Anyone else with SOOCD/TOCD starting to feel like these thoughts are just them finally realizing/coming to terms with their true sexuality. I don’t want to be gay but based on everything I am feeling and the constant anxiety I feel around women and all of the memories of possible attraction to women that I’ve felt in the past and the inability to feel attractive to the men around me, I feel like I must be a lesbian. I have always identified as a straight female despite having these thoughts periodically throughout my life because they were never something I would actually act on, but now I feel as though my mind is telling me that I will act on them and that I am just going through changes that are making me realize I am actually a lesbian. I do not want to be gay at all. I want to feel how I felt last year and all the times before when I had crushes on guys and was happy in my past two relationships with men that I loved. I can’t do this, I feel like I am lying to myself and to everyone and my thoughts don’t even feel like OCD anymore. It just feels like I know I am gay because that’s the only thing that makes sense. How will I ever continue to live a straight life with these thoughts.

I’ll cut a long story short… SOCD/ HOCD was one of the first themes I got when I was a teenager. The first one was health but I didn’t know that was OCD at the time. Anyway, I have had SOCD for 11 years. Sometimes it leaves me alone and it feels like I’m my own self again! Don’t get me wrong it lingers but I manage. But… IT IS BACK!!! My head is telling me that I am a lesbian and that I need to just admit it. I hate it. I have a boyfriend who I love unconditionally and this has just sprung out of a dream I had -.- I don’t want to be a lesbian! The groinal responses have always been the worst. It started when I was around 16, I woke up one morning and my brain just said ‘you’re a lesbian’, as you can imagine I freaked out, panic attack and cried. Then, my brain starts looking into my childhood… well it’s had a field day. When I was around 9 my friend showed me girls kissing on YouTube and then I suppose I got addicted to it. I then used to play on Habbo and walk up to girls and say ‘kisses’ etc. my brain is now saying that this is evidence that I’m gay. I DONT WANT TO BE A LESBIAN!!! I have no issues with gay people, I just don’t want to be gay myself. Sometimes, when the thoughts come in I don’t seem to get anxious but I get groinals and that freaks me out! I just want peace. I hate this. I get so many different themes. Now it’s this one and I just want to crawl under my duvet, sleep until they’re gone but then I end up dreaming about it!!!

I need too know that I'm not insane, really. I am 16 and for the past two weeks, this has been completely ruining my health and happiness. I only recently came out as a lesbian like 3 months ago after a lot of confusion about my attraction since I used to think I liked men. At first, I felt so sure that I liked women, but lately, I've been having these unwanted thoughts about the possibility of liking men. I never used to feel this way, but now, every time I look at a man, my brain obsessively fixates on it. It forces me to imagine kissing him, loving him, things I don’t want, and then tries to convince me that I do. It’s painful. The thought of this fills me with fear and anxiety, leading to panic attacks and breakdowns. I don’t want these thoughts. I hate them with every fiber of my being, but I’m terrified that one day I’ll act on them and somehow like it. I used to think I liked men, but back then, I was in a very unhealthy space in a time of escapism and something deeply parasocial. I’ve only ever liked the attention and validation a man could give me, but these experiences are somehow treated as further proof that I’m "bisexual." I’ve never been in a real relationship with anyone, which makes my brain constantly challenge me—telling me, “You don’t even know what love feels like.” It won’t shut up. It keeps obsessively trying to make me prove that I’m a lesbian, testing my reactions and questioning my certainty. Is this normal?

As a lesbian with SO-OCD, I feel so helpless. It's truly exhausting because no one I know understands what I'm going through. The first response is always, "You're just confused" or "You don't have to know yet." But that's not the issue, I do know. I just never see any lesbians with SO-OCD so I feel so invalidated. These thoughts flood my brain constantly, forcing me to analyze my reactions to every man I see. I feel trapped in an endless cycle of "testing" myself, trying to prove that I don't like them. But my brain fights back, telling me I do want to love a man, making it feel real even though don't want it. It's terrifying. At this point, it's hard to even hold onto my identity as a lesbian because I'm so overwhelmed. I don't know if this is what real attraction is supposed to feel like, and that fear eats away at me. The truth is, when I think about being with a man, all I feel is disgust and fear-but my brain twists that into doubt. I hate it. I'm at the point where I'm scared I'm going to have to accept something I don't want because I don't know if this will ever go away. I miss who I was before all this.