Healing Trauma for a Great Sex Life
Trauma is a highly isolating experience. If you survived a trauma, whether emotional, physical, or sexual, this can significantly alter your perception of safety and trust in every aspect of your relationships with others, including intimacy.
Trauma is stored in our bodies, so every touch may bring all of the terror, hurt, and agony you have experienced. You are aware that sex with your spouse is supposed to be a safe place. But it's also your most vulnerable place, and you can't tolerate being so exposed. If you pull the bricks out of your wall and lower your defenses, all of those memories, feelings, sensations, and anguish will resurface and overwhelm you. So, although you need your partner's touch and the warmth of their body to soothe you and help calm down your nervous system, the stakes are too high, so you choose to shut down and withdraw. Because of this inability to open up and intimately connect, you feel guilty, ashamed, and inadequate. You are conscious of the fact that you are causing pain to your partner, which only exacerbates your emotional turmoil., keeping your brain stuck in a trauma trap, believing that the world is not a safe place anymore.
But you don't have to feel this way. The journey toward trauma healing and recovery is long and painful, but possible. Couples counselling with an Emotionally Focused Couples Therapist (EFCT) might provide a solution and help you heal trauma and rekindle intimacy with your partner, allowing you to start feeling whole once again.
Different Types of Trauma and Its Effects on Sexuality
Abuse Trauma
People who survived emotional, physical, or sexual abuse often carry deep emotional scars that might manifest in their sexual experiences. Traumatic experiences such as physical or sexual abuse can leave you with heightened sensitivity, making physical intimacy challenging, as your body reacts defensively or shuts down in response to touch, even the gentle one. You may fear intimacy, have difficulty trusting your partner, or feel dissociated during sexual activities. You might also struggle with low libido or difficulty achieving sexual arousal and orgasm, as your body may unconsciously respond to touch with tension and fear. So, you become a withdrawer in your relationship dance – you turn inward, become quiet, and create emotional distance because the emotions behind your avoidant behaviour are powerful and too painful.
First-responders trauma
Firefighters, police officers, and paramedics are frequently exposed to distressing incidents, which can result in hyperarousal or emotional numbness. This increased vigilance or emotional detachment might make it difficult to be vulnerable with your partner, making closeness and intimacy challenging. Additionally, your constant work-related stress might result in problems such as erectile dysfunction or low libido.
Since you know the world is unsafe, you crave your partner more. However, because you don't know how to communicate your pain to them, your partner feels less safe, too. If you open up, you are going to feel it again. You will become too overwhelmed with flashbacks, memories, and painful emotions, and you don't want to feel all that again. Besides, opening up about your trauma and sharing the details of it might upset your partner, which you don't want either. So, you choose to shut down and avoid conversation. This numbness, however, starts creating a negative cycle in your life and your relationship, growing like cancer and taking over every aspect of your life, including sex and intimacy.
Combat survivor's trauma
Many combat survivors deal with PTSD, which can significantly impact their ability to connect emotionally and have a satisfying sex life. Flashbacks and triggers during intimate moments can make it difficult to want sex or feel aroused. You may also think that your spouse, who goes about their regular life while you are in combat, does not understand you, which can cause you to feel emotionally disconnected, making intimacy more difficult.
How Can Couples Counselling Heal Trauma for a Great Sex Life?
A damaged perception of safety is commonplace across all forms of trauma. Hence, healing trauma and reclaiming a healthy sexual life require you to acknowledge these deep-seated wounds and start feeling safe again. This often requires professional support. Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFCT) can provide a safe and supportive environment to start open communication with your partner, change your avoidance cycle, build trust, and learn to be vulnerable.
How can couples counselling help you recognize and break your cycle?
In most relationships, one partner is usually the pursuer, and the other is the withdrawer. People with PTSD tend to be the withdrawers, as avoidance is a big part of post-traumatic stress disorder. You may avoid recalling and thinking about the terrible experience, let alone discussing it with your partner, friends, and family. Because they weren't present. They haven't experienced what you have. And you are afraid that they will never understand. Going back to that dark, isolating place adds to your agony.
So, you don't go there. Trauma can do this, forcing you to build thick walls around yourself since it is the only thing you can do to keep those horrible feelings, memories, and sensations at bay. To protect yourself, you shut down and withdraw from your partner. This might make it challenging to be vulnerable and form deep, trusting bonds. Even if your avoidant behaviour is a desperate attempt to be seen and connect, it generally results in criticism, blame, and hurt, widening the gap between you and your spouse.
Or, you may become the pursuer, using sex and intimate connection to forget and cope with emotional distress. This may leave your partner feeling overwhelmed, resentful, or guilty, creating a distance between you two.
Through "restructuring interactions," during Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFCT), your therapist will help you see each other's pain. They will encourage you to discuss your feelings and experiences gradually so that you don't feel overwhelmed by your traumatic past. Step by step, you will learn to become more vulnerable and responsive to each other and engage with one another on a deeper level. For example, if you become distant, your partner will learn to recognize that you are shutting down because you are struggling. So, they will be less likely to feel abandoned, neglected, and hurt, understanding that something painful inside pulls you away. And this can shift your relationship dynamics for the better.
The role of couples counselling in healing trauma and rekindling intimacy
To heal from trauma and rebuild intimacy, you and your partner must talk to each other openly and honestly. Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFCT) can create a safe, nonjudgmental space where you both can feel heard to start this difficult conversation. Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFCT) aids in healing trauma by providing a secure space for couples to explore and express emotions, fostering understanding of attachment patterns, and rebuilding trust through empathetic communication. Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFCT) focuses on restructuring negative cycles of interaction, promoting emotional regulation, and encouraging shared coping strategies, essential for individuals with a history of trauma. Ultimately, Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFCT) creates a secure emotional base within the relationship, enabling couples to collectively address and overcome the impact of past traumatic experiences. Your Emotionally Focused Couples Therapist will help you understand and help each other through this healing process so that you can feel deeply connected and have the great sex life you've dreamed about.
How Williamson & Associates Counselling in Alberta Offering Couples Counselling and Trauma Therapy in Alberta Can Help Heal Trauma for a Great Sex Life
Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy in Olds, Alberta and virtually across Alberta can help you feel connected in your marriage and relationship!
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