I love the idea of sex, but I can't enjoy the act itself.

I am bipolar (male) and my medication took away my sex drive completely for the month and a half that I took it several years back, it was Seroquel. Sex therapy cannot restore your libido if it was taken away from you chemically through the administration of psychotropic drugs. Talking about it does not remove the effects of an actual substance in your system.

You can't have a satisfactory love relationship with your boyfriend ever again because you're too scared of living drug free. This is the sad truth and there is no way around it. I am sorry to bring you this bad news.

You say that it is not safe for you to get off your meds, so I think it is best for you to end this relationship and live a sexless single life from now on, and better get used to the idea. It is not fair to deprive your boyfriend of him being with the person you used to be by staying with him the way you are now. I'm not sure he signed up for that.

Sorry if I sound harsh, but this is just reality for you. There is a cost associated with blindly believing your doctor that you need to take drugs for the rest of your life or else things are dangerous to you. Consuming psychotropic drugs, even when prescribed, has its consequences.

I personally resolved my lack of sex drive by going off the meds completely. I did this against my doctor's advice, and I did have a 3-day psychotic episode upon cutting off the meds. However, I recovered on my own, completely drug-free, and have lived that way ever since (that was 3 years ago).

This is not medical advice. If you wish to follow medical advice only, by all means, keep believing your doctor and take psychotropic drugs for the rest of your life like you're told. If you're not strong enough to face your insanity (condition, whatever you wanna call it - I call mine insanity because it's what it is), if you're too weak to face it drug free - then you should by all means accept that you're broken beyond repair and need to get used to the idea that some parts of your personality and physical functions will be gone from now on. By taking anti-psychotics for extended periods of time you may lose your sexual function altogether. You can try switching drugs - maybe your sex drive will be restored at the cost of 40lbs weight gain from a new drug, maybe another drug will deprive you of the ability to focus at the expense of having some sexual function restored. You can try switching drugs until you find some drug whose negative side effects are not that bad, but they all have bad side effects, let's not kid ourselves about that. That's just life for you now.

I could not accept a life like that for myself. And since I was not ready to commit suicide just yet, I decided to forego my prescription altogether. I personally made the choice to say "fuck you" to my doctor and get better on my own, drug free, and I did it. I don't recommend you do that. I had the courage, strength of will and determination to face my inner demons head-on, without chemical assistance, and find a resolution to my issues in a way that made sense to me personally. Choosing to do it all on my own against everyone else's well-meaning advice and protests is just part of my personality and who I am. I still have manic and depressive episodes, all the time, every day. However, I have learned to recognize them, to keep into account the way they alter my personality and learned how to function like a normal human being despite of that. I know that the sadness I feel when depressed is false - it's just an effect of a chemical reaction in my mind. I now know that the exhilaration and elation I feel during a manic episode are not real, but just an inevitable side effect of something that happens in my brain chemistry. So I account for that and always think about it when choosing my way of reacting to my environment and people around me. And it works. It's not perfect, sometimes I have weird social situations, but I don't really care - I am still me, all of my functions are still in working order, and I still have agency and free will - I am no longer dependent on drugs in order to feel in control of my life. It's all that maters to me now, and I'd much rather be dead than the zombie antipsychotic drugs had turned me before I stopped taking them.

This is not for everyone, this is not medically advisable, and if you don't have the inner strength, will and conviction for it, then you're better off remaining dependent on drugs and getting used to the idea that your sex drive will not come back as long as you keep taking the drugs you're taking now. Sometimes it's just the way it is if you choose to go that route.

And if you should ever consider getting off your meds and getting better by facing your demons head-on, through sheer willpower and self-determination (something that the medical establishment does not recognize as existing and valuable, not even psychotherapists acknowledge the importance of such an attitude) - if you wish to try it anyway, by yourself, no meds - know that you're completely on your own in this one. Everyone else will tell you not to do it, nobody will support your decision to go that route, and they will see the initial psychotic episode due to readjusting to the sudden lack of drugs as evidence that you're failing. It took me 3 days to pull through the initial break-down of cutting off my meds. And during these 3 days, people around me kept telling me that what I'm doing is wrong and dangerous. The same people are now nowhere to be found now that I am stable and functioning 100%, zero medication.

So yeah, like I said - not for everyone, a specific mind-frame is required for this and I don't know if you have it. The safe bet for you is to just accept that your sex drive is never coming back as long as you fear facing your issues drug-free, and then maybe end the relationship so that your bf can have the opportunity to be happy with somebody else.

/r/LowLibidoCommunity Thread