Notokay
11-09-2015, 08:58 AM
Hi everyone, I would like to start out by saying that this is the first time I have ever made an attempt at explaining what I am feeling and it has been a successive cascading of events right from the start and I am struggling to piece myself together, or to figure out exactly what has been my main problem to cause subsequent problems. I will try my best to write as cohesively as I can but, I am writing as things come to mind, so please bare with me and I will answer any questions to clear things up.
I am a 20 year old male. All my life I have had strange thoughts of existence - what are we, what am I, what are the things I am seeing, why do things happen the way that they do. I have been extremely shy all my life, I could not handle social situations all too well and would avoid them as far as possible - I could not even hold myself together to talk to a company or almost anyone over the phone. I became extremely self-conscious through puberty, developed horizontal stretch marks on my back from growing too quick - I would be scared that anyone would see them and ridicule me, I was self-conscious about being overweight at the age of 11-13, as I grew I developed a bit of an abnormal rib growth under my right chest muscle which caused me even more social distress (at this point I would not let anyone see my back nor my chest and would refuse to wear any shirts that would show my chest. I excessively researched if I could do anything to fix my chest). At the age of 16 I realised some of my hair had started falling out in certain places (hairline area and crown), I cant say whether hair loss was stress induced but it continued until now and my hair is very soft/thin and I have a receded hairline to some degree, nonetheless the hair loss itself caused me yet more stress for many years, I exhausted myself researching what to do and tried many methods. I took a hand-full of different androgenic anabolic steroids and testosterone while weight lifting (this was my way of developing an idea that by being big and muscular it would not matter that I had thin hair, stretchmarks and a messed up chest - girls would still check me out!). I then also tried taking propecia (a DHT inhibitor I think?) to try and reverse my hairloss, the steroid and propecia use was when I was at the age of 17-18/19. Looking back I remember that I would so often fall into periods of mental discomfort - being sad and scared but I not ever once considered myself clinically depressed or having anxiety, I would also have recurring and random bad moods with people I cared for, for almost no reason, or I would search for reasons to justify being the way that I was with them. I first had intrusive suicidal thoughts at around 16 and actually persisted an attempt to try and kill myself at that time and again about 2 years later, suicidal thoughts subsided at some stages but have never once left me - for the past 5 years I have actually been comfortable with the idea of death, and that if I had to die by any means I would be extremely satisfied. When I presented my fears about my hair, chest and what not to my parents they shrugged it off.
Now here is my biggest mental block that has caused me some intense struggling ... sexual orientation. (I know in the rules it says there must be nothing sexually orientated but this is a big part of my problem and I must explain this as best I can. I apologise if this talk is even out of context and moderators do what you must to edit if you need to). All of my life I have never thought that I am anything but heterosexual, never once had a homosexual thought in my younger years, the first time I had a girlfriend I was 12 and had my first kiss it made me feel great down there. I was not the most well-behaved teenager, I first had sex at 15 with my girlfriend, I was very drunk and could not hold my erection but the proceeding times I was fine with sex, when we broke up and I got a new girlfriend I worried about my performance but got comfortable with her and I still managed to have good sex, slowly but surely I had started testing every interaction of being with a girl to see if I was developing an erection and I started testing porn to see if I would get an erection - I was now losing my libido and feared I had erectile dysfunction at the age of 18. I no longer get random erections, I cannot get an erection from fantasizing, and hardly get it up for pictures/videos, I have become scared of interactions with ladies incase I cannot get it up. One night I had smoked weed and was testing my erection with thoughts, I started developing an overwhelming feeling of anxiety and then for a split second thought "am I gay?", my life has changed since that one night which happened over a year ago. My anxiety has gotten bad until the point that I had really started noticing that something is seriously not right with me - experiencing heart pulpatations and some moments of extreme heart beating, sweating hands and pins and needles in a few of my fingers, extreme hot flushes, heavy breathing, confusion and feeling faint (to the point that I have my phone in my hand ready to leave my roommate a call to say that I am about to pass out/having a heart attack). Since then I have had the "am I gay?" thoughts every day and it is becoming harder and harder to deal with, I sometimes have thoughts that maybe being gay has been my life's problem all along and maybe that caused erectile problems and was the reason for why I have been the way I am all my life? But then I remember my younger days and how I almost couldnt keep my composure looking at some of my female teachers or girls at the swimming pool, and simple thoughts of girls got me going good enough back then. I cannot stress enough that I have never thought for a second that I am actually homosexual and have never been aroused by anything homosexual. I did not think maybe I am homo when I was actually in a given situation struggling to get erect with a girl, it was just that one damn night and now it has plagued my existence. Now when I think of my performance with a girl I think that its the "I'm gay" problem. I am fully aware of the HOCD condition but I don't feel comfortable saying that is what I have because what if it is just denial of being homosexual? But it just does not feel right in my mind, yesterday I was feeling quite anxious and randomly thought "gay" and fell into a full on anxiety attack. With the painful attacks becoming more frequent I went to my GP last week and told him about the anxiety (but nothing about the sexual orientation problem) and he prescribed me pur-bloka, cipralex and urbanol, I only take pur-bloka and cipralex every day and will resort to urbanol under intense panic circumstances. I have really wanted to kill myself and have considered overdosing on a cocktail of prescription drugs but I hold too much guilt towards the way I might hurt my family for going out without them ever having known that I was so messed up. I have talked to a girl I have been seeing about my anxiety (but not about the gay thing or erectile problem) and she suggested I see a doctor (which I have actually wanted to do for the past 2 years). Not a single person knows about the sexual orientation problem and only 2 people partially know the extent of my anxiety). I am too scared to talk to anyone because they will tell me I am just gay but it seriously does not make sense to me and my mind is constantly fighting with itself. I write this with sweaty hands and I am in serious need of someones guidance and advice on what I should do next, I did not know it was even possible for a person to feel the way I do and have the thoughts that I do.
Again I am sorry if this is all way out of context for this forum and I will direct my message elsewhere but as I said this is truly the first time I am writing or making any attempt of communication for help.
I am a 20 year old male. All my life I have had strange thoughts of existence - what are we, what am I, what are the things I am seeing, why do things happen the way that they do. I have been extremely shy all my life, I could not handle social situations all too well and would avoid them as far as possible - I could not even hold myself together to talk to a company or almost anyone over the phone. I became extremely self-conscious through puberty, developed horizontal stretch marks on my back from growing too quick - I would be scared that anyone would see them and ridicule me, I was self-conscious about being overweight at the age of 11-13, as I grew I developed a bit of an abnormal rib growth under my right chest muscle which caused me even more social distress (at this point I would not let anyone see my back nor my chest and would refuse to wear any shirts that would show my chest. I excessively researched if I could do anything to fix my chest). At the age of 16 I realised some of my hair had started falling out in certain places (hairline area and crown), I cant say whether hair loss was stress induced but it continued until now and my hair is very soft/thin and I have a receded hairline to some degree, nonetheless the hair loss itself caused me yet more stress for many years, I exhausted myself researching what to do and tried many methods. I took a hand-full of different androgenic anabolic steroids and testosterone while weight lifting (this was my way of developing an idea that by being big and muscular it would not matter that I had thin hair, stretchmarks and a messed up chest - girls would still check me out!). I then also tried taking propecia (a DHT inhibitor I think?) to try and reverse my hairloss, the steroid and propecia use was when I was at the age of 17-18/19. Looking back I remember that I would so often fall into periods of mental discomfort - being sad and scared but I not ever once considered myself clinically depressed or having anxiety, I would also have recurring and random bad moods with people I cared for, for almost no reason, or I would search for reasons to justify being the way that I was with them. I first had intrusive suicidal thoughts at around 16 and actually persisted an attempt to try and kill myself at that time and again about 2 years later, suicidal thoughts subsided at some stages but have never once left me - for the past 5 years I have actually been comfortable with the idea of death, and that if I had to die by any means I would be extremely satisfied. When I presented my fears about my hair, chest and what not to my parents they shrugged it off.
Now here is my biggest mental block that has caused me some intense struggling ... sexual orientation. (I know in the rules it says there must be nothing sexually orientated but this is a big part of my problem and I must explain this as best I can. I apologise if this talk is even out of context and moderators do what you must to edit if you need to). All of my life I have never thought that I am anything but heterosexual, never once had a homosexual thought in my younger years, the first time I had a girlfriend I was 12 and had my first kiss it made me feel great down there. I was not the most well-behaved teenager, I first had sex at 15 with my girlfriend, I was very drunk and could not hold my erection but the proceeding times I was fine with sex, when we broke up and I got a new girlfriend I worried about my performance but got comfortable with her and I still managed to have good sex, slowly but surely I had started testing every interaction of being with a girl to see if I was developing an erection and I started testing porn to see if I would get an erection - I was now losing my libido and feared I had erectile dysfunction at the age of 18. I no longer get random erections, I cannot get an erection from fantasizing, and hardly get it up for pictures/videos, I have become scared of interactions with ladies incase I cannot get it up. One night I had smoked weed and was testing my erection with thoughts, I started developing an overwhelming feeling of anxiety and then for a split second thought "am I gay?", my life has changed since that one night which happened over a year ago. My anxiety has gotten bad until the point that I had really started noticing that something is seriously not right with me - experiencing heart pulpatations and some moments of extreme heart beating, sweating hands and pins and needles in a few of my fingers, extreme hot flushes, heavy breathing, confusion and feeling faint (to the point that I have my phone in my hand ready to leave my roommate a call to say that I am about to pass out/having a heart attack). Since then I have had the "am I gay?" thoughts every day and it is becoming harder and harder to deal with, I sometimes have thoughts that maybe being gay has been my life's problem all along and maybe that caused erectile problems and was the reason for why I have been the way I am all my life? But then I remember my younger days and how I almost couldnt keep my composure looking at some of my female teachers or girls at the swimming pool, and simple thoughts of girls got me going good enough back then. I cannot stress enough that I have never thought for a second that I am actually homosexual and have never been aroused by anything homosexual. I did not think maybe I am homo when I was actually in a given situation struggling to get erect with a girl, it was just that one damn night and now it has plagued my existence. Now when I think of my performance with a girl I think that its the "I'm gay" problem. I am fully aware of the HOCD condition but I don't feel comfortable saying that is what I have because what if it is just denial of being homosexual? But it just does not feel right in my mind, yesterday I was feeling quite anxious and randomly thought "gay" and fell into a full on anxiety attack. With the painful attacks becoming more frequent I went to my GP last week and told him about the anxiety (but nothing about the sexual orientation problem) and he prescribed me pur-bloka, cipralex and urbanol, I only take pur-bloka and cipralex every day and will resort to urbanol under intense panic circumstances. I have really wanted to kill myself and have considered overdosing on a cocktail of prescription drugs but I hold too much guilt towards the way I might hurt my family for going out without them ever having known that I was so messed up. I have talked to a girl I have been seeing about my anxiety (but not about the gay thing or erectile problem) and she suggested I see a doctor (which I have actually wanted to do for the past 2 years). Not a single person knows about the sexual orientation problem and only 2 people partially know the extent of my anxiety). I am too scared to talk to anyone because they will tell me I am just gay but it seriously does not make sense to me and my mind is constantly fighting with itself. I write this with sweaty hands and I am in serious need of someones guidance and advice on what I should do next, I did not know it was even possible for a person to feel the way I do and have the thoughts that I do.
Again I am sorry if this is all way out of context for this forum and I will direct my message elsewhere but as I said this is truly the first time I am writing or making any attempt of communication for help.