Mental illness and BDSM correlation. (89)

My time on what is kindly referred to as the scene has been fraught with turmoil, betrayal, great sex and some sadly pathetically frustrating people. Looking through my posting history proves I am not some troll out to get my jollies by random confusion and attempting to feel better about myself through stereotyping a perceived weak minority.

Now, with that disclaimer in place I would like to bring up a touchy subject in the BDSM world: mental illness.

It has been my personal experience that the scene harbours a *far* higher percentage of people with a clear mental illness than the wider world. This illness tends to be of the depressive, manic and psychotic nature. Obviously not everyone portrays the characteristics. However, in my day to day nilla life I never encounter the same proportion of people who are admittedly mentally ill as I do in the BDSM world. I myself am on Anti-DS, so I am no exception to my experience.

I would love as much as anyone to say "The BDSM world is just a cross section of the wider world and has no higher instances of mental illness than the rest of the world.". However, in my experience this is simply just not true.

Now, I would love to think that this is simply because the BDSM world has a way of opening people up to explore themselves as individuals. I just feel this is not the case as I find just as many people who don't know how to express themselves or even begin to understand their own human condition or those of others as in the nilla world.

The only way I can begin to understand this phenomenon is by giving credence to my theory that people who have experienced extremes of emotions whether or on one pole or the other wish to exert control over these poles and achieve balance. It's only natural that they would tend towards what is perceived as extreme to do so - sadomasochisism and Dominance/submission - in an effort to control the extremes of their inner world.

I would love to hear others experiences of this phenomena, and the way they personally reconcile this experience with their beliefs. I really wouldn't rather hear from people who wish to state that we are simply a cross section of wider society with different choices. There are individual reasons for choices and seaking out sub cultures - analysing these, even if they are perceived negative reasons, is nothing to be in denial about. I also wouldn't like to hear from people who want me to do some kind of academic/scientific methodological study of the occurence I have perceived. I have no inclination or desire to do so.

This is simply to inspire discussion and possible advice on a subjective experience that I am sure others share.

"I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve." - Albert Schweitzer.

Though in this case, an even more deeply flawed contention because you give no definition whatsoever as to what you define as a mental illness!

So you state a dodgy generalisation with a net spread so wide that nobody can escape it. Your last paragraph presupposes the truth of your assertion and you ask not to hear from anybody who disagrees with it! Why is your experience the definitive one, hardly a valid statistical sample now is it?

I know few people at all in my life who does not at some point in their life have/will a phase where they would come under that catch-allism, and that is even before you throw in context and points of view, cultural ideology and morality..

My personal view is that most in the scene (what ever that is defined as for these purposes!) have a clearer view of who they are than vanilla land, so I would suggest the occurrence is less.

- John

Edited for clarity

My, what sharp teeth I have.

Edited 27 Sep 08, 2:38 AM by BadWulf

Good job free speech persists on these boards.

This subject has been done over and over again, and most seem to think there's nothing untoward or unusual about the BDSM community in this respect.

Why do you not want people who disagree to post? And why do you want to state your impressions but object to any statistically or academically validated information which may corroborate or contradict your assertion? Sounds like a way of creating an illusion of consensus.

ETA - perhaps if you really do want just like minded people to contribute, you should post this as a weblog with the option to be selective in whose responses you display.

P.S. Like the Schweitzer quote.

Edited 27 Sep 08, 2:42 AM by wonderer

Ok, I apologise for not giving my definition of mental illness. I was trying to maintain the point that this was not an academic exercise but a subjective discussion. However, I will add my definition for conceptualisation purposes.

Illness requires management - mainly through medication or lifestyle changes.

So, I would put forward that those who suffer mental illness in this regard would be on regular medication or have to significantly change their lifestyle to maintain a functional life because of a mental issue.

"I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve." - Albert Schweitzer.

I am a devout free speech anti-censorship enthusiast and despite my contentions and attempts to control the type of responses this thread receives I know I will get stereotypical answers that I have already predicted. Of which the last part of your post is one of. The point of me attempting to restrict the answers was that I have heard all those inane answers and theories before and despite the consensus, it is my experience that this perception is phallacy. I don't want this question to go the same way. As, I simply cannot give credence to assumptions and theories I have experienced to be proven wrong again and again. I feel these are wishful thinking.

I don't just want like minded people to contribute. However, I do want people to question the ad hoc response for these type of threads before they post.

Also, there is no academically proven studies that I am aware of that substantiate the assertion that the BDSM scene is any less, or more mentally healthy ( as defined in my last post) than the wider population.

Now that we are done with the semantics and parameters of the debate, can I have some responses from people who either completely disagree or share a similar experience?

"I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve." - Albert Schweitzer.

Edited 27 Sep 08, 2:45 AM by Elysium

I can think of 3 who might be included under that definition, including 1 very disturbed.

and maybe 5-10 more who i would consider to be too unsure/insecure of who they were to be practising bdsm. or using it as a sticking plaster for those insecurities.

I really doubt that is higher percentage than the general populous. And again it is crazy to attempt to assign relevance to the experiences for one person. May just be your specific approach that attracts very insecure /damaged people for example. Statistically I expect a far more likely concept.

You also fail to allow for the possibility that the nature of D/s BDSM is more likely to expose the more fragile side of people. D/s creates a pressure cooker that exposes flaws that in day to day vanilla would not materialise to the casual eye.

- John

Edited for afterthoughts

My, what sharp teeth I have.

Edited 27 Sep 08, 2:51 AM by BadWulf

I am fully prepared to admit this is *my* experience and possibly who I seek out and am attracted too. However, this post is an attempt to question that premise.

"I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve." - Albert Schweitzer.

Equality is over-rated

Edited 27 Sep 08, 3:59 AM by newfavourite

Thanks for replying. I'm not looking for any statistically valid proof or to make a grand unifying theory of BDSM and mental illness. I am asking specifically for anecdotal evidence. It may not be of much value quantitatively. However quantitative data never did paint a realistic picture or we would all be happy with focus group ran governments.

What do you mean people like you and why would your opinion be any less valid?

"I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve." - Albert Schweitzer.

It's an interesting way to figure out what's really going on.

My experience, for what it's worth, is that I haven't noticed any different between BDSM folks and the general public when it comes to mental health; but then I don't know that many people and I'm not qualified to diagnose mental health problems.

Large scale studies would be a better guide. The one that I'm aware of, from Australia, suggests that BDSM folks are mentally healthier than their vanilla counterparts, but I'm sure more research could be done.

Here are three other possibilities for your experience:

It could be that you personally are attracted to people with mental disorders, so a higher proportion of people you get to know on the scene have problems. Or it could just be luck: by random chance, there are going to be some people out there who come across a lot of people with psychological problems, even if there aren't too many overall. Finally, it could be that some of these people don't have psychological problems and you're misdiagnosing them.

Moses was angry with the officers of the army..."Have you allowed all the women to live?" he asked them..."Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man." (Numbers 31:15-17)

Edited 27 Sep 08, 7:39 AM by ibugly

What I think is that due to the nature of BDSM we are more open about these things. Mental illness is stigmatased (as fry said in his amazing documentory we can all talk about having a cold but not mental illness though most of us have had it to varying degrees at some point in our lives). To engage in this lifestyle responsibly you have to be open and communicative about a lot of things I think this leads to general openess. In a relationship sense for example I have suffered from mild bipolar for 8 years and I used to be a cutter, it would be really stupid of me to enter a relationship where i didnt mention this, in a vanilla relationship it wouldnt be so crucial.

Also on these internet sites we can become very personal about who we are and what we do its a natural progession to discuss our health in the same way. I dont like the assumption that its any more prevelant that anywhere else, there is no fact to back that up but I do think its fantastic that so many people are willing to discuss it openly with a view to help out other people.