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"Post coital tristesse" -- anyone else have it?

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"Post coital tristesse" -- anyone else have it?

Postby Auxiliary11 » Tue Aug 25, 2015 9:02 pm

I wanted to ask about this here as it seems like it could be relevant to this disorder...

There's this condition called Post-coital tristesse, which means you feel melancholy after sex or masturbation. It's a lot more common that people think, based on what I've read here and there about people feeling down after doing it, just not many people want to talk about it. I can't find any prevalence on it but I think that's because it's common (albeit to different severity) and thus not recognized as an official disorder.

Personally, I feel quite 'gloomy' and somewhat lethargic for a few hours after, usually if I leave it for longer, but not the " inexplicably saddness" that was mentioned in this Vice article about it: https://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/why-do- ... -an-orgasm. Wiki page too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-coital_tristesse. The Vice article goes quite in depth, touching onto Freudian views and stuff, might be worth a read if you're interested.

So why do I think Dysthymia might play a part in this? Well, unlike people with a baseline euthymic mood (normal) we have a baseline low mood. Because of this I think that when dysthymics feel elavated in their mood (due to sexual excitement or otherwise) we have more of a way to fall back to out baseline mood. Combine this mood-fall with our already low-mood and you get someone who feels pretty down after orgasm. Compare this with someone with a euthymic mood and they don't have as far to fall so the feelings of gloom may be less pronounced, or absent. Makes me wonder if some of the people online who mention this might have dysthymia. Of course, people without dysthymia do have this too, but maybe dysthymics have this mainly due to the low-mood instead of another reason.

In a nutshell; If you and your like feels dull, then you feel good for a short time, then you crash back down to how you were before... well you can see how that might hit you pretty hard.

Stuff like this would is somewhat irrelevant for a major depressive, as they have very little desire for this so no reports are out there that I can find (same for dysthymics btw which is why I'm asking this).

Other possible reason: enjoying sex/masturbation more than the next person (having a 'higher ceiling') and therefor also having further to fall. And if that person also has dysthymia, well then they would have a even larger way to fall...

So yeah, anyone else have it?
Another thing is, despite being an adult, I'm still fairly young and I do actually have a low-sex drive that can't be attributed to low test (more common in older men) or a hormone imbalance (more common in older women) so I guess dysthymia is to blame for this too. I've never understood how some people have the urge to masturbate multiple times daily or have the motivation to go out and seek sexual partners. Maybe others will relate to this too.
self dx. pdd-nos (level 1); covert narcissism w/ avoidant traits; social phobia; inertia.

INFP; dismissive/fearful-avoidant & highly sensitive person

"Life, a sexually transmitted, terminal disease."
"you built up a world of magic, because your real life is tragic"
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Re: "Post coital tristesse" -- anyone else have it?

Postby ceravide » Thu Dec 15, 2016 4:47 am

i think it could be thought of as simply any sadness resulting from sex/masturbation or an element of the two latter - i formerly had a strong sexual inclination (i'm not sure how to describe it - it wasn't particularly diagnosed, but its presence was certainly felt) and a gender dysphoria to go along with it.

those two didn't play well, and you can imagine masturbation was unconventional because i didn't want to... touch myself... and of course, i wouldn't really be quite happy afterwards, unless the dopamine rush actually positively affected me due to a current mood issue or similar

*edit - i guess that was older than i thought...
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