"Using Constructive Sex-Positive Techniques to Combat PTSD in Military Men" (BOOK EXCERPT)

Many people have contacted me in anticipation of this book's publication, so I’ve posted an excerpt from my First Draft. Since the question I’m most asked when emailed, is: “How do you know that this really works?” I’ve posted the chapter from an experience I had at university, which became the underlying foundation for this book.

Much of what I advise in this book is unorthodox. I am very unconventional, and often approach problems and issues from unusual aspects, many-of-which have positive-ending results. A few years ago, when my website email became flooded with questions and stories from women having intimacy issues in their relationships with military men who were suffering from Combat PTSD, I made the difficult decision in choosing to go into my personal relationship history, to example just how well Positive Sexual Reinforcement can assuage numerous aspects of PTSD in men.

"Using Constructive Sex-Positive Techniques to Combat PTSD in Military Men"™

BOOK EXCERPT:

TOSSED IN THE TRENCHES: HOW I KNOW THIS WORKS

“Delusional or not, maybe if I believe in a better world with enough conviction, and convince others to believe it as well, then it will be real.” 

Emilyann Girdner, The Labyrinth Wall

When I was at university, there was a boy in my art class who was beautifully cut-straight from James Dean's tormented character in the movie “East of Eden.” Despite his good looks and bad boy popularity, Jordan* went through girls like tissue paper, and it was always the girl who dumped him.

Jordan had no interest in nerdy/smart girls, so when he lazily asked me out one afternoon as he stood behind me in the lunch cafeteria line, I knew it was only his desperation in scraping what he considered the bottom-of-the-girl-barrel, since rumor had it that he was not ‘relationship material.' I told him yes, because hot guys like Jordan never dated smart girls like me, and another rumor circulating our small university was that he was a sexual phenome. After late classes on a Thursday evening, Jordan took me to the nearest motel, and what followed changed my career direction and my life.

After the sex---which happened with all the lights on---Jordan did not want to be touched, and he would not touch me. He got away fast as he could, went for a quick shower, and then began to pace around the motel room naked, and wordless. It was maybe ½ an hour before he stopped the pacing, then flung himself into a puffy chair and just sat there with his legs spread, flipping TV channels.

I wasn't that sexually experienced and I didn't know much about boys, but I knew that his behavior went far beyond odd. Had I been a different type of girl I would have felt hurt, rejected and deeply offended; however, I can only state here that I am me, and so, I was curious about his behavior rather than rejected by it. The standard social protocol was that most boys at least pretended to be interested in a girl, but Jordan could not have given f**k-all about pretending to be interested in me, and that just upped my curiosity in him even more.

I was (and still am) a talker and a toucher, but Jordan clearly did not want to be touched nor did he want conversation, so I offered him more sex. The look on his face was one of genuine surprise. He told me that most girls only wanted to do it once and I replied that I wasn't most girls. I made all the moves in the second-round, using a sex trick I'd read about in a book. Since I was on top and in control, after he came, I leaned in, quickly kissed his lips and ran my hands down his chest to his bellybutton before I dismounted, and he could leap up for his run to the shower.

When Jordan got out of the shower and began the pacing, I pulled a novel from my backpack and went to the bathroom to run myself a hot bath. I was there so long that he came in to check on me. When he asked what I was reading, I told him it was a murder mystery. He replied that his mother loved to read, and that she’d always read to him when he was little. I asked him what she liked to read and he replied: “Nothing. She's dead.” When I responded that that must be really difficult for him and his dad, that's when he told me that his father was dead, too.

We left the motel after that, because Jordan said that he couldn't sleep with anyone. I didn’t argue with him because I was creeped out by his freaky behavior and I knew that something was really wrong with him; still, I wanted to know what it was---my vice being that I loved a good mystery, and to me, Jordan was the ultimate jigsaw.

Two weeks later on a Friday night, my dormitory desk monitor called me to the lobby because I had a visitor. Church was the next morning, so I had pink foam curlers in my hair and a mud-pack on my face. When I came down to the lobby looking exactly like that, Jordan burst out laughing soon as he saw me. I'd been at university with him for a year, and I’d never seen him laugh. When he asked me to go back to the motel with him, I said yes. After we got to the room, I was a zealot---we had sex nine times without a break. By time I left the bed for a hot bath, Jordan was sitting naked in the puffy chair, sound asleep.

Summer came, and without classes, I began to spend most nights with Jordan, checking in and out of that motel. Months later, and only because he eventually had to have a conversation with me, I learned that he was eight-years-old when his father had shot and killed his mother right in front of him, and that his father had then shot and killed himself. The gun Jordan's father had used was stuffed with some kind of pellets or something, and it had left a bloody mess that Jordan said he could never unsee. He felt guilty that he couldn't save his mother, and he hated to go to sleep, because that's when the bad pictures started inside his head. Soon as the sun began to disappear, he'd feel panic. He never slept more than an hour straight, and he had to have the lights, the television and a fan on or he couldn’t sleep at all. The only times at night that Jordan never saw the bloody mess, was when he was high, drunk or having sex. He'd been to many doctors, but no one could help him. He'd tried lots of medications, but none really worked, and the side effects were always bad. He was only 23-years-old, and he was trying to deal with it as best he could.

I became a girl on a mission.

I went to the library and read everything I could about severe emotional trauma. I went into stacks of history books, and studied the seductive skills of women like Cleopatra, Mata Hari and my personal heroine, Scheherazade. I began buying sex manuals from the bookstores, and reading them in droves. One of my more brazen friends drove me to a sex shop in Hollywood, and I bought a few things. I started buying lingerie. I started thinking up all kinds of ways to take Jordan’s mind and his body as far away from his past as I could, even if it was for an hour.

Truth is, I was young, silly, very naïve and completely delusional, in-as-much-as I just wanted to help him, and really believed that I could.

Turns out, I actually did.

I started my ‘Cause’ by reading to Jordan in bed. Many times while I read, he would take the book from my hands, f**k me, and then hand me back the book. I began to lightly and casually touch his head as I was reading to him. When he didn't notice that, I got brave and started to touch his c**k as I read on. This meant that he had to move closer to me, if he wanted me to play with his c**k while I read to him, so, he started laying closer to me in bed.

When we had sex, I’d often begin by giving him prolonged and unhurried blow jobs, therefore having the excuse to keep trailing my hands and fingers up and down his body so he'd get used to my touch. I’d end my blow jobs with a Signature Move (Note: I’m never telling what that is) so that because of my position, his hands were always across my shoulders and in my hair as he came.

I was establishing romantic intimacy, disguised as a blow job.

I started wearing flashy, silky and sexy panties all the time. Whenever we'd just sit somewhere and chat, I'd always tip my breasts so he'd have a full-on visual. Even when I wore my glasses or was bloated from my period or was really tired from my studies, I indirectly made everything about sex. It became such a distraction for him, that little things about him began to change. He wasn't as moody or as depressed, and he was more friendly with people at university. He didn't get into so many explosive arguments, his concentration became better, and even his driving improved.

At school, I'd find any excuse to lightly touch him in a sexual way, at very non-sexual times. One day, he just started holding my hand when we walked around campus. It got to the point, that Jordan started to fall asleep beside me in bed as I read to him, and one night he slept hard for almost 4 hours straight. When Jordan graduated from university, he was sleeping with me through the night, no lights on and no television.

In 2011, a friend began dating a US veteran who'd served in Iraq during the first four years of the war. The things she told me about his odd behavior, reminded me so much of Jordan, that I realized Jordan that had C-PTSD (Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) from having seen his Mother abused by his father his entire life, and then seeing her shot and killed right in front of him.

Jordan’s insomnia and trouble falling asleep; his constant mood-swings; his inability to stand being touched outside the context of sex; his feelings of worthlessness, ‘emotional flatness’ and his being on edge and ‘jumpy’ all the time; his unprovoked bursts of anger; his deep depression and his over-all unhappiness with life---it all stemmed from early-on abuse and that bloody picture inside his head that he could never quit seeing. However, when I diverted his attention for brief periods of time, he wouldn’t see it, and it was during those brief periods of time when he didn't see it, that had altered the traumatic reel inside his head.

I'd distracted Jordan by doing simple little things that appealed to the sexual-beast in him. I did things that flattered his pride, and gave him back some-of the respect he'd lost for himself because he couldn't save his Mother. I'd altered that reel inside his head by making bed a safe place to be, instead of a black hole where his worst nightmares began as soon as the sun disappeared from the sky. I was a young, silly, foolish girl, which is exactly why it worked: because I'd had the delusional, optimistic belief that I was some kind of Goddess who could pull-off anything.

While doing research for this book, I was awed how so many doctors have reported that their male patients' main concern after having been wounded in combat, was if their junk still worked.

Men missing arms, feet, hands, eyes, parts of their skull----none of that was insurmountable, it seemed, as long as their junk still worked. Clear, solid and prolific proof that men are wholly sexual beings, and that anything in the world can be handled---as long as they’re getting laid.

In the entire History of the World, it is the women who have kept things sane; it is the women who have ‘fixed’ things; it is the women who have taken on hell in many forms, and won. There would be no world, without the unbreakable spirit and power of women in the face of famine, war, depression, plaque and over-all failings.

PTSD, is the devil.

Should you choose to Cause, and take-on his demons, understand that you will only succeed if you delude yourself into thinking that you can, and if you have the optimistic belief that you have the power pull off anything.

Now would be a good time for you to unleash your power and take him from his hell. Begin by seeing that you need to fix the problem, and not the blame.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Over 3,000 people have contacted me since first I posted this book excerpt on 4/30/16 on LinkedIN. If you’ve emailed me, please be assured that I will get back with you. Below, is an email from a US Army wife, posted here with her permission. I’ve changed the names, so that privacy is protected. What she said to me may open the minds of other women who need to hear this. Cheers, Nannette LaRee

“Hello Nannette- My friend Sarin lives in the UK, she has a husband in the British Military and Sarin has a friend, Annalisa, (living in Australia) whose husband’s in the Australian Defence Force. Annalisa read a link posted on Facebook, (Australian Warfighters Page) and sent the link to Sarin, and that’s how it found me here in California. Crazy world, hu? Lol. When I read it I thought, ‘Who wants to have sex with a screaming, crazy man?’ Some background here: my husband liked frogs and botany in high school, he was once a really sweet guy. The military was a paycheck, so Mason (my husband) joined the Army right after we married. Mason did 4 tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. The PTSD in Mason has me and the kids living with a tornado that rages and destroys what’s standing in its path. My forgetting to put back the garden hose is seen by Mason as a Declaration of War. Mason and I don’t talk, we barely co-exist. I avoid sex and he doesn’t ask for it, it’s a daily battle not to kill each other. Mason really holds back with the kids, he’s pretty good there, but with me, it’s open season. Friday afternoon I watered my garden, and when Mason got home from work and saw I’d forgotten to wrap the garden hose, he came into the house screaming at me, calling me Dizzy Daisy, saying I couldn’t even do the simple s**t, saying I’m stupid. I usually scream back at him or cry, but I’d just read your stupid article and maybe it was desperation, lol, because when Mason walked into the kitchen screaming at me, I (just) yanked-off my t-shirt and removed my bra, and he was so dumb struck, lol, he stopped mid-scream and said, “Daisy, Daisy, WHAT are you doing?” I wanted to puke because fear was choking me, I don’t even know what possessed me to strip like that, but I told him, “I’m just trying to calm things down a bit.” He didn’t respond, we (just) stood there in a bad silence, so I told him I was going for a shower and did he want to join me, and not kidding, Nannette, he stared at me for the longest moment and then followed after me like a sweet puppy after a treat. Well, things progressed from there since the kids were at my sister’s house that night for a pizza party. Afterwards, we went out to eat like we were on a date. Mason and I haven’t had sex in seven months. We haven’t been ‘alone’ in four years. We avoid each other all the time, you understand me? We stay where we fall asleep, a chair, the couch, but rarely together in our bed. At the restaurant, I told him I know there are things he feels too deeply, and things he doesn’t feel at all anymore, but even though I can’t understand what he’s been through (that) I’m not against him or his enemy and he has to stop treating me like I’m ISIS--good one, hu? Lol!-- I feel like he really heard me. I don’t know my husband anymore, Nannette, he’s not the man I married, and I DON’T LOVE THIS MASON, who IS HE? I’m so angry, I’m so angry and no one understands my fucked-up life. He has medals, he’s a war hero, and I don’t even love my own husband. I hate myself for that. Have you seen the movie, “The Body Snatchers?” Every military wife is living that life. This war took our men away and they’re never coming back, and I go to sleep dreaming that MY Mason will come back, but THIS is my Mason (now ) and I must find some way to accept him. Nannette, I feel better this morning and it’s been years since I felt (even) this little bit of peace. After Mason’s last tour, he came home for good and it was like f*****g a stranger. I quit trying and so did he, the kids are why we stayed together. An unspoken alliance. I read your article and my first feelings were that your book was a f*****g stupid idea and now, lol, I just wanted to thank you. I may actually go to visit Victoria’s Secret again someday. If you have any suggestions for me, please email back. What the hell, right? God above knows I’ve tried everything else. -Daisy Amundsen"