I struggle with ssa and finding people like me 

I suggest that you reach out to chancyhk or crabapple18. They have lots of experience with this.

yitzchokm wrote on 12 May 2025 01:09:

Thanks Reb Yitzchok,


How is it going GreatMax? II would love to hear more about your struggle. 
Can you please elaborate more?

I have married friends with SSA. They are attracted to their wives but usually just them (as women). The burden of shame and secrecy can be heavy, but as a non-SSA I don't see your struggle any different from mine with prostitutes and Massage parlor women from different races and lower social classes. There can be shame in whatever our "preferred flavor" of lust is, but that doesn't define you. 

We're in the same boat - trying to walk with Hashem on the daily and win one day at a time. 

Hatzlacha

As someone who had active SSA with other boys until I was 12, and I still had SSA thoughts into my 30s, at least in my case I wouldn't define it as another lust issue. There were a lot of very deep emotions I had that were unique to SSA and they had nothing to do with lust.

I can relate to what yitzchokm said. For me, getting to the root of the "issue", cravings for male relationships - has helped me,not healed me, but helped me. Male relationships are really a normal natural thing that a person needs - IN A NORMAL HEALTHY WAY. A hug from a father. A pat on the back from a rebbe. friends etc. If it was lacking in some way shape or form, it can cause a person without realizing it to crave it in unhealthy ways, but only becaue he doesnt understand what it is he actually needs. 
Again every person is different.
On a side note, has there ever been a discussion for an a phone only meeting with others struggling in ssa - obviously only if properly vetted. Personally, I would appreciate being able to call in a number to talk to others who struggle in the same area as I do.
Food for thought

For some reason, after 2 decades of healthy male relationships and after my relationship with my father healed I wasn't sexually attracted to males anymore but I know that I am the exception to the rule. Usually healthy relationships make it easier to deal with SSA but the attraction doesn't go away.

yitzchokm wrote on 13 May 2025 23:28:

can you clarify?

ilovehashem247 wrote on 15 May 2025 01:19:

​As with everything else regarding SSA please take this as the narrative of my personal experience. Don't try to apply anything I am writing to yourself without the intervention of a professional.

wannachange did a pretty good job at clarifying. What triggered my SSA was what was written by a therapist on what was the SSA forum. There is the concept of gender wholeness. There is an exercise where you write down what you define as masculine characteristics. Then you take the males from whom you received which are your father, teachers and friends and you right down what the characteristics of these people were compared to your definition of masculine characteristics. Then you do the same thing for yourself compared to your definition. The gender wholeness concept says that people with SSA will usually find large discrepancies between their definition of masculine characteristics and who their father, teachers, friends and they themselves are.

The therapist didn't write what the solution to this problem is. What I found was that when my relationship with my father healed he became a person with the proper masculine characteristics. I myself did things that proved that I have proper masculine characteristics and so I healed.

So for instance, for me someone male has a strong self-esteem, is supportive of others, is independent, is determined and is resilient. My father beat me as a child so he wasn't supportive of others but by the time I hit my 20s he was extremely supportive of me. I had an extremely low self-esteem, I saw the world in a negative light, I was emotionally dependent on my friends, I was afraid to express my views publicly, and I was emotionally fragile. By the time I hit my mid 30s I had a very positive self-esteem, I saw the world positively, I wasn't emotionally dependent on anyone, I expressed my views publicly and I was extremely resilient. At the end of the day I felt masculine so I didn't have SSA anymore. This is all notwithstanding that compared to regular males I still have a very feminine personality. My rov gave me many musar speeches that I need to become a Gavra, to no avail. My feminine personality probably is very corelated to the fact that I had SSA but as far as SSA itself goes I healed.

I think that with gender wholeness the explanation is that a person acts out with other males in order to receive what a person expects to receive from other males and to give others what he sees as things that males give. It is in order to heal his identity as masculine. If a person interacts in a healthy way with other males then it would supposedly heal what he was lacking.

The explanation of gender wholeness may not be accurate as it has been some time since I read that thread. The solution is my personal experience and it may not be what the therapist had in mind.

greatmax234 wrote on 11 May 2025 22:44:

Have you found people to talk to about your struggles? There is no reason to specify their names.

That's interesting I read it a few times to try and understand. 
What was the turning point for you for your transformation from your 20's mindset to your 30's?

It is very hard to pinpoint on a specific turning point. I wasn't doing this through therapy either. The family I married into helped a lot. Recovering from bipolar psychosis in my early 20s helped a lot. The weekly Chaburas in my Chassidus helped a lot. But the total changeover doesn't equal the sum of its parts. I really became a very different person from what I was in my childhood. It would be better to think of it as evolving over time as opposed to a turning point.

As I wrote, people have to look at this as an isolated incident until they get advice from a therapist.