Health and medical information

When the reality of your loss sinks in, you may get depressed. Then you may get angry, sometimes directing that anger toward yourself, which creates guilt, shame, and decreased selfesteem. As you know by now, these psychological states inhibit sexual desire. Only after you successfully negotiate these stages of the grieving process can you truly accept your loss, put it in perspective, and get on with your life. Unfortunately, many of us get stuck in one of the early stages of grieving or, like Wendy, find one last obstacle blocking our path to acceptance.

We worked with Wendy for twelve weeks without seeing any change. Nothing we suggested enabled her to warm up to Bill and even the sexual fantasies she could conjure up were invariably interrupted by memories of Mark. There was a barrier that seemed inpenetrable, but on her thirteenth visit to our office, Wendy confronted it directly.

“Sometimes my memories are so clear,” she was saying. “It’s like my life with Mark was recorded on videotape and I call replay whatever I want to remember whenever I want to remember it. It’s almost like he’s still with me. It’s .. .” She stopped in midthought, her eyes widening. We could practically see a light bulb go on in her head. “That’s it, isn’t it? That’s why I don’t want to have sex with Bill.” She looked at us in amazement. “If I start a new life with Bill, I’m afraid I’ll lose my old life with Mark, all those memories that have kept him alive for me since his . . . since his death.”

As Wendy’s breakthrough insight reflects, when you lose your spouse or lover through death, divorce, or the breakup of your relationship, you eventually reach a point where you truly have to let go, finally severing the ties that connected you to that person. Letting go does not mean forgetting that person or what the relationship meant to you. Moving on does not mean you didn’t really love that person. Experiencing sexual desire and enjoying sex with a new partner is not an act of betrayal. However, if you consciously or unconsciously feel this way, you will not be able to accept and work through your loss—and ISD may be a way to make sure you don’t have to.

Suffering ISD after losing a loved one or ending a relationship is also likely to occur if:

• Deep down inside, you harbor hopes and fantasies about rekindling your old relationship.

• You cannot bring yourself to take the risk involved in beginning or maintaining a new relationship (which could bring a new loss and new pain).

• You have been “out of circulation” for so long that social and sexual situations fill you with anxiety and self-doubt.

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