I made this account a bit ago just to write this. I'm probably never going to use it again. Sorry in advance, this is going to be really long. I don't know how to make it shorter.
I've never really used reddit. I only found this site, and this community, earlier today when I was searching online trying to figure out if anyone else had ever felt the way I do right now. I've been reading posts here for awhile and I think it makes sense to write my own.
I'm doing it right now, in the middle of a Saturday afternoon, sitting at my kitchen table at 1:30 with a cup of coffee that's getting cold. House is empty for a couple hours. I guess that's why. I have nowhere else to put any of this. I can't tell my husband. I can't tell my best friend. now that I think of it, I can't tell anyone I know.
I'm 44. Married for more than twenty years to a really good man. He's kind, hardworking, still opens the car door for me most of the time. Three teens in the house. I was raised in a Christian family and I still go to church most Sundays. I'm a stay at home mom and I help part time with my husband's business, mostly from our home office, sometimes from a little office we have not too far from the house.
From the outside my life looks really normal. 5 year old SUV, making lasagna for the neighbors when somebody has a baby, is sick, or has a loss. Small group Bible study. Mahjong... you know, the whole thing.
I know I should probably be talking to a therapist about this instead of strangers on the internet. The problem is every therapist I know of is a Christian therapist, and every one of them is somehow connected to our circle. Somebody's wife, somebody's friend, somebody's cousin. If I picked someone nobody had recommended, people would wonder and I'd have to explain why. I can't explain why. So here we are.
About a year ago I got diagnosed with RLS (restless legs syndrome). It had gotten bad enough that I wasn't sleeping at all, and my doctor prescribed a medicine called Pramipexole. It worked. I was sleeping again. I felt like a person.
Then something changed.
My libido started going up. Not in a fun, "oh that's nice" kind of way. It just kept climbing, and climbing, and climbing. It got loud in my head and it would not stop. Before all this, my husband and I had sex maybe twice a month. He runs his own business, he travels a lot, short trips, a day or two at a time to other cities where his company has projects. When he's home he's wiped. I was usually the one starting things even before, and I'd made peace with it a long time ago.
But suddenly twice a month was a joke. I'd reach for him, he'd kiss my forehead, hug me affectionately, give me a reason why, as much as he'd love to, that night was not a good night, and apologize, and I'd lie there in the dark feeling like I was going to lose it.
So at first I tried to handle it myself. Which sounds like nothing but I want to be honest, that wasn't really something I had ever done. Maybe a handful of times in my whole life. The way I was raised, you didn't. So even that felt like a big deal to me. And I know I sound lame but to me its like tickling yourself. It doesn't quite work. So it didn't even help. It would take the edge off for an hour and then the hum was right back.
The first thing I did actually started by accident. I had to run an errand one afternoon in a place I knew I wasn't going to run into anyone I knew, and I'd thrown on something tighter than I'd normally wear out of the house, not even on purpose, it was just what was clean. Two guys at a gas station looked at me. Like, really looked. And I felt this jolt go through me that I hadn't felt in I don't even know how long. I sat in my car afterward kind of stunned.
After that I started doing it on purpose.
I'd put on something I never would have worn out of the house before, and I'd drive somewhere far, anywhere where I knew there would be men, just to be looked at. Home Depot, Bass Pro Shop, AutoZone, big truck stops at the edge of town, hotel bars near the airport... I built a secret wardrobe I hid deep inside my crafts closet.
We live in a pretty big city which made it easy. Twenty minutes from my suburban bubble and nobody knew me. No church people. No school moms. No neighbors. I chased that feeling like an addict. Because that's what I was.
Then it stopped being enough.
I'm not going to get into the details of what came next. Things with strangers, in parts of the city nobody from my real life would ever be in. And even things with a few people I really, really shouldnt have crossed a line with. Nothing illegal, before anyone asks. Just very wrong, and very stupid, and the kind of risky that could have blown up my marriage, my kids' lives, my husband's company, all of it, if even one thing had gone differently.
My husband would leave on a two day trip and I'd basically become a different person the second his car was out of the driveway, and put myself back together before he came home.
I still went to church. I brought food to the potluck. Cheered at my kids games. But I was living a parallel life where I didn't recognize myself.
This went on for 6 months.
At a medical checkup, I mentioned to my doctor kind of casually that my libido had gone way up. He must have heard something in how I said it because he started asking more questions. I hinted, literally barely hinted, that it had become a problem. His face changed. He told me to stop the medication right away.
A day later, the volume of madness started going down. Three days later I was me again. And the second I was me again, I was sick about everything I'd done.
I got on Google and looked up what had happened to me. Turns out compulsive behavior like gambling and out of control sexual impulses are a side effect of the medicine I was taking. Not even all that rare. To be honest, my doctor probably mentioned it when he wrote the prescription. It was in the paperwork (I looked), but I was so desperate to try anything that I probably didn't even pay attention. I did that thing where you assume bad things (and side effects) only happen to other people.
So here I am. I came out of the crazy nightmare unscratched without permanent consequences. Drug is gone. Marriage is intact. Husband has no idea. Kids have no idea. People in my life look at me and see exactly what they've always seen. Any way you see it I got away with it.
And here's the part that is really killing me. The part I can't say to a single person in my real life.
I MISS being her. I miss it every day. Heck. Every minute of every day.
I miss the rush. I miss feeling wanted like that. I miss the version of me who walked around like she was on fire and didn't think about consequences. I miss the freedom of thinking "hey, why not." I haven't felt anything close to that in twenty years, if ever, and I don't know if I ever will again.
I know it was the drug. I know that. It wasn't me. It was chemistry in my brain. I know. I know.
But the restless legs are coming back. The sleep thing is coming back. I'm going to have to go back to the doctor soon and figure out what to do, and I am scared. Scared it'll happen again. Also scared it wont, and I'll have to feel that loss all over again. Honestly I already feel it now.
I love my husband. I love my kids. I love my life. I would never want to hurt any of them.
But there's a woman who lived in me for six months that nobody else has ever met, and some nights I miss being her so much I can't sleep.
I don't really know what I'm asking for. Maybe nothing. Maybe just to put it somewhere that isn't only inside my head.
If you made it all the way down here, thank you. Sorry again for how long this got.