OK, another one about being triggered by sex

[marycontrary]

On other thread, we had a really good discussion on sex, and it was deeply enlightening on a personal level.

Well, I had sex all this weekend with a really nice guy. It was a totally positive and seemingly healthy experience.  I really needed to get laid, and so did he.

Well, he left to go back home this weekend and I was ready to have some quiet time. A few minutes later, I started getting really depressed. I was watching my inner state very closely. I suddenly remembered that after I had fun casual sex about 8 years ago in the past, I felt the same way.

This is not abandonment feelings. This is not a moralistic self loathing or regret. No shame. It was a totally wonderful time. This is some sort of triggering of some script in my head that made me incredibly depressed inside of a few minutes.

The thoughts that have been going through my head are unrelated sadness events about how problematic my attachment mechanisms are. But this depressive thing, which is the worst than I have had in months and came on like a tsunami, is mostly a mystery.

Again, I deeply appreciate Ya'll and would welcome thoughts oh this. It is perplexing.   

[schrödinger's cat]

Not sure if that's related. But I sometimes get depressed after I've been close to someone in a non-sexual way. Just closeness as such. Maybe a party where (for once) I wasn't too tense to have fun, or a really good talk with someone: just an experience of being close to people. Fondness, emotional intimacy, fun, not sure how to call it. Just a thoroughly good time that did me a world of good. And then after that: whoa-hey, nosedive. A bad mood comes up out of nowhere.

My working theory so far is: when I grew up, closeness was the exception, not the rule. A short reprieve. A brief moment out in the sun. So if you'd had your closeness for now, that meant it was over for now, you'd used up your ration. Back to normal. And "normal" was withdrawn and shallow and full of subtle emotional abuse. Not just that, but the "normal" state of affairs would look all the colder, emptier, and more painful in contrast. Much like it's bad enough to wear a damp pair of jeans when it's cold out and you got in the rain. But when you've been in your warm nice bed and then you have to get up and the only pair of jeans you're wearing is still damp and has hung in a cold, cold room...?

So those are maybe indirect feelings of abandonment? Like, they're not the kind where you feel "GAAAH, I'm being abandoned". They're the kind where abandonment and coldness is the normal state of affairs, and you're resigned to it but still depressed at having to get back into it. It's more like "oh, why can't it be nice and warm all the time."



So... those are abandonment feelings, which you say yours aren't. Hm.

[marycontrary]

SC, thanks for posting. The depressed feeling are gone. I get no deep sense of abandonment...but that is not to say that it ain't that, either. But I do agree, it is from being too "close" as you say. It was like a fatigue.