Seeking advice, recovery from inability to O

Hello,
I am seeking some advice.

Due to antidepressants, stress and illness, I have for the last year or two lost a lot of sensitivity and eventually my ability to O. I quit the medication a couple of months ago, and am now in recovery mode, both from that and my previous illness.

During this time, I increased stimulus when M'ing. I used a stimulating toy and P, neither of which I wanted or needed before. I have realised that these might have contributed to lowering my sensitivity further, and have stopped both now.

I've been with my boyfriend for a year, and in the beginning I was able to O with him a couple of times, before it stopped entirely. He took it hard for a while, but our communication have been good about it, and he's now aware that it's not at all about him, and is dealing with it quite well. Better than me in fact, as I am getting quite frustrated that my body is not functioning the way it should.

I considered that a hard reboot might help me improve faster, but I am unwilling to do that due to the relationship. We have a good sex life that we both enjoy. I do not want my problem to affect him (or me) more than it has to.

Unfortunately (for my recovery) this also means I do not stop M. I have a relatively high sex drive especially about a week per month when I'm hormonal, and the fact that I M is very relaxing for our sexual relationship. If he doesn't feel like it, he can just turn me down with no hard feelings for either of us, as he knows I can just deal with it myself. He's had a lot of anxiety about sex earlier in his life, and I appreciate how relaxed we are about it now.

I can, however, change how and how often I M, if that's something I should do. Although I'm not convinced I want to change the regularity, since going back to normal is my goal. If I stop M, I also reduce my libido (like most women, I think?), which is not really what I'm going for.

So for now, I am removing the high stimulus when M'ing, and just trying to be patient. It's been 25 days since I started semi-reboot, although I reset P counter last night. The fact that I'm improving is making the reboot harder, as I feel more when we have sex now, and I've been close to O. But not quite there yet. Any experiences/advice?

 

Thank you for the responses.

I think I may have not explained my situation well enough. You have the impression that all I am interested in is an orgasm, but that is not the case. My situation is that that's the only thing that's wrong with my body now. I already have a great relationship, with good, intimate sex. We have both accepted that there will be no orgasm for me for now (the same way it has been for a year).

It is only recently this has begun to frustrate me. After all, I was ok with it for a year. It's not the orgasm itself I feel a need for really, it's the indication that I'm healing. The main reason I'm focused on this aspect of my body not working, is that I had a very long illness that affected every part of my life and left me debilitated for years. Now, with my recent recovery, I crave having my body back and functioning the way it used to. This feels like an indicator that something is still not quite right. But if it's not going to happen, then it's not going to happen. The orgasm itself I can live without.

I might be on the wrong forum here, but I just had the thought that maybe someone here had experienced something similar. I do not consider myself an addict to M, to be honest, but I do think how I was doing it did not help, which is why I decided to make some changes there. I feel like there is a lot of knowledge on this forum that can be helpful to me, even if my situation is a little different. Lately, I have M'd less than once a week, maybe about once every two weeks. I do not consider this excessive.

With that being said, I will certainly take your advice. If it can help, I will do it.

There seems to be a lot of knowledge and helpful people here, and I simply thought I would try some of your methods and ask for some wisdom. It is worth a try. =)

 

I will look into Karezza too, thanks

 

On day 11 of no PMO per your advice.

Both my boyfriend and I have been reading on Karezza, and have started taking the principles into our sex life. It seems like a wonderful thing! I am very glad you suggested this, and that he's been willingly reading about it.

I wonder how we would go about things as me being the woman in the relationship, and wanting to impact him as little as possible with my health problems.

 

Thank you guys again for your input. I will read the link you posted to me.

I very much appreciate your point of view. I see you did not read my last post, I did stop M a few months back when away from my boyfriend, and now for a while also when with him. I also completely stopped using any extra things like stimulating toys and P. I don't personally think there's anything wrong with enjoying myself when alone (in moderation, of course, as with anything else!), and I know he appreciates that we are both pretty relaxed about our sexuality. We do not spend all our time in the same house, and there is (normally) no reason for either of us to not enjoy ourselves if we are apart for a while. We do have a very strong intimacy, both physical and emotional. But since I currently wanted to reset my brain from the chemical imbalance brought by my medication, it seemed like a useful thing to do.

Nevertheless, I do think you are right in what you write. I tried to point out in my original post that this is precisely what I wanted to do. I wanted to only M with my boyfriend there, when he wasn't feeling up to a full round, and I particularly need it (in other words, in my fertile time, when I sometimes want sex more than he does), and this is what I've been doing (only a few times - 2 I think - in the last several months).

I am not used to it being ok to M around my SO, my exes have not been ok with this. So at that time of month previously mentioned, this caused some frustration, actually mostly on their parts. So I very much appreciate my boyfriend being so open about things with me. He actually suggested last night something like what you described, to sort of join me while I M. I showed my appreciation but declined, mostly because of this process, which leads me to...

UPDATE!

SUCCESS! This morning, it finally became obvious that my body and brain chemistry is healing. It's been 4 months since I quit my medication, and the fact that I wasn't back to normal yet had me a little worried. This worry might have been part of the problem tbh, which my boyfriend has also pointed out to me. But now it's clear that things are on their way back to normal, and I am very happy about it. (And, as you pointed out, so is he).

This is a problem that is affecting a lot of people, and there's very little to-the-point information on how you can deal with it. While there obviously is a difference between a dopamine and serotonin imbalance, it does seem like your methods can be helpful also in cases like mine. So I am very thankful for your input and suggestions, and I will take these with me forward still. I will probably not update as much here now, as things are moving along perfectly as they should. But I will keep these methods with me, and I'm sure I will be around to learn (and maybe give input when it can be useful) still. Thank you <3