Tears after sex
“Everything is kinda OK. And we have good relationships in general. And I like sex by default. But sometimes it happens when I get so overwhelmed after the intimacy that I want to huddle myself up in a corner and cry. I feel so depressed. Sometimes I even cry. What can it be?”
It can be post-coital dysphoria (happens to both people with penises and with vaginas).
In simple words, post-coital dysphoria (PCD) is when the person experiences the mood getting down, grim irritability, feeling of antipathy, apathy, sadness that occur after sex. Even after the sex which in any other case could have been called a quality one.
Quite often the problem lies in those “kind of”, “in general”, “by default”. In this very gap between what you think your attitude to a partner and/or sex in general is and how your mind really perceives those.
And here can be a serious mismatch. That mismatch and disharmony between “I feel” and “I think and behave as I think I should” leads to such an emotional rollercoaster.
Often PCD takes place in abusive relationships when the victim persuades themselves that “it isn’t that bad, everybody has ups and downs” but the body just refuses to let the partner approach. You feel danger this person brings into your life and while having sex this feeling is erased with all kinds of excitement and is replaced by the turning-on. But once you go separate, the initial attitude to the person comes back doubled. And that’s when you feel you need to get to the shelter as soon as possible.
Or it can be fear to get pregnant or to catch a certain disease that you repressed deep inside. But after sex, you inevitably feel panic and anxiety as there is a “what if” thought that keeps flashing in the back of your mind.
The same is about attitude to sex. You can manifest any kind of liberation and freethinking verbally but somewhere inside there is a hammered rusty nail of affirmation “sex is bad, filthy, dangerous”. When you get turned on, you don’t feel it and don’t see it. But once the excitement is gone, you run onto this nail on full speed and sense of guilt presses you to it harder and harder as you allowed yourself to do something so bad-filthy-dangerous.
Until I scare you to death, let me also add that tears after/during sex do not equal to post-coital dysphoria. It can be it and can be not.
PCD tears are heavy, bitter, sometimes desperate, with distinct irritation and desire to crawl to a safe distance and hideaway. The best thing to do is to bring it to the therapist to figure out what kind of knife you stab yourself with of your own free will every time you have sex.
Or these can be tears of catharsis when emotions are so intense and you feel so striking good and amazing that to burst into tears is a way to fly even higher. And inside of you is an entire ocean of silence, joy, and appreciation which you want to, and usually can express verbally to your partner.
It all depends on how these tears taste and what is the aftertaste they leave.
But it’s only you who can identify both of these.
