An Endorphin High – Without Pain

I don’t usually post about a session experience until some time has passed to put it in to context and understand what I learned.  This time is a bit different, it’s written the day after and there’s a big element of sub drop.  However, tiredness and lethargy don’t stop me thinking and I thought it might be interesting to attempt to write whilst still inside the experience.  

On top of that, she forwarded some pictures last night.  I read the message as being that she expected me to write about it, sooner rather than later.  This may be too soon but I think it will be interesting to write whilst still mentally raw and processing.

What’s odd about this sub drop reaction is that it has nothing to do with pain.  I find that the endorphins produced from pain are masked by the pain itself.  By the time I’ve processed and recovered from the initial application of pain the endorphins have subsided and between them it can be difficult to apportion which is responsible for the sub drop.

This time it’s all about the endorphins and being able to analyse their effect in isolation from pain.

Things started normally enough.  The warm up on the spanking bench was along similar lines to recent experiences.  A means to invoke sensitivity rather than welts and leathery skin.  Only the occasional abrupt use of a stinger punctuating the deepening tranquillity.  She kept me at the point of numbness.  A place I normally pass through quite quickly.  I could feel the impacts of hands and implements in some kind of abstract, without any sting (except that bloody stinger).  The normal path to sensitisation passes quickly through here until suddenly the slightest touch feels electric and I visualise it like a drum skin rippling out out from the point of contact to be felt over a wide area.

And she stopped before achieving this transition, took off the cuffs and invited me to lie face down on the padded table.  I had an inkling what this might mean as I’d been thinking about it for a couple of months and most recently about five minutes earlier whilst being warmed up.  Turned out I was right, not that that means I knew what to expect, she’s too canny for that kind of predictability.

Yes, it was time to revisit needle play (you might have guessed from the pic … lol).  That first time, over a year ago, was breaking a hard limit and I wrote about it here.  That experience was as much about coming to terms with something I didn’t know if I wanted, or could handle.  This time I didn’t have to worry about those basic issues, I could get properly in to understanding the effects.  And boy, was this a learning experience.

In total she used nearly twice the number of needles as the first time.  The initial pattern was in the same area as before and wasn’t difficult to cope with.  The needles don’t actually hurt when you really expect them to.  There’s a sting as they penetrate the skin, in and out, which subsides very quickly.  I think my generation may have residual memories of school vaccinations.  A whole class lined up to walk up to the nurse who used the same needle on everyone.  For the poor sods further back in the queue it was blunt and could hurt like hell.

Once the needles are in place, I couldn’t feel them.  Perhaps I was relaxed enough this time so that the skin didn’t tighten and pull on them ever so slightly.  It was impossible to count them, I thought about it once, but since I didn’t know how many she’d already applied it slipped my mind entirely.  I only found out afterwards.  The other strange thing was trying to work out the pattern being traced out.  She wandered across the back and down in to more sensitive areas of skin that were new to this treatment and I was imagining all sorts of patterns about which I was totally wrong.

As she moved southwards the sting of the needle on more sensitive skin drew my attention to something very weird happening.  Initially too low level to notice, the act of inserting each needle releases endorphins.  Even without pain masking the effects it was probably only after about 30 needles that I came to realise how weird I was feeling.  There were physical symptoms that alerted me to this space I was in and from then on I could feel each new needle building on it.  The physical effects being a marker to the deep change in mental state as a result of the endorphin high.

One of my deeper fascinations over the years has been the thought of involuntary physical and mental reactions.  Talk to any medic and they have a hoard of knowledge about such things.  However, despite the fascinations it’s not a comfortable thing for me to even think about.  And here I was having a very real involuntary reaction to someone effortlessly triggering waves of endorphins.  Not an entirely comfortable place to be in.  I’m not sure if that was because I was just beginning to understand the true effect of needle play, or perhaps an internalised fear of being hooked on the pure endorphin experience.  It’s totally different to the feelings of enduring pain, there is no pain, the body chemistry changes are very pure.

Oh, and the endorphin build up continues whilst the needles are removed.  I was in an incredibly foggy head space by the time she’d finished.

It was now apparent why the earlier warm up had been so light.  Very sensibly she hadn’t wanted me awash with endorphins before applying the needles.  God knows where I’d have got to if that had been the case.

She gave me time to come down enough before leaving, taking very obvious delight in my initially confused and incoherent state.  I have a long drive and I’m used to suspending my mental state until I get home.  At which point, when I release it, it can be intense to deal with.  And this was about as intense as I can remember.  Very disconcerting for it not to be associated with pain.

The final incongruity is that I have a set of marks on my back that are going to take a few days to disappear.  She’s applied some serious CP implements on my back and the marks have gone in an hour.  Longer lasting marks without pain feels totally the wrong way around 😉

All of which means that today, the day after, the drop is in proportion to the high.  Tired, lethargic and thoughts only slowly going through the mind.  There may be another post when I’ve had time and perspective to think about it.