I have recently found out I have major dissociation issues. My T wonders how I can drive it is so frequent. I don't drive some days. I can tell it is not going to be a good mental day. Anyway I just dissociate a lot. I get the feeling that dissociation is not a good thing. I dissociate a lot. I can't seem to remember where I "go" mentally and I'm quite content to just "go". I can sit in silence for an hour or so and have no idea where my mind wandered to.

I have just began talking in T about dissociating durring sex. I have a feeling this is gonna come up in T next week. I feel like I should feel bad about it, but I don't. To make matters worse I simply prefer to dissociate.

DOES THIS EVEN MAKE SINCE TO ANYONE?

Let me tell you real briefly what happened. 20 years ago I was raped repeatedly for 9 months. When I got married, well before I got married, I was sketchy in what I told my H about this. After being married for 18 years the reminder in the back of my mind of the rape is surfacing. I never told anyone before my H and he doesn't know anything about what happened just that it did and that is why I don't like to give BJ's.

The issue is I dissociate when my H and I have sex. I am totally elsewhere. I don't know where. Sometimes I think about the kids, house work, the kids school, feeding my animals. I do not want to be there mentally w/ my H. Ofcourse this affects the quality of our sex life. So much of the time I simply go away mentally and have no idea where I have been.

I'm afraid to let myself go there. I'm afraid to feel. I'm afraid to be available. I
just don't know what will happen. I have never been able to give myself over completely to who ever I was having sex with. (in past relationships) But I don't think that is the issue. It is more being completely "gone" mentally. I simply prefer not to be present when we have sex and if I am present I'm trying to hurry things along with my H will be done faster. So it will be over with.

Sex is not painful in any way, it is not pushed upon me, but it has no reward though because I'm not "there". When I am "there" it still has no reward. I only have "O" solo these days.

Has anyone been in this stage of life? Is dissociating really that bad? I'd like to hear what your opinion is, what you have been told by T's or simply what you think.