One of the addictions I never thought I'd have was sex and love addiction. OK, I never really considered myself an addict, but here I am. 

It's funny, because thus far in my life I have avoided relationships. Anytime someone asked me out, I'd make some sort of excuse to avoid them. I thought I was asexual. My first two crushes were on a very asexual, boarderline arrogant , unavailable classmate of mine and the second on a teacher, both of who were very unavailable to me. I was completely obsessed with both at separate times, and when I left the school of the classmate, I felt a deep pain that lasted for months.

Sexually, I didn't consider myself having any issues because I was asexual. Period. The one opportunity I really had in high school to have sex was with a lesbian, and it felt all kinds of wrong, because she was a very sick person. But one day she was put into an asylum and wasn't allowed to go outside for a month. I visited her once, and she was very off the walls, propositioning everyone for sex and continuing her flirting with me. The next time I visited her, I told myself I would have sex with her- just because she was going through a hard time and really, what would it hurt? As luck would have it, when I got there, she wasn't interested anymore. The reason why she wasn't was because she had had sex with my best friend! I remember feeling so distraught that I didn't have her attention anymore, and felt that my best friend had betrayed me. It's pretty funny now.

Last year I moved away from home, which was definitely needed. But I was moving alone, and to a new country, and I was scared. I found a guy my age who was doing the same thing, and he seemed to have a cool and an easy personage that I desperately wanted.  The first time he tried to have sex with me I acquiesced instantly, even though I had made a rule that I had to be in a relationship to have sex and I wasn't romantically or physically attracted to him. I was codependently attracted though, and that was enough. For a month I called him every night that I could, asking him to come over. I was very detached around him, because I never felt comfortable with him. I could never look him in the eyes when we f***ed. and I hated the fact that he tried to forge more of a relationship by inviting me to the movies, drinking, ect. There were so many warning flags indicating that I shouldn't be with him, but I ignore them. Then, he left. After a month and a half of knowing him, I was completely torn to bits. I wasn't suicidal, but the pain was horrible. I overate, avoided going out, and was very depressed.

 Then, continuing my infatuation for those who are unavailable, I obsessed over a man who was in a committed relationship. I was so sure that if he just f**ked me, just once, everything would be OK. I did everything I could to get attention from him, and got high when he said something good about me. Fortunately, I got into SLAA at this point, and was hopefully spared some embarrassment around this friend.

In the SLAA Big Book, in step 2, it says that we altered ourselves in order to get maximum addictive feedback. The way we dress, presented ourselves, interacted, ect. I said to myself 'Well, I'm a sexual anorxeic! How could this possibly apply to me?'

What I've begun to realize is that I avoided romantic and sexual situations to avoid engaging in life. I didn't want to risk rejection, to have people whisper about me or call me a slut. Instead I engaged in my own fantasy and masturbation life, and used this to deal with all my setbacks and pain. I sexualised everything in order not to feel. The only time I did flirt was with people I felt were 'weaker' than me, and wouldn't reject me, but were also too afraid to push the boundaries of whatever relationship we had. This backfired a couple of times and resulted in me rejecting a relationship, feeling hurt and misunderstood that someone would take my continuous flirtation to mean I was into them.

That feels very good to be off of my chest. Now I hope I can find a sponsor  with whom I trust and can rely in, and really start reaching out.