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BreakingFree

Bulletin Board User
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  • OCD Status
    Sufferer

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  • Gender
    Male
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    England

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  1. Thank you too PolarBear. I'm so glad I did this it feels really good to talk. I'm not sure how to stop ruminating to be honest. In the past when dealing with intrusive thoughts they gradually just went away. I've never had an attack this severe though. I've seen lots of people recommend CBT but I can't see what form that could take to help me, I know so little about dealing with OCD really.
  2. Thanks Wonderer I think/know you're right that's exactly what would happen if I confessed. All I want is to be the person my girlfriend deserves and love her in peace for as long as that's what she wants. Worst few days of my life without a doubt. As to therapy I don't even know where I'd start. This has affected me in a myriad of ways for a long time and I've been incredibly lucky so far that I've always managed to deal with it on my own. I think the next time I'm home I might tell my mum everything and ask her advice too. I have no idea how she'll react to the fact I've hidden a serious mental illness for years from everyone So it might come as a bit of a surprise
  3. Thanks Wonderer. I hear what you're saying but what keeps hitting me so hard is that as I see it I've done wrong. It's not hurt anyone and nobody else would ever know what I did but if I don't confess I'm getting away with it without punishment or forgiveness. The irony is that if I confess I could hurt people which is what I've always avoided in the first place. I'd be lifting the weight off of me and potentially hurting others. Such an easy target for OCD and I honestly have no idea how to deal with it. I don't want to set myself on a path of confessing every mistake I've ever made in the past to everyone I know but right now I'm not sure if I can live with myself
  4. Thank you Mike, you're right that's the biggest part of it. I know I've had issues in the past but I've dealt with those. The feeling is almost as if I don't deserve her unless I report exactly what happened that I'm trapped with. Even though I love her more than anything and have never done anything to intentionally hurt her. As a side note I'm so glad to finally be talking to people about this condition. It's something I've kept hidden from everyone I love for so long, I think out of pride and not wanting to be seen differently. The reality is though that I should have been asking for help years ago
  5. Thank you for your reply. I really appreciate it. You're right i didn't think about this much before. All I've ever wanted was things to work with her and compared to that, the rest didn't seem a big deal. i think what my OCD is latching on to in particular is the idea of being 100% honest about everything with a partner. Even about everything in my past before we met. I don't care about her past relationships or particularly want to know about any mistakes she's made but I wonder if she'd feel the same and want me to tell her.
  6. Hi I'm 23 and I've been an OCD sufferer my entire life but have only recently become aware of the extent the condition has damaged my quality of life. For as long as I can remember I've had compulsions about small things and OCD of varying different types, including HOCD, sporadic cleanliness, order, repeatedly reloading video games when things aren't perfect, compulsively avoiding reading nasty things so I don't dwell on them later etc. Until now I've never told another soul about this and always been firm in the belief that I could handle it on my own. Eventually all the compulsion and worries have passed until now, which is why I'm reaching out for help. I'm a masters student at university and currently under quite a lot of stress during deadline season when I've been hit by an absolute freight train of OCD regret specifically relating to my relationship. It's so bad I haven't eaten or slept properly for the past few days and need any available advice. I have been an extremely sexually repressed individual. It was a topic that wasn't discussed in my house growing up and I started masturbating at a late age and incorrectly. I suffered from prone masturbatory syndrome that I didn't self cure until my gap year and I also had to have a penile frenuloplasty to correct tight foreskin in the same year. I'd had a terrible time at high school having gone through an 'ugly' phase and been badly bullied to the extent that I considered killing myself. As a consequence I'd had no sexual contact by the time I arrived at university. When I arrived at Uni I was obviously interested in sex but never managed to have it in my first year. I was lucky in that I'd become better looking since high school and a few attractive girls were interested. I came close but never gone through with it always having performance anxiety. I was anxious (OCD anxious now I remember it) about sex. By the end of first year I was happy, having made a bunch of friends but sexually I was very frustrated. I'd discovered porn while there and used it to help me relieve my frustrations. In second year is where the regret is. At the start I was invited by a girl to go back to hers but due to anxiety and being incredibly drunk couldn't get aroused. I became depressed and wish I’d sought professional help. Instead, I did something I really regret. While at a friends house after a night out that I'd had a big crush on in the past I was left alone in her room. I was looking around and noticed her underwear on her laundry and had a look at it, having little experience with ladies' underwear. I didn't steal them but I took pictures and later masturbated to them. I’d done this once before a couple of months previously with a house-mates underwear that had been left outside my room but didn’t take any pictures. Even then I felt ashamed and deleted the pictures shortly afterwards. This now disgusts me. Later that year I met my current girlfriend. She was beautiful and had an amazing personality and really hit it off after she initially acted weirdly around me, having had bad uni relationships in the past. We started dating in late Feb and I knew this is who I wanted to lose my virginity to and eventually the moment came and once again nerves got the better of me after putting the condom on. I was utterly devastated and my anxiety spiralled out of control. I was afraid of losing her but at the same time hadn't told her the truth about being a virgin. The pressure crushed me and I didn't behave well going through a phase of ‘testing’ my sexuality. One of the ways I acted was by flirting with friends who were girls to boost my esteem. I think because at the time everyone at uni was cheating on each other this didn't seem like a bad thing, even though I deeply regret it now. I made it explicit to the girls I flirted with that I would never cheat and I didn't. But on extremely rare occasions there was inappropriate touching like a hand on waist etc. On one of these occasions my girlfriend saw me and I think assumed I wanted to cheat which I made emphatically clear I didn't. At the same time I bought viagra from the Internet to help with the problem and almost had a heart attack in my girlfriend’s bathroom. Something which seems funny now but wasn't at the time. Things had gotten out of control and the worst OCD guilt comes from being in my friends room again. I seem to remember her underwear being on her laundry again and me picking it up. I cannot accurately date this event but I know it happened and that it was different. I wasn't aroused and I think I was testing myself again, to see what I found sexually attractive. I don't remember taking a picture this time, if I did I deleted it quickly or I'd remember but this event horrifies me. I just don't know what I could have been thinking to do such a thing. Over the summer things got better. I told my girlfriend I was a virgin and it felt like a huge pressure off me. The last time I flirted at all was that October at the start of the new academic year when out extremely drunk and then I made it emphatic to the girl I wouldn't cheat and didn't. Its been a year and a half since and I've never cheated or flirted and always been firm when girls have come on to me out etc. My girlfriend did her year abroad and this fourth year I've fallen incredibly deeply in love with her. We are extremely close and never fight. With her my OCD symptoms have even all but disappeared, it's only now that I’ve been alone for weeks shut up working that they have returned. We haven't had sex yet but I've stopped watching porn and masturbating and am ready to take our relationship to a sexual level with her after finally becoming comfortable but that's when the guilt hit. For the first time in years I could have nothing to be anxious about but I can't stop thinking about the past and confessing to all my mistakes. Those first few months when I was so anxious and stupid. I never intended to cheat or hurt her in any way and though I knew I'd behaved badly and would change it if I could I'd all but forgotten about it until now. Those events had no emotional significance for me, it was just a bad way to deal with the overwhelming stress I felt at the time. Over the past few days the OCD guilt has crippled me. I can't complete my work and I've barely eaten or slept. It goes without saying that I would never behave that way ever again but at the same time I feel the urge to confess the mistakes I made. I'm so close to having everything I've ever wanted with a woman I absolutely adore and I'm not sure if telling her these things would destroy that. I think ultimately she'd understand but she'd never look at me the same way again and I'd desperately want to spare her any pain. This confession could change my life and it'll hurt her which I'd hate to do but maybe it's better to be honest? Any advice would be hugely appreciated from anyone who took the time to read that. Thanks
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