The Shrink and the Masochist

Yeah… I was really bruised that weekend. Man, that was fun.

…Said I to my shrink, upon recounting my experiences at the winter flea. Like every other self respecting New York Jew, I have a shrink. This one was recommended by a family friend. I really should have consulted the kink friendly professionals list. Because, upon saying this, the woman nearly jumped out of her skin.

“What’s wrong with that statement?” She asked me.
I didn’t immediately understand the issue.
“It’s just that, the natural human instinct is to avoid pain.” This is the first thing she said that had any inkling of seeing BDSM as something, well, wrong… I am her first client in the scene. Mostly she deals with sexually repressed Upper East Side housewives and the like. And she mentioned that the whole thing was kind of new to her.

In trying to understand my predilections, she asked me other questions… I don’t know how helpful they were;
Is your enjoyment of pain an expression of guilt? Well, no. If anything it’s an escape from guilt. I spend so many waking hours beating myself up for one thing or another (like not updating this journal, for one). When I scene, I find a space where all of that melts away, and I come completely into my body.

Well, you keep saying that this is an act of empowerment, and I’m trying to figure out what that means. What exactly goest through your head when you receive pain.

This question thoroughly stumped me. And I realized I had no good answer. Sometimes a switch in my brain clicks and turns the pain into… something else… Sometimes just feeling the pain and receiving it gives me some perverse sense of accomplishment. But I have no actual words to fully articulate what it feels like.

This is probably for the same reasons that I have trouble speaking when I scene… unless the scene is silly. Once I did a scene with Evan that accidently became humiliation play. He asked me questions about Russian History I didn’t know how to answer. And Russian history is, like, my thing man. But barring that.

Like I said before, when I play, I go into my body. I don’t assign words or associations to things. I just am. I just feel. I find it almost annoying when people ask me shit in the middle (other than the necessary checking in). Stop dragging me into my head! I live in my head enough as it is!

In retrospect, I probably should have said something to that effect.

In short, I think I need a new therapist.

~ by Sascha on March 10, 2008.