Evolution on my performance anxiety causing ED

[NotYours]

Hi everyone, when i first posted here about 2 months ago i was spiraling, different things were pulling me in different directions and i didnt know where to go or what to believe. Ive been a lot better lately, it seems like its mostly about the mindset. You have to own it, talk about it, focus on what causes the problem for you and fix it. I did meditaion, kegels, breathing, CBT, porn education, even did courses on communication and conflict resolution, edging, sensate focus, soft pleasuring, directed masturbation.

At first it all seemed like so much, and with being in a bad place its very hard to keep up with everything. But i learned which helped me the most and did them regularly. I also keep some time for different things to try. They all helped in their own way but the most important ones for me were the CBT method, kegels, meditation and edging.

You have to get on top of it, get on top of your thoughts, of yourself.

You VS You. 🫵

[man0]

Thanks for your informative post.

I realize this is not your issue, but it’s a related issue for some of us. When a man endures “nerve-sparing” robotic prostatectomy, the subsequent sudden and total ED has two elements. First, the nerves to conduct the necessary electrical signals are trashed (the physical destruction), but a natural consequence of that is also that such a man’s mind is also trashed – he goes from perhaps having total confidence (no anxiety) to a complete sense of helplessness in terms of being able to “make something happen”. As much as his thoughts want to, and try to, the control signals just don’t get through.

This causes what I refer to as “performance uncertainty”, similar to but also a bit different from “performance anxiety”. In “performance uncertainty”, as his nerves are slowly healing over weeks/months/years, at any point in time that man doesn’t know exactly what his body is physically capable of. In some sense, that can be even more frustrating. At least in “performance anxiety”, a man knows what his body was (only recently before) physically capable of, so he can try to resolve that issue completely in his mind. That is, his mind can be confident that it alone can resolve the problem - it has total control of the problem's domain.

But in “performance uncertainty”, no such luck. His mind can do its best to approach each lovemaking session with confidence, but the mind’s “pelvic partner” just might not be physically able to live up to its part of the effort. Naturally, the longer it takes for those nerves to heal, the more likely that mind can germinate a “self-doubt” that becomes entrenched and impossible to counter, even when the nerves have significantly healed. His mind still thinks: “Have they healed enough to be successful?”

I really wish the medical community acknowledged this, took ownership of it, and were committed to helping such a man recover. They assist with the recovery of the physical part of the surgery’s side-effect, at least to some degree – but in my experience they completely ignore that mental side-effect of the surgery. They act as if that doesn’t exist.

They are sadly mistaken, and men like us are left to suffer it in our own emotional dungeons.

[PerPlexedGuy in reply to man0]

You are spot on! I can agree with everything you said,and I think that most every guy that's gone through this feels the same way,great post 👍

[man0 in reply to PerPlexedGuy]

Thanks, I appreciate that.

I've given a lot of thought to this topic - in fact, I've written a book on it that's ready to publish, a fictional diary of such a man as we are. But I'm currently leaning against publishing it: the only reason I'd want to publish is if I felt it could help enlighten others what it's really like, but I just wasn't convinced that it could, and am concerned it would be completely misconstrued. Comments like yours may make me rethink that.

Another audience I envisioned I could help was the wives. Let's face it, as men we're not necessarily well-reputed to have a great understanding of our emotions, nor able to communicate about that. As a result, I imagine there to be many men like us in our "emotional dungeons" with wives who would like to understand what's going on in our heads and would like to help, but feel stymied. As a result, I can picture marriages slowly drifting & suffering, maybe even ending in separation/divorce, but they wouldn't need to perhaps if only "the real story" was understood, so that healing communication might be possible. (I devote one whole chapter of this man's diary trying to imagine what it feels like to be the wife of such a man.)