sub drop

Until this past week, I haven't really given sub drop much thought. I had preconceived notions of what I had to feel or experience first as a submissive before I would come to the point where sub drop might be an issue. I didn't think I'd gone deep enough into submission or had intense enough experiences yet. I thought I would first have to reach that la-la land type of trance-like subspace and be high on endorphins or adrenaline before I'd have to struggle unwittingly through the infamous and enigmatic phenomenon called sub drop.

Not so, apparently. I've recently realized that I've gone through sub drop on a number of occasions. Some of those occasions were difficult to get through and some not so bad. Some of them (in retrospect) were pretty obviously sub drop and some were not so obvious. All of them were filled with emotion that blindsided me and left me struggling to understand where it was coming from.

Due to this recent discovery, I'm coming to have a very different understanding of sub drop and am starting to think that there are more nuances to it than I'd thought. Unlike most things I've read, I don't think that sub drop is reliant upon or necessarily precluded by endorphin/adrenaline laden experiences. I think it can be triggered by emotionally intense scenes and not just those that provide a chemical high.

My submissive experience to date has included much intensity – both physical and emotional. Sometimes just letting go and submitting can be intense and I find myself feeling sad for no apparent reason a day or two later. While this is certainly different from the uncontrollable trembling and tearful despair I experienced on the evening that I cried over not being permitted to get Ma'am a piece of cake, I think both can be attributed to sub drop. I just wasn't connecting the dots because that type of intensity didn't fall within the scope of what I had heard about what sub drop was.

I wish people would talk more about this topic and their experiences with it. Everyone is different and we can't all experience things in the same way. But everything I've read seems to say the same thing about when it could happen, what causes it and what a sub goes through. Most definitions seem to narrowly categorize something that seems to me to be so much larger and more comprehensive. Since much of what I've heard seemed not to apply to my experience, I didn't recognize it when I was going through it. Even when I blogged about some of these experiences and my confusion about my emotional state no one thought to mention that it might be sub drop. I suppose that those who read my posts might have thought that going through subdrop would be an obvious thing to me and my Ma'am, but it's not. Those of us who are newer to this world can find ourselves overwhelmed by feelings they don't understand that might be easily remedied.

For example – twice in the last month I have experienced serious sub drop while I was still in Ma'am's collar. On both occasions, intense activities were brought to a sudden and complete stop. The emotional nosedive I experienced in short order was frightening. Aftercare was provided but neither Ma'am nor I had any real understanding of what was happening to me or what I needed at that point. That neither of us understood my emotional state put unintentional distance between us – which, of course, made things much worse. I couldn't properly articulate the depth of what I was feeling, I didn't know what I needed to feel better and it honestly never occurred to me that sub drop was the culprit. I felt inexplicably and inordinately needy and I struggled with my feelings alone for days afterward, not wanting to worry my Ma'am with my fragile and vulnerable state of mind. I think that had at least one of us realized what was happening, much of the struggle and despair I felt would have been eliminated. Ma'am would have been able to give me (and I would have felt free to receive) the extra care that I needed to halt or lessen the emotional plummet.

From now on, I'm going to be on the lookout to help those that are struggling through sub drop that they haven't recognized. And I'm going to keep talking about it – starting with my Ma'am. I hope you all do too.