OCD survivor with an (I hope) helpful tale

alanwieder

Member
Hey all --

Greetings. My name is Alan Wieder, and I am the author of a memoir of obsession called “Year of the C**k” that was just published by Grand Central; and a diagnosed OCD sufferer for almost 5 years.

I’m reaching out to the community on the suggestion of my therapist because I’d love to extend my help and advice as an OCD survivor. As a regular guy who endured a devastating OCD experience and lived to write a funny book about it, I think I have a relatable (and, I believe, inspiring) story to tell. I’ll soon be speaking to OCD support groups in the L.A. area, and I thought it would be good to extend my reach online, too, because sites like these have become such an invaluable refuge for so many victims of anxious and irrational thinking. I was on sites like these constantly when I was in my tough place – pretty obsessively, in fact!

“Year of the C**k” deals extensively with a bout of OCD I experienced in 2005 (Year of the Rooster). Not long after separating from my wife in February of 2005, I developed an illogical obsession with the size of my (perfectly normal) penis. It was kind of silly and funny at first... but I soon came to believe that my penis was horrifically, shamefully tiny, and not only that, shrinking by the day. I also developed a host of compulsive rituals surrounding my obsession, including poring over penis statistics on the Internet; measuring my penis tens of times daily; and even penis enlargement techniques. My self-punishing obsession became so severe that I fell into a deep depression, and it eventually spread to other parts of my body: my hands, my hair, my heart, you name it. I came to view my entire body -- every part of it -- as defective and wrong. It’s all candidly documented in my book.

Nowadays – thanks to four years of therapy, a cathartic book-writing experience, and a hard-won new self-view – I am a happier, healthier man who’s no longer haunted by intrusive thoughts (not to say that I don’t still have them from time to time!). Because of that, I think I could be of help to many people currently in the clutches of obsessive cognitive and behavioral patterns.

Anyway, I just wanted to say hi and introduce myself. Feel free to get in touch here, through Facebook (Alan Wieder), or contact me directly at [email protected]. In the meantime I'll be perusing the boards and chiming in.

Feelin’ your pain,

Alan Wieder

P.S. I am NOT presenting myself as a therapist, but as just a regular dude who went through a crippling OCD ordeal, overcame it, and would love to chat with other people in need. That’s all. I also DON’T CARE AT ALL whether you buy my book, so moderator, please don’t view this as author spam! Thanks!
 

LadyWench

Well-known member
If I actually had some money, I would be very interested in purchasing your book. It sounds rather interesting. And so do you.

I appreciate you wanting to help others that are going through the same things you went through. I have severe OCD (with hypochondria), so of course talking to people that go through it or have gone through in the past, is something that kind of helps me. It at least lets me know I'm not the only one suffering.

By the way, how in the world can someone possibly overcome such an agonizing mental disability? I've been seeing my counselor for nearly three years, and I'm still the same.
 

getbornagain

Well-known member
I had the same obsession for two months before it morphed into HOCD. **** I am sick of sexual obsessions!!!!
 

alanwieder

Member
hey ladywench!

i have more free copies than i know what to do with. if you send me your address at [email protected] (or post it here) i'd be happy to mail you one for free...

as for recovery, not to be cliched about it, but everyone does so at their own pace. for me it took 2 1/2 years of very dedicated cognitive behavioral therapy under an amazing therapist to start feeling well. i also had to change therapists a few times to find one who i felt could really help me through the disorder. is your counselor doing CBT with you, focusing on undoing your illogical cognitions? again, i'm not a therapist, but i found that homing in on my irrational ideas -- working in a careful fashion to replace them with more reasonable ones -- was the key to relieving my obsession. for this, in concert with my work in therapy, i closely followed the methods in dr. david burns' book "Feeling Good," which i HIGHLY recommend to everyone here. the work in essence involves creating a series of logs in which you write down your twisted cognitions and then, beside them, more reasonable expressions of those ideas. something about seeing your saner ideas written (by you) alongside your irrational ones has, over time, a powerful and lasting effect. but you should read the book to learn more about it.

Feeling Good Home Page

this book changed my life more than any other, and i read many a self-help book as i was trying to get well. if i met dr. burns in person i'd give him an enormous hug, maybe even squeeze his butt a little, cuz that shit worked!

take care and good luck. my dad was a hypochondriac, so i'm familiar with how disabling it can be. alan
 

alanwieder

Member
bornagain -- i hear ya man. i don't know too much about HOCD, nor anyone who suffers from it, but there were times during my penis obsession that i had to seriously wonder what it said about my sexual identity. how and why would a lifelong straight and generally vagina-obsessed male become suddenly so fixated on the male member? any insights yet about what your HOCD stems from?
 

getbornagain

Well-known member
It stems from performance anxiety. I couldn't get the engine started a couple times, and it manifested into severe over analysis. First the weiner thing... I was looking at my dagger literally every 5 minutes judging whether or not it was acceptable LOL. I just couldn't stop looking at it..... Then one day it just changed to "What if I'm a fairy"..... Completely out of the blue, completely fear based, and I know I'm not gay but for some reason the fear just consumes me. I spike whenever I see a dude. No idea how to get rid of it.
 

JCS008

Well-known member
Of course you're here just to plug your book. I bet this will be the only thread you regularly post in. =)
 

alanwieder

Member
getbornagain -- what you're going through and what i went through are not far off. i never went through a gay fear, per se, but when i was going through my thing, i did similarly spike every time i saw a woman. the mere sight of a female caused me physical revulsion, rooted in this terrible illogical fear that i couldn't please her with my incredible shrinking johnson. it was so strange! and not dissimilar from your anxiety, when you think about it.

my guess -- based on what i went through -- is that you're mistaking "fear of being gay" with merely a powerful sense of inadequacy around other men. i felt that too, believe me: there was a point in my experience where i had a paranoid suspicion that EVERY MAN IN THE WORLD had a bigger penis than i did, and therefore was more virile and masculine than I -- which was ridiculous, because statistically my penis is actually above average.

lemme ask you -- how many times were you impotent? was it just an isolated few occurrences, or a chronic thing? and did you lose a girl over the issue?
 
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getbornagain

Well-known member
3 times. I was hammered every time. I just let it affect me too much... didn't lose a girl over it they were one nighter's lol. It's just my fear of failure overwhelmed me. For a long time I avoided intimacy, then began forcing myself to overcome this problem. I started analyzing what exactly could be the problem and the two aforementioned obsessions came about. Since going on medication I've really gotten better, I realize there is nothing wrong with me but I can't stop spiking about the HOCD it's so stupid. My attraction to women is not affected at all which is good, the spiking around guys just drives me nuts though. It's pretty much the opposite of attraction (the feeling of anxiety) but my brain tries to tell me it is attraction, ****ed up disorder.
 

getbornagain

Well-known member
My only problem is the HOCD. It consumes me day and night but I've gotten way better since I stopped drinking. I get intrusive thoughts sometimes, but even more often it's intrusive feelings. You can have synthetic thoughts and feelings, and the feelings are what makes OCD so confusing and hard to get rid of. All those CBT therapists talk to you about is your thoughts but they never mention the feelings created by OCD and how real they can feel. Thoughts preceed feelings, which is something you must remember when battling the OCD.
 

alanwieder

Member
getbornagain -- what meds are you on, if you don't mind my asking? lexapro worked phenomenally well for me.

i totally get HOCD. been reading a little about it. what's funny about these conditions is that the manifestations are all so completely illogical that they really have no connection to one's actual conscious urges. your brain might as well be telling you you want to have sex with pigeons, or stick your johnson in every exhaust pipe you see. this complete absence of reason is frustrating -- but it's also what makes the disorder highly treatable, i think, because all forms of OCD are rooted in the same type of cognitive distortion.

a good friend of mine is going through this thing where he can't stop thinking about the violent harm he might suddenly do to his wife and kids. a normal guy who loves his family, who can't stop thinking about killing them! he knows he'd never do anything like that, but it doesn't matter. he's no more homicidal than you are gay. it's so ****ed!

don't mean to intrude, but curious... are you a perfectionist generally?
 

getbornagain

Well-known member
getbornagain -- what meds are you on, if you don't mind my asking? lexapro worked phenomenally well for me.

don't mean to intrude, but curious... are you a perfectionist generally?

60 mg Prozac. It is a Godsend.

I am a perfectionist in every sense of the word. I beat myself up over the pettiest, most unimportant shit. I tend to overanalyze and pay too much attention to detail which is how I got into this mess in the first place.

It is an incredibly ironic disorder, because the 'urges' one believes they are experiencing are in fact the complete opposite of a real urge. I find as I stick with my meds and follow my anti-OCD rules I progress greatly. I follow this one golden rule: I am not allowed to think about the past or future no matter what crosses my mind. If I spike, I am not allowed to analyze what it was regardless of how badly I want to go back and think about the spike. I can only focus on 'now'. This technique has worked for me greatly.
 
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