In which our hero,

having just gotten himself a brand new online identity, succumbs to a fit of angst and tries to muddle through what it is he's been missing, finding out that it's as much being scared as being scary.  The lovely postscript is that after reading this, it was discovered that in fact the indescribably lovable Switch does want to do pretty much exactly what I've been wanting her to, and indeed likes hurting me a great deal.  Tonight's going to suck, and that'll be wonderful.

Before you read further, be warned that there are angsty and unpleasant bits.  The worst have been removed, but if you can't show your troubles and tribulations with random people on the internet, who can you share them with?

I know it's hard to be mean to someone you love.  I know all your instincts are to protect me and keep me safe and happy and smiling.  I know you don't particularly kink on seeing me unhappy.  You enjoy it much more when you're pleasing me, when you know that I'm enjoying what you're doing to me.  And I enjoy it tremendously.  I've just had this growing need to be hurt.  Not just to be hit and poked and stroked, all of which are lovely in their own right, but to be hurt.  To trust you to know that I can take more than I think I can without being damaged; to trust you not to stop.  I want to writhe and curse and scream and cry and have it do no good.  I want to be abject and suffering.  I want to try to breathe and feel your hand clamp down harder.  I want to be choked, to be slapped, to be kicked - all of those bad and nasty things.  I want you to be mean to me.  I want you to push me until I'm sobbing and broken.
But I think in the end it'd be worse for you than for me... I don't think you'd get any enjoyment out of it, and you don't like making me unhappy.  Just know that this is something I very much want, holed up here so as to take up less mental space.
(that said, the sex tonight was amazing!)

[and, a night or two later, the follow-up]

i keep hoping you'll stumble across this, today or tomorrow or someday soon, and say "i know what you mean, and i can see how that sort of catharsis could help you feel better, but i don't really know what to do or how to do it, so if you'd tell me what you were thinking of, i'll see what i can do." you'd maybe add that you sometimes did enjoy hurting me and being big, but that you'd also need a lot of aftercare as well, and might not be able to be mean. and then we could talk about it, and figure something out.
i think you know that being big is about more than stroking my hair and curling around me and trying to be generally reassuring. it's that i don't so much want you to be reassuring when you're big... reassuring is good, but it comes out of something else that's more what i've been missing. i want you to pay attention to me, in ways i don't ask for. i want you to do spontaneous nice things for me and pick clothes off my bed and get me things i was just looking for. i want to trust that when you're big, just once in a while, you'll go further than i ask you to, do more than i demand.
at the same time i feel terrible for wanting so much, for pressing demands on you, for making you feel bad for not doing things you have no obligation to do. you're doing much more in your daily life than i am, you're busier and more stressed and have more on your mind. i know this. 
i also know that i don't feel like my mind works anymore.  i know that sometimes, bdsm can offer an outlet for catharsis that wouldn't otherwise happen. at the moment i'm not doing very well, desperately want something to change, and would like a cathartic moment very much, please, if you can spare the time and mental energy. i don't know if it'll help, and it doesn't even have to be anything like i described... 
i want to want possible things. 
i wish i wanted less.

i'm sorry you're reading this instead of hearing it from me.
i don't think everything's broken, and i love you a whole lot.
--boy