I can remember with a visceral rawness, the first time my uncontrollable emotions found pain. I had driven an hour home from college classes, fatigued from anemia due to menstrual blood loss that no doctor could fix and got into a typical fight with my mom (my home life wasn't the best during childhood but that's a post for another time). She wouldn't listen to anything I was saying, wouldn't let me get my words or emotions out and then left me standing there in a borderline panic attack (also deal with severe anxiety on a daily basis) to go into her room because she couldn't handle the fight anymore. My emotions overwhelmed me and didn't know where to go. My body didn't know what to do. So I bent forward, tears streaming down my face and a scream welling up in my throat, and dug my nails into my thigh as hard as I could. My panicked emotions didn't immediately go away, but I felt a moment of instant small relief, so I dug harder and the relief increased. The pain transferred from an emotional one I couldn't define or do anything about to a physical one that had a direct reason (my nails drawing blood), and I could handle that better than the screaming tirade in my head.
Fast forward to my twenties and I'm in a emotionally abusive severely toxic relationship, alone in Vermont (where I moved for him) with no support system and my anxiety going haywire. I would be screamed at, told to stop crying, gaslight, made to feel small and crazy and would then be left alone in our apartment with no idea where he was or when he would come back. So my brain tried to protect me from the horrific emotions threatening to tear me apart with nowhere to go, and I remembered that feeling of nails digging into my thighs and that release that came from pain. So, whenever these fights would occur, I started to grab the nearest sharp object and go to town hacking the hell out of my inner right thigh. I knew it was harming me, and I knew I should stop but I didn't know how else to get that release in a healthy manner.
Thank the goddesses, I was forced out of that relationship and found strength to leave, but the self harming tendency damage was already done. When difficult conflicts with family that I hadn't been living with for almost a decade came up, or grief from the death of my relationship sprang to mind, or any trauma trigger caught me off guard, I felt that same pull to cut. I didn't know anything else. I tried other things, taking a drive, listening to music, running until my body gave out, but nothing gave me that same release. I knew this was a bad pattern and it scared my family, but I felt stuck. Until I was introduced into the world of BDSM.
I knew a bit about that world and was deeply intrigued by it but had only been with one person who I couldn't explore that with because of a lack of desire and trust. I started talking with an old friend who has deep experience with that and we connected on a level that fit for my demi-sexual nature (more on that topic in a future blog post to come) that moved us into a relationship. For this first time, I could explore pain as a positive thing, as a sexual fetish, as a bonding ritual. I could get that release from pain in a safe environment that didn't always have to be tied to a negative emotion.
The first time he cut his initial into my thigh during foreplay and embraced the blood that sprang forth from the wound, was a revelation for me. I could get a deep positive level of pain that took me completely out of my mind and into my body where I was held and safe but fully deeply embodied. Pretty quickly the desire to cut on my own started to wane. It didn't hold the same weight anymore because now I had a option for a better pleasurable experience with cutting that didn't involve my in pain, crying and lonely on the floor. My outlook on pain release started to shift. I think this happens with many people who like pain and get to finally experience it in a BDSM context.
This is all not to say that I don't still struggle at times with a desire to cut when emotions get really bad and I won't get the sexual cutting immediately, but just knowing it's an option goes a long way to calming me down and allowing me to turn a positive into a negative knowing I can ask for safe pain on my terms later as a overall release from negative emotions at the end of a stressful day.
Healed initial cut
Fresh cut
Comments