Topic Tuesday // CLOSED // When mental illness impacts intimacy

[NikNik]

Mental illness affects many parts of our lives and this can include intimacy and our sex lives.  With conditions such as depression both the illness and its treatment influences our sexual desire and responsiveness.  This can then impact on our self-esteem and our relationships.  

Tonight's Topic Tuesday will give Forum members the chance to discuss a topic that tends to be ignored or overlooked.  SANE Psychologist Suzanne Leckie will host an open discussion about sexual concerns with the aim of members sharing both the challenges they face and the strategies they’ve discovered.

Some quick reminders about tonight:

1) Please be aware of the Community Guidelines.  If you’re new, we suggest you read them before participating tonight.

2) When posting sexual content, it’s important to refrain from graphic details, information on sexual acts and graphic detail about abuse.

3) Moderators will do their best to remove content that breaks guidelines, we can’t 100% guarantee content won’t be triggering.

4) We can be triggered by different things at different, so if you find yourself becoming distressed by content tonight, please call:

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[BlueBay]

Hi

I won't be able to join the live chat tonight but have a question:

I'm new on here,  Suffering depression, BPD, anxiety, pstd as a result of childhood sexual abuse.  Going through menopause and a mental illness is terrible in relation to been intimate with my husband.  I do not want to have sex with him and just don't know how to tell him.  The thought of intimacy and sex makes me anxious all the time.  What should I do? How do I tell my husand I am just not interested anymore? I feel really horrible.

[Former-Member]

Hi everyone,

Welcome to tonights Topic Tuesday.  Just a few points to kick this off:

• The idea for this Topic Tuesday (and the blog) came from a thread started last year. That thread seemed to indicate some strong feelings around this topic compounded by a sense of isolation from it not being discussed widely or openly.

• While I’m a Psychologist I’m not an expert in sex therapy. If it seems that this would be useful we can find an appropriate guest and return to the topic later in the year.

• My hope for this discussion is that members feel safe to share both their concerns and the strategies they’ve tried – whether successful or not.

• The peer support provided within these forums is a very wonderful thing and I’m looking forward to tapping into that tonight.

[Former-Member]

One of the complexities of this discussion is to try to separate out the impact of mental illness. Sometimes, it can be tempting to assign blame to an illness or medication when, in fact, what’s occurring is just a normal part of life.

For example, with the question already posted by @BlueBay, many long-term relationships go through exactly the same thing even without either party experiencing a mental illness. These can be normal struggles, one person having a higher libido or interest in sex than the other, that have to be negotiated in bedrooms all across the country.

Personally I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve had a few wines with girlfriends who have grumbled about the sad state of their own sexual desires and the tension that creates at home. This is from people in long-term relationship where the initial passion has well burnt out. For them at least.

How can you tell what is 'normal' and what stems from your mental health?  And does it matter anyway?!

[Mazarita]

Hi @Former-Member, thanks so much for opening this discussion further with this Topic Tuesday. I've had long term sexual issues in my relationship, mainly me not being interested in sex. These issues have lasted for years even though the relationship is on strong ground on most other levels. It helps to some extent to know that this kind of thing is not confined to people with mental illness. Regardless of whether it is related to mental illness or not (which I think in my case it is), it would be great to find something in this discussion that might help more to reconnect on that level with my partner. It is a sad thing to lose that closeness with each other.

[Former-Member]

Hi @Mazarita, thanks of joining us.  Yes, as much as I don't want to place pressure on anyone, making that connection with your partner on a physical level can be good for a relationship.  But what that physical connection is can vary.  You've posted yourself about really interesting ways to get intimate that don't always include sex. 

Can I ask how you managed to negotiate that?  From @BlueBay's question, it sounds like she's stuck on even bringing it up with her partner.

[Aonaran]

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@Former-Member wrote:

One of the complexities of this discussion is to try to separate out the impact of mental illness. Sometimes, it can be tempting to assign blame to an illness or medication when, in fact, what’s occurring is just a normal part of life.

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Yes, true.  But also:  When I have yet another experience of having failed to bond -- even as friends, before any consideration of intimacy -- MI is inevitably brought up as a reason I shouldn't have expected any different outcome, as if I was supposed to be able to "switch it of" as some gesture of interest or intent.  I'm left wondering whether it's just my presonality, or the shape my MI has pushed my personality into, or merely the MI in itself.  It feels like it's always there, no matter what I say or do, like some particularly ugly and foul-tempered parrot on my shoulder.

[Appleblossom]

The longing for good intimacy is with me from time to time.  I made a decision to be single for a reason and am not closed to the idea of a sexual relationship .. but in the real world it seems to come with a lot of baggage that I am afraid I simply cannot take on board.   Maybe I just havent met Mr or Ms Right yet.

[Former-Member]

Hi @Aonaran, that second guessing sounds awful.  New relationships can be precarious and challenging enough without that kind of self-talk!  Have you ever broken down that 'failure to bond' and nutted out what's really going on?  Fear?  Self-doubt?  Running before they can? 

I don't want to minimise the impact of mental illness - cos that's what this is all about! - but even those thoughts and feelings are part of the general human condition.  New relationships - and first sex with a new person - is pretty damn scary for us all!

[mrkotter]

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@Appleblossom wrote:

I made a decision to be single for a reason and am not closed to the idea of a sexual relationship .. but in the real world it seems to come with a lot of baggage that I am afraid I simply cannot take on board.   

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Totally get this. While ill I couldn't think about trying to have a relationship. Just waay too much to cope with already. Adding somebody else into the mix would have been a disaster, or so I thought. Who knows if that would have been true but it did feel too much to handle at the time.

Now feeling better I want to open up. I'm finding it hard just have such a distorted view on self-image resulting from the illness. I can't reconcile myself with the idea that someone might actually like me. So any signal I do get I discount at the time only to recognise what they were meaning later on, usually at the psychologist's office. 

Does anyone have any tips/help?