Reactions

Its normal to have periods of reactance, reactance is a behaviour mostly caused by how a submissive reacts to a dominants decision, the level of reactance is determined by how much that decision effects the submissive.

In psychology reactance is

"a motivational reaction to offers, persons, rules or regulations that threaten or eliminate specific behavioural freedoms.  Reactance occurs when a person feels that someone or something is taking away his or hers choices or limiting the range of alternatives"

When i submit to things i enjoy and i want to do there is no reactance because its within my comfort zone and i do not feel threatened by what is being asked or expected of me and because obviously its something im happy to do.

When he first introduced the rule that in his presence i should ask permission to use the bathroom there was reactance, not a lot but enough to make me get a bit anxious because using the bathroom is a need and i felt threatened that this basic human need and freedom could be denied me.  Now its been a few years since this was rule was introduced it does not bother me, i have become accustomed to it, i understand that its a demonstration of his control over a basic need, it shows me that he can choose to deny or grant me this basic need.

If he were to decide something that had an impact on my ability to do my job effectively for example give me a beating knowing that i was swimming with a class the next day and marks would be visible then my reactance would be extremely high because my job is very important to me and the impact his decision would have on me would be emotionally distressing.  He would not do this because its of no benefit to him and he is aware of the negative impact it would have on me.

As his control over me became more, so too did my level of reactance increase dependent on how much that control effected me because he was moving me out of my comfort zone, his dominance dictated my submission and how it would be demonstrated not the other way round which meant that there were times (and still are now) that there are high levels of reactance demonstrated perhaps by verbal outbursts, defiance or to withdraw into myself.

an anology

There is an Aesops fable about a fox that could not reach a bunch of grapes, so he declared that they were probably sour, the forbidden object is deemed to be less appealing, if a goal is unattainable, it will be devalued.  There is no reactance.

But on the other hand the response could be outrage, attempts to get those grapes by any means possible because they are unattainable, the more appealing they become even though it is known that they can not be got at.  There is reactance.

So it really doesnt matter how much i may want what is forbidden or denied because it doesnt change the outcome, but how i react is changable depending on how much i want what i cant have, or how i perceive his decision and its impact on me.