So my obsession for the past few days has been what I’ve been focussing on when watching sexual content. So I realised that when i first started watching it I was always looking at the female and never the men, I went through a short stage during adolescence of finding men attractive. But then and idk what happened I just started finding women a lot more attractive and if I ever found a guy attractive it would make me feel uncomfortable. I soon developed a porn addiction again always focused on the women, this started to flux between me then focusing on the guy. As I got older and got more interested in girls I basically stopped watching porn all together and would get turned on by women or pictures of women that I saw. I would want to ask them out, dream about them, fantasise about them etc…But if I ever went back to porn it’s like an addiction would kick back in and I’d focus on whatever was the most Sexual. Throughout all of this I never once thought I was gay, I was straight and wanted to be with women. I was confident, had close male friendships but always wanted romantic relationships with women. I found my partner and was immediately attracted to her, but I still had a porn addiction which made arousal during sex very difficult. I feel like my issue with HOCD is based on a porn addiction, because I still find women attractive but it feels like the attraction towards men is sometimes forced? Or I just assume I will because my HOCD has made me so used to checking? I know this is a long message but I just want to know if anyone can relate? It gives me a sense of relief when I think about the women I’ve found attractive and I can’t really remember growing up finding any men particularly attractive, like I would notice their attractiveness but it would always be with envy “I wish I looked like that” because I always had very low self esteem. But when I found a girl attractive I would want to impress them and flirt etc… I’d imagine this sounds a lot like denial to some people but I don’t think it is… When I have a clear head I can actually remember how turned I would get by my partner, when we first got together we couldn’t keep our hands off each other and I loved it! It made me feel like me. And yes maybe it did make me feel more of a man, but I think that’s just through my gaining a confidence that I had not had before. When I look at it like this I realise how irrational my HOCD is. They’re some things it could use as evidence and right now it feels very real. But now I’ve calmed down a bit after my panic attack I can add these things together and see how I’ve been lead to this place. And I can see how the ocd tries so hard to work. I can also see how the mind works a lot more. But as I get to the end of this message I can feel the rumination kicking in. For example it’s now saying “look you can’t find any time you were attracted to a women” even tho I definitely can.

Has anyone experienced where you love woman everything about them, even to the point where you still can get erections watching normal porn, lesbian porn etc. but you find your self still admiring a good looking man. I’ve went through the groinal responses when seeing a man but honestly after watching porn and realizing it’s not about sex it went away. On the other hand even when there’s a male and a female in a picture I can’t stop looking at the male and judging, but the minute they’re naked I’m fine and looking at the woman. I started watching porn at a very young age so I’m wondering do I only sexualize woman and admire the man so in everyday life I don’t see her as beautiful because she’s not naked ? I understand as a straight male I can still think guys are attractive but why do I constantly notice them more than women? I also can admire and see when a girl is beautiful in the face but then if a dude that’s more attractive than me pops up in staring at him. Has anyone experience this?

I tried checking if I like gay stuff and it’s genuinely disgusting to me. I can tell whether or not a man is attractive and when they are it does scare me and makes me question myself yet, it’s always the same response, I don’t get how you can do that with another man. Doing anything sexual just feels so gross and wrong. I don’t think that I am magically turning gay. I don’t think my orientation is changing or hasn’t been explored. I simply find that stuff gross. I have never had anything wrong with gay people and I am a true believer that people have choices they can make with free will so it’s not that I’m homophobic, just keep that stuff away from me lol. Saying so, I don’t get why I am getting these thoughts. These images in my head, constant need of checking if I fall in the spectrum, constant checking whether I like someone of any gender, constant checking whether or not I am getting groinal responses. No matter what answer I get, my mind still wants an answer, an answer to the next question that it’ll create after answering the one before it. I have always liked girls and always been so proud of it, I am in a relationship right now with a beautiful girl I’ve had a crush on since 2nd grade. (I am 19) Whatever mental illness I have has ruined our relationship. Everything feels forced on my side, I don’t remember the joy I had before this but I have glimpse throughout the days of the things we’ve done together that makes me happy and look forward to life. I am constantly checking to see if my attraction is still there for her and the scary part is, when I am stuck in my head, I am not but, to alter that, when I get that freedom and feel like my normal self, I get a hyper amount of love for her and it feels so nice. These thoughts all began after me and my girlfriend had an argument, 5 months ago we got in an argument over her not giving me enough space. She always wanted to be a part of a plan with my male friends. I never minded her when it was just us two so it’s not that I hated being with her, it was just that I had no time to be independent. ( I also had no job and nothing going for myself. ) One odd day after spending so much time stuck in the house due to weather, I had random thought on whether or not I truly loved her. We were only 4 months into the relationship so I didn’t have an answer and since it felt like I needed an answer, it became obsessive, I couldn’t stop checking. After hours with that thought, I started to wonder whether or not I was interested in other things like K I D S. This thought was an automatic no and I began to fight it. I wasn’t going to accept that, each day felt like a living hell. The questions would change each day, do I miss my ex, was my ex better, do I like my M O M, do I want to K I L L so and so, do I want to kill myself. One day I woke up and had it all in control, felt like magic, after I watched a video on ROCD and realized, oh, I am not the only one but, this is where my compulsions got even worse. I couldn’t stop checking the internet, seeing if I relate to others, watching more videos. I regret this everyday because this compulsion created so many new thoughts and questions for me to answer. About 2-3 weeks went by and a thought passed by that has been stuck with me since along with other thoughts. I thought back to what I did as kid and in the past. I remembered a traumatic event where my brother touched me (5yr old M) inappropriately. This made me question whether or not I liked it and I couldn’t find an answer, couple years (10yr old M) after that I unfortunately did the same to my cousin (8yr old M). I feel so much shame and guilt for it. My mind turned black and white, “Maybe this isn’t a do you like your girl or not but instead, maybe you just like boys I mean, you obviously never asked yourself if you like what you did so”. This question was terrifying for me because it meant that I could no longer love my girl, my whole life till now has been a lie. So I began to question everything in my past up to date to find an answer. No matter what answer I fed my mind, it would not be satisfied and simply create more questions. It felt like my mind was forcing me to be gay, whether or not I liked it. 4 months has passed and the questions have just gotten worse, something I was initially so afraid of. I am in constant fight or flight mode, I am always anxious and I can’t feel nothing. I get times of relief when I am reminded of my past, when my gf turns me on, or when I find an answer to question my mind conjured up. I started to go to church but it’s always been a struggle for me to believe. I can’t go to the gym anymore because everywhere I look I am questioning myself. My porn addiction has went away but mostly because I can’t find anything attractive anymore. I can only find comfort and discomfort. Something that was once so easy for me would 1 day be nonexistent and hard to live without. I don’t know what the truth is anymore. My life feels like a made-up lie. Though I have always loved women, fantasized about them, get extremely nervous around them, pray for them, romanticize them, etc. I now have no idea what it feels like to be in love, interested, or even happy for a woman. My attraction hasn’t vanished completely, I still can look a girl and be stunned, l simply just can’t destroy the feeling it gives me. I get so anxious and begin to question everything about the women, the feeling, myself. I am having a crisis.

Hey everyone, I’m reaching out because I’ve been going through one of the hardest mental spirals of my life, and I’m hoping someone can relate or shed light on what’s happening to me. About 4 months ago, I accidentally came across a trans porn scene. It didn’t do much at the time, but later it triggered this overwhelming intrusive thought: “What if I’m gay?” Since then, it’s been absolute hell. I’ve always been into women—emotionally, sexually, everything. I’ve been in a long-term relationship with a girl I love deeply. But after that moment, my brain started spiraling into nonstop analysis. I began checking how I felt around men, whether I felt attraction, whether I was in denial, whether I was lying to myself. Literally everything became a test. I got stuck in this loop: • A thought pops in → panic • Try to solve it → brief relief • Another thought → worse panic • Repeat. At times, it got so bad I couldn’t feel anything at all—toward my girlfriend, toward women, toward myself. I started doubting everything. Some days, I feel emotionally flat, like I’ve lost my personality. Other days, I wake up with a full-body jolt of “truth” like “I’m definitely gay”—only for it to fade into numbness again. I’ve also noticed that I get short bursts of peace when I stop reacting, but then the fear comes back louder, like “See? Now you’re accepting it. That means it’s true.” Therapy hasn’t helped much so far—it felt more like general counseling. They told me to sit with the thoughts, but didn’t clarify if this was OCD, identity questioning, or trauma. That just made it worse because now I’m back to thinking “What if I’m just rejecting my truth?” I’m exhausted. I’ve lost connection to everything I used to love. • I want to love my girl again the way I used to • I want to feel desire without overthinking • I want to trust myself again I’m not looking for reassurance—I just want to know if anyone else has gone through something like this, and if this sounds like HOCD or identity OCD. Thanks for reading.