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Ocd doesnt let me even enjoy a night with friends

Discussion in 'Sexual Orientation' started by Sadness, Sep 18, 2021.

  1. Sadness

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    Today i hang out with my friends, we had dinner at a restaurant. The guy who attended me was a gay guy, not a problem at all, he was a cool guy. But my head made me start testing with him, rubbing his parts in me while i was sit. I just felt those tingles in my penis again, i thought i stopped having these.

    Ocd just destroyed my night with friends, i didnt even enjoyed that much bc of this.
     
  2. Chip

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    While it's impacting your experience, the positive takeaway here is that you realize what's going on. You see the irrationality of it. And of course, as I said the other day, thinking your way out of obsessive thoughts is about as effective as thinking your way out of diarrhea.

    The point is, you recognize what's going on. That's a positive step. It seems like you still need adjustment with your medication dosage, or perhaps a different medication, because, even after months, it's still affecting you on a daily basis. This should not be happening if your medication is properly managed. So I'd say, once again, this is yet another indicator that you need to talk to your psychiatrist and see what can be done.
     
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  3. Sadness

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    Its good that i noticed, im really trying to be as much open minded as i can be but it doesnt seem to work either.

    This things worrying me on daily life is just awful, then i head home and try fantasizing about that guy, until to the point where i just realize and ask myself "why im here again doing the same thing" then i stop. It really feels it turnes into a daily routine lol.

    Wish i had enjoyed more with my friends tho. I will talk to my psychiatrist again. I think i have an appointment this week or the week after.

    The worse thing is that i dont even have answers to my questions, like im in a bear trap for 3 years and i cant get out, my questions seems to increase and i dont get any answers

    Does he have some medication that fills emptyiness and numb feeling? (Jk)
     
    #3 Sadness, Sep 18, 2021
    Last edited: Sep 18, 2021
  4. Chip

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    THe clarity to the questions will come only after your medication is properly adjusted and working. Then, it will be almost like a switch flipped. But you won't *ever* get any answers, or peace, or be able to make sense until the medication is adjusted properly.
     
  5. Sadness

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    Medication is almost the only reason that i keep with this weird obsessions. But i do think that porn is a serious problem too. I cant say why porn makes this worse but im certain that it does. Quiting porn is very hard too.

    I really want that my mind just flip the switch and i stop with this. But at the same time its so hard to believe that it will suddenly stop. But i know this is true. I just wonder how many times i will have to adjust and even how many times i will have to take pills per day so this stops.

    I think i will see my psichiatrist next week.

    The good part of all this is that i had a moment of relieve for maybe a whole week or a week and a half, i could live for a whole week and it felt fantastic.
     
  6. QuietPeace

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    Quitting any sort of habit while you still have OCD issues will be very difficult and possibly impossible. The good news is that once the OCD is addressed the porn should not be causing issues and that you probably will not need to quit it (though if you want to quit that is also fine)

    I feel your pain, I wish I could do the same with my PTSD. Our issues simply do not work that way. We have to work on them. Keep in mind that there are real treatments for your problem.

    Sadly these sorts of issues often need adjustments and no one can predict exactly how many it will take. I also think that it is likely that medication will be needed the rest of your life, just like I have to take blood pressure meds the rest of mine.

    Commit to it. Your psychiatrist is really your only hope for taking control of this issue.

    Keep concentrating on this, you have experienced that it can get better.
     
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  7. Sadness

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    Yeah i actually agree a lot with this, i noticed that for some reason ocd makes it harder to quit some habits, but in the other hand it makes easier to get new habits and obsessions. I do not want to stop watching it forever, tho i want to reduce a lot, since im really in a addiction to it, and this makes me lose interest in some aspects of life. I told this already but i indeed lost desire to have relationships and sex, mostly because of ocd but porn is one of the reasons too. Whenever im talking to a girl and i know i can hang out with her and all, i just lose interest, also the way that i lost interest in loving people too. I cant seem to get attracted to any woman no more lol.

    Im so sorry that you have PSTD, theres clearly no way out unless working in trully, mostly with medications. One of the things that dont let me see my psichiatrist sooner i think is because my mother thinks im getting better, which in fact is working. Im having streaks of a whole week without it, but it still messes me up most of the time. Soi dont want to bother her about this, thats why i like to talk about this with my psichiatrist.

    But i will see him soon, i hope he do adjustments but doesnt increase the ammount of pills i have to take per day lol.
     
  8. Sadness

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    Even today this happened, i was talking about sex with my friends, and they mentioned how i never had it and its so good, and that i should found a woman to do. So they told me i should go to parties and try somethinf there. And i just got scared? Like i was thinking about going in parties and try search for a hookup and i just felt scared, like i had a feeling that i dont want to do it. I dont know why im feeling like, everytime i talk about these i feel so pressured, but only with woman. Men dont seem to make me pressured, i just dont want to do it, while woman makes me feel pressured and it kind gives me anxiety ti think about having sex, a lot of worried just surround my head everytime, there was this day that i was going to a hookup date and right before i go i judt cancelled. Bc i was afraid of not liking it, and i knew i was doing only to once and for all give me clarity. I think i have a trauma about this now lol
     
  9. Chip

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    Sadness, I'm wondering how effective the therapy you're getting is. The combination of issues you are describing should be things that are coming up in therapy sessions, and there are clearly a lot of issues that a good therapist could help you work through. Are you finding your therapy helpful and effective? Are you having sessions that are deep and intense, that are uncovering a lot of stuff about why you experience the world the way you do? That's what good therapy looks like. Of course... in your case, there's the dual purpose of working with the OCD, but one should be able to balance the two.
     
  10. Sadness

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    I cant say for sure, i know that everytime i leave im feeling much better. He usually listens to my fears and moments and explain to me why is it connected to ocd and how clear my behaviour is. He gives me other options as to why all this is happening. When talking about love and sex, he usually give me examples as to why i feel this way, and how love shluldnt be forced, and it comes naturally and that i should not force myself upon liking someone. I didnt talk about sex because im kind scared.

    Whenever i leave him, i always have some good time with myself, and i can sleep well. Even tho eventually all this will bring me down again and will fall into the ocd,testing, ruminating etc.

    I already shared a lot of tears, but now i dont anymore, i kind feel empty inside.
     
  11. Chip

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    Hmmm. It sounds like his focus is mostly or entirely on the OCD. And that's certainly your most acute issue, but when I read this:

    I'm thinking there's a deeper issue, an anxiety that's unrelated to the OCD (or perhaps, something that contributes to the *cause* of the OCD.) If I were your therapist, I'd be wanting to explore that piece as well. There should be real self-discovery and exploration and uncovering of pieces of who you are in the therapy sessions. If he's just explaining your OCD to you, that's certainly valuable to you in the moment, but it's all intellectual; it is not actually doing anything to meaningfully solve the issue or help you build new skills. I don't like to second guess anyone's therapist or healthcare practitioner, but you should be learning and practicing interventions to manage the OCD feelings when they come up (CBT and DBT are good for this). And you should be working on the deeper issues.

    Additionally, anything you are scared to talk about is... exactly what you should be talking about. :slight_smile: The very fact you're scared tells us there's something there, and it's likely important to the overall picture.
     
  12. Sadness

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    Yeah, this is right, we talk a lot about ocd, its probably the only focus. There are ver specifc moments where i explained about my fear of having relationshipps and how i cant seem to fall in love again and we would talk about it.

    I've been wondering what is the cause of my fear of relationships and sex, i cant seem to understand why this is happening, like i said, it only happens towards woman, when talking about men i just dont like to do it, but its not like i dont like doing it with woman though. When im masturbating, thinking about date with woman, hookup, feels really good but when im normal i just feel completely scared. My friends talks about it like it is the best thing in the world, so i dont understand why i feel pressured and scared to do it. Maybe low self steem? I dont really know, i just prefer to avoid those situations for some reason.

    I feel safe and not anxious in my room reading my mangas lol.

    My friends always say to me that its only a hookup, its normal to them but it scares me. Im the only one in the group that had never been in a relationship or had sex. I feel left out sometimes ngl lol.
     
    #12 Sadness, Sep 23, 2021
    Last edited: Sep 23, 2021
  13. Sadness

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    Ive been wondering, will understanding this help on understanding why whenever i think about kissing woman i feel a sick amd bad feeling in my stomach? Even tho i get aroused?

    And why whenever i think about kissing guys i dont feel any of this maybe only tinglings in my penis? I wish i could understand this before kissing a woman again, what if i feel this whenever i kiss her, it wont feel good. And plus, i dont want to actually kiss a guy to know if theres something there lol.
     
  14. Chip

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    There's almost certainly trauma or attachment failures that are at the root of everything. Unfortunately, there are a lot of therapists who are not really fluent in working with trauma, but for a competent therapist, once they really understand it, they realize that it is, to a large extent at the root of nearly everything.

    Talk to your therapist. If he's not the right person to be working on whatever's at the root of your issues (many therapists are either not trained or not comfortable going into the childhood stuff that is at the root of so many things) then it might be time to find a different one. Continual band-aids of his telling you things to make you feel better in the moment are not going to solve your problems in the long run, and sadly, even a lot of therapists don't seem to get this.

    The other issues you raise are part of your OCD and can be ignored.
     
    Sadness and out2019 like this.
  15. Sadness

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    He really calms me down, since i actually feel much, much better after every appointment. I know that only reassuring me wont work, but i think that is my problem too, like i said im kind scared to talk about sex with him and all, im trying to feel comfortable. So maybe im not teeling everything i should tell.

    I really try to understand whats going on, after working with him, taking meds etc. I try to remember my past, think about the times that i kissed. Because i dont think i went through some trauma. The first time i kissed, was with the girl i loved at the time. I dont know actually what i felt, i mean psychological feeling, like love and all, the heart warming and all that, i dont remember feeling that. I just know that i was rock hard and felt good. Dont know if this is what i should feel when i kiss someone.

    The other times i was aroused, hard too. Everytimei did, i spent the whole week masturbating thinking about it.

    So this is what made me believe everything is okay.

    I cant say whats going on, i just have this feeling. And im scared to try kissing girls, bc i dont know if i will like.

    Beside this i cant think of anything that could have cause a trauma maybe.

    I just want to feel love with woman, to kiss, sex everything again i think. Dont know when i will kiss again
     
  16. Chip

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    Well, here's where it gets complicated. OCD is an anxiety-spectrum disorder, in that it has a lot of overlap with, say, generalized anxiety disorder. It's quite possible you have anxiety going on underneath the OCD, but it's really hard to differentiate one from the other because the OCD just gets in the way of everything else. So it's very possible that once the OCD is managed, you may find an underlying anxiety that's interfering with dating women. And as I said, I suspect both of those have their roots in trauma or attachment/bonding failures early in life, because, statistically, a very, very large percentage of folks with those disorders have those underlying issues.

    So in short, it's hard to really solve the problem without getting to the roots of it. And you won't be successful getting to the root of the issue if you aren't even addressing it and are instead, putting band-aids on the symptoms. And this is where it sounds like your therapist may be failing you. Either because he doesn't know about the other things you're anxious about, or because he's too focused on the OCD and is not fluent in the traumatic root of most mental health conditions (a newer and emerging understanding that is not widely being taught in school to therapists yet.)

    You can take the bull by the horns and start to figure it out by bringing it up with him. That may be super scary for you, and it will almost certainly, if you go into the deeper stuff with him, bring up some difficult stuff to process. That fucking sucks, there's no doubt about it. But it's also the most effective way to address the issues in the long term. It starts with that conversation.
     
  17. Sadness

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    Totally agree with you. Ocd seems to get in the of everything else that im going through. So it kind make sense that i cant seem to figure whats going on besides ocd, and how could i have some type of trauma.

    The only deep thing i talked to him yet was about my masturbation and how i was always trying to masturbate to men, my addiction to porn and my weird obsession with transwoman( which i really dislike, since it seems its just a weird and disgusting fetish, which makes me feel bad for them). I already talk about my compulsions that i used to do, atually now i dont try to masturbate like crazy thinking about men, which in fact is good, but sometimes i relapse. What i will address to him next time is what started to happen some time ago. Which is out of nowhere, i never seemed to get something from trying to masturbate to guys. But those last weeks and month whenever i relapsed, which was maybe 1 time each week, i was able to feel arousal and get harder and sometimes even a erection for a few moments. And it wasnt like this before, i would feel tinglings and movements but it wasnt like now, that i trully get feeling of arousal and horny and manage to get hard(or harder than before) and this actuslly confuses me a lot as to why it started to happen.

    I am in a lot of forums about ocd and there are people there that always say that whenever they will fantasize with men they will actually get hard and feel arousal. People there seem to say that masturbation only makes it worse, since we can get aroused and hard by anything we masturbate to it. But is it true? Lol. Its actually very weird as to why this is happening now. I am planning to adress this to him. Last time i said about my masturbation and weird feeling i would feel, he wouldnt hesitate to say it is ocd, but i wonder what will he say now that i will come up saying that im able to feel arousal and get hard, but cant finish.

    Talking about my porn addiction was really tough tho. And now its kind worse, since it seems that anything in porn arouses me. Any type. I only said about straight, trans, and gay porn. But i didnt talk sbout the others genre bc its very, very tough.
     
  18. Sadness

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    I fear that whenever i tell him about this he will get confused. Because one day i appear saying that i was testing with guys and i was only having a feeling down there, then we start to work on this, then suddenly i go there and tell him that now suddenly im feeling arousal and getting hard for a few moments.

    He will be very confused lol, he will peobably say "well so maybe you arent straight" and a whole new discussion will start. Not that it matter tho

    I also said that i am in forums to talk with people about it and he says its good to have other people to talk than just him
     
    #18 Sadness, Sep 27, 2021
    Last edited: Sep 27, 2021
  19. Chip

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    My suggestion: Go in a completely different direction. Quit talking about your masturbation, your porn use, your fantasies or obsessive thoughts related to masturbating, porn, and men. (YOu could do really, really well to do the same here, as even in the posts above, you're going in the same circles you've always gone in.)

    One option is to tell him that you want to explore what might be underlying the OCD. Talk about your fear of relationships with women. Don't mention thinking about men, because that's OCD. The fear of relationships and what it would be like ot be in one is where the root of the anxiety (and perhaps the root of the OCD) is.

    I suspect the trauma is not recent. It is likely within the first 3-5 years of life. That's when the majority of brain neurochemistry is developed, and there's very solid evidence that our relationship with caregiving parents, our parents' emotional capacity, their own mental health stability, and ability to connect with others is deeply rooted in how our brains develop. That's almost certainly where your issues lie. If your therapist isn't prepared (or trained) to be able to process that sort of stuff with you, it's going to be hard to make long-term progress.
     
  20. Sadness

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    I will try that on my next appointment with him, maybe going in with a new approach helps a lot. Of course we will talk about ocd, since its the main focus, whenever im there he is always asking how im managing ocd. So this topic will emerge. But maybe talking about my fear of relationships and all that could be a really good way of dealing with it.

    Its actually pretty sad that our traumas comes such in a young age and we actually dont remember almost anything that happened in that period of time. So maybe thats why a lot of traumas are hard to understand.