How to Overcome Anxiety?

[Celestial-Succubus]

In the past my shyness and anxiety has always turned potential partners away. I really enjoy bdsm and being kinky in bed but it gives me a lot of anxiety. Everytime I think about having a Dom and doing a scene I get excited but when it comes to the real thing I start to feel sick and doubtful, even with partners that I fully trust in everyday things. How do I get past this? Or what are some coping skills to help with the anxiety?

[Deleted Member]

This is something that I am saying from a place of care. In my experience working with subs anxiety always has a root. Maybe it's linked to some past trauma or personal insecurity. The best thing you can do is sit down with the Dom you're looking to interact with and dive into what's under the surface. It's super uncomfortable but one of the reasons I'm a huge advocate for the developing relationships between doms and subs outside the context of simply playing. I have worked with subs who have had a wide range of anxiety or disassociative related issues. A good dom should take these things into account when actually executing a negotiated scene. Things like watching body language to make sure the reactions fit the situation or simply offering the right after care above and beyond what would normally be after a scene or asked for. All of these things are important. I know for me personally one of the things that helped me overcome anxiety (as a Dom, yes that's a thing) was actually therapy as cheesy as that sounds. Different techniques like EMDR can have almost immediate and life-changing effects when it comes to anxiousness and sabotaging feelings. Whatever your level of comfortability and whatever the root cause of the anxiety is seeking the right help from qualified ethical professionals is an investment in your future and will allow you to explore things that you find difficult now.

[DeviantInside]

Ok. For context, I am currently 2 months away from fully qualifying as a solution focused hypnotherapist. And part of that has been c. 200 hours of therapy sessions on the practical side, not to mention long conversations with friends that are psychotherapists and neuroscientists. Anxiety is one of the thinsg I've worked with most, so whilst I am not an expert (yet) I do have a level of insight that may be helpful. There are two distinct parts to this, though both are linked from what I can see, though feel free to correct, ignore or dismiss if I am mistaken or misconstruing things.

There is the overall anxiety that impacts all areas of your life and there is the specific axious response to a meet. With the overall anxiety the way the brain works you have two areas of your brain; your conscious part (left pre frontal cortex) which is connected to your intellectual mind, this is the part of you that is rational and generally positive (you know that when you are relaxed and at your best you are able to cope with things better, think more clearly and be mre focused), and the original primitive mind (limbic system; amygdala, hippocampus and hypothalamus), this is also known as the fight, flight, depression area of the brain. When we're operating from the primitve mind we're much less able to be rational and will molstly be operating from within the primitive parameters of depression, anxiety and anger. All of these had an exolutionary purpose (depression to hide away from danger or unfavourable situtations, anxiety to be on red alert to run when needed, anger to increase strenth to fight off wild animals or other tribes etc). However for the most par in our modern lives we don't face many genuinely life threatening situations... but our primitive brain isnt rational... and treats anything that it sees as a potential threat or negative as a cause for anxiety/depression/anger and will inhibit or release chemicals accordingly. This negative thinking builds up our stress levels the more we do it. We do have a way to reduce tese stress levels, REM sleep, however sleep is one of the first things that indicates we are suffering from anxiety or stress etc. The brain is trying to process so much when we sleep that it might overheat and wake you up during the night, or you might feel exhausted in the morning because your brain just hasn't had time to process everything (REM sleep uses enormous amounts of energy). This then means the anxiety levels remain high and in turn cuase us to spend more time in our primitive mind... which builds up more negative thinking, causing more anxiety, which means even more to try to process during sleep.

There are ways you can help this. Yes therapies can certainly help. Traditional therapies that look at the past can be helpful for some people. More modern therapies like NLP, CBT and solution focused brief therapy that look more at taking you from where you are now and focus on where you want to get to and how to get there are more helpful for other people. But here are some tips that might help youdeal with the general anxiety.

Feel free to pick and choose what you think might help you, or ignore the whole lot, but these have been common recurring themes with the people I see.

Tip one. Do something every day just for you. Some self care. That allows you to take your mind off things and for your subconscious to process things in the background. Whether it's reading a book, doing your nails, going for a walk, listening to an audiobook, painting, drawing, anything else. Just something purely for yourself. We need to redefine what we see as being productive. Looking after yourself first and foremost is the single most productive thing you can do, because when you are in a good place you are better able to cope with and do everything else in your life.

As I said above disturbed sleep is one of the biggest indicators of stress and anxiety. However it's vital, as it's during REM sleep that our brains process and reduce our stress levels. So:
Tip two. Listen to something when you go to bed, an audiobook/podcats or something that gives your brain something to focus on rather than thinking. Ideally a book you know well and love so you're not trying to stay awake to follow the story. This is better than watching something as you can have your eyes closed and not have blue light from screen time (guided meditations and trance recordings also work, I give all my clients a relaxation recording to listen to every night). Also try to give yourself a bedtime routine so your brain builds a pattern match in the hippocampus that it recognises as the time to start winding down ready to sleep.

Tip 3. Create a positivity diary (I get ALL my clients to do this). Every night write down 3 things that have been positive during the day. The brain has much greater plasticity than we used to believe. The more we use areas of our brains the more they develop. Your primitive brain always see things from the negative. It loops round with constant negative thoughts. We have to TRAIN our brains to take notice of positives because we too often gloss over them. These can be anything... I had a nice sandwich, it was sunny, I found a parking spot, someone made me smile, I made someone laugh, anything... but the more we do it the more we will stay positive generally. It can be a difficult process at first but after a while the neural pathways solidify and myelenate. And then it becomes natural. And the more we make the effort to focus on the positives not only are we building up those positive neural pathways we are NOT using the negative pathways... and the less they get used they start to wither and eventually the brain prunes them away.

Tip 4. Focus on things you CAN control or things you CAN do. Our brain likes to achieve things and reach definite end points (which is why social media is set up to keep scrolling on to the next thing so you never reach an end). The analogy I always use is when we're stuck in traffic it feels better if we take a dettour and are moving, even if it is a longer journey, than sitting stuck in the traffic.
 

Nowlooking at the specific anxiety response you have to meeting up with a Dom. This is almost identical to how phobias work. Your brain has created a pattern match in te hippocampus. The primitive brain is not rational. It thinks that the reson you have survied those meets in the past is because it flooded your body with cortisol, adrenaline etc. Rationally you know the reason you survived is that there wasn't anything genuinely life threatening but IT thinks that it was because it made you anxious. So it then thinks it HAS to do the sma ething again next time, and every time after. Which then only reinforces the pattern match each and every time. This is also exacerbated the greater your stress levels are overal. The brain also cannot tell the difference between  imagination and reality. Every time you play it out in your head dreading the anxiety response, or thinking about all the things that could go wrong your brain reinforces that pattern match again. You can, however, use this inability of the brain to tell the difference between imagination and reality to your advantage. Every time you imagine something going perfectly, without any stress or anxiety you start to build up a positive pattern match that actually this is ok and something you can do. This has been used at top level sports for years, every footballer that steps up to take a penalty will have visualised themselves taking that penalty perfectly hundreds or thousands times, so when they step up to take the real one their brain thinks that they have doen it already hundreds or thousands of tims and it's completely normal and nothing to orry about. This is also done in gymnastics, boxing, horse riding, bobsled etc etc, where they visualise a perfect outcome over and over so that when they do the real thing their brain is so used to it it doesn't have any anxiety.

I hope it helps in some way, and feel free to message me if anything wasn't clear or you want to ask more about anything specifically, this is after all a very quick dip into a much larger subject.

[Go****]

1 hour ago, DeviantInside said:

Ok. For context, I am currently 2 months away from fully qualifying as a solution focused hypnotherapist. And part of that has been c. 200 hours of therapy sessions on the practical side, not to mention long conversations with friends that are psychotherapists and neuroscientists. Anxiety is one of the thinsg I've worked with most, so whilst I am not an expert (yet) I do have a level of insight that may be helpful. There are two distinct parts to this, though both are linked from what I can see, though feel free to correct, ignore or dismiss if I am mistaken or misconstruing things.

There is the overall anxiety that impacts all areas of your life and there is the specific axious response to a meet. With the overall anxiety the way the brain works you have two areas of your brain; your conscious part (left pre frontal cortex) which is connected to your intellectual mind, this is the part of you that is rational and generally positive (you know that when you are relaxed and at your best you are able to cope with things better, think more clearly and be mre focused), and the original primitive mind (limbic system; amygdala, hippocampus and hypothalamus), this is also known as the fight, flight, depression area of the brain. When we're operating from the primitve mind we're much less able to be rational and will molstly be operating from within the primitive parameters of depression, anxiety and anger. All of these had an exolutionary purpose (depression to hide away from danger or unfavourable situtations, anxiety to be on red alert to run when needed, anger to increase strenth to fight off wild animals or other tribes etc). However for the most par in our modern lives we don't face many genuinely life threatening situations... but our primitive brain isnt rational... and treats anything that it sees as a potential threat or negative as a cause for anxiety/depression/anger and will inhibit or release chemicals accordingly. This negative thinking builds up our stress levels the more we do it. We do have a way to reduce tese stress levels, REM sleep, however sleep is one of the first things that indicates we are suffering from anxiety or stress etc. The brain is trying to process so much when we sleep that it might overheat and wake you up during the night, or you might feel exhausted in the morning because your brain just hasn't had time to process everything (REM sleep uses enormous amounts of energy). This then means the anxiety levels remain high and in turn cuase us to spend more time in our primitive mind... which builds up more negative thinking, causing more anxiety, which means even more to try to process during sleep.

There are ways you can help this. Yes therapies can certainly help. Traditional therapies that look at the past can be helpful for some people. More modern therapies like NLP, CBT and solution focused brief therapy that look more at taking you from where you are now and focus on where you want to get to and how to get there are more helpful for other people. But here are some tips that might help youdeal with the general anxiety.

Feel free to pick and choose what you think might help you, or ignore the whole lot, but these have been common recurring themes with the people I see.

Tip one. Do something every day just for you. Some self care. That allows you to take your mind off things and for your subconscious to process things in the background. Whether it's reading a book, doing your nails, going for a walk, listening to an audiobook, painting, drawing, anything else. Just something purely for yourself. We need to redefine what we see as being productive. Looking after yourself first and foremost is the single most productive thing you can do, because when you are in a good place you are better able to cope with and do everything else in your life.

As I said above disturbed sleep is one of the biggest indicators of stress and anxiety. However it's vital, as it's during REM sleep that our brains process and reduce our stress levels. So:
Tip two. Listen to something when you go to bed, an audiobook/podcats or something that gives your brain something to focus on rather than thinking. Ideally a book you know well and love so you're not trying to stay awake to follow the story. This is better than watching something as you can have your eyes closed and not have blue light from screen time (guided meditations and trance recordings also work, I give all my clients a relaxation recording to listen to every night). Also try to give yourself a bedtime routine so your brain builds a pattern match in the hippocampus that it recognises as the time to start winding down ready to sleep.

Tip 3. Create a positivity diary (I get ALL my clients to do this). Every night write down 3 things that have been positive during the day. The brain has much greater plasticity than we used to believe. The more we use areas of our brains the more they develop. Your primitive brain always see things from the negative. It loops round with constant negative thoughts. We have to TRAIN our brains to take notice of positives because we too often gloss over them. These can be anything... I had a nice sandwich, it was sunny, I found a parking spot, someone made me smile, I made someone laugh, anything... but the more we do it the more we will stay positive generally. It can be a difficult process at first but after a while the neural pathways solidify and myelenate. And then it becomes natural. And the more we make the effort to focus on the positives not only are we building up those positive neural pathways we are NOT using the negative pathways... and the less they get used they start to wither and eventually the brain prunes them away.

Tip 4. Focus on things you CAN control or things you CAN do. Our brain likes to achieve things and reach definite end points (which is why social media is set up to keep scrolling on to the next thing so you never reach an end). The analogy I always use is when we're stuck in traffic it feels better if we take a dettour and are moving, even if it is a longer journey, than sitting stuck in the traffic.
 

Nowlooking at the specific anxiety response you have to meeting up with a Dom. This is almost identical to how phobias work. Your brain has created a pattern match in te hippocampus. The primitive brain is not rational. It thinks that the reson you have survied those meets in the past is because it flooded your body with cortisol, adrenaline etc. Rationally you know the reason you survived is that there wasn't anything genuinely life threatening but IT thinks that it was because it made you anxious. So it then thinks it HAS to do the sma ething again next time, and every time after. Which then only reinforces the pattern match each and every time. This is also exacerbated the greater your stress levels are overal. The brain also cannot tell the difference between  imagination and reality. Every time you play it out in your head dreading the anxiety response, or thinking about all the things that could go wrong your brain reinforces that pattern match again. You can, however, use this inability of the brain to tell the difference between imagination and reality to your advantage. Every time you imagine something going perfectly, without any stress or anxiety you start to build up a positive pattern match that actually this is ok and something you can do. This has been used at top level sports for years, every footballer that steps up to take a penalty will have visualised themselves taking that penalty perfectly hundreds or thousands times, so when they step up to take the real one their brain thinks that they have doen it already hundreds or thousands of tims and it's completely normal and nothing to orry about. This is also done in gymnastics, boxing, horse riding, bobsled etc etc, where they visualise a perfect outcome over and over so that when they do the real thing their brain is so used to it it doesn't have any anxiety.

I hope it helps in some way, and feel free to message me if anything wasn't clear or you want to ask more about anything specifically, this is after all a very quick dip into a much larger subject.

Your response was both very interesting and helpful, thank you. I'll be trying out some of your suggestions 😊

[Lo****]

4 hours ago, DeviantInside said:

Ok. For context, I am currently 2 months away from fully qualifying as a solution focused hypnotherapist. And part of that has been c. 200 hours of therapy sessions on the practical side, not to mention long conversations with friends that are psychotherapists and neuroscientists. Anxiety is one of the thinsg I've worked with most, so whilst I am not an expert (yet) I do have a level of insight that may be helpful. There are two distinct parts to this, though both are linked from what I can see, though feel free to correct, ignore or dismiss if I am mistaken or misconstruing things.

There is the overall anxiety that impacts all areas of your life and there is the specific axious response to a meet. With the overall anxiety the way the brain works you have two areas of your brain; your conscious part (left pre frontal cortex) which is connected to your intellectual mind, this is the part of you that is rational and generally positive (you know that when you are relaxed and at your best you are able to cope with things better, think more clearly and be mre focused), and the original primitive mind (limbic system; amygdala, hippocampus and hypothalamus), this is also known as the fight, flight, depression area of the brain. When we're operating from the primitve mind we're much less able to be rational and will molstly be operating from within the primitive parameters of depression, anxiety and anger. All of these had an exolutionary purpose (depression to hide away from danger or unfavourable situtations, anxiety to be on red alert to run when needed, anger to increase strenth to fight off wild animals or other tribes etc). However for the most par in our modern lives we don't face many genuinely life threatening situations... but our primitive brain isnt rational... and treats anything that it sees as a potential threat or negative as a cause for anxiety/depression/anger and will inhibit or release chemicals accordingly. This negative thinking builds up our stress levels the more we do it. We do have a way to reduce tese stress levels, REM sleep, however sleep is one of the first things that indicates we are suffering from anxiety or stress etc. The brain is trying to process so much when we sleep that it might overheat and wake you up during the night, or you might feel exhausted in the morning because your brain just hasn't had time to process everything (REM sleep uses enormous amounts of energy). This then means the anxiety levels remain high and in turn cuase us to spend more time in our primitive mind... which builds up more negative thinking, causing more anxiety, which means even more to try to process during sleep.

There are ways you can help this. Yes therapies can certainly help. Traditional therapies that look at the past can be helpful for some people. More modern therapies like NLP, CBT and solution focused brief therapy that look more at taking you from where you are now and focus on where you want to get to and how to get there are more helpful for other people. But here are some tips that might help youdeal with the general anxiety.

Feel free to pick and choose what you think might help you, or ignore the whole lot, but these have been common recurring themes with the people I see.

Tip one. Do something every day just for you. Some self care. That allows you to take your mind off things and for your subconscious to process things in the background. Whether it's reading a book, doing your nails, going for a walk, listening to an audiobook, painting, drawing, anything else. Just something purely for yourself. We need to redefine what we see as being productive. Looking after yourself first and foremost is the single most productive thing you can do, because when you are in a good place you are better able to cope with and do everything else in your life.

As I said above disturbed sleep is one of the biggest indicators of stress and anxiety. However it's vital, as it's during REM sleep that our brains process and reduce our stress levels. So:
Tip two. Listen to something when you go to bed, an audiobook/podcats or something that gives your brain something to focus on rather than thinking. Ideally a book you know well and love so you're not trying to stay awake to follow the story. This is better than watching something as you can have your eyes closed and not have blue light from screen time (guided meditations and trance recordings also work, I give all my clients a relaxation recording to listen to every night). Also try to give yourself a bedtime routine so your brain builds a pattern match in the hippocampus that it recognises as the time to start winding down ready to sleep.

Tip 3. Create a positivity diary (I get ALL my clients to do this). Every night write down 3 things that have been positive during the day. The brain has much greater plasticity than we used to believe. The more we use areas of our brains the more they develop. Your primitive brain always see things from the negative. It loops round with constant negative thoughts. We have to TRAIN our brains to take notice of positives because we too often gloss over them. These can be anything... I had a nice sandwich, it was sunny, I found a parking spot, someone made me smile, I made someone laugh, anything... but the more we do it the more we will stay positive generally. It can be a difficult process at first but after a while the neural pathways solidify and myelenate. And then it becomes natural. And the more we make the effort to focus on the positives not only are we building up those positive neural pathways we are NOT using the negative pathways... and the less they get used they start to wither and eventually the brain prunes them away.

Tip 4. Focus on things you CAN control or things you CAN do. Our brain likes to achieve things and reach definite end points (which is why social media is set up to keep scrolling on to the next thing so you never reach an end). The analogy I always use is when we're stuck in traffic it feels better if we take a dettour and are moving, even if it is a longer journey, than sitting stuck in the traffic.
 

Nowlooking at the specific anxiety response you have to meeting up with a Dom. This is almost identical to how phobias work. Your brain has created a pattern match in te hippocampus. The primitive brain is not rational. It thinks that the reson you have survied those meets in the past is because it flooded your body with cortisol, adrenaline etc. Rationally you know the reason you survived is that there wasn't anything genuinely life threatening but IT thinks that it was because it made you anxious. So it then thinks it HAS to do the sma ething again next time, and every time after. Which then only reinforces the pattern match each and every time. This is also exacerbated the greater your stress levels are overal. The brain also cannot tell the difference between  imagination and reality. Every time you play it out in your head dreading the anxiety response, or thinking about all the things that could go wrong your brain reinforces that pattern match again. You can, however, use this inability of the brain to tell the difference between imagination and reality to your advantage. Every time you imagine something going perfectly, without any stress or anxiety you start to build up a positive pattern match that actually this is ok and something you can do. This has been used at top level sports for years, every footballer that steps up to take a penalty will have visualised themselves taking that penalty perfectly hundreds or thousands times, so when they step up to take the real one their brain thinks that they have doen it already hundreds or thousands of tims and it's completely normal and nothing to orry about. This is also done in gymnastics, boxing, horse riding, bobsled etc etc, where they visualise a perfect outcome over and over so that when they do the real thing their brain is so used to it it doesn't have any anxiety.

I hope it helps in some way, and feel free to message me if anything wasn't clear or you want to ask more about anything specifically, this is after all a very quick dip into a much larger subject.

Fascinating! Thank you for taking the time to give such a comprehensive reply. 

[Deviant_Ric]

5 hours ago, DeviantInside said:

Ok. For context, I am currently 2 months away from fully qualifying as a solution focused hypnotherapist. And part of that has been c. 200 hours of therapy sessions on the practical side, not to mention long conversations with friends that are psychotherapists and neuroscientists. Anxiety is one of the thinsg I've worked with most, so whilst I am not an expert (yet) I do have a level of insight that may be helpful. There are two distinct parts to this, though both are linked from what I can see, though feel free to correct, ignore or dismiss if I am mistaken or misconstruing things.

There is the overall anxiety that impacts all areas of your life and there is the specific axious response to a meet. With the overall anxiety the way the brain works you have two areas of your brain; your conscious part (left pre frontal cortex) which is connected to your intellectual mind, this is the part of you that is rational and generally positive (you know that when you are relaxed and at your best you are able to cope with things better, think more clearly and be mre focused), and the original primitive mind (limbic system; amygdala, hippocampus and hypothalamus), this is also known as the fight, flight, depression area of the brain. When we're operating from the primitve mind we're much less able to be rational and will molstly be operating from within the primitive parameters of depression, anxiety and anger. All of these had an exolutionary purpose (depression to hide away from danger or unfavourable situtations, anxiety to be on red alert to run when needed, anger to increase strenth to fight off wild animals or other tribes etc). However for the most par in our modern lives we don't face many genuinely life threatening situations... but our primitive brain isnt rational... and treats anything that it sees as a potential threat or negative as a cause for anxiety/depression/anger and will inhibit or release chemicals accordingly. This negative thinking builds up our stress levels the more we do it. We do have a way to reduce tese stress levels, REM sleep, however sleep is one of the first things that indicates we are suffering from anxiety or stress etc. The brain is trying to process so much when we sleep that it might overheat and wake you up during the night, or you might feel exhausted in the morning because your brain just hasn't had time to process everything (REM sleep uses enormous amounts of energy). This then means the anxiety levels remain high and in turn cuase us to spend more time in our primitive mind... which builds up more negative thinking, causing more anxiety, which means even more to try to process during sleep.

There are ways you can help this. Yes therapies can certainly help. Traditional therapies that look at the past can be helpful for some people. More modern therapies like NLP, CBT and solution focused brief therapy that look more at taking you from where you are now and focus on where you want to get to and how to get there are more helpful for other people. But here are some tips that might help youdeal with the general anxiety.

Feel free to pick and choose what you think might help you, or ignore the whole lot, but these have been common recurring themes with the people I see.

Tip one. Do something every day just for you. Some self care. That allows you to take your mind off things and for your subconscious to process things in the background. Whether it's reading a book, doing your nails, going for a walk, listening to an audiobook, painting, drawing, anything else. Just something purely for yourself. We need to redefine what we see as being productive. Looking after yourself first and foremost is the single most productive thing you can do, because when you are in a good place you are better able to cope with and do everything else in your life.

As I said above disturbed sleep is one of the biggest indicators of stress and anxiety. However it's vital, as it's during REM sleep that our brains process and reduce our stress levels. So:
Tip two. Listen to something when you go to bed, an audiobook/podcats or something that gives your brain something to focus on rather than thinking. Ideally a book you know well and love so you're not trying to stay awake to follow the story. This is better than watching something as you can have your eyes closed and not have blue light from screen time (guided meditations and trance recordings also work, I give all my clients a relaxation recording to listen to every night). Also try to give yourself a bedtime routine so your brain builds a pattern match in the hippocampus that it recognises as the time to start winding down ready to sleep.

Tip 3. Create a positivity diary (I get ALL my clients to do this). Every night write down 3 things that have been positive during the day. The brain has much greater plasticity than we used to believe. The more we use areas of our brains the more they develop. Your primitive brain always see things from the negative. It loops round with constant negative thoughts. We have to TRAIN our brains to take notice of positives because we too often gloss over them. These can be anything... I had a nice sandwich, it was sunny, I found a parking spot, someone made me smile, I made someone laugh, anything... but the more we do it the more we will stay positive generally. It can be a difficult process at first but after a while the neural pathways solidify and myelenate. And then it becomes natural. And the more we make the effort to focus on the positives not only are we building up those positive neural pathways we are NOT using the negative pathways... and the less they get used they start to wither and eventually the brain prunes them away.

Tip 4. Focus on things you CAN control or things you CAN do. Our brain likes to achieve things and reach definite end points (which is why social media is set up to keep scrolling on to the next thing so you never reach an end). The analogy I always use is when we're stuck in traffic it feels better if we take a dettour and are moving, even if it is a longer journey, than sitting stuck in the traffic.
 

Nowlooking at the specific anxiety response you have to meeting up with a Dom. This is almost identical to how phobias work. Your brain has created a pattern match in te hippocampus. The primitive brain is not rational. It thinks that the reson you have survied those meets in the past is because it flooded your body with cortisol, adrenaline etc. Rationally you know the reason you survived is that there wasn't anything genuinely life threatening but IT thinks that it was because it made you anxious. So it then thinks it HAS to do the sma ething again next time, and every time after. Which then only reinforces the pattern match each and every time. This is also exacerbated the greater your stress levels are overal. The brain also cannot tell the difference between  imagination and reality. Every time you play it out in your head dreading the anxiety response, or thinking about all the things that could go wrong your brain reinforces that pattern match again. You can, however, use this inability of the brain to tell the difference between imagination and reality to your advantage. Every time you imagine something going perfectly, without any stress or anxiety you start to build up a positive pattern match that actually this is ok and something you can do. This has been used at top level sports for years, every footballer that steps up to take a penalty will have visualised themselves taking that penalty perfectly hundreds or thousands times, so when they step up to take the real one their brain thinks that they have doen it already hundreds or thousands of tims and it's completely normal and nothing to orry about. This is also done in gymnastics, boxing, horse riding, bobsled etc etc, where they visualise a perfect outcome over and over so that when they do the real thing their brain is so used to it it doesn't have any anxiety.

I hope it helps in some way, and feel free to message me if anything wasn't clear or you want to ask more about anything specifically, this is after all a very quick dip into a much larger subject.

What an incredibly insightful, and generous, reply. If I may, I would like to offer snippets of your explanation to my lg, who suffers awful situational anxiety. 🙏🏻

[DeviantInside]

1 hour ago, Nastycuntspanker said:

What an incredibly insightful, and generous, reply. If I may, I would like to offer snippets of your explanation to my lg, who suffers awful situational anxiety. 🙏🏻

By all means. Obviously there is more to it all and this was a very quick précis, but I hope it helps.

[Lord_Talion]

There are kink related therapists

[Matko1]

😈

[se****]

You make not like what I have say, but I hope you try to see both sides of a relationship. I believe to "try" fix myself of any serious issues before entering a relationship, because it would not be fair for the other person. Why? I might subconsciously lash out, give unwanted stress or bring pain to the next person. Also, wanting a Dom/Domme therapist would not be a good idea either. They are people who have their own lives, stress and responsibilities who wants to enjoy a stress free time on their day off.... well, little stress as possible. If they want to be a healer for you, then it is different story. My recommendation is to see a professional therapist, and improve your anxiety.... once, you can do this "By Yourself", then get back into BDSM. Again, think about this... would it be fair for the other person?. BUT, if they want to be a healer, then different story!

[se****]

Also, a very good predator will be able to exploit any person's issues, problems or etc. Reminder, people are not 100% impenetrable. There will always be one person, or more.

[Celestial-Succubus]

@DeviantInside I really enjoyed your comment and will definitely have to try out your suggestions :) thank you

[Celestial-Succubus]

2 hours ago, kiseu said:

You make not like what I have say, but I hope you try to see both sides of a relationship. I believe to "try" fix myself of any serious issues before entering a relationship, because it would not be fair for the other person. Why? I might subconsciously lash out, give unwanted stress or bring pain to the next person. Also, wanting a Dom/Domme therapist would not be a good idea either. They are people who have their own lives, stress and responsibilities who wants to enjoy a stress free time on their day off.... well, little stress as possible. If they want to be a healer for you, then it is different story. My recommendation is to see a professional therapist, and improve your anxiety.... once, you can do this "By Yourself", then get back into BDSM. Again, think about this... would it be fair for the other person?. BUT, if they want to be a healer, then different story!

Anxiety, unfortunately, is something you can't just fix. Everyone has anxiety and its permanent, anxiety doesn't just leave you figure out coping skills to help cope living with it. Mental health isn't something you just fix, its something that you overcome and can live with in everyday life. Almost everyone has some sort of mental health issue and if you feel like you need to "fix" yourself before getting into a relationship that is not good. If a partner isn't prepared to deal with the worst sides of you as well as the best than they don't deserve to be with you, plain and simple. Relationships are not about the good stuff

[Celestial-Succubus]

Relationships are about the best and the worst

[se****]

Please excuse me, but you are speaking to a person with severe anxiety. I have severe Agoraphobia. Maybe, I worded wrong. I meant fixing as improving. To me, I would not want my partner to worry when we are outside to hold my hands every single moment. He being worried to leave me alone every single moment outside. He would do these things out of love, but I understand it would stress him as well. There is a chance it might take a toll on him. I worked very hard on myself that I can at least able to be outside most of the week.

[Deleted Member]

You start small? Get a boyfriend, have him hold your hands down as he has sex with you. Then move onto bondage cuffs, etc.... I don't get this all or nothing attitude that is prevalent in the kink communities.