It’s been a rough couple of weeks for me. Work has been a stressful and my schedule has left me weary and on edge. I’m probably also dealing with a bit more depression related angst in the background than usual. To cap it off, on Thursday I had the second car accident in I’ve in three weeks. Again, it’s not the end of the world. It appears to be all superficial damage, no injuries and we’re both insured.
Even so, I really didn’t need the extra stress right now. Once I got home I really wanted to crawl into bed and cry, but I couldn’t. It probably doesn’t reflect well on my emotional health that even in private, even when I really need to, I can’t let go.
I also don’t have the easiest time asking for help with this sort of thing. I really don’t want to be a imposition, and part of me still has a hard time processing that “I’m depressed and that’s OK.” At some point in my childhood I absorbed the message that if nothing is physically wrong with you, you should quit your bitchin and get back to work.
When I’m too emotionally on edge to do anything, and yet have nothing to complain about other than how I feel, I tend to shut down a bit, I get very unproductive and anti-social. I don’t want to deal with anything, so I generally try and lose myself in fiction of one sort or another, until I’ve processed whatever’s wrong, or enough time has passed that I can deal with things and move on.
Escapism holds allure for many reasons
This time I did manage to ask for help. While it seems I can’t usually allow myself emotional release in the normal course of things, Tavi has been able to get me there in the past. Once I had sorted out how I was feeling, I told her that I would probably find a good breaking cathartic. She was up for it so that’s what we did Sunday night.
For whatever reason my pain tolerance is still still down from what it had been. I think it’s partially that we haven’t had as much time to play in a while, and partially just how tense/stressed I am. She worked my legs with the cane and in short order had me to the point where I used yellow (which is our intermediate safeword) I think she had to ask me if I needed it and I said yes.
From there Tavi switched to her Shinai which has a nice heft to it, and beat my ass. The thuddiness and I guess some shame or embarassement or feeling of having disappointed her by not having taken the caning better (it’s all sort of muddled in my head) got me from whimpering and teary-eyed to actual tears.
I want to get to something like this, but can only take a fraction of that.
She asked me if I wanted more and I said yes, and so she gave me the crop for a while and then counted off twenty strokes on each leg to finish me off.
A good cry and some cuddling did a lot to pull me back from the edge. The rest of that evening I felt so much better. I’m still dealing with what I’m dealing with, but I feel more like I can get through it. BDSM doesn’t fix everything, but it’s nice that it can be used to help get me on track.
I’m sorry to hear you’re having a tough time right now, Peroxide. (I’m sure “tough” doesn’t do it justice.)
It’s really good to hear that you were willing to ask for some help, though. That’s growth, progress, healthy, and all that. What’s better is that you have someone there to give you a little relief. 🙂
You’re in my thoughts.
Yeah, tough is about right, it’s just one thing after another (or several things concurrently.) I’m sure I’ll survive, I always have, and I’ve got some extra support these days.
P.s. What am I wearing in these thoughts of yours?
Glad to hear you have someone willing and able to help you through the tough times. And don’t be too hard on yourself – while being able to reach the point of being all red and sliced up is a nice fantasy/goal, it is definitely better to push you limits safely! I really hate the shaming that is associated with safewording in some sections of the scene. I tend to think any good dom would be more disappointed if you needed to safeword and didn’t.
Also, thanks for bringing up some good memories. It’s been a few years since I had shinai to play with, and they remain part of my favorite scenes. Must add a couple to my next wishlist.
I’m definitely not beating myself up about it, but both Tavi and I would like to go father. We’re being careful and I’m communicative during and after play, it would just be nice if I could take more pain.
Have you tried meditation or visualization techniques? Not something I’ve ever applied to kink, but anything that helped me get through labor has definite possibilities for increasing pain endurance.
I try to focus on breathing, and on her sometimes, and have occasionally gotten to a meditation like headspace, maybe i just need to focus more going in, instead of being shocked by the pain every time.
What works best for me is a meditation/visualization based on way too much time at the beach. Pain is like the ocean waves – if you fight it, you’ll get batter bruised and ground into the sand. If you relax and ride along with it, let it pass over and through you, it carries you along. I also like using mantras – just having that one phrase to repeat and focus on. I think it just acts as a focus to distract me from pain, but it works.
I don’t know how well visualisation would work for me, but I might try using a mantra next time we play rough, I can see that helping me.
I completely relate to your gaming analogy. I feel like my regular life is pretty normal and frequently boring. But in books and in games, I can be a hero!
There’s the vicarious heroism, but also just the fact that in fiction the challenges encountered by the protagonist are there to be overcome. There is always a solution to fictional problems.
Oddly enough, I do tend to overcome my everyday/actual life challenges as well. It just seems much less dramatic and important. And the challenges really only effect me and mine. Certainly not like the fate of the nation hinges on whether or not I get out of bed early tomorrow or sleep in. I thought I had long ago come to terms with the fact that not everyone can be Joan of Arc, Mother Teresa, or Marie Curie. Perhaps I’m not nearly as over it as I thought I was.