Tweet
First off, I wish I had known about this forum at 13 years old when I accidentally injured myself. It likely would have saved me many years of pain, depression, and feeling like I had a big secret hanging over my head everywhere I went. Not fun stuff for a 13 year old to go through. But anyhow, I am thankful to have found this forum when I did, about six months ago, and have decided to share my story and my steps toward complete recovery (which is now in progress).
I'm going to try to keep this as concise as possible, though I know there will be details that I could go on forever about. If it feels like I'm telling you my life story for no reason, it's probably because you can't relate or don't need to hear the information. I've decided to do this in order to hopefully save some other sorry soul out there from making the same natural mistakes that I have made for the past 9 years before getting to a point of acceptance and understanding of how to most constructively move forward. I am 22 now and graduated from college over a year ago. All I can say is thank god for music. I have been playing guitar since I was 8 and I swear it feels like music was given to me in order to get through all this. Okay, bear with me now…
13 years old
-Injured my penis after an erection was forced in the opposite direction (by tight clothing). I heard/felt a popping sound/sensation. Hard to know if it was actually audible to others.
-Developed the symptoms of hard flaccid immediately which continued to be a daily struggle for the next 9 years.
-Became extremely worried about the accident and tried to masturbate to make sure I was ok. I realized how difficult it was to get an erection. The underside of the base of my penis was not filling properly with blood so my erections had no support and aimed downward. I was completely healthy physically and mentally with a strong slightly upward erection before this.
-I had increasing anxiety from that point forward and began to withdraw from being social at school as my confidence completely vanished. I did not tell anyone what happened, not even my parents.
-Did some research a few months later after realizing it wasn’t getting better and found out that I “should” have gotten surgery immediately after the accident (though I now know this isn’t always entirely true). This tripled my anxiety and I quit researching and began to go into a state of denial and depression.
15 years old
-Still haven’t told my parents.
-Increasing depression and anxiety, which made me susceptible to a mental illness known as HOCD. This was triggered after a failed masturbation session where I was clicking through pictures of girls and when I reached PONR a picture of a guy popped up and totally killed the pleasure. Unfortunately, this then happened again one time when I was visualizing a girl in my mind and masturbating. Right before I ejaculated a male face popped in my head and killed the pleasure. So, being weak in confidence already, I began to obsess about why that had happened and if it meant I was gay (though I got no pleasure at all from the intrusive images I just became full of fear as to why it was happening). OCD and anxiety began to surround my sexual identity even though up until that point I had been completely confident in that aspect of myself. I’m not going to go into the details of the walking hell that is HOCD because that would take a whole thread, but if you are interested, you can do some research. I will provide links later to some success stories that helped me begin facing the issue rather than fearing the issue which only compounds the illness and gives it power over you (as with any OCD).
17 years old
-I hit rock bottom with my second girlfriend (first of which I ever had sexual encounters with, but no intercourse) when I couldn’t stay hard enough to get a condom on. Also wasn’t enjoying oral completely because I was anxious about whether I would have an HOCD thought, blah blah blah, my anxiety was through the roof and I didn’t even really know it at the time.
-So, I finally told my parents about the injury. However, I said nothing about the HOCD mental issues because I was still in denial and didn’t want to accept that I had a problem that needed to be faced.
-I went to see a urologist and the guy literally just looked at my flaccid state for like 20 seconds and said I was fine. I was eager to believe him so I did. This helped my confidence for like a day or two but my parents just thought everything was ok from there on. Symptoms continued unchanged.
18 years old
-I met a girl freshman year at college and finally had sex after dating 6 months. I was barely able to perform (weak erections) for a good while until I got completely comfortable with her at about one year in.
-At this point my confidence returned slightly as I was able to “fool” myself that I was better both mentally and physically. However, I remember still being OCD and anxious and having hard flaccids all the time, I was just able to ignore it all better than ever. But I wasn’t actually healing or facing my fears. It was a band-aid type of relationship that worked for a while.
20 years old
-We broke up and I began turning to a path of drug experimentation and overall self-destruction even though I had never been a party person, drinker, or smoker.
-This also “worked” for a while as I was smoking pot all the time and drinking heavily and meeting all sorts of new people. I felt like I was experiencing life like never before because I had found a way to be social and “have fun”. But underneath it all I was really just running from my demons. I was not truly happy or fully present in anything I was doing.
-I experimented off and on with MDMA, LSD, mushrooms, cocaine, and prescription meds like Adderall/vyvanse. But mostly it was just a growing habitual use of pot and alcohol. I did this for about a year and then dwindled slowly over the next year and a half.
Where I Am Today
-I have been off pot for several months.
-I have been running, biking, and doing yoga/stretching (4-6 times per week).
-I have been going to a mental therapist for a few months approximately every other week. I finally hit rock bottom in regards to my mental illness a few months back and told my parents about it and began to do research. I found some success stories of people who overcame HOCD (until this point I had no idea anyone else had suffered from this…what a relief that was to not feel alone anymore!!). Here are some links if you are curious (you can also just google “HOCD success stories”): How i beat HOCD, works for any OCD so simple : Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) Forum - Psych forums
Walking the Hell - HOCD | Reuniting
-I have taken on a much healthier diet with more veggies, whole grains, fruits and far less meat. This was inspired by a girl I’ve been dating recently as well as understanding how important it is to be at optimum health in order for my body to have the resources it needs to heal.
-I take vitamins (Alive’s one a day), L-arginine (2 at night, 2 in morning), and CO-Q10 (2 at night, 2 in morning)
-On July 13, I began buttersketch’s 90-day routine of no masturbation, no sex, and no porn alongside MinuteMan’s pelvic balance routine. This is my most sincere effort ever to overcome the repercussions of my injury’s symptoms. (involuntary kegals, PremE, weak orgasms)
-I am also using a heat pad as often as I can (2-4 times per week) for 10-20 minutes. I’m applying it with Castor oil on cotton wool and trying to stretch/break down the scar tissue at the base of my penis that has caused the curve. I’m being very gentle and careful here. If I could improve the curve even slightly, I would consider it a miracle which would provide some hope for many others with Peyronies. I’m also doing some gentle massaging in the shower under hot water.
-Just some extra info, I’ve been very blessed with supporting parents who didn’t cut me off financially right after college, so I spent about a year and a half just teaching some guitar lessons in order to pay for some food and gas and whatnot (only about 5 hours per week though). However, the second chakra, which is the sacral chakra (dealing with your sexual organ), has much to do with blame, guilt, money, sex, power, control, creativity, and morality (YOGA The 2nd Chakra - Svadhisthana - Introduction - Part 1). I realized in my “bum” lifestyle how depressed I really was and just recently decided to get a job serving tables to supplement my lesson money. I want to be as financially independent as possible. It’s already making me feel more comfortable, centered, alive, and myself again…I’m finding it amazing and empowering how much everything in life is correlated. BALANCE people…BALANCE!! That, I am learning, is key.
-Also, I went through some serious spiritual searching/awakening around November of last year after reading “Be Here Now” by Ram Dass. I began meditating and going on a journey inward. I realize now that it was preparing/leading me to hitting rock bottom a few months ago. Now I can confidently say that I’m on my journey outward to live out my truest desires and dreams in life.
Some books that have helped me along the way (with depression, anxiety, OCD/intrusive thoughts):
- “Super Brain” by Deepak Chopra/Rudolph Tanzi
- “The Untethered Soul” by Michael Singer
- “You Are Not Your Brain” by Jeffrey Schwarts/Rebecca Gladding (currently reading)
- “Feeling Good” by David Burns (seems very thorough even though I didn’t get very far before starting the simpler, “You Are Not Your Brain”)
It is my deepest wish that this will really help somebody out there!! Please comment, ask questions, give advice regarding anything I have talked about…really anything is welcome and I appreciate the opportunity to track my progress here and get help from experienced PEgymers. I am treating this somewhat like an experiment/study for others to learn from so I want to be as thorough as possible and do everything I can to see whatever improvement I can. Let me know your thoughts!
I know, I know, that was the start to a novel. Thanks for reading if you made it this far.
Cheers,
Voodoo
I'm going to try to keep this as concise as possible, though I know there will be details that I could go on forever about. If it feels like I'm telling you my life story for no reason, it's probably because you can't relate or don't need to hear the information. I've decided to do this in order to hopefully save some other sorry soul out there from making the same natural mistakes that I have made for the past 9 years before getting to a point of acceptance and understanding of how to most constructively move forward. I am 22 now and graduated from college over a year ago. All I can say is thank god for music. I have been playing guitar since I was 8 and I swear it feels like music was given to me in order to get through all this. Okay, bear with me now…
13 years old
-Injured my penis after an erection was forced in the opposite direction (by tight clothing). I heard/felt a popping sound/sensation. Hard to know if it was actually audible to others.
-Developed the symptoms of hard flaccid immediately which continued to be a daily struggle for the next 9 years.
-Became extremely worried about the accident and tried to masturbate to make sure I was ok. I realized how difficult it was to get an erection. The underside of the base of my penis was not filling properly with blood so my erections had no support and aimed downward. I was completely healthy physically and mentally with a strong slightly upward erection before this.
-I had increasing anxiety from that point forward and began to withdraw from being social at school as my confidence completely vanished. I did not tell anyone what happened, not even my parents.
-Did some research a few months later after realizing it wasn’t getting better and found out that I “should” have gotten surgery immediately after the accident (though I now know this isn’t always entirely true). This tripled my anxiety and I quit researching and began to go into a state of denial and depression.
15 years old
-Still haven’t told my parents.
-Increasing depression and anxiety, which made me susceptible to a mental illness known as HOCD. This was triggered after a failed masturbation session where I was clicking through pictures of girls and when I reached PONR a picture of a guy popped up and totally killed the pleasure. Unfortunately, this then happened again one time when I was visualizing a girl in my mind and masturbating. Right before I ejaculated a male face popped in my head and killed the pleasure. So, being weak in confidence already, I began to obsess about why that had happened and if it meant I was gay (though I got no pleasure at all from the intrusive images I just became full of fear as to why it was happening). OCD and anxiety began to surround my sexual identity even though up until that point I had been completely confident in that aspect of myself. I’m not going to go into the details of the walking hell that is HOCD because that would take a whole thread, but if you are interested, you can do some research. I will provide links later to some success stories that helped me begin facing the issue rather than fearing the issue which only compounds the illness and gives it power over you (as with any OCD).
17 years old
-I hit rock bottom with my second girlfriend (first of which I ever had sexual encounters with, but no intercourse) when I couldn’t stay hard enough to get a condom on. Also wasn’t enjoying oral completely because I was anxious about whether I would have an HOCD thought, blah blah blah, my anxiety was through the roof and I didn’t even really know it at the time.
-So, I finally told my parents about the injury. However, I said nothing about the HOCD mental issues because I was still in denial and didn’t want to accept that I had a problem that needed to be faced.
-I went to see a urologist and the guy literally just looked at my flaccid state for like 20 seconds and said I was fine. I was eager to believe him so I did. This helped my confidence for like a day or two but my parents just thought everything was ok from there on. Symptoms continued unchanged.
18 years old
-I met a girl freshman year at college and finally had sex after dating 6 months. I was barely able to perform (weak erections) for a good while until I got completely comfortable with her at about one year in.
-At this point my confidence returned slightly as I was able to “fool” myself that I was better both mentally and physically. However, I remember still being OCD and anxious and having hard flaccids all the time, I was just able to ignore it all better than ever. But I wasn’t actually healing or facing my fears. It was a band-aid type of relationship that worked for a while.
20 years old
-We broke up and I began turning to a path of drug experimentation and overall self-destruction even though I had never been a party person, drinker, or smoker.
-This also “worked” for a while as I was smoking pot all the time and drinking heavily and meeting all sorts of new people. I felt like I was experiencing life like never before because I had found a way to be social and “have fun”. But underneath it all I was really just running from my demons. I was not truly happy or fully present in anything I was doing.
-I experimented off and on with MDMA, LSD, mushrooms, cocaine, and prescription meds like Adderall/vyvanse. But mostly it was just a growing habitual use of pot and alcohol. I did this for about a year and then dwindled slowly over the next year and a half.
Where I Am Today
-I have been off pot for several months.
-I have been running, biking, and doing yoga/stretching (4-6 times per week).
-I have been going to a mental therapist for a few months approximately every other week. I finally hit rock bottom in regards to my mental illness a few months back and told my parents about it and began to do research. I found some success stories of people who overcame HOCD (until this point I had no idea anyone else had suffered from this…what a relief that was to not feel alone anymore!!). Here are some links if you are curious (you can also just google “HOCD success stories”): How i beat HOCD, works for any OCD so simple : Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) Forum - Psych forums
Walking the Hell - HOCD | Reuniting
-I have taken on a much healthier diet with more veggies, whole grains, fruits and far less meat. This was inspired by a girl I’ve been dating recently as well as understanding how important it is to be at optimum health in order for my body to have the resources it needs to heal.
-I take vitamins (Alive’s one a day), L-arginine (2 at night, 2 in morning), and CO-Q10 (2 at night, 2 in morning)
-On July 13, I began buttersketch’s 90-day routine of no masturbation, no sex, and no porn alongside MinuteMan’s pelvic balance routine. This is my most sincere effort ever to overcome the repercussions of my injury’s symptoms. (involuntary kegals, PremE, weak orgasms)
-I am also using a heat pad as often as I can (2-4 times per week) for 10-20 minutes. I’m applying it with Castor oil on cotton wool and trying to stretch/break down the scar tissue at the base of my penis that has caused the curve. I’m being very gentle and careful here. If I could improve the curve even slightly, I would consider it a miracle which would provide some hope for many others with Peyronies. I’m also doing some gentle massaging in the shower under hot water.
-Just some extra info, I’ve been very blessed with supporting parents who didn’t cut me off financially right after college, so I spent about a year and a half just teaching some guitar lessons in order to pay for some food and gas and whatnot (only about 5 hours per week though). However, the second chakra, which is the sacral chakra (dealing with your sexual organ), has much to do with blame, guilt, money, sex, power, control, creativity, and morality (YOGA The 2nd Chakra - Svadhisthana - Introduction - Part 1). I realized in my “bum” lifestyle how depressed I really was and just recently decided to get a job serving tables to supplement my lesson money. I want to be as financially independent as possible. It’s already making me feel more comfortable, centered, alive, and myself again…I’m finding it amazing and empowering how much everything in life is correlated. BALANCE people…BALANCE!! That, I am learning, is key.
-Also, I went through some serious spiritual searching/awakening around November of last year after reading “Be Here Now” by Ram Dass. I began meditating and going on a journey inward. I realize now that it was preparing/leading me to hitting rock bottom a few months ago. Now I can confidently say that I’m on my journey outward to live out my truest desires and dreams in life.
Some books that have helped me along the way (with depression, anxiety, OCD/intrusive thoughts):
- “Super Brain” by Deepak Chopra/Rudolph Tanzi
- “The Untethered Soul” by Michael Singer
- “You Are Not Your Brain” by Jeffrey Schwarts/Rebecca Gladding (currently reading)
- “Feeling Good” by David Burns (seems very thorough even though I didn’t get very far before starting the simpler, “You Are Not Your Brain”)
It is my deepest wish that this will really help somebody out there!! Please comment, ask questions, give advice regarding anything I have talked about…really anything is welcome and I appreciate the opportunity to track my progress here and get help from experienced PEgymers. I am treating this somewhat like an experiment/study for others to learn from so I want to be as thorough as possible and do everything I can to see whatever improvement I can. Let me know your thoughts!
I know, I know, that was the start to a novel. Thanks for reading if you made it this far.
Cheers,
Voodoo
Comment