Literally had a dream where I was asking this guy out on a date, and a couple other gay dreams mixed in, its the norm for me now.it just felt too natural and normal more than what ive felt around and for women. I woke up feeling ive realized once and for all that I am actually gay. I think all my life me wanting a gf and sex was caused by porn and hetero culture. Sure I only found girls attractive growing up (dont think thats true either) but I dont think any of that attraction was real, it just makes me upset that I thought I liked girls and wanted a gf this whole time when Im actually gay but why be upset upset if that is the case. I dont think I understood how relationships and romance worked or what being straight meant either as I was just follwing the culture which explains why I was unbelievably awkward and clueless around women or when they flirted with me bc I didnt feel true attraction. Now therapy seems pointless. Im just afraid if these soocd thoughts came true then the thoughts that I myself am a woman inside are probably true as well. My head hurts from constant thoughts and internal monologue, can someone talk please

This I don’t believe was helpful for him or someone struggling with SOOCD

I used to think the same man that I just had very low self esteem and personality issues and once I overcome those ill be okay but it all connects. The gay part seems too real to be ocd tbh, like I can see myself just out right now and start dating dudes and doing all the romantic/sexual things. Even before ocd I had trouble picturing doing that stuff with girls or imagining myself in a relationship there was always sort of this mental block. Like really hot girls have flirted with me but I could never understand how to respond or do anything and I think Its bc I never understood what having actual attraction/desire felt like. I think Im just hurting myself more by trying to be straight now bc Im simply not. I literally have gay dreams almost every night and during naps. Every now and then I get this massive overwhelming urge to watch gay porn and release to it and it arouses me I think and i sort of get half erections to it but I have to physically control myself and I think its because of this suppression my mental health gone to shit in the last few months. But Im scared If i give in once to these thoughts it will open a whole new portal and i will end up wanting to turn into a woman myself.

@Imaan7 I guess what I would say is that if that’s the case, then you should actually just start dating guys. But here’s the thing: you won’t do that. Why? Because you’re not gay. You have OCD. If you were to just “accept” that you’re gay, all of a sudden you would feel no inclination to pursue relationships with men, and you would feel confused all over again.

@Owen Roberts No man, what about all the other stuff I said? Maybe I havent tried it out because Im isolated and dealing with anxiety, depression and social anxiety. Ive literally had so many realizations and strong feelings, moments where it has felt like if a guy had walked in my room id have given in and acted on my thoughts. And I myself think my attraction to women is not true and never has been, i dont feel a shred of desire or attraction to them, it just feels like Im really going against my true self and its causing me more damage doing so.

@Imaan7 Ok then you’re gay. Are you okay with that? I think the isolation, anxiety, depression, etc. results from low self-esteem which is also what causes these intrusive thought patterns, but maybe you really are gay. Are you okay with that?

@Owen Roberts I dont know, I can see myself being okay with it. But thats the thing the more I try to be straight or act how I used to the more it hurts. I dont even feel attracted to women or it just feels really forced, unnatural and fake, like im trying to be something Im not. Idk what to do, im afraid once I start college soon Ill start falling for dudes

@Imaan7 Yea it definitely sounds like low self-esteem and OCD to me. But only you can know for sure. Just keep getting help.

@Owen Roberts I understand i have terrible self esteem and personality issues and probably also have ocd because its literally the only topic playing in my head since it began but im scared even if I conquer all these and my awkwardness around women ill still end up being gay. The urges, feelings/attraction to same sex and act on those thoughts is ridiculously strong man. Im not gonna lie deep down im fishing for reassurance that you or someone tell me that Im straight and this is all just a ocd illusion but i just cant see any clarity, i just feel i have hocd and sexual identity crisis and this happened bc my sexual/gender identity never properly developed. Theres so many thoughts/feelings I get that ive never seen any hocd sufferer post. I really appreciate you talking to me though bro

@Imaan7 No problem bro. My comments may seem to indicate that it’s not as big of a problem for me as it is for you, but trust me I’m in the trenches right there with you and it sucks.

@Owen Roberts They did actually I assumed you were all healthy and anxiety free. Sorry to hear ur struggling man are you on any medication?

@Imaan7 I guess what I meant to say was that I still get all the obnoxious thought patterns and sometimes they can get to me. But you really sound like you’re drowning in anxiety and so for that reason I guess I probably am in a better place than you. But subconsciously my self-esteem is still low and I’ve never had actual OCD treatment so I still have to do that.

@Owen Roberts Yeah bro, the entirety of 2021 was anxiety attacks everyday morning to night literally speaking, there mustve been like 6-7 days where i had little anxiety but the whole year was awful, not sure how my body survived it. I just dont know which issue to pinpoint now and work on, it all feels so overwhelming and unachievable. My therapist wants me to get on meds to get it under control so im thinking about it. How have you been dealing with this by yourself bc you really hit it on the nail with the self esteem issue.

@Imaan7 So basically Ive had various OCD themes for quite a long time. Ive had SOOCD since I was 13, harm since I was probably 16 or 17, and trans OCD since June 2020. It got really bad in late January into February of last year. I had a single dorm room here at college and with covid everything was shut down for the most part, most of my classes were completely online, and I barely had any friends. I was super isolated and as the days went by, I felt more and more like the weight of the guilt, thinking that I was a crazy or insane person, etc. was getting to me. So one day I was telling one of my high school friends about this girl from one of my classes that I wanted to talk to but (I claimed) to lose interest in her. My friend pressed me on it, saying that he didn’t really believe that I wasn’t interested in her but that I was afraid to approach her in some way. Then it all came out. We had about a three hour conversation where I told him basically everything about it. Then I told my therapist about it over FaceTime a few days later, who I had been seeing for over two years but never mentioned it. I was then up and down for about three months until I started to connect the dots between the thoughts, my self-esteem, the fetish disorder, etc. But I still didn’t know it was OCD. It took two more months still for me to recognize that I may have had OCD because I googled having unwanted sexual thoughts about kids (POCD). Then I had a brief relationship with a girl (my first time) from late July-early August 2021 and it led me into this sort of identity crisis where I couldn’t hang out with her before she went to her own college and I wanted to tell her about the trans thoughts because I thought the thoughts were rooted in subconsciously suppressing my sexual arousal at the thought of having a female body. But then I did some more reading and I found a study about transgender OCD, and then it all started to fit. I read more about OCD and recognized the thoughts about kids, violence, etc. as all being tied together. Fast forward to this past December, I watched a YouTube video on pure OCD from the School of Life channel and it explained the relationship between low self-esteem and OCD.

@Owen Roberts Wow thats good you were able to get some closure on this man. That sort of thing happened to me in 2021, like connecting dots about why Im gay and never noticed it before and when I hit those realizations depression began and my mental health got so much worse and since feeling like Im actually gay I started feeling trans or like a woman inside and all of it started making sense about things I did as a kid. I would get into detail but it would take too long in the comments

@Imaan7 So do you actually envision yourself as dating men or transitioning? Because I kind of relate to what you said in the sense that in early June of last year I thought I had discovered the connection between the thoughts and the fetish disorder, and I thought it meant that I may actually be a transgender woman. But after doing a lot of reading, etc., I didn’t feel much of an impulse to actually follow through on any of it, and I remember lying down in my bed at night listening to Mac Miller and feeling very strange because I thought I had come to terms with being transgender but I didn’t feel any more secure from that. If anything, “coming to terms” with being transgender made me less interested in actually pursuing that. I only mention this because I suspect it’s the same with you, especially since you have said before that these thoughts arouse you.

@Owen Roberts I dont imagine myself dating dudes, its just I cant picture myself being with a girl and doing relationship things, even before ocd I had trouble picturing that, it felt kind of impossible. However I did fantasize about holding hands and making out with girls deeply but the part where you talk/converse to a girl and get to the kissing stage was blank if that makes sense, it was always I saw a cute girl, Id imagine myself with her walking down a street holding hands, and her suddenly falling in love with me and us kissing, thats how it used to be with most girls, i never thought about having kids, being in a relationship or what being in one even meant, I just wanted a gf and have sex etc. But when I do try to vision being with a dude I can imagine like I could be in a relationship and do all those things fluidly without any mental blocks and awkwardness, knowing what to talk, do or say, being dominant and doing those relationship things couples do and im afraid this is only happening because I never felt true attraction to women. Idk if any of this makes sense to you. Idk i feel very confused I could very well be just talking out my ass. The trans thing started with whenever I saw a NSFW image my mind would swap the girls face with mine as If i was the one doing the acts and nowadays while watching female characters in tv shows and whatever they are saying or gesturing it feels like I too act like that or always have making me feel like a female. Or when I see men I feel turning into one or being treated like a girl.

@Imaan7 Im gonna be honest. I think you’re just a straight guy who has really low self-esteem and probably has had difficulty interacting with girls in the past. Although of course I can’t know because I’m not inside your head, but this is what I would say based on what you have told me.

@Owen Roberts Why dont that make me feel better man? I myself dont feel capable of loving a girl and believe im straight, its like i never knew what being straight meant until hocd developed, i feel no desire or attraction to girls, im so deeply stressed and confused. I wont lie I never really understood sexuality and how it worked etc etc, word gay was just an insult for me and I saw gay people as someone foreign or otherworldly who I avoided talking to. Idk who to talk to

@Imaan7 It again just sounds like you have deeply rooted insecurities. Low self-esteem operates at the subconscious level so it could very well be that you do have low self-esteem but aren’t even aware of it.

@Owen Roberts Youre most likely right but even when my low self esteem issue gets resolved i still cant see myself being straight or feeling actual attraction to girls. I think i did figure out im gay but because of ocd I keep doubting that too so in the end I am actually just gay and cant seem to accept it. I dont know where to start and which thought process to tackle to start getting rid of this depression and anxiety. Sorry I keep bothering you i know you have your own difficulties.

@Imaan7 Nah bro it’s chill. Ive doubted myself before in the same way you have, but let me give you some advice from experience. I went out on a date with a girl that I met here at college back in October, and let me tell you: we connected so insanely well that I felt deeply emotionally and spiritually connected to her and all the doubts and insecurities seemed irrelevant in the moment. Unfortunately she wasn’t ready for anything serious and that’s kinda fucked me up a bit but Im just telling you that it’s possible to have an experience where you really see that all the insecurities and doubts really only ultimately indicate that you’re insecure; they don’t mean that you are inherently defective or beyond help.

@Owen Roberts Thanks man, though i still feel I am gay and theres nothing i can do but accept and move on. i might get on medication soon just to get this depressive state and anxiety under control.