Discussion: Female Sex Addiction and Mental Disorders

First, the good news: Sexual addiction is a legitimate mental health disorder. This is good news because for many years therapists were taught that there was no such thing as sexual addiction because sexual addiction does not necessarily have anything to do with drugs—either legal or illegal. In fact, it might not involve other people at all. The sex addict may be into self-stimulation, viewing pornographic materials (either hard copy or internet), or they may be strictly using fantasy as a means of escape. There are different types of sexual addiction, and there are differing degrees of the same. What it comes down to is that your sexuality is causing problems in your life, and you cannot stop even when you want to. This is sexual addiction.

Researchers have found that those who are being treated for sexual addiction are likely to have another illness besides their addiction. In fact, many patients being treated for mental illness also have some form of addictive behavior. This can be cigarette smoking, or it can be something else. The addiction is being used in some cases to mask the symptoms of a mental illness that causes more pain than the addiction itself does.

There are few statistics available because female sex addiction and mental disorders is a new diagnosis. This is true even though sexual addiction is not a new subject. It is simply one that was more likely to be classified as a form of OCD than as an addiction. Sexual addiction does carry overtones of OCD, but then so do most addictions. The thing that distinguishes sexual addiction from OCD and other mental illnesses is that it arises because of the way our brain responds to the stimulation of sex.

Like many other types of addictions, sexual addiction stimulates our brains to release dopamine. Dopamine is a chemical created in our brains that has an action very much like opiates. It can, and does, make susceptible individuals feel “high”. And in fact, people who are susceptible to such things are high, and react much like people who are high on other types of opiates. This can be used in an unconscious manner to mask the pain of mental illnesses such as depression, ptsd, and anxiety. Of course, it can also start as a way to mask the pain of a mental illness and then escalate to a point where it is causing more pain than the original diagnosis.

Another thing that makes the announcement that sex addiction is a legitimate mental health issue is that the health professionals who are most likely to come across people who may have it now posses a tool that will allow them to assess their patients and help them to treat both the mental illness and the sexual addiction. It is necessary when a patient has both an illness and an addiction that they be treated at the same time. Otherwise, the mental illness will cause the patient to have trouble maintaining their sobriety (however that is measured) and the addiction will undermine the treatment for the mental illness.

Women who present with sexual addiction can also present with a variety of mental illnesses as well. These can include depression, PTSD, anxiety, and other illnesses. Again, the presence of sexual addiction will complicate the process of treatment for the primary mental illness. This is because sexual addiction in women carries its own load of guilt, shame, and depression. In addition, because of the sexual addiction they may have put themselves in positions where even more abuse took place and they may have a series of mental illnesses which have been either caused or exacerbated by the sexual addiction. An instance here is a woman who because she suffered trauma as a child, becomes sexually addicted. To feed that addiction, she may have been in a situation where she was either raped in such a fashion that she developed PTSD as a response, or she may develop deep anxiety because she is putting herself in danger of losing everything she has if the truth about her sex life comes to light.

In either case, this woman started out with PTSD and possibly depression. Now, as a result of her trying to use sex as a mechanism to deny the pain she was in she is in even more pain. This cycle can continue until she either receives appropriate treatment or she dies as a result of the amount of pain she is now in.

This is why I said at the beginning of this article that the announcement that female sexual addiction is a legitimate addiction is a good thing. It helps to lessen the stigma associated with female sexual addiction and helps to increase the chances of women who need help receiving it.