Anxiety in Dominants

Hundreds more articles like this can be found

at the Kink Mentoring Archives… Spread the word!

---

alphasubsnow:

I see a lot of posts about subs with anxiety and they make me think of anxiety in Doms. So I am going to talk about that a bit.

Background: I have a degree in psychology and I have worked in an anxiety clinic for two years. I can’t ever watch the movie High Anxiety because just the name makes me anxious.

So… Maybe there is this unconscious thing where anxiety gets associated with being a sub more than it does with being Dominant. In fact, it might even seem like some baseline bit of anxiety is natural for subs and that’s one of the things that submissives look to their D-types for help with. There is no doubt that a confident and caring Dominant can greatly reduce a subs anxieties about stuff. But…

Hey guys… Anxiety is natural for everyone. It’s not a sign of a submissive nature. D-types can struggle with anxiety and still be amazing Dominants. Despite what the stereotype of a D-type may be, there’s no proof that they are, on average, less anxious than submissives (but if you know of a study with evidence to the contrary please share it with me).

Anxious Dominants are not any less dominant. And submissives are not naturally the more anxious partner. Anxiety is normal. Some folks have more than a helpful amount of it. Some folks don’t. It’s a problem to attribute it more with one side of the slash. We risk attaching a negative stigma to it for D-types, and we risk associating poorer mental health with being a sub. Both of these things leads to less healthy people, relationships and communities.

Anxiety is part of life. There is no shame in it. We should all just love fiercely and bravely, and take care of each other.

hadriantemple:

This makes sense. One strategy for managing anxiety is a high degree of control over a situation. Anxiety sufferers often like rules and structure, two things that many doms also like.