Penis Dysmorphic Disorder (PDD) Do you think your penis is small??

Body Dysmorphic Disorder is an O.C.S.D. Obsessive Compulsive Spectrum Disorder. As many of my friends here know I suffer greatly from O.C.D. and B.D.D. I also work with many people online who too suffer from some of these behaviors/disorders. I am not in any way a doctor, I am only someone who has suffered with this for many years and in the last year I have been able to come out and talk openly about it. Here are the key definitions of someone suffering with Body Dysmorphic Disorder.

1. Preoccupation with some imagined defect in appearance._ If a slight
defect physical anomaly is present, the person's concern is markedly excessive.

2. The preoccupation causes clinically significant distress or impairment
in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.

3. The preoccupation is not better accounted for by another mental
disorder {eg;dissatisfaction with body shape and size}.

This questionnaire I have modified to apply to PE directly...Answer questions honestly.

Are you very concerned about the appearance of your penis?

Do these concerns preoccupy you?

That is, you think about them alot and wish you could think about them less?

What type of thoughts preoccupy you?

What specifically bothers you about the appearance of your penis?

Is your main concern with your penis that you aren't big enough or that you might be different in some way than everyone
else?

What effect has your preoccupation with your penis had on your life?

Has your obsessions(s) caused you a lot of distress, torment, or pain?

Has it significantly interfered with your social/sex life?

Has your obsession(s) significantly interfered with your school work, or Job?

Are there things you avoid because of your obsession?

Have the lives or normal routines of your family or friends been affected by your obsession(s)?

How much time do you spend thinking about your penis per day on average?

If you answered yes to mono more of these questions you most likely have PDD

My Conclusions and Therapy
I hope this study can help those who need it. It works but like anything else you need to be committed. Considering the feedback I have heard and my own problems with obsessing I decided to dig a bit deeper to make some comparisons to other o.c.d.s. disorders and what many of us suffer with. I found many similarities in disorders like anorexia but still the problem I faced with the way we obsess is that the compulsion actually works. This is unique from most O.C.D. behaviors because usually when a person has one of these disorders the compultion ussually does not have any beneficial value. So one very important thing we need to be honest with our selves about is when are we crossing that line of beneficial PE into useless overkill compulsion?

I decided to give this disorder it’s own name as I see it being very specific to us as men. I thought about alot of different things to call it and settled on this: PDD (Penile Dismorphic Disorder) I truly see this problem as an O.C.D. behavior so I wanted to keep it in the spectrum of O.C.D. classifications. There really is no help for many of us as to the extreme personal nature of this disorder.

With this PDD our anxiety comes in response to an unwanted thought or question. (ie. my penis is small) The rituals that follow involves pushing away the thought, avoiding the recurrence of the thought, or attempting to solve the question. These steps are considered the rumination or compulsion. (ie. measuring)

Living with PDD means living with uncertainty and risk taking. PDD is perpetuated by a man's intolerance of having bizarre and noxious thoughts. The efforts a man makes to avoid or escape these thoughts reinforces their recurrence. Meaning, everytime we have a obsessive thought and we react to it by compulsing we in fact are establishing the imporatance of this fear. So, the removal of the compulsion is key.

I have to say say that with all of the below therapys I have found that as I get better the frequency of my obsessions increases. I am resistant to change and my mind will throw tantrums as I attempt to make space for what has been given for so long a great deal of importance in getting rid of. When I am practising the below therapy things change for me. When I am in a bad way I obsess only a few times a day, but I ruminate/compulse for long periods of time trying to fix the thoughts. As I eliminate much of the compulsions it seems that my obsessions increase. This is a good sign that the therapy is working. THE CRITICAL VARIABLE IS REDUCING THE COMPULSION AND NOT THE NUMBER OF OBSESSIONS! The target response is not responding to the obsession, it is not to have the obsession go away. The long term effect of not responding to the obsessions will be that the obsessions will decrease in frequency and emotional value. This only happens when I become desensitized to the obsessive thoughts by allowing them to occur. (ie. Thinking my penis is shrinking but refraining from measuring it) When I am able to sit with the thoughts and not compulse (ie. Measure, adjust, feel, check) the obsessions have less and less control over me therfore becoming more and more desensitized.

Here are some therapys suggestted to me...when I use them I in fact do get better.

The Antidote
The obsession often presents itself as a paramount question or disastrous scenario. A response which answers the obsession in a way that leaves ambiguity is sometimes warranted. "I think my penis feels smaller today" Using the antidote procedure, a cognitive response would be one in which the subject accepts this possibility and is willing to take the risk of his penis shrinking. No effort is expended in directly answering the obsession in an effort to find resolution. In another example, the obsession would be "Maybe I measured wrong yesterday," a recommended response would be "Maybe I did. I'll live with the possibility and take the risk." Using this procedure it is imperative that the distinction be made between the therapeutic response and rumination. The therapeutic response has no aspect of answering the question to it.

Let it Be There:
Using this procedure, it is suggested that the person create a mental pigeon hole for the thoughts and accept the presence of the thoughts into one's preconscious (those thoughts which are not currently in one's awareness but can easily be brought there by turning one's attention to them, i.e. your name or phone number). It is suggested that a mental "hotel" be created whereby you encourage your brain to create unsolvable questions so as to fill up the register. The more unsolved questions the better. It is critical that we acknowledge the presence of the thought but pay no further attention to it, as in the form of problem solving. The brain can only juggle a certain amount of information at one time. If you purposely overload the brain, rather than insanity, your brain's response would be to just give up trying. As can be imagined, attempting this goal takes a lot of faith and trust in the person suggesting it.

The Capsule Technique
During the initial phases of therapy, there is a great resistance to letting go of the ruminations/compulsions. A procedure which addresses this resistance is to set aside a specified period of time, perhaps once or twice a day, to purposely ruminate. It is suggested that the time periods be predetermined and time limited. At exactly 8:15 am and 8:15 pm I will ruminate for exactly 45 minutes. As thoughts occur to me during the day I can feel comforted that the problem solving will be given sufficient time later that evening or early the next morning. Typically, people report that it is difficult to fill the allotted rumination time. Regardless, every minute must be spent on the designated topic so the brain can habituate to these irrelevant thoughts. A novel application of this technique was reported in the Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry. Using audiotaped spiking material a woman was desensitized to her obsessional themes by exposing herself to them 10 times a day. After the 50th day, her actual spiking dramatically decreased.

Creating 4-5 Larger obsessions
Rather than attempting to escape the obsessions, you are encouraged to purposely create the thought repeatedly following it's occurrence. This has the effect of desensitizing the brain to these obsessions by sending the message that not only am I not going to attempt to escape these thoughts, but I am at such peace with them I can create a multitude of them. In response to the thought "My penis is not as big as his," a beneficial response would be "It is smaller than everyones in the world."

When I practice this I do find myself feeling better. But the important thing is that I am consistant. When I let myself slip I end up back at square one. Please try these exercizes and let me know how things are going. I think it will be a great help to me knowing there are others out there trying to live with this.

Bump

Great thread

I finally found this amazing thread. I need to read it later. Need sleep now...💤

squirt_inducer_man said:

I finally found this amazing thread. I need to read it later. Need sleep now...💤

Click to expand...

Powerful