DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I have a specific question. I’m demisexual and sapiosexual, and I dated and then married the only person I’ve ever had sex with. I thought I was a “one-man woman,” that’s how I’ve always described myself before I had the terms to explain how I felt.��I’d never really ever wanted anyone else, and couldn’t understand serial monogamy or polyamory, even though a majority of my friends are in snuggly poly pods. Some have offered for us to join, but that’s just not who I am, so we’ve politely declined.
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Enter X. I fell hard, but it turns out they were a nasty narcissist. It took a full three f--king rounds of the feeding cycle to break away for good, and good riddance tobad trash.
I know your advice is to get under someone else, and luckily my husband has always been by my side in this ordeal. But being demi, if I didn’t have them, or if they decided the drama wasn’t worth it and had left me, I’d be royally screwed. I just don’t think that way.
It was really hard. They emotionally ripped us up, and spit us out, and it hurt like hell. Still does.
But one thing really bothers me: I used to have a rich, fulfilling, sex fantasy life. Fall asleep dreaming of a scenario? Sure. Snuggle with my husband, planning what we might do? No problem. Close my eyes and relax with my favorite dildo while husband waits to hop on board at the first sign of the big O? Oh, yeah! Now? It’s all intrusive thoughts of X, and I want them OUT of my fantasies! That piece of crap has no right living rent free in my head! Now every time the hormones rise, even if it’s to relax to get to sleep, it’s like I slide right back to thoughts of them!
Not to mention it’s patently unfair to my husband, who’s gone through this emotional roller coaster s--tshow with me.
How do I get that to stop? It’s not like I can watch porn, the demi in me immediately rejects it. I can’t get into my old fantasies anymore, and I can’t seem to make new ones without X intrusion issues. What am I missing?
Sincerely,�I Need a New Script
DEAR I NEED A NEW SCRIPT: That sounds deeply uncomfortable, INNS. Having sweaty thoughts about someone you actively dislike – someone who’s done you harm to one degree or another – feels intrusive in a way that’s hard to describe. It’s almost like they left a piece of them behind like a parasite and you’re not fully free of them even though they’re long gone.
The good – or at least, somewhat reassuring, one hopes – news is that this is actually not uncommon. A lot of folks have had s--tty, toxic or even abusive exes, crushes and just local asshats pop into their heads at very inconvenient moments… occasionally even just at the point of orgasm. While this may be a useful feature for someone with a ruined orgasm fetish, for you (and others), it’s a big sodden wet blanket on what’re supposed to be sweaty good times.
The reason why this is good (for suitably mixed definitions of “good”) is that the commonality of it means that, as a known problem, there’re ways of dealing with it. And the first step, like with many intrusive thoughts, is to focus on the “why” of it all.��One thing I wish you’d included is how long it’d been since you had to deal with X and how far the relationship with them went. If this is was relatively recent, and it was an involved or intimate relationship… well, there’s going to be a lot of guilt and self-recrimination in there. Even when you know, intellectually, the issue is that they were a malignant narcissist who was preying on your vulnerability, it’s all too easy to blame yourself regardless. One of the perversities of the human experience is that we can see the warning signs in other people’s relationships, but we don’t have the distance and perspective to always track them in our own. It’s part of how toxic and predatory people get in close; they take advantage of that big ol’ blind spot. And because we often know, intellectually, how these things go with others, it’s hard not to look at the situation and say “…but I should’ve known better”.
So part of the reason why they’re lingering is that there may still be a part of you saying “but I should’ve seen it/ been smarter/ kicked them to the curb sooner” and replaying all the times you saw they were a collection of red flags in a trench coat. Those mental or subconscious replays can keep them bubbling to the top of your thoughts. This is especially true at times of heightened stress or emotional arousal… including, well, arousal.
Another issue – and one that may tie in to any lingering feelings of guilt or self-blame – is that you were genuinely attracted to them, and that squicks you out in retrospect. Once again, it’s part of the perversity of the human experience. We’d like to think that their overall desirability was all a trick or a lie and now that we know the truth about this person, the effects of their pelvic sorcery would vanish in a puff of self-actualization. We’d love nothing more than to think that all the feelings they evoked were also a lie, not real or based so firmly on lies that the truth would make it go away. Except… well, it doesn’t.
You can remember what a horrific, s--tty person they were, but your body and brain still remember what it felt like when things were good and you didn’t fully grok who and what they were. Memory can have a flattening effect and highlight different parts of the past… even a past that we regret or wish never happened. It’s part of why it’s hard to leave a relationship gone sour, part of why it’s hard to quit a toxic or abusive partner and why it’s really f--king infuriating when you know someone’s horrible and yet there’s still something about them that just flicks a switch for you.
But your limbic system has no morality filter. Your junk, as I’m often saying, isn’t Mjolnir, only responding to The Worthy. It just does what it does, without regard for your higher consciousness. But your higher consciousness, with that whole “pesky self-awareness” thing, gets to freak the f--k out about it because “dude you KNOW what this person did, what the actual s--t, yo?!?”
So the first thing I think that needs to be done is simply to forgive yourself – both for falling for his game, but also for the fact that it is lingering. You’re not a bad or dumb person for being won over by a malignant narcissist; that’s literally part of what they’re good at. Nobody is immune to being swayed by s--tty people; that’s just something we tell ourselves. Everyone can be conned; it’s just a question of how, why, by whom and for how long. So forgive yourself for having been involved with them, for how you felt, how long it took you to get away, and acknowledge that you’re still dealing with the after effects.
The next part gets tricky, because of when these thoughts come a-callin’. One of the ways of dealing with unpleasant and intrusive thoughts is to confront them, defang them or note and name them and turn your attention elsewhere. That’s… harder to do when you’re having sexy times. Especially with another person. Mindfulness is great, but it’s a lot harder to accomplish while you’re actually having sex… especially if you’re trying not to interrupt the moment. If it’s just you, then it’s a lot less inconvenient, if still frustrating. It may mean that any solo time gets turned into impromptu mindfulness exercises, but making the conscious effort to redirect your fantasy away from X to your husband or someone more acceptable is going to make it easier to let X fade in time.
One thing I’ve personally found helpful, especially when I’ve had racing thoughts that kept me awake, is that consciously focusing on what I wanted to think about – effectively crafting a story for me to focus on as I relax into sleep. That gives my brain something to latch onto without stressing myself in the process or requiring so much effort that it nixes the relaxation aspect. When the racing thoughts try to come back in, it’s easier to say “ok, sure, now back to the show,” rather than trying to pick them apart or shove them away.
Consciously deciding on the fantasy you want to think about and paying attention to that as you drift off (or start to ease into masturbating or what-have-you) will give you something specific for your your brain and bits to chew on, and it’s much less of a chore to return your mind to where you left off as needed. Or, for that matter, to edit in such a way that you can include “get X out of the picture” into it and defang their mental presence. Imagine how frustrating it would be for them to see you having a lovely time ignoring them while they beat impotently on the sound-proof walls of the cell you shoved them into.
Now, please notice very carefully that I say “redirect”, not “push away”. Trying to repress or force the thoughts away rarely work; most of the time it just reinforces them. Avoidance tends to increase anxiety, rather than lessening it, and so it is with these sorts of thoughts or feelings. This is why redirecting your thoughts – saying “oh, ok, that’s the lingering thoughts about X, lets just nudge them out of the way and turn the camera towards my husband” works much better; you’re not forcing this down so much as saying to yourself that you’d rather look at something else.
The third thing is to look into cognitive behavioral therapy. CBT is remarkably good for dealing with intrusive thoughts, whether from obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety, and other mental health issues. A lot of people find that they get long-term relief from their intrusive thoughts after a few sessions. Even some self-directed exercises, like the ones from sites like MoodGym are useful at getting a handle on those thoughts and feelings and getting them back under control.
It’s a frustrating, maddening thing to go through, and the way it intrudes on the intimacy and connection of the relationship you want to nurture and maintain can feel like they still have influence over you. But ultimately, this is just you and your brain trying to process what happened to you. They’re just thoughts, random cycles from your brain. They don’t mean anything except what you decide they mean. And if you decide they’re just noise… well, that’s all they’ll be. And noise can be drowned out until it goes away.
It sucks that you’re dealing with it, but I promise it’s temporary. A little self-directed mind control and the s--tty X will fade into the ether of oblivion where they belong.
Good luck.
Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com