Confused and scared about life

Hi ,

I am a 25 yr old male. I am addicted to sex and masturbate once a day in bed every night. If i dont do it it is hard for me to get into sleep. I started masturbating around the age of 12. although i am not addicted to porn i rarely visit any porn sites. and porn sites rarely turned me on

when i started i was straight, i used to fantasize on women. when i entered high school there was a very charming classmate. i fantasized on him back then. and after that have been attracted to men eversince.every day i fantasized on the hottest person i came across that day.

during this time i was attracted to few girls also. but these attractions ended after i masturbated on them but with guys this would last for days.

back then i just thought life is to enjoy and didnt think seriously. when my attraction to guys got out of control i freqvently got depressed and didn't want to repeat it but every time i see a hot guy the feeling was overwhelming and i eventually developed a social fear of being around with men. i started to sweat heavily in social situations around hot guys. i just feel out of control.

My Personal back ground:
As a kid i had an abusive mother she neglected me and verbally abused me. she has her own set of emotional problems. My father was never involved with me and was emotionally unavailable.
In school i had self esteem issues and was often depressed during my entire schooling . i didn't have friends. until today i have problem of forming strong bonds and often feel lonely and helpless. although i was good at studies and good with professors. i was not interested in sports but although i didn't feel feminine . i was interested in maths and academics. I currently have a good job and want to settle in life but don't know how to
before developing these i had ego problems and others usually considered me as self centered and selfish, i am good looking

My sweating started around 2 years back. Till date i have met around 3 psychiatrist but none have helped me to realize and remove the fear. I am facing a great deal of problems in relations at work due to this sweating/not being comfortable. i have explained my problem in detail to one of the psychiatrist and they just give me anti psychotic medication which adds to my problems makes me drowsy. and these medications rarely relax me.

please someone suggest me on:

1) weather i have gender identity problem
2) how to be remove this fear that has built in? this fear is very overwhelming and i usually avoid social situations
3) can i return to my relaxed self that i was earlier as i cant get rid of these thoughts and they appear appear automatically and are often overwhelming. for any situation i have to prepare myself for a long time to face it and in every day activities i get flooded with negitive thoughts

Hi, mikepaul! This sounds more like a sexuality thing, not gender identity. Maybe you could try experimenting with your sexuality and see if you really prefer men. There's nothing wrong with that.
Did your doc think you might have OCD instead? You could ask them about it and look through that forum, if you like. It's about intrusive thoughts (I am not a professional and neither is anyone else here, we can't diagnose you). If you feel attracted to men, you feel attracted to men, though.

Dear Jasmine,

Thank you very much for the link. I read some post on the OCD forum and they seem to be exactly similar to what i am going through. from past 2.5 years i suffered from extreme anxiety, fear and social phobia . it was very difficult for me step outside my house and meet people. except for work where somehow i managed because i had to

My psychiatrists never told me what problem i was having out of the 3 psychiatrists, 2 had given me antipsychotics, but neither didnt have any clarity on what was problem i faced. whenever i took them i used to experience head aches. I had completely lost hope even with counselling.

After going through those posts and learning in detail about OCD. I have the clarity now on where i was going wrong. and what i should change in myself.

I am so glad i came across this forum where we can discuss our minds, as lots of people going through mental disturbances are isolated and cant open upto people and even diagnosis of these problems are very difficult due to opening up to the Councillor and may even take many sessions. and in some cases may not get diagnosed at all

Hey, maybe you'll find someone who can give you the right treatment now and perhaps some therapy if it's necessary. I'm glad you found the forum helpful, stick around