Firstly, before I even start with this I want to state that I am not depressed, crazy, insane and that I don’t need to be put in a straightjacket and taken to a shrink and be medicated 
In fact, I’ve been feeling quite fine the last few days ^-^
Okay… now that I’m done with the funny paragraph, let’s go down to the darker stuff…
The last couple of months, since I’ve started recovering and the re-start, I’ve been thinking about a lot of things… I’m still not really done thinking (I’m never done thinking!) and still not quite sure on how all these things connect together or if they do connect at all… I already mentioned previously about having trouble defining my likes, dislikes, etc. as this has become very blurry during the time I was ill and the fact that, all of a sudden I’ve been thinking a lot about humiliation without even knowing exactly why… Of course, I have discussed all these things with Merlin too many times already. At the beginning of the re-start about 2 months ago I remember I had said to merlin something about my dislikes. Basically what I said was that I felt I needed to do somethings I hate sometimes because “at times I need to feel bad”. That’s a short version of what I said at least… After that conversation and me explaining in details how it was and how I felt, etc. Merlin told me that I was most likely a masochist. That kinda surprised me… Not that I didn’t believe it to be possible but because I had never seen this from that angle. Well… to be honest I don’t think I’ve ever looked at it from any angle at all… I just knew that I had these recurring weird ideas and feelings but had no clue why…
Of course I’m aware how the word “masochism” can cover a wide range of activities and emotions/sensations attached to them. The definition of the word is quite large and general itself:
“Masochism refers to sexual or non-sexual gratification from receiving the infliction of pain.”
Yes, this definition is, of course, accurate but at the same time quite large and unspecific… If you ask many people: “Give me an example” I bet a lot of those people would say “Someone who enjoys spankings” and things of that nature. At least I know I would have answered something like that a few months ago… But what about those people who like to feel sad, angry, frustrated, scared…? This is called emotional masochism and, you guessed it, it refers to enjoying negative feelings. That’s the type of masochist I am. For some reasons I need to feel vulnrable and unsafe… Yes, I know it’s contradictory to the reasons why I want to submit: I’ve said already a million times how submission brings me safety… But I seem to also need, when I’ve been “too safe and too happy” for a certain amount of time, to lose my comfort and go where it hurts…
I must explain here that I don’t “love” or “want” this type of pain. Actually I’ve always tried to avoid it or fought against it. And when it happens it’s usually not on purpose either. But yet somehow I find myself seeking it after a while when it has been too long since I felt like that the last time… Emotional masochism is different from one person to another. It is very difficult to explain. What does it do for me? I really don’t know if it’s sexual at all… maybe it is… this is yet something I haven’t figured out. I don’t go from an extreme to another with it either as in “feeling bad and then
feeling great after…” What I know is that after experiencing an intense bad feeling after a while I go to a more neutral, quiet and peaceful state of mind.
How all of this relates to activities I hate or am uncomfortable with is that even if most of these things are “physical” they tend to produce some of these feelings more or less, especially anxiety. It’s even happened on a few occasions that I felt almost like crying before starting some tasks yet I went through with it. And even after experiencing some bad failures (that’s another recurring bad feeling) it stayed in the back of my mind and I eventually found myself at one point or another “insisting” on doing harder stuff again… Even these episodes when I was requesting to do those I was somehow in an emotional masochist mode. The reasons I gave for retrying then was because I wanted to be more pleasing, more useful and progress. And, yes, this was also true. But I’m sure now that another important factor was that I needed to experience those bad feelings and I would not get much of them through doing stuff I enjoy all the time. And from the limited experience I’ve had so far I know I like the internal conflicts produced by being forced to do something I don’t want to do and that I would normally not do. Yet I also know that I need to be reassured after these experiences…
So far I haven’t had to do a lot of things I really dislike. Once it was made clear I didn’t like it the activity either became very occasional, lowered to its “minimum level” or completely stopped.
Last time I posted in my blog was about humiliation as this was also another thing I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. I must say that I do not see humiliation and emotional masochism as being tha same thing although I can see how humiliation could easily produce these same feelings.
Just a sidenote about humiliation: I’m not sure since I haven’t re-read my last entry but I think there are a few points I haven’t mentioned in there… One important thing is that, for me, humiliation just on purpose doesn’t really work well with me. It has a more significant and “positive” impact if it’s a side-effect. Also I don’t consider the “classic stuff” like crawling or being a piece of furniture as humiliating. For most of these I find them “meh…” more than anything.
Like I said all of this is relatively new to me… I think deep down I’ve always knew this side of me but didn’t want to be like that… For many reasons… Emotional masochism can be quite tricky for submissives as well as dominant partners I realize that too… I said also the same about humiliation last week: dealing with the mind and emotions is not as simple as with physical activities. At least in terms of defining where the limits are, I think… In bondage, if someone is tied and the ropes are too tight you feel it at some point. The area that’s tied becomes numb, changes color, etc. and you know you have to readjust the ropes. But with any form of mind play how do you readjust if things are done wrong or too much? You can’t…
At the moment all of this is really unknown territory both for Merlin and I… And I think things will most likely stay as they are, at least for the moment… This is a very complex situation and I am just starting to understand better some of my reactions now… Going further with seems complicated too since while I’m following commands I tend to become quite non-verbal. This, couple with the fact that Merlin is very protective and doesn’t really enjoy seeing me struggle makes things really hard to figure out how to work around this.
So I think this is all for now… I’m pretty sure that I’ve missed some points but the essential is there. And, same as for the last entry, this reflection is also a “work in progress” and it is most likely that I will write again about it as well.
In fact, I’ve been feeling quite fine the last few days ^-^Okay… now that I’m done with the funny paragraph, let’s go down to the darker stuff…
The last couple of months, since I’ve started recovering and the re-start, I’ve been thinking about a lot of things… I’m still not really done thinking (I’m never done thinking!) and still not quite sure on how all these things connect together or if they do connect at all… I already mentioned previously about having trouble defining my likes, dislikes, etc. as this has become very blurry during the time I was ill and the fact that, all of a sudden I’ve been thinking a lot about humiliation without even knowing exactly why… Of course, I have discussed all these things with Merlin too many times already. At the beginning of the re-start about 2 months ago I remember I had said to merlin something about my dislikes. Basically what I said was that I felt I needed to do somethings I hate sometimes because “at times I need to feel bad”. That’s a short version of what I said at least… After that conversation and me explaining in details how it was and how I felt, etc. Merlin told me that I was most likely a masochist. That kinda surprised me… Not that I didn’t believe it to be possible but because I had never seen this from that angle. Well… to be honest I don’t think I’ve ever looked at it from any angle at all… I just knew that I had these recurring weird ideas and feelings but had no clue why…
Of course I’m aware how the word “masochism” can cover a wide range of activities and emotions/sensations attached to them. The definition of the word is quite large and general itself:
“Masochism refers to sexual or non-sexual gratification from receiving the infliction of pain.”
Yes, this definition is, of course, accurate but at the same time quite large and unspecific… If you ask many people: “Give me an example” I bet a lot of those people would say “Someone who enjoys spankings” and things of that nature. At least I know I would have answered something like that a few months ago… But what about those people who like to feel sad, angry, frustrated, scared…? This is called emotional masochism and, you guessed it, it refers to enjoying negative feelings. That’s the type of masochist I am. For some reasons I need to feel vulnrable and unsafe… Yes, I know it’s contradictory to the reasons why I want to submit: I’ve said already a million times how submission brings me safety… But I seem to also need, when I’ve been “too safe and too happy” for a certain amount of time, to lose my comfort and go where it hurts…
I must explain here that I don’t “love” or “want” this type of pain. Actually I’ve always tried to avoid it or fought against it. And when it happens it’s usually not on purpose either. But yet somehow I find myself seeking it after a while when it has been too long since I felt like that the last time… Emotional masochism is different from one person to another. It is very difficult to explain. What does it do for me? I really don’t know if it’s sexual at all… maybe it is… this is yet something I haven’t figured out. I don’t go from an extreme to another with it either as in “feeling bad and then
feeling great after…” What I know is that after experiencing an intense bad feeling after a while I go to a more neutral, quiet and peaceful state of mind.
How all of this relates to activities I hate or am uncomfortable with is that even if most of these things are “physical” they tend to produce some of these feelings more or less, especially anxiety. It’s even happened on a few occasions that I felt almost like crying before starting some tasks yet I went through with it. And even after experiencing some bad failures (that’s another recurring bad feeling) it stayed in the back of my mind and I eventually found myself at one point or another “insisting” on doing harder stuff again… Even these episodes when I was requesting to do those I was somehow in an emotional masochist mode. The reasons I gave for retrying then was because I wanted to be more pleasing, more useful and progress. And, yes, this was also true. But I’m sure now that another important factor was that I needed to experience those bad feelings and I would not get much of them through doing stuff I enjoy all the time. And from the limited experience I’ve had so far I know I like the internal conflicts produced by being forced to do something I don’t want to do and that I would normally not do. Yet I also know that I need to be reassured after these experiences…
So far I haven’t had to do a lot of things I really dislike. Once it was made clear I didn’t like it the activity either became very occasional, lowered to its “minimum level” or completely stopped.
Last time I posted in my blog was about humiliation as this was also another thing I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. I must say that I do not see humiliation and emotional masochism as being tha same thing although I can see how humiliation could easily produce these same feelings.
Just a sidenote about humiliation: I’m not sure since I haven’t re-read my last entry but I think there are a few points I haven’t mentioned in there… One important thing is that, for me, humiliation just on purpose doesn’t really work well with me. It has a more significant and “positive” impact if it’s a side-effect. Also I don’t consider the “classic stuff” like crawling or being a piece of furniture as humiliating. For most of these I find them “meh…” more than anything.
Like I said all of this is relatively new to me… I think deep down I’ve always knew this side of me but didn’t want to be like that… For many reasons… Emotional masochism can be quite tricky for submissives as well as dominant partners I realize that too… I said also the same about humiliation last week: dealing with the mind and emotions is not as simple as with physical activities. At least in terms of defining where the limits are, I think… In bondage, if someone is tied and the ropes are too tight you feel it at some point. The area that’s tied becomes numb, changes color, etc. and you know you have to readjust the ropes. But with any form of mind play how do you readjust if things are done wrong or too much? You can’t…
At the moment all of this is really unknown territory both for Merlin and I… And I think things will most likely stay as they are, at least for the moment… This is a very complex situation and I am just starting to understand better some of my reactions now… Going further with seems complicated too since while I’m following commands I tend to become quite non-verbal. This, couple with the fact that Merlin is very protective and doesn’t really enjoy seeing me struggle makes things really hard to figure out how to work around this.
So I think this is all for now… I’m pretty sure that I’ve missed some points but the essential is there. And, same as for the last entry, this reflection is also a “work in progress” and it is most likely that I will write again about it as well.
