04/18/2012

Last night, I dreamed that I was living in a haunted mansion.  The rooms upstairs were numbered, like in a school or hospital.  Room 214 contained an extremely large and violent demon that could not leave his room, for whatever reason.  There was a sign on the door warning people not to enter the room, but no one had locked or barred the door in any way because the demon could not leave.  No one would be stupid enough to enter the room, so this was a fine setup.

I decided it would be a good idea to go into room 214 and provoke this demon (who required very little provocation) to beat the snot out of me.  It went down exactly as I figured it would.  I remember especially being thrown through the air and landing on my arm, breaking it.  

I dragged myself out of the room, covered in blood, and into a circle of onlookers.  I was expecting horror and revulsion at the violence I had brought onto myself, but instead they were exclaiming about how “awesome” it was to watch, how “cool” I was, and so on.  They did not realize how wrong and sick what I had done was. 

This got me thinking about two things.

First.

When I started cutting myself, I did not realize it was wrong.  I did not realize all the other self-harming I had done was wrong, either.  It did not occur to me that it was not okay to try to break your own bones and it was not okay to cut yourself with a knife.  My sister had to tell me that normal people did not do that sort of thing.  Therefore, initially, there was no shame in self-injury for me.  The shame came later, and it came hard, but in the beginning, I did not feel shame.  I used to tell people, “I can cut myself with a knife, do you want to see?”  I thought I was learning to withstand pain and that it was a relatively normal thing to do.  I was wrong, apparently.

Second.

I think I’m a masochist.  Not in a sexual way, because I don’t do sex, but just in an “I-enjoy-pain” sort of way.  I have an ongoing fantasy of being beaten.  I used to get into fistfights and I would wish my opponent was not so pathetic and that they could actually hurt me.  I never came off worse in a fight, and I hated it.

I’ve read a lot of different opinions on the subject of the relationship between masochism and self harm.  Most people think that there is no relationship, and that 100% of people who self harm are not masochists.   I find it hard to believe that, in the entire world, there are no people who self-harm who are also masochists.  Statistics are on my side, I think.  As an aside, it’s really hard to find information that’s not related to sadomasochism.  

Dream Moods tells me, “To dream that you are beaten indicates that you need to make some fundamental changes to your character. You need to make some conscious adjustments and evaluations. Alternatively, it suggests that someone is pushing you beyond your limits.”

Maybe they’re right  I DO need to make some pretty serious changes to my character.  Yes, indeed.