However, I can wear the title of emotional masochist rather well.
Now, "Emotional masochist" is one of those terms that you probably don't want to Google. Kind of like "Headache and fever" because by the end of page one, you will go from mild pain, to meningitis patient on her deathbed. Or in this case, from mostly stable, to incredibly self destructive and emotionally damaged.
So, I'm not debating definitions here, I am making my own. And no, I haven't quite decided what mine is in word form yet, but I have a whole post
I realize that this is going to be a highly interpretable sentence, and that most interpretations will be terrible, but there might be a few of you who "get" it:
The emotional masochist is the person who shines and gets shit done when a loved one dies--because they can ride the high of being in emotional agony. And they are the one's who crash hardest when that high fades.
I do occasionally crave pain, because it gets me out of my head. There is a certain release in pain or in the pain/pleasure combination, that isn't really achieved with other physical sensations.
But what I really crave, what really turns me on and makes me melt, are the things I don't want. The things that make me cringe and blush, the things that make me want to run away and hide, the things that make me squirm and want to crawl away--the things that I find humiliating.
To me, that is emotional masochism.
Humiliation is about control--someone having enough control over you that you are willing to fall into any depths because they so desire it. It's about being stripped bare in ways far beyond the physical experiences we use to define ourselves. It's about going so far down that you can't see the top, and he is the only reality that truly exists.
Emotional masochism is surrender. Surrender to all that we try to keep hidden and find difficult to accept about ourselves.
The emotional masochist is the voice that whispers "Tie me to a chair and make me watch you fuck someone else, push me over the edge and watch me fall, grab me back up just before I crash and break into a million tiny pieces. Inspect me from head to toe, and push me just far enough beyond my limits that I crack. Then pick me up and put me back together in whatever new form pleases you."
Emotional masochism is wanting someone to crawl so deep into your mind that you are willing to bypass all of your own desires in order to achieve theirs. It is the sensation of fulfilling one's purpose simply by experiencing things that one explicitly does not want.
At this point, I think it is worth mentioning that one doesn't want to become a Google statistic. I do believe that emotional masochism can be a terribly unhealthy thing if it is not managed correctly.
In a way, it is also much easier to damage the emotionally masochistic than it is to take physical masochism too far--because the marks are not clearly visible to the naked eye.
The emotional masochist is willing to surrender to anything.
Owning an emotional masochist requires knowing when to stop, and how to put them back together. It is paying attention to the cracks and caring enough to avoid the things that will cause real, lasting, and irreparable harm.
Just because someone is willing to travel to the depths of hell, doesn't mean that you should actually take them there.
