WHEN DESIRE RETURNS AND YOU PANIC: THE TERROR OF FEELING AGAIN

A GinkgoMinds Blog by Jo Oswin

You prayed for this. To want again.To feel something. To ache a little. To have your body flutter, even if just for a second.

You wanted to stop being numb. You wanted to “get your sex drive back.”You wanted to come alive.

But no one told you that when it finally happens —you might not feel powerful.You might feel terrified.

THE RETURN OF DESIRE ISN’T ALWAYS LIBERATING — SOMETIMES IT’S PARALYSING

You’re in bed. Or in conversation. Or just watching a film where someone looks at someone else like they’re made of want.

And something stirs. A flicker.A gasp you don’t let out. A pulse.

And your first instinct isn’t joy. It’s panic.

Because feeling means you might want. And wanting means you might reach. And reaching means you might not be met —or worse, you might be met with what hurt you before.

THE BODY REMEMBERS WHAT THE MIND CAN’T ARGUE WITH

Trauma doesn’t only steal pleasure —it wires you to flinch from it.

To stay numb was to stay safe.To not want was to not risk. To disassociate was to survive.

But now your body dares to feel again —and you can’t trust it yet.

You question yourself:

• Do I really want this?

• What if I freeze again?

• What if they notice?

• What if I lead them on and can’t follow through?

  
  

This is the brutal truth:

Sometimes it’s not the trauma that hurts most — it’s healing from it.

Because healing asks you to re-enter the parts of yourself that once nearly broke you.

THE GUILT OF WANTING — AND THE SHAME OF NOT BEING READY

There’s another layer. A cruel one.

You think:“I should be ready by now.”“I wanted this — why does it feel wrong?” “Am I leading them on? Am I teasing? Am I broken for being turned on but not able to go through with it?”

You start intellectualising. You start blaming. You try to bargain with your own healing. And suddenly, what began as a flicker of desire becomes a full-body shutdown — again.

This doesn’t mean you’re back at zero. This means you’re on the edge — the sacred, brutal edge between numbness and aliveness. And that edge? It’s terrifying.

But it’s also your threshold.

YOU DON’T NEED TO BE READY TO FEEL — YOU JUST NEED TO STAY WITH YOURSELF

Your job isn’t to push through. It’s not to “follow through” on desire with action. It’s not to force pleasure to look like what it did before trauma.

Your job is to stay with yourself in the moment it starts to return.

To breathe into the ache. To name the flutter. To witness the panic. To let the old shame rise — and not abandon yourself in it.

Because pleasure is not just what happens between two people.

Pleasure is what happens when you don’t leave your body when it finally says:I think I want. I think I’m ready. I think I’m still scared — but I think I’m here.

🖤 COACHING PROMPT: WHAT DO I NEED TO FEEL SAFE WHILE FEELING?

This isn’t about what you need to do.This is about what you need to hold.

Can you hold contradictory truths at once?

• I want and I’m scared.

• I’m turned on and I don’t want to be touched.

• I feel something but I don’t know what it is yet.

• I don’t want to perform. I just want to notice.

• I don’t want to be taken. I want to stay.

Write it down.Breathe with it.Let your body know that it doesn’t have to collapse again just because it felt something.

That is healing. That is erotic safety. That is sovereignty.

🖤 IF YOU’RE ON THIS EDGE — YOU’RE NOT ALONE

In my Patreon community, we talk about the edge. The raw, shaky, sacred edge between protection and pleasure. Between numbness and desire. Between fear and aliveness.

We don’t fix you. We walk with you while you come home to your body.

In my 12-part workshop Who the Fuck Am I Becoming?, we unravel the armour — piece by piece. We bring softness where there was silence. Power where there was panic. And agency where there was collapse.

This isn’t about forcing the erotic. It’s about letting it return in whispers —on your terms, in your language, in your time.

If you’re starting to feel again, and you don’t know whether to cry or come —you’re doing it right.

Stay with it. Stay with you.

You’re not too late. You’re not too sensitive. You’re not doing it wrong.

You’re waking up.

xx Josi