Does anyone else feel like when they say their identity out loud it is a lie? Like I am a straight woman and have been straight my whole life and have been in two relationships—both with men who I was happily in love with. I can draw my intrusive thoughts back to childhood, but it was always a very brief experience where I would be like “oh I finally have nothing to worry about” and then my brain would be like “wait nevermind you have to worry about the fact that you are gay and in denial.” But every time, these thoughts would go away and I would never have them when I was actually in my relationships or talking to someone. These fears are now back and more real than ever, making me feel like I am actually physically attracted to women and losing my natural biological attitude to men. I do not want to be gay at all and the thought of being that has been making me physically I’ll because it is just now who I am and want to be. I think what makes this all worse is that it’s been awhile since I’ve been in a relationship, so having these thoughts and feelings feels like reality because I have no recent experience with being in a relationship with a man and because of that, my self esteem is extremely low. I now feel triggered by every little thing in life, from hearing the word “gay”/“lesbian”/“lgbt”/“coming out”, to seeing any women of literally any age or appearance out in public, thinking I must be attracted to them. I keep checking my attraction to both males and females and am fearful because I feel like I am losing my attraction to men, which is something that never happened when these thoughts appeared in my life before this most recent flare up. I don’t know if any other people who identify as straight have similar experiences to this, but I cannot help but feel like I am the exception because I did have these thoughts before now (even though they went away for years). I would appreciate any help/insight because the longer I struggle with these thoughts, the farther and farther I feel my old, true self drifting away. I was always able to hang onto the fact that I want a future with a man and want a husband and kids, but now it’s like even that is gone and even though I never want to be with a woman, it’s like these thoughts have convinced me that I will never be with a man. Please help.

This all sounds like classic SO-OCD. I have the same thoughts and feelings and have this subtype of OCD. It would be worth getting into therapy through Nocd as the therapist her are really knowledgeable and supportive in treating this disorder.

Hi I can totally relate to this and the feeling you’re loosing your self! I’m in a relationship and sometimes I find that makes the feelings worse as it can make me feel like I’m being fake in my relationship or pretending to love him, so being single for a while might be what’s best for you at the moment. Something silly I found on tik tok that really helped me was naming my ocd. When it’s bothering you can tell it to f*ck off lol, I think this is really helpful in rediscovering yourself prior to ocd as it almost creates a separate identity to it, it’s like a whole separate part of yourself that you can just tell to leave you alone! I hope this helps you, you will get there!

I appreciate this, thank you. I guess I’m just struggling to differentiate what I am feeling with what I actually want. The thought of being gay makes me sick because that is not how I personally want my life to look but I can’t tell if the reason I feel sick is because I secretly know it’s true. I just feel like a fraud because I have been keeping this to myself because it is so shameful and I want to tell my family so I do not feel like I am fighting this battle alone but I know that doing so will seem like I am coming out and that is the last thing I want. I am scared to make new friends out of the fear that I will be attracted to them because I’ve spent so much time convincing myself that I am gay that it is starting to feel more logical and real than me being straight. Plus, all of the memories I have of these thoughts popping up are making everything so much worse because it makes it seem like there’s no way it’s just OCD. I am so scared I will never recover from this and be happy with a man again and am so jealous of people who do not deal with this. If you don’t mind me asking, how do you find relief in the midst of panic?

@cf05 This is so similar to how I used to feel! It took months to feel better, but now if I feel bad it rarely lasts long. Something that really helped me was telling my boyfriend (you could tell a friend maybe?) I totally get the thought of being scared or nervous, but they will understand, they love you and just want to help you! As soon as I told him I showed him a video about h-ocd so he knew I was being serious and this is real! He encouraged me to speak to my family and it’s such a weight off my shoulders! To answer your question on I how to find relief during panic; I’m not really sure😂 to be honest sometimes it’s really hard; I spent the whole of Christmas crying because I was so overwhelmed by my ocd but it’s important to remember there were times you didn’t feel like this; they’re just intrusive thoughts! They’re not real, when you’re in the panic distract yourself and power through remember this is temporary it may not feel like it but it is! I hope you feel better soon sending love