I am going to try my best to articulate what I am going through this morning…. 13 years. For 13 years I have been going through this problem. It all started one night when a friend made a comment about me being straight. Was that true, or was I really just a gay person? That started a cycle of doubt that I’ve never really broken. I wake up most mornings with extreme anxiety. I think that a straight person wouldn’t go through what I am going through. Every thought is that I am gay. The way I talk, the way I walk, the way that I act… I now see certain guys and find them attractive. I find myself looking at every couple and wondering whether I think the woman or man is more attractive. If I find the male to be more attractive, I often wonder why those two are together. I then wonder, “maybe he’s a gay man and he is with her to hide.” Growing up, I had what I thought were entirely heterosexual urges. I had dreams about girls, I wanted to date girls, etc. I didn’t have many girls I was interested in, though. I then think that, well, I was probably just not ready to admit to myself who I really was. That all of those instances where I found myself wanting to be like other boys were really me having early sexual feelings for them. I should preface all of this with the fact that I’m not homophobic. I have no problem with homosexuality or any religious hang ups about it. Why, then, do I struggle so badly with this? Sitting here I have a movie on the tv in the background. Just watching two men sit close together makes me uncomfortable. I find myself looking at their bodies and thinking about them under their clothes. Does that arouse me? Why am I even thinking this. The other thing that gets me is that I know being gay is not a choice. Gay people do not choose to be that way. You often also hear that most people who are gay went through a period where they wished on everything that they were straight. That’s just affirmation that that is what my experience is. 13 years now. I’m now 34, have lost so much of my adulthood to these thoughts, and it isn’t getting any better. I started on this app back in the summer, and I haven’t really gotten anywhere. I feel hopeless. I have a child that I feel like I’m neglecting because of all of this. It’s heartbreaking. The anxiety that I feel. I feel as if the only way I can be an effective father to him is if I admit this and move on. I’ve tried some ERP. Some I’ve been able to do. Others have caused me to break down and cry in front of my family. I just feel helpless. I feel alone. I miss the time where this wasn’t the thing that dominated my thought processes all the time. I miss being able to go to bed and wake up refreshed the next morning. I cannot remember the last time that happened. This is it. This is the moment I’m finally going to be able to admit to myself that I am a homosexual man. I just need to move on…

First I want to start off with, as a kid, my brother touched me inappropriately, I watched him do the same with my cousin, than later on I did the same to my cousin. I feel great shame for it and I have yet to forgive myself. Now, since than 10 years later, I have always loved women, fantasized about women, constantly prayed to have one and do things to be with one 1 day. I struggled with porn a lot as a kid because I was shown it at such a young age. I remember first watching lesbian porn, than moving to guy and girl, than countdowns, etc. I was so hooked that it took an identity crisis to end this porn addiction. (I have only been sober for 3 weeks.) Now I only mention this because I think my porn addiction somewhat ruined me, same way as what I did in the past did. A year ago, I started to talk to a childhood crush I had, and things felt so great. We started to get along but I knew all I wanted to do was have sex and move on as wrong as that is. I ended up falling in love with her and asked her to be my girl. 9 months in, we were having constant arguments and she had this problem where she couldn’t give me a break. We were with each other 24/7 and it felt like dealing with a sister at some point. I remember talking to my friends and asking them what would they do and they always advised me to leave but I was not willing to because I knew I loved her and the way I was feeling was temporary and couples argue. Couple weeks in, I started to have these thoughts that we weren’t going to work out and that I no longer found her attractive. I kinda ignored them because it simply wasn’t true, I still found her attractive and would get hard ons for her yet, I still had this mindset that, “Oh, there’s other hotter girls” and, “Your ex looked so much better.” and I couldn’t stop these thoughts. One day I randomly woke up and remembered what I did as a kid, my whole world felt like it flipped. The thoughts were now, “what if you don’t like her because you’re secretly gay?”. I first laughed at the thought because of how ridiculous it sounded, but than it just kept going. Two weeks from a cycle of unwanted thoughts (1st stage of my ocd), I finally got over the thought with simple toughness and determination, I did lots of research on what was going on with me and went with the, “thoughts are just thoughts” method. I was doing well until we watch a netflix documentary “American Murder: Gabby Petito” and all of a sudden my mind began to think, “What if I’m secretly a psychopath and want to kill my gf?”. For about a week straight, It’s all I was able to think about. It scared me so much and I didn’t know what to do. I started to get urges to KILL my gf. I didn’t know what to do so I left the room and crawled up in a ball, crying to god asking for help.These thoughts went away but were quickly replaced by, “You want to kill your gf because you’re just gay”. This sent me into such great panic, I couldn’t eat for days and couldn’t feel anything but anxiety. Days went by and I finally went to a doctor, at first I started to feel better as If I was getting help and things were going to be okay. The thoughts went away again as I began to start doing more things and get out of my room (head). I felt like I was back again, I was able to love my gf, I started to go to church, I felt that god was real and than boom. Here I am again and this time things have gotten really bad. I can’t stop “checking”. As soon as I wake up I check if my gf is “good” enough for me. I check my past and see if I have ever done anything that show signs of being gay. I check out other girls and guys to see whether or not I like one or the other. Even when I accepted the possibility that maybe I am just gay, my mind will fight me and tell me that I’m more than just gay. Truth is, I don’t know anymore. I’ve always loved girls and my gf. I don’t know if this is OCD anymore but I wish for my old life again. I’ve always been so proud of my sexuality and loved everything about it. I never been homophobic but gay stuff does make me uncomfortable. Each day feels like I lost another part of me. I feel like I can’t live like this anymore. I lost all my belief in god, my morals and value feel so weak, and my life is no longer a fun enjoyable thing to look forward to. I need help.

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.

I want to get thought this weird horrible period, it has been horrible. I am doubting everything. I’m not diagnosed but when I look at my past I’ve always been horribly anxious and worrying about health, death and basically everything while suffering from major a lot of insecurities stemming from bullying and lately a lack of intimacy with my partner, Every time I think I’m on the way out, or see some light at the end of the tunnel my mind always pulls me back in. It’s torture. I’ve always been insecure about how I look and I find myself comparing myself at other males and it’s made my self esteem on the floor. I have a girlfriend and prior to this we had a future planned and talked about kids (we’re still young, but it felt so real), this all began to bubble when we stopped being intimate and the loss of my job. I don’t know anymore how to move on, every day feels like a chore. The intrusive thoughts telling me I’m in denial, constantly thinking about men I’ve felt insecure about their looks compared to mine wishing I looked like them plaguing my mind. The false attractions, prior to this i was comfortable in acknowledging good looking men. However now my mind takes this as evidence, every single thing in my past seems like some form of evidence. Not having male friends, the comparisons, being questioned about my sexuality from siblings. I’m sorry if this is reassurance, I am just needing to get some things of my chest. Every time I think about my first real attraction or girls I found pretty/attractive or I liked my mind is like your in denial and then I feel horrible about thinking those thoughts as I have my girlfriend. I miss just being with my girlfriend and not having these thoughts and feeling horrible. I feel like a fraud and a horrible partner. I’ve tried to accept maybe, maybe not, but something always comes back. These 4 months have been terrible. I want to sleep without horrible dreams, I want to eat. I want to feel like myself again. Thank you to anyone who reads this. Hope you’re strong too.