- Date posted
- 3y
- Date posted
- 3y
How do we deal with it? It feels like everyday it seems like the only way out is to be gay? Or leave my partner? I don’t want either of those things but it feels like I do?
- Date posted
- 3y
I get that SO MUCH!!
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 3y
You are ruminating so so much. That you need to stop!! That’s a compulsion that’s keeping you stuck!!!!!
- Date posted
- 3y
But it’s all I’ve got left. It feels like it’s this or I accept that I’m gay! I don’t want to accept it
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 3y
@BradOCD It’s not accepting your fear. It’s accepting the uncertainty and living your life based on what you value.
- Date posted
- 3y
@OCD33 I get that… thank you
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 3y
@BradOCD I know it’s absolutely terrifying - but rumination is making you sick. Do you think about this 24/7?
- Date posted
- 3y
@OCD33 I don’t stop, when I do it feels like it’s true and then I have to compulse myself out of it! Which in it self sounds like denial. It feels like I have to compulse and ruminate myself straight? And when I do it feels great but then it disappears
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 3y
@BradOCD No it sounds like OCD. The cycle - rumination which is a compulsion / anxiety / make myself feel better (reassurance) / feel better for 2 minutes and then it starts ALL OVER
- Date posted
- 3y
@OCD33 But that feeling better, is that just a lie? It feels good in the moment and then afterwards my brain tells me it’s a lie!
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 3y
@BradOCD It’s not a lie but we learned that reassurance makes us feel good temporarily and then the cycle starts back over. That’s why we try so hard to get reassurance because it makes us feel good and gives us glimmers of hope. But we know ocd is never satisfied. It’ll find another “proof”
- Date posted
- 3y
@OCD33 Okay yes that makes sense. But when I do ERP or if I’m feeling depressed or something it feels like I want to thoughts and ideas of my theme to be true and I get really worked up about it.
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 3y
@BradOCD Maybe you do, maybe you don’t like the thoughts. There’s actually a video on “what if I actually like these thoughts”. Another power move for ocd
- Date posted
- 3y
@OCD33 Could you send me a link to that video please?
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 3y
@BradOCD https://youtu.be/R4NJGtvCAUY
- Date posted
- 3y
@OCD33 What proves this is ocd is when I read “what if I like” my brain automatically said “do you?” And then decided yes I do and now I’m panicking. If I like them are they true 😬
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 3y
@BradOCD Anything sexual in nature can cause arousal. I look at it as who do I see myself with and a future with.
- Date posted
- 3y
@OCD33 So I watched that video. And now I’m worried that actually I just liked all my arousal I had from the opposite sex all these years and wasn’t actually straight I was just aroused?!?
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 3y
@BradOCD Sit with that. Don’t analyze that: maybe, maybe not. Ocd loves to scare.
Related posts
- Date posted
- 19w
So my OCD has been bad lately. I’ve been ruminating and obsessing over my sexuality again. And it just keeps getting worse. I hate it so much. I try to sit with the discomfort but then my ocd does the backdoor spike. And the groinal response is what keeps me looped. It SUCKS. I am not attracted to men, but my OCD is trying SO hard to convince me that I am. There have been days where I’m just so mentally exhausted that I “accept” what my ocd tells me and I just walk around a hollow, lethargic shell. But then I rethink it and I feel better. It feels like I can only find my TRUE self when I tire my nervous system out enough that it literally breaks down and has me suicidal and hopeless. And then accepting my OCD’s “truth” (that I’m attracted to men) feels like a burden and a chore. I woke up today from an OCD dream, tried to go back to sleep, and my stomach kept cramping bc I was so anxious and ruminating over my intrusive thoughts. I’m starting to doubt it being OCD anymore. My brain is too tired to fight and cry about it anymore.
- Date posted
- 7w
I feel like the thoughts and feelings are getting stronger, to the point where they feel like they are my own and that I want them and want them to happen. Recently I’ve even had feelings of ‘wanting to be gay’ and that I ‘don’t want to be straight’, or that being with a woman would be nice even though that’s literally the one thing I don’t want otherwise I wouldn’t be constantly thinking about it day after day surely and if I wanted it I would just know? I feel numb and sick and terrified that I’ll just be what I’ve feared all this time. Why does my brain do this. I feel like I’ve lost so much already, I couldn’t concentrate on university work and I’ve had to delay my degree for a year, I’ve lost my purpose, and I feel so ashamed that I can’t tell anyone the real reason for it (I just told everyone the course was too much stress and was causing me anxiety) and it just feels like it’s getting worse to the point that it’s actually coming true, and I’m going to have to leave my boyfriend because I can’t be with him anymore. Why do the thoughts sometimes feel good? Why does it feel like real attraction? Why why why does it feel like DISAPPOINTMENT with the idea of never being with a woman wtf this is literally what I don’t want and never have? Even just writing that out my brain is telling me ‘it is’ and ‘I’m lying’ and I just can’t even believe myself anymore. I’ve tried telling myself the whole maybe maybe not but it just doesn’t work. It feels like if I accept I like woman I’ll want to be with one and leave him. Why does the idea of being with a man not fill me with excitement like it used to why do labels terrify me I genuinely just want to give up I still haven’t even told anyone about this cause I just feel like they won’t understand and that they will just think I’m struggling with my sexuality and the worst thing is I don’t even know what I want anymore cause of the thoughts and feelings I don’t know what to believe what if I am actually just struggling with my sexuality cause nothing feels right anymore
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 5w
I was wondering if this also happened to anyone. I grew up very open-minded and allowed myself to question my sexuality when I was younger. I explored feelings for both genders and attraction to them from afar, because I didn't have any friends or experiences to guide me through them. When I started dating, I was open to both but slowly and surely naturally phased out women. It always felt performative, like pretending to be upset they didn't respond, choosing who to be attracted to, and while present with them, wanting to back away or feeling a level of discomfort. When my SO-OCD started, these experiences made it very difficult to navigate the anxieties and intrusive thoughts. My thoughts often circled back to the idea that if I wasn't attracted to women, I wouldn't have tried to in the first place. This type of thought is like a Catch-22. On one hand, I am surveying my past actions or memories for any signs of true attraction or trying to pick at moments where I could prove that I was actually uncomfortable. On the other hand, the thought of being uncomfortable with a moment is tainted in my brain because of the idea that I could just be in denial. Any emotion I've ever had gets scrutinized in hindsight, making it feel like any way in which I feel is wrong. SO-OCD has been particularly difficult because of the fact that I've never been pejorative towards being queer or the LGBTQ+ community. It goes against my own values whether or not I am actually queer or actually straight. I remember growing up in an environment (whether school, family, or friends) that was always lined with prejudice towards any type of outsider - OCD makes me feel ashamed for my own want to understand any group or background different from my own. Essentially, I wanted to know if that's also something that plagues others with SO-OCD. For me, no matter what side of the fence I fall on my OCD rewrites it as bad: Either I'm in denial and lying to everyone even though they already secretly know, or I'm a homophobe. Sometimes they even mix. It doesn't make any sense.
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