On Drop
Do you know what drop is? In this episode, Libby explains drop, what it is, why it's rough, and what you can do to make it a little easier to deal with.
Transcript
The big part of self-care is building a life that you don't wanna escape from. Now. That is not me saying again, don't have any peak experiences that are a huge departure from regular life, because I wholeheartedly think that such experiences are the very thing that can really shake us out of ruts open our minds and hearts, and help us see ourselves and others and our lives in a different way. But for me, I then wanna take those insights and openings and integrate them into my whole being and the way that I live my life every day.
The first time that I heard about drop was from one of my closest people mentioning going away for a long convention. I think it, maybe it was dragon con and talking about this thing called con drop, which is what happens after you've spent a long weekend immersed with a bunch of nerds and an intensive event with lots of social interactions and cool panels and other peak experiences and deep connections and a significant separation from what regular life is usually like such that when you return to your regular life at the end of that weekend, it can be jarring and painful. And you just feel really, really low. I have since learned that drop is also widely talked about in the kink community. One example is Sub drop, which is when you come out of being in a submissive state and have to step back into the more nuanced reality that exists outside of that power exchange dynamic and the intensity of being in a kink scene.
Now, for those of you who are burners, you probably already know about drop because it's something that often happens after a burn. I mean, burns are these contained windows of time where everyone shows up and create a completely alternative society and culture, and you become completely immersed in it. But then when it's over and you're back in the real world and you have to like put on clothes, that can be a really rough transition. And recently a polyamorous content creator that I follow on Instagram posted about something. She called mom drop, which for her was related to going away with her, non-nested partner for a weekend, and then coming home to a tired co-parent two cranky kids and a whole heap of mom guilt for going away. And this kind of thing can happen even after just one evening with a partner that you're in intense NRE with everything slows down when you're in NRA and feels so intense and so big, but then the date is over and you're apart and regular life may just not seem as sparkly.
And even if you're fairly mainstream, you might have experienced drop just from coming back from a vacation. You just may not have realized why you feel so shitty and irritable and maybe overwhelmed once you're back at work, grinding away after your beloved vacation drop is a really common phenomenon, but what is really going on, what really is drop. So in a nutshell drop happens when you've been in some kind of peak experience or altered state. And these experiences are releasing lots of feel-good neurotransmitters and hormones, things like endorphins, no epinephrine, dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and frankly, even stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol, these chemicals flood your brain and your body. And they create this feeling of intensity and bring you into heightened state, which can sometimes be sustained for several days. But then the experience ends. And unfortunately, so do all those good brain chemicals and they tend to recede pretty abruptly.
And sometimes we've even completely exhausted our stores of them. And we need some time to make more in the absence of all those feel good hormones of in neurotransmitters, we crash, we have low energy, we drop. So what are some of the negative consequences of drop? Well, in all these contexts being in drop can feel like a mini depression. You are more likely to feel tired and slow. And just down in the dump, you're more likely to view your circumstances outside of that peak experience in a negative light, you might feel this longing to just be back in that peak experience. If you're polyamorous and you're living alone, coming back to an empty home after time with your partner may just amplify those feelings of loneliness without them. And if you're polyamorous and you live with partners, you may not be very much fun to be around if you're in drop and that might end up making your nested partner or partners feel like chopped Liberty to you. And if you have kids at home and you're in drop, it may be hard to connect with them or feel excited about caregiving. And that could be especially true if you're holding onto a lot of guilt about being away or guilt about burdening your co-parent or other caregivers, and that guilt can, unfortunately, curl into resentment of your kiddos too, which is such a tough, but real thing to feel from personal experience when I'm in drop, I feel like sh*t. So what can you do about drop? Well, I mean, you could decide to just never have any peak experiences, but I don't recommend that one.
So for me, one of the biggest things that is helped is just to know that it's gonna happen accepting that drop will almost inevitably follow any kind of peak experience can help you not feel totally blindsided by it. And I'll tell you the higher, the high, the bigger the drop. So it can be helpful to know that if I am really high up in an experience in a particular event or an a, a weekend or something, knowing that, oh, I'm gonna feel this when I get back can really help me prepare for it just mentally. So knowing that I'm in drop, knowing that this is a biological and not completely avoidable experience, knowing that it's also temporary, that it will pass when I'm feeling like total dog sh*t, that can usually help me hold myself in compassion when I'm not feeling great.
And also help me like have some perspective that I'm not always going to feel like this, that it actually is going to feel better and just a few days usually, but there are some other things you can do to help with drop two. And I wanna share those. So a big one that I do is to create a section of time between the peak experience and returning to normal life so that there is a little time to transition. So for example, if you know, you're gonna gonna be away on some sexy weekend with a partner or two, or you're heading to a big festival or a convention, maybe plan to have a day or a half day or return from the event a little bit early, so that you have a period of time where you don't have an, any obligations, but you're not in a peak event anymore so that you can transition to regular life.
And you can use that time to integrate your experience, to reflect, to journal, to ground yourself back in your space, to get prepared for any upcoming obligations and connect with gratitude, to the things that you're returning to in your regular life that you cherish. And you can even do this intentionally in an abbreviated way. If you notice that you're having drop after like a DS scene or a date with a new squeeze, you can just set aside a period of time, like maybe 30 minutes, maybe an hour to create a transition period, and maybe even a transition ritual for yourself. For me, sometimes it's something as simple as just sitting in my car to just reflect and ground and meditate. Or sometimes what I like to do is I'll pause on my way home to pick up a coffee for me and my sweeties, and maybe a little treat for the kids, so that I feel like I'm making this grand appearance with everybody.
Some people also report just having a little bit of space and when they return from a date, if they have other partners or kids at home can be really helpful just to like be in their home, be in their space, maybe take a shower, maybe change their clothes, maybe spend a little bit of time doing other forms of self care, or just a little bit of quiet to themselves before reconnecting to their people, having that time to transition again, I find it so valuable to just be able to process and integrate my experience for myself. Another thing that I think can help with drop is to take good care of your body during those peak experiences. Because when our body is flooded with these hormones and neurotransmitters, we feel so good that sometimes we forget to do things like rest or eat or eat nutritious food, rather than, you know, quick energy food that might kind of contribute to that crashing feeling we might forget to drink enough water.
We might not get enough sleep. And we're also probably more likely to drink alcohol or use other substances when those substances can deplete the body of what it needs to function well. And all of that can really make the drop so much rougher than it needs to be. So if you're at a burnt or on a trip with your sweetie, take care to maybe eat some nutrient dense food or take a multivitamin and drink plenty of water and think about getting enough sleep and also rest, because that can really help ease the drop. And if you're sharing that peak experience with someone, maybe the two of you can look out for each other and remind each other to take water breaks and maybe encourage each other to skip the fast food and pick up some snacks at the grocery store and maybe help each other, get into bed and cuddle and go to sleep.
And in that vein, I'll also add that there are some supplements that you can take that can help your body rebuild its store of neurotransmitters. Now I gotta say here, I'm not a medical professional. And so please do your own research on this. And if you're really not sure, please seek the advice of a medical professional before taking any supplements. But the two that I know about that can help are the amino acids L tyrosine and 5-Hydroxytryptophan also known as 5-HTP. L tyrosine is one of the building blocks for neuro epinephrine and dopamine. And I think some other neurotransmitters as well, and five HTP is a key building block for serotonin taking these two supplements for a few days after a peak experience is something I've done to soften the transition. Lastly, I, thing that I do that is it is more of a long term thing is I work to both integrate the peak experiences and the exciting people I meet into my regular life.
And I also work to do what I can to infuse my regular life. I'm talking even the mundane tasks that I do every day with pleasure and joy. Now I realize this is again, it's a long term thing and it can be hard. It may not feel accessible for everyone, but I read this somewhere and it's just really stuck with me that a big part of self-care is building a life that you don't wanna escape from. Now. That is not me saying again, don't have any peak experiences that are a huge departure from regular life, because I wholeheartedly think that such experiences are the very thing that can really shake us out of ruts, open our minds and hearts and help us see ourselves and others and our lives in a different way. But for me, I then wanna take those insights and openings and integrate them into my whole being and the way that I live my life every day, that takes time and effort and intention, but I've found it immensely rewarding. And again, it can really help soften the drop. If what you're re-entering is a life that you really love. So to recap, drop is a really common experience for people after they've had any kind of peak experience, accepting it, preparing for it and doing what you can to soften. It can really help it not blindside you though, and that can make the transition easier for everyone else around you, as well as for yourself.
