I'm a very heavy masochist. I thoroughly enjoy pain at a variety of levels. I'm also well aware of the neuropsychology and pharmacology of pain, fear, calm, and pleasure. I deeply love playing with all of it (I'm a professional submissive & bottom as well as a heavy/extreme BDSM model & performer).

There is, however, a difference between seeking pain for enjoyment and seeking pain because you feel a compulsion towards it. In the second case it's very likely to descend into self harm, engaging in the behavior at inappropriate times, escalating, developing other compulsive behaviors, and many other negative effects. The difference is (to greatly oversimplify for an Internet discussion): - are you seeking it for recreational enjoyment and to feel good? (positive) - are you seeking it to avoid a negative feeling that won't go away unless you receive the stimulus (negative) - does engaging enhance your life and experience (positive) - does engaging harm your life and ability to have good times and interactions (negative)

It's also important to recognize that harmful compulsive behaviors aren't just those you'd think of right away, they can also include: - hand washing - gambling - phone use - sex/masturbation - tooth brushing/flossing - gaming (like video games) - eating - exercise - reading - counting - many more

Pretty much any sensation, behavior, or experience can't be tied to a compulsion and they can frequently occur in clusters. The primary motivator for them is based in anxiety. They can all also be equally as severe, even if it doesn't appear so just by reading the list.

Over brushing your teeth can cause the gums to erode away, having to mentally count everything you see can ruin your ability to pay attention in critical situations, needing to wash your hands for 3 minutes after touching any common surface can make life totally unlivable.

At the same time they're all very healthy behaviors on their own, many of which we need to engage with to lead a full, fulfilling, and balanced life. It's part of why recognizing the difference between compulsion and addiction is so important and why having a professional assess the situation completely in its entirety is so important.

Please don't misunderstand my intentions here, I wasn't trying to minimize the experience or intensity of that experience. I've known people who have suffered severely from addiction issues and from compulsive behavior issues and both can be equally destructive and harmful.

It's common colloquially to treat the two as synonymous because they present in very similar ways, and have similar triggers; the underlying emotional issues and treatments can differ, however.

Addiction falls into the category of Substance Abuse Disorder. It's also a different and complex multi-pronged issue with many possible causes and triggers; lack of positive surroundings, lack of simulation and creativity, self medication, biological dependency, social conditioning, genetics, lack of support structures, and life stresses are a few.

Compulsive behavior is just as severe and dangerous but has different causes and different approaches to treatment. Your body can get stuck in a conditioned reward-defeat-reward cycle of dopamine from psychological conditioning, and that can develop into a compulsion. You can also have compulsions manifest as the result of other underlying issues where trying to stop one is just likely to cause others to manifest because the underlying issue isn't treated. This is common with anxiety disorders such as OCD and OCPD or as a result of managing trauma in PTSD.

The goal of my post wasn't to diminish the severity of the possible situation, but to ensure that the appropriate steps could be taken to help identify the issue. That's why I suggested going to a kink friendly professional for a deeper dive into the issue with actual professional eyes. It's not possible to untangle the knot from a forum post online.

So, I think my above addressed a lot of this, but I also wanted to address the "sometimes I see things that cross the line into self destructive."

It's true that I've also seen some things that aren't healthy behaviors on both Reddit and Fet. At the same time it's rarely the extremity of the experience that's at issue. I do scenes with people that are crazy extreme, and when doing a photo or video shoot really love to push that extremity and myself. I really love it. In addition I have a very healthy relationship to it and it adds a lot of my life (even my mental health professionals agree it's healthy ☺️). A big part of this is that when you're with a bunch of professionals on camera with other people around primarily focused on making sure things go smoothly and that you're safe it's possible to push things a lot farther than in an environment where there's lots of different scenes going on people need to be observant of, or where you're alone and don't have immediate support. There's also a LOT that editing and camera angles can do in terms of making things appear as intense as possible even if they're only "normal” levels of intensity. I prefer a more authentic level of intensity in my shoots but I can do a lighter scene and play it up when I need to 😉.

All that said, it's really hard to judge from a few photos or video clips where too far really sits. Even if the aesthetic of the photos or videos is "low budget grainy phone cam in bedroom," they may be really well planned out in the background. Oftentimes it's the people doing the most extreme stuff that are most aware of the risks and commitments that are made with their play.

The only big exception is the vanilla sex obsession with treating choking and especially self choking as a "sightly kinky" activity instead of the extremely high risk activity that it is. Maybe that and all the people who think playing (visibly) in vanilla public is okay, but that's a different kind of taking things too far than this conversation.

So, if you read my responses lower down I address all of this in great detail so I'm gonna give a quick and incomplete response here.

Substance Abuse Disorder (SAD) and Compulsive Behavior (Compulsions) are very similar in outward presentation, and can have a lot of co-occurence due to people self medicating anxiety conditions and developing a chemical dependency.

The reason why it's so important to distinguish the two is because the treatment protocols for each are different and the use of one to try to treat the other can sometimes make the condition worse. This is why using the correct language for the correct things matters a lot when talking about the subject.

Generally it's: Compulsions are an anxiety disorder where a person engages in the behavior to control fear, dread, panic, or a sense of lost control.

SAD requires that a neurochemical dependency have been built up and the reason for the continued use is a combination of a supplantation of normal biological needs (food, warmth, water) or to avoid the physical pain of withdrawal symptoms.

They can easily occur together in the same person, some people compulsively use drugs but don't have SAD. Some people have SAD and no compulsive behaviors.