False Attractions are something that I deal with mostly, that and just scared I’m in denial. Every single girl I see I get scared that I like her or I get intrusive thoughts about being with her (ahhh makes me feel so uncomfortable). It gets confusing when the backdoor spike hits and there is no anxiety. I get anxious and spiral wondering if I “felt anything” or wonder if I liked it. I really want to start a blog about SOOCD and dealing with OCD in general (or just from my experience) so people who go through the same thing as me don’t feel as alone. Reading other peoples experiences make me feel less alone, and I don’t know if it has something to do with reassurance seeking, which it might, I don’t know, but OCD in general is so debilitating and can leave someone feeling so isolated. I want to help people feel validated, no matter how scary or intrusive their thoughts are. Anyways, I’m really struggling nowadays. I do feel hope, even though sometimes it feels like it’s clouded over by some sort of darkness and makes me feel like everything is hopeless. But in 2022 I hope to lean into the uncertainty. I hope to accept my OCD diagnosis. I hope to get whatever help that I need, and same to all of you. I hope you can get the help you need, or desire.

After I started experiencing SOOCD for the past 5 years, I have had absolutely no sexual drive and no (barely anything) attraction to men. I’ve also sort of been emotionally numb for a very long time and I think it’s due to the years of anxiety and horrible depression. Ive been living like a rock, im just floating through life. I have no interests, no hobbies, zero motivation, no goals, and i feel like im going to be stuck like this forever. TMI !!!!!! I think the last time I felt actual genuine arousal/excitement was when I reconnected with my ex a couple years back and that was literally just for a day because SOOCD shut that down quickly. Since my SOOCD started when i was young i never fully felt aroused when I was being intimate. I wanted to do it and I wanted to feel things so badly but I couldn’t/i couldn’t get fully turned on. A month ago I was starting to feel happier, the intrusive thoughts/compulsions were very rare, and I was rarely experiencing the grounds response or or triggered (even though i still had no libido or attraction). I was doing pretty good and I recently got into a new relationship and my boyfriend literally woke up the attraction, I slowly felt myself becoming less numb. Just hanging out with him I started thinking “wow he’s so cute” “i want him to kiss me” “i wish he would hold my hand” “his smile is nice why is he so fine”. I felt something so sweet and It made me so so happy. We had such sweet dates and I was starting to feel like I was getting myself back. I still didn’t have a sexual drive (it was waking up slowlllyyy) and my flare up was starting to get worse so I couldn’t fully enjoy being intimate. My flare up has gotten pretty bad again lately i’m questioning all the things I felt with him and all the attraction and feelings are being clouded by intense anxiety, doubt, and worry. It triggers the SOOCD thoughts so bad and in the shower i was worrying that my anxiety, checking (of arousal, attraction, emotions, etc), other compulsions, and numbness are going to ruin my relationship. It just makes me worry that i’ll never get those feelings back. TMI!!!!! i just want to feel h*ny again man and I want to feel those feelings I felt for my man 😭 Literally 6 years of numbness, depression, anxiety and I finally felt somewhat normal 😭 he was waking things up and my intrusive thoughts messed it all up again. Anyways, I just want to know if anyone has experienced this and if ERP helped at all. I have a therapist now (thank you nocd) and I’m finally going to do ERP, try to fix my depression, and stuff like that. I’m trying to take the advice of someone who commented on one of my posts. They say that i need to continue my life no matter what ocd tells me. It’s getting harder again but I just hope the work im about to put in will allow me to finally enjoy my life.

s-ocd rant/vent I just wonder if any of yall relate to this, it's tough I literally just don't know. I'm pretty sure I was aroused by taboo thoughts, I don't even know if they were intrusive or not, and sure I know I have OCD but this is too far. Like, I don't know if I didn't enjoy the thoughts, and it feels like I may have. The arousal feels persistent and sometimes normal thoughts get caught in the mix leading to real attraction only to immediately become replaced with intrusive thoughts, forcing me to check and panic. I can't tell real attraction from fake, I don't feel as anxious or disturbed as I was due to ERP, and now there's this? Like what is going on? I'm completely confused and also really concerned because it feels like a real issue. Like I may actually have paraphilic disorder in general and not OCD. Have I acted on anything? No, but I'm horrified I might and basically end up cursing myself for the rest of my life, like I'm navigating a minefield. And I only really start worrying after these episodes happen / when I get the chance to do a compulsion? I've been struggling with S-OCD for so long that it feels like it must be something else now ESPECIALLY with these sorts of symptoms. I feel horrible with this, I don't know what I'm supposed to do, and I wanna do everything in my power to prevent this from NOT being OCD. I haven't been engaging with sexuality for so long (out of fear) that I can't even be certain of my likes/dislikes, and where even healthy situations and thoughts feel dangerous, like my mind is permanently tainted from all the bad thoughts that I've had. Sometimes I feel like the intrusive thoughts arouse me more than the thoughts that I genuinely desire and it's tragic - I guess the way it works is the thoughts I want were associated with anxiety of an intrusive thought appearing, and then once it does I start monitoring, ending up with me feeling something sometimes but again, why is all of this happening at all... no normal, rational, moral, safe person would go through this, at least in my eyes. And sure, I've had low / poor insight in OCD before (especially with harm OCD), and yes, I've been in paranoid delusion before but this is just too real. Like idk what other way to put it, it feels too real, and ignoring it feels like denial. And you don't wanna be in denial about being a pervert (in any way) hence all of these compulsions. But then there's the fact that I do have some interests considered odd, but the key is that they're consensual - what OCD (hopefully) is making me afraid of is things that are either morally questionable, don't align with my identity or are outright disturbing. It's so weird - I don't want to have paraphilic disorder / attraction to immoral things, but at the same time I feel the obligation to make sure I'm safe and moral. The worst thing I can imagine happening is not only me being attracted to something immoral, but then acting on it or worst, hurting someone because of it. It's so damn distressing and shameful. And best part? I've lost that distress over time via ERP which is supposed to help, but now it's led to this backdoor spike (and hopefully nothing else). If a magic ball could tell me whether it's OCD or something else, here's how I'd react: "You have OCD. You'll be fine" => best ending "You have paraphilic disorder. You need treatment for something else" => I'd break down, genuinely, like I would just lose myself, I am so horrified of finding this out yet at the same time the urge to figure out whether it's one or the other is crazy - but that assumes both could be the case, and obviously I want only one outcome to be true, so what's the point? You know, I feel like there must be thousands of posts like this on OCD forums. I feel like I'm kinda repeating myself like a broken record, not gonna lie. I've been here before, just with slightly different symptoms. I feel bad for everyone else here with Pure O, hopefully we can make it out of this, and hopefully I'm one of y'all and not some complete degenerate using "OCD" as a catch-all.

OCD has been in my life since 2019, and I have no idea how to get rid of it. Everything started when I was 14. I had just started high school, and when I walked into the classroom, I was trying to figure out the atmosphere there. I was a very quiet kid in high school. I usually hated my skin, so I would wear my cardigan in a way that covered my hands and listened to lessons with my hand on my face. A few weeks later, people started insulting me, hitting me, and verbally harassing me. The bullying got worse, and from then on, I started bottling everything up. At that time, I cared too much about what people thought, and I began to believe others would harm me. Because of these thoughts and fears, I failed around 8–9 classes. In 2020, when the pandemic started, classes went online. I hated it, but I was happy because I wouldn’t have to see those people again—at least until I lost my grandmother. She passed away due to COVID, and that pushed me really far down. Back then, I had an edit account on Instagram. I loved making edits and I had friends I really liked. Talking with them made me so happy, but over time, their behavior toward me changed. They turned into completely different people I no longer recognized. They became horrible, and all of this happened just because I replied late to their messages. I wasn’t always online—I’m human too. They added me to groups, threatened me, and sent me awful messages. I began to hate myself more and more. Around that time, I also started becoming paranoid about people. When I met someone new, I approached them with fear, and this dragged me down further. For almost a year and a half, both online and in real life, I developed prejudice against people. This prejudice was mostly fear—fear and prejudice made me antisocial. When the pandemic ended, in 2022–2023, I had to do an internship in a place and a job I absolutely hated and couldn’t manage. The people there constantly mocked me, which pushed me down even more. I didn’t know how to deal with these situations because I was alone. I did the internship for about two and a half months, and when 2023 came, all the traumas and obsessions echoed in my mind. I felt terrible because of the disgusting events I had experienced. It felt like my brain had completely shut down. By January 2023, I was in an unbearable state. When I walked into the classroom, my teacher noticed something was wrong and started asking me questions. I immediately burst into tears and told her, “I hate myself.” At that time, the students in the back were making a lot of noise, so they couldn’t hear me. My teacher said, “Don’t turn around so they won’t see—come with me,” and took me to the teachers’ room. I told her everything, and I think I respect myself for that. But at the same time, my orientation felt like a burden on my shoulders, because I felt pressure from my family—as if I was supposed to meet a girl and start a relationship. I explained all the pressures, my obsessions, everything from beginning to end. She guided me and supported me. Almost all of my teachers supported me, and my prejudice toward people completely disappeared. Back then, I really thought I had beaten OCD. But in the following years, it came back stronger. I started hating my body. I took too many showers. The traumas replayed in my mind over and over. The more I tried to erase them, the more I thought about them—and I wasn’t the one controlling it. I couldn’t. When I do something, I often repeat it 4 or 5 times. I can’t pass through doors. I can’t touch certain objects. Even when I play games on my phone, I feel like I have to choose a character, but I keep choosing and canceling again and again. It repeats endlessly, and I can’t stop it. It feels like everything that once made me happy just disappears in front of my eyes, and I’m still fighting this. My family, my sister, my aunts, and my past teachers have supported me, but I feel like I’m disappointing them. That makes me feel terrible. On this site, I see so many people sharing their struggles with OCD, and knowing I’m not alone makes me both sad and, at the same time, a little happy. I just wanted to express myself this way. There are still things I couldn’t write—I really want to—but my thoughts exhaust me so much that I can’t.