As a child I was terrified of my father's temper which was very strong but rarely let out of the bag. However on reflection it was always present a bit like a nuclear deterrent. As a result I was very safety conscious overly careful and was scared of doing anything wrong, a veritable goody two shoes. As I grew into adolescence this became an issue around sex, at my first school I was around a lot of homosexual activity between the boys, and some sexual abuse relating to staff. My second school was completely homophobic and when my sister had to have an abortion due to getting pregnant after failing a university exam, I promised never to get a woman pregnant which maid be very fearful around sex.
Later this fear of woman grew into an emotional attraction to men, maybe I was gay all along but the anxiety destroyed the desire as it would have been too terrifying. Anyway ended up having rows with my father about my dress, he accused me of being effeminate which was true and when I said it was his issue he got very angry that I may be accusing him of being homosexual and he stormed out of the house.
I subsequently found out he was abused by one of his uncles as a child and also possibly by a school teacher. This maybe explains his extreme homophobic views.
When at university I discovered gay men for the first time I enjoyed their company but still saw myself as straight, however a close friend feel in love with me and when I was informed of this fact by a friend I went berserk and wanted to avoid my friend as much as possible and have sex with women as soon as possible. I had a disastrous result as my fear of getting my girlfriend pregnant and my fear of being perceived as homosexual caused perfomance anxiety and I failed to get an erection. Ever since then I have been very anxious around homosexual life and have been rediculously promiscuous around women. The anxiety has destroyed my love life as well as my sex life.
It probably has caused a few addictive processes but I don'y feel that solves anything as all that happens is that when you quit the anxiety returns.
I am deeply ashamed of this and now that my father is suffering from Alzheimer I am torn between a desire to take care of him and help my family and rage that he his behaviour was a foundation of my anxiety and has robbed me of a successful career and a close relationship. I am terrified of talking to professional therapists etc about these issues as all that has happened in the past is that I have engendered different diagnosises and different control issues.
I have just down the second stage of the anxiety worksheet and see my thoughts are indeed making much more ill than the reality I am trying to defend / escape from.
many thanks
martin
