All mixed up - please help

So it's taken me a long time to pluck up the courage to write this, so please be gentle.

*TLDR; 35, straight, recently married, then sudden appearance of gay thoughts coupled with strong physical sensations in the backside (literally, a pain in the butt), appear literally out of nowhere and tear my life apart*

A little back story, perhaps:

I've considered myself straight up until this year. No worries or frets, no conscious denial, no doubts of any substance. I've been attracted to and aroused by women for as long as I remember. I became sexually active when I was 13-14 and I learned about lusting for women on visits to a mate's house who had a mountain of porn mags (I'll admit we used to masturbate in the same room, but I can't say even with so many hormones flying around I was interested in anything but his Playboy stash). I had my first long-term girlfriend when I hit 16. We had copious amounts of sex for the just over two years that we dated. Then it was on to uni at 18 where the same things happened only with many more women.

Whilst at university, one of my best friends came out as gay. I went to multiple parties/clubs with him, sometimes tagging along with the LGBT society, and had numerous friends of his try it on with me, much to my amusement. Frankly though, I knew deep down it wasn't for me.

I will admit that I haven't ever been confident in the erection department: when it came to having sex, I never stood a chance with a condom, so generally I restricted penetrative sex to partners I was serious with. Without a condom I was fine, but I always still had some nagging anxiety about losing my erection at the back of my mind, which sometimes then happen. And, as I'm laying it all out here, anxiety has played a large part in my life and continues to till this day. Generally when it comes to talking to and being around people: I'm one of those extrovert people that's actually all knotted up and frightened inside. I guess I'd call myself a social chameleon: I've always been particularly perceptive of how people feel and try to reflect that in how I treat them. It's a pretty exhausting process and a pattern that's tough to break.

I've since had a few relationships as well as flings during my twenties. This then brought be to the sprightly age of 32, where I fell in love with my now wonderful wife. Sex with her started off great and frequent - she's gorgeous so it wasn't hard (no pun intended). However, I'd like to note that after a couple of years sex since became less frequent: we're both really busy working people and I guess her sex drive isn't as great as mine. Three years into our relationship I started turn occasionally to porn to fill in the gaps and, though she didn't mind, have always felt some small pangs of guilt for doing it.

Now things get complicated. In summer 2014, I start to train for a race. Shortly after, I start to feel a bulging feeling in my perineum, along with pains in my right thigh. I'm diagnosed with prostatitis for the former. Not long after this, with continuing aches in my bottom region, I tie the two together and, thanks to the wonders of the Internet, come up with a diagnosis of Piriformis syndrome (it involves a muscle that, when aggravated, swells and pushes on your sciatic nerve). I receive an injection in my behind and move onto a long course of physio. Towards the end of this, the twinge in my leg settles, but I start to develop more intense feelings in my anus. This alternates between very arousing pressure on the right-side of my rectum - which appears to come from nowhere and urges me to massage it to relieve it (if I do do this, my penis unusually penis remains flaccid throughout) and more frequently a painful burning feeling in the same place, coupled with a strong need to urinate. Top this off with a nice slice of anxiety to boot. This appears to occur pretty randomly. Not nice!

Now it's about this time - March, 2015 - that I find myself on the way back from a business trip, and I'm wondering about a very camp guy at work who I feel particularly anxious around. I'd normally put it down to the fact that he's super anxious when dealing with me too. However, this time, I find myself getting a bit aroused by these thoughts (looking back at this, I suspect pressure in my rectum was linked to it). It freaks me out, massively, which only helps to accentuate the feeling in my derriere. When I get home, I resolve to check out gay porn to see if it turns me on. I actually feel a tad nauseous looking at it, I produce no erection, but strangely I can’t deny a feel a little turned on. This in turn freaks me out further.

Now regarding the pain/burn/arousal, I see doctors, urologists, colonoscopists and pain specialists about it. I am diagnosed with pudendal neuralgia and placed on a course of pregabalin. This has the side-effect of helping my anxiety mainly, but it also seems to slightly assuage a little of the burning feeling.

Along with the medical journey I go on, what follows is months of checking and testing of my sexuality, combined with an unhealthy dose of serious anxiety. I try to visualise having gay sex: most of it turns me off but those fantasies centred on me receiving contact with my backside really intensifies my right-side rectal aching. A couple of months in I start noticing things about the male form I've never noticed before: tight bums start to catch my eye, as does the odd pair of biceps. I feel more and more nervous around and sensitive to those who I assume are gay people: thinking they're watching me, that they know my fears, silently resenting some of them for it. Extremely camp acting men start to drive me to the point of distraction. I try to rationalise it but I can't. The right-hand perineal/anal aching, now with tingles in my right leg, plus burning feelings in my rectum don't dissipate, instead they get stronger (on top of this, I should mention these symptoms also occur out of the blue, or when I’m really anxious). On an evening, I find myself masturbating frequently to relieve the arousal that is stimulated by these aches, sometimes to straight porn, sometimes without, just to relieve this ache. I also find myself in pain a lot of the time, so distracted am I by this horrible burning feeling and coupled with anxiety. My work, social and study life suffers immensely.

In the meantime I let my wife know all about what’s going on and she’s fantastic. She feels I’m created an association with a fear I’ve got of being homosexual, and that I’ve linked my symptoms with this fear. It’s one theory I’ve put together with a therapist I’ve started seeing. I still continue to have sex throughout this with my wife and I’m still attracted to her. I feel ‘normal’ when I do this - like I’m at home - compared to the completely different feeling I have when my bottom is ‘on fire’. If anything, when I’m erect and with her, the burning feeling disappears and I feel really happy. But then these feelings return when I’m out in public and I’m back to square one. I break down frequently in tears and I feel awful for doing this to the most important person in my life.

This brings us to the last few weeks. I’ve made a bit of a breakthrough with the burning feeling: an physio that specialises in the pelvic floor thinks I have some compression in my spine/lower back, plus a misaligned pelvis and weak core. She’s given me some stretches that are starting to make an impact. However, on the more scary side, I’ve gotten so anxious over my feelings that I’ve lost my erection several times whilst making love to my wife. The worry and physical ache seems to consume me and distract me from keeping an erection. I also feel like my desire is quashed. I’ve started to seriously fret over being gay and it absolutely terrifies me. I’m an open-minded guy, or at least I thought I was, but these feelings are so ALIEN, and I risk losing EVERYTHING that matters. I try to keep away from testing myself but can’t. Just tonight I sneaked a peak at some gay porn to prove my doubting was wrong and, despite still finding some of it very off-putting, I’ve found a part of me desiring some of the receptive stuff and that some of the feminine traits turn me on (and then, on flipping to straight porn, I feel less so).

Throughout this whole thing, I feel like my life has been ripped away from me and turned upside down. I feel I was incredibly happy with my life until earlier this year, in all senses, and I can’t help but feel my own body has revolted against me. It’s seriously frightening stuff and I yearn for my old self back.

If you’ve made it this far, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for sticking with me! Any advice would be really appreciated.

(&&&)

 

Cheers to you both. Although I'm heavily inclined to believe you, these feelings continue to console me. I'm hopefully not coming across as too vulgar, but my body feels oddly sensitive in a way I've never felt before. I started wondering last night whether I may have bi desires, as I accept I still have straight attractions, and felt
oddly accepting of myself, as well as more calm with my wife. Unfortunately, the same old worries are back in full swing this morning.

I guess one of my big current fears is anxiety, in particular performance anxiety, and it has found a new outlet. What if I'm only receptive to anal sex from now on? I've long felt that if I could sort my medical issue out, there would be my fix. It's just frustrating that there isn't a simple answer to this.

 

I've just started seeing a professional therapist and she has echoed the sentiment on display here. Apparently I'm a textbook example of anxiety run wild. That must be some textbook.

A big thank you to you all - you're helping immensely.