Press offers you a weekly testimonial that aims to illustrate what really happens behind the bedroom door, in the privacy, far, far away from statistics and standards. Today: Pierre *, 60 years old.
He’s always been embarrassed, downright paralyzed, even at the thought of approaching a woman. To the point of having remained alone almost all of his life. Alone, and a very long time a virgin, too. But this is not a “no good”. Nor an incompetent. He is mostly sick. Interview with an anxious man.
“I have a generalized anxiety disorder, diagnosed at age 50”, confides at the outset Pierre *, a young retiree from Quebec, recently met virtually.
With his cropped white hair, his frank smile and his matching gaze, Pierre looks like anything but a sick man. And he knows it. “Come on, you don’t clear that!” He is told repeatedly, when he reveals himself.
And yet: this otherwise so likeable man has spent his life feeling inadequate, shy, and lacking in self-confidence.
A series of “vicious circles”
In high school, he already felt different. The youngest of his cohort, he is “out of step” with the others, he recalls. Less precocious, he does not understand why others are already interested in girls, he does not. “I’m different, but what’s going on? He wonders. He loses all the more confidence, and so begins the first in a series of “vicious circles”, as he puts it.
When he arrived at CEGEP, Pierre finally began to wake up, but remained paralyzed with shyness. “I’m interested in girls, but I never dare approach them…”
Around 17 years old, a friend dares to take the first steps, and Pierre lives his first “French kiss”, an experience that is once again highly distressing. Disabling limit. “A few days later, I was still not well. I was so scared that I wouldn’t be up to it. So afraid of not doing the right things… ”Survival reflex? It cuts the relationship short.
Years go by and the unease continues. “You see the ordinary world kissing, having sex, but you, you are not able to go there”, he illustrates. Always because of this damn vicious circle: “You have little self-esteem, you are embarrassed, you are crushed inside, so you do not speak …”
After studying fashion (yes, surrounded by beautiful women, he takes the trouble to point out), a world where he will have a great career, Pierre enters the job market. “Yes, I had clients that I found beautiful, but I didn’t talk to them…” The integrated stereotypes helping, he withdraws more. “I work in fashion, they will think that I am homosexual, so I was not inclined to take the first steps …”
Allow a parenthesis: no, if you want to know everything, men have never interested him. “Come on, that’s not it all!” Even though, all his elementary school, as first class – “I was the little blond with blue eyes, good at the arts, but not at sports” – he was intimidated in this regard, and with repeated “fifi”.
Still, at around 28, still a virgin, Pierre finally dares. A client and friend particularly appeals to him. He hands her a pole. Dare to open a very first door. But bad luck, it is not reciprocal. “You are like the brother I never had!” », Answers the young woman. “And I closed that door right away,” adds Pierre, who suddenly actually closed like an oyster, hold on tight, almost 10 years later.
My sex life was all about this: masturbation. Nothing other than that …
Pierre, 60 years old
And the morale? “Not good,” he nods. Not all good. Honestly, it’s not going well at all all this time. ”
To the general surprise of those close to him, it must be repeated: “Come on, you’re all alone. Beautiful as you are, you must have broken hearts, ”we believe. Repeated comments, in the face of which Pierre can only remain “evasive”. “You don’t want to say no, you don’t trust yourself. You are shy, and you are worth nothing … ”
Mid-thirties, however, drama: Pierre meets the “wife of [sa] life “. And it works. “I took the first steps. I stepped forward. And it worked. […] And after several meetings, it ended up being successful. »Achieve? Not really. Because no, it wasn’t ecstasy. But not at all. “Very ordinary. I ejaculated in the instant, practically. “And return of the famous vicious circle:” So much, he confirms. You are not beautiful, not good, you do not force yourself, ”he said to himself immediately, and repeated. “It doesn’t make sense, screw up the same …”
The adventure lasts a few months, they repeat the experience a good ten times, without much improvement, at least in Pierre’s eyes. “The erections were fragile, the ejaculations early, it was not going well,” he says. I was still in bad shape. The fear of not performing, so I was not well, ”he repeats, twice rather than once.
He is doing so badly that he ends up cutting the relationship short. Still. “I was too bad. Even silly things, I dared not: I dared not take her by the hand, tell her that she was so beautiful, I was completely closed. As if cut off from my emotions. ”
But no, he never thought of consulting here. “Even seeing a shrink would have required a superhuman effort! He suddenly ignites. And in doing so, we measure how far we have come. Because casually, he confides here in a pure stranger …
Dare to talk about it
And then ? “Until today, I have not had sex …”, he continues, in a laconic tone. Certainly, but he has progressed. We said so. And heard. The click? The greatest of luck, in fact. 10 years ago, to be precise, Pierre had quite a “revelation” when he listened to a radio telephone op-ed on bullying. A woman testifies with this telling anecdote: “In class, when people laughed, I was always convinced that people laughed at me…” “But that’s exactly me! », Reacts our man, not believing his ears. And for the first time in his life, he dares to confide in his family doctor his concerns: his lack of esteem, his famous discomfort, and the vicious circle of his life.
Ten years, therapy and a battery of antidepressants later, Pierre is not quite the same. “Ah! It changed my life! At all! he smiles. It did me a lot of good. […] I have always been anxious, without knowing it. […] It’s like a weight that has come off my shoulders. […] With the diagnosis, I put my finger on the sore, the disease. And the relief, with the medication helping (“even if that doesn’t make the anxiety 100% away”), is immense.
Of course, he still has many challenges to take up (“I must not deny it, I still have a feeling of failure in my life …”), the simple fact of being able to talk about it today confirms all the way. Failing to be cured, Pierre is now a “relieved” man, he concludes. “It doesn’t cure everything, but it relieves …”
* Fictitious first name, to protect his anonymity.
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