PLEASE HELP How do I tell my therapist?

I’m 21 years old and need to get some stuff off of my chest. I told my therapist that I have stuff I need to talk about but couldn’t get the courage to tell him what it was. He’s obviously male so it’s harder for me to talk to him about certain things but I’m very comfortable with him in general and I’ve been seeing him for 6 months so I’m not really interested in switching therapists unless you ABSOLUTELY think it’s necessary.

I am completely ashamed to admit these secrets about me. I’ve never shared them before. But basically… I am extremely terrified of my own body. I have very abnormal issues but I am seemingly perfectly normal on the outside. I am a university student who lives at home, I seem to function normally, no problems… But my life is a mess. This is the most embarrassing thing and I’ve never told anyone and I even cringe typing it but I need a place to throw it out.

I can count the number of times on one hand the amount of times I have been able to wipe myself after using the bathroom. I’m 21 and I have to have my mom do it for me, otherwise I just go for a shower because I am that terrified to do it myself. The thing is my mom enables me because she feels bad for me. When I am on my period, she changes my pad for me. I don’t even know how to change it because I am too scared to touch it. This is a concern. On the OFF chance that I do touch anything I spend 30 minutes in the bathroom washing my hands, with scalding hot water.

I am ashamed and terrified of my body.. Another thing:

From my very earliest memories, I have always dealt with unwanted sexual arousal/thoughts/feelings. I have never, ever talked about this and I literally have the hardest time typing this out because this is so embarrassing and hard for me to talk about.*

Basically some background about me is that I am born in the United States but of Indian decent. For some reason everything about the Indian culture brings out this huge unwanted sexual arousal in me and it frustrates me to the point where I just want to rip my body into pieces. It doesn't "feel good" it feels bad. Unwanted arousal is still technically arousal, but it isn't pleasurable. It makes me feel disgusting and sick, and gives me this huge urge to masturbate.*

Hinduism is the religion that most Indians practice and all the rituals and customs and traditions of this religion for some reason cause huge arousal in me. Recently, without my parents knowing, I have become a Christian and given my life to Christ and found peace in that. However, these thoughts of arousal come multiple times a day and it's creating a lot of sin in my life.

I've always struggled with OCD. Specifically when it came to masturbation. As a child I was taught about masturbation by a boy my age who didn't have malicious intention behind telling me about it. I was around 5 at the time and *that's when it all started. Throughout my life every time I masturbate it has to be a certain number of times, sometimes I'm stuck in my room on my bed all day having to satisfy my OCD - at that point I'm not doing it because it feels good but because I feel like if I don't do it a certain amount of times, I'm going to die or some sort of chaos will happen in my life. Whenever I start it goes on forever and it comes to the point where my vagina will start burning and hurting and it feels like I'm ripping it to pieces just because I have to do it a certain way in a certain amount of time. And it's different each time.

Anyway, because of this I try never to start masturbating because I know how difficult it will be for me to come out of it. HOWEVER, I am CONSTANTLY surrounded by unwanted arousal because I am constantly surrounded by the things I am aroused by.

For example, yoga/breathing exercises/meditation is a big cultural part of India as well as Hinduism. Those things are looked at as a way to connect to the Hindu Gods and for some reason that has always always ALWAYS sparked arousal. ** I know many people will say yoga is something that arouses a lot of people, but I do not mean it in the same way as you're thinking. It's very different and very disturbing. Even hearing the word yoga or looking at it or typing it makes me want to rip my hair out, it makes me want to self-harm so bad to a point where I can't even feel anything. Hearing those words or even typing them out make me want to die.

Of course no one in my family has any idea I've struggled for all my life with this and recently I've been going through some health issues. Because of these health issues my parents think yoga is a good way to fix my stomach issues. And multiple times a day they will tell me to do yoga or mention it and it makes me want to masturbate, which if I start then it'll create that OCD cycle. Basically it makes me want to kill myself and I feel disgusted, violated, and just angry with myself whenever I hear it because I feel gross when I get turned on by something my parents say. Because that arousal is then associated with either my mom or dad and that spirals into something huge and disgusting.

LASTLY: THIS IS A VERY HEAVY ACCUSATION AND I DO NOT KNOW IF IT HAPPENED. But I have flashbacks of being very young, and being sexually abused by an extended family member. I DOUBT this happened but I keep having flashbacks of it whenever I end up going into these OCD loops.

I CANNOT LIVE LIKE THIS ANYMORE. It is HELL. Also the whole idea of talking to a professional about it also starts to create weird feelings which is why I'm stuck. I can't get through this without having to deal with the pain of it.

My therapist told me to start talking to him about “what’s been bothering me” and to email him if I can’t tell him in person. I AM TOO EMBARRASSED. How do you even bring this up??? I am so shy that I can’t even talk about what I had for breakfast this morning, let alone all of this!!

I feel like committing suicide because that seems like the only way to escape these thoughts and my past. I don’t think I’ll ever get it out. What do I do?

Hello and welcome to PC. I suggest that you print out your post and give it to your therapist to read.

I agree with Laurie, either print it out and hand it to your therapist or use email, but it is very important that you do this as soon as possible, so you can start working on what is bothering you. Everything is going to be OK, just be sure and communicate with your therapist in whatever way is comfortable for you.

I wish you luck

I think that you'd feel so much better talking about it with your T if you're comfortable with him. Maybe just start with one thing so that you can test the waters and see how it goes.

Good luck!