https://youtu.be/S-e5JEpi1lY

Today I look at the mental health reasons behind why we have gone off sex.

Transcript:
hi my lovelies welcome back
to my channel uh welcome to
the sex and mental health series uh for
those of you who don't know me and you
might be new
i'm not a therapist i'm not a sex
therapist i'm not a psychologist i'm not
a psychiatrist i'm not qualified
in this uh except that i have lived
experience
i was diagnosed with bpd when i was 21
i'm in recovery from that i am
author of the big book on borderline
personality disorder
and my youtube channel recovery mum
mainly focuses on bpd
as well as other things that i've got
experience like
personal experience with such as drug
addiction
self-harm eating disorder depression
anxiety etc um
today's video initially was going to be
on bpd and sex
and sex issues because of bpd but i
realized
actually that's there's a lot to that
and
that will be a longer video so i thought
i'll save it for later on in the series
uh you guys i i think this is
a really important subject that we talk
about
because i don't think it's talked about
enough i think
when it comes to certain sex issues
uh people can either feel guilt or
shame or embarrassment and they don't
want to talk about it
i think it's important because by
discussing these things
we realize that there's other people out
there that are going through what we're
going through
and it's okay we're not alone it doesn't
mean we are a freak
um we just have something going on
and we're going to look at the reasons
that going on up here that could be the
cause
of some of these issues now today
i'm gonna focus on going off sex
well we just don't want it uh
there are a number of reasons that
people can go off sex and they're not
all mental health related but for the
sake of this series i'm sticking with
the mental health aspects
of it now before i
jump into uh going off sex
i'm not talking about sex drive
um having a low sex drive
everyone's got different sex drives some
people need it all the time
very high sex drive some people
once a week twice a week um
and there's others that can go a long
time
without and our sex drive can change so
for me if i'm in a relationship
and i've been in that relationship a
while and
there's a connection then my sex drive
goes up
uh when i'm not with someone i'm not
someone that needs
to go out and have sex i just don't i
could
go years probably without it it's
not high up on my list of priorities
um and that's okay i've got friends
that are at the opposite they can be
between partners but they still want to
have sex
that's fine so i'm not talking about
like just
a low sex drive i'm talking about
when there is a change in your usual
needs or wants so if you usually
opt for it and then all of a sudden
you're not why is that
like it could it be something going on
up here and i say that because when we
think of sex it's very kind of much
physical it's our physical body doing it
um but actually
i think when it comes to sex more goes
on up here than we realize
so if there's a problem up here
chances are it's going to affect our sex
life so
the first thing i was going to look at
was depression um
i know for me if i'm depressed
and i'm really down and feeling sad
the last thing i would want to be doing
is having sex now
if i am someone single
and i live on my own and i'm depressed
and i go off sex it's not such an
issue because it's not affecting someone
else
i suppose the problem comes is if you're
in a relationship
usually you've got quite a healthy sex
life
and then all of a sudden one of you
becomes depressed
and doesn't want it anymore now we've
all kind of been there
now and again where we might
view the partner they want it we're not
in the mood
and we might say oh my tummy hurts my
head hurts you know
as a one-off but if you're
depressed chances are you're gonna
constantly be saying
i got a headache uh i don't i'm just not
in the mood
um
we then have to think of that partner
constantly being told
i'm not in the mood i've got a headache
um
chances are that is going to give them
their own insecurities
uh i say that because if it was
happening to me and i was constantly
told
no and excuses i think they've gone off
me they don't like me
and so if you're kind of
in this situation communication is key
now chances are if you're in a good
loving healthy relationship and you're
depressed
your partner would hopefully have
noticed
uh so having that conversation
won't be as difficult as if they're like
oh are you i didn't know you're
depressed
um it's still important to have that
conversation
because yes your partner may be aware
you're depressed
but in the heat at the moment when you
constantly be told no
it's very easy for us to take it back to
ourselves and think
they don't want me they've gone off me
maybe they've got someone else
and that is why it is important
to communicate and say like
it's not you i've just completely gone
off it at the moment
um i mean
i've been now i've been depressed and
i've been depressed for short periods of
time i've been depressed for really long
periods of time
but i can tell you we come out of that
depression it's
not going to last forever even though
when you're in it
it feels like it will um
[Music]
but have the conversation talk
to your partner about it um
maybe have a compromise and i say this
because if
your partner is constantly asking and
you're constantly saying no
i know what i was like i would then
start to think
i've said no they're gonna go and cheat
on me again because i've got
my own issues going on and
so because i'd get that in my head i'd
think well i've got to sleep with them
even if i don't want to because if i
don't
they will cheat on me and so then i'd do
it
but what would happen i would feel
really horrible
inside i'd feel really resentful at my
partner
and angry at them almost like
i didn't want to do it and you still did
it even though
i had not kind of verbally said any of
this to them
um so rather than building resentment
have the conversation maybe you could
say
right now i'm just not in the mood
maybe you could masturbate instead
of asking me constantly
um i'm going to do a video on
masturbation discussing it uh because
there is addiction to masturbation and
then there's
knowing your partner masturbates and
being jealous of that
actually which that leads me on to
my next issue that can cause us to go
off sex and that's low self-esteem
we feel so rubbish about ourselves
maybe we hate our body we hate our face
we don't know we feel like we don't know
what we're doing
and
so we just don't want to have sex um
and again the same problems if you're on
your own
it's not such a big thing but if you're
in a relationship and all of a sudden
you go off sex
um it is affecting your partner and so
like with the depression you could have
that conversation
and say i this is how i feel
hopefully if you're in a loving
relationship
your partner will make you feel on top
of the world and put your mind at ease
and slowly you'll be able to get back
into doing it
and learn to accept yourself and love
yourself
and i know no partner can kind of build
your self-esteem for you
but they can help um
so i would again say
talk about it the problem with the
self-esteem
if you were to say i know again this is
me if i was feeling
really rubbish about myself and so i
didn't want to have sex
and then i said to a partner you could
masturbate
i would then get jealous thinking
they're thinking about other people
they might be watching porn and that
would actually
feed my insecurities and make me feel
even worse so i wouldn't
necessarily say like the compromise when
it comes to that i think when it comes
to
self-esteem it is just very much case of
being open
being honest building up
building yourself up maybe do it with
the lights off to start with i know that
sounds ridiculous but if that's what it
takes to slowly get back
into it it's worth giving it a try
um with like when you
in a relationship as well
and you might have trust issues like
i've kind of just said
like um real jealousy maybe
look at some kind of couple's counseling
where you can sit and you can talk
through these things together
and you might find that helpful and
again
be like having a proper someone who's
qualified there
helping you communicate to one another
that could potentially help you um
build intimacy and then
hopefully your sex drive will
increase or at least go back to where it
where it used to be
um with all these things
depression anxiety uh
borderline personality disorder bipolar
all these um
mental health issues a lot of us are on
medication
uh medication can completely
lower our sex drive from what it was
i know of people that said it used to be
really high now it's
literally non-existent i don't want it
again what you've got to ask yourself
like so
for example antidepressants
antipsychotic all these kind of
medications
can can not always but they can affect
your sex drive
um ask yourself
is it a problem being on this medication
do the
um do the positives outweigh the
negatives
so for example so i'm on antipsychotics
i'm on antidepressants
i'm single i live here on my own
um if i
have zero like want for sex
that's okay i'm here on my own and i'm
okay with that
if you were someone that usually you
could again still be single but
really love having sex you might usually
have
really high sex drive and it might be
getting you down
that you're now on medication
and your sex drive is gone if that's the
case
speak to your doctor about it and say
this is a problem for me um because
usually i like having sex and now i've
completely gone off it
and all medications work differently on
different people
there are lots of different medications
out there hopefully if you speak to your
doctor they might be able to
shift you onto a different one you could
try a different one and maybe that won't
affect your sex life
um or your libido say
um a huge
a huge like
issue that can
seriously affect sex drive
is things like post traumatic stress
disorder
cptsd which is complex post-traumatic
stress disorder
borderline personality disorder um
anywhere where there's been some time in
the past
either as a child or later in life
sexual abuse or any kind of trauma abuse
this sort of thing is really likely
to cause you problems
it might being intimate with someone
might
trigger your like thoughts and then you
just
freeze it's like that fight flight or
freeze
um and you then might
get like not even want to go there
because you know that will
is what will happen so then you just
don't
have sex even though maybe your sex
drive's
not necessarily gone but you know when
you go to do it there's going to be
problems so you just kind of stop
for things like this you do need
specialist therapy
you um emdr
uh is i say fairly new it's been around
a while now and i've heard
like that specifically for ptsd or cptsd
um i've heard both good
and bad and from what i'm hearing it's
mainly good but i think it very much
depends
on the therapist
who is doing the em emdr
um so if that is something that's an
issue for you
do your research find someone that is
like really highly qualified um they've
got had really good results in the past
and kind of go down that route
and
see it is it's important we talk about
this stuff
um i think like going off sex
for men and women obviously it's
there's differences um and
there are similarities i think for men
it's difficult
in the fact that if they go off sex
maybe they won't be able to get
hard on and men can feel
real shame and embarrassment around this
sort of stuff
they shouldn't uh but they can and so
then
it's something they won't discuss they
don't want to open up
maybe they feel embarrassed saying to
their partner
i can't get it up so instead
they're just like no i don't want to and
so
they're acting a certain way which again
the partner then feels
rejected or pushed away uh
communication guys it's all about
communication it's about being honest
if you are in a loving healthy
relationship
and you're a guy and you can't get out
you should be able to say that
and not feel embarrassed and just have
that conversation
and hopefully your partner will be
really supportive and understanding
and then they won't take it to mean
the problem is them and because the
problem's not them the problem's not
you either like we we're not we don't
have
complete control over our feelings all
the time
these things happen uh it is common
but we can overcome them and do know
there's lots of people
out there going through this sort of
stuff not knowing who to talk to about
it
and so we all stay like everyone just
stays quiet
and they don't have this conversation
and it's an important one
uh like i said if it is something to do
with past
trauma abuse seek specialist help for
that
if you're in a relationship communicate
talk about it
if you're single and you want to talk
talk with your close friends you don't
have to literally
declare it on facebook and start saying
i have some issues but you can talk to
your friends and hopefully
if they're decent nice friends
they will hear you out and be
understanding it they might be able to
offer you some advice chances are they
might say
i've been through this myself um
i'm gonna leave this topic here today i
hope i haven't missed anything
out um let me know your thoughts down in
the comments if you have any future
topics you want me to discuss
let me know in the comments uh and i'll
leave it there
i love you all loads and i'll be back
with my usual video next tuesday
and the sex and mental health series
will be back
next thursday i love you guys
This transcript was auto-generated and therefore may contain mistakes.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*
*
Website