This thread just keeps popping back up at the most unexpected times! It's so great to still be able to talk about this! Thanks guys.
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Originally Posted by Steph44
I did not get a chance to read each reply but Patrick Carnes has a great book out there called, "Sexual Anorexia". I am in my early 40s and have been in therapy to deal with this exact issue in addition to Complex PTSD and Attachment Trauma. I am a real people person and have great friends, but my fear of sexual/partner intimacy has kept me from even dating. I have to continue to work through my fear but it is very difficult and frustrating and not much attention seems to be given to this disorder.
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Firstly, let me say that I'm sorry to hear for your own issues with sex. I certainly wouldn't wish this kind of internal conflict on anyone. Glad to hear you are working through it!
I've heard of the book, and have almost bought it for myself before. Thing is, in the customer reviews I have read for it, the book seems very much focused on people who are already in relationships and is more focused on the relationship side of things that dealing with sexual anorexia on a personal level. It's a shame, because as you said, there's next to no other credible research or information on the condition.
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Originally Posted by eskielover
Sometimes things that are left untalked about & left to the unknown end up becoming a negative in our lives because then it's left up to our imagination to determine what we are to think about it & just one word we hear in passing in our childhood even from other children like "ewwwwww that's disgusting"....can form that beginning seed that grows.....& we don't even know that we even heard that word or recall the situation around which it had been heard.
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That certainly makes a kind of sense. And I know where my feelings towards sex evolved from. It's a very personal subject, but basically I have always found a sense of happiness in things that one would can 'innocent.' Fantasy tales, children's stories, animated movies, and the like. In these things I found something I would call spiritually fulfilling. And my sexual urges were always things sort of dark enemy, and if I ever let them in or even for a moment allowed myself to think that my sexuality was ok, then I was sacrificing my connection with these innocent things that made me happiest. It's an abstract concept, and one I'm still exploring in Therapy, but there it is.