I have a question for anyone that’s been going through HOCD or any mental illness. If any when they were about to tell their loved ones that they were dealing with ocd did it kind of feel like they were actually like coming out of the closet or something? Because like you know you aren’t gay you know you just want to tell people about your ocd, but for some reason it feels like you might be coming out as gay when that is not the case.

It’s ridiculous how much people discussing HOCD bothers me. I know it’s a form of OCD, which I understand is out of the person’s control. I know mental illness is not a choice. I have OCD, so I get it. I get invasive thoughts about being hetero, so it makes sense that it works the other way too. I know the people who have HOCD aren’t necessarily homophobic. It does kind of make me feel like my sexuality is a worst case scenario, though. I can’t help but think “people are as afraid of being like me, as I am of heart attacks”. Idk. It just almost feels like people are saying “oh no what if I’m gay” “don’t worry, you’re straight. You’re okay because you’re straight” (which I know isn’t the case). It could just be because of the lack of positivity I’ve seen surrounding the queer community lately, though. I’m not trying to call out or invalidate people with HOCD though, I know it’s something that they don’t enjoy, and it’s something they suffer with just as much as I suffer with my OCD. Sorry, just needed to get that off my chest

Been suffering with HOCD as my dominant theme for over a year, one of the most difficult things to deal with is when I'm around others, I constantly have these intrusive thoughts pop up "You're gay" "just tell them you're gay" "tell them, they will understand" "you're just in denial". Also, at times, i get this incrediblely strong urge to just scream "I'm gay", it feels extremely overwhelming and unbearable. It's extremely difficult and exhausting, in general before OCD, I've always known I'm Bi-Sexual and I've accepted that however I've never been sexual with anyone from the Same Sex, but I know i never exclusively gay, all of a sudden OCD is convincing me I'm in denial. Anyone else suffer the same or similar symptoms?

HOCD is a whole lot harder when you were raised in a family that doesn’t support the LGBTQ community :/ ok, so, i haven’t told ANYONE about my HOCD. i’ve been dealing with it on my own (i’ve actually gotten a lot better compared to when it started a year ago). its already hard to say u have HOCD but it’s even worse when ur family doesn’t necessarily support people being gay. it’s making this so hard because i know for a fact that if i were gay, they would definitely disapprove of me. there have been multiple instances where people we know came out and my whole family was very against it and didn’t support it. obviously they’re not mean or anything and would never do anything to hurt those people but they just HIGHLY disagree with it i guess. and the worst part is i used to be the same way...i just never really supported it. until now. my whole view on it changed and now i’m much more supportive. i guess that’s the OCD of it though. OCD plays off your worst fears. and my worst fear is to be gay since i know how my family would react to it,,,and it’s not good. that’s the root of my HOCD. i don’t want to be gay because i’ve never viewed a girl in that sense before but i mainly don’t want to be gay because of the fact that if i were, it would be a disaster for me. i LOVE my family and if i were to be in that situation, it would crush me. obviously there’s no way in knowing but i just feel like i would be more ok with having these intrusive thoughts and HOCD if my family wasn’t so anti-gay. ugh. idk what the point of that whole thing was hahah i think i just needed to vent. i know i didn’t ask for advice but any kind words would be appreciated ?