Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2: Sexual InversionEllis, Havelock
Science
Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2: Sexual Inversion
Ellis, Havelock
Sex; Sex (Psychology)
off all intercourse and though my brother has been several times
in the same town where I have been, we remain strangers. At this
time my father died suddenly. Last spring four suicides of
friends in so many weeks had a very bad effect on my nerves. I am
now in Berlin in better spirits, but the cramp continues badly at
times.
"To this I must add that since my fourteenth year, independent of
any illness, I have suffered mentally and physically from
menstrual pains recurring every twenty-eight days and lasting
from six to eight days. That these were the equivalent pains to a
woman's menstruation periods I could get no doctor to admit till
I was treated for a length of time by a German nerve specialist.
"The physical pains begin abruptly. Sudden congestions of blood
in the brain and in the abdomen. Sudden perspirations, heat and
cold. Great nervous pains in the small of the back, also in the
nerve-centers of abdomen and stomach. Sharp, shooting pains in
the breasts and especially the nipples. Sudden toothache which
stops as suddenly. The skin becomes darker, sometimes mottled. I
have the whole time a taste of blood in my mouth and often
everything I eat tastes of blood. I have great difficulty at that
time in eating meat. Physical longings for erotic adventure,
counterbalanced by mental nausea at the bare idea.
"The mental symptoms are: sudden feeling of deep depression,
suicidal tendencies, alternating with sudden inexplicable
lightheartedness. Capriciousness and great dissatisfaction with
myself and life generally. Horror at my own incompleteness of sex
and sudden fits of hatred toward women and a great longing to be
loved by men. This condition changes slowly back to the normal
one. It takes several days for me to lose my physical weakness
owing to it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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