Sexual Orientation Related OCD

I am here because I have no friends who I can talk to about my intrusive thoughts. It has come to a point where it is all I can think of 24/7 from the moment I wake until I go to bed. The thoughts persist no matter the time of day, just at different volumes. In some instances, I can focus and do the tasks that are needed at hand while having the thoughts as background noise, and other times it feels like they get so loud I can't focus on anything else. OCD has taken over my life, my friends, and now I feel like my sanity is slowly leaving my body. I tried doing ERP today, which typically works during my sessions, but it felt like I gave up. I went into ruminating and googling and stopped until I physically could not take the overwhelming amount of anxiety. My thoughts centered around my sexuality. What if I am gay? What if I am forcing my relationship with my fiance? What if I never loved him? What if I faked everything? What if me being distanced - physically and emotionally mean I am gay? What if I am using OCD as an excuse? What if my mom was right? (she would always tell me growing up that God told her I was gay). With ERP, I was trying to watch TikToks of this woman who considers herself a "late-blooming lesbian" meaning she had been married to a man and had a child before she came out. I tried to lean into the anxiety but my brain just started instantly comparing, spiraling, ruminating...Sometimes I would reassure myself and sometimes I would question why I didn't feel anxious for a second (that it meant it was true). When I first went into ERP, I did not think about how difficult it was just to simply say "maybe so, maybe not." Very Brief Background: My mother has very chronic and untreated paranoid Schizophrenia which consists of delusions (made-up thoughts like government going after her or Johnny Depp loved her) and hallucinations (visual perception that is not there - seeing demons, dead people, usually she would attach spirituality into things she saw). Anyways she would say I was a lesbian and that she needed to keep me away from my sister because God told her I was capable of terrible things. I grew up confused and remembered my mom making fun of me whenever I would be vocal about having a crush on a guy...she would tell me I was faking it and in denial. I think this most definitely has led me into the position I am in today.

AnonymousOCD23

Date posted: 3y

Hey thank you for the reply! I believe that OCD comes from a combination of environmental factors and genetics but I will say that I have been able to see firsthand how environment has affected the way I think things. I see huge similarities in my mother’s pattern of thinking and how I perceive the world and how I think. Also my mother had very much, I don’t know if it was OCD but definitely OCD tendencies where she would clean something over and over and over again and I remember the smell of bleach whenever I went into my house and how there was always pattern of thinking where she would put a lot of significance in the littlest things. Example, if she came across a dark butterfly then it meant something bad would happen. I always excused it as superstition and maybe it is to a degree but I remember her taking those things (things that happened to her daily) and take it to an extreme and would rule over her life.

Sp1999

User type: OCD Conqueror

Date posted: 3y

I relate to the sexuality ocd part, i dont have a great relationship with my mom, i believe the ive seen and been through have caused ocd but i never knew. Im 22 and my girlfriend struggles with me and this stuff. My mom used to scream at the walls and stuff

cc97

Date posted: 3y

I’m am so sorry to hear that you went through that with your mom, that sounds so traumatic. If it makes you feel better (or less alone) I understand the constant intrusive what if thoughts about sexuality and the relationship as well. Additionally Tik tok has been super triggering for me too with the late bloomer lesbians and comphet videos.

AnonymousOCD23

Date posted: 3y

You are so not alone! It’s easy to think we are alone because it’s not everyday that we meet someone with OCD (let alone someone who has PureO - since it’s hard to tell when compulsions aren’t visible). It just it’s a lot because I constantly go into so many cognitive distortions (catastrophizing, going into magical thinking and then black and white thinking). I think the biggest thing though is how real it all feels. Like what if I get convinced one day and then walk away from my relationship, my family, it’s horrible!

wewillgetthr...

Date posted: 24w

My experience with SO-OCD

Hey everyone. I wanted to share my story and some of the things I have/am experiencing in my journey with OCD- particularly with Sexual Orientation OCD. My goal is not to use this as a means for reassurance for myself or for any other, rather as to be a reminder for myself and you all that you are NOT alone. No matter what you are experiencing you aren’t alone, and we have all gone through the same thoughts and feelings as you, in whatever form they may have been. For personal reasons I will not share my name, but I do want to share about me and my journey with what has truly been one of the hardest things I’ve ever experienced. I am a 24 year old female and for as long as I’ve remembered I’ve always been a “worrier”. My dad used to tell me that worrying will be the fastest way I’d die lol. Oh! How I wish I could go back to those days of just simply worry. For the past few years I have struggled with what I now know is intrusive thoughts. But, luckily for me they were a little calmer than what I’ve experienced now. They were the occasional worrying that my boyfriend died but I would get over it rather quickly. Well, in may of 2024, I had just graduated college, was about to get married and about to move out. So, that triggered some switch in my brain and thus began this horrible disease of OCD. My main type has been SO-OCD but I have found some moments that I’ve also struggled with ROCD as well as some existential crisis OCD. I have unfortunately not been able to go to therapy because of money but I am on meds and have been using tips and tricks I’ve found online. My goal is to still go to therapy when I can find the right time. And I, like many of you have months of great “freedom” from the disease; and then, like I find myself now, fall back into its trap. I wanted to share some of the things I’ve experienced with this to see if y’all have experienced the same things and to let you know you are not alone. For reference, I am straight (I am happily married to my wonderful husband). 1. Thoughts from the past: I slightly remember having a thought that I’d be gay when I was around 12-13… that was around the time I actually first figured out what that meant. Even then, I (more easily than now) brushed it off. Continued to have about a million crushes on boys and never thought of it again. But now, with my OCD, I feel “convinced” that that was a sign that I was gay. 2. I have always been a girls girl. Me and my friend have a joke that we are worse than men! Meaning that when we see a pretty girl with a nice body, we stare. We say they are pretty. Never have I ever thought anything of it. It was always from a place of envy and admiration. Never a place of lust or anything along those lines. But NOW. OH! If I even look that direction I feel guilty, I feel like that’s confirmation that I am gay. And even worse- that is one of my compulsions. To look and make myself “prove” I’m not gay. 3. I have lost “feeling” for my partner. I love my husband. More than anything else. I could not live without him. But since this all happened, my emotions and fears have been all over the place that I’ve somewhat lost that feeling. It doesn’t help that I’m on medicine that can have that effect. I have to just remind myself that love isn’t always feelings, it’s a choice. And I choose him every single day. 4. sex life issues: bc/ of the OCD fear as well as my medication, I don’t have much sex drive or pleasure in the bedroom as I did before OCD… and, my OCD likes to convince me that that is because I would be better off with a woman (even tho I don’t want that) and then, OH THEN, I proceed to experience some groinal sensation from that though. So- cue even more “proof” that I am gay. well- that’s all I can think of now. Let me know if any one yall struggle with those. And I hope you know, YOU ARE NOT ALONE. YOU ARE NOT YOUR THOUGHTS. YOU ARE NOT YOUR OCD 💚

Sexual Orientation OCD

wewillgetthr...

Date posted: 24w

Some things that are making me feel alone

Here are some things that make me feel alone and isolated in my journey with sexual orientation OCD: 1. This feels like a complete identity crisis. I think that is what makes it so hard. It seems to go against everything I believe myself to be and who I always have identified as. 2. My compulsions, thoughts, triggers, and everything else that comes along with this disease feels and seems like I’m the only one that struggles with those things. My thoughts and images in my head often seems so real that it can only be me in denial. 3. Because this sub type of OCD is so sexual in nature, it has made my sex life with my husband, a really hard situation. Because I always get afraid and sex that I will think of these thoughts, I subconsciously then think of those thoughts, and if I have any type of feeling associated with those thoughts, it feels like proof that those thoughts are real and that makes it even harder. 4. Because a lot of the pleasure that comes with sex is on hot for me while I’m figuring out in this journey with OCD, my mind has convinced me that it is because I will only feel those things if I were with someone at the same sex (I am a straight female. I have a fear of being homosexual.). Well, all those things have made it really hard for me to function daily, I am doing a lot better at finding ways to combat those. I wanted to offer some of the things that I find that help me move past these thoughts and while it’s not always a perfect fix, it’s really helped. 1. I tried to remind myself daily that while love is a feeling it’s also choice. I have to remind myself to get up every single day and choose my husband not because I always feel like choosing him because that is who I choose. That is who I want. That is who I want to grow a relationship with to have a child with Thus why I always don’t feel that love, I always choose it. And while this can be really hard because just society as a whole has made us have these unrealistic ideas about what love is and made us think that love is just this huge with butterflies and sparks, it’s not always that. 2. I try to remind myself that these are just thoughts. And thoughts are not who I am. I don’t have to become the thoughts. I’m not a bad person for thinking of thoughts, and I don’t have to believe the thoughts. 3. When I get, like I often do, groinal responses to the things that I am thinking or seeing in my mind I just remind myself that those are responses to the anxiety I have. I’m not thinking those because I want to think those, but it’s in a response too The fear that I will think those and that I will get that response and then in turn I get the response. 4. I tried to remind myself that this isn’t a fear of coming out like if I was gay, this is a fear associated with a thought that I would be because that’s not who I am. If I really was gay, I would like the thought I would like the pleasure and I would be afraid of coming out. But in this situation, I don’t want any of the thoughts not because I’m afraid of coming out of this because it’s not who I am. If that makes sense.

Sexual Orientation OCD

vaiiolyn

Date posted: 22w

Lesbian with Sexual Orientation OCD

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?

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Sexual Orientation Related OCD

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