Breakdown

It was while trying to cope with the loss of my first experience that I had a complete breakdown. This person triggered all of the potent, latent feelings I didn't even know existed. I was terribly confused and hurt and didn't understand what the hell was happening. I think the emotional entanglement that I had gotten myself into triggered memories of my father; he was a highly emotional person and believe it or not, I did love that about him. The depth of feelings my father could express, although highly inappropriate in a father-daughter situation, was very much like the depth I contained in my soul. And here I found someone with a similar depth of emotion. Combine that with the first sexual encounter I had in, I don't know how many years, and it was as though lightening struck me; I couldn't see straight for months. And then, of course, because it was meant to be temporary, it was gone.  And I spent the rest of this miserable time attempting to get it back.

What's past is gone, and I had to learn that lesson, but it took me to the end of myself, to the point where , as I wrote earlier, I went to the Breakthrough Program at Caron. I also attended a series of intense live-in workshops, that focused on psychodrama and breathwork, for about a 6-month period. I came back from these, what can I call them--I really have no words for it--older and wiser, it felt.  I had managed to connect the potency of the relationship with the hole my father's absence left, which was a huge discovery. I was able to feel anger and RAGE even for what had happened to me. But I was still battling the intense need for an even more potent sexual hit.

In all this, my husband watched over me, got pushed to his limit finally, and made me grow up.

He understood the sex addiction, and helped me through that, but what he wouldn't tolerate was the "love" part, and who could blame him. Had I been in his shoes, I would not have put up with as much shit as he did.