[anthro]

I am an 18 year old male. If this content is too graphic please remove the post, I just don't have anywhere to turn. Ok, lets get started.

I have a phobia, which entails people thinking I am masturbating. This may sound weird, but it has been developed over the past 4 years, and furthered by constant negative reinforcement.

It all started around the time I was 14, I had begun masturbating prior to this, but before this I really didn't feel the true motivation to do it. Maybe I am a late bloomer? Anyway, I was caught several times around this age by my mother, and her being a major christian, she would lock me in the basement. She would also take away my computer. She would say "this devilish impurity must be handled with supreme diligence, or may god strike you down". She sent me to church to deal with it, and before I knew it there was a tight focus on my masturbatory behavior, it's all anyone talked about in my family. She also told all of my relatives, so any time we would have a meet up, they would make jokes or ask me about my demons. This is when the phobia set in. I found that even going to the bathroom became uncomfortable because I was afraid of taking too long, and my mom would come down on me. The phobia only manifested from there.

I spent about two years without any masturbation, but the phobia was getting worse. I felt such an intense urge every time I was around the opposite sex, and it became truly overwhelming. At about 16, a month before I turned 17, I was at a family reunion. My mother, father, and everyone in the family was there. I was going about the day feeling pretty happy, until I ran into a cousin of mine. She and I had grown up together, and we are the same age, I am about three months older than her. She had developed into a beautiful lady, and it immediately caught my eye. Let me remind you, at this point in my life I had held off from masturbating for two years, and the intense hormonal drive I was feeling was inescapable. Now I feel absolute shame for what comes next for so many reasons. I became overwhelmed with lust for my cousin, first off, this is truly a disgusting thought, and I do not endorse incest. Secondly, I had to quickly escape because I had become aroused around 20 people. So I fled to the restroom, and was unable to shake my arousal. There was only one option, so I decided to handle the situation. I began masturbating, and my mother must have seen me rush off in a fit of lust because the next thing I knew, the bathroom door was being ripped open. Standing in the threshold of the entrance were 6 of my relatives, some laughing at me, and others incredibly shocked in dismay. My mother grabbed me off of the toilet, with my pants still down, and dragged me into the kitchen, where the rest of my family could embrace the horror. When we got home that day, she locked me in the basement for two weeks, my only time out of the basement was spent at school. She even watched me shower, to make sure there was no funny business.

Since this day, I can't enter any restroom. I can't sleep at night because I am afraid my mother will think I am masturbating. I have no control over my lust, and every single time I feel anything for another person it brings me great shame and guilt. I haven't masturbated since that day, but my impure behavior still follows me like a shadow. I can't handle this fear anymore. I can't even put my hands in my pockets without having a panic attack, because of the proximity to my penis, I feel like people think I am going to fall into a fit of lust right in front of them. I am considering suicide because the fear runs so deep I can no longer function publicly. I am off to college in the fall, and I am terrified it might get worse. I can't live with this anymore.

[Keyslost]

First of all I just want to say religion in general is okay I'm not here to start anything about that. Now with that in mind imo it's stuff like this that causes mental illness later in life. All that sexual repression of course something bad will happen. Then what? Punish you b/c you couldn't have a release? In front of your whole fam? That seems pretty severe to me. Now I may get a lot of flack for this but for the sake of your life just try releasing to something normal. By that I mean someone not in the fam that you find attractive. (not trying to belittle btw just defining what I meant there) If you feel guilt after you can always apologize to God (I'm assuming that's where the fear stems from as well as mom). It is he who holds the power to forgive imo. Now this healing will take time and won't be easy right away. You're counteracting a lot of psychological damage done over a long period of time. If people give you crap about this feel free to msg me. It's not worth your life or sanity just to be "pure" imo.