Mental Illness and Sex

When first I got sick, it was not on my mind. I was profoundly ill and the pain I was in preoccupied me. My first psychiatrist got me on my feet and I returned to school. I was young and had several brief encounters. Then I became an adult and the encounters were fewer between. I moved to a small town in northern Wisconsin to be near my parents. The romantic pickings were slim. I was widely known as a young man with mental illness who clung to his parents for support. I attended their parties but no one else’s. I was not popular in the party scene of the younger crowd. I hung out at the bar. One resident of the town said I did nothing else. That was my life, golf with my parents, a lackluster performance at my father’s lumber yard, and dinner parties at their home. I was protected by my mother. I was 35 years old. I had two or three sexual encounters in the twelve years I lived up north. When I came back to the Cities, after my father’s death, I grew up. Suddenly, I had to love the woman to consummate the relationship. My love life went further to Hell. I had sex once in the last seventeen years. I loved her. Right now, with a book being published, I am too busy for a girlfriend. After two heart attacks, I am no longer the total package. The girl would have to be very understanding.