ADHD and risky sex behaviours

[rock-cock-jock]

I recently found out that I have ADHD and it definitely explains my deep dive into risky sex behaviors, namely:

- reduced impulse control, (oh this might be why I'm a slut)

-dopamine-seeking behaviors like hypersexuality, 

- connection with depression and chronic anxiety

- self esteem, risky and self destructive behaviors

- trouble with relationships

I've started doing various strategies like l-theanine supplements, deep belly breathing and daily exercise and I feel like I'm calmer, less stressed and more in control of my sluttiness. I still love sex but I feel a more grounded approach to it. Also, it strangely alters the effects t has on me when I smoke occasionally. Anyone else here dealing with ADHD and does it affect your sex life? How do you guys manage it?

[ErosWired]

You explain the various supplements, strategies and techniques that you’re using to manage the condition, but you don’t mention whether you’re actually under the care of a professional who is treating it, whether you take any sort of prescription to mitigate the worst of the impulsivity, and so forth. It might be helpful if we understood your circumstance a little more clearly. (But please don’t feel under any obligation to share more than you’re comfortable sharing.)

[drscorpio]

Moderator's Note: Things are fine at this point, but if we slide into a discussion of party drugs, this post will have to be moved. Be aware as you contemplate posting. 

[sundevil5]

Diagnosed at 30…20 years ago. Ive tried the medications. Party drugs never worked on me much, made me feel “normal”.  The upside is high sexual motor, ability to not cum while fucking for long periods and a reduced need for sleep. 
Relationships are a bitch and staying employed/interested in work are a challenge. 
Every day is a journey, just like everyone else, our thought process is just different. Read Hallowell’s books. They help with understanding and strategies. Good luck! 

[rock-cock-jock]

@sundevil5Dang, those are all the same for me too man! I agree totally on it being a journey. I've always known my thought process was different but kinda just chalked it up to 'ah well, that's just how I am, deal with it'. I kinda have a different perspective now in that I think about my body as more like a machine and that certain mental experiences like motivation, depression, emotions, focus, calm, etc boil down to physiological signals rather than some sort of abstract offshoot of my identity (less self recrimination that way). Probably not ideal in terms of living in the moment but in terms of lessening subjective bias and making better decisions, especially regarding self-improvement, that's where I am atm.

 

@ErosWired My ADHD realization was pretty recent- like just a few weeks ago. I was originally looking through quora and reddit for how people manage chronic anxiety and I stumbled on an ADHD post where the op's experience was basically exactly mine and there was a pic of ADHD traits (attached) and I was like, dang, that's me. I followed up and did the WHO ADHD self assessment and yup, sure enough, pretty consistent. So, I'm still doing my research atm and figuring things out and I haven't seen a doctor, gotten diagnosed or discussed meds. Honestly, maybe my ADHD is mild or something in certain respects but I'm ok with not doing meds and just doing some minor lifestyle changes - I've figured out my own way of doing and processing things and with the exception of relationships, I'm doing alright for myself. The point of the post though was not really to bitch about my newfound condition, it was because I really do think that the healthiness (or lack thereof) of one's dopaminergic (mainly, but inclusive of other related) system (eg impairment by ADHD) is directly tied to the likelihood of many risky behaviors (such as on this site). I think this is a thing even for ppl without ADHD eg NoFap, dopamine fasting in silicon valley etc. Honestly, sometimes am a bit scared of my consistent tendency to seek out and try increasingly depraved and perverted shit. Obviously I'm not condemning these behaviors - I've been wayyy too much of a piggy slut over the years  to even attempt that kind of self righteousness. But, I think a better understanding of the brain stuff that causes all this shit would at least lead to better self control. I dunno, I'm still trying to understand things

 

@drscorpio Understood. There's some relevance because the ADHD med adderall is structurally and functionally very similar to t. But, I don't want to push this topic to the backroom. No more mentions of party drugs

[ErosWired]

@rock-cock-jock -

Dealing with a condition where you have a chronic imbalance or deficiency in one or more of your brain’s neurotransmitters is like being in a boat in a storm at sea. You can learn skills to help keep the bow turned to the wind, and to keep from capsizing, and maybe even figure out how to navigate through the typhoon. But what you will always really need is to just get out of the weather and onto calmer water.

The storm in your head isn’t going to let up on its own. You may find lots of measures to help you cope with it, but the thing you should aim for is calming the underlying chaos so you’re living, not just coping.

I have my own issues with dopamine, a more or less thorough lack thereof, which manifests as depression rather than ADHD. The approach to the storm, however, is the same - regulation of the brain’s ability to produce, use, and dispose of dopamine in a normal and orderly way. A moderate dose of Adderall functions as a dopamine release agent, and a complementary dose of bupropion acts as a norepinephrine/dopamine reuptake inhibitor to make sure what’s produced stays put to get used where it’s needed. The classes of medications used therapeutically for ADHD have varying methods of action, but essentially they all attack the problem at its source from some angle with the intent of calming the storm.

My nephew’s ADHD is somewhat pronounced, and his behavior has been much as you describe, with consequences to go along with it. He is only able to maintain any kind of stability on his ADHD meds - if he goes off them, his impulsivity eventually gets the better of him no matter how hard he tries.

The graphic you shared of the iceberg is actually telling you more than you think. It’s telling you that there’s an unseen mountain of difficulty embodied in dealing with ADHD, and you’re not going to find an easy way to deal with it. It wasn’t hitting that little bit of ice on the surface that sank the Titanic - it was the running into the fucking ice mountain underneath.

You say you wonder whether your ADHD might not just be mild, but the behavior you describe isn’t what mild ADHD usually looks like. It’s not just a matter of talking about something and - oh, look, a squirrel! You’re talking about risky behavior, hypersexuality, self-destructive behavior, poor impulse control, and issues that result in problems maintaining relationships. That suggests something more complicated, and more likely to benefit from a professional evaluation.

(I, by the way, am neither a doctor nor a mental health care professional. I have, however, been one of the moderators for a mental health peer-support forum for over 15 years, and we have had many members with situations similar to yours. The first order of business is always an accurate diagnosis. Self-diagnosis can sometimes lead you very far astray. The second order of business is steering far away from using any psychoactive substance recreationally, at least until you’ve stabilized your chemistry. And for the love of God, no more methamphetamine - it’s neurotoxic to the dopamine transporters in your brain. Every hit of that shit does damage to your ability to access dopamine normally. If you insist on using meth, no amount of belly-breathing is going to do you any good.)

Edited February 15, 2022 by ErosWired

[rock-cock-jock]

Man, thanks for the thoughtful answer. Much more than I expected having posted such a boring topic in a hardcore bb sex forum. I'll consider seeing someone professional and not taking it so lightly but not until I do my own research and understand things well enough on my own; it's just how I do things. But honestly, in general I'm doing pretty well man, not just coping. At least in the very niche, protected field of academia, I'd consider myself doing pretty well in my day to day life. When it comes to relationships and sex, yeah, I do consider myself a little fucked up there and may need extra help for that. Alot of the ways I screwed up relationships in the past make a lot more sense now in the lens of ADHD, namely the hyperfocus in the beginning followed by mostly apathy after a while. I also kinda worry that I've gone too far down the rabbit hole of perverted shit that my brain can't go back to appreciating the small things of building a relationship. Whatever, one step at a time.

Man, it's so interesting hearing about your own dopamine experience. That's something I had looked into on my own journey as well. You may want to be careful about over-committing to a hypothesis though. You're assuming a lack of dopamine levels but that might not be the case. It's not like we have a lab test that's feasibly accessible to the public to verify for sure. There are also other factors that affect dopaminergic transmission such as the dopamine receptors (which may get downregulated from prolonged dopamine exposure) or perhaps complete loss of the dopaminergic neurons (such as in Parkinson's; have you had a weird walking gait lately?). This isn't my field of expereince by the way,  just my opinion of what I've read previously. So, the consequences of wrongly assuming low dopamine would be that if you for example start taking l-dopa or l-tyrosine (precursors for dopamine), they probably wont do shit. Depression especially is so multifactorial that it could encompass anything from excessive inflammation, an infection, a nutrient deficiency, physical head trauma etc etc which are separate from the dopamine system. Testosterone levels also rapidly fall with age (I'm not griefing you on your age, just constructive commentary), even guys in their 40s, and low levels of testosterone are strongly linked to depression (maybe get your T levels checked and if low, consider testosterone replacement therapy? it's a thing nowadays)

Understood on the meth. No worries but dude, no more mention of that. You're gonna get us kicked to the backroom

[ErosWired]

6 hours ago, rock-cock-jock said:

but not until I do my own research and understand things well enough on my own; it's just how I do things.

That’s legit, and how that’s how I roll myself.

6 hours ago, rock-cock-jock said:

I also kinda worry that I've gone too far down the rabbit hole of perverted shit that my brain can't go back to appreciating the small things of building a relationship.

The fact that you’re conscious that those small things can be appreciated says you can find your way back to them. My own rabbit hole has gotten very deep indeed, but I haven’t altogether become lost in it.  Not yet. Though I know what you’re getting at, and I can imagine a devolved point-of-no-return in my own mind. The scary thing is that when you’re standing at the edge of a cliff, a tiny part of you is always urging you to jump.

6 hours ago, rock-cock-jock said:

You may want to be careful about over-committing to a hypothesis though.

Heh. I’ve battled this treatment-resistant depression more or less nonstop for 35 years. Many hypotheses have come and gone, along with the doctors who proposed them. This dopamine hypothesis seems most workable because treatment based on it is the only thing that’s ever laid a glove on my condition. It seems to check the boxes as well as anything can, given that the state of scientific understanding of how the brain works is still largely at the level of educated guesswork. The psychiatrist who proposes it has treated me now for over a decade, and spends part of his time as a teaching fellow at a university, so in all I’m pretty comfortable with the hypotheses until something better comes along. We take what fragments of solid knowledge science can glean and use them to try to connect the dots to resolve a clearer picture. The more dots we get, the less crude that picture becomes. I always keep my mind open.

And don’t be concerned about the comments on methamphetamine. This is a clinical discussion about the pharmacological effects of psychoactive medication in the treatment of conditions of the brain, and the reference is one advocating abstinence. It does not offend the rules of this area of the Forum, as would comments encouraging and glorifying recreational use.

[hntnhole]

Very interesting issues raised here - I always learn something new, or more about something I already somewhat knew.  Thanks, rock-cock-jock & ErosWired.