Intimacy and Me

In my life I have had very few relationships with women. In my adolescence I had no idea of what to do when I received attention from girls. I can remember many instances in which I was given positive signals from a girl and I dropped the ball. I did have some success with women as a teenager even still.

I lost my virginity when I was 16. I was with a girl in the back of my grey Subaru station wagon. It was a one night stand with an attractive black girl. I parked the car by the water front in Burlington that night. When we were finished I dropped her back off down town.

My first intimate relationship with a girl was when I was 17. She was a beautiful blond. She and I met on-line through a social networking device called ICQ. She was 16 at the time and lived about 40 miles away in a town named Vergennes. This would be one of the very few intimate relationships I would ever have.

I remember being a young adolescent and having such high hopes that I would turn into a ladies man over time. I tried hard. I did not know what women wanted and still don't I guess. I was turned down by women again and again. This was very damaging to my ego.

In my adolescence I began thinking I was to skinny to get girls. In my minds eye existed an image of the type of guy girls wanted. I did not match that image. As my self esteem diminished I lost hope in finding love and intimacy. I turned away to things that satiated my desire to belong.

As a result of turning away things only got worse. I started going long periods of time without any sexual interactions with females. Periods of a year at a time were not uncommon. Slowly I sank further and further back from being the bright eyed outgoing person I was earlier in life.

In the summer of 2002 I was living on my own and for a short time had a girlfriend that I was intimate with. The sex didn't last. I was prematurely ejaculating and leaving her unsatisfied. This would be the last girlfriend I have had in my life. A couple of years ago I was living in Miami. I paid a prostitute for sex. This is the only sexual encounter I have since 2002.

It was in the summer of 2002 now 10 years ago that schizophrenia took hold in my life. I do not believe that it was when I first began experiencing symptoms. I do know that the debilitating effects of this illness became apparent in my life at that time.

My symptoms of schizophrenia lead me to be even more withdrawn than before. I lost hope of having a fulfilling sex life and stopped pursuing women all together. The grip of paranoia also contributed to my anti-social behavior. The end result was that schizophrenia compounded the effects of my lack of self esteem and visa versa. The lack of hope I have experienced has had me consider suicide more than once.

Here I am in 2012 and I wonder if any girls will ever like me. I am embarrassed about my sexual past and feel I could never be truly open about my past experience with women. Will I then ever have a women like me for who I am? I have questioned whether or not they will. Much of time I question whether or not I will be able to ever live a fulfilling life regardless of how I deal with and recover from my mental illness.