… literally.

Seaneen got me thinking with her The People That I have Loved post.  I love when folks make me think.  I can’t write about all of the instances, but I love being made to think, nonetheless. This one got me really thinking though, because I’m trying to sort out where I’ve been and “who I was” in the past.  It helps me get a grip on where I am now, and why, all things considered, it’s not weird that I feel like I’ve been crazy and maybe still am.

Something about her post gave me the idea that she feels like there were a lot of people she loved or had sex with by now when she’s 23ish.  I had to chuckle and shake my head at that idea, because a dozen or so doesn’t seem like a lot to me.  Then I wondered what that says about me.

I gave away my “virginity” to a guy I met at the beach, a couple of months after I’d first slashed my wrists and a couple of weeks before my thirteenth birthday.  I had nothing to live for, I felt, then he paid attention to me, and having sex with him was such a small gift to give for a reason to live. Besides, it felt damned wonderful.  That was a shortlived relationship since neither of us lived at the beach, and that was ok with me because as much as I liked him and was grateful to him, I wasn’t under any illusion that I was in love with him.  After him, though, I grabbed sex with both hands and went about finding all sorts of people to have sex with for a night or a week or some months.  Young, old, male, female, whatever. Some I thought I was in love with, some were just friends I slept with for fun, others were just sex for fun.  I actually made a list of them all, once upon a time, and when I hit the nice round number of 100, at age 17, I quit counting.  (I hope that list has been destroyed now!) I figured that was enough to count, though my life didn’t change much from there as far as sex went.

Thank goodness I went berzerk having sex before HIV was around. Even after it the “gay plague” was beginning to be heard of, I was “safe” because I only slept with straight or bi men, or women.  So I thought. Why would I have sex with a gay guy? So nevermind the condoms already, I was on the pill.  Ignorance was bliss.  So I didn’t worry about it, and somehow I didn’t get HIV either. Nor did I get beaten to death. I got raped once along the way, and yes, I said no very clearly. But that didn’t stop me or slow me down for more than a few days. And the only two times I got any STDs were when I was faithful to both of the men I married. Go figure that one out.  It’s amazing I lived through it all.

I slowed down the average some years, and sped up the average others. There were times I was just too depressed to have the energy for sex with anyone. The pattern went on and on. Until I was 30ish and realized that this was really whacked and probably not any more good for me than having turned into a drug addict. I decided to go cold turkey and have a year of abstinence.  That broke the chain, and I’ve never been wild with sex since.

I just look at all this now and shake my head.  It cannot be normal to have sex with so many people.   Amazing that none of the adults, therapists, shrinks, etc of the times caught on to the idea that might be a bit weird.  I probably didn’t show them the list, though, to be fair.  Wait, my father and stepmother knew from the start. They just found it amusing.  *snort*  The current shrinkage peeps do find the idea of all that sexual activity a disturbing sign.  Some say hypersexuality loose in the throes of mania or hypomania.  Others say psychological stuff on the fly, related to the “repeated failures of sel-protection” and “compulsive or extremely inhibited sexuality” of C-PTSD.  Probably both.

Well, no wonder I feel like I’ve been nuts for a long time.  At least I’m not acting nuts that way now. Woo!

This entry was posted on Friday, October 10th, 2008 at 12:41 pm and is filed under c-ptsd, hodgepodge, mental illness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.