The lights all faded

The pressure to perform is everywhere: Look sexy, be sexy, feel sexy. Do it for you; do it for your significant other. 

It’s important for the success of your relationship that you ‘put out’ on the reg. This thinking is set in stone everywhere I look. I can’t deny it either, though…

But what happens when the medication you take wipes out any sex drive you may have had? 

This recently happened to me. Or well, to us, my husband and I. 

My SNRI, along with life stressors, completely deleted any notion of sex from my mind. I didn’t think about it, I didn’t even know how much time went by  since the last time we were intimate. 

I didn’t realize it until my inattention was made known to me. 

Then came the guilt…the feeling that I was letting our relationship take a back seat. My emotional health was so important that I never really thought about his. 

So I stopped taking them. I wanted my sex drive to resurface. I wanted to be sexy. I wanted to feel sexy. 

After a few days, I became so unbelievably agitated at something Kona had done, something trivial that my reaction was unwarranted. 

Instead of snapping at me or getting angry, Nathan asked if I had forgotten to take my medication. He told me nothing was worth me allowing my depression and anxiety to take over my life, not when I have a way to stop it. He held me as I fell apart in front of him. 

That moment changed me, unbeknownst to him. 

I resumed my SNRI but I felt the guilt fall away and I saw my husband as a person that fights with me, a champion for my mental health.

I know it won’t be perfect. I still have days where the last thing I feel is pretty, let alone sexy. All I feel is the blanket and couch surrounding me, numb and lost. 

But together we have grown, and learned and love deeper than ever before. 

It’s tough, but worth it.