Hi Brooke –

I was going to email you this because it is definitely a more private issue but i decided maybe reading your answer with help someone else who is embarrassed to ask, so this is also going to be my dare of the day as i tend to be a very private person!

I have been on anti-anxiety medication after a breakdown i had almost a year ago now.. I am working with a naturopath and have reduced my dose significantly and am transitioning to a more natural solution…This is going great however…

When i first started this medication i noticed a dramatic decrease in my libido…i honestly did not want to have sex AT ALL and ended up forcing myself at least once a week because i was in a new relationship and was afraid to lose him because we weren’t having sex enough. Because of this i started feeling like sex was an obligation to him, forgetting the reduction in my libido was because of the medication and started thinking that there must be something wrong with me or our relationship.

This has never been an issue with him because he understands it is a temporary side effect from medication and loves me enough to work through it, however my own thinking has become a major issue for me. I hated making sex feel like an obligation so we decided to only do it if i felt good about it and was into it which definitely helped me feel better and ended up increasing the amount we were having sex naturally.

Now that i’m decreasing my dose i feel my libido coming back but i can’t seem to fully shake the negative feelings around having sex ..

Once in awhile i can get myself in the perfect mindset and i feel great about it and understand that the issues i have been having are purely related to the medication and not that something is wrong with me but other times i get stuck in the mindset that sex is an obligation which completely kills the mood…

Can you recommend thought work i can do, especially as my natural libido is improving immensely coming off this medication, to remove all the negative thinking and get back to where i was pre-medication?

Thank you!

XO

Jenelle