I've been thinking a lot lately about how I differentiate between "want" and "need" in terms of relationships. In most cases, they're specific to BDSM relationships, but I think it's really sort of all romantic relationships. I'll get around to how this relates to depression (or Big D Depression? I'm not sure what the difference is there, or why I feel the need to point one out...).
I don't think I "need" a partner, or that I "need" my current partner, but that's a sort of pretty obvious one. I'd survive; I'd continue to eat and sleep and work and write and have orgasms and call my mother and pay bills and blog, if he left. I'd be really sad for a while. Probably a long while. But I wouldn't cease to function as a human being.
And yet I'm really careful of that word and how it relates to romantic relationships, and it really scares me when other people use it. I think where I differentiate between what I'd deem a healthy, non-squicky independent relationship, and what I'd deem a get-yourself-a-less-codependent-perspective-and-outta-there relationship; I think I'd define it without such a split infinitive, like: the difference is in how you're able to feel happy.
So, it's not live or die, it's not survive or not survive. It's your ability to be content, to be normal, to be happy, whatever you want to call it - all on your own.
I say that like it's an easy thing. And although I don't think I'm clinically big-D Depressed, I know, and have felt acutely, how not-easy a thing that can be. Mostly, it manifests as the Everything Thing (basically, the world coming down around your head and everything being not good enough all at once. Ze Frank explains it better; the link is to his show on the Everything Thing. He's great - not kink related at all, but really great). So I don't mean to brush it off (see also: Chase That Happy, which sometimes works, although sometimes the Everything Thing is too big for Chasing Teh Happy).
What kink does for me, I think, isn't dissimilar to what cutting used to do for me, although I think it does it in a healthier way, and to a much better extent. And maybe that's even taking it too far; I think they're not the same, but that maybe my desire for them comes from a similar place. I think kink lets me have a place where I'm allowed to feel pain, allowed to feel bad, allowed to feel shame and humiliation, allowed to cry and scream and rage. And all that gets lifted away, all the bad gets gutted out, and at the end, I'm clearer. I think clearer, I think faster and sharper, I'm calmer emotionally, and I chase my own happy better.
Would I find other places were I not in a kinky relationship to do this? Sure. I try to anyway; when I'm sad, or feeling the Everything Thing (which is really a better word than "sad," a more accurate word, anyway), I try to honor that, and sit with that, and let myself feel it as much as I feel it. There's always a little guilt (or a lot of guilt), and some pressure that I shouldn't be wallowing,* but I get there. Kink is a different way to get there, I think. They're not interchangeable, in any quantities, they just... sometimes seem to fit in some of the same holes (no sexy puns intended).
*I know that I sometimes wallow, but really, I hate that word. Like feeling anything just for the sake of feeling it is a bad thing. I know sometimes I can wallow; that I need a kick in the butt to let things go, but I don't think that's nearly as much of the time, for most people, as those most people think it is. Feelings are feelings. Honor them, let them take their time. They're going to cause way more problems if you don't.
So I guess what I mean when I say you shouldn't "need" anyone is that I think you (the proverbial, royal you) should be a whole person all by yourself. And that doesn't mean you can't be a better person with the right partner, or partners. That doesn't mean other people can't bring out the better parts in you (because obviously, people do this, even people you're not in relationships with). It doesn't mean you can't want someone really, really bad, or really a lot, and it doesn't mean that picturing your life without them should be some cheery happy thing.
It just means you should be a whole person. And that's enough of a not-easy thing all on it's own, so good for anybody (me, maybe?) even trying.
No comments:
Post a Comment