I want to share with you my theme. It's weird and I don't think it's relatable. Sorry for my mistakes, English is my second language. I think I'm asexual and I think it's cool. I also don't want to have romantic relationship. I've never been aroused, and I never m*sturbate. And I don't want to. But my OCD tells me that I want, that I'm broken, that I need to do it and stuff. It started this fall, in October. First of all, I have some "under there" illness, I don't know what it is exactly. Secondly, my friend I think have high libido and I secretly uncomfortable when she talk about s*x stuff. Couple of times she said "Who don't m*sturbate in our world?" and I don't say that I am. I felt guilty. I thought everyone just joking when they say about this stuff, but NO? Here comes new theme of OCD, new (and the worst) episode of it... Hear me out: my groin hurts » I think it's arousal » I need to try m*bate. It's so scary to me, because I don't want to do it, I don't think I will ever do this, because it's gross for me. It comes almost every night, even when my aunty died 😭 Intrusive thoughts got worse in November - I've had my first panic attack (not first-first, but scariest of all panic attack that I got before). It got triggered by some photo of boy, another attacks got triggered by photo or video of some girl (not really erotic, just naked parts of the body like abc or kisses) ... I don't want to remember. My head hurts so bad, my hands are shaking, my heart beats faster... And I also have some feelings under there that scares me (remember, I told you about my illness before, this is because of it mostly, also groinal response maybe). Now I afraid of being aroused and also really afraid of being touched (not only in "down there") by me or someone else, I sadly have difficulties to go to shower because of it. My intrusive thoughts includes unwanted s*x images about me, my friends and strangers and " Do it, it's not scary" thing. I also scared of some type of faces, bodies and haircuts I'm afraid it will never get better and I'm just h*rny. Sometimes I wish I had another intrusive thoughts, not like these...

TW: themes of sexual abuse, exploitation, etc Hello I am feeling a bit distressed today. I realized I have pretty “sex negative” views which I feel like many stem from OCD and trauma. Some of my feelings are good and I would argue most stem from a healthy place but I feel like they impact my life and emotional state on an unhealthy level. For example feel VERY strongly about CSA, rape, sexual exploitation of any kind, unethical sex etc. I have a strong pattern recognization ability and see how so many things people deem as “sex positive” (porn, onlyfans, casual sex etc) have a net negative effect on society (abuse, cheating, stds, etc) I think a good amount of the population agrees with these values so I don’t feel alone in that but I feel like I spend so much time being sad over these things. I used to listen to a lot of sexual music growing up (mainly mainstream pop like Ke$ha and Rihanna) and then in my teens I listened to a lot of rap. I noticed how this made me sexualize myself growing up which makes me very uncomfortable and sad. Another thing which makes me sad is how so much of the population was exposed to pornography at a young age. I recently was at a estate sale and there were old playboy magazines and this man was showing his son who looked to be about 9 the magazines and it made me so uncomfortable because that’s grooming and abuse. I didn’t know what to do so I just said “ew” but I still feel guilty I did not do anything more. I just don’t know how to cope with these feelings. I am also Catholic and the abuse crisis has deeply impacted my ability to practice my faith. Two priests whom were close to my family got exposed for sexually abusing children. This is a big reason I have not been able to go to confession (which leads me to being unable to receive the Eucharist, which is a big deal). I constantly obsess over the fact I won’t be able to tell who is a sexual predator and it brings me great distress. Also, sexual music, sex scenes in movies, sexual jokes etc all make me deeply uncomfortable. Hearing about my friend’s sexual lives also makes me very uncomfortable and sad for them, in a way, if I deem their experiences unethical. I feel very upset when people sexualize themselves. I also hate when I experience sexual feelings myself and often find myself wishing I was asexual even though I wish to get married and be a mother. I feel judged by society for being a “prude” “puritanical” etc which feels incredibly invalidating as a lot of my trauma involves exploitation under the guise of “liberation” I don’t really know where I’m going here I think I just want to know if anyone feels similarly. I don’t find many people with views and feelings similar to myself. A lot of people online who I feel like my views overlap with (other Catholics, radical feminists, etc) have views which stem from a lot of judgement and hate whereas I feel like I just want everyone to be safe and happy. I think a lot of my feelings stem from my trauma but obsessions from OCD? For my other forms of OCD (contamination, harm, etc) I feel like exposure therapy helps but I don’t know how I’d go about exposure therapy with this then without further causing more distress. I feel very nervous opening up with anyone about this theme. If you read to the end thank you so much❤️‍🩹 I am sorry if this post was triggering at all to anyone else I just didn’t know where to go to open up about 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.

It’s like my brain is doing everything in its power to convince myself and also justify an attraction to teenagers. I hate myself. I don’t want to be this person, but what if I don’t have a choice. How do I get these thoughts out of my head permanently. I feel like my life will never be the same if they don’t leave forever. I can’t tell what is a real desire and what OCD is trying to convince me is a real desire. I can’t do this every day for the rest of my life. I don’t want to hurt anyone, or I don’t think I do but how do I even tell anymore. This might not even be OCD at this point, I can’t separate my thoughts from OCD thoughts I think because I’ve had OCD for so long so it all just feels like me. Maybe it is me. TMI but I haven’t pleasured myself in like a week because my libido is so low now, I don’t want to do it with these thoughts.