Hey guys thought i'd share my story as I just recently found out about OCD and I've never talked about it with anyone. Hoping someone can relate. I believe I've had OCD my entire life, but I didn't know what it really was until recently as it has gotten worse and worse internally. As a kid, there were several rituals and responses I would perform as a means of mentally "relieving stress." For example, if there was anything that accidentally touched the left side of my body, I would feel the urge and the need to touch the same thing with the right side of my body to keep that balance. I would also always put on my left sock first, my left contact lens first, and shoes and other things out of fear that if I didn't something bad would happen. I would constantly seek correlation with meaningless things that I did and whether or not something bad was going to happen to me or those around me. Although I don't remember this OCD as something that was ruining my life at the time, it certainly did affect me and I had 2 nervous breakdowns because of it, as I recall. A few years ago, it started to get much worse-to the point where it would affect my daily life. As far as I can remember, there was a whole year in 2016/2017 where I had mentally convinced myself that I was racist. There was a lot of social unrest at the time, and my mind was repeatedly telling me that I'm racist or that I'm a bigot for being white--while I had never felt that I was racist before. I would have racist thoughts in my head and would feel the need to mentally combat them to prove to myself that I wasn't racist. For the extent of that year, I would refuse to look at or talk to any black people out of fear that I would somehow act out on these racist thoughts that I didn't agree with. It was torture. After a while, I'm not sure how, but these thoughts subsided and I now realize how absurd it all was. Needless to say, I interact with black people and people of color every day at work and haven't had any thoughts that match up with what I was previously experiencing for a while. My next batch of OCD began in August of 2019. It all started when I was in an Uber in and we were talking and the guy was talking about girls and I believe he said something along the lines of "are you sure you're not gay, it's ok if you are." I could tell he was messing with me but for the entire rest of the day I was thinking to myself "do I look gay? Am I acting gay? Do i sit gay? Are my mannerisms gay?" Which quickly became "has my whole life been a lie? Do I actually like men? Am I turned on by that guy over there?" I would repeatedly check myself to make sure that I wasn't turned on by people of the same sex. Like constantly. This went on basically every day. Like clockwork these torturing thoughts and I would feel the need to prove to them that I was somehow not gay. My whole life I've been attracted to women, as far as I can remember. I've only ever had sex with women. I had only ever watched female porn. I now have a girlfriend that I've been with for two years. None of these things were enough to prove to the thoughts that I wasn't in denial. "What if you are in denial about your sexuality? You'll never really know if you are gay." It got so bad that at one point I was looking at gay porn, something I'd never done in my life, just to make sure that I wasn't turned on by these things. I never was turned on by them but I still couldn't prove to myself that I wasn't. I live in a constant fear that people will think I am gay. I'm now convinced that my mom thinks I am secretly gay. Or wants me to be. So much so that I now go out of my way to not interact with any gay people, talk about gay people or even say the word gay. For a while I was trying somehow to convince myself that I was gay--because I thought that would be better than to live in this fear and constant turmoil. These thoughts have completely eaten up my internal life. I recall thinking that if only I knew whether I was gay or straight. I wouldn't care if I was either one. But my mind just would not let me rest about it or settle on either one. It's a constant turmoil. And I can't comprehend why. I would be happy if I was actually gay and no longer had to constantly question my inner sexuality. But I simply cannot do that. Recently, I was googling about doubting your own sexuality and I found an article about HOCD-Homosexual OCD. It described my situation perfectly, people who are straight or have been straight their entire lives suddenly fearing and having constant doubt about their sexuality. This is the hardest thing I've ever had to go through. I'm constantly exhausted. I want to get better and I've read up on NOCD and I feel that this is a good place to start to get better.