I'm 50 years old and over the years I've had symptoms that have been getting a little worse. When I have an orgasm with my wife, my brain empties. If she talks to me I understand her words without a problem, but I can't respond. My words are gibberish. I feel like I'm trapped in my head, sometimes not remembering my name, or merely not able to recall how to say it right. It's not scary, it's just frustrating now that I've come to expect and accept it. It takes about 10-20 minutes before I can get words right, before my own thoughts make sense, and before my mouth articulates them properly. But sometimes it takes about an hour before it's fully cleared - before I stop using the wrong words or gibberish for common words. At that point, when I say a word, I know it's wrong, and I need to struggle mentally to think of the right word, or just to get my mouth to say it right.
I can fight it off if I move around right after sex or if I really try to focus and not let the "braingasm" take over. But usually I just fall back and let it happen - hey, it's sex, and while some people use drugs or alcohol to clear their heads of daily worries, this is an easy way for all of us to escape life for a few minutes. I don't feel I need to escape anything, but when I embrace the concept it's kinda fun to go empty now and then. And my wife still laughs when I speak gibberish and roll around brainless and pass out. She knows I'm not in a great state, but I'm not in any danger either, and it can be funny in the moment. But all that aside, we've been starting to get concerned that this could be a series of mild strokes or something - until we found this site.
As far as other symptoms, I don't think I have any. I have occasional depression (winter blahs that occur any time of year and last for several months) for which I've tried medication but I prefer not to go that route. I don't have any other physical issues, not over/under weight, no other imbalances.
It's been my opinion that the orgasm releases a ton of chemicals in the brain and these are just affecting some parts of my brain adversely. So in addition to the normal sense of pleasure from endorphins, etc, I'm thinking the overdose of endorphins has some negative effects. I've been thinking in this direction because I have had situations where long, hard laughter will cause me to pass out, similar to narcolepsy, but more gradual, not as immediate. And I've had a couple situations where an overdose of chocolate (cake, mocha, etc) has caused me to crash hard (that can be funny too: hahaha I'm laughing, then boom, gone). To my non-medically-educated mind there is a kind of pattern there - I get excited and my brain starts to malfunction.
So when I see others here are having similar (but very diverse) issues, and there is research in this area, I'm really amazed and reassured that this isn't all in my head, and that someone might actually find a cause and remedy at some point. (I'm really tired of doctors concluding that things they don't understand must be some form of hypocondria, or easily dismissed as depression, ADD, PTSD, or some other generic class of zzzDisorder.)
I'll be visiting this site occasionally. Thanks for being here.
