I have homo-ocd. I'm rather infuriated by it. For years I wondered at the possibility I could be gay. One day I got sick of the worry and decided to come out as bi to myself. Then as if a cloud was lifted, and I no longer cared about being gay, I was able to enjoy life again, and I never actually was attracted to men so it didn't matter I had about a year or two of mostly peaceful intrusive thoughts and I was able to enjoy life as a straight man again. 3 years ago right before covid struck, my hocd took a turn and I have worried ever since that I'm trans. It's insane to me that I've been dealing with the same thought over and over again for 3 years. You know what's funny? Don't even remember the last time I thought about being gay or that I could be gay. (Gay here meaning attracted to men not trans.) My attraction to women is now basically unquestionable. But my intrusive thoughts and thought cycling just goes into full panic mode at the idea of being trans. I don't feel trans, I've never felt like a woman before in my life. But now everyday due to ERP and my intrusive thoughts all I think about are being trans, imagining myself as a woman (while trying my best not to panic/ argue with the thoughts) and trying to imagine myself with different genitalia all the while internally I'm panicking. I'm trying my best to just force myself into the thoughts and be comfortable with the uncomfortable. Some days are better than others. Some days I forget that I have pure OCD for about half an hour, and then it starts up again. Recovery is hard. Some times I won't panic at the idea, which is good, I know the reaction I want is to not panic at the idea of being trans and to realize that thoughts are just thoughts. But then the intrusive thoughts about the intrusive thoughts happen. "What if you're not panicking anymore because you're accepting that you're trans." "What if you're not panicking because you have dysphoria and imaging yourself as a woman is relieving that dysphoria." "At what point are you just trans? If you spend all day imaging yourself as a woman, saying that you're a woman, and think about body parts on your body that make you a woman, is that not trans?" I wake up and go to bed in a panic most days, but I'm not thought looping thoughout the day as hard as I used to. So I'm grateful, but still angry.

Hi there. I am sorry to hear about what you are going through. Unfortunately, I am dealing with this as well, where my SOOCD and fear of being gay has ket to debilitating TOCD. I feel like I can’t even function in my daily life because these thoughts feel so real and make me think that I want to be a man, when I’ve always identified as a straight, cisgender female. I do not want to change my gender, but for some reason my mind is telling me that I have to. I also all of the sudden feel so masculine when I look in the mirror and never feel genuinely pretty anymore, which is crushing my ability to maintain any ounce of my feminine self confidence. While I am not against those who are transgender, I have personally never understood the concept of not wanting to be what you were born as to the point of having to change your identity. Now, though, it’s like I don’t want to change my identity but my mind is telling me that I just am and won’t be happy unless I am male. I don’t know what to do because I don’t want to be gay or trans, but now my mind is convincing me that I am both. I am so scared that I just have gender dysphoria and don’t know what to do because I will not live a life as a transgender person because it is simply not for me and am scared of what I will have to do for these thoughts to go away.

The goal is never to get the thoughts to go away. I've accepted that, as scary as it is. The goal is to not be afraid of the thoughts. You know what surprised me the most about this? My voice. I noticed one day a few months ago that my voice is masculine. Now sometimes when I speak I startle myself because my voice is so deep and masculine that I can't help but gender it. Then once I've gendered it, intrusive thoughts always comes up whenever I speak. Hahaha I can't even talk without my OCD triggering.

@Ghost1228 That’s how I am too. I feel like I over analyze everything I say and do and because of that, these thoughts are constant. I don’t know what to do because I am starting to feel so disconnected from my old self that it seems like this must be a gender identity crisis. Wouldn’t this not feel so scary if it reflected what I actually wanted? I don’t understand.

@cf05 I think it is an identity crisis. Just not a gender one. One that's brought on by OCD. I don't think anyone will ever be able to tell me that this isn't an identity crisis. Because you're right it feels like I've lost touch with my old self. Who I was. Who I knew myself to be. For example anything I do now I question if I actually enjoy what I'm doing. Whether it's working, playing video games, watching movies, working on my car. Legitimately everything seems to have lost it's pleasure. Because on the rare chance I feel like I'll do something I enjoy inevitably there's a part of me that says "Do you really enjoy this, or are you just trying to distract yourself." As you said you always thought "I just never understood what being trans must feel like but I'm not against trans people." I feel the same way. I've always been pro LGBTQ, so when you take that fact and add in that I'm terrified of the idea that it could apply to me. Some part of me also feels weird that my worst fear is other people's reality.

@Ghost1228 So what does that mean for you? I am so scared that I will act on these thoughts and that exposing myself as transgender is the only thing that will give me the confidence that I have been lacking, even though I would never actually want to do that. The thoughts just feel so real and I feel like I can’t even look in the mirror or talk to people without feeling like they are “figuring me out.” I just don’t know what to do because if these thoughts are true, I will no longer want to be alive, even more so than right now with the misery these thoughts are causing me

@cf05 Have you tried ERP? It's incredibly difficult to do, but it'll relieve the anxiety. You have to trust me on this. I was a nervous wreck, I vomited at work from the stress of this. Imagine yourself as a man. I know it's scary. I know it's terrifying. But if you really truly only have OCD you need to trust yourself. Lay down somewhere quiet. Put a timer on your phone and imagine yourself as manly as you can make it. What started my journey to recovery is a book on Amazon that you can listen to on audible. It's called overcoming your unwanted intrusive thoughts by martin seiff. You can listen to the whole book in about 5 hours. It's very informative and I'm in a much better place than I was.

@cf05 I would say give it a read. But truth be told at the time I didn't think I had the mental capacity to sit and read.

@Ghost1228 I did two sessions with an NOCD therapist but could not afford to continue and did not have enough time in those two sessions to get started with ERP. I am so scared because this is starting to feel more real than my actual reality of wanting to be the straight feminine woman I’ve always been