YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

Oh MAN did this episode hit way too close to home.
Before getting into CoDA I tried going to a sex and love addiction meeting and was completely turned off. Similarly to Mica's experience I couldn't relate AT ALL to what anyone was saying in the room. Not to break anonymity, every single person in my first meeting was going off about fucking prostitutes or cheating on their spouses and I couldn't relate at all. No one said anything about being emotionally destroyed when sexual fantasies and plans, (schemes really) don't work out the way you have in your head. No one said anything about going against your personal credo, boundaries, self respect when there's a chance your ex will send you a dick pic or listen to you jerk off on the phone.

People hardly ever mention the fantasy aspect to SLA. i guess because SLFA doesn't roll off the tongue. The everlasting 2020 has sent my fantasizing into hyperdrive, and my sexualizing of friendships along with it. I've pretty much always had an issue of being attracted to unavailable straight male friends, and sometimes having meandering sexual thoughts and dreams about them. But I've started to just straight up masturbate to fantasies and images of them. I push boundaries in the name of honesty to get sexual conversations going as often as possible. I've secretly taken pics of at least one when I found them arousing. I've rekindled and maintained several completely hollow friendships with guys just so I could ask them sexual questions when I'm horny. I can't imagine it comes off any other way but I make it seem like inexperienced curiosity so I have deniability. I've bought sex toys for 3 different guys since last summer, under the guise of wanting to give them a gift that's made me happy but ultimately i ask for detailed accounts of their experiences with the toys because it gets me off. It's all fucked up and I need to get into a support group at the very least* but if I don't hear anyone saying things I can identify with the way Nico and Paul did in this episode, I foresee myself not returning.

Great guest great ep.


*I tried online therapy recently and told my person I had needed to find a support group because I have an unhealthy attachment to sexual fantasies and he spent 10 minutes trying to talk me out of it, lol. I changed therapists the next week.

An Update I suppose
I felt kinda manic and in distress writing the post above but it was still very honest. So I went forward with that honesty and told my NEW BeterHelp therapist (offer code: MENTAL) what was going on. Usually in these situations I would dance around the subject, gloss over details or even not bring it up, but he told me to be specific and so I went into dirty details of how I try to manipulate friendships and turn them sexual. I felt like I couldn't swallow while I was writing, waiting for the jugement but it never came! He didn't even say what I was doing was good or bad, just asked why I was doing what I was feeling and what feeling I was trying to avoid when I did it. My self esteem is crap and being sexually desired was always the most powerful and least achieved ego boost for me.

I apologized to one guy I was doing this to and he told me he didn't mind. That ultimately I always respected his boundaries and stopped when it was clear he wasn't in the mood the play along, which sometimes he was, and has been since this. That made me feel more in control, knowing I wasn't the MASTERMIND I thought I was, and wasn't moving chess pieces around a board when I was horny.

I haven't stopped doing this but I have stopped feeling as compelled and not in control when doing it and I realize that most of the guys I do it with I do not respect as a friend at all. I do it mostly with two ex-fuckbuds and a friend from an old job. When they don't reply I write them off and move on to the next but when they do I push it as far as I can before they have time to think better of it because I just wanna get my literal and figurative rocks off before they move on.
That probably says a whole different thing about me *shrug*

(I guess I already said most of this in the first post so the take away is I feel less bad about it, don't do it as thoughtlessly and will eventually work on my self esteem issues that lead to me doing this)

I really enjoyed this episode as well. When it comes to sex stuff, I am not comfortable talking about it with anyone really. I hope I can eventually work up to talking about my sex issues with my therapist.

ugh, "sex"

sex is so important, so easy to convince myself that it is not important enough to frankly talk about...