From Numb to Turned On: Reclaiming Pleasure After a Life That Looked ‘Perfect’

Amsterdam. Winter 2022.

I wake up next to someone I love, his arm around me… and I feel fuck all.

Not desire, not warmth… Just a quiet, terrifying nothing.

That emptiness wasn’t new. I had just learned to bury it under the usual “I’m fine”.

So I slipped out of bed, walked to the bathroom, and stared at a woman in the mirror who looked like something was missing inside of her. She was still pretty, capable, functioning… and yet, completely disconnected from herself.

That cold Saturday morning, something cracked inside me.

I stared at myself in the mirror and asked myself: “What do I want?”

The truth hit me slowly, then so loudly I couldn´t ignore it:

Not this.

The moment I stopped leaving myself behind

I just didn´t get it.

On paper, I had it all: the big apartment with a view, the stable job, the self-care Sundays, the long-term relationship, the weekly sex. The whole fucking adulting starter pack.

And yet, I was completely disappearing inside all of it. Following a story that had nothing to do with me. I kept feeling guilty for wanting more, because why would I, when everything is supposed to be perfect?

When that guilt turned into panic, I just couldn’t pretend anymore.

So I did the only thing that made sense:

I burned it all down.

I left the relationship, I quit the job and packed my things to leave the city.

I bought a one-way ticket to Bangkok.

And I began my reclamation.

Pleasure as my rebellion

People talk about self-reclamation like it´s a cute walk in the park. Well… it´s not.

Learning to put myself first didn´t look like taking a spa day and journaling my thoughts. It was nerve-wracking… and the hardest, most honest thing I have ever done for myself.

I left everything familiar and backpacked Asia alone for 8 months. Not out of recklessness, but out of self-preservation. Just me, my thrifted Quechua backpack and my thousands questions. Terrified, but curious, and finally free.

I learned to listen to my desires through a lot of trial and error. On the road, I became vegetarian, learned how to surf, slept in huts without electricity and running water, farmed in small villages, had the worse food poisoning in my entire life, fell in love, had my heart broken, and enrolled for a sex coaching certification. I went through celibacy, spiritual retreats, personality tests, BDSM initiation, shitty one-night stands, pleasure masterclasses and sexual trauma.

And the more I allowed myself to feel, the more alive I became.

The turning point

There was a turning point after a beach day in Thailand: I was rubbing coconut oil onto my skin, as I did dozen of times. And I caught myself rushing through it: like my body was a chore. So I slowed down. I looked at my legs, my belly, my chest, I softly rubbed my skin like I would massage a lover´s. And something inside me lit up.

This is when I started worshipping my body instead of managing it. The moment I embodied what I had heard before… the opposite of shame, the opposite of abandonment: self-devotion.

Turn-on isn´t a switch

I used to think desire was a on/off button.

That if you´re not turned on immediately then something is wrong with you.

Now I know that turn-on is a flame: you can choose to feed it slow and steady, or strong and intense. But it always stays alive if you tend to it.

But we tend to expect fireworks without even lighting a match. We outsource our pleasure and happiness, waiting for the right partner, the right occasion, the right relationship to magically ignite us… while we only give ourselves 3 minutes before bed.

If my solo journey taught me anything, it´s this: no one is coming to make you feel alive. Because that´s your job. Turning yourself on is a practice, a a relationship with yourself you actively choose. When you learn to turn yourself on, you stop waiting for someone else to validate your worth: you become the source.

And that changes your relationships, your confidence, your creativity, the way you move through the world… everything.

Why I became a sex coach

My implosion didn’t ruin my life: it gave me purpose.

After working in sexual health and harm reduction for a decade, I already knew how much shame shapes us. But it wasn’t until I reclaimed my body and desire that I understood the depth of this work.

So I became a sex coach for solos.

For the people who feel disconnected, stuck in “fine”, curious to explore, but don’t know where to begin. I help them wake the fuck up, expand beyond “should” and embody a life that actually turns them on – without needed a partner to feel whole.

And that fucking turns me on.

Time to wake the fuck up

“Fine” is a trap: it´s how we learn to abandon ourselves without realizing it. Like a gateway drug to an “almost”-life. Because we are scared of failing. But the scariest thing in life isn´t failure… it´s wasting time. It´s waking up one day and realising you´ve spent half your life being half-alive.

If something in you is contracting as you´re reading this, you are not alone. And you are not too late, you´re just disconnected. And disconnection is reversible.

Consider this a gift from me to you: a full-body reminder that you are still here: alive, hungry, and capable of feeling so much more than you’ve been taught to believe.

You can join my free Turned TF On Challenge here.

Because you don’t need permission to feel alive again.

But you do need a spark ;)

Thank you for reading my story. Thank you for choosing yourself.

Valentine Blue is a certified sex coach, solo intimacy guide and the unapologetic OddBird behind a movement of self-devotion and erotic autonomy. She helps curious solos stop living on autopilot and build lives that turn them the fuck on - no partner needed.

Start with her free 10-day Turned TF On Challenge and follow her work on Instagram.