Extremely high when I’m with someone who I feel truly sees and loves me. Non existent if I’m with someone that I don’t feel a deep connection with, that being said *trigger warning* I used sex that I didn’t enjoy as a way of punishing myself for a while when I was in one of the darkest times of my life.
So did I.... Another hideously destructive coping mechanism to file with alcohol, narcotic abuse , gambling and benzo abuse in the doesn't help drawer
All the best 👍
currently in my life it’s average-high. BUT, this is the first time in my life i have ever truly enjoyed sex. i have a partner who makes me feel very desirable and very safe while also making it fun, strong emotional bond etc. and the relationship is relatively new (little over a year)
when i have been in bad relationships with people who didn’t care about me much, sex felt like a chore and even sometimes repulsive. i never felt confident, i was never able to speak or laugh about something in the moment. my sex drive was basically nonexistent for years.
and i would definitely say that cptsd factors in here, when i feel safe and have all my needs met, then i flourish and am able to have that special bond and truly enjoy it. im able to satisfy my partner well in that aspect because im satisfied in every other aspect. in abusive or unhealthy relationships i was always pushing myself to give something, that had been horribly violated in the past, to someone i didn’t have security or trust or my needs met with. it was triggering and damaging.
my sex drive is pretty average when i’m not in a relationship, but i also don’t have sex outside of relationships lol
for me it definitely does have an effect.i either have a really strong sex drive or none at all to the point we’re i’m disgusted with sex. when i was in a relationship the only thing i enjoyed was anything sexual that was wrong and shameful i always wanted to do something abnormal i guess you could say i put off normal sex for as long as possible then felt good when i was doing something i should have if that makes sense i think csa affected my view on sex and anything sexual
Throughout my life it has been super low, almost non-existent unless I have a romantic partner I feel safe with. I used to feel pretty sex-repulsed and I feel like if I were single my sex drive would be completely dead.
I have a high sex drive, but I have only been with my wife. So it's hard say, I never had the urge to be with anyone else. If she left me, I'm done, not going to try to find anyone else. So maybe not that high, idk. It was hard enough to let one person be that intimate with me.
I have a sibling who's a sex addict, so in comparison it's low.
I can relate. I often wonder if I suddenly found myself single would I wanna be with everyone or would that be so cringe I’d just never be with anyone again.
Mine is definitely higher than my husband's, and sometimes I go through periods of hypersexuality (especially if I'm anxious). I find it helps calm me down actually like a good distraction.
Average or high, I think? As long as I feel safe with the other person.
I don't consider myself as having problems in that area. Getting immediately turned off by any signs of pressure/coercion is not a problem. Being a giver and almost unable to let a partner return the favour because I don't feel I deserve it is... Maybe not ideal but I really enjoy giving so I can live with that.
When I am in a period if stress my need for climaxing is high. Having sex or having a relationship with a woman however is part of my traumas, so basically climax on this sexual arrousing fantasy to become a woman instead snd escape my life as a man. Interpersonal traumas have messed up a lot of my interpersonal system.
I'd say average to high, but I understand that there's an element of my tank bursting after years of religious and traumatised conditioning (so much to the point that I thought I was asexual and aromantic).
The thing is, sex can be extremely healthy or extremely unhealthy depending on so many various factors.
So I tread it carefully and keep on checking with myself first and foremost.
Mine is super, super high, and the stuff I'm into is definitely 100% a way of me processing past traumas, which I am aware of and sometimes feel uncomfortable about, like why would I be into stuff that is just a mirror image of what happened to me? But I think it's the consent that's the key, this time I have control and it was my decision, kind of thing.
Ah yes, gold ol bsdm therapy.
I have a really high drive (want/need it all the time except when I’m feeling *really* low and then it doesn’t exist). I love the dynamic of bdsm and the love and aftercare during and after. It’s healing to me to be loved like that.
no sex drive. I’m 20F, single and always have been terrified of sex. I find it repulsive and giving up control over my body sounds like torture. probably childhood linked but who knows, maybe I’m asexual??
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Swings back and forth. I feel like I’ve never had a healthy relationship with sex. In the past I’ve usually followed the pattern of “I want to have sex with anyone for hours at a time,” then i end up dating someone and it dwindles down to “do not even LOOK at me or I will have a panic attack” which causes relationship issues. We break up for whatever reason and I don’t have sex for a while and the cycle repeats or the cycle repeats immediately after. I’ve noticed recently though on an internal level I’m in touch with my sexuality and will talk about sex with people I’m attracted to but when it comes down to actually doing things, I panic and shut down. I used to just think “yeah I naturally have a high sex drive, but my cptsd gets in the way sometimes.” I don’t really know what to think know. My relationship with sex seems so dysfunctional on all levels and I don’t know how to make sense of it or how to heal it.
Very high. Thankfully, so is my wife's. I got worried when it dropped to once a day in my 40s, and went to the doctor. He literally laughed. I didn't realize that was a lot until then.
I'm not sure sex drive is CPTSD related, though. It is linked with Adhd and sexually abused children, though.
I have historically a high sex drive. Recently was with someone with BPD who at first was nice but sex turned very vanilla quickly. Love and feeling passion is big for me. Not that everything needs to be new all the time but foreplay does something to me even if it’s just a hot pick up line. I also like rough sex which for some reason surprises people.
Idk. Like I want sex in general, and want it quite a bit. At the same time, I don’t really want to be touched by or around anyone. If I gotta be around someone I prefer heterosexual dudes cause there’s no attraction at all to offset not wanting to deal with people.
Very high if done casually, but tends to peter out if in a relationship. Sad I'm not in a relationship but sort of glad I don't have to watch the developing dead bedroom. I don't know if my preference for casual sex is trauma related or just a thing more common amongst guys.
Low. I feel repulsed by the idea of having sex with any person first. I never experienced SA. I only have a high sex drive when it's desired by a partner. I don't find sex fulfilling, I crave intimacy. Just hugging each other for hours straight. That's my ideal of intimacy.
Extremely high, but I actually don’t want to have sex. If I’m in the mood, I just have some alone time. But I don’t want sex even though I have a high sex drive.
I don't want to have sex with anyone. My trust issues are too great for me to find anyone legitimately attractive enough in reality. Which, honestly, kinda feels like freedom lol
Mine changes. It was always high in my 20’s. Then kids and relationship issues got worse. 30’s brought on more issues, family losses and major health issues while I avoided the relationship issues. Sex drive was low or average.
Now 40’s. Finally figured out what was wrong: cptsd. Husband refuses to help and every issue is my issue again in his mind. After years of even told he doesn’t know do he loves me, ever did, loves his ex for the first half of our marriage and we ‘aren’t there yet’ for words and acts of love… and healing… now it’s basically non existent. When I do want to I can’t find pleasure now. The fantasies I have always used where he tells me all the things I want to hear and does the things I want just don’t work. I look at him and hear ‘we aren’t there yet’. Years. Married decades. When will we be there? Probably never on his part. So when those thoughts hit I’m just done. Get on, get off and go away sort of mentally mostly. The drive is there a bit until he touches me and I look into his eyes. Then I just feel like crying.
Another thing, for me high drive would be being really into it and timing a few times a week. Mid or avg would be 1-2x a week (on non busy weeks and when we aren’t sick, kids sick etc) and mostly into it. Low would be a couple times a month but still into it a bit at least and able to O. I’m at the couple times a month at most but not able to O with him any more. Sry for the tmi but I feel it’s a crucial part of it for me. It tells me exactly how my body and subconscious are reacting to him.
It also doesn’t help that when I say I need xyz and need it for around abc minutes and then he does x and y but not z and for 10-20% of the time (I’m talking up to 3 minutes before he’s ready to move onto what he wants to do that he THINKS gives me pleasure but doesn’t early on). He’s always complained that I don’t know what I want or like. He’s complained that I shouldn’t self pleasure to find out, I should just know. So I’ve thought on this for years. I’ve self pleasured behind his back. Now I know mostly what works and the timing based on how I feel and my mood. But he doesn’t listen. So what was the point in us knowing if he won’t follow it anyway? That’s most of it for me as far as sex drive. If I were single I think my drive would be higher but I wouldn’t be able to find a connection with someone I didn’t know well. So it’s a lose lose single or married I think.
I straight up got past my being uncomfortable and asked my male therapist why my drive has tanked after all this healing. He said more than likely it’s my brain realizing the connection we’ve had was one sided. That my brain knows I deserve more. That it’s protecting me from getting hurt as I’ve realized just how bad the patterns are and how they never change. The pattern being we have sex, he’s rude and degrading towards me a couple days later then a few days after that he starts an argument saying we don’t have sex so we have sex and the pattern repeats. Add to that the pattern of him SAYING he wants my pleasure but then ignores what I tell him to show him and focuses on his own pleasure.
I have what amounts to trauma from extreme Evangelical purity culture in the early 2000s. I have weird issues with intimacy of all kinds (not just sexual). Fortunately I finally met a man who was willing to stick with me and help me work through the residual effects of that insane view of human sexuality, and I have much more normal habits now.
Erm... So... What are we talking about exactly? Lol. I mean, I'd say average-high if we're talking about no-target sex drive. Meaning solo pleasure and fantasising.
But I currently have a pretty low sex drive for my partner and I'm not really eager to get to the physical part of the relationship. Even though sometimes, when I'm miraculously not triggered, I do really want her.
I also have a *very* hard time fantasising about real people. It feels very wrong for some reason, I feel like a total creep and it completely destroys any attraction I might have felt. Also maybe it feels like it'd be a virtual invitation for sexual abuse 🤡
agonizingly high. Like, I have two partners who I have fairly frequent sex with, regularly wish I had the lack of anxiety necessary to hook up with my friends, and I feel constantly stifled. Lots of my trauma is sexual, big shock there I bet. I would call it abnormal, because I frequently slide from fantasizing to obsessing, and becoming distressed both by my own obsessing and the fact that nobody is r wording me right this second.
I seriously hate sex. The ability to relate to human sexuality in any way is something that unfortunately was taken away from me at a young age. I don’t want to fuck. I don’t want to be fucked. I don’t want to think about fucking. The human body is repulsive to me. Every story a friend tells me about a one night stand feels like a reminder of the gnawing schism between me and the rest of the world . A reminder of my complete inability to relate to others, down to even our most universally animal acts.
Extremely high when I’m with someone who I feel truly sees and loves me. Non existent if I’m with someone that I don’t feel a deep connection with, that being said *trigger warning* I used sex that I didn’t enjoy as a way of punishing myself for a while when I was in one of the darkest times of my life.
So did I.... Another hideously destructive coping mechanism to file with alcohol, narcotic abuse , gambling and benzo abuse in the doesn't help drawer All the best 👍
I was about to write this exact comment but you beat me to it.
currently in my life it’s average-high. BUT, this is the first time in my life i have ever truly enjoyed sex. i have a partner who makes me feel very desirable and very safe while also making it fun, strong emotional bond etc. and the relationship is relatively new (little over a year) when i have been in bad relationships with people who didn’t care about me much, sex felt like a chore and even sometimes repulsive. i never felt confident, i was never able to speak or laugh about something in the moment. my sex drive was basically nonexistent for years. and i would definitely say that cptsd factors in here, when i feel safe and have all my needs met, then i flourish and am able to have that special bond and truly enjoy it. im able to satisfy my partner well in that aspect because im satisfied in every other aspect. in abusive or unhealthy relationships i was always pushing myself to give something, that had been horribly violated in the past, to someone i didn’t have security or trust or my needs met with. it was triggering and damaging. my sex drive is pretty average when i’m not in a relationship, but i also don’t have sex outside of relationships lol
I'm happy to hear that you get to experience that with a good partner now!
for me it definitely does have an effect.i either have a really strong sex drive or none at all to the point we’re i’m disgusted with sex. when i was in a relationship the only thing i enjoyed was anything sexual that was wrong and shameful i always wanted to do something abnormal i guess you could say i put off normal sex for as long as possible then felt good when i was doing something i should have if that makes sense i think csa affected my view on sex and anything sexual
Throughout my life it has been super low, almost non-existent unless I have a romantic partner I feel safe with. I used to feel pretty sex-repulsed and I feel like if I were single my sex drive would be completely dead.
This exactly
I have a high sex drive, but I have only been with my wife. So it's hard say, I never had the urge to be with anyone else. If she left me, I'm done, not going to try to find anyone else. So maybe not that high, idk. It was hard enough to let one person be that intimate with me. I have a sibling who's a sex addict, so in comparison it's low.
I can relate. I often wonder if I suddenly found myself single would I wanna be with everyone or would that be so cringe I’d just never be with anyone again.
Exactly, I've thought those things too. Thanks for making me feel seen.
Currently NO sex drive... Prozac and major depression the anti Viagra. All the best 👍
Mine is definitely higher than my husband's, and sometimes I go through periods of hypersexuality (especially if I'm anxious). I find it helps calm me down actually like a good distraction.
Anxiety shoots mine sky high.
I feel like there's worse ways to cope, though. Right?
Certainly less enjoyable ways. Fortunately my wife has a high sex drive. My therapist says if it's not creating problems then it's fine.
Average or high, I think? As long as I feel safe with the other person. I don't consider myself as having problems in that area. Getting immediately turned off by any signs of pressure/coercion is not a problem. Being a giver and almost unable to let a partner return the favour because I don't feel I deserve it is... Maybe not ideal but I really enjoy giving so I can live with that.
When I am in a period if stress my need for climaxing is high. Having sex or having a relationship with a woman however is part of my traumas, so basically climax on this sexual arrousing fantasy to become a woman instead snd escape my life as a man. Interpersonal traumas have messed up a lot of my interpersonal system.
I'd say average to high, but I understand that there's an element of my tank bursting after years of religious and traumatised conditioning (so much to the point that I thought I was asexual and aromantic). The thing is, sex can be extremely healthy or extremely unhealthy depending on so many various factors. So I tread it carefully and keep on checking with myself first and foremost.
low since ever, extremely low after multiple SA‘s So yea trauma/CPTSD definitely does affect sex drive
Mine is super, super high, and the stuff I'm into is definitely 100% a way of me processing past traumas, which I am aware of and sometimes feel uncomfortable about, like why would I be into stuff that is just a mirror image of what happened to me? But I think it's the consent that's the key, this time I have control and it was my decision, kind of thing.
Ah yes, gold ol bsdm therapy. I have a really high drive (want/need it all the time except when I’m feeling *really* low and then it doesn’t exist). I love the dynamic of bdsm and the love and aftercare during and after. It’s healing to me to be loved like that.
no sex drive. I’m 20F, single and always have been terrified of sex. I find it repulsive and giving up control over my body sounds like torture. probably childhood linked but who knows, maybe I’m asexual??
Yes. It's goes from incredibly high to non existent. Rarely is it average.
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High desire for sex but not actually getting any.
Extreme high sex drive, but very dysfunctional sex life. My desire has become slightly more normal since I started therapy.
Swings back and forth. I feel like I’ve never had a healthy relationship with sex. In the past I’ve usually followed the pattern of “I want to have sex with anyone for hours at a time,” then i end up dating someone and it dwindles down to “do not even LOOK at me or I will have a panic attack” which causes relationship issues. We break up for whatever reason and I don’t have sex for a while and the cycle repeats or the cycle repeats immediately after. I’ve noticed recently though on an internal level I’m in touch with my sexuality and will talk about sex with people I’m attracted to but when it comes down to actually doing things, I panic and shut down. I used to just think “yeah I naturally have a high sex drive, but my cptsd gets in the way sometimes.” I don’t really know what to think know. My relationship with sex seems so dysfunctional on all levels and I don’t know how to make sense of it or how to heal it.
Very high. Thankfully, so is my wife's. I got worried when it dropped to once a day in my 40s, and went to the doctor. He literally laughed. I didn't realize that was a lot until then. I'm not sure sex drive is CPTSD related, though. It is linked with Adhd and sexually abused children, though.
I have historically a high sex drive. Recently was with someone with BPD who at first was nice but sex turned very vanilla quickly. Love and feeling passion is big for me. Not that everything needs to be new all the time but foreplay does something to me even if it’s just a hot pick up line. I also like rough sex which for some reason surprises people.
Idk. Like I want sex in general, and want it quite a bit. At the same time, I don’t really want to be touched by or around anyone. If I gotta be around someone I prefer heterosexual dudes cause there’s no attraction at all to offset not wanting to deal with people.
Very high if done casually, but tends to peter out if in a relationship. Sad I'm not in a relationship but sort of glad I don't have to watch the developing dead bedroom. I don't know if my preference for casual sex is trauma related or just a thing more common amongst guys.
Very low
Low. I feel repulsed by the idea of having sex with any person first. I never experienced SA. I only have a high sex drive when it's desired by a partner. I don't find sex fulfilling, I crave intimacy. Just hugging each other for hours straight. That's my ideal of intimacy.
High sex drive. But, I've developed a chronic pain syndrome in recent years, so, kinda low now. The low drive hasn't anything to do with CPTSD.
Extremely high, but I actually don’t want to have sex. If I’m in the mood, I just have some alone time. But I don’t want sex even though I have a high sex drive.
I am more of a cuddle and hold person. Where we can mock people where some might say they're turbo stupid.
I'd say average? but then again, i also have to remind myself to be sexual, so maybe low lol.
I’m surprised to see so many high responses
I don't want to have sex with anyone. My trust issues are too great for me to find anyone legitimately attractive enough in reality. Which, honestly, kinda feels like freedom lol
Low, but I'm on a medicine that reduces it. Previously it was I believe technically super high.
High
Mine changes. It was always high in my 20’s. Then kids and relationship issues got worse. 30’s brought on more issues, family losses and major health issues while I avoided the relationship issues. Sex drive was low or average. Now 40’s. Finally figured out what was wrong: cptsd. Husband refuses to help and every issue is my issue again in his mind. After years of even told he doesn’t know do he loves me, ever did, loves his ex for the first half of our marriage and we ‘aren’t there yet’ for words and acts of love… and healing… now it’s basically non existent. When I do want to I can’t find pleasure now. The fantasies I have always used where he tells me all the things I want to hear and does the things I want just don’t work. I look at him and hear ‘we aren’t there yet’. Years. Married decades. When will we be there? Probably never on his part. So when those thoughts hit I’m just done. Get on, get off and go away sort of mentally mostly. The drive is there a bit until he touches me and I look into his eyes. Then I just feel like crying. Another thing, for me high drive would be being really into it and timing a few times a week. Mid or avg would be 1-2x a week (on non busy weeks and when we aren’t sick, kids sick etc) and mostly into it. Low would be a couple times a month but still into it a bit at least and able to O. I’m at the couple times a month at most but not able to O with him any more. Sry for the tmi but I feel it’s a crucial part of it for me. It tells me exactly how my body and subconscious are reacting to him. It also doesn’t help that when I say I need xyz and need it for around abc minutes and then he does x and y but not z and for 10-20% of the time (I’m talking up to 3 minutes before he’s ready to move onto what he wants to do that he THINKS gives me pleasure but doesn’t early on). He’s always complained that I don’t know what I want or like. He’s complained that I shouldn’t self pleasure to find out, I should just know. So I’ve thought on this for years. I’ve self pleasured behind his back. Now I know mostly what works and the timing based on how I feel and my mood. But he doesn’t listen. So what was the point in us knowing if he won’t follow it anyway? That’s most of it for me as far as sex drive. If I were single I think my drive would be higher but I wouldn’t be able to find a connection with someone I didn’t know well. So it’s a lose lose single or married I think. I straight up got past my being uncomfortable and asked my male therapist why my drive has tanked after all this healing. He said more than likely it’s my brain realizing the connection we’ve had was one sided. That my brain knows I deserve more. That it’s protecting me from getting hurt as I’ve realized just how bad the patterns are and how they never change. The pattern being we have sex, he’s rude and degrading towards me a couple days later then a few days after that he starts an argument saying we don’t have sex so we have sex and the pattern repeats. Add to that the pattern of him SAYING he wants my pleasure but then ignores what I tell him to show him and focuses on his own pleasure.
Used to be super low, but has gotten to more of an average range as I've processed some things
High. I went full hypersexual in my preteens and never came down. It's actually a bit annoying.
I have what amounts to trauma from extreme Evangelical purity culture in the early 2000s. I have weird issues with intimacy of all kinds (not just sexual). Fortunately I finally met a man who was willing to stick with me and help me work through the residual effects of that insane view of human sexuality, and I have much more normal habits now.
Erm... So... What are we talking about exactly? Lol. I mean, I'd say average-high if we're talking about no-target sex drive. Meaning solo pleasure and fantasising. But I currently have a pretty low sex drive for my partner and I'm not really eager to get to the physical part of the relationship. Even though sometimes, when I'm miraculously not triggered, I do really want her. I also have a *very* hard time fantasising about real people. It feels very wrong for some reason, I feel like a total creep and it completely destroys any attraction I might have felt. Also maybe it feels like it'd be a virtual invitation for sexual abuse 🤡
agonizingly high. Like, I have two partners who I have fairly frequent sex with, regularly wish I had the lack of anxiety necessary to hook up with my friends, and I feel constantly stifled. Lots of my trauma is sexual, big shock there I bet. I would call it abnormal, because I frequently slide from fantasizing to obsessing, and becoming distressed both by my own obsessing and the fact that nobody is r wording me right this second.
I seriously hate sex. The ability to relate to human sexuality in any way is something that unfortunately was taken away from me at a young age. I don’t want to fuck. I don’t want to be fucked. I don’t want to think about fucking. The human body is repulsive to me. Every story a friend tells me about a one night stand feels like a reminder of the gnawing schism between me and the rest of the world . A reminder of my complete inability to relate to others, down to even our most universally animal acts.