The Little Vagina That Couldn’t: A Depression Story
If you ever look at my website, you can tell when I’m not updating. You have eyes. Old posts linger. Your feed reader’s section for my website never has updates. You don’t get e-mails with new posts. It’s because of my mental health – specifically my depression.
When some of us (who shall remain nameless even though it’s our blog) are depressed, brushing our teeth is too hard. Taking a shower is too hard. Getting out of bed is a cruel joke, but eventually has to happen. So as you can imagine, writing is not my first priority when I’m depressed. But when I feel like this, do you know what’s even further behind writing? Sex. Sex with myself. Sex with other people. It’s all a disaster waiting to happen. I will cry if you try to have sex with me right now. It is an inevitability.
I just don’t want sex anymore. Which sucks because I still love sex as a topic and an abstract thing. I still love my dildos. I still love the sex educator/blogger/positive community. I love making my partner feel good and participating in intimate activities with him. But my body has zero interest in these things anymore, and it’s spreading to my mind. When I do say, “Gee, maybe I should masturbate to see if I still have genitals,” I just use a vibrator, remember that my genitals exist, and then just feel largely ambivalent about what I just did to myself. Actually, that’s a lie now. I am too dysfunctional/tired/lazy to charge my vibrators (don’t laugh at me). I have been masturbating with my hands for two months.
It’s so frustrating because I don’t know why. I know why I’m depressed (my brain chemistry blows), I know that my depression and/or medications are probably affecting my libido, but I have no real explanation for the loss of mental interest in my own sex life. My best theory is that my body being so disinterested and uncooperative has just deterred me from the whole rigmarole. Maybe I am so eager to avoid bawling every time someone tries to go down on me that I am just training myself to avoid the activity altogether.
I’m working with a therapist and seeing improvements in some areas of my life, but we’re not really focused on my sex life right now because I have a whole ball of other trauma/issues/anxieties to address before the luxury of my genital interactions. I mean, if I have to prioritize things I need to fix with my mental health care professionals I think the pecking order is:
- Addressing my executive dysfunction so I can take care of myself like a normal human instead of living like a feral child who is too lazy to even hunt for food and has resigned herself to living off whatever she can find that doesn’t need to be cooked. Like ants or crickets. Or slices of cheese rolled up in turkey. Or individually-wrapped chocolates. And forget utensils, because today I drank applesauce with a straw to avoid washing a spoon
- Eliminating or dealing with restlessness and other GAD symptoms
- Assorted coping skills
- Getting me driving again without having a panic attack at the very thought of it
- Leaving the house on my own
- Whatever is left
- Sex
It’s not that sex isn’t important, it’s just that being a functional person who can go to the grocery store is probably more important. My husband understands, so it’s not like my relationship is under stress because I’m not masturbating or letting him go down on me. In fact, my relationship is great.
Don’t worry. I still have notes from older toys that I can write reviews for. And maybe one day I’ll get a hankering to use a dildo! So there’s writing to be done, I just need to be capable of doing it, and I’m working on that. After all, I’m writing this. Gold star for me!
