Look I have soocd and I feel arousal when I check or test with thoughts about the same sex I really don’t feel aeousal for women I think this isn’t normal for ocd is there any advice anyone could give on this topic please anything would help

Please any help ?

Hello! Testing your thoughts is a compulsion and is leading you further down the rabbit hole. I have never had SOOCD but I know how convincing OCD can be. I have definitely heard of others with SOOCD that do not feel arousal towards women. It is your OCD playing tricks on you. You are so worried and scared of the thought that your mind is tricking you and it keeps bringing up the thought more and more. The best thing you can do is simply ignore the thought. You don’t get arousal towards women? So what OCD, you don’t care anymore. The more you stop testing the thoughts and not do compulsions the less your brain will send you that thought. Simply going about your day and not caring will help you move towards recovery. A great resource for OCD help it to look up Ali Greymond on YouTube. You can do this!

Thank you for your question. The arousal you feel when you check or test is called the groinal response and it is quite common in sexual orientation OCD. I would suggest doing exposures instead of engaging in checking behaviors. You can use response prevention messaging when you get these thoughts. Say something like, I may or may not be attracted to women or I may or may not be gay. Practice sitting with the anxiety instead of pushing it away. Eventually it will get lower.

But I don’t think I ever have felt arousal to women and the arousal to men is real leads to orgasm so what do I do any help please

It feels like real arousal like I’m getting turned on tho

I guess my question would be about the fear. Is there a fear of being gay? A fear of not being accepted? Disappointing someone? What is the worst thing that you can think about being attracted to men?

Just scared I dot want to be

So what I feel isn’t groinal response

So it’s not ocd and I am actually gay ?

So when someone is in ERP therapy one thing we always talk about is that we aren’t hear to answer questions. OCD wants answers, but it’s more about sitting with the anxiety you feel in the uncertainty. Does that make sense? OCD wants you to have to seek reassurance, often times you want answers to questions that other people can’t answer for you. Are you in treatment at NOCD? This might be a good place to start!

Yes I have been for a while but I don’t want this arousal towards men I want it to women but it never happens that way it’s like anything to do with men brings on arousal

Are you doing exposures with your therapist around the HOCD theme?

Yes some have u got any ideas for this arousal?

Could it be groinal response

I just don’t think this arousal is cause of ocd

Checking is a compulsion that will only make ocd stronger. Our bodies will have responses to stimuli even when we don’t like what we are thinking so when you get these thoughts you can respond by saying maybe I am attracted to this person maybe not. I don’t need to figure it out. Not easy to do but it beats doing compulsions because compulsions make ocd stronger each time we engage in them. It’s hard work, but we are stronger than we think.