HappyComeLucky

You all know that I am a masochist. Or at least you should know that unless this is the very first time you have come across me.

There have been a few times recently where I have been prompted to think about my relationship with pain and what happens for me.

The first thing to say is that pain hurts. I can’t make a stubbed toe into a pleasure, nor can I make a cramp into a delight. But, I can process a lot of sensations so that they not only fill me with endorphins, they also transmit energy to me. When that energy hits me, I have a choice to struggle and flail against it as if I am untethered, or, I can let it flood me, flowing into my core.

Those blows force me to relax. They force me to stop protecting myself. The first few are always hard because I’m nervous that this will be the time that I can’t take it and I will be a mess. A fear that I have somehow convinced people that I can take things that I cannot. A fear that I might have forgotten how to ground myself and that it will be a panic.

Once those first few blows unlock that first release of endorphins, everything changes. I’m hungry for the energy of each strike. The connection to the person beating me. The total abandonment of protective tension and, instead there is a different side to me.

Just how I behave depends on the blows. Some impacts are still sharp and make me feel connected to the other person in more rigid way. Even when they aren’t touching me, the connection makes me feel pinned in place for them so that I will be exactly where they expect me to be. There is a precision to the connection. And with that precision comes great trust and confidence. 

There are other impacts, like a very heavy flogger on my back and shoulders, that knock pure existential happiness into me. They make me float and I can feel high as high can be from those blows. The connection that I feel with those beatings is as if I am being completely held, as if the connection encompasses me. It is so strong and something that I will always crave.

Recently I was struggling with my mood and a friend asked if a beating would help. I am so lucky with my friends.

Amongst other things that happened, he straddled me on the bed and beat my back and shoulders. Not only did that take me to that place of happiness, it had the added connection of feeling his movements and responses as he beat me. Honestly, if anyone had put me in a scanner during that beating, I am sure that they would see pure gold being pulled from each impact and down into my core whilst my body suffused with energy that I feel sure was symbiotic with his.

I don’t think my psychiatrist will write me a prescription for beatings, but this one certainly did me good. I don’t know if other masochists visualise the energy of the impacts being pulled into their body, but I do. I do the same with my tattoos. I visualise the meaning of them being forged in power and being pulled into threads being stitched into who I am.