Mailbag Monday: Edition "Sad, sick and spammy."

The following sadness was mass-emailed to almost everyone I know.

From: "Some Guy" < someguy@aol.com>
To: Angry Professor
Subject: Please help me

Doctor:

If you can help me with this, you will have truly saved a life.

My Unheard-of Plight
History

I have a history of mental illness, having been diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder, Bipolar Disorder and Acute Depression. I have alternately been on the following medications: Xanax, Luvox, Zoloft, Geodon, Depakote, Lorazepam. I have worked with four different therapists (psychiatrists and psychologists) on a consistent basis.

Since my teenage years (I am now 29), I've mostly been battling with purely obsessional OCD. The core of my obsessions center around 3 issues: sexuality, religion and image/identity. World class and pioneer OCD therapists have treated me and admitted that I'm one of the most complex patients they've had. They have not been able to effectively treat me. I, in turn, have never heard or read of anything that addresses what I go through.

Oversensitivity

Everything I feel I feel very deeply. An impression, a word, a thought, impacts me to my very core. I spend hours thinking constantly about it and its ramifications.

Sexuality

The issue of sexuality is the foundation of most of my mental turmoil. I was never sexually abused. I was raised in a conservative Christian home and early on developed an intense hatred for homosexuality (although not for homosexual people). It was the worst thing in the world to me, and I would rather die than have one homosexual thought.

I have an intense fear that 1) I may find some gayness in me, 2) People may think I'm gay. These two fears constantly swirl around in my head. Exposure therapy has not worked. The two fears just make for a very black miasma and atmosphere of thought as well as deep depression and foreboding.

I have never been sexually attracted to a man. I crave and lust for only women. My brain seems to target and attack whatever I love. So I do hypersexual activities, like looking for prostitutes and being overly promiscuous. But nothing has effectively dealt with my sexual orientation occupation. I literally think about it all the time; it is behind every thought.

It gets as bad as this: If I say or do something that may be remotely seen as gay or feminine I'll obsess about who saw me. I think that they think I'm gay and I'll see myself through their eyes and look at myself as gay. It's like my whole identity topples. I see myself through their eyes and can't be myself anymore.

I'm consumed with what others think of me. If they think that I'm anything I don't want to be I become consumed with the thing and it constantly plagues me. What they think becomes my world. It's almost as if if they think I'm gay then I am gay. I am distracted from lusting because when I see an attractive woman I think how they
think I wouldn't be attracted to her because I'm gay. What they think almost become who I am.

Obsession and Male Competition

When I see a girl I'm attracted to and see other men looking at her I became possessive because I believe that my lust is stronger. I want to stop all men from lusting but me. Their lust for her bothers me to no end. I have to make my lust for her unique in some way so that it will be stronger than theirs.

Uncertainty

I'm not sure of anything. However many hours I spend having sex and chasing women, for instance, I still question my sexuality. My brain may tell me that the women I am with are masculine or even are men themselves. If I see a man with a body part that looks like a woman's or reminds me of a woman and I would be attracted to it on a woman, I constantly obsess over it to make sure I have no attraction to it.

There is something in my brain that seems to live to take happiness from me. Whatever I take pleasure in, it generates insecure or contradicting thoughts that ruin it for me. The thoughts underlie every other thought I have. They color all I think and do.

Bottom Fall Out

Some days I have slight forebodings that the bottom will fall out and I will lose all of my bearings. It is a desolate, agonizing feeling. I have no relief from this. I must just wait for it to pass. I have never felt secure a day in my life.

Desperation

I've been battling these issues for years and it seems like however much I try to overcome them I can't. My mind has a mind of its own. Its sheer persistence is unbeatable. Even when I know something is false and absurd it powers on and overwhelms me.

Please help me by offering your expert opinion or some books on what I'm going through. I have never seen it addressed.

Thank you,

Suffering