RE: yikes, sue, help with epistle?

[Guest guest]

Can you believe it? I found it! Since your original post was dated, I

just went back into the archives by message numbers, just guessing till I

finally located July 2001. I'm making a file of Ceepism's......think it

could be a good thing to do!

Ok, here's the epistle, part 1.

************************

To the list, as promised

With regard to loss of libido:

Part ONE:

Let's just start at the beginning, just some questions to ask yourself to

pinpoint which factors belong to your life history and which do not. This is

a sampling of a form I use in my practice. It is not a psychoanalytical or

psychiatric analysis nor a substitute for such. As in all matters that have

to do with your precious body, seek the experience and expertise of your own

doctors who know you and see you in person.

However, just one caveat: understand too that in the matter of psychotropic

drugs/ SSRI's, that many docs are so busy, they listen to the pharmaceutical

salesman ONLY, and take to heart the short soliloquy given them. If you wish

to know more about the drug proposed, PDR, Physician's Desk Reference 2001

(at your library) or for a king's ransom at the book store, will tell

you --not everything-- but much more than most docs are able to recite. Look

under 'contraindications' for who/what/wherefore a drug ought NOT be taken.

Look under side effects for a list of responses that occur and the

percentage of users of the medication who they occur to.

If you read the PDR or other books such as the very scary " Good pills and

bad drugs, " types of books, (Be VERY aware that there is such a syndrome

colloquially called, the 'medical student's disease.' This is wherein one

reads descriptions of various maladies, assesses one's own life, body,

symptoms, and decides one definitely HAS that disease. In the syndrome, the

real etiology (causation, origin) is an overactive imagination combined with

lack of experience. When I took Psychopharmaceutics years ago in my early

training, for a short time I was prepared to go to India to treat my

suddenly

discovered case of leprosy. I had read the symptoms, and saw on my arms tiny

little spots of loss of pigmentation -- melanin disturbance--and was off to

the mind-races--grin) So, go carefully. And arm yourself, but do not

disarray your mind at the same time.

Here are some questions:

before GB, what was your desire like? (Is it the same or different now) This

is a question we ask a person also in any kind of post-trauma situation in

order to access how the situation is either totally different than it once

was, or a continuation of what was, or a new low in addition to other lows.

If a person's libido, that is desire to be sexual, craving to be sexual (I

know, I know, for some you are saying, can you spell craving, I have it for

food but not for sex-- of which Freudian trained persons might make much...)

was low before GB, it would be cohesive that this would continue unless the

person has taken other steps to do otherwise. (more about taking other steps

later)

If your answer to this question is, drive to be near, to be close sexually

was low or nonexistent before GB, then look into these: I will not elaborate

them here, or else this message will become a saga, but you see and look :

1. hormonal-- how old are you and have you had a blood test for your

hormonal levels recently--as in last 3 months? Are you in peri-menopause?

Would you know if you were? (Read any number of books about it to find the

symptoms--one of which is decreased libido) Are you in menopause? Are you

deficient in hormones? There are several theories about hormone replacement;

some are natural, as found in Weed's and others' work, (at health food

store bookshelves)-- some are made by pharmaceuticals, such as Climera.

(PDR).

Many women attest to these increasing their libido from minus ground zero to

what they consider adequate or " normal' for them. The " for them " part is

important. Normal is NOT how you felt at 14 (or earlier or later) and just

discovered oh my God, necking and petting and wanted to spend every hour of

the day and night doing them. Normal is NOT how you felt when you were

pursuing that hunk of your dreams and ready to hand upside down out of hotel

windows to give/get the thrill. Normal is having a body that has great

capability for pleasure, remembering this and giving/ feeding, nourishing

the body's capacity for pleasure. Normal is wanting to give this pleasure to

another with wild, calm, focused, laughing, intense, relaxed

cadences---depending on the mood of the moment. Normal means these and more.

Normal is not some automatic, knee-jerk -- or genital-jerk response to

everything or anything. It is an art of pleasure. It is the willingness to

allow such. It is the assertion that the body is made for many things, and

one is pleasure. It is not different from eating or moving. It is something

to be undertaken. You are not fed automatically, watered, exercised. These

come to you because you undertake them. Why ought the pleasures of sexuality

be any different?

2. Are you angry? Although one certainly can use their angry energy to have

sex, that kind of tummy-slapping-tell-me-who's-your-hot mama-now kind of

sex, for most men and women, cold anger especially causes the body to feel

cold-- perhaps hold its blood in the head and chest and stomach, not in the

lower body where sexual feeling blooms most noticeably. There are good books

on anger in the marketplace, Harriet Lerner's Dance of Anger is one place to

start.

3. Are you tired? Now, remember I am " a full-time everything " like you;

mother, wife, g-ma, worker, dreamer, daughter, etc. Are we tired yet? Is the

Pope Catholic? (I am also.) However, this kind of tired I am getting at here

is a different kind of tired. It is the kind that comes from spending one's

awake hours thinking of all the things one must do, (secretly thought

because the ego is trying to justify taking up space in the world) rather

than ever having mercy on oneself and planning in absolute detail, every day

and every week, time to rest, be with, be without, be about. If there is a

global dis-order amongst women and other caregivers, it is likely this.

Can't is really won't. Not a chance is really not a clue. Serious. Who's in

control here; who calls the shots about what you will do with your day? You.

End of five-sentence mini-lecture.

4. Are you frightened about something? This ranges all the way from old

trauma of a sexual nature that has not been dealt with adequately, or needs

be repaired further now, to vaginismus and other painful genital

discomforts, to fear of disease, to fear of giving into something

pleasurable with one's

partner when, in fact, you are trying to withhold pleasure (from the other)

in order to control their behavior, otherwise known as 'sending a

message,'... You can, you know, have both. You can have unbridled sex and

take up where you left off as Mr. or Mistress of Corrections later. Some

people even combine the two to their great pleasure. If it is latent or

recurring memory of trauma, psychotherapy is the best place I know to deal

with these; there are newer post-trauma techniques that can be very helpful,

EMDR and other neuropsychological techniques. There are books on EMDR and

other post-trauma recovery aids. I for one like this premise for those who

are long post-trauma€” " feel what you feel, acknowledge and honor what has

occurred, but disentangle yourself from its curly little bindings that want

to keep you in that story forever; it is only one story in your life of many

stories. Go on with life in full freedom. Create new stories. "

5. Are you bored? See number 2. Boredom is often a cover for anger. Anger

that life is not as one wishes. With honor, one can proceed in a different

life direction to make life--within one's control-- more as one would wish.

However, in some, boredom can mask an underlying desire to twist and

manipulate life and others to fulfill one's depressive needs. " Be this way

so I won't feel melancholy. Act this way, so I will feel Princess Cherry all

the time. Be this way so I don't feel like dirt, or dust, or dreck or doom. "

The

person will be better served by looking into taking care of their own needs

rather than asking others to interrupt their lives to take care of a person

who may not realize they are depressed.

from ceep

end of part one, part two follows.