The Vicious Cycle of Adult ADD, Shame, and Sexual Compulsion

Posted by Digital_Zone on December 8th, 2020

Brian can be an investment banker in his early forties who, in graduate business school, first began to visit prostitutes, spend money on phone sex, compulsively masturbate and, finally spend as much as 5-10 hours per day considering internet porn. When sexually acting out, he'd feel that somebody had fired up his brain for the initial time. On the web, he'd suddenly feel alive. He had energy and felt the euphoria that sexual immersion seductively provides. His mind slowed up; he didn't need to keep moving.

Since his teens, he'd masturbated nearly every night before hitting the hay and sometimes a couple of times throughout the day as well. He was shy in school and dated infrequently, partly from his feelings of inadequacy from the persistent inability to concentrate, multiple failures, disapproval from parents, teachers and peers and the consequent demoralization that contributed to low self-esteem.

Undergraduate school have been difficult for him. Complex mathematical formulations from his economics courses were tape-recorded while he fantasized about looking underneath the girl's shirt who sat next to him. He was chronically late at classes, his dorm was messy and his clothes were disheveled. He seemed to live in another world. Once on the job, he loved the thrill, excitement and danger of being fully a trader, however when he'd to sit in boardrooms to hear his bosses speak about strategy, his "eyes glazed over" with boredom and he entered into an "erotic haze ".He'd fantasize in regards to the escort he have been with the night before and anticipated getting home following a long day to get on the chat rooms and look at pornography on the internet.

His days were the usual business of forgetting assignments and people's names, of losing things and being chastised by bosses, as he have been by parents, for not to be able to sit still or follow directions. In the home, he felt empty, depressed and lonely. He was unable to concentrate on a book or perhaps a movie. He often felt diverse from others. It had been like others received a chip at birth that allowed them to remember simple things, to process information accurately, to complete tasks in an orderly fashion, to moderate their impulses and calm their bodies and mind if they wanted to. But Brian knew he was "different" from them. His girlfriend complained that he interrupted their conversations and that he always put his needs first from; He could never finish a job that wasn't engrossing for him. He'd lose his temper over trivial things and he didn't know why. On the internet, however, considering a montage of erotic images, he finally felt not scattered. Moreover, he felt soothed, whole and unafraid. Like a magic elixir, he'd immediately feel "not different ".He felt alert, focused and alive. However, he soon found himself in job performance due to the long nights and weekends of compulsive sexing. He went to a 12-step "S" program and learned to avoid compulsive sex. He married and got an advertising at work. Time passed as he worked his 12-step program and settled directly into marriage. However, the impulse to call an dominatrix escort or make an erotic phone call never went away.

1 day, after 2 yrs of abstinence, he ran across an escort in a resort who offered him her services and he could not think of reasons to refrain. Also, he'd seen that his fantasies had taken on a definite sadomasochist flavor and he have been curious about acting them out with this particular woman. He have been involved in a deal at work that went wrong and he felt "significantly less than" and somewhat ashamed. Memories of shaming and humiliating remarks about his conduct and learning skills from teachers and parents came flooding back, precipitating his masochistic sexual fantasies. His sense of self was completely destabilized. So he did what had always worked for him when he felt psychologically fragmented: he went to an Italian escort to shore up his fragile self esteem. Once again he'd miraculously feel like he could deal with himself. The non-stop put downs that had taken up permanent residence in his head were quieted, at the least for a brief period of time. Sex took the edge off such as for instance a few martinis do for an alcoholic.

The "quick fix" however, was followed closely by a crash which made him feel worse than he did before he went to the Domme escort. Knowing he'd yet again lost control of himself, he'd feel extremely remorseful and depressed. His feelings about himself bordered on self-loathing. Following the crash, he no more felt alert, focused, or euphoric. While Brian have been in a position to disappear from cocaine three years ago, the sex addiction had remained entrenched in his psyche: as an athlete's foot of the mind -- it called him -- incessantly-- a scratch to be scratched but never soothed.

It had been at this point that Brian decided that if he didn't leave your house, he would not Foot fetish escort, and so he re-discovered the Internet. Very quickly at all, Vincent was spending untold minutes, hours, days totally absorbed in the web, using chat rooms to set up erotic encounters, and exploring the fetishistic and S&M images and enticements of the cybersex world. Porn surfing became his medium of acting out since the images were flashy, intense, and risky and he could easily go to another web site when the novelty wore off and he'd start to be bored.

What happened with Brian's recovery? He seemed to own managed in order to avoid compulsive sex for a time frame and to produce some positive changes in his life. Nevertheless when faced with the ability, he was easily generated return to sex addiction.

In Brian's case, he was unable to get a handle on his sex addiction because he had not been diagnosed and treated for Adult Attention Deficit Disorder. A particular constellation of imbalanced neurotransmitters were creating physical and emotional problems for him, including an inability to regulate attention, control impulses, sleeping, and mood and energy levels. His have to self-medicate his impulsivity, restlessness and mental hyperactivity gave method to using sexually compulsive behaviors to attempt to fix his brain chemistry. Poor impulse control combined with a push for high-risk, intense, novel experiences contributed to Brian's addiction to sex.

Many sexual compulsives with ADD have had experiences like Brian's. They struggled in school because they got bored or had a hard time paying attention. Once bored, they'd stare out the window, often swept up by sexual fantasies. As adults, relationships are difficult for them. Impulses carry them from project to project, relationship to relationship, job to job. Their minds come screeching to a halt as they try to remember a friend's name or the located area of the escort they visited last night. Most have the self-loathing of people who are working under capacity, and feel the pain and grief of living a life of lost opportunities and diminished personal potential.