Deleted post.

I tried checking if I like gay stuff and it’s genuinely disgusting to me. I can tell whether or not a man is attractive and when they are it does scare me and makes me question myself yet, it’s always the same response, I don’t get how you can do that with another man. Doing anything sexual just feels so gross and wrong. I don’t think that I am magically turning gay. I don’t think my orientation is changing or hasn’t been explored. I simply find that stuff gross. I have never had anything wrong with gay people and I am a true believer that people have choices they can make with free will so it’s not that I’m homophobic, just keep that stuff away from me lol. Saying so, I don’t get why I am getting these thoughts. These images in my head, constant need of checking if I fall in the spectrum, constant checking whether I like someone of any gender, constant checking whether or not I am getting groinal responses. No matter what answer I get, my mind still wants an answer, an answer to the next question that it’ll create after answering the one before it. I have always liked girls and always been so proud of it, I am in a relationship right now with a beautiful girl I’ve had a crush on since 2nd grade. (I am 19) Whatever mental illness I have has ruined our relationship. Everything feels forced on my side, I don’t remember the joy I had before this but I have glimpse throughout the days of the things we’ve done together that makes me happy and look forward to life. I am constantly checking to see if my attraction is still there for her and the scary part is, when I am stuck in my head, I am not but, to alter that, when I get that freedom and feel like my normal self, I get a hyper amount of love for her and it feels so nice. These thoughts all began after me and my girlfriend had an argument, 5 months ago we got in an argument over her not giving me enough space. She always wanted to be a part of a plan with my male friends. I never minded her when it was just us two so it’s not that I hated being with her, it was just that I had no time to be independent. ( I also had no job and nothing going for myself. ) One odd day after spending so much time stuck in the house due to weather, I had random thought on whether or not I truly loved her. We were only 4 months into the relationship so I didn’t have an answer and since it felt like I needed an answer, it became obsessive, I couldn’t stop checking. After hours with that thought, I started to wonder whether or not I was interested in other things like K I D S. This thought was an automatic no and I began to fight it. I wasn’t going to accept that, each day felt like a living hell. The questions would change each day, do I miss my ex, was my ex better, do I like my M O M, do I want to K I L L so and so, do I want to kill myself. One day I woke up and had it all in control, felt like magic, after I watched a video on ROCD and realized, oh, I am not the only one but, this is where my compulsions got even worse. I couldn’t stop checking the internet, seeing if I relate to others, watching more videos. I regret this everyday because this compulsion created so many new thoughts and questions for me to answer. About 2-3 weeks went by and a thought passed by that has been stuck with me since along with other thoughts. I thought back to what I did as kid and in the past. I remembered a traumatic event where my brother touched me (5yr old M) inappropriately. This made me question whether or not I liked it and I couldn’t find an answer, couple years (10yr old M) after that I unfortunately did the same to my cousin (8yr old M). I feel so much shame and guilt for it. My mind turned black and white, “Maybe this isn’t a do you like your girl or not but instead, maybe you just like boys I mean, you obviously never asked yourself if you like what you did so”. This question was terrifying for me because it meant that I could no longer love my girl, my whole life till now has been a lie. So I began to question everything in my past up to date to find an answer. No matter what answer I fed my mind, it would not be satisfied and simply create more questions. It felt like my mind was forcing me to be gay, whether or not I liked it. 4 months has passed and the questions have just gotten worse, something I was initially so afraid of. I am in constant fight or flight mode, I am always anxious and I can’t feel nothing. I get times of relief when I am reminded of my past, when my gf turns me on, or when I find an answer to question my mind conjured up. I started to go to church but it’s always been a struggle for me to believe. I can’t go to the gym anymore because everywhere I look I am questioning myself. My porn addiction has went away but mostly because I can’t find anything attractive anymore. I can only find comfort and discomfort. Something that was once so easy for me would 1 day be nonexistent and hard to live without. I don’t know what the truth is anymore. My life feels like a made-up lie. Though I have always loved women, fantasized about them, get extremely nervous around them, pray for them, romanticize them, etc. I now have no idea what it feels like to be in love, interested, or even happy for a woman. My attraction hasn’t vanished completely, I still can look a girl and be stunned, l simply just can’t destroy the feeling it gives me. I get so anxious and begin to question everything about the women, the feeling, myself. I am having a crisis.

I really need help understanding what I’m going through. For a long time now, I’ve been struggling with thoughts and feelings about women that confuse and scare me. Sometimes I feel this strange emotional or mental ‘pull’ toward certain women — it’s not exactly sexual, and not clearly romantic either, but it feels like something, and it triggers deep anxiety. When I see a beautiful woman or a WLW (woman-loving-woman) couple, I feel something that I can’t explain — sometimes I think it’s just admiration or aesthetic appreciation, but OCD keeps telling me: “You felt something, so you must be gay,” or “You’re hiding something.” I get stuck in endless loops, trying to analyze these moments and label them. Even when I feel physical or emotional reactions, they don’t feel natural or aligned with who I am. They feel like a reaction to the idea of women, not real attraction. I try to be honest with myself — I even told a friend I might be bisexual at some point, just to test if that felt more comfortable. But it didn’t. It made things worse, and I felt like I lost touch with who I am. I don’t want to lie to myself or live in denial, but I’m exhausted. It feels like I’m being mentally forced to feel something that isn’t mine. I’m 14, and I understand that things might still be developing, but I can’t help feeling like I’ve always been drawn to men, and never naturally wanted women that way. Still, I keep doubting everything. Is this real attraction or OCD feeding false feelings and thoughts? Can OCD create emotional or mental sensations that feel like desire? I’m so scared that I’ll lose myself, or find out something I never wanted. I just want peace and to feel like myself again.

Hey, I am a 19 year old girl, who have since February 2024 begun questioning if I am a lesbian. I have always LOVED boys, and have always known that I do not like women sexually, but I remember one night I got the thought “what if you like women” and I have not been able to not think about it since then. I remember I began questioning this during Covid when I was home alone in 2020, but has since then been able to be 100% that it was just a fase where I was curious, but had since then been able to talk openly about me not liking women without it triggering something. But since February I have thought about it EVERY day and every single minute of the day. I have a boyfriend of 3,5 years who I love so much, but since I began having these thoughts I cannot feel attracted to him. I need to ask him for reassurance 10+ times a day “pinky promise I’m not into women but only men” and have to ask him a certain way. I also think “oh I feel the need to look at women’s private parts and get a tangly feeling 3 or more times before I can look away cause it has to feel right. I also feel like I can’t listen to eg “I kissed a girl” or “born this way” because if I do I will feel attracted to it. Another example is that I constantly seek reassurance from Google, ChatGPT or TikTok and it is so draining because in the end I keep thinking “I don’t have a OCD diagnosis what If im in denial and is just a lesbian who is lying to me bf” I feel as im in denial just writing this. I have lived with it for a year now and is starting to question “what if I have just changed and must accept that I don’t like boys and is masculine e.g.” but the thing is, I have ALWAYS loved makeup, and loves girl stuff, but when I have these thought I can’t feel as I am in control of who I am. It makes me question myself to the point where I feel as I have to go out and be with a women because it is what my brain tells me to do. During a 5 month period in between this year the topic changed to “what if I have cheated on my bf without him knowing because I don’t remember” and I went down another dark hole. I have thrown all my clothe from that period of time out because I felt guilty and as it held “bad memories” and now I regret it because the topic has changed. But during that time I had to seek reassurance from friends “have I flirted - do u think I talked flirty or looked at them, have I done anything” and I had to have it IN writing, otherwise it wasn’t valid. I even promised God that I would not go out clubbing until New Year’s Eve at 12 am, because then he would forgive me and it would make me a not lesbian person. But it did not help a bit, the topic just changed and my “am I a leabjan” spiral started again. And it makes me so sad because why can it not just think “okay you are bisexual” NOT JUST “oh you are either heterosexual or ONLY into women” it is like my mind is afraid. So I guess my hope and question is, is there anyone who can tell if this sounds like OCD, and if I am into women. Before gaining these thoughts I was certain, and I know i don’t ONLY like women, but I can’t even be sexually active with my bf because if I think of women during it, I must get turned on by it and be a lesbian. I am so exhausted. Sorry for the long question, I am just so drained. Backstory: my family has a lot of mental illnesses on my dads side, and when I was a child I dealt a lot with having to wash my hands until they bled and crying because i did not know why I lived. I was never diagnosed.