I don’t know what to do because I want to stop imagining scenarios/checking but I feel like if I force myself to stop doing that, then I’m in denial? Like I’ll start to think ‘you’re trying not to think about it because you don’t want to acknowledge it’. Does that make sense? Or like my tiktok feed right now is just full of lgbt content because I use it all as a means of checking, and I don’t want to do it anymore but I feel like if I don’t watch them, I’m purposefully avoiding because I’m in denial or something. I want to scream.

I understand so much!!

@linds💕 All I can do now is pretend to be okay and cry later

This exact thing happened to me, literally exactly! Then it led to ruminating and led to doubts and all of what everyone explained from up above. My therapist told me to make up a rap with im gay or create a loop tape with it. It stopped for the most part, but before I seeked help it screamed in my head for months. You got this!

@Sunshinea I relate to that so much, work is sooo difficult for this reason. But keep your head up, and remember that you are so strong for taking this on! OCD is so debilitating and distressing and the fact that you’re still here, breathing, and fighting says so much about how strong you are💕💕

This is me now also. I am worried that I ”come out” etc 😭

Yup! That’s where you say “maybe baby! I’m going to take this risk, follow my VALUES and be with men” OCD is the doubting disorder after all, and that is why there is no end to the cycle, and it is never satisfied, compulsions keep it hooked. It attacks what we value most, and that’s why it becomes so obsessive.

It is HELL. I’m even more scared to go on dates than I used to be lol

Do you enjoy your thoughts or do they make you feel anxious?? I think that also says a lot about who you are and the significance your thoughts hold. Like for me, the thought of being gay makes me sick to my stomach and is something that I do not feel would ever truly satisfy me because it makes me uncomfortable, even though my mind is trying to convince me that that is what I want.

Girl, OCD wants to make you feel like the exception and that’s what it’s doing rn!! I don’t know what I want either. I don’t know how I feel, and I don’t know who I am it feels like my identity is lost. We need to embrace that uncertainty, that maybe,maybe not. You should read the book Overcoming Unwantwd Intrusive thoughts. It helped me understand what I’m going through and it talks about sexual orientation thoughts.

@cf05 At the start they made me feel really anxious and uncomfortable and I hated them but I think I’ve become desensitised because it’s been 7 years that this has been going on. Sometimes it feels like I know I don’t like them and I always feel better. Other time it feels like I could like them and that makes me feel uncomfortable and anxious all over again. Have you asked me that because you think I might not have OCD? It’s okay if you have, I’m not like attacking you, I’m just scared and want to hear what everyone thinks.

@cf05 But also it is different for everyone, even though what we’re going through is very similar. Feelings don’t equal facts.

@b13 I was going to say that too, in the beginning it made me super anxious but then the anxiety is sometimes just not there. Backdoor spike!!

@linds💕 Thank you! I’ve bought two books on it and I was worried before I read them that I wouldn’t see myself in them and I was always comparing what the author said to my own experience though.

@b13 No not at all, I’m so sorry if it came off that way! I have some days where these thoughts feel like they absolutely must be what I want, and others where I can recognize them for what they are—intrusive and unwanted! It’s so hard, and I can completely relate to your lack of relationship experience that you mentioned, as it has been a couple years since my last relationship. I think my loneliness makes the thoughts seem so much more severe!

@cf05 It’s okay! Oh exactly, sometimes I’m like this is so ridiculous why am I spending every day of my life analysing this and then other days it’s like it’s 100% the truth.

@b13 @b13 I first started feeling really anxious as well but I’m on the same boat as you when you say that other times it does feel like I could like those gay thought. My brain escalates it and turns it into an intrusive thought of a scenario where I’m checking girls out or something. And then I’m like “could I like that? “ I think that most people have thoughts like that once in there life. Like a thought of being with the same sex will come across and they are like “oh maybe” or “def no” etc but they either decide it’s for them or move along. On the other hand me with OCD, when it comes by, I stick to it and I immediately think I’m bi or I must be gay or I need to come out bc this is it like I don’t think I’m gay but I’m definetly by bi because I wasn’t completely thrown off by the idea right off the bat and I gave it some thought and I contemplated what my life might look like and I sort of liked it, etc the thoughts are endless and it’s always something new as to how this is the moment I must realize I’m not straight. What i have come to find is that there’s always something that throws me off of the idea of being bi/gay. For example, I don’t think I’m bi/gay because i don’t want to have sex with a women and because with porn I usually am attracted to men and sounds they make what they can do etc. Everyone has there own things they do and do not enjoy, that doesn’t mean someone who is straight won’t enjoy something about women. Because I have OCD my thoughts get stuck in a loo as they have been for years and there’s always meaning that I have to make something into. Even thought right now everything I typed above feels like the truth I have many moments where I think I’m in denial and I try to analyze like is my situation in any way similar to what those without OCD go through when discovering their sexuality. The truth it maybe and maybe not. And we have to be okay with that. We have to be okay that every thought doesn’t need to mean something. And it may mean something as well. But like who cares right? Because when we are ready to accept the thought (if ever) and say that is us, then we’ll be happy about it. It won’t be this stressful thing we are currently going through, so just because the thought or feelings game along it doesn’t mean anything because it’s clearly not making us happy so let’s just push along. Hoping this mindset sticks for me lol but you know, ups and downs with ocd.

I absolutely understand this but the same issue happens where if I try and just lean into them, the same thing happens of me thinking ‘am I not analysing it because I know it’s true and in denial?’ Am I supposed to do the same thing there?

Thank you for the advice! I am working on doing this, but because I have spent so much time endlessly ruminating on these thoughts, agreeing to them only makes me feel that they must be true even more than the OCD itself does. I know I don’t want to act on my thoughts, so trying to agree with the thoughts for the sake of making them less powerful is so painful and such a trigger for me. I just want to go back to how I felt a few months ago when I did not spend every second in panic mode worrying that I am losing myself.

YES! I get thoughts like “I look gay” or if I wear something people will think I am. I also struggle with thinking or feeling like I look masculine. I also get scared I look lesbian. I have no issues with lesbian or people who are LGBTQ+, and I don’t think it has a “look” but I obsess over it so much

Yes I’ve dealt with that too, dealt with a lot of different themes with OCD. And what you realize is they all have similar patterns. It’s not the content, it’s our behavior around the content. “Normal people” have the same thoughts as we, they can just be like “meh, im good” our brains or like wait excuse let me investigate and then even once I’ve figured it out I’ma do it again and again because it’s a cycle a loop. And our compulsion are like having a monster sitting at the end of a all you can eat rotating buffet. We get flash feelings, we get false thoughts and false urges. It’s hard and not fun but seeking help go manage it helps

@linds💕 Me too! I always think I look ‘masc’ and it makes me feel horrible to be honest because it’s all rooted in stereotypes and that makes me feel like I’m a super offensive person. But yes I really struggle with clothes because of this too, I have spent 2 years in like leggings and jumpers and just trying to cover up. I never try and dress ‘pretty’ because I worry that I’m trying to ‘pretend’ or I feel like I look ‘fake’. Idk this is ridiculous, the more I type out the things I think and do the more I think this is so ridiculous.

@b13 Also building on this sometimes I worry that this means I’m supposed to be transgender or something. I have very tomboyish pictures of myself when I was younger and they send me SPIRALLING. I actually can’t look at young pictures of myself, I have the ones in my home covered up. My parents will uncover them and I just cover them again and they get annoyed but I can’t stand to look at them, which is kinda sad.

@linds💕 Yes same!! I look in the mirror lately and am like omg I look so masculine but the thought of being transgender or anything like that could not be farther from my values. I am wondering if maybe this is just another way of OCD manifesting itself because SOOCD already tries to attack what we know to be true about ourselves?? That is honestly more difficult for me than the thoughts of being gay though, because even if I was gay, I would not change my appearance if that makes any sense. I just feel like everything is a trigger and since I’ve been suffering with SOOCD for so long but still somehow carrying on in daily like, my OCD is trying to take another stab at me.

@cf05 Can I ask how long you’ve been suffering?

@b13 Yes same!! I am super passionate about fitness so spend most of my time in activewear, which makes me feel terrified that I am not feminine enough, even though I love wearing makeup and shopping and doing all the other stereotypical feminine things and always have. The thoughts are honestly ridiculous because I know that people who are transgender likely don’t think this way, but it scares me to death because the thought of being transgender is worse for me than the thought of being gay. I feel like even when I talk I’m like “did I just sound like a boy?” when it literally is such an irrational thought. It’s the worst thing ever though because I never actually would want to be anything other than a woman, but it’s almost like my brain is telling me that I have to change myself even though I don’t want to, which is crazy

@cf05 I get the voice thing too! I’m always comparing my voice to my friends! My accent is really harsh too where I’m from and it makes everything so much worse.

@b13 It’s horrible, I have always been an over thinker so I know deep down that this is just a more severe and painful form of overthinking and OCD but it is so hard to remember who I am and want to be/what my goals are when the thoughts are so overwhelming!! I just saw your question above too, I have been suffering for about two months with this severe flare up and with this subtype but have had OCD since I was little!! How long have you been suffering?

@linds💕 Omg this! I feel the exact same way. I feel like a man around other women.

@Riddled What are flash feelings ?

@Legallyocd False feelings sorry 😂

@Riddled lol I like flash feelings too! Ugh this sucks

@Legallyocd Do you feel like this is making you self conscious?? I unfortunately have always been someone with lower self esteem but having these thoughts have literally made me hate myself when I look in the mirror, it’s terrible!! I just want to go back to feeling pretty and girly when I get all dressed up, it sucks!

@cf05 Oh wow 2 months. Im 7 years in. I was 15 when the first thought hit me and now I’m 22 (still unconfirmed whether it was OCD or whether I just clung to that to avoid the ‘truth’. The amount of time I had it makes me feel different too because I don’t see many people saying they’ve had it for years like me. Makes me think I’ve been obsessing over my sexuality this long for a reason, like if it wasn’t true I wouldn’t have been thinking about it for this long. Idk.

@b13 Has it been consistent that long like every single day it is all consuming or have you had periods of relief?? When I think about how long I have had these thoughts now (which is essentially just me ruminating) I can trace them back to years ago when I was super young but they were always just a quick thought that would flee without causing too much anxiety because I knew they weren’t what I wanted to act on! When I say I’ve been struggling for 2 months, I mean that for the past 2 months I have spent pretty much every second of everyday obsessing over these thoughts and trying to fight them because they make me panic and make me feel so sick.

@cf05 I understand. It’s definitely on and off. I have had periods of relief but even then it’s like at the back of my mind but not like completely encompassing. Then it comes back and can be really bad, like I’ve had really bad depressed times because of it like self-harming and suicidal ideation and stuff. I haven’t posted on here in a while actually because it felt manageable but over the past few days I can tell it’s getting worse again.

@cf05 Oh yeah definitely. Sometimes I think the attraction is really me wanted to be like the girls I see not to mention (I’m sure they have their own things going on) but when I see I happy girl I feel like one I want to be like that person. Happy.

Girls I just feel like I’m in such denial. I feel like I am a lesbian. I’m crying as I’m writing this because I love my boyfriend so much. But it’s like my Brain is only highlighting women to me right now. Like I feel if I go to peruse this I will be happy and fulfilled.

@Legallyocd I’ve had all those same feelings. I have a boyfriend too, and I get really scared that I’m lying to him and that I won’t ever be happy because “I’m supposed to be with a girl” even though, I don’t want to be. And my mind tricks me into thinking I want to be, I completely get it. I get scared I’m in deep denial too. I get break-up urges and urges to come out because i think it’ll make everything better. It’s just OCDs sneaky little tactics. It’s hard, I know. But we got this!! Something that I’m trying to start telling myself is “I’m going to take the risk and be with my boyfriend anyways”

Yup! I also love my body and get so scared that it means that I’m into women. Honestly, as triggering as this will be for me to say, I think womens bodies are more aesthetic than mens bodies (saying this as an exposure). But that doesn’t mean I want to be with one. OCD is so tricky and difficult and it’s so hard. Some days I’m completely broken and others I feel okay and then get scared that since I’m feeling okay that the feelings were true all along.

@linds💕 Saying womens bodies are aesthetic triggers me SO MUCH!! Im having so many intrusive thoughts. But I’m doing my best to sit with that:)💕

@linds💕 Wow. That happens to me too. With my on body I test myself (which is a compulsion I know) and I start thinking well if this is like this I might be able to like that more and blah blah blah. I’m a person that likes to get to the bottom of things (I’m sure you’re like that too) so I literally want to move forward already. This has happened to me so many times where I think to myself I need to sleep with a girl NOW and figure this out. But the problem is that it doesn’t work that way. I would still be obsessing

@Legallyocd Yup! OCD is NEVER satisfied. That’s something I have to remind myself each day. 💕

@linds💕 Thank you for sharing that. I had these intrusive thoughts very infrequently throughout my childhood but they never bothered me because they would just go away and I was able to recognize that there was no truth to them. However, with this OCD flare up I’m having it has completely attacked my sense of identity and who I know myself to be. I have always admired the female figure in the sense that I could recognize when I wanted to look like someone I saw but never in the sense of wanting to be with them romantically. I’ve only ever been involved with and in love with men, but the constant rumination I’ve been doing is making me feel like I am not even attracted to men like I once was and that is the scariest part for me. I have always been boy crazy and it’s been awhile since I’ve been in a relationship, so I think that SOOCD is also attacking this area of my life so much because I have been lonely for a period of time. However, I am terrified that my ability to recognize and acknowledge attractive women makes me attracted to them because my brain is telling me that I am gay and want to be with women and is giving me terrible mental images, even though I never want to actually pursue relationships with women. Do your thoughts ever tell you that when you find your boyfriend attractive you are just faking it?? That is another thing that is so hard for me because the thought of not being with a man in the future makes me sick to my stomach.

@cf05 Thank you for sharing this! My whole life I’ve been boy crazy and involved with men, never really thinking about wanting to experiment. My thoughts always tell me I’m faking my attraction towards my boyfriend, even though I admire him. He also has longer hair and my mind likes to tell me that I only like him because he has long hair which is more “feminine.” I understand what you mean like I keep checking my attraction towards people and it’s caused my attraction towards men to go down, or at least that’s how it feels. One of my biggest compulsions is ruminating and checking and reassuring and the more you check, ruminate, and reassure the less confident you get. Which makes so much sense. I love talking about OCD with other people, and I’m glad that you’re sharing your story, so thank you! It makes me, and many other people feel less alone in our struggles💕

@cf05 Thank you SO MUCH I’ve never related to something more. I also feel like it’s ruining how I see men and how attracted I am to men. Like I’m scared to date or anything and I don’t have a ton of relationship experience so my OCD tells me it’s because I’m actually supposed to be with women when I’ve never had a sexual or romantic thought abt women that wasn’t “checking” or intrusive. Like, I’ll see a man with a woman on TV and I won’t think he’s attractive so I’ll think “if I’m not kind of attracted to every man then I’m not attracted to men at all” so basically I’ve always been picky but my brain tries to tell me I’m just not attracted to men. I didn’t used to be like this ah I’ve only ever been into boys and slept with boys! It’s insane I’ll spend half my day thinking about boys I like and daydreaming, and the other half worrying I’m not straight. Insane.