Marrying the mental and the mischief

It always surprises me how aspects of my kink related play marry to other aspects of myself.

Let me back up briefly.   It’s about to get a bit personal.

I have struggled with an eating disorder for over the past decade, though I am now medically considered recovered. I was hospitalized for it back in my late teens and it has influenced some of my current medical conditions.

My relationship with food is still complicated. Especially around holidays like Thanksgiving. I have to navigate a prickly maze of thorn-laden hedges in my brain to merely sit down with family and eat a plateful of food.

I deal with it in my day-to-day life mostly by grazing. It tricks my brain and those darkly creeping thoughts to only eating a little at a time. It’s the plates full of food in front of other people that sets off that siren screaming in my head. Calling the cruel goddess Ana to my brain with her poisoned words and glittering sharp teeth. Just a couple pounds less. Always just a couple less.
Her demand of sacrifice is a throwback to the days of pagans gathered around an unfortunate virgin, knives gleaming.

But I have found a surprising weapon in the community and exploration of kink. Not just the support I receive from friends and mentors when the dark thoughts curl around my feet, but also the play itself.

  The subspace is untouchable by Ana. It is a thickly layered brick maze that she cannot navigate. The stinging of a flogger, the thudding of a paddle, they add barbed wire to those brick walls. The rip of tape, the slithering sound of rope, the zap of electricity…

All of these things are soothing to me. They bring me to a place that I cannot bring myself.   It may seem unorthodox, and I’m sure the average mental-health professional would be floored by the therapy I get from play. After hitting subspace, I haven’t the inclination or motivation to count calories or restrict myself.