Final study weekend

The weekend brought on more work on my English looking at how different strucures go with different types of written work plus thing are described  and characters compared and contrasted. My Math work involved looking at ratio, portions, units and basic muliplication with division.
 Hmm as you’d prolly guess I was threatened with a spanking if I didn’t at least start on Long Multiplication and Division (no, not the diversion on the A461!) as I was starting to get stroppy which as you guys know is a bit of problem of mine when I didn’t want to do something I need to cos it’s not that stuff isn’t hard, I just don’t wanna try half the time so I make things harder for me and that’s why I’m dealt with very strictly from now on.
This kinda approach may not  everyones cup of tea but undermines what a Caregiver type relationship comes down to, You as the Caregiver are a Parental Authority Figure working with and Enforcing what we’ve agreed to help me as your Middle make the most of my abilities and cracking down on attitudes of mine that self sabotage my becoming more mature is a part of that.
During the weekend I was checked on by BFF so I had direct support across that period from someone who’s in the similar situation as I as we have many conditions in common and sadly the same attitudes, encouraging me to keep going as I did for her. This mutual support is really helping.

More Study weekend

This week had a couple of totally unexpected problems that I've touched on at various sites so I don't particularly need repeat the details of what happened other than to say the combination of them plus damaging my neck accidentally had meant I haven't been feeling well over the last few days.

This weekend saw  me working on my English comprehension, working out from the text what is going on and how characters in a play or story feel by carefully reading the text looking not just what is said but how they use language to convey it.
I had to study extracts some were non fiction, others were plays and answer questions from it, quoting  to back the points I made which was fun cos if you know about something like photography and the extract is about it, you have to answer from that extract alone rather personal experience.
I also had a whole unit on Shakespeare and his plays-you can't escape him here in the Midlands-dealing with language, types of play, theatrical terms and questions on extracts to do.
I got 90% in my tests which super good for me.
Normally I'd also do the Math work but given how poorly I'd been with dizziness I was lucky to be given credit for this and excused while being expected to do as much as I can with the English because I was able to do some work and so am expected to now.
It's very different to how things were when I'd deke out of anything but the very strict, firm but fair approach that's being taken to me is helping  me take a more mature approach do dealing with my conditions. That has to be good for me.

School CP

For me school role play isn’t a place that is set in a fantasy, so much that it’s a run on from when I was at school in the era where Sir and Miss were Sir and Miss, children attending were called Pupils (NEVER ‘students’!) in very much their domain and while your head teacher was friendly he wasn’t your friend at school-he was an Adult Authority figure who had Authority over you.
My first school was not untypical being a infant/junior school in a Country district which was Victorian with separate doors originally intended for girls and boys but used to separate juniors from infants and their was an informal gender separation in the playground area.
It was in the era where also corporal punishment was what we expected and got - a social currency where songs were made up about it and details traded on the school grapevine - and every class room had some implement or other by the teachers desk.

Our desks were traditional wooden ones with a inkwell as we HAD to use a fountain pen by the time we’d reached Nine and a lid in which we stored our exercise books (Textbooks and any handouts were given out and collected by your teacher).
The inkwell thing got in me in very big trouble cos I was fed up of being picked on and assaulted by two boys who also stole my ink that I decided to toss a load of ink in the puddles in the playground as it had rained. Needless to say it had been detected and while the two boys got in really serious trouble for what they did when I told my headmaster this, he also explained he couldn’t excuse me for what I had done  so I got caned for it. He did all lot for me, like getting special help when in our area it wasn’t easy to find and while he disciplined me quite a bit, I loved him cos he cared enough to treat me like the others, recognizing I needed guidance  and his correction like any other child. Indeed I had for many years a teddy I named after him I slept with.
My other schools were more modern but did (depending on the teacher) use corporal punishment.
Looking back on it, we learned rather a lot in the same time-scale as today for having our teachers and school being in charge of us, not wasting time dealing with distractions an so on.
With that potted history out of the way, school replay is just like stepping back in time to those certainties with an acknowledged sense of place as that schoolchild- which in so many ways developmentally I am and being in a setting I can far better cope with.
It helps in dealing with some of my problems around not applying myself, often not even wanting to try anything that may seem hard cos in some ways only school really tried to deal with that - my folk more or less gave up on me - because in such situations (by consent) those people acting as teachers have the same sort of Authority over me as my actual teachers did.
I am now doing two weekends with permissible exceptions for Middle meet ups, actual studying, overseen, set and marked by people who do discipline me using cp and non cp methods (shame and embarrassment are effective to) to English Ks3 standards.
I have to wear my uniform and pass inspection.
Part of that is to help me with understanding more English and Math which are areas you are at a very real disadvantage if you don’t really understand  them and also to retrain me away from those habits that stop me from learning and working effectively, such as procrastination, laziness and so on.
This is starting to help in developing a more mature sense of being a middle although chunks of me simple can never be ‘adult’, helping me do my my best, making the most of the abilities - and I have some - I have rather than just no trying and using my disabilities as an excuse for just that, which I was given a heck of a lecture and spanking for

Denim

 

I've always had a love hate relationship with denim not least from attempts to put me in jeans which I found a bit clammy in the late Spring and Summer where I usually prefer something that rather breathes more.

But that's despite liking and trying denim mini skirts which are better in that way so would something like this with even a pocket on the 'bib'   be good as 'playwear' for me?

Weekend studying

Another weekend goes and can you imagine what I've been doing over two days in this cold and snowy time?

 Yes, I had double studying this weekend where I actually had just sit down and work my grey socks off rather than either being distracted by other stuff online or otherwise and actual get started on time as I have from now on...
Is that an offstage Ow you hear? (lol).
So on Saturday in English I was working on backing up points by using quotations and getting to grips with making sense of Shakespeare, being able to read extracts from plays and make out what really is happening to the point of being able to show I understood  what I had read.
Shakespeare isn't like me  just coming out with it even with a bit of diplomatic license, it's often wrapped around long poetic descriptions and anything but direct.
I did manage to get every question right this week as well as drawing neat boxes to make the tables to put some of the answers in.
During the week the Ks 3 Math study and workbook arrived which could mean one thing, that like it or not I had Math to work on  and was required to get myself a Geometry set and traditional exercise book to write my work in on Friday when it had been snowing.
Can you imagine it, a increasing number of exercise books with "Joanne, [Subject] Month/Year and Form: 1EB" written neatly on the front that I am to fill out over the year?
Sunday I had to tackle Math starting on what you'd call basic number work such as how you put numbers in order to express them as Math and in English as well as size before moving on addition, subtraction, multiplication and division featuring patterns, multiplying and dividing  in decimal units which cause my fears to multiply(!) as well how to multiply and divide numbers like 20, 300, 800 which I can't recall being shown not that being truthful I'd of paid that much attention to back in the day.
I'm also working through Multiples, Factors and odd, even, squared and cubed numbers too and it's all starting sink in as although this is hard for me, I did actually manage it, even going back over one calculation three times until I spotted where I was going wrong which was very good for me as I'd of thrown the pencil at you cursing until very recently.
In a way it really underscores where the work on my attitudes and behaviour slots in because it's not that this isn't hard  for me but it is something with support I can grasp but didn't want saying in effect "Too hard, why even try" which is why a very strict line has and is taken with me.
It actually shows that with a no-nonsense approach when it's coupled with support and guidance I am able to do things, that I have abilities I can use and from now on I'm to put a real effort into trying. 

I CAN DO MORE WITH THE RIGHT HELP WHEN I ALLOW OTHERS TO HELP ME
That is what being a responsible disabled adult middle is all about

Also my BFF checked in during the days to see how I was getting on, like actually getting started and I did the same for her which does seem to work well for both of us and she did well too.

On Middles and Littles

 Seeing this blog is experiencing an increasing number of people reading it and a number of people do tend to ask questions at sites, leave comments  or messages I thought I would devote a new entry around what being a Middle is about.
First off, when we're talking about Middles as with Littles were emphatically not talking about what society at large calls children, those whose age from date of birth makes them a Minor and so both precludes them Adult responsibility and protects them by making illegal and providing recourse from any Adult who takes advantage of them in areas such as employment but more critically from sexual exploitation.
We ARE talking about legal adults who have in common the same sort of headspace as children but are both able to consent to Adult matters and do have under the law and societal custom, legal and social rights and responsibilities so are employed or study, are expected to 'pay their way' and face Adult accountability such as losing a job due to conduct or being sent to prison.
In general terms Littles and Middles notwithstanding what they need to do studying or at work, pursue hobbies and interests that  are routed very much in their own experiences in 'childhood'  coming from their 'Inner Child' often with the same intensity and passion that you'd think it was that' child' playing.
Sometimes you may play, draw or maybe colour by yourself or you may meet with others who share the same sense of being 'forever a child' in that sense be it around peoples own homes or by meeting up at venues which are often discrete as unfortunately sometimes families and employers getting completely the wrong idea either disown you or find some reason to fire you not least in some 'sensitive' posts and that's before we bring in the Tabloid press.
For some it begins and ends with just 'the play' for others it may extend into dressing more like the age of the 'child within' while do so with say dresses that wouldn't be far removed  from that of a young girl at a party or play clothes like dungarees or for some of us school wear (and in the UK at least school wear is very much associated with childhood in the form of formal uniforms).
Definitions isn't a game I play lightly not least as often people disagree over exactly where the lines are and my personal feelings are they do have a crossover point if one accepts that the 'classic' little girl is a year older than UK Infant starting age, that's to say around Six then while Juniors ends at 11 or 12 which is the absolute cut off, in practise at around10 plus the gap widens when it comes to the type of play, increasingly sophisticated interests and language so marking the Middle out from his/her peers and continues on to around 13/14 when they become teens moving into be more 'adult-like' and seen as Older Children which we associate more with high school as move toward further education or employment (We lack an fully accepted term  in the wider world  of 'adult littles' for that 14 1/2 thru 17 headspace with some pushing Middle up to 17).
Getting back that 'child within' then if he or she comes out more in tune with Tweens or young Teens then personally I'd say the were an Adult (cos the law says so) Middle even if for some reason they still had a more classic little side which for I do, not least due to multiple disabilities some which do lead to learning and developmental ones.
That is why I identify as a Middle rather as a Little which doesn't mean I can't join in and play with littles at all it's that simplier there are other interest that aren't normally in there while we do share a need for oversight in our lives.

New term

For a good while now for reasons connected to my  general health and multiple disabilities,I have been out of the workplace which if you knew me you’d see makes a lot of sense as in a good many respects if you were to try to help me to a job, then actually you’d end up doing the lions share which be hardly economic and with being unwell, I’d be taking a lot of time off too.
The downside of this there isn’t really any organized ‘day care’ to help me use this time, challenge me not just in the intellectual sense but also from the point of just being prepared to give new things a go as well as working on making the most of my limited abilities.
This year I am to work on this and part of it is to deal with two things that are a essential part of of everyday life I do struggle with which at the period most of most people got to grips with, I didn’t in part because in that era there wasn’t much recognition of different ways of learning and also, and connected more with this blog, the problem is my attitude toward challenges.
I have a lot of problems in understanding  basic math, the sort of math you’d expect the average twelve or thirteen year old to do, from long multiplication and division onward problems around  reading for comprehension and expressing myself clearly in text that also spell over into verbal expression that can spell over into me being oppositional.
I am to study anew these subjects using more contemporary study guides and workbooks, the sort children today use at a similar level of development to that I’m left at, making notes and doing unit tests that will be marked.
It began yesterday with a fairly gentle easing in doing a couple of sections in English looking at what is Text, its different forms (fiction, non-fiction), ways of expression feeling and atmosphere and so on using ideas that I don’t recall being formal taught back in the day.
Anyway, I was supposed to had gotten started at half past Nine but by Ten to Ten I was still sat there defiantly looking at the study guide because it looked hard.
That’s the problem in me. You see, over the decades and especially during childhood because of the genuine difficulties from my disabilities, if I didn’t feel like giving something a go even if it maybe something I may need to get to grips with, then I was allowed to either not do it or put next to no effort into trying rather than having to but being given credit for what I did do (and get right).

By Ten to Ten the trusted Adult (who is is allowed to discipline me)  that was  supervising the days work, came over and told me off for refusing to get started as after all, if I had a genuine problem with it, he would help.
He put me over the chair pulling my black gymslip up which was followed a big tug as he pulled my gym knickers right down and proceeded to give me twelve strokes of the leather paddle which really hurt my bottom. For good measure afterward he made me sit with my knickers down to add to the sense of brought on shame which also meant  my bottom hurt even more on the chair.
He proceed to explain this attitude of mine where I say I have a disability that makes doing things hard and then deciding not to even bother with anything requiring perseverance, taking a defiant  attitude toward even trying wasn’t helping me manage it and as an adult middle it was time this was put a stop to.
My disability isn’t an excuse for not trying
This is why he explained is why from now on every single time I do something like that, I will be paddled for it on the bare, no if’s buts or maybes.
After that, I did actually start, feeling very tearful as my bottom throbbed and I got through two units in the study guide and the corresponding sections with tests in the work book getting 85%.
He like most grown ups do understand how my disabilities cause genuine difficulties and gives me credit for that.My attitude gave me no credit because I refused to start and as painful as yesterdays lesson he taught me was he was right.
My disability isn’t an excuse for not trying
My results were quite acceptable and although other units may be harder it doesn’t mean that either I will fail nor it justified taking the attitude it looked too hard for me because I will be judged on what I do right and helped with what I don’t.
Like every other person from now on I am expected to try and give things my best shot
My disability isn’t an excuse for not trying – EVER

Bonds and emotions of a little

It's not that often I talk about emotions least of all what feels to be me  but there are times when I think it makes sense to not least for everything really comes together for me and this whole journey I've been through so far in. One thing is a childhood routed in fear, fear of how other kids could and did ill treat me from 'being sent to Coventry' though bullying, of a homelife where domestic tension to the point of things being thrown and calls to the police being made lead to me being at times even now feeling gripped by crippling anxiety. 

The problems I have with my disabilities as much as admit to using them as an excuse to be lazy and for adults to allow that to happen, compounded it with difficulties in making myself understood, difficulties in understanding others, in having a understood secure sense of place that I had a working knowledge of 'The Rules'. 

The whole thing leads to a "crippling terror of existence" for me so it's hardly surprising that a protective practically Child to Adult relationship is where I find myself in where the physical expression of affection in the way of cuddles and hugs, the love that is shown in overseeing, guiding me anew and the loving hands that have me at my most vulnerable over their lap spanking me feels so good.

The return of spanking in my life

Something started to happen just before the end of 2014 and really got going the following New Year and that was I had a Caregiver come into my life because to be very honest with you all I was struggling with chunks of my behaviour and attitudes not just to other people although that was bad enough but also they were really messing me up and I couldn’t stop it.

 So we discussed it and eventually worked out what I needed help in doing, what in me had to change and (and this is the big bugbear with that one person) just how all of this was to be enforced having consented to it.
Hidden behind a euphemism or two used elsewhere, it was agreed I am to be spanked for deliberate breaches of the rules we agreed to help my behaviour be they about taking personal responsibility in my domestic life like helping out, getting to bed at my bed time (cos I have one now), not dealing with important matters, bad language (it may surprise you but I can swear!) and not following through any assignments I am set by them.

So the year is been one where my smalls have been lowered and I’ve been spanked quite a bit by hand, hairbrush or paddle for breaches of the rules and, without naming names, other trusted people are doing likewise when I’m with them to help me change.

As an Adult in my life, You are to bend me, pull my knickers down and get on with the job of inflicting pain on my bottom, turning it red, making me tearful to reform my attitudes and behaviour. By doing so you are making me accountable and not before time making me grow up which I badly need.
This has been a major change in my life as outside of school or the odd playmates parents, I seldom got any meaningful discipline at all and that was like eons ago so learning to go over a knee and let my bottom be spanked, well it made me feel very little pretty much the middle in my school uniform.
For the first time in ages I was actually submitting to authority rather than telling it to eff off!!!
There’s no way anyone can say being spanked doesn’t hurt because that’s the entire point of it, it is meant to be unpleasant but I have really have adapted to it and the rituals, finding it comforting while at the same time it has had the necessary effect of deterring me from a good number things that are bad for me like using the internet to past three in the morning which earned me the biggest spanking of my life and -touch wood- has stopped that stone dead as it needed to be.
You see, for me (and everyone’s different), spanking is very good when combined with one on one practical support in helping me grow up, take more care of my own welfare and be responsible that other approaches tried in the past never achieved.