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Side effect of meds is fixing my sexual anhedonia (which doctors said was incurable) after 10 years
Nathan
Community Connector Posts: 2,884 Boards Guru
Long story short, when i was 13, my ability to feel pleasure from anything sexual shut down entirely overnight. Pleasure was gone, but desire remained, because those two things are separate in the brain. And when i sought help from doctors for it years later (i didn't want my mom to know anything due to embarrassment so i waited until i was an adult and she couldn't see my records), they not only refused to see me in person, but after a single normal blood test, they told me it just happens sometimes, and that because it's been an issue for that long, it doesn't need solving. They also said in a follow up it's likely just nerve damage from cycling so much, at a guess. I doubted that and thought it was SSRI related from when i was younger, but they shut that down, and it was clear I wasn't gonna get any help from them.
So, it's been a limbo between having desire, but with zero reward for the last 10 years, which was a special kind of hell, especially because i could remember what it used to feel like. So i worked hard and eventually managed to write that part of me off entirely, and closed on it for good, and I attempted to force myself into asexuality for a very long time, successfully, to fully close the book on that all. So, my entire sexual identity got wiped and replaced from 13 onwards.
6 days ago though, i went on a medication, for mental health struggles, completely unrelated to the sexual anhedonia. And since then, the sexual anhedonia has actually been fading, which has completely baffled me. Every day or two, pleasure seems to be getting stronger and stronger, i'm slowly getting it back from absolutely nothing after 10 years. Admittedly not to it's prior level yet, but it's getting there. The downside is that desire is entirely gone though, but given i've been supressing desire for years, it makes zero difference to me.
It's like desire and reward have been completely inverted for me by the meds. From having desire with zero reward, to having zero desire but with reward back. It's only been 6 days, but i think the meds are doing really unexpected stuff, and is reopening an entire part of me i had foreclosed on. I don't know if this is going to work long term, i don't know how it's doing it, but i'm pretty sure if it was physical nerve damage like the doctors said, medication for my brain's neurochemistry wouldn't be changing it.
My theory, which my GP agrees with, is that my brain has been suppressing it for years, due to chronic depression, anxiety, hypervigilance, and trauma, which when severe enough causes sexual anhedonia, especially during puberty. Given my pretty intense and brutal life early on, suffering abuse, attempted trafficking, and severe parentification and chronic hypervigilance and depression, with no support provided by the scum in the system, it makes complete sense. The antidepressants have reduced these factors, especially the hypervigilance, and now it's feeling amazing for the first time in 10 years. Anyway, as you can imagine, this is huge stuff for me, and is immensely overwhelming.
I spoke to my GP about it on the phone about it today, he struggled to understand what i was saying because it was so strange that he thought he was mishearing me, and asked me to come in for a face to face appointment, which i did, and i fully explained it there. He agreed my theory was entirely plausible, said it sounds like the most likely cause, and agreed that it couldn't be a nerve damage issue for antidepressants to have caused it to come back. So right now, they told me to stay on the meds, and see how things go, and they'll do a review in a few weeks. They might even send of a referral to a specialist, because there previous position has just been proven wrong.
So yeah, that's how a random side effect of a medication, pretty much is solving my decade long case of sexual anhedonia.
So, it's been a limbo between having desire, but with zero reward for the last 10 years, which was a special kind of hell, especially because i could remember what it used to feel like. So i worked hard and eventually managed to write that part of me off entirely, and closed on it for good, and I attempted to force myself into asexuality for a very long time, successfully, to fully close the book on that all. So, my entire sexual identity got wiped and replaced from 13 onwards.
6 days ago though, i went on a medication, for mental health struggles, completely unrelated to the sexual anhedonia. And since then, the sexual anhedonia has actually been fading, which has completely baffled me. Every day or two, pleasure seems to be getting stronger and stronger, i'm slowly getting it back from absolutely nothing after 10 years. Admittedly not to it's prior level yet, but it's getting there. The downside is that desire is entirely gone though, but given i've been supressing desire for years, it makes zero difference to me.
It's like desire and reward have been completely inverted for me by the meds. From having desire with zero reward, to having zero desire but with reward back. It's only been 6 days, but i think the meds are doing really unexpected stuff, and is reopening an entire part of me i had foreclosed on. I don't know if this is going to work long term, i don't know how it's doing it, but i'm pretty sure if it was physical nerve damage like the doctors said, medication for my brain's neurochemistry wouldn't be changing it.
My theory, which my GP agrees with, is that my brain has been suppressing it for years, due to chronic depression, anxiety, hypervigilance, and trauma, which when severe enough causes sexual anhedonia, especially during puberty. Given my pretty intense and brutal life early on, suffering abuse, attempted trafficking, and severe parentification and chronic hypervigilance and depression, with no support provided by the scum in the system, it makes complete sense. The antidepressants have reduced these factors, especially the hypervigilance, and now it's feeling amazing for the first time in 10 years. Anyway, as you can imagine, this is huge stuff for me, and is immensely overwhelming.
I spoke to my GP about it on the phone about it today, he struggled to understand what i was saying because it was so strange that he thought he was mishearing me, and asked me to come in for a face to face appointment, which i did, and i fully explained it there. He agreed my theory was entirely plausible, said it sounds like the most likely cause, and agreed that it couldn't be a nerve damage issue for antidepressants to have caused it to come back. So right now, they told me to stay on the meds, and see how things go, and they'll do a review in a few weeks. They might even send of a referral to a specialist, because there previous position has just been proven wrong.
So yeah, that's how a random side effect of a medication, pretty much is solving my decade long case of sexual anhedonia.
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Comments
However you’re feeling about it, the plan from your doctors sounds like a good one, and I’m glad they finally seem to be listening.