Why Stress Can Feel Like Low Desire (And What Actually Helps)
- Caity Wilkinson
- Aug 2
- 3 min read
Updated: 10 hours ago
Hello, darling.
Confession time: I used to be terrified of intercourse.
Not at first, only after it hurt the first time. And the second time.
By the third time, I was crying before we could even begin, because my body learned to fear this act.
I skipped it entirely for the next two years.
I felt betrayed by my body for not working the way I thought it was supposed to.
I had a plan, I timed everything just right, I talked myself into it… and I assumed nature would take care of the rest.
WRONG.
Having been a sexuality geek for over a decade at the time, this was equally frustrating and ironic. (Frustronic.)
I researched everything.
Wine (sleepy)
Dilators (scary)
More lube (not the issue)
“Just relax” (gee thanks, I’d love to)
“Go slower” (without anyone explaining what slower was actually supposed to look like)
Nothing helped.
So it was just easier to avoid it. Especially since I loved everything else my partner and I were doing in bed. Just not that part.
Two years and one new partner later, I worked up the courage to finally try again.
This time was different. This time it worked.
What changed?
Turns out, my body didn’t need to change at all. My approach did.
This time, I wasn’t stressed. I wasn’t scared. We weren’t rushing. (And we built up the tension far more.)
I’d spent years trying to change my body, instead of asking why it felt the way it did in the first place.
What actually made a difference was (1) taking the pressure away and (2) giving my body the greater time and care that she’d been asking for all along.
And my story isn’t unique.
In relationships, we often mistake the loudest symptom for the real issue underneath it.
So many of us women (maybe you relate?) have tried to make our bodies do something intimate that just wasn’t working, even when we really wanted it to.
Or have noticed our natural desire go quiet, despite wanting it.
Or been too tired to even care that it didn’t.
Ironically, the more we try to push through discomfort or force things to go a certain way, the more the body resists.
Maybe your version of this story isn’t painful intimacy.
Maybe it’s performing the emotional or invisible labor for everyone around you.
Managing the entire household alone.
Being so disconnected from what you actually want because you’ve had to focus on everyone else’s needs for so long.
Feeling the unspoken, subtle pressure around intimacy, even from a loving partner.
Or something else that makes your nervous system feel fundamentally unsafe or exhausted (which carries over into the bedroom).
Low desire is a perfectly understandable response to chronic stress, emotional overload, resentment, subtle pressure, feeling emotionally unsafe, and more.
Once those things ease, the low desire problem often does too.
And that’s really the whole point of this email: your desire likely doesn’t need ‘fixing.’ It’s responding exactly how it’s supposed to, to whatever’s going on in your life and relationship. It’s more likely whatever is underneath the stress that needs some TLC.
So the next time you find your body not doing what you want it to, ask yourself, “What is my body actually trying to tell me?”
With loving curiosity,
Caity
P.S. - If today’s email resonated with you, I recently made two free worksheets that help you explore this further:
I hope they help. ❤️
P.P.S. - For everyone who became unexpectedly invested into last week’s chocolate milk investigation… I’m delighted to report that my dad secretly came home with a replacement carton from a different brand. And this time, he drank half the carton before us. Y’know, to test it. Final verdict: 10/10 delight, 0/10 mold.
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