Mental Health And BDSM – My Story

It is clear to me that my mental health and BDSM are closely related. I know that the denial decades, the time when I denied that I had these needs, were difficult. I know those decades were marked by mood swings and feelings of inadequacy and depression.

When I sought counseling then had my greatest fears put to rest by more than one psychologist it lifted a burden from me. Then I was able to have my first ever BDSM experience with a professional mistress, a dominatrix.

I can still remember how I felt after that first session. It was like a weight had been lifted, like I was a new person, like I had been reborn and rebuilt.

To be told by medical practitioners, “No your BDSM side does not make you a bad person or take away from who you are,” was one of the most profound moments in my life.

Where It All Started

In my very early teens I discovered self-bondage and the joy of having a belt fetish. Since this was in a time before the internet, and half a century before the 50 shades phenomenon, knowledge and acceptance of this kind of activity was pretty much nil.

From my upbringing, I was totally unable to admit this need to anyone and it became my secret pleasure for decades, but also a source of instability.

In fact, I’d (of course) known absolutely nothing about what I was doing and enjoying, I just knew it called to me and I felt better for it. It was a spontaneous pleasure that surfaced from an inner need.

The key take away is that I did it spontaneously.

Where’s The Benefit

Without going into detail, but over the years my needs changed slightly and grew.

I found that after indulging in my secret pleasure that I was happier for a time afterward. It seemed to relax, to release, to free my innermost self in some way that nothing else could.

Sex, vanilla sex outside of BDSM was great which I enjoyed and still enjoy immensely. My BDSM needs don’t take away from that but I’ve never mixed them together. For me they are separate but I am sure that for others this is not the case. We’re all different and while I sometimes I wish I could mix the two together it is not a strong or great wish.

I could talk about the mechanisms, the things that are done, the equipment, the fetish, the pain and the erotic or sub-space nature of the BDSM session but that is a topic for another post. It is also different for different people as I am sure my needs are different from others.

What matters to me and what makes my sessions work probably won’t be the same for many others, and vice versa.

The direction the benefit comes from, the means to that benefit comes from a number of sources or reasons.

First of all, being tied up, in bondage, seems to affect me deeply. I feel a release from stress and a giving up of responsibility.

I love that feeling, both physically and mentally as belts wrap and restrain me.

Sub-space is a real thing for me. All the aspects of the BDSM session work with this to push me deeper and deeper into a far more relaxed state sometimes called ‘sub-space’ where the every-day-me is gone and a new me emerges. It is a me that has regressed to become almost elemental in its regression and freedom from this world.

Sub-space is a little like deep meditation. It is a time when the usual day to day “me” is gone and replaced by a totally placid, passive, un-thinking and un-caring me who just responds in the session and floats along with it.

I once told my wife that it’s impossible to thinking of much else when you’re tied up getting a strapping from a leather clad dominatrix. And it’s true. The whole experience, and because it’s so deep within me, pushes me into a totally different space. Nothing else in the world exists.

Fetish and indulgence are factors. Being able to indulge in fetish, to let that inner need out and to have acceptance and participation from someone else is a huge thing.

Just being able to indulge in something that means so much to me means a lot.

Also the humiliation of being in bondage, of being given corporal punishment while in bondage and to feel that embarrassment is all part of it. It challenges my societal norms, yet I do it, yet it challenges and the contradictions take a toll on me.

It all helps push me into sub-space, to change me.

For the vanilla readers – the nearest I can give you as an example;

Imagine you have had a terrible month, the most stressful you can imagine. Then you set out to go on holiday and the traffic is terrible, everything conspires to make your life difficult. The car has trouble, there is road work, you get a speeding ticket – the list goes on. Then you get to your destination feeling tired and washed out and stressed, you throw your bags in the hotel room and walk down to the beach. Suddenly the trauma in your brain stops, your mood changes and expands expands into the surroundings, all the weight is lifted and stresses are forgotten and you feel good. You are on holiday. You walk bare footed in the surf and listen to the crashing waves as it consumes you.

Well, that’s how I feel at the start of a BDSM session, then it just gets better.

Perhaps it is in the giving up of the self, giving the power over myself to another (oft called power exchange), removing all my cares and responsibilities that has such a profound effect on me.

“Power exchange” to me is a clinical term in my opinion. It is used to describe the process of the BDSM session where the mistress dominates the slave for a time. For me, I have never thought that. The BDSM session is my coming out time, when I live my inner fantasy. I;m free to indulge even if only for a short time.

As Time Went On

Back onto the time line, after my teenage years I remained in denial for three decades and change before I eventually “broke” then saw a therapist who reassured me that in these much more enlightened times, my needs did not make me bad person.

After my first BDSM session I found a peace and acceptance and a release from inner tensions that had been growing for decades. It was a particularly cathartic time and a time of self discovery. While I didn’t cry from the release, I could absolutely understand it if others did.

Trying to Keep An Even Balance – Secrets Can Be Destructive

I married then had children with a wonderful woman who to this day I still enjoy a deeply loving relationship with and would in no way want or consider to change.

One of the most difficult things in my life was coming out to her about my BDSM needs, and then trying to help her understand that it is just a part of me that in no way invalidates my love for her. Now, nearly two decades later she is accepting and even sends me off for a BDSM session when it is clear I need one again.

Keeping that even balance can be difficult. In busy times, times of stress I handle all that very well on a day to day basis. But it is wearing. After a time, weeks or even a few months and more I find my thoughts are turning toward that inner place that calls me. When I try to repress it, it builds an inner tension that destabilized me.

It does sound a little like a split personality as I re-read that. And it is. There is the logical every day “vanilla” me and then the kinky-me needing release.

There is no doubt it is an inner place, something that is a part of me. It is not habit that brings it, it is not the trauma of life itself or something forced on me.

It is everything. It is my self-consciousness understanding that I need it to make me whole again. Like eating when I’m hungry. Like showering when I feel dirty or greasy.

Going Forward

In the years I have left on this earth I somehow doubt I will change much in my needs. Speaking with mistresses the message is the same, age is not a great factor in needs for BDSM.

I know my health and in particular my mental health are dependent on my acceptance of my needs and occasionally having them met.

However the intensity I enjoy may change as that may be natural. We all change. Also I find myself drawn to one part of my need more than others, but that would seem to also be the nature of the whole spectrum of BDSM and life in general.

BDSM can change as required, it is broad and deep in what is available.

Are You Struggling?

I did for years and wouldn’t wish that on anyone. My issues were upbringing related and long lasting, decades.

My solution and one which I hope helps others was to seek professional counseling. That helped immensely by letting me come to terms with my needs and de-stigmatize them.

Above all else, it helped to de-stimatize the whole BDSM thing.

‘Trikki