashion with me.

For as long as I could, I tried to keep all of these worries at bay. Then after a particularly bad start to the night, I broke down. I went into full shutdown. I couldn’t talk for a while, I started humming to myself and that really worried Him. I wasn’t consciously testing Him, but I remember being disappointed when His reaction was one of concern. It showed me that He hadn’t deliberately tried to break me as a planned tactic. It also revealed that He thought that was a step too far.

When I could speak again, I told Him all the things I was struggling with. Even at that point, I was desperately wishing that He would say that breaking down was okay and that He wanted to keep the rule regardless. But, of course, He did what anyone sensible would. He changed the rule, so it wasn’t something I had to do all the time. Effectively that meant I didn’t do it at all after that point. It was just too painful a reminder of something that had once felt so meaningful to me.

Part of the problem was that any new rule is hard to accept at first because it is a change and my autistic brain rebels against it. During a fairly short period we’d had a lot of change and when I brought the subject up, it would perhaps have been more sensible if He had held fire on introducing something else on top. Hindsight is a wonderful thing though and I could understand why He seized the opportunity to have something He liked.

I think the cognitive load of trying to rewire speech patterns that I had followed for over forty years was immense. When that came on top of other fundamental changes to the dynamic it put such a heavy strain on me and was bound to make me break. Through that lens, my collapse into a non-verbal shutdown was a natural reaction.

Even at the time, I regretted that what happened meant that we abandoned the rule. I told myself that if Master was Gorean, He might have viewed this breakdown as a necessary phase of tearing down my ego. He might have held the line with cold, unyielding authority in order to force ultimate surrender.

I knew, though, why He couldn’t do that. He was worried that my extreme distress would cause genuine, real-world harm. He knew that if I did become mentally unwell, it would impair my ability to cope with the other responsibilities I had, and that was not an acceptable risk.

Out of love and concern for me and our lives together, He listened and retracted the rule. I knew His action was one of kindness and probably the only sensible thing to do. I appreciated His compassion and care for me. Yet there is still a part of me that wishes He had pushed through it all. That forcing my submission had been worth the emotional cost to both of us. When He sensibly relaxed the rule to protect me, it was an unpleasant reminder that our dynamic would always, ultimately, have to take account of the reality of living on Earth.

Although these two examples where I retreated from something I desperately wanted have differences, the fundamental problems are the same. They arise from trying to balance our desires and fantasies with the realities of living in the society that we do. It seems that whenever I get close to having the thing I want, my fear of surrender kicks in and I can’t seem to get past it. It feels like I am subconsciously sabotaging my own efforts, and I don’t know how to stop it.

Every day, I wish I had the tools to do so. As things stand we are forced to tread carefully and sometimes painfully slowly towards the dynamic we both want. The dynamic seems to ebb and flow, depending on my capacity for mental health at any one time. It’s frustrating and often seems like we take one step forward and four steps back. Yet, it is still so precious that the idea of giving it up entirely still seems inconceivable. I think it always will.