Category: Conscious Sexuality

Bisexual Men and Risk-Taking Behavior

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  A study by Zhang (a geneticist at the University of Michigan) and Song found different genes drive bisexuality versus other same-sex sexual behavior. Zhang and Song mined a DNA database of some 450,000 people in the United Kingdom. They concluded that the genes underlying bisexual behavior are distinct from those driving exclusive same-sex behavior and may be intertwined with a propensity for taking risks.

Let’s first address the topic of risk-taking. Studies of twins have suggested that risk-taking traits may have a genetic component. The researchers found that bisexual and gay men may share some genetic variants, but the behaviors are genetically distinct from each other. They also found that bisexual behavior was genetically correlated with a propensity for taking risks in bisexual men, but not in bisexual women. Zhang and Song noted that about 23% of that behavior seemed to be related to genetics, and the environment (which seems to be missed in most studies) may play a bigger role in determining these kinds of traits. According to DSM 5, risk-taking describes a tendency to engage in reward-seeking actions despite the possibility of negative consequences. Research suggests that risk-taking in bisexual men may include unprotected sex (which we should always consider and respect) and promiscuity, which, in my opinion is a negative term for freedom for sexual exploration. It is also interesting to note that risk taking is one of the impairments or traits involved with borderline personality disorder (BPD). In previous posts we noted a positive correlation between bisexuality and BPD which may make it a confounding variable.

So what can we take from this connection between genetics and bisexual behavior? Very little. To say risk taking is a genetic trait of bisexuality is a big stretch. Some critics note that this is a study of sexual history, rather than sexual identity. Most of the people in the data base are more than 50 years old and grew up during a time when same-sex sexual experiences were illegal and frowned upon by society at large. This tends to present a negative view of bisexuality as some kind of genetic disorder. It is more likely that the environment may be a more dominant factor of BPD and may pertain to an older generation where men had to take risks because open gay sexuality was often forbidden. Take into account that many of these bisexual men were married or in relationships with women and perhaps had children, and we begin to see the possible causes of at-risk behavior. However, the reluctance to use protection may be an entirely different factor. Coming from the AIDS generation it may be related to suicidal tendencies or some form of self-punishment for engaging in what many religions referred to as sinful behavior.

So what is the positive spin that I can generate because I am just a blogger and can take wild stabs without empirical evidence.

  1. Bisexuality may have some genetic connections but there is no bisexual gene per say. There may be a combination of genes that may result in a genetic predisposition, but they have to be triggered by factors in the environment before they are activated.
  2. This is not a curse. Bisexuality is not a personality disorder and risk-taking behavior does not have to be an impairment or trait of a personality disorder. This genetic combination may also allow us the freedom to be who we want to be and do what we want to do.
  3. If we are bisexuals with BPD we should seek psychological help. But we do not rely only on cognitive therapy which attempts to change how we think. The combination of bisexuality and BPD goes much deeper than just thought and behavior. It involves powerful drives and when combined with environmental influences from religion and family, it can be devastating. We may need extensive empathic therapy to get to the basis of our negative feelings so we can be free to enjoy the power of our bisexual passions.
  4. If we are in a heterosexual relationship, we have to be honest with our partner. Secrecy can literally kill us leading to terrible guilt and suicidal behaviors. We now live in a much more compassionate society where relationships can be more open and honest. We can open up to our partner, let them know we love them, and want to maintain the relationship. But we let them know that we also have these desires for same sex relationships. We make sure we are prepared for the consequences.
  5. Be honest with ourselves. Bisexuality, whether it is genetic or has been forged my environmental influences or a combination of both, it is our reality. We can gain intense pleasure from same sex relationships. We can find friends with benefits that enrich our lives. We should not settle for less. And we always engage is safe sex practices out of respect for our partners and ourselves.

Bisexual behavior genetically tied to risk-taking, controversial DNA analysis find. Rodrigo Pérez Ortega. 3 Jan 2024 (https://www.science.org/content/article/bisexual-behavior-genetically-tied-risk-taking-controversial-dna-analysis-finds Epub 2024 Jan 3.

, Jianzhi Zhang and Siliang Song..Genetic variants underlying human bisexual behavior are reproductively advantageous. Sci Adv 2024 Jan 5;10(1):eadj6958.

Bisexuality, Nonbinary Nature, and the Human Heart

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(The thoughts in this post are in no way meant to be critical for other people’s sexual experiences. They are simply part of my own life story.)

Bisexuality is much more complex than just the physical structures and chemistry of the brain. I also experience a variety of emotions such as joy and contentment when sex involves love, and confusion and self-doubt when I explore my sexuality through casual sex. After sex I often question things and wonder how it all fits into my life story and my love relationship with life-partners and family. I have an open relationship with my present life-partner, but I still have to deal with the feeling that my mate is the special someone who is at the core of my thoughts and feelings about sex and love relationships.

It is through our life-partners  that we may be involved in the production of offspring and the creation of a family. In my own experience, by being a father, I was able to  enter into a whole new dimension of love and sexuality. In my first marriage, when the children were younger and needed my contributions as a father, I kept my urges basically under control except for a few failures where I simply felt overpowered and ignored the possible consequences. However, once the children were grown up and were independent solid and productive human beings, all hell broke loose.  It resulted in my marriage break-up which I have regretted to this day. I was unable to let the love of my soulmate keep me from same-sex impulses. In my mind I could probably tell you why this had to happen, but I still view it as my own personal failure. My love was not strong enough to control my sexual impulses.

In spite of what I have deducted rationality, being nonbinary has had very little to so with my sexual urges. Being nonbinary simply means I do not adhere to widely accepted gender roles. I am free to form intimate relationships with both males and females, with or without sex. I am neither strictly male or female in the way I think and feel. I may be a combination of both or simply have socially evolved beyond restrictive standards established by society. I can experience freedom in gender identity switching from male to female based on my feelings or sexual expressions.  The female identity part of me may involve specific behaviors associated with being female like skills in social interaction and emotion regulation, while the male part of me might be involved in protection and providing. However, it is much more complex than that. At the root of it all is my desire for love and the need to overcome the complications placed on me by societal norms, morals, and expectations. In order to love myself I need to love being me and have the freedom to love whomever I want to love.

Sex for me has to be connected to love. After sex I need to linger in the moment to develop more love for myself and the one I am with. The male part of me uses dopamine and endorphins to pursue sex and enjoy body and brain pleasure. The female part of me uses serotonin after sex to help reinforce feelings of trust and relationship. Oxytocin is very powerful in my female side to help me sexually bond with my lover, so I have to be very careful with whom I have sex. Bonding means I have to give part of my emotional heart to my lover and receive part of my lover’s emotional heart in return. That means I have to connect at a deeper level of sex than casual hook ups. That means I have to have relationship before starting the sexual bonding process.

Yes, because of my nonbinary nature, I seek more intimacy with my partner with more touch, hugs, kisses, and perhaps sex. I explore the depths of love with my partner and share all those delicious feelings. Above all, I will never stop loving myself regardless of what I say or do. This love for myself lets me respect and appreciate the power of sex.  This love lets me respect and care for my present wife and any future potential sexual partners.

Bisexuality and the Human Mind

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This next topic is very personal to me. There is no other topic that has caused me more concern and grief. I identify myself sexually as bisexual and gender as non-binary. That is not a problem – that is just my reality. But the problem then is how to keep this in balance, especially sexually. Specifically, how do I control my sexual urges that long to connect sexually with other males and females. Even more specifically I need to know if it’s okay to engage in hooking up just for the sexual experience which I have done occasionally throughout the years but not without concern and remorse. I also need to find clarity and consensus about open relationships. My life-partner and soulmate has encouraged me to exercise my gay side but I do not feel right about doing so.

From a strictly physical view,  I simply have sexual urges, the need for touch and sexual gratification. Some of this urge is part of my biological and chemical expressions connected with procreation. Beyond that I enjoy the wholesome intimacy I experience with my female partners, but I also enjoy the wild excitement I experience with my casual male partners. This is very confusing for me. On one hand I love the sensations that hit the pleasure centers of my brain when I engage in sex with someone new, but then I get all tangled up in in social and guilt issues. It can be very painful.

There is some evidence that my gender identity and sexual orientation are predetermined by prenatal exposure to testosterone and estrogen as well as to pheromonal input from the mother during the fetus stage. Of course, pheromones are obviously a major driver in all animals but not truly understood when it comes to humans. I can tell you it is real; I experience it at the subconscious level. As you know, the olfactory nerve connects directly to the frontal cortex of the brain, and it is through my sense of smell that I experience the pheromones of both females and males and am physically drawn to them. The heterosexual part of me includes my biological desire for procreation and bonding. The same-sex part is strictly a powerful urge for body-to-body connection coupled with sexual gratification. It can be a powerful physical high.

            Family and twin studies indicate that genes play a role, although no specific genes have been identified. It is through the activation of groups of genes from stimuli in the environment that has determined my bisexuality and nonbinary gender and my responses to sexual attraction that I have experienced during various stages of our life. My impulses have a lot to do with sexual regional connectivity and the differences in brain connectivity patterns between the presence of both male and female identification clusters within my brain. Having characteristics from both sexes impacts my sexual predisposition. A lot of my responses are governed by my body’s reaction to sexual attraction. Once my body is charged up for sex, it is very difficult for me to respond rationally.

My bisexuality and nonbinary gender identification has had a profound impact on my brain structures, rational functions, and neurochemistry. The mental component of sexual attraction for us bisexuals includes a range of factors such as sexual curiosity, sexual sensation seeking, and sexual excitability. When it comes to my nonbinary pursuits I have the qualities of both male and female brain functions. As a male I have a higher density of connections in the amygdala, which involves behaviors like aggressive pursuit for mating. The male side of my brain tends to be more efficient to lateralize and compartmentalize which has the advantage of making me more task-focused with less concern for consequences. The female part of my brain has a larger hippocampus for human memory and the maintaining of a life story. My female brain has more nerve connections with constant cross-signals. It takes in more so it tends to see how the sexual experience fits in with the bigger picture of life and family.

            The amygdala is often associated with fear and anger; however, it is also required when I work for rewards such as sexual pleasure and orgasm. For my male and female combined brain, the amygdala activates the neurochemicals; however, dopamine is initially much stronger in my male functions. When dopamine is released in my male brain, I immediately feel a sense of temporary pleasure, sexual arousal, and motivation to pursue resulting in a genital response. My female part of me, however, is slow in getting started but wants to prolong the experience. After orgasm dopamine levels decrease and serotonin levels increase. Serotonin usually decreases sexual behavior but creates a long-lasting feeling of happiness or well-being. Oxytocin is a hormone and a neurotransmitter that is sometimes referred to as the love hormone. It is more dominant in my female side then the male. The male part of me has had its rush and is ready to move on. In the female side Oxytocin levels increase during hugging, orgasm, and post orgasm and are associated with feelings of empathy, trust, and relationship-building.

As you can see, being bisexual and nonbinary have a strong clashing chemical iresponse making me sexually aggressive but much more sensitive. When it comes to casual sex and hooking up, the male part of me is satisfied and is ready to move on, but the female side of me wants to prolong the post orgasm experience and may feel that something is missing after casual sex. My mind also has to weigh social norms and expectations with my desire for sexual pleasure. This often leads to feeling of regret, shame, and guilt.

Alas, poor me, however, I am not a slave to my mind and body. There is part of me that can rationalize and control my impulses. I have to rely more on my heart for the pursuit of love for self and for the people with whom I have sex. Casual sex may meet my body and mind needs but it can be so much more. I need to follow my heart and seek more intimacy and deeper relationships.

Wives of Bisexual Men – Part 2

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The following is an except from the book my dear wife has written called When Life Has Other Plans. In it she describes her feelings when I told her I was bisexual:

 

Lawrence and I emailed regularly and he lamented about his situation. We also occasionally talked on the phone when he was out of the house. Because the reception was so poor where he lived, it was more stressful than helpful. The decision to start a new life was his. I had decided I was going to be fine one way or another. No more screaming at the Universe in my hallway…

Then Lawrence announced he would come back for the month of September and live with his daughter while we would clarify things. I was delighted because his efforts told me that he was getting serious about moving forward. After I had picked him up from the airport, we went for a walk along a beautiful beach. In this romantic ambiance he announced that he had a gift for me and pulled a little white box out of his pocket. I started to panic because I wasn’t yet ready for the big question. To my relief I found a beautiful little necklace with a shiny blue glass heart. “The colour reminded me of your eyes!”, he told me. I was touched.

On our walks I found out more about bisexuality which is the most secretive of gender issues. Bisexuals often live a normal life on the outside to satisfy their need to fit into society, yet have to hide their same-sex tendencies. When Lawrence’s guilt feelings created a deep depression and he confessed to his wife on the suggestion of his therapist, she immediately divorced him. It broke up his ‘perfect’ family life and, at the time, cost him the love of his children.

His life was in shambles, and after trying to continue working in his career, he gave up his teaching job and went to Costa Rica for a few years to find inner peace. This stay was the beginning of his ‘pruning’ stage, of letting go of the past and making room for new experiences to show up.

It seems that many of us have to go through some drastic shakeups first (from chaos to order), so we can reach a higher level of consciousness. When I was able to see the parallels between his and my life, my heart really understood. I, too, had had to break up my family to become free to follow my path.

 

For more information about how my wife handled the situation I recommend you read her book:

 

 

You can check out her website at

Home

 

Why Do Things Always Go Wrong – Part 2

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Due to the high positive correlation between bisexuality and Borderline Personality Disorder, we are attempting to get a better understanding of the pathological traits listed in the DSM 5 and how they affect our lives as bisexuals. 

Last week we looked at the pathological personality traits in negative affectivity related to  anxiousness, specifically  worry about the negative effects of past unpleasant experiences and future negative possibilities. it was a pretty bleak picture but it does not have to end there. Today we will look how to beat this thing.

  1. First, we have to deal with the anxiousness.  We seem to be doomed to have a never ending procession of anxiety disorders because we cannot stop thinking about all the negative things that have happened to us in the past, and worrying about what might happen in the future. . So how do we fix that? Quite simple, we stop focusing on all the negative thoughts from the past. When they occur we stop the cycle in our mind and say, “No, I am better than that. That is in the past. There is no past. There is only my thoughts about the past and I will control my thoughts. I will refocus on the present and find something positive to view today.”
  2. We often view our bisexual experiences as failure to control our impulses.  We have to come to the point where we accept our bisexuality. This was not a failure and let’s not even consider it as an impulse. It is a decision we made to seek and enjoy sex. Period. No judgement necessary. We simply give our bodies permission to enjoy something beautiful and let it enrich our minds and souls. This is who we are. This is a gift from the universe to be enjoyed. It is a precious opportunity to have physical and emotional contact with another human being.
  3. However, even though casual same-sex sex has its place, let’s not stop there. Let’s find gay or bisexual people that we can relate to on a human level, as fellow human beings. Let’s enjoy the whole person and take our focus off their sexual organs.
  4. We tend to try to suppress our desires because we either do not want to face them or the consequences, or we are afraid we will be exposed leaving us to deal with shame and guilt. If that’s the case, it’s time to face the reality of our situation. We can not keep suppressing our natural wants and desires. That may mean seeking an agreement with our life-partner about our needs for same-sex relationships within the partnership or we may have to face the fact that we have perhaps changed and our needs are now different. We may have to consider leaving the partnership.
  5. The third alternative is to go on expressing and enjoying our sexual needs but keeping them separate form out partners. The truth is not always the best solution; often it just leads to really hurting someone else. However, we can’t let “the  secret” destroy us. We have to come to terms with when and how we enjoy this part of our lives, give ourselves a conscious permission to have these experiences,  and still meet the wants and needs of our partners for love and companionship. Again, the guilt and the shame are all in our minds. We can control our minds. We simply tell our mind that we will not feel shame or guilt. We reject it.

Bisexuality, BPD, and Constructive Psychology

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We continue to explore the correlation between bisexuality and Borderline Personality Disordfer. W e have pretty well come to the end of the road regarding the DSM5 as the impairments and traits seem to be a rehash of the same old, same old.  So let’s leave that behind for a while and look at our situation more constructively.  Instead of examining our pathological tendencies let’s focus on building a life that we would truly love to live.

To read more: https://lawrencejwcooper.ca/borderline-personality-disorder-and-constructive-psychology/

 

 

I Guess I’ll Be a Doctor – Part 2

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My Sad Story

BPD Impairment 5 – Instability in goals, aspirations, values, or career plans

 

Up until the summer after my grade twelve graduation, I had planned to be a priest. Part of this was, of course, to please my mother who was convinced that I was special because I was the seventh son, and being special, of course, meant the highest calling, the priesthood. I also attended an all-boys Catholic high school where I was taught by priests (with the exception of my Physics teacher who was a lay person). About twice a year, Father Gocarths would come around and interview and counsel and encourage the boys who had hopes of becoming priests. Because of my near perfect grades he informed me that I would spend one year in a novitiate in Ottawa and then move on to studies in Rome. However, it was during my Grade Twelve year that I discovered women.

Read More at: https://lawrencejwcooper.ca/i-guess-ill-be-a-doctor-part-2/

New Year’s Resolutions for Bisexuals

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shirt-tie-w-out-white-background-final-13 The best advice I can give regarding New Year’s Resolutions is, “Don’t do it!” If you are striving and hoping to change your sexual behavior, “Stop trying!” Why? Because our brains do not work that way.
       Let me explain. Our brains are designed to avoid pain and seek pleasure, and seeking pleasure is ten times (I made that up) more powerful than avoiding pain. But it does not stop there. There are two kinds of pleasure: the activation of the quick route through the pleasure system of the brain, and the process of setting goals and achieving them.  They both go through the same pleasure system, but one is short term and leads to pleasure, and the other is long term and leads to happiness. 
       So what is the difference between pleasure and happiness? Pleasure is easy to define; it is biological; more specifically, it is chemical. It has two purposes: to excite and then to soothe, thus completing the pleasure circuit of the brain. Our bisexual brains have decided that the quickest and most powerful way to activate the pleasure system is gay or lesbian sex. This is how it works. We are feeling down and need a fix; we need to get a high to escape the low. All drugs work this way including that wonderful hormone mix of testosterone, estrogen, oxytocin, epinephrine, and adrenalin. Together they not only  excite the body, but they  also serve as neuromodulators to excite the brain. Now the combined hormone/dopamine rush is on with the goal of a pleasure bath through sex. There is one other thing to consider. Having sex with our life partner is great and usually provides a high; however, if we are really down, we may need a greater high. This is where going out on the hunt, or to a lover on the side, comes into play. You see, the novelty of finding a new partner or the feeling of crossing a forbidden boundary actually adds to the charge – namely a more intense flow of dopamine and a greater adrenalin rush. At this point, desire becomes an obsession, an intense dopamine and hormone flow that can only be alleviated by accomplishing our goal – new and exciting sex. Unfortunately, there is usually no soothing after we literally come back to our senses. There is usually pain in the form of guilt and shame. Oops, no soothing. Back to anxiety.
       Now let’s look at happiness which is much more complex and almost impossible to define because it means different things to different people. The closest we can get to universal agreement on happiness is intimacy. This is where sex with a life partner comes in. We look across the room and see our lover and our neurons begin to fire. We are not likely looking just for a fix. Usually, the goal is intimacy. Whenever we feel a little down or we have a hard time seeing the connection with our partner, within ourselves, with life, the world (whatever), we can connect all those dots with sex with our partner (a very clever design because it has the potential to create one more human being and save the human race one more time). This type of sex in usually slower, seeking connection as well as pleasure. This combination of connection and pleasure creates intimacy and intimacy is a form of happiness. To celebrate this reconnection with our partner, our world, and our self the brain now releases a flow of serotonin creating a soothing type of contentment and quiet pleasure; in other words, happiness. The circuit is now complete.  No anxiety.
       Which brings us back to New Year’s Resolutions. They simply do not work. Our brain will refuse to abandon its favorite sources of pleasure without a very good reason. So all the “I will stop” resolutions are worse than useless. They create anxiety, and unsoothed anxiety is a form of pain which the brain wants to avoid. These types of resolutions are doomed to fail, and repeated failure is another form of anxiety and pain. What about the “From now on I will…” resolutions? In this case, the brain has another objection. You see, the pay-off or reward has to be perceived as attainable and perceived as a significantly greater source of pleasure. In other words, we have to firmly believe that being “happy” will be a greater reward than the sought after pleasure. The second factor is that we also weigh the amount of effort (employed anxiety) it will take to achieve the goal. If the cost is too great the brain will not engage the dopamine achievement pleasure system. It takes a strong dopamine charged circuit to change a behavior, and the brain simply does not want to expend the energy it takes to prune and develop the circuits needed to change the behavior.
So what is the alternative? Here are my five suggestions for bisexuals:
  1. We do not make any New Year’s Resolution. We do not try to change our behavior. Instead, we aim to evolve into higher human beings. If we can learn to appreciate and enjoy who we are, we will be “happy”, and as long as we are happy, we will no longer have out of control anxiety, and we will no longer have the need for a sexual high to counterbalance our emotional lows.
  2. We can do this by awakening our higher self. It takes no effort, so our brain will be happy. We simply change our paradigm. We simply choose to accept ourselves and love ourselves just the way we are, with all our flaws. This includes our sexual orientation and our sexual desires and behaviors.  They are what they are. There is no blame there is no shame.
  3. We continue to seek pleasure. It is a wonderful gift from the universe. Whenever we have sex we enjoy every minute of it. Every smell, every touch, every taste, every “I love you”, and how beautiful our partner is. We plan to indulge all our senses. No blame no shame. After sex, we stick around and come down together, thus releasing all our tensions and enjoying our body’s serotonin bath.
  4. We do not stop at pleasure, we seek happiness.  This means getting rid of guilt and shame once and for all. If we have a partner, we work things out together. It will mean honesty and compromise. If we cannot work it out, we may have to make plans to part. Whatever path we choose, we have to free our sexual behavior from the guilt and shame pattern. Sex was meant to be enjoyed and to be a part of our pleasure and happiness circuits. It is too powerful a force to have working against us, and it is too precious a gift not to be enjoyed.
  5. We seek deeper and deeper levels of intimacy. Good sex with a partner leads to bonding, intimacy, contentment, purpose, and to feelings of control rather than helplessness. It establishes a firm base. It is that one guiding principle that our brain can understand. It is willing to try anything, any new adventure or risk as long as it adds to its feelings of intimacy and contentment.

Borderline Personality Disorder and Episodal Dysphoria

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This is the ninth in a series on BPD and Bisexuality

Today we want to take a look at the sixth symptom  for Borderline Personality Disorder on the DSM IV, namely: “affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g. intense episodic dysphoria, irritability or anxiety, usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days)”. In the DSM 5 the symptoms are covered in pathological personality traits in the domains of negative affectivity, emotional liability, anxiousness, separation insecurity and depressively. Each of these seven traits (anxiety is the only trait specifically listed in both) deserves to be treated individually; so today we will begin with episodic dysphoria.

Episodic refers to episodic memory which is our life story that we play over and over again in our minds. It includes major events, places, and experiences. Dysphoria on the other hand is when everything in life seems to be falling apart, like the world is working against us.  This seems to suggest that our life story itself is filled with feelings of continuous failure, shame, hopelessness and helplessness.

Speaking from my own experience, I simply ignored my life story until I could no longer hide from the pain that was always there just below the surface. For many years, I survived by will, religion, and the comfort of my marriage and family. I buried my past. All my accomplishments including numerous awards, athletic achievements, and three university degrees I simply looked at as failures because they lacked perfection and only perfection would allow me to feel proud of myself.

After I crashed, I finally looked at my roots and came to terms with the cause of my episodic diaspora. I began to see my accomplishments as amazing achievements overcoming the odds of being born in poverty to a single parent mother with nine children.  But above all, I was able to look at my self and see that I had a beautiful mind and an even more beautiful soul. I began to truly live and enjoy the life I had been given.

I was also able to accept my bisexual gender not as something that added to my shame, but as a tremendous gift allowing me to make intimate connections with both men and women. 

My five suggestions for bisexuals:

  1. We need to be more gentle with ourselves.
  2. We con rewrite our life story. We can  take a look at the events in our life with a new perspective. We can visit things that are equated with shame and and remorse and see how we did the best we could under the circumstances. There really is a silver lining.
  3. If there are areas that still stand out, we can forgive ourselves. It’s okay to make mistakes as long as we learn from them.
  4. We can learn to see ourselves as beautiful creatures with beautiful minds and beautiful souls.
  5. When we reshape our story, we can put in positive outlooks throughout the years, total self acceptance in the present, and dream about the possibilities of a bright future. 

Impulsivity, Borderline Personality Disorder, and Bisexuality

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SHIRT & TIE [small] (final)(This is the fifth in the series on the relationship between bisexuality and Borderline Personality Disorder [BPD]. In previous blogs, we have established a link between BPD and bisexuality, and we have looked at three symptoms for BPD on the DSM4: symptom 1 –  fear of abandonment, symptom 2 – unstable relationships, and symptom 3 – identity disturbance or poor self-concept.)

Today we want to look at symptom 4, which is “impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., spending, sex, Substance Abuse, reckless driving, binge eating”). The DSM5 places impulsivity under pathological personality traits and under the subcategory of disinhibition. Some of the words used to define impulsivity are: “Acting on the spur of the moment; difficulty establishing or following plans; and self-harming behavior under emotional distress”.

When we look at the literature, stress seems to be the primary factor leading to impulsive behavior[1], especially among women with BPD[2]. A review of the literature by Gagnon[3] identified two neuropsychological diagnostic criterions: a preference for immediate gratification and discounting for delayed rewards, and a failure to properly process feedback information and to monitor action in decision making.

So what does this mean? In my case, stress was a huge factor in my life. Whenever I felt overwhelmed by circumstances, I would seek out excitement and pleasure, and preferably a combination of both. My outlet was gay sex. It was the only stimulus that could bring my anxiety to a climax and allow by body to get into the parasympathetic system again. This was the only way I could relax for a few moments and build up enough courage to go on living. During this time, I would shut down all my evaluation processes. I even preferred unsafe sex in unsafe places. It was like I needed the extra excitement provided by the dangerous behavior and perhaps I was unconsciously seeking death to end my anxieties once and for all. There was no thought of consequences. I just needed my fix.

Neurologically what was happening was that my brain was not necessarily making bad choices; it was making the only choice available at that time. It was either crash and die or take action to activate the pleasure center of my brain and restore the chemical balance needed to survive. So my impulsive behavior was very specific. It was the only area in my life that I took chances. For most people with BPD, impulse might be in other areas of risk but the process is probably the same. For us bisexuals with BPD, I would wager that most of our impulsive behavior is related to sex.

Here are my five suggestions for bisexuals:

  1. We need a life strategy for dealing with stress. What works for me is  usually a quiet time in my gardens, or a nature walk through the forest, or  some time on my bench by the sea. The key is to find our special place and plan to use it as needed.
  2. If we have difficulties with non-stress related impulsivity, we can try to build in a buffer between thought and action. We can learn to develop a warning sign system and employ it on a regular basis. We can practice asking these questions: Is this something I really want to do? Is it safe? Can I live with the consequences?
  3. We can try to take our partner into consideration. The second level of questioning should be to ask if our actions will harm or emotionally hurt someone else, especially someone we love and share our life with.
  4. We may wish to spend time with our partner or with a bisexual friend, trusting them with our desires, asking them for help in evaluating our  impulses,  and building our thought and behavior control mechanisms.
  5. Impulses are not necessarily bad. We have been given a spirit of adventure. If is safe, does not cause harm to anyone, and we can live with the consequences, we are free to enjoy.

 

[1] Cackowski, S.; Reitz, AC; Kliendienst, N.; Schmahl, C.; and Krause-Utz, A.; Impact of stress on different components of impulsivity in borderline personality disorder. Psychol Med. 2014 Nov;44(15):3329-40. doi: 10.1017/S0033291714000427. Epub 2014 Mar 6.

[2] Aquglia, A; Mineo, L.;Rodolico, A.; Signorelli MS; and Aquglia E. Asenapine in the management of impulsivity and aggressiveness in bipolar disorder and comorbid borderline personality disorder: an open-label uncontrolled study. Int Clin Psychopharmacol. 2018 May;33(3):121-130. doi: 10.1097/YIC.0000000000000206.

[3] Gagnon, Jean. Review Article Defining Borderline Personality Disorder Impulsivity: Review of Neuropsychological Data and Challenges that Face Researchers. Department of Psychology, Journal of Psychiatry and Psychological Disorders. Volume 1, Issue 3. June 2017,