I (19M) live with my boyfriend (19M) as we are both uni students. I am very happy in my relationship, however, whenever my boyfriend mentions having sex I am overcome with anxiety and I can’t stop thinking about it, the thought of sex looms over me all day until it finally happens. I find my boyfriend very sexually attractive and my anxiety does not come from him, in fact when I am worrying about sex I don’t really think of him, just the act itself. When we are having sex I feel extremely vulnerable. My boyfriend knows about this and has tried to help but this is an issue in me and I can’t even fathom it myself. It has now reached a point where I feel crushing guilt all the time because I am depriving him of sex because of my own issues- whenever I feel content I automatically remind my self that I shouldn’t because of this.
When reading about this on the internet I have seen that past traumas with sex can be linked. When I was 17 I lost my virginity to someone I had met on Grindr (bad idea, I know). The day I lost my virginity to him I also had my first kiss in my life with him about 20 mins before. I had never done anything sexual before this. When he asked me to have sex with him I said no multiple times as I had only just had my first kiss but he kept asking, even saying “just the tip?” Eventually I caved because we were at his house and he obviously didn’t do just the tip. At the time I was relieved that I had lost my virginity but now I think that was extremely stupid and I regret it a lot.
I can’t help but wonder if the two are linked, if they are I don’t know how, as I said earlier I can’t fathom this whole situation at all, it is causing me lots of stress and I have absolutely no idea how to fix it.
3 comments
I’m sorry about that experience. It sounds like you’re in a much better situation now, and anxiety can definitely kill a mood! Something that helped me was having intimacy outside of sex, like taking showers together and cuddling, or even making out and just keeping it PG 13. It helps take the pressure off and get used to that vulnerability in a healthy, non-daunting way.
It sounds like you have no idea where the anxiety is, where it’s coming from, or what it is actually about? That’s what you need to do, follow the anxiety to the source. What is actually bothering you? What are you worried about?
Therapy would be extremely helpful.
Respectfully, I think that your first experience, given the lack of consent, may have been more traumatizing than you realized. Anxiety can be triggered by what feels like a repeat of a negative experience- for me being touched caused panic attacks for years- and it sounds like you’re experiencing that on some scale- anxiety, maybe on the scale of PTSD, of some sort. If you can get professional help that’s probably the best idea, but looking into resources for sexual abuse survivors might be a start.
It can be very hard, but remember that you aren’t broken from your bodily or anxiety response to something. Your body/brain may be remembering a bad experience and may be trying to protect you, but your subconcious doesn’t realize that you’re out of that previous situation. It can take work to get through these things but you can work on anxiety. Therapy can help teach your brain that the danger isn’t present, fear isn’t necessary, etc.
Good luck!