Experiencing sexual dysfunction and other symptoms, post-divorce
June 5, 2013 11:57 AM Subscribe
Went through extreme anxiety and upheaval 2 years ago and have experienced sexual dysfunction and prostatitis-like symptoms ever since. How can I approach this?
Short version:
2 years ago, my wife and I split and I began to experience sexual dysfunction followed by severe depression, and numbness in other places like my jaw and teeth. I have seen doctors and am closer to understanding the problem, but I would still like to hear insight from others on how to get better.
Long Version:
I’m a male, in my late 30s. Back when I was a teenager I luckily did not have a problem finding girlfriends and I did have sex, with mixed results. But getting an erection was a huge source of anxiety. I would be extremely excited right up until the moment, then suddenly I’d become very self-aware, fear would set in and I’d start thinking of sex like a basic biological function. Not only could I not get an erection, it was like my penis was trying to escape into itself. It felt weak.
I met my future wife in 2004 and never had that problem. She was extremely sweet and accommodating, outwardly, but within months I also realized she was very depressed and self-loathing which manifested in various ways. Regardless, she was very loving and loyal, but it was a rollercoaster always. After a couple years, my perception of her began to subconsciously affect my desire for her. I realized I wasn’t as physically attracted to her as I should have been. We stopped being intimate much. Yet we got married anyway.
Soon thereafter, I got a job in a large intense city. After 3 months there, her mother died suddenly. She shut down emotionally. We quickly became more like roommates than anything resembling lovers. During this time, I was surprised to find myself very, very attracted to women around me, women I would have never considered remotely attractive before. Suddenly, I wanted all of them. It was like meat dangled in front of a hungry dog. I felt like I had an erection all day long. My heart raced. I masturbated constantly. My thought was, "if we break up, I will be sad, but at least I can console myself in dating and sex for awhile." The thoughts consumed me.
Underneath all that desire, horrible guilt. My sweet wife was grieving and my mind was elsewhere. I never acted on the feelings, but I knew they were troublesome. I was getting crushes. So we talked about spending time apart. I was working 10-12 hour work days and I could feel my mind coming unraveled. I started wondering who I was, who she was. But I wanted sex, badly. My libido was through the roof.
Literally a week before I planned to talk to my wife about separating, I woke up without a morning erection for the first time in nearly a decade. Not just that, I took a shower and realized I couldn’t masturbate, another first. I felt physically and mentally exhausted. I felt numb. This worried me, but I assumed it would pass.
My wife and I agreed mutually to separate. But within weeks of her moving out, I had a horrible realization. I'd just lost the most wonderful wife I could have. I didn’t want to be single. I wanted to fix us. All I could focus on was how loving and decent she was, and how I'd never been able to reciprocate. Suddenly It was like I'd forgotten about every single negative trait her in her and could only see the good. I began to spiral, badly.
Meanwhile, I was having other symptoms. My libido disappeared completely. Sexual thoughts were replaced by racing fear. My penis felt numb, shriveled, cold. Occasionally I felt a light ache in my prostate. I could feel pressure when I urinated like my urethra was too tight. Other times it felt like my prostate and groin had “butterflies” like you get on a nervous stomach. Or it felt very “tight.” All of this frightened me, even though I saw a GP and urologist who both said I was just experiencing serious anxiety. Test showed everything normal. Prostatitis was discussed, but it’s such a vague diagnosis, there was no way to know. It felt like I’d blown a gasket somehow.
So all this build-up, this intense desire to have sex with women, to be single... at the crucial moment, my body collapses. I not only become physically numb, I get mentally numb.
I began having dire thoughts. I thought something medical and permanent was wrong with me. This was temporarily alleviated when my wife spent the night one night and we had sex. It was the first time I felt real desire in months. But it was obvious she didn’t want to work things out and the feeling passed.
For a year, I was horribly depressed. I worked half-days, sometimes not leaving the house or bed. The “exhaustion” I’d felt a year earlier had never left me, even though my life was now simpler, on the surface. I was getting divorced and life would move on, presumably. But it didn’t, and my feelings got more dire. I began feeling a new numbness, in my teeth, which made me want to grind them. This especially surfaced when I tried to masturbate.
Just as I thought I’d really reached a dark place last summer, I went to a local psychologist who used hypnotherapy. During hypnosis, I felt something very strong as he convinced me to leave behind those “weighted” feelings about my wife. Hours after leaving his office, I felt physically different. Lighter and happier. After 18 months of my prostate feeling uncomfortable and penis feeling tight, those feelings were gone within 24hrs. I was able to masturbate that very night.
I felt legitimately better for about a month after hypnosis. I was just happy to no longer be in discomfort so I thought I was “fixed.” But then, my wife asked for a final divorce which sent me spiraling again. I took me most of Fall 2012 to work through that. On a positive note, certain symptoms (prostate pressure, tingle, tightness) have still never returned.
The problem I have been having since March is that suddenly a handful of women want to date me. And when we’ve spent time together, they’ve been very sexually forward. And that has made me realize my libido is not “fixed.” It’s as though sex has lost all appeal. I am happy to no longer have the strains and sensations in the prostate, but the problem is still a lack of desire. During the days, I don’t get spontaneous erections and when sexual thoughts/images appear in my head, they disappear. Sometimes my penis feels like a strange appendage. It feels “weak” and empty of blood or circulation. If I look at porn, I can mostly maintain an erection, but it’s purely physical, not from any kind of real desire. Despite improvements, I am on some level still numb. I should be ecstatic multiple women would want to have sex.
No doctor or talk-therapist besides the hypnotist has really been of help. SSRIs and their own side effects are out of the question for now. When I find other people online with similar symptoms, I invariably adopt whatever symptoms they’re describing (cold penis, etc), merely by the power of suggestion. So I’m trying to avoid any online scaremongering. But it’s like I can’t stop scrutinizing the situation, wanting it to get better, which just causes me to obsess and “will” the symptoms to creep in. 2 years on and I can’t get rid of that “exhausted” feeling either.
What’s a drag is that I feel resolution about my divorce and my life is mostly back to normal. Except the libido part. On the surface I don’t feel stressed, about anything other than that issue. My fear is never getting out of this loop, never getting remarried, never finding a woman who understands any of this. I just don’t understand how to convince my subconscious that it’s okay now to desire women. The notion of sex has become simultaneously boring and very threatening.
Long story short, I badly want to have a sex life again. I have visited the psychologist/hypnotist again recently, but it didn’t have the same effect, I was too stressed. But if it did work for me strongly last summer, are there any other practices that would work? Biofeedback? Acupuncture?
I would love to hear from anyone who has experienced anything similar. Again sorry for the length and oversharing. I’m feeling very lost right now.
Short version:
2 years ago, my wife and I split and I began to experience sexual dysfunction followed by severe depression, and numbness in other places like my jaw and teeth. I have seen doctors and am closer to understanding the problem, but I would still like to hear insight from others on how to get better.
Long Version:
I’m a male, in my late 30s. Back when I was a teenager I luckily did not have a problem finding girlfriends and I did have sex, with mixed results. But getting an erection was a huge source of anxiety. I would be extremely excited right up until the moment, then suddenly I’d become very self-aware, fear would set in and I’d start thinking of sex like a basic biological function. Not only could I not get an erection, it was like my penis was trying to escape into itself. It felt weak.
I met my future wife in 2004 and never had that problem. She was extremely sweet and accommodating, outwardly, but within months I also realized she was very depressed and self-loathing which manifested in various ways. Regardless, she was very loving and loyal, but it was a rollercoaster always. After a couple years, my perception of her began to subconsciously affect my desire for her. I realized I wasn’t as physically attracted to her as I should have been. We stopped being intimate much. Yet we got married anyway.
Soon thereafter, I got a job in a large intense city. After 3 months there, her mother died suddenly. She shut down emotionally. We quickly became more like roommates than anything resembling lovers. During this time, I was surprised to find myself very, very attracted to women around me, women I would have never considered remotely attractive before. Suddenly, I wanted all of them. It was like meat dangled in front of a hungry dog. I felt like I had an erection all day long. My heart raced. I masturbated constantly. My thought was, "if we break up, I will be sad, but at least I can console myself in dating and sex for awhile." The thoughts consumed me.
Underneath all that desire, horrible guilt. My sweet wife was grieving and my mind was elsewhere. I never acted on the feelings, but I knew they were troublesome. I was getting crushes. So we talked about spending time apart. I was working 10-12 hour work days and I could feel my mind coming unraveled. I started wondering who I was, who she was. But I wanted sex, badly. My libido was through the roof.
Literally a week before I planned to talk to my wife about separating, I woke up without a morning erection for the first time in nearly a decade. Not just that, I took a shower and realized I couldn’t masturbate, another first. I felt physically and mentally exhausted. I felt numb. This worried me, but I assumed it would pass.
My wife and I agreed mutually to separate. But within weeks of her moving out, I had a horrible realization. I'd just lost the most wonderful wife I could have. I didn’t want to be single. I wanted to fix us. All I could focus on was how loving and decent she was, and how I'd never been able to reciprocate. Suddenly It was like I'd forgotten about every single negative trait her in her and could only see the good. I began to spiral, badly.
Meanwhile, I was having other symptoms. My libido disappeared completely. Sexual thoughts were replaced by racing fear. My penis felt numb, shriveled, cold. Occasionally I felt a light ache in my prostate. I could feel pressure when I urinated like my urethra was too tight. Other times it felt like my prostate and groin had “butterflies” like you get on a nervous stomach. Or it felt very “tight.” All of this frightened me, even though I saw a GP and urologist who both said I was just experiencing serious anxiety. Test showed everything normal. Prostatitis was discussed, but it’s such a vague diagnosis, there was no way to know. It felt like I’d blown a gasket somehow.
So all this build-up, this intense desire to have sex with women, to be single... at the crucial moment, my body collapses. I not only become physically numb, I get mentally numb.
I began having dire thoughts. I thought something medical and permanent was wrong with me. This was temporarily alleviated when my wife spent the night one night and we had sex. It was the first time I felt real desire in months. But it was obvious she didn’t want to work things out and the feeling passed.
For a year, I was horribly depressed. I worked half-days, sometimes not leaving the house or bed. The “exhaustion” I’d felt a year earlier had never left me, even though my life was now simpler, on the surface. I was getting divorced and life would move on, presumably. But it didn’t, and my feelings got more dire. I began feeling a new numbness, in my teeth, which made me want to grind them. This especially surfaced when I tried to masturbate.
Just as I thought I’d really reached a dark place last summer, I went to a local psychologist who used hypnotherapy. During hypnosis, I felt something very strong as he convinced me to leave behind those “weighted” feelings about my wife. Hours after leaving his office, I felt physically different. Lighter and happier. After 18 months of my prostate feeling uncomfortable and penis feeling tight, those feelings were gone within 24hrs. I was able to masturbate that very night.
I felt legitimately better for about a month after hypnosis. I was just happy to no longer be in discomfort so I thought I was “fixed.” But then, my wife asked for a final divorce which sent me spiraling again. I took me most of Fall 2012 to work through that. On a positive note, certain symptoms (prostate pressure, tingle, tightness) have still never returned.
The problem I have been having since March is that suddenly a handful of women want to date me. And when we’ve spent time together, they’ve been very sexually forward. And that has made me realize my libido is not “fixed.” It’s as though sex has lost all appeal. I am happy to no longer have the strains and sensations in the prostate, but the problem is still a lack of desire. During the days, I don’t get spontaneous erections and when sexual thoughts/images appear in my head, they disappear. Sometimes my penis feels like a strange appendage. It feels “weak” and empty of blood or circulation. If I look at porn, I can mostly maintain an erection, but it’s purely physical, not from any kind of real desire. Despite improvements, I am on some level still numb. I should be ecstatic multiple women would want to have sex.
No doctor or talk-therapist besides the hypnotist has really been of help. SSRIs and their own side effects are out of the question for now. When I find other people online with similar symptoms, I invariably adopt whatever symptoms they’re describing (cold penis, etc), merely by the power of suggestion. So I’m trying to avoid any online scaremongering. But it’s like I can’t stop scrutinizing the situation, wanting it to get better, which just causes me to obsess and “will” the symptoms to creep in. 2 years on and I can’t get rid of that “exhausted” feeling either.
What’s a drag is that I feel resolution about my divorce and my life is mostly back to normal. Except the libido part. On the surface I don’t feel stressed, about anything other than that issue. My fear is never getting out of this loop, never getting remarried, never finding a woman who understands any of this. I just don’t understand how to convince my subconscious that it’s okay now to desire women. The notion of sex has become simultaneously boring and very threatening.
Long story short, I badly want to have a sex life again. I have visited the psychologist/hypnotist again recently, but it didn’t have the same effect, I was too stressed. But if it did work for me strongly last summer, are there any other practices that would work? Biofeedback? Acupuncture?
I would love to hear from anyone who has experienced anything similar. Again sorry for the length and oversharing. I’m feeling very lost right now.
You sound like you're being eaten alive by anxiety.
You say your live is good and you don't feel stressed, but that you're too stressed to have sex or for therapy to help. And that "no doctor or talk-therapist besides the hypnotist has really been of help". How many have you tried? Have you gone to a talk therapist specifically for anxiety? To work through your guilt and other feelings about your marriage?
It sounds like your libido problems will go away if you can work through some of your guilt over your marriage and tremendous anxiety. I would focus on mental health - physical health is likely to follow.
posted by ldthomps at 12:20 PM on June 5, 2013 [2 favorites]
You say your live is good and you don't feel stressed, but that you're too stressed to have sex or for therapy to help. And that "no doctor or talk-therapist besides the hypnotist has really been of help". How many have you tried? Have you gone to a talk therapist specifically for anxiety? To work through your guilt and other feelings about your marriage?
It sounds like your libido problems will go away if you can work through some of your guilt over your marriage and tremendous anxiety. I would focus on mental health - physical health is likely to follow.
posted by ldthomps at 12:20 PM on June 5, 2013 [2 favorites]
I wonder if you are torturing yourself with some ideal that a "real" man should be willing and able to have sex any time of day or day of the week. So, not only do you not want to have sex, but you now feel more self-conscious and less virile because of it, which makes you even less likely to want to have sex, etc. It is really fine to just not be in the mood - especially if you're experiencing strong negative emotions like guilt and grief.
The other thing is: SSRIs definitely have sexual side effects and they are very common, but they tend to be more about the "finishing" than "starting" end of things. So you might actually find that some aspects of sex get easier if SSRIs do help tamp down your anxiety and rumination. But I am not a psychiatrist, so you should probably talk to one.
I think showbiz_liz's suggestion is also particularly on point - there are people who are trained in these precise issues and it makes sense to seek them out.
posted by en forme de poire at 12:20 PM on June 5, 2013 [1 favorite]
The other thing is: SSRIs definitely have sexual side effects and they are very common, but they tend to be more about the "finishing" than "starting" end of things. So you might actually find that some aspects of sex get easier if SSRIs do help tamp down your anxiety and rumination. But I am not a psychiatrist, so you should probably talk to one.
I think showbiz_liz's suggestion is also particularly on point - there are people who are trained in these precise issues and it makes sense to seek them out.
posted by en forme de poire at 12:20 PM on June 5, 2013 [1 favorite]
You sound like someone who does not often look within to understand your mental /emotional state, but come to experience them when they become too great to ignore. Undoubtedly you have feelings -- anxiety, depression, an entire dissolution of love and marriage, sadness. These are very stressful events. You say you don't feel stressed, yet here is this libido issue that impales you upon an endless loop of fear.
These problems are at least partly psychosomatic, if not mostly. Resolve the mental /emotional issues, and the physical may resolve as well. Have you heard of koro? Are you of Asian culture? Different cultures impart different sets of mental baggage -- which may be helpful for you to examine and unpack.
Several questions to ask yourself: why do you have such anxiety around getting an erection? why are you so preoccupied by sex? what does the act of sex mean to you? In reality, stripped of all the meanings we infuse it, sex is merely a basic biological function. Why does that thought render you unable to proceed?
A good therapist would help you trace the roots of your anxiety. Until you reach a better understanding of yourself, I think it's best to hold-off looking for another woman to understand you and all of this. How can she, if you do not?
Good luck.
posted by enlivener at 12:56 PM on June 5, 2013 [6 favorites]
These problems are at least partly psychosomatic, if not mostly. Resolve the mental /emotional issues, and the physical may resolve as well. Have you heard of koro? Are you of Asian culture? Different cultures impart different sets of mental baggage -- which may be helpful for you to examine and unpack.
Several questions to ask yourself: why do you have such anxiety around getting an erection? why are you so preoccupied by sex? what does the act of sex mean to you? In reality, stripped of all the meanings we infuse it, sex is merely a basic biological function. Why does that thought render you unable to proceed?
A good therapist would help you trace the roots of your anxiety. Until you reach a better understanding of yourself, I think it's best to hold-off looking for another woman to understand you and all of this. How can she, if you do not?
Good luck.
posted by enlivener at 12:56 PM on June 5, 2013 [6 favorites]
It can take a long time to get to the subconscious part of your mind in therapy. You don't say how long you tried, but your time-line suggests a few months. This isn't a new problem, you acknowledge you had issues even as a teenager. Your divorce has blown it out of control, but whatever is the root of all this has been with you for a very long time.
Basically, there is no quick fix. This is going to be a matter of some dedicated long term work, and then life long maintenance. Right now it appears you ignore the source of the problem or dealing with it until it becomes absolutely unbearable (as I used to, it's not a good way to live). Learning new ways to deal with stress, even acknowledging it before it gets unbearable, and understanding the why is a lot easier with a trained guide.
posted by Dynex at 1:37 PM on June 5, 2013 [3 favorites]
Basically, there is no quick fix. This is going to be a matter of some dedicated long term work, and then life long maintenance. Right now it appears you ignore the source of the problem or dealing with it until it becomes absolutely unbearable (as I used to, it's not a good way to live). Learning new ways to deal with stress, even acknowledging it before it gets unbearable, and understanding the why is a lot easier with a trained guide.
posted by Dynex at 1:37 PM on June 5, 2013 [3 favorites]
I think you should try to focus more on dating than sex. What I mean is, try to meet a really nice girl, one you feel you can trust. Open up to her about where you are in your life, and what's going on with your libido. If you are in bed with a woman you trust, a patient woman you really like, I'm willing to bet you won't be so anxious or numb. You'll also probably get a lot more excited than you do with porn. There are few things in this world as good as being intimate with somebody you really care for. Just having a kind, honest woman hold you will probably feel so good it blows your mind.
IANYD, but your prostate issues do sound like they could be psychological. In my experience, prostate trouble either makes you pee all the time, or you can't pee at all. One way or another, your life becomes a big pee hell, and it sounds like you're not experiencing that. It sounds more like a really destructive neurosis, like an endless panic attack in your junk.
Is this really guilt you feel for thinking about other women while your wife was grieving? Because while I can certainly understand that you wouldn't want to be horny at a time like that, you're being really unfair to yourself. Lust is not always convenient or appropriate. You didn't cheat on her. Even Jimmy Carter "lusted in his heart," it's just part of being alive!
Part of me wonders if your ex-wife was cruel to you in some way... You seem like you are carrying a whole ton of trauma, almost like PTSD. If this is all purely based on your own guilt, that is way, way, way too much guilt!
I agree with some of the other posters, that you should consider anti-depressants. While those drugs can do a number on your sex drive, they can also help you feel much better about life... so in your case they may actually HELP your sex drive, by helping you not worry so much about your lack of sex drive!
posted by Ursula Hitler at 4:23 AM on June 6, 2013
IANYD, but your prostate issues do sound like they could be psychological. In my experience, prostate trouble either makes you pee all the time, or you can't pee at all. One way or another, your life becomes a big pee hell, and it sounds like you're not experiencing that. It sounds more like a really destructive neurosis, like an endless panic attack in your junk.
Is this really guilt you feel for thinking about other women while your wife was grieving? Because while I can certainly understand that you wouldn't want to be horny at a time like that, you're being really unfair to yourself. Lust is not always convenient or appropriate. You didn't cheat on her. Even Jimmy Carter "lusted in his heart," it's just part of being alive!
Part of me wonders if your ex-wife was cruel to you in some way... You seem like you are carrying a whole ton of trauma, almost like PTSD. If this is all purely based on your own guilt, that is way, way, way too much guilt!
I agree with some of the other posters, that you should consider anti-depressants. While those drugs can do a number on your sex drive, they can also help you feel much better about life... so in your case they may actually HELP your sex drive, by helping you not worry so much about your lack of sex drive!
posted by Ursula Hitler at 4:23 AM on June 6, 2013
My fear is never getting out of this loop, never getting remarried, never finding a woman who understands any of this. I just don’t understand how to convince my subconscious that it’s okay now to desire women. The notion of sex has become simultaneously boring and very threatening.
Did you ever endure any abuse/trauma as a child --or even seemingly benign early life situations where your sexuality had to be severely repressed in order to keep the peace? Your description of your symptoms remind me of body memories, in which the body stores the truth of the experiences you've endured which have not been brought up to consciousness yet. I'd wager you had a formative experience where it was impressed upon you that your natural sexual response was undesirable/unworthy, and now it's taken a life of its own from that of repressed to wreckless abandon back to hopeless despair. It sounds like a sexual part of you feels it will never be able to realize or express itself because conscious you is so disconnected from it.
It does sound like there is some work to be done connecting with your subconscious and understanding why it feels its not okay to connect with women in the first place. You could even start with your most recent experiences and work backwards in time, until you can find the original split where this part of your consciousness lost its confidence in conscious you as an ally.
If you're comfortable, feel free to message me. I'd be happy to relate more on some of what you describe.
posted by human ecologist at 6:49 PM on June 6, 2013
Did you ever endure any abuse/trauma as a child --or even seemingly benign early life situations where your sexuality had to be severely repressed in order to keep the peace? Your description of your symptoms remind me of body memories, in which the body stores the truth of the experiences you've endured which have not been brought up to consciousness yet. I'd wager you had a formative experience where it was impressed upon you that your natural sexual response was undesirable/unworthy, and now it's taken a life of its own from that of repressed to wreckless abandon back to hopeless despair. It sounds like a sexual part of you feels it will never be able to realize or express itself because conscious you is so disconnected from it.
It does sound like there is some work to be done connecting with your subconscious and understanding why it feels its not okay to connect with women in the first place. You could even start with your most recent experiences and work backwards in time, until you can find the original split where this part of your consciousness lost its confidence in conscious you as an ally.
If you're comfortable, feel free to message me. I'd be happy to relate more on some of what you describe.
posted by human ecologist at 6:49 PM on June 6, 2013
This thread is closed to new comments.
Have you specifically sought out sex therapists?
posted by showbiz_liz at 12:02 PM on June 5, 2013 [3 favorites]