Emotionally volatile, physically tired, yep. I?m definitely experiencing sub-drop.
What is sub-drop? It?s an emotional and physical low, that begins anywhere from a few hours to a few days after an emotional/endorphin high and can last hours to weeks.
The specific term sub-drop comes from the kink community, because it?s typically experienced by submissive individuals after an intense scene. However, top-drop is, from a biochemical perspective, the same thing only experienced by the person taking a dominant role in the scene.
However, you don?t have to be kinky to experience sub/top-drop. You don?t even have to be involved in a scene to experience it.
A few days ago, I started writing again. I was super excited about this because I?d been blocked for so long. I spent almost two days in flow, just writing, editing, and scheduling posts to publish. And worldbuilding and getting to know characters for a few fiction projects.
I put myself in an emotional high without realizing it: my delight and exuberance over not-being-stuck gave me a huge seratonin rush, and all the little things I finished or learned, gave me lots of dopamine hits. Just my body reacting to my mental/emotional state.
I felt great. I would love to feel like that every day. It?s energizing. That?s why we call it a rush.
Unfortunately, the human body is designed for steady-state mediums, not peaks and dips, so when we experience a high (naturally from emotion or induced by an activity/drug) our body can get overloaded.
If you have too much of a particular hormone in your system, the receptors for those hormones get ?full? ? they?re all occupied and there can be extra hormone molecules floating around your bloodstream just waiting their turn to do their thing.
This is why sub-drop doesn?t happen immediately: there?s a time delay that is dependent on your body?s metabolic rate for dopamine and seratonin, as well as how much of those hormones you produced.
Furthermore, when you have an excess of hormone A floating around, your body produces another hormone (hormone B) that tells your body ?hey, we?ve got too much hormone A, let?s stop making it to conserve resources and not overdose.?
So the entire time you?re metabolizing hormone A (aka coming down from your biochemical high), your body is producing more and more hormone B so you don?t overload on hormone A indefinitely.
By the time you?ve finally used up the hormone A that was floating around, you now have an excess of hormone B.
This is when your sub-drop hits you. Your body doesn?t have the happy-making hormone A available anymore, and you still have lots and lots of hormone B telling your body ?we don?t need hormone A.?
An oversimplification of depression is the long-term underproduction of dopamine and/or seratonin. Basically, your body can?t (or won?t) make enough happy hormones. Your body is tired of making happy hormones and doesn?t have what it needs to make those hormones.
Sub-drop has a similar emotional effect to depression because they both involve insufficient happy-hormones (although sub-drop occurs over a shorter time-scale than depression, even though depression does have ?episodes? where you feel worse than your ?resting? state of mildly unhappy/unmotivated/apathetic.)
Adrenaline and cortisol, stress hormones, are also important: if you?ve experienced something extreme (an intense BDSM scene, a scary rollercoaster, a presentation in front of people you?re trying to impress), you?ll have stress hormones floating around.
Hormone C, the stress hormones, metabolizes at a different rate to Hormone A, the happy hormones. When you have both Hormone C and Hormone A they balance each other out somewhat (this is the difference between productive stress and stress that compromises your physical health).
There is also Hormone D, which tells your body to stop making Hormone C, the same way Hormone B tells your body to stop making Hormone A.
Recap: Hormone A (aka happy hormones) regulated by Hormone B. Hormone C (aka stress hormones) regulated by Hormone D. (Yes, this is oversimplified for the sake of clarity, don?t use this as a reference for a biochem class.)
When your sub-drop hits, you might not notice, if you?re not actively trying to be happy. But you?ll be more sensitive to fluctuations in stress hormones (and other emotionally relevant hormones that aren?t the happy hormones). This is where the ?emotionally volatile? experience comes in.
In my ?normal? state, I?m fairly good at handling stress. This morning? I nearly gave myself a panic attack because I didn?t have licorice root so I couldn?t make myself my Felicitas tea blend. That was my first sign that I was in fact experiencing sub-drop and not just fatigue from going from zero to full speed without giving myself time to adjust. (I?d been feeling tired and slightly moody for about a day prior.)
The physical aspect of sub-drop happens because your body is sending warmth, blood, energy to the internal organs involved in producing, secreting, and regulating hormones A, B, C, and D. This is why it is common to be cold, especially in the extremities, and to sleep a lot.
Obviously, our bodies are not identical; we process these hormones at different speeds and we produce these hormones differently. Even if you have the same high-inducing experience your body will react differently afterward. This is why you don?t always experience sub-drop, or you experience milder or more sever cases even if you did everything possible to minimize the potential drop.
My worst case of sub-drop lasted for three weeks, after I got home from helping out my family for a week. I was a non-functional adult for the whole three weeks. I would panic and hide in the corner if the wind rattled the storm door. I knew I was being irrational, but I was alone and I didn?t realize at the time that it was sub-drop; instead I was wondering, ?what?s wrong with me, why can?t I just be normal, why am I broken when nothing happened??
What can you do to minimize or recover from sub-drop?
The best things to do to minimize or recover from sub-drop involve non-hormonal happy hormone stimulation. What?
- When you notice yourself thinking negative thoughts, think positive thoughts instead. Be kind to yourself. You?re not broken. There?s nothing wrong with you. Your body is in fact working as it is designed to, you?re just in a temporary state of chaos while your hormones recalibrate. You?re going to be ok.
- Your thoughts have a direct impact on your emotions. Look up self-coaching techniques for specific strategies you can try.
- Meditation can also help you let go of negative thoughts.
- Hugs, cuddles, and physical touch is another great way to tell your body ?don?t listen to hormone B, we actually do need hormone A.? This can include sensual stimulation such as baths, massage, orgasms, tickle-attacks, weighted blankets, etc.
- Talk to your partner(s), friends(s), and family for emotional support and reassurance. This is especially relevant if you?re overthinking a relationship dynamic or associating your stress hormone reactions with what someone else may or may not do/feel/act. (This is common for subs who had a scene with a dom they don?t live with, especially if it?s a new relationship where trust hasn?t had time to build.)
There?s a lot of advice out there about eating chocolate. This can be helpful for individuals of the female persuasion, because chocolate increases estrogen, and women are more stress-resilient the more estrogen we have. But this may not work for everyone. (Although, if you love chocolate, indulging yourself is a method of self-care, which is a tangible reminder that you are awesome, which is a happy-thought, so chocolate can have that indirect effect as well.)
Eating sweets/carbs creates a ten-minute dopamine hit, but then it?s gone and you have to eat more carbs. So if you choose to eat sweets to help balance your happy and stress hormones, ration your cookies and eat them one at a time over the course of the day.
Obviously, eating sugar and carbs is not a viable solution for everyone.
Side note: sub/top-drop, depression, and burnout are all closely linked because they all involve a lack of happy hormones and an excess of stress hormones, but there are subtle differences. With burnout, you?ve allowed the stress hormones to be so high for so long that your body is completely overwhelmed, which impacts your physical and mental health. Depression is a more long-term low with lower dips, while sub/top-drop is an acute reaction to a specific experience.