Fantasy issues

[KierC]

Hey there iLilli,

Pleasureful physical sensations can be hard to feel when you’re in your head, and I hear you that, especially with ADHD, there’s another layer of difficulty when it comes to avoiding negative stimuli and getting more in tune with your body and pleasurable feelings in general.

It sounds like you’ve already identified some sensations that feel good to you — swimming and weighted blankets are both really excellent ways to feel firm, gentle pressure (like deep pressure stimulation), which can be a really calming and pleasing feeling. Too, I hear you that deep pressure stimulation may feel a bit like dampening or blocking out, but indeed it works because it *activates* your parasympathetic nervous system to put you in a state of rest.

Starting with these accessible forms of positive physical sensations that you’re already familiar with by having a swim or wrapping yourself in a weighted blanket may be a great place to begin connecting with positive feelings in your body. If you find that gentle pressure feels good too, or that a certain sensation of swimming feels good, you can find more activities that induce those feelings as well. In other words, it may help to start with what you know, and let your body’s reaction inform what physical stimuli feel good or bad.

Another wonderful reading to explore more about how to tune in to positive physical stimuli: I Feel Good: Pleasure and Fulfillment. This article gives even more ideas on how to do that, and it goes through the idea of non-sexual pleasure in general. How does that sound?

[iLilli]

I’ve taken a look at the article you linked - it’s quite interesting. However, I’m uncertain about whether it helps to deal with the core issue here - or if it does, it’s only a partial solution.
My goal here is for masturbation to be an overall more pleasant experience, and I believe that having it be physically enjoyable is an important part of that. However, at the moment, there are barriers that prevent that from happening. Obviously, not knowing what I would find physically pleasant in terms of masturbation is one of those barriers, but not the only one. Another part of the problem that I mentioned earlier is that my ADHD (and autism, and anxiety, etc.) makes it difficult for me to take the time to do that experimentation rather than just doing what I’m used to. And, of course, my anxieties and uncertainty about all this means that even if I was able to make the decision to experiment with what felt good, the act of stepping outside my comfort zone and having to deal with that uncertainty would make it impossible for me to actually relax or feel comfortable enough to get anywhere.
…which means that it all ultimately comes back to the factor of me living in the same house as my parents and siblings for the foreseeable future, because if the only person around to potentially judge me was myself, so much of this would be a complete non-issue. I’d be able to experiment with all sorts of things whenever I felt like it, and wouldn’t have to worry about things like cleaning up as quickly, quietly, and efficiently as possible, or whether someone might need my help with something at an inconvenient time, or anything like that. Unfortunately, there isn’t really much I can do about that, so I’m not sure how to move forward without having to deal with all that.

[KierC]

Hi iLilli,

I hear you that these barriers to pleasure feel like they’re hard to deal with without causing more anxiety, if I’m understanding you correctly. Do you have a sense of what form of support you’d like with this going forward?

We’ve given some recommendations on how to engage more with pleasure and some new strategies to try, but I do think it sounds like the difficulty you’re experiencing with connecting to positive physical sensation, whether sexual or otherwise, may be more related to ADHD and other anxieties you’re reporting, which is out of the scope of what we can help with. However, a mental health professional would certainly be able to help with these difficulties relating to your ADHD. Does that sound like something doable for you currently?

[iLilli]

Well… to be honest I’ve spent years now working with a psychologist to try to deal with my various issues. Unfortunately, I can’t really afford to have sessions more than once per month, which significantly reduces how much we accomplish, and even then we often don’t get anywhere - not that my psychologist doesn’t try, of course. It’s just the combination of a bunch of trauma and anxiety and a bunch of other factors that end up putting me in this state of, like, mental gridlock, where even though I know something has to change, I’m too scared and overwhelmed to take even a small step forward. It’s frustrating knowing that I’ve spent years of my life basically wasting time and that I can’t even manage to put any effort into changing it. I guess any issues I have with sex or whatever are pretty minor in comparison, so it’s not likely to be a major priority.
…Sorry for going on about a bunch of stuff that you aren’t really equipped to help with. I’m just… tired of running into this issue over and over again.

[Latha]

Hi iLilli,

I understand how this can be so disheartening. Even when it feels hopeless, try to remember that your happiness and wellbeing are worth your own effort and the help of other people. You deserve to feel better than this.

[Sam W]

I want to add that it doesn't sound at all like time has been wasted; it sounds more like you have a lot of things to untangle, and that doing so with the available resources is taking longer than it ideally would. That's not you wasting time; to me, that sounds like you doing the often hard and sometimes disheartening work of taking care of yourself, which isn't a waste by any means <3

[iLilli]

Yeah, fair enough. I guess the reason why it feels like that time was “wasted” is because a lot of my problems feel like things that I could work on or push through or resolve if I just… actually tried, or was willing to accept being uncomfortable for a little while. But instead I’m so focused on trying to wring more happiness out of the few activities I’m used to that I can’t really bring myself to actually try to change or improve things. Change is scary and difficult and sometimes painful, and I just want to be happy and comfortable and not have to worry about anything. That’s not going to work forever, but… it’s just always easier to enjoy it while it does than to work on an alternative, y’know?
It’s kind of a childish and immature way of thinking, yeah. But honestly? I don’t feel like I’m really capable of much more than that, as sad and pathetic as that might sound.

[Sam W]

You know, I think it speaks to a lot of self-awareness on your part to have realized that some of this is about wanting to avoid discomfort. That doesn't me as all that childish an urge, more like a human one; I think most of us would prefer to lean away from discomfort and stay in the space where we're comfortable because that also feels safe.

Too, when you're dealing with trauma, or mental illness, or some combination of those, or with things like stressful life situations, disability, being queer in a hostile climate, or a whole host of other things a lot of people are facing right now, it can add up to an exhausting experience. And if we're exhausted in that way, we very much have that instinct towards comfort because dealing with DIScomfort is just going to take up energy we don't feel like we have.

Something you might try, when you're next able to meet with that mental healthcare provider, is to talk about this pattern you've noticed, where you know what steps might help you get to where you want to be, but that the difficulty or discomfort in getting there is throwing up a roadblock. That way, the two of you could talk about ways to address that pattern, including exercises where you learn to be okay or move through discomfort, which could prove helpful in the long run.

[iLilli]

I mean… we’ve done that. Talked about this pattern, I mean. Ultimately, though, no matter how much we discuss all this, I’m not going to be able to improve unless we agree on a strategy and I put the effort into following it. And unfortunately, that never really works out. Either I end up shooting down every plan because I can think of a reason it wouldn’t work, or my self-confidence is so low that I give up before I start, or my ADHD and executive dysfunction cause me to forget the plan after a day or two, or I stop caring about the plan as soon as a distraction makes me stop feeling sorry for myself, or… you get the point. For there to be any real progress, I have to be willing to seriously buy into a plan that I know will push me out of my comfort zone, and if I could do that, I wouldn’t really be in this situation. It’s a really frustrating catch-22.