Several bloggers I know have written posts similar to this one. It’s been mainly women bloggers writing these and marking them private, which is understandable. Past lovers are listed, the situation(s) described, and maybe a note written to the person telling them what they think of said person now.
I’m not going to write a similar post because there’s no way I’d be able to remember how many men I’ve slept with, and it isn’t just because of the ECT. There were plenty: several one-night stands, “play dates” with guys who already had girlfriends, you name it. Even if I could remember the exact number, I’d need more than just my fingers and toes to count all the guys.
Most of this happened between the ages of 20 and 23. Go ahead and call me a slut. I suppose I was. All of this occurred before I was diagnosed with bipolar and borderline personality disorders (BPD) in 1994, when I was 24. One of the DSM-IV criteria for BPD is this:
4. impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating).
(All the criteria can be found here.)
Once I was in treatment and on the proper medication, this behavior stopped. Before that, I had the idea in my head that the more men I slept with, the more attractive I was. I grew up with both parents telling me I was ugly, and especially that my lips were too big. In Mrs. Monahan’s eighth grade reading class, this guy Mike drew a picture of a giant pair of lips with a teeny, tiny body attached to it and wrote my name on it. This drawing was passed around, and as you can imagine, elicited many snickers and “furtive” looks my way. I saw the picture. I did nothing about it.
To this day, I am very self-conscious about my lips, but at least I only have sex with my husband.