Sex and Mental Illness

[CatHaru26]

Hi!
I’m 19f and my boyfriend is 19m. I’ve posted here quite a while ago about how my anxiety was affecting sex for me and have made a lot of progress since then but it seems I’ve hit an interesting road block lol.
Beginning sex is very difficult to me due to my anxiety, but my boyfriend is very good about helping me work through it every time and hes very patient with me, and THEN it ends up being good.
My current issue is the way my ADHD affects how sex feels for me. I find that my brain disassociates really easy, especially during sex. It can be going so good, and then five minutes later my brain is just somewhere else and I’m no longer engaged, and then he has to help me get reengaged and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. Its not that hes doing anything boring! Sometimes there are things that always work so well, but when my ADHD is bad, I almost can’t feel them at all.
It also seems to prevent me from orgasming, or at least I’m unsure if it is. I get sensory overload very easily and when things get to a certain level of excitement I’ll always ask to stop. I can’t even tell if I’ve gotten to the point of orgasm or if I stopped myself before I got there because everything just felt like too much. I’m almost unsure if I’ve ever orgasmed or if I’ve just convinced myself that I have because of how intense the sensory overload gets.
Also I wanna point out that my ADHD prevents me from masturbating as well, because I can’t stay engaged with myself. I know masturbation can be a great way to help with these types of problems but I just can’t seem to get it to work!
I’m not totally sure how to combat this problem. People have recommended that I see a sex therapist but its not like theres one around the corner or like I have the money for one. Any advice would be super appreciated:)

[Sam W]

Hi CatHaru26,

I'm glad to hear things are going relatively well and that you and he are actively communicating about all this!

I think one starting place would be to, if you're currently getting or have gotten treatment for ADHD, think about if there are any tools you've acquired for dealing with that drifting focus or sensory overload in daily life. A lot of times, the tools we use for managing things like ADHD, anxiety, and so on in day to day life can be incorporated into our sex lives. Do any tools or techniques come to mind when you think about that?

Too, if you're interested in bringing this up with a therapist, that's something we can talk about. As you said, sex therapists aren't always accessible, but there may be other ways to have a professional help you out with this.