Need Outside Feedback

Greetings Ya'll! This is my first post here. I have a long history of psychological abnormalities and subsequent maladaptive behaviors, so I will try will try to keep this post from being a three page long rant about each and every one of issues and my speculations about their origins and prognoses, but I will likely digress. Anyways, on to the most pressing issue at hand, which I believe to be of a paranoid nature, but seeing as I am the one experiencing the paranoia, if that is what it is, I become so wrapped up in the emotionally of it I fear my perceptions are beginning to, and have been for some time, bordering on delusion, and I am just trying to find some way out.

About 4 years ago at this point, I had a drunken and pilled up encounter with a friend of mine and a mutual female friend. We decided to double team her. Sober, I did not find her particularly attractive, but she was far from ugly. Anyways, I suffered from some performance issues as after she blew me I would get hard, but by the time I would put on a condom and go to enter her I would already be soft. After enough attempts I managed to do it quick enough where I got the condom on quick enough where I was hard enough to penetrate. I banged away with for what felt line hours, and I never finished or really could gauge how hard I was being I was so numbed out form the booze and benzos and weed that I could barely feel a thing, and eventually just slumped to the side covered in a puddle of my own sweat. Before then, I had never experienced any performance issues whatsoever, and really prided myself on my virility. Although most of the time I was sexual inactive, I had had several successful sexual experiences with another woman before this point.

Anyways, after that day, I always seemed to have some lingering doubt about my ability to perform, but it was never a focal point in my stream of consciousness. Anyways, between then and when I went to a 5 month guys only rehab in the middle of nowhere (long history of substance abuse), I only had one other sexual encounter, where she blew me and I did get hard, but was soft when she pulled down my pants, from what I could tell was clearly anxiety. I never did cum, but she was on her period, but I can never cum from blowjobs anyways, even though I find them highly stimulating, as them seem to supply an insufficient amount of friction to finish the job. Anyways, while at the mens rehab, I had a lot of free sober time on my hands,and my anxious mind began to run in circles as it has always tended to, and I think that is where my problems really began. I spend most of the day conjuring up positive self talk about my ability to get and stay hard, and would "test" myself so to speak, by mentally fantasizing about sexual situations until I began fully erect. But it was never enough, and I ended up constantly trying to reassure myself of my abilities, and it took on a life of it own as a full obsession. I even had the fleeting thought "what if God where to punish my by afflicting me with impotence?" Luckily it was a fleeting thought, as I am an agnostic.

After leaving the rehab, the hustle and bustle of real life seemed to calm things down a bit, albeit not completely. However, after a few months, I found myself in halfway house with a part time work from home job, and I was secluded in my room by myself with my computer and television for the majority of the day. It was there that things really took a turn for the worst. I began to gave constant intrusive thoughts telling me, often in a tone other than my own normal self talk, that God was going to punish me with impotence, of that God would punish me if I did or didn't to x, y, or z, or is a, b, of c happened. It became totally maddening. I believed deep down that I was just being paranoid, but I had to find out for myself, so I compromised my own standards and saw a prostitute in an attempt to assuage my fears. I worked. For about a day. Then the thoughts were back, especially because the encounter was smooth, and I was so ****ing nervous that the only was I was able to get hard enough to penetrate her was to jack of for like 5 minutes. ****ing pathetic. Anyways, things continued like this for a while, and I would see a hooker every now and again, perform poorly but still adequately enough to confirm I was not broken, if you will.

Then, the winter of that year, I had sort of a manic episode triggered by a xanax binge, and I ended up getting put on lithium and klonopin, and started working with an EXCELLENT therapist. Within a few weeks of meds and therapy, my fears started to calm down, and I even met a girl that I had good sex with a couple of times. (even though at first I stuggled with getting and staying hard, but we persisted and after one successful round I was good to go.) However, they insisted in taking me off of the klonopin, and as soon as they did the paranoia resumed with a vengence. It just got worse and worse, along with my drinking, until I got sent away to a rehab again, where the paranoia festered into a bigger monster than ever. Here is the crux of this issue, what I have been "stuck on" if you will, for months now.

As, I mentioned previously, the thought would enter my mine that if this that or the other thing, God would punish me with impotence. I was constantly doing what can be construed as irrational, like throwing stuff in one garbage can instead of the next, or praying thanks, because I had been "instructed" or "warned" to. These were never auditory, bu voices in my head, whose origin I suppose if my own mind, even though the voices take on various tones, like the voices of different individuals, which is what makes me question their origin, even though I know the mind is a rich and creative place, and this is more likely than God Himself sending me these kinds of messages, but the feeling is hard to shake. I would also look for evidence, like split a deck of cards, and the though would say that if it is a 9, God has/will punish you in the way you so greatly fear, and of course it would sometimes be 9, and it sometimes felt like my fears were being confirmed more than denied, but I realize this is likely due to my psychological focus, and cuts of the deck which refuted by fears certainly did occur. Anyways, the most recent scenario which is causing me distress is a s follows:

A few month ago while in the rehab, the thought of sticking my tongue into a girl's ear came into my head. I find the idea very stimulating, but had never done it in real life, and wondered how other people felt about it and what their experiences were, but was afraid to voice my thought for fear of being though of as strange. (I have very low self esteem at times). Anyways, on the smoking patio one night, the perfect opportunity seemed to arise, as two guys were asking the others if they had ever liked a girl's butthole. I then had the thought, what if this is a test from God? A test to prove that I am not afraid and not too ***** to ask? What if if I don't I am punished with impotence? Then the thought, in what seemed like a slightly different voice came to me saying, "if you don't asked these two this question, you will never have sex again, my son". It was not enough to motivate me to do so, as I had hundreds of similar thoughts, though perhaps not quite as intense, but it is really hard to remember exactly. Anyways, a few mornings later, I woke up with an erection that was only about 80%, I tried to fantasize myself to fully erect to test my abilities, but could not make it happen. I then had the thoughts contemplating whether or not God was sending me a warning about the validity of the warning on the smoking porch. I tried for several days but my anxiety was so high that as I got close to fully erect, almost panic would set in and I would become soft again. Finally one morning that thought "the warning is over" popped into my head, and the next afternoon before lying down to nap I decided to myslef, you know what, this is stupid, whether or not I can fantisize myslef to full mast doesn't mean **** about my ability to get fully hard, it is just anxiety getting in the way, I no longer care about the result of this stupid mental exercise. Then, low and behold, I began to fantisize without worry, and I easily became fully hard,if only for only for a second before the anxiety set in lol.

Anyways, I am obsessing over whether or not this was a legitimate warning from God, my reasoning being as follows:

1. The warning about asking the question to those guys felt fairly intense
2. The subsequent diffuculty getting fully hard, while had happened to me before, after a few failed attempts I would be able to succeed thinking myself to fully erect, all within 15 minutes or so, the problem never lasted for days
3. Messing with my erections would certainly seem like a very clear and direct way of getting my attention, especially given the theme of the warning
4. The problem resolved after having the thought "the warning is over"

I try to counter this in my mind with the following line of thinking;

1. You have had similiar, albeit not exactly identical thoughts, in the past, such as if this, that, or the other thing, you will be punished with impotence, and they turned out to be FALSE

2. The only reason you were having trouble with getting hard was that you woke up with an 80%er and started having negative thoughts about it, and were in such a state of anxiety about it that you created some sort of mental block for yourself

3. The reason you over came it when you did is not because it was when you thought "the warning is over", but rather because you were able to relax and stop caring so much, the thought merely fueled and coincided with that state of mind.

While I would love to accept the second interpertation and close the book, my mind is not allowing me to do so, and I am all day torn between weighing these two interpretations and their respective likelyhoods. I have even considered trying to round up those two guys, whereever the **** then are, and get them together under false pretenses, simply to ask them the question just in case there is an issue and it will fix things. But I was never that close to either of them so that might prove difficult, plus I fear I would just be feeding the paranoia beast and giving into these irrational thoughts, making a fool out of myself for nothing. And you know what, even if its all bs and I knew it but making a fool out of myself would make these thoughts and feelings stop, I would do it in a heart beat. But experience tells me a far more likely outcome is that this fear owuld just resurface with some other "ultimatum" or what have you, and like I said I have had sex on several occiasions since this began, but the fear always resurfaces in one form or another.

Anyways, sorry for being so long winded. I will end with my two prompts/questions to ya'll:

1. Do you think, especially those religious among you, that this most recent warning of my fixiation is legitimate and that I should round those two up ASAP. or am I being paranoid?

2. How should I best address this issue?

This is really affecting my already low confidence around females, especially since it is so constant and obseissive, and really just ruining my ****ing life. I know this all just sounds really pathetic and ridiculous, but remeber, this is not voluntary. I hate being like this. Imagine if it were you with these uncontrollable thoughts and feelings? It ****ing sucks.

Thanks in advance to those who rpely

Hello Sick_of_being_Sick: Well... I have to tell you I don't believe in god. So from my perspective this is all just thoughts your brain is producing. I'm not a mental health professional. So I'm not in a position to suggest to you what diagnosis you might be given. But I personally feel pretty confident in telling you that god has nothing to do with all of this. It certainly is true that anxiety over one's ability to perform sexually can have a serious effect on one's ability to do so. And these kinds of worries tend to feed on themselves. So the more you worry the more trouble you have. And then the more trouble you have the more you worry. And on it goes.

I enjoy learning about the findings of research on the brain that is being done now with such technology as fMRI. One conclusion I've read about that sticks in my mind is that much more or who we are & what we do is controlled by areas of the brain to which we have no conscious access than we would typically imagine. So my mostly uneducated perspective, with regard to all of this, is that it is being generated in non-conscious areas of your brain fueled by a mixture of anxiety, alcohol, & whatever drugs you are using or may have used in the past. My personal opinion is that to continue to entertain the possibility that this is all somehow the work of god is simply to prolong the agony. The answer to your problems lies within your brain. And this requires real-world solutions... to the extent that there are any. My recommendation, for what it's worth, is to seek a mental-health-based solution.

I see this is your first post here on PC. So... 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!

this can not be explained in a forum like this ... it has taken me over 50 years to understand what I know about religion and our understanding about god and our relationship ...

it is not now or has it ever been my desire to change (either positive or negative) anyone's belief in there god ..

but from my perspective ... nothing you have expressed in your post leads me to believe "god" has talked to you in any way ... I am not a dr or medical pro of any kind ... but I feel your issue is some struggle your having with yourself ... I don't know shrink stuff or dr stuff ... but I know god stuff ... it's tough not having someone else to blame ... but I do not think you will ever get to the bottom of this issue until you look deep inside and try to discover why you would have these feeling about yourself ...

maybe time to consult a med pro or your gp ... maybe a therapist ... or if your close to one maybe a religious person ... for your pease of mind I ask you to stop dwelling on what you see as god's hand in everything ... and conscentrate on being kind to yourself ... understanding yourself ... forgiving yourself ... loving yourself .... and I feel when you start having a better opnion of yourself ... the world will start opening up to you ... peace to you my friend .... Tigger.