Expert: Leigh-Anne - 11/3/2003

Question
Hi again
im 23 and ive suffered from food disorders (both anorexia and bulimia) for longer than 8 years.
my sexual life is a disaster because i can hardly feel some pleasure, IF any.
how do these 2 issues interact with each other?
and to what extent can food disorders affect sexuality?
thank you very much

Answer
Mary Jane,

This sounds more of like a depression issue. There are 2 chemicals in the pleasure and punishment center of the brain that seemed to be involved, serotonin and dopamine. The release of both is the normal way the pleasure centers are stimulated when pleasurable thoughts occur. When either is deficient, you can't feel pleasure, even in situations that are normally very pleasurable. This anhedonia, the inability to experience pleasure, is the hallmark of a neurobiological depression.

On the other hand, if the punishment center is stimulated, a feeling of great dysphoria (unpleasantness, fear, loss of control) occurs.

In depression a noramlly pleasant event feels punishing rather than pleasurable. The neurochemical imbalance negatively distorts thought, and the stressful thoughts exacerbate (make worse) the neurochemical imbalance. In depression, the other automatic "vegetative" functions of the midbrain - appetite, sex drive, sleep, metabolism, energy regulation, modulation of hormone and immune function - are also dysregulated.

Victims of depression, man times, also have eating problems.

There are several other causes of depression, both biological and psychological, but this seemed to fit your situation best.

Eating disorders many times accompany depression... whether the depression causes the eating disorder, or vice versa, depends on the person.

Leigh-Anne