Just did a big exposure and watched a lot of “ I thought I was straight until x” videos of women in hetero relationships realizing they were lesbians in their 20s and 30s and I’m so scared and uncertain. I feel like I would actually be insane to have made up all the feelings I have felt for men consistently over the years, and I’m simultaneously afraid I’m bi and just don’t know/can’t figure it out. Today is hard and a day when I feel like I don’t have ocd and I might just be lying.

Yk how people always say that you would know since childhood or early teen years what your sexuality was even if you didn’t acknowledge or question it? That truly scares me because now I’m question did I secretly know I was bi or gay and just didn’t pay attention to those moments? Was I attracted to men without realizing it ? Did I just push it aside and focused on woman? I’m so lost because for all my life I’ve considered myself straight but now it feels like I’ve been having short moments in my life that I knew I was something besides that. I truly don’t know if this is ocd convincing me or if I’m just to deep in denial to admit it. I’m so lost and feel so alone.

I was able to sleep better but being calm takes me down to a spiral. I’m scared, what if I’m bisexual or a lesbian and I’m just lying to myself? What if I like the exposures, what if the exposures become my moment of truth? I feel like my attraction to men is there but it has disappeared. My mind keeps screaming I am lying about being straight and my attraction to men. It makes me feel like I like the idea of being with a woman now. My face smiles, it feels like it’s playing cruel games. I don’t see myself growing old with a woman. I know it’s OCD, but it just feels so real. I have friends and family who would accept me if I were bisexual or a lesbian. But I don’t want to. I feel like I have fed this monster even more fuel with doing mental reviews and googling. It’s like I don’t even know who I am anymore. I’ve struggled with SO-OCD in the past and was able to not think about my sexuality. But this time it just feels so real. I started sertraline yesterday. I know ERP is going to be hard work, but I’m just scared what if I’ve been in denial? I don’t want to lose another part of myself. My heart goes out to the bisexual community and how challenging it may be for them loving two or multiple genders. But I just don’t want to be with a woman. But my mind is telling me I have internalized biphobia. I just don’t want to. I hate this so much.

I used to avoid the Reddit spiral but after making the mistake of looking up comphet last night for the first time in years I am absolutely spiraling. Have spent this whole day googling things in my bed in the dark. Not responding to anyone, not doing anything. I have found more comfort in the bisexual Reddit sub where there are more people criticizing the master doc but as my brain keeps spinning and spinning it feels like it all makes sense. A lot of them don’t understand how someone can be at some point sexually attracted to a man or want to do anything with them and then somehow be lesbian? Like if they didn’t feel forced, i mean. If you were consciously doing it because you were aware you were under pressure then that would make sense, but I feel like that doesn’t apply to me?? Maybe in some ways, like I felt convinced I needed to fit in at school and there was a couple times someone insinsuated i was not straight when I was younger and then like I’d feel the need to prove it with an existing crush like no I think _____ is cute but I don’t recall any of those crushes being formed as a RESULT of that. I just wouldn’t really do anything about my crushes and definitely had some experiences with limerence when I was younger. And even a couple times recently which drove me insane. At the same time me being super horny kind of coincided with the time that I got my iud in?? Maybe that’s the problem?? I don’t know. I also don’t remember fancying any women sexually or noticing it until I got the first same sex dream which is what I believe triggered my SO-OCD. I tend to be much more avoidant in such I would avoid googling things and avoid tv shows with gay characters and stuff like that. I would still check my attraction but now I’m the opposite and constantly googling. I’ve been sitting here all day nonstop. I’m psychoanalyzing every interaction I’ve had with both genders and am like losing it. It felt like I related to too much on the comphet doc and subs for this to not be true. But how can that all be a lie? I just don’t understand. Last night just to ease my cognitive dissonance I said ok fine maybe I’m bi. I’m bi whatever. And that eased a bit of my discomfort. But now 1. I feel like all of my attraction to men is gone now that I apparently confirmed my attraction to women and 2. Now I’m convinced I wouldn’t be bi enough and I’m just a lesbian??? I don’t even know. It never stops. And the thing that triggered me was people talking about how distressing it was for them to realize they didn’t like men. I guess I thought that was an SOOCD thing but nope another thing to worry about. Like how??? It just all feels so damn real and sometimes I feel like I’m just using HOCD to cover up my true desires. Writing this post I feel like I’m just making excuses. But if I swear I’ve felt genuinely sexually attracted to men, maybe not now but in the past and have enjoyed doing things to them, then how can I be a lesbian??? It doesn’t make any sense. I’d honestly be fine if I was bi if that meant my attraction to men was still there. I know it’d end up fine if I was really lesbian but it’s so hard for me to believe that all of that just wasn’t true. I never felt much pleasure through penetrative sex and struggled to get turned on. Like I feel like now at least men’s bodies don’t do it for me and women’s could if I let my mind accept it. In the past I feel like I’d go crazy over vlines and veiny hands like I literally remember looking up veiny hands on my own because I thought they were hot. And there’s things I love about men too but I just don’t know if it’s comphet or what. But I literally have gotten turned on to a man’s body from both solo porn and videos sent to me so what?? I don’t feel disgusted by men, maybe a bit uncomfortable around them but mainly the ones I considered attractive. I know I’ve seen a man and thought wow I’d totally fuck him. But I guess when it comes down to it I don’t enjoy it as much as I think I will?? Maybe I’m asexual, or bi, demi, or graysexual or heteroromantic or whatever. Any of those I’d honestly be fine with. But it’s just the idea of being a lesbian that freaks me out, and I don’t like to think it’s because of internalized homophobia but because this is something I’ve known to be true about myself for so long and something I rarely doubted albeit maybe a few times after crude comments from classmates. But I don’t know. It’s all just wild how different things feel. It feels like my brain is telling me I’m just lying when I was sobbing crying over a man two days ago. Like what?? It brings me nothing but stress and anxiety. I haven’t slept well in days. I’d usually go to bed fantasizing about a man and now I can barely even do it because my brain is telling me it’s not what I want. Ugh.