Self protection by repressing libido

This is something I was hypothesizing about this week...

Maybe my low libido is my way of protecting myself from the difficulties of dealing with my super high libido. I had a really high sex drive until my early twenties which caused me a lot of hurt (and rejection from Adam as we weren't married). I was so driven by it, not in a way I wanted to be. Then almost overnight, about a year before we married, it changed so that I didn't have much desire for sex at all. It happened after a build up of rejections from Adam. Our religion didn't permit us to be intimate and I had trouble with this. We both did, but a lot of times, it was me trying to tempt Adam. Of course, I'd feel awful if he was strong and said no. I think it just got to a certain point where the benefit of trying was not significant enough to outweigh the damage it was doing to me to feel rejected and so not consciously, but so suddenly that I did consciously notice it: I stopped wanting intimacy at all. Sex was very difficult when we got married. It took several years before I was able to enjoy it without pain and I never felt in the mood for it. In fact we barely had sex at all four about four years. Nowadays it's better in that we have sex more regularly for the most part but it still has issues for me and I know it's not as often as Adam would like. I know a lot of it is to do with my own trauma history; of course sex can be very difficult because of the memories it triggers. But I think it's not just that. When I first started therapy, T asked me if I was 'punishing' Adam by not wanting sex. I was horrified at the idea that I would be so cruel. I rejected that theory but I didn't acknowledge that it was perhaps not 'punishing him' but 'protecting myself from rejection'. Of course, it doesn't make sense that I'd keep feeling the aversion after marriage when I can now have sex as much as I want, if I want. That is where I begin to hypothesise about the libido theory.

If I subconsciously allowed myself to start enjoying sex again, my libido would perhaps increase to a level that even Adam wouldn't enjoy. If I was to realise my high libido and Adam wasn't able to meet my needs, I would again feel frustrated and rejected and probably other things, so on some unconscious level I have to switch off those feelings. It used to be 100% of the time: I would have happily never had sex again, so being able to masturbate and have sex nowadays is actually progress. About a year ago things started to improve with my feelings about sex; before that the idea of masturbation was about as appealing as the idea of licking a toilet seat. But when things started to improve and I started to enjoy sex, it felt really good. But then it got that I felt sex was so intense that my arousal lasted afterwards on into the days following; which I couldn't handle. I mean, my body remained in a state of sexual arousal right into the next day and days afterwards no matter what I was doing. I couldn't be satisfied. It was very difficult to feel that way especially around family. It meant I was getting triggered so easily as well. Feel aroused when not wanting to be, around someone who abused me... worst feeling ever... nightmare begins again. So I had to shut it down again.

Sex with Adam also now makes me feel worse about our relationship problems, as we haven't been getting along too well recently. If we have sex and then fall out in the day afterwards, it feels worse somehow than if we hadn't had sex. So it's just easier not to want sex. I suppose in a way I could be quite content about how things are now. Adam initiates sex most of the time. I often don't want it, but I can enjoy it once it happens, provided I am not dissociated into a part that hates it. I can't enjoy sex without fantasising about scenarios that I don't see as 'healthy' for me though but that's an issue for some other time. It may not be healthy, but it helps me to enjoy the physical feeling of sex. 

Can sex be too good?

For the majority of my married life sex has been either very difficult or non existent in my relationship with Adam. Mostly, it's because of my problems with tolerating touch and my tendency to have disturbing images when trying to be intimate and also because of my lack of libido. It was also traditionally very painful although that began to change several years into our relationship when I 'learnt' to embrace the pain and try to think of it as a good thing. I guess not fearing the pain helped me not to be so tense and so the pain decreased, but that didn't mean I wanted to have sex or enjoyed it. It just became something I was physically able to do, even though inside I didn't want to and would never have initiated that kind of intimacy.

Recently though, things have been different. We have kind of gotten into a routine of having sex, not that often, but not rarely either. I can't recall how it happened or why it happened, but we had sex one day about three or four months ago when we were away and it felt... amazing. For both of us, it was amazing. I didn't want it to start, but then I wanted it to never end. It was possibly the best sex ever. So intense. So different.

And this brings me to the crux of what I wanted to ask you about today... after we had that amazing sex, it was like it was so good, it put me off sex altogether. I mean, every time I thought about it, I'd start remembering the intensity of how it was and it just felt so overwhelming that I couldn't handle it. I can't handle feeling that good. I'm not used to it. It makes such a contrast to the majority of feelings I generally experience...most of the time I am in some sort of pain, whether it is my joints or my head or something anyway. I usually feel either anxious or down or irritable or exhausted or nothing... but I rarely feel 'good'. So feeling good is something I am not all that comfortable with I guess. Am I the only person who is this absurd or can sex really be so good that you don't want it?

I think that's why I've often not wanted to have sex. I feel very uncomfortable when my body begins to be aroused. I feel the transition from feeling horrible to feeling lovely is a very huge one and it can be overwhelming. Maybe that's why the sex was so good on that day when we were away: I'd been in the swimming pool then sat in a jacuzzi and steam room and was so relaxed and feeling nice anyway; my body was more able to make the transition to aroused without it being such an ordeal.

So, after that momentous sex, most people would want to be doing it again and again, but Adam and I didn't have sex for quite some time. I had to block those feelings away because they were too big to handle. Eventually after a month or so, Adam got fed up and his hints became blatant statements of frustration that we weren't having sex and so I felt obliged to do something (that sounds awful, I love him a lot) and we started having sex again. It has been good too. Sometimes amazing too. But each time we start kissing and Adam touches me, I am so aware of the anxiety that comes with these 'nice' feelings and I often have to take a break and say: "It's too good!"

I think Adam understands when I express it that way. He says he wants to teach me to enjoy feeling good and to be able to tolerate being touched. In a way, I don't know if now is the right time for me to be learning lessons like that but it seems to be happening anyway.

Sexual arousal when remembering and talking about sexual abuse

You have probably guessed what I'm about to talk about from the title but just to be explicit: this could be triggering and please read with caution. Speaking of 'explicit', I have tried not to be too so but I am about to tell you about something that is so in its very nature. This post has been written by myself (Candy: observer), as well as Little C and Candy (the part that generally goes to therapy and might be considered one of the 'main persons'). Should really get different names for your benefit to save confusion. Everyone thinks they are 'Candy'. Little C starts; I have typed for her and mostly corrected things from how she would say them except where it felt wrong to. Didn't want to take her style away from it, but have hopefully made it more understandable than it otherwise might have been.

"Today I wented to the psychology session with Candy and talked to the psychologist who is called T on here and I not allowed to tell you her real name but it's a better name than T. I talked to her about Easter and things and she asked me some questions about bad things that happened before when I was a baby and when I was in house number one and house number two and I tolded her about getting squished and having to do things I don't like to do and the big faces in the cage and willies and about stuff like that and it maked me feel yucky while I was telling her it and I got sore back and arms and face and head and feeled sick and I got weird feelings in my fanny and maked me think about willies and then I needed to go to the toilet. All of them things makeded me feel sad and yucky and I wanted T to give me a hug because I was scared and sad. T gave me the headphones and put the nice song on for me and I listened to it going in my ears and tried to think about being on the moon and tried to take big breaths and feel better.
From Little C"

After switching back from Little C in the session Candy felt all of those pains and that 'weird' feeling which was sexual arousal. It is a really awful thing to experience this arousal when remembering or talking about sexual abuse. It is confusing. Candy arrived home wondering that in fact her problem is not so much trauma related but actually some kind of sexual perversion: that she would feel turned on by that kind of situation. In stating this to herself Candy felt ashamed and disgusted with herself however, reassured herself that at least therapy was the right place for her, so she would just need to explain to T that she should be treating her for some kind of sexual perversion disorder rather than DID. We decided not to spend too long wondering what would have caused 'me' to become this way.

I am not unaware that people who have experienced sexual abuse can become aroused when remembering or talking about their experiences or during flashbacks and dissociation. I'm also not unaware of studies that show that females may have a natural arousal response to sexual material which can help protect them physically from damage during rape. I have been told that the pleasure points in the human body are wired to work from birth but that they aren't usually activated until later in life and that sexual abuse can activate these prematurely making an arousal response in a child even though they in no way wish the experience to be happening. I know all of this. I don't think I remembered any of it at that point though, or if I did, I didn't feel like it applied to me... Candy.

"I felt sure I must simply have a disorder that makes me turned on by horrible things and that maybe I'm just not getting enough sex or perhaps my low sex drive over the past six or seven years was just my way of trying to manage the huge sex drive that I really have and had previously and this is it bursting out again. I felt ashamed when I came home, knowing that my body was feeling this way with the images of abuse still in my mind.

To put it frankly, having a physical reaction when I am having flashbacks is not a new experience for me. I often feel pain in my body and usually notice afterwards that I am wet between my legs when I go to the toilet, so I know then that my body must have had a sexual arousal response, even though I wasn't aware of it happening. I am usually only aware of pain and feeling sick. I find the wetness difficult enough to mentally deal with and feel bad that my body has responded this way. Sometimes the reaction seems to be a lot stronger though, like this time. I am consciously aware of it and the feeling of arousal, although I don't want it, is strong... really, really strong. How horrible to be talking about awful experiences and to feel that way physically and how horrible to see too that my physical reaction is much stronger than I nearly ever have during 'healthy' sex with Adam. Sometimes when I am cuddling Adam and I know he wants to have sex, I feel like my body is dead. There is no wetness, no tingling, no feeling of change or becoming ready. Just anxiety and numbness... and sometimes an overwhelming need to fall asleep. He may try to stimulate my clitoris and vagina using his fingers or his mouth but it doesn't have any effect on me at all. I often just can't feel it or if I can, it's just irritating or uncomfortable. Yet looking in my head at the image of someone who should never ever have been touching me this way doing similar things, although it repulses me, immediately makes me feel like I am burning inside and out with a need for more.

I didn't know what to do after a while of still feeling this way and still having the images coming through my head and the feelings coming through my body. I wanted to feel normal again, but I also felt like I needed to make it real somehow, like somehow that would make it better... if not mentally, physically. Sometimes after having this experience I have felt like I had to masturbate. It seems wrong because I am unhappy and upset and thinking about terrible things. It's not that I think masturbation is wrong. I don't, I think it's a healthy thing in itself, in the right circumstances despite that I don't really do it very much. I just couldn't tolerate having the feelings any longer and I knew a way to get it over with. So, I used our Rabbit Vibrator to masturbate, but not in a healthy, gentle or pleasant way. More to recreate the feelings of pain inside but to have the sexual response that being abused brought with it; the ones my body was remembering. There wasn't enough pain. I remembered that there should be pain at the back; a lot of pain. I felt a need to recreate that pain too, but I stopped myself from trying to do that this time. But it wasn't just done in order to get a climax to be able to stop feeling it. It was done as a need as well to feel what I felt. That's the hardest thing to acknowledge. How could I want that to happen again?"

A Rampant Rabbit is not for the faint hearted in my opinion, despite it's reputation as a wonder toy. Our version has a very hard ridge at the corona which can be painful even though it is not bigger than an average penis. It hasn't had much use for that reason; even Shan prefers other more modest toys or 'a real man' as she says. But today it was fit for purpose: pain and pleasure and to relive and release. How can that be a good thing? Why did she feel it had to be done? Why did she want to relive it? Was it to be able to move on in that moment? Or is it just a learnt reaction from years of it happening... like the study... just have the sex with me and get it done.

"How can it be OK to have these feelings about such horrible experiences? I hate it and the thought of it is unbearable but in those moments it's almost like it's wanted. Did I want it? I feel so ashamed even though I know that other people go through the same thing. I am not sure that it's not me being devious even though I understand it and sympathise for others who go through it. I want to be able to talk about it with T. I don't know if she could say anything to help but it's such a confusing way to feel and I need to be sure it's not that there's something wrong in my reaction. I feel sorry for her though. It's not a fun topic and I don't know if she would be embarrassed to talk to us about it. I know it happens to people, I know why a person might feel arousal, but why the need to relive it? What is the benefit and should I stop it from happening? I guess T would say I should. But then what? How do we sit with those feelings?"