The Academy of Psychiatric Rehabilitation and Recovery offers a live webinar today on “Sexual Wellness in Psychiatric Recovery” at 2:00 pm EST. The program will “provide strategies to promote empowerment and create safe environments for sexual wellness within psych rehab programs. Course attendees will also learn to identify barriers that are encountered by people in recovery, including health risks and disparities related to sexual wellness.” An archived version will be available after.
Editor’s note: We do not know anything about this program; we are posting it out of general interest, and invite feedback here from anyone who participates.
I think when the stigma of mental illness is ongoing and unaddressed many people suffer a type depression that is imposed from carrying the stigmatizing label itself. I know that self image problems have been heightened for me as a result of the psychiatric labeling. Low self-esteem certainly isn’t an ingredient in healthy sexuality. The psychiatric label is like a ghost in the bedroom. I also suffer from physical impairments that may stem from medications I was given. I encountered sexually related traumas that became entangled in my mismanaged psychiatric care via assault by a psychologist many years ago. The scars of sexual assault are the same even if the assailant has a Doctorate or if he/she is Clergy member. Some people act like it is something different when educated people commit crimes. No. It is not. I have never been able to sleep in the same room with anyone else because of a traumatic event from my childhood. If I want to sleep, it has to be alone. I don’t like surprises either. There were actually things that could have been addressed in my care instead of giving me drugs that I was adversely affected by. Thank you for letting me comment on this sensitive topic.
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Antidepressants May Thwart Quest for True Love
Antidepressant drugs, already known to cause sexual side effects, may also suppress the basic human emotions of love and romance.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/02/antidepressants/
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The best part about getting off the drugs was having all my functions come back. It was like getting 10 years younger.
What I wanted to also add is that the sexual dysfunction caused by the psychiatric drugs leaves a void in a person. That void is often filled with anxiety and depression. When the drugs remove thoughts of sex and love something will fill in that time space in a persons thought life.
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wow, that’s a really interesting comment. The one about filling the void created by psychiatric drugs with something else. Thanks
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