The Three Faces of Jill

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So I have been wondering something about myself for a very long time. Am I replacing my need for pot with a need for sex? Is my sexual behavior becoming compulsive. I am starting to feel out of control. VERY out of control. And with Mr. Wonderful coming so god damn close to being the right guy for me, I find myself acting out more. I’ve done some things I’m not proud of. I think I need to deal with them in some capacity and may even need to go so far as to say that I may need to seek outside help. I can feel myself slipping. And if I’m not careful I will hurt someone that I love very much.

I don’t know if I would say I’m feel sex addicted as much as I feel a huge sexual compulsion. I use to smoke pot all day long. Mr. Wonderful entered the picture and for the first time in my life, my sex life isn’t fueled by weed. I sleep with him 100% sober and it’s amazing.

A lot of this came to my attention while watching season 2 of Six Feet Under with Mr. Wonderful. There is a character named Brenda that i can very much so relate to. In this season her sex addiction spins out of control. She sleeps with just about anyone who shows an interest, even though she is engaged to be married. Now I have not gone this far! But I have gone far enough to feel bad and feel as though I am leading a double life. With my boyfriend things are perfect. When I am at home I feel like a caged animal trying to prowl.

But the problem remains as I smoke less, I crave more. No matter how much happens between us it never seems to be enough. I am always wanting. Last week I literally had a half hour orgasm with Mr. W. I stopped there because I was tired and dehydrated.  But even when we stopped my body wanted to continue. I could feel myself still throbbing and wanting to go on.  Yesterday I masturbated and not even ten minutes later I was online talking dirty to my boyfriend and wanting more. Last night things got so bad I found myself locking myself in my room, trying to stay in control of myself. I found myself online talking to someone I shouldn’t have. I thought about Mr. Wonderful and stopped for a while.

I spent the rest of my night talking to Claudia about my compulsion. She took a very calm and logical approach to what I was saying and kind of talked me down.  I confided everything in her. I told her about everything I had been doing, my feelings, how it all never seems to stop. It felt really good to get a lot of that off of my chest. But the sad thing was, even while I was talking to her, I was still thinking about sex. Sex with her! Luckily doing something like that is not crossing a line within my relationship. It leaves me feeling less guilty.

Today will be a true test. I will be home alone all night long. I have no one to talk to or hang out with. Nothing to really distract me. And no pot until my roommate comes home late tonight. It will be very very hard for me to keep myself in check.

Related Articles

• Are You a Sex Addict? (marieclaire.com)
• Nine Types of Love Addicts (socyberty.com)

Sometimes There Are Just Fragments

I am doing some research on myself this evening. I can’t sleep, and it has been drastically changing my sleep habits. I finished a lot of work today. So in my down time I started thinking about how best to handle all of my new feelings I’ve been experiencing.

I haven’t been in a happy relationship for a long time. My Ex and I started having problems about 2 years in. It was rocky at best during the last 2 years of our reconciliation, as we’d split up before. I always regretted reconciling. I did it out of fear. I had just gone through emotional Hell with my family,as we had to put my grandmother in a nursing home. Then the Ex and I split up. I was too sick to care for myself. My Ex had cut me off completely, so I was living in a frightening motel and just trying to live day to day. I literally lived off of animal crackers and microwave macaroni and cheese. I was so depressed. I almost didn’t live through it. I had gotten a bad case pneumonia and became violently ill. During this time I overdosed. It was one of the darkest times of my life.

But now things are different. I am very much so in control of my life. My business I have been struggling to keep alive is on an upswing. Mr. Wonderful has reminded me that relationships are suppose to be about love. I am in contact with most of my family again. I think I am finally in a place where I should be at peace. But I’m still fearful. Tonight I figured out why.

When I was 14 years old I was raped by my then best friends boyfriend who was 16, we’ll call him Zero. It was in a public place, a teen center, where I volunteered my time and sold candy and soda on alternating weekends. Everyone was loud and running around. A typical night for that place. I was taking a break and drawing. Zero showed up angry wanting to talk to me. My friend had tried to break up with him. He’d gotten into some kind of bad trouble and his mother was shipping him off to California to live with his father. He grabbed me and started demanding info about my friend, asking me all sorts of weird questions. I got scared. Things started getting rough. Next thing I know I’m being shoved into a storage closet. I’m kicking and slapping, I’m screaming. No one can hear me in a closet that is in a small back room. My pants are being pulled down and I’m in pain. The scariest part of this for me was the hand over my mouth and a quick sharp blow to the stomach that ultimaately quiets me. I think part of me split then. My mind drifted somewhere else, like I was in a dream. My brain pulled me out of what was happening, as if in a defensive effort to save me the mental scars. Finally someone, one of the adults Renee, who chaperoned there starts banging on the door asking what’s going on. I’m crying and pulling my clothes on. I’m bleeding, I’m terrified. Zero walks out and makes a bunch of jokes. He talks to Renee like nothing even happened. They’re laughing and both go up front. I stay in the closet for the rest of the night. When asked I say nothing. I spent the next ten years fighting depression, anxiety, drug abuse, promiscuity and myself.

Mr. Wonderful is amazing. I am very much so in love with him. But Everyone once in a while something will trigger me. Like a cue, I immediately relive my rape. For example, sometime in my early twenties I went to NYC to stay with Claudia at her old roommates apartment. We watched Girl 6. Something in the movie triggered me, and at the thought of sex and violence I started to vomit. And did so for the rest of the weekend. My friends encouraged me to get help.

What about this joy I am feeling? Why are these two worlds colliding? Why now! I think sometimes there are just fragments of what happened and who I was that creep up and try to scare me. I thought I was over this. I hadn’t thought about in years. My trigger with Mr. Wonderful was that we tried to have anal sex. Something about the pain, having never done that before, made made me relive it all again. I had a moment where I thought I would start to cry. It scared me. I told Mr. Wonderful it was because I wanted him to make love to me, something I had never been able to do with anyone. He understood that, but reminded me you have to walk before you can fly. First to get the sex part down, then move on to that. He was right. Yet the feelings in me remained.

So I have been researching. It makes me feel better and reminds me that it’s all in the past. I have been trying to gain perspective on my particular symptoms of being a rape victim. From my online research:

For rape victims the more common consequences of sexual violence are those related to reproductive health, mental health, and social wellbeing.

A leading researcher on the psychological causes and effects of shame, June Tangney, lists five ways shame can be destructive:^[15]

• lack of motivation to seek care;
• lack of empathy;
• cutting themselves off from other people;
• anger;
• aggression

In addition, shame is connected to psychological problems – such as eating disorders, substance abuse, anxiety, depression, and other mental disorders as well as problematic moral behavior. In one study over several years shame-prone kids were prone to substance abuse, earlier sexual activity, less safe sexual activity, and involvement with the criminal justice system.^[15]

Childhood and adulthood victims of rape are more likely to attempt or commit suicide.^[19][20][21] The association remains, even after controlling for sex, age, education, symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and the presence of psychiatric disorders.^[22][23][24] The experience of being raped can lead to suicidal behavior as early as adolescence