nothing like a big sexy ultimatum to spice things up

i don't know how to title things but anyways i'm having an awkward problem with my boyfriend right now and this is the only place i think i can safely convey it. it'll probably get cyberstalked and thrown back in my face someday but whatever.

my mental illness is a weird amorphous blob of complex ptsd with occasional bouts of psychotic depression. within a year of going on zoloft people said i was a completely different person, no longer cold and distant but something alive and almost thriving. relationships tend to throw a fat monkey wrench in that sort of thing for me though. here comes the boi.

boyfriend is a sweet and caring person with... a lot of needs i can't fulfill. happy combination of trauma and side effects makes it hard to even do vanilla missionary sex anymore, let alone the weird stuff i used to love. i don't miss it, i don't crave it, i'm just empty sexually. i've even been questioning my sexuality at this point -- after two perfectly sweet boyfriends who haven't satisfied me at all physically, maybe i'm just a big lesbian after all. i digress though. sex disgusts me to nausea, panic attacks, open sobbing. when my partner sees that he does his own panic, beating himself up for pushing it, which compounds my panic, and it's a clusterfug from there.

here's the thing though. after a stint of forgetting my meds for several days, i had a flicker of a sex drive. we went three times in one weekend, which is a lot for me. i think i spoiled him with that. over the last weekend i had taken my meds, and i wasn't in the mood at all. after i rejected his advances a couple times he got incredibly pouty. the room went stale and stifling. whenever he gets in that kind of mood he just kind of wheedles me with questions, like "do you like sex with me? am i good enough? are you even attracted to me at all?" everything ends up about him and his faults, even when i stress that this isn't about him, he's perfectly fine, and lie about liking the sex because it really has all the appeal of laundry day for me and that can't be good for the ol ego. that weekend it ended up a huge argument, and i gave into the pressure after a cooldown period. laundry day. dish duty. scrubbing the toilet. smile and take it. he told me during that argument that he wants to have sex four times a week preferably. four laundry days, four toilets. it turns my stomach. he's already had me start birth control for the sake of his needs. first we screw my hormones up, now we screw my brain back up.

i don't know what to do here. i haven't taken my meds since friday, and he's encouraging me to taper off them, but the meds are all that keeps me functioning. i live a boring life in a dead end job making just enough to get by but not enough to get out, in a city i hate and a relationship that's probably getting stale but is my only source of a social life (he runs the only successful meetup group in our city and if this ends i'm sure i'll be banned), and i feel like the only way to keep things intact is to stop taking the meds that keep it all intact. i've already been communing with the same entities that made my life hell before the zoloft, i've been fading from reality bit by bit, i've felt the same anger and despair rearing up, and i've made another one of my little "if you haven't transformed your sh*tty life by the end of the year it's Time To Die" suicide pacts with myself. i don't think i can stop the ruin either way, but outside input would be nice from people with similar intimacy issues.

(if this is in the wrong section i'm sorry)

Fellow hater of Zoloft here. I have not experienced the drop in sex drive many people on it do, but I understand that it’s common and it’s not easy to deal with. It’s made less easy to deal with if your partner is putting his desires ahead of your needs. If your sex drives are that incompatible and he makes it all about him, that’s a pretty good sign to end things.

I was in a relationship with (and then engaged to) a man who constantly accused me of cheating. Our issue wasn’t sex; it was emotional intimacy and him wanting me to be with him every possible moment. Having autism (not diagnosed or medicated at that time) made me not good at either of those things. I never cheated, and never did anything that would suggest I was cheating. We would always argue about it, and it always devolved into him listing things he thought were wrong with him. I had no friends; he was my only social connection. I wish I had left him when my parents first suggested it. So I didn’t have any friends in my area; at least I wouldn’t have had to deal with someone who insisted I be with him constantly and accuse me of cheating when I was at school. After 2 years of dating followed by 6 months of engagement, I knew I needed to get out. It took me another 6 months to work up the courage and form a plan to end it.

I know it’s easy for me to say as an anonymous internet person, especially not knowing the positives of the relationship that keep you in it, but I would end things with him to get some peace and try to find things to do that you actually enjoy. You may want the social piece of your life to fall into place right now, but in my experience that doesn’t often happen until the other areas of your life are solid, even though it helps to have that social support to get to feeling better. People are confusing things.

Wishing you all best.

sorry i didn't reply sepiida, you're definitely right. update time.

over the weekend we went out with a big group of friends to this bar. cinco de mayo and all, there were a lot of tequila shots. we get back to his place, properly wasted. i'm exhausted from dancing and wandering the area, so i get my makeup off and head straight for bed. he comes with me and starts trying to fool around, but i'm genuinely feeling so nauseous and tired i don't have it in me to even pretend to enjoy it. so i politely ask if we can raincheck it until the morning. he doesn't respond, just sits up and i can hear him doing these irritated sighs for a few minutes. finally he says something like, "we both know you're not going to want to in the morning either." and in this tone like i've betrayed him, like i'm deliberately depriving him of something life-saving. i tried to reverse course just to avoid a fight and just said fine, go ahead, it's fine. hard no from him. he left to go get food somewhere and it took everything in me to just stay still in bed without going to the kitchen and mutilating myself.

so yeah. really can't take this much longer. :^)

(also one of our girl friends almost, almost was gonna make out with me in a very 2008 katy perry For The Giggles And Attention way and uh, that was much more exciting than anything else all night/week/month/year hoowhee)

I hear Viagra can work for females too. Sexual frustration isn't fun. It's a human need for the average person. Are you on an SSRI or an AP that is blocking your sex drive? I've heard success stories with adding Wellbutrin, or switching from an SSRI to an SNRI like Effexor or Cymbalta. Some AP's are more friendly in that area too like Latuda, Abilify, Rexulti, and Geodon.

i don't want to be on another pill just to *****. boring and also probably can't afford.

pretty sure he stalked this though because i went to bed early and woke up to a flood of missed calls and texts asking if i was mad at him? i'm just. fucjing. uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

i won't be posting here again. the only new script i need is for enough xanax to kill me.

Effexor is generic and thus cheap. I'm just talking about switching from Zoloft to Effexor and see how it goes after a few weeks. You would be adding a med (Effexor SNRI), but you'd also be getting rid of one (zoloft SSRI). I apologize for any misunderstanding.

It's my philosophy that meds should act much like makeup. They should improve the image while not being noticed, much like meds should help our quality life, but not interfere with it. I know this problem all too well for I now permenantly suffer from anhedonia because of a drug like zoloft, and it's been my mission to peel away at my med cocktail, adjusting doses, and trying other options until my illness no longer interferes with my quality of life again.

So is this thread closed?

I know you said you won't come here again, but just in case... and I don't even care if he sees this because you said you thought he found it, someone needs to tell him. He sounds like a piece of crap who only wants you for sex and nothing more. Sure, you've got problems as you've admitted, but 4 times a week is his minimum expectation? Seriously? If he really cared about you he'd be trying to help you get better, not making you worse by demanding sex and being an immature child when he doesn't get it.

If the meds are affecting you this way and you want it to change talk to your doc about switching to something else or what you could do to increase your drive. If it's not that important to you to increase it, which it sounds like it isn't, then find someone who can appreciate you regardless. Either way this guy sounds very toxic and I'm confident in saying you should get rid of him. He doesn't deserve you.