[Trencher12]

Hi all first time posting here. I've struggled with undiagnosed mental issues for awhile and wanted to start unraveling the mystery with this issue.

There is a girl I work with, i was attracted to her from the first time I saw her. A coworker suggested i ask her out, which i did and she said no basically. I had an off and on attraction that over the last few months has become quite intense. Last week sh changed her profile pic and it freaked me out for days. Something so simple and pointless, I find myself fantasizeing about being with her, even though I don't know her well enough to see if we'd be compatible. I guess i'm angry she didnt even give me a chance.

Thing is, this is not the first time I have gone through this. Seven years ago when I broke up with my ex I became obsessed with a girl at my job. Before that I was obsessed with a girl at my school classroom. It's not just limited to real people. I was obsessed with wonder woman of all ******* things, and as far back as 17 I was obsessed with an actress from a b-movie series.
Everytime this happens it causes a ton of emotional turmoil for me. It's pretty god damn draining to be honest.

I do suffer from porn addiction, it was at it's worst in my very late teens when I would be looking up frankly illegal ****. It largely ended after that but I still ge turned on by some violent fantasies. I still have not dealt with the mental scars from the things i've seen and I have been trying the last 7 years to kick it but to no avail.
I don't have many friends, only one and we are fairly surface level. I find it very difficult to connect with others or fit in as my sense of self (what I want to do, what I like, etc) tends to fluctuate. I've never felt like i belonged anywhere, even when I get along with everyone and enjoy what I do.
I spend alot of my life in my head, fantasizing about things. People say im attractive and I'm fairly personable but I have only had 3 relationships and only one deep relationship during which i had a nervous breakdown (i think she had BPD).
My parents never took me to many therapists so all i can say is I was diagnosed with adhd when a child and in my late teens was told I had bipolar though it was only one visit with no sustained observation.
At this point i'm not sure if i'ts aspergers, avoidant, borderline, or even covert narcissism. Don't think i'm schizoid since I want very badly to connect with others.
I'm sorry if this has been long winded, I'm jsut at a point where I need to figure out whats going on. I have searched with no answers and just hate feeling this way for someone who doesn't even really care.

[Skeezyks]

Hello Trencher: Since this is your first post here on PC... to PsychCentral… from the Skeezyks! May the time you spend here be of benefit.

PsychCentral is a great place to get information as well as support for mental health issues. The more you post, & reply to other members’ posts, the more a part of the community you will become. Plus there are social groups you can join & chat rooms where you’ll be able to connect with other PC members in real time (once your first 5 posts have been reviewed & approved.) Lots of great stuff! So please keep posting!

[MickeyCheeky]

I'm sorry. Do you have the chance to see a therapist, now?

[Trencher12]

Originally Posted by Skeezyks

Hello Trencher: Since this is your first post here on PC... to PsychCentral… from the Skeezyks! May the time you spend here be of benefit.

PsychCentral is a great place to get information as well as support for mental health issues. The more you post, & reply to other members’ posts, the more a part of the community you will become. Plus there are social groups you can join & chat rooms where you’ll be able to connect with other PC members in real time (once your first 5 posts have been reviewed & approved.) Lots of great stuff! So please keep posting!

Thanks Skeezyks! Im here hoping for some advice and support and hope I can offer the same to others who are dealing with this stuff.

[Trencher12]

Originally Posted by MickeyCheeky

I'm sorry. Do you have the chance to see a therapist, now?

I'm trying to get in with a therapy co-op my mom told me about. Seems like it'd be helpful to find some answers. I did go to a therapist for a year after my first gf, she ekpt telling me to go to meetings for my addiction. I find it exceptionally hard to, having gone once, I saw no one had made it past 3 days. It was disheartening and I didn't even talk.

I do really need to confront the **** I've been through and done if I am ever going to heal.

[Trencher12]

Been awhile, just joting down some frustrations. Had been trying to keep from masturbating/fantasizing. But it was hard. Have folders of pics of girls I work with, as well as the girl I am obsessed with. I have been trying to date and wanted to try and stay straight so I do not suffer an emberrassing ED issue. BUt I got into a fight tues with family and wed I relapsed 3 times. Right after going on a date with a girl. I went home and masturbating to my fixation girl. Not just normally but rape fantasizing. Wanting to hurt her, humiliate, degrade her, look into her eyes and see her pain/shame/humiliation, to deeply emotionally scar her. I know it's disturbing, but it is just an outlet for my anger and frustration. I'm pretty depressed, wondering if I will ever be okay, ever find someone. Gonna try and kiss this girl next time we go out. I'm scared, really scared but what the heck else will can I do?

[Trencher12]

Weirdly enough, despite my more violent fantasies, I work with women all the time. I'm for women's rights and equality. I think it's just from my early porn addiction usage, I became so numb to things it ramped up to violence in my teens. Partly it comes from sexual frustration I have felt even before I discovered masturbation, even when I was a child I had desire for sex of some kind. I do not know if I was molested, i have no memory of such. I dunno, it has been 7 years since my last relationship, 5 since I tried sex with a friend and could not get hard. She didn't get mad but things were awkward. Again just journaling I suppose.

[Trencher12]

Strangely enough I think I was into sex even before I watched porn or began heavy usage. I made out with my cousins and sister in a "grownup" way around 9. I remember fondling the side of my mom's breasts when embracing her around 10 or maybe 11. I fantasized about sex with the girl from fast times at ridgemont high even when I still though women had male junk. When I started masturbation thing went into freaking overdrive. I would masturbate up to 10 times a day in middle school, even without porn, alot of times just fantasies or just trying to stimulate without visuals. It was then I became sexually attracted to my female cousins. At one time I snuck into my cousins room and smelled her underwear. My attraction to my cousins lasted until my late teens. And more horrific sexual desires lasted until 21 when I read some stories that completely shocked and traumatized me. I still get some flashbacks occasionally, and even some terror of finding those things turnons again.
While I completely admit to a pron/masturbation addiction, i think they issues have started long before. I read that childhood hypersexuality is a symptom of bipolar. Can it be a symptom of adhd as well? not sure.
Whew that was alot, just wanted to get this off my chest.

[Rose76]

Your basic problem is social isolation. All those various diagnoses you've mentioned are really beside the point. A very prestigious psychiatrist saud in a lecture I attended that it takes him five years to of seeing a patient to become really confident how much of their problem is mood disorder and how much is personality disorder. He said most of what psychiatrists tell you after one or two interviews are nothing more than wild guesses. These diagnoses are all theories. One hundred years from now they might be replaced by new systems of thought. What's real is your loneliness and yearning for a relationship. Therapists used to concentrate on problems of living, rather than coming up with labels. Don't be impressed by any label anyone gives you and don't look to label yourself. That resukts in "Trencher must be this way, or that way, because that's how people with X-diagnosis tend to be." Pretty soon you start imitating what you think your diagnosis is. Very unproductive. If you could find a good therapist, it might be helpful to you.

You know that your attachment to violent pprn is not normal. That's good that you realize that. Basically, evil moves in where there is a void. You have to crowd it out with other things.

What you're doing here is not going to get you anywhere. You need a better sense of privacy. Nobody here is going to do Freudian analysis of
the inner workings if your mind. Nobody here is qualified. Furthermore, there isn't a lot of evidence that people find their quality of life improved by Freudian analysis. You might be surprised at how many bizarre thoughts go through most people's minds. Lots of people have all kinds of weird fantasies. Most of us do not really want to hear each others' wildest imaginings. Learn to keep some things to yourself. What you're doing is using the venue of this forum to more deeply explore what you already know is getting you nowhere. So wise up. Nevermind worrying what's a symptom of what. You know you're lonely and frustrated. You know that your thought processes are not healthy . . . not getting you where you want to go. So stop being fascinated by this pathology. Lots of people have had disturbing experiences . . . and have had disturbing behavioral or mental responses to those experiences. A lot of that initially came into your world uninvited. Why isn't necessarily that important. You don't recall being molested, but simple loneliness and boredom can set the scene for odd obsessions. Have a zone of privacy. This mental activity of yours is not providing you any real satisfaction. So don't immerse yourself in narrating it, as you are doing here. That's just fueling the fire. Seek membership in a program for individuals with similar obsessions and give it a chance. Going to one meeting is not giving it a chance.

There's an old saying about these kind of mental habits that I think offers wise advice. "Thoughts are like birds. You can't stop them from flying over your head. But you can stop them from making a nest in your hair."

In therapy, you might be able to address your relationship with your parents. I suspect something there was seriously problematic. Less intellectualizing about how various disorders affect the mind would do you good. Think about the nature of relationships in your family of origin that are aside from sex. You are overthinking sex. Think about other aspects of the dynamics in how your parents treated each other and hiw they treated you. I believe that at the root of sexual problems and obsessions are issues that may have nothing to do with sex. Look there . . . and forget diagnostic labels.

[Trencher12]

so dont post on here anymore? um, okay i guess

[Rose76]

You don't get "scarred" and "traumatized" by an activity (viewing violent porn) where you were in total control. Unless you get honest, you're just spinning your wheels. What did you expect? So you thought, "I'll come on PC, talk about what a perv I am, and readers will help me "start unraveling the mystery."? "Let's see . . . could it be due to bipolar disorder or, maybe, due to ADHD? Hmmm, which could it be?" What do you seriously want to get out of this?

You have serious problems. Life is very lonely for you, and that is going to feel worse and worse, as you get older. You do right to seek a way out of being on a path towards a very unfortunate destiny. But get real. You know perfectly well that neither bipolar disorder, nor ADHD, cause a person to enjoy violent sexual fantasies. Being obsessed with sexual violence is a disorder of its own. It can happen to go along with any other disorder you care to name. It certainly can be fueled by exposure to material that lets you experience sexual arrousal in the context of violent imagery. You may never figure out why you are susceptible to finding this imagery arousing. But is that what you most need to figure out? Would figuring that out cure your loneliness?

As you've said, you "spend a lot of time in your head, fantasizing . . . " That's not really getting you anywhere, except deeper into lonely frustration. So start withdrawing your mental energy from mental activity that is only going to make you weirder and weirder and less interesting to others, including the women you work with. I don't think you are primarily victimized by some "trauma" that you need to "heal" from. You are, now, primarily victimized by your own bad habit. You can't analyze your way out of a bad habit. You don't break the hold of a bad habit by investing more and more mental energy into it. (Of course, that is just my opinion. Others may advise you differently.)

Experts say that fascination with violent sex isn't really about sex. So I'm saying you need to start barking up a different tree. If you want to interpret that as meaning "Don't post on here anymore." then I think you are being disingenous. You're wanting to characterize this exchange as: "Gee-wiz, I came here earnestly looking for help, and I just got rebuffed. Oh well, just more rejection. Poooor me. Nothing I can do." You probably have a history of some sort of victimization. I believe most very unhappy people do. It may have had nothing to do with sex. I'm encouraging you to look at the bigger picture, and I believe you're smart enough to do that.

I have to disagree with the violent porn being some kind of serious problem since many of us guys are into things in the wild BDSM side of things. Your sexual interests are what make you human; embrace them. Why try to hide who you really are or change? Society won't give a damn either way so why be unhappy because of other people? You are an individual. You are unique. You are you. Nobody can change that.

Obviously it's not OK to go around having violent sex with women who aren't into that sort of thing but I don't see anything wrong with simply watching porn or doing it with somebody who consents to it. After all, there are plenty of people who like to be physically hurt or dominated during sex; as long as they like it and you aren't hurting people who aren't into that sort of thing, who cares?

With that being said, I would still recommend doing something about your loneliness and I would also stop putting such an emphasis on labels. I mean, who gives a flying flip about the many labels used in psychology? Don't let a label define who you are; move past it. Still though, if you can afford to see a therapist, I say go for it. Worst thing that can happen is it they won't understand you or won't help which in case, move to another. Self help books are also an option and can sometimes be more beneficial.

But whatever you do, don't change what makes you who you are for anybody. Instead, embrace everything that you are, both the good and the bad and move forward. Everybody has a dark side to them, especially those of us who have been hurt in our lives and there is nothing wrong with it as long as you don't go around hurting innocent people.

I hope I helped!

[Javacat]

I have read some stuff on how lonliness can warp the mind. Do you have allot of social outlets?

[Javacat]

I wonder if you have read about pure O? Are any of the thoughts, obessions intrusive?

[Entity06]

I think it's possible this obsession with violent sexual acts stems from anger, at least in part, towards the life situation in general, society, women, oneself. It could also be that you don't know how to express that anger and distress in other ways.

Whatever the reasons are, in my opinion it would be good to try and somehow stop them from taking over, because while it's alright as long as you don't act on them, there's a very thin line and it can turn you into an actively violent person towards women without you even realizing it or wanting it. Besides, even if it doesn't, just like porn and the messages sent by society, these thoughts can in time shape the way you perceive women and relate to them.

I say this as a woman who is also very very lonely and who watches pretty hardcore stuff sometimes purely because anything depicting something I actually crave and desire to have, makes me cry not get aroused, so I have to watch things that can be fantasies but I wouldn't personally engage in. We can all go to unexpected lengths when it comes to coping with our needs and so on, but it's important not to let those things, if potentially bad, to make lasting changes to the way we see the world.

[Rose76]

Entity offers one of the best posts I've seen in a while.