Gonna try and keep this sort and sweet, I’ll likely fail 

35 year old male, I’ve suffered with anxiety since 5 years old, and depression I believe on and off (never been diagnosed) but more recently the last 6 years have been very hampered by it. It impacted every part of my life, work, family, friends and health. 

In 2021 I began working on my depression for the first time in 6 years. I made good progress. Got a job, a routine, got on meds for my thyroid which was compounding my depression, started eating better and exercising and lost the 50 lbs I’d gained depressed. 

Here’s the hamper. I believe, I have severe body image/mental issues over my circumcision. I was routinely circumcised as a baby in Canada where it is much more rare. All my peers essentially were uncut. I never knew this fact until I was 15 when my brother informed me I was cut. This happened in front of friends which was humiliating to me, I confirmed with my mother snd then swore my friends to secrecy. I felt like a freak. 

Other than not wanting people to know it didn’t impact me but then I had sex for the first time. Unlike all my peers who told me all the ways to hold back from cumming, I couldn’t cum. In fact I lost my virginity snd started having sex but never came. I could only finish myself off and it was always a lot of work, which has only increased over time. 

In my 20s I came out. I started dating someone, who wrongly believed I would be uncut based on where I am from (I think the stats are literally like less than 1% are cut where I am from). When he found out I was cut, when we finally hooked up abs continued dating it was just something he couldn’t get past. He hated the feeling, he told me most gay men preferred nature uncut and that sex was too abrasive with cut men.  Although I know he was wrong about all gay men not liking circumcision he wasn’t wrong about the preference and how pervasive it is. Since being with him I’ve heard this same rhetoric many times. 

Somewhere in my 20s I started to suffer form erectile dysfunction. My erection would never last long enough to penetrate and even if it did the lack of sensitivity would lead to me losing my erection generally within the first 5 minutes. 

So now I have a desensitized circumcised penis which I feel I have weird body issues with, plus I have erectile dysfunction. I know sex isn’t everything in the world, but it’s an important part of relationships, and I can’t have healthy relationships because of it. 

My struggle is, for everything else in my life there were actionable ways to fix what I had issue with. It felt like it was in my locus of control. But this I simply can’t. No matter what I do there is literally no fix to make me intact again, and this is where I am hung up. Because I’ve worked on so many other issues this one takes the forefront and stays on my mind all day. I find myself obsessing over it, even though I don’t want to. I’ve tried what my therapist/psychologist taught me with other issues, but I can’t seem to shake this one. 

I think I know what the pathway is, it’s acceptance. But acceptance means I accept that I am forever ruined and I don’t know how to do that? It should, theoretically make me feel better to accept, as most things do, however this actually makes me feel worse. When I accept that this is my fate and there is nothing more I can do, it actually in a calming way makes me want to give up on life even more. 

I guess I’m just looking to see if there was anyone who had this similar issue? Were you able to just accept something that is out of your control to ever fix and move on from it? And has anyone else also felt like the acceptance of it, more or less reaffirmed this acceptance of suicide snd not feeling like you want to live?