hi ! i pop in every once in awhile (i’ll be more active now) to talk about recovery and help others. if anyone has any questions, ask away! this format is easier than looking around the forum :)
Hi! Thanks for being here! When you first started ERP (I assume you did ERP??), did you still have the sexuality doubts even after your brain had calmed down a little? I was recovered at one point on my own (or so I thought) and was able to look back and laugh that I ever questioned it. This time I'm in actual therapy and the ERP has taken away my anxiety for the most part but the thoughts (more like a nagging doubt) are still there when I think of my boyfriend so now I have a knot in my stomach wondering what it means to still be having doubts but with a calm mind. Its scaring me!!! *I've never liked girls but have gotten turned on by boobs on tv before which is how I got here 🤣
ERP for me was definitely NOT linear. my brain calmed down with certain stuff but still reacted hotly to others- and that’s ok !! my last step in ERP was identifying as my feared sexuality. and i made it my personality. and after doing that, everything calmed down. keep going with therapy !! if you have these concerns please voice it to your therapist so they can work you through it <3
@ingrid ✧ I have tried doing that but I guess I need to take it more seriously. Whenever I've tried identifying as the feared sexuality it makes me feel better for a second but then I go right back to questioning
@Littleducky5 mhm- that’s a really big exposure. and for it to be done the way ERP is intended to, it’s all or nothing.
@ingrid ✧ I am not looking forward to that 🤣 But I'm also excited if it means getting past this!!!
YO BESTIE I’m so happy for you! Isn’t recovery the best?
OH MY GOD YOUVE RECOVERED ????? dude i’m literally tearing up- i’ve seen you around here every single time i pop up and the fact you recovered AHHH it gives me so much happiness <333 !!!! HOW ARE YOU HOW WAS ERP TELL ME SPILL
@ingrid ✧ :D Brooo <333 that’s so sweet I miss youuu So I actually took a different route. I did something called Accelerated Resolution Therapy. That combined with my meds is what got me here.
@OCDumb >:( ooo what’s that? fill me in, i’ve never heard of that !
@ingrid ✧ It’s an eye movement therapy. I think it relates to the REM in your sleep, and kind of sorts out your memories into fear v safe.
@OCDumb >:( wait that’s so cool wtf 🙇♀️ how long did that take for ya?
@ingrid ✧ It took maybe a few months of once-a-month sessions. Each ART session lasts about an hour.
What did your false attraction feel like?
it felt like normal attraction. just with disgust, panic, and questioning.
@ingrid ✧ See I don't have any panic but I know I get weirded out by it.
@mrein280 yeah, that’s a normal reaction.
@ingrid ✧ Is that a normal reaction if you don’t get panicked by the thought?
@Anonymous sure, it can be
Did you ever have groinal responses and if so did u ever act on them?
act on them? in what way? i definitely had groinal responses. they were the worst part for me.
Hello. I'm on the road to recovery. I was doing really good for a while I even felt like my old self but then I had a setback. I'm certainly doing therapy with ERP homework. Now that you're completely recovered how do you feel? Do you feel completely fine or do you still have your moments? I deal with SO-OCD & ROCD.
i have no traces of OCD. i do feel sad knowing i lost my childhood, and get some trauma responses due to what happened with my OCD, but i’ve been better than ever.
did you have loss of attraction? i’m lucky i haven’t experienced false attraction *knock on wood* but i just don’t feel attracted to literally anyone and it’s so confusing. libido is also an all time low which worries me cause then i think “it’s just bc you want to have sex with girls” when i have literally never once wanted to do that and still don’t want to but my mind comes up with these scenarios and scenes that just make me physically shiver in disgust at how much i don’t want that.
so, i might make a huge tumblr post on OCD and recovery and HIGHLIGHT this because loss of attraction is always mentioned but never talked about professionally. i did. i felt no attraction to my “desired” gender/sex. it comes back during ERP. i promise you. your body gives you obsessions so that you can “solve” them, which gives your body seretonin (hence why you feel happy and obtain clarity sometimes with OCD). the brain takes this attraction away so you can “solve” why you don’t have it anymore, which gives seretonin. once there is no more seretonin exchange, the brain releases that attraction back.
@ingrid ✧ omg please make a post about it. it definitely needs to be talked about more cause it’s something that is so difficult and strange to deal with. but okay thank you. i have always liked men but now i just feel like eh about them and it’s so confusing to me. wow does that make so much sense. so you have to try not solve the obsessions? is what i’m understanding? correct me if i’m wrong. cause trying to solve it is ruminating which is what we don’t want to do
@444co yeah ! it’s really scary when it happens, but i just want to reassure you that it’s normal. 100%. mhm, you’re right ! the more you try to solve them, the more your brain continues it to give itself seretonin. if you stop, your brain is going to get anxious because it wants those chemicals. but afterwards, your brain levels out, and things are back to square one.
@ingrid ✧ okay, thank you so much!
What was your experience w intrusive feelings? What did u do for erp?
If you look under my question she gave some more detail!
i either fed into them or pretended they didn’t exist. for ERP, i just identified as bisexual.
@ingrid ✧ If you indemnified as bi for erp that means you're not?
@sezarsalad if you have that mindset you can’t really recover, because that “that means you’re not” is protecting you.
@ingrid ✧ I really don't get what you are saying😭
@sezarsalad oh, let me try to explain it a bit more. a lot of people do ERP thinking “i’m still my sexuality i’m still my sexuality all this is gonna do is get the thoughts away”. i did that too, but if you’re not truly exposing yourself to the possibility you might be another sexuality, it’s not helping as much. for ERP, i identified as bisexual, and saw where that took me. in the end, i kept my bisexual label. TLDR ; accept all uncertainty. including your sexuality ❣️
@ingrid ✧ Im fine w my journey rn and i had a lot of process. You were bi to began with. For me identifying as something that I'm not is too much. I don't have to do something like that for erp so thank you.
@sezarsalad erm… i did not identify as bisexual to begin with, no. if you don’t like my advice i offer no need to interact- no hard feelings. i’m giving my experience as someone whose recovered, that’s all. just don’t invalidate my sexuality before or after. thank you.
@ingrid ✧ So did you turn bisexual in the end?
@Anonymous i don’t like mentioning my sexuality progress a lot on here, as i know it can trigger others. my sexuality did not stay the same, but that’s not directly tied to OCD.
@polishgirl ive always been attracted to women :) my obsession was about being attracted to men <3
@ingrid ✧ So your fear of it was a separate thing? Like do you think you were bi all along and just didn't accept it, or did your sexuality actually change? Maybe I should just identify as bi and be done with this. It just seems like for me that wouldn't solve anything. Ugh I don't know
@Littleducky5 well, i identified as bisexual and then lesbian. my OCD was about the fear of being bisexual. for ERP, i identified as bisexual. when i recovered i chose to call myself queer or unlabeled for the most part. maybe my sexuality didn’t change- i was just scared of labeling it wrong. i don’t know :) hopefully this didn’t trigger you at all ! i don’t talk about my sexuality on here specifically due to that. :).
@polishgirl it got flagged due to being unrelated to the community, in which i understand. if you’d like to add me though, just tell me your tag <33
@ingrid ✧ I guess my therapist wasn't lying when she said soocd itself has many different themes 😂 I think most of us here identified as one or the other to begin with but fear they are the opposite because of a certain something that happened. Your case sounds a little different in that you just didn't want to be wrong about your label? I think your bottom line is correct though - in order to get past this we have to fully accept uncertainty. But how did you experience disgust with your false sensations if you ultimately ended up with that sex?
@Littleducky5 SO-OCD manifests in so many ways ! i’ve shared so much with HOCD sufferers, from groinal responses to false attraction. my fear is that i was scared i wasn’t a lesbian and the label didn’t fit me, because i did so much activism for that label. i’m honestly.. not entirely sure. i’m a huge advocate for understanding yourself and your life, but i think with ERP i just got more comfortable with nuance. this definitely isn’t everyone’s experience- everyone else i’ve met stayed the same identity wise. i did identify as a lesbian straight after recovery for a short period of time, but then things personally started to change AFTER recovery. so when i “kept my bisexual label”, that isn’t 1000% accurate, but there was such a small time period in which i identified as a lesbian after that it’s just easier to say that. does that make sense?
@ingrid ✧ That makes sense! Thanks for sharing and I'm so happy for you! So I'm guessing you ended up naturally falling for a guy and it had nothing to do with your ocd? I've never liked or been attracted to girls, so I tell myself that the only way I'll ever really know my correct identity for SURE is if it happens naturally and not based on fear!
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it’ll get better <3
@polishgirl i’m sorry, i don’t feel comfortable talking about my personal relationship with pornography. i did. struggle with some subtle sexual things, though.
People who went from a really bad time with OCD to a better time now. Is it really possible? What was your theme? Did you take medication?
Hi everyone, I’m Andrea and I am a member of the Intake Team here at NOCD. In junior high, I was known as the “aneurysm girl” because I was convinced any small headache meant I was dying. At just 12 years old, I read something that triggered my OCD, and from that moment on, my brain latched onto catastrophic health fears. Any strange sensation in my body felt like proof that something was seriously wrong. I constantly sought reassurance, avoided being alone, and felt trapped in an endless cycle of fear. Over time, my OCD shifted themes, but health anxiety was always there, lurking in the background. I turned to drinking to numb my mind, trying to escape the fear that never let up. Then, in 2016, everything spiraled. I was sitting at work, feeling completely fine, when suddenly my vision felt strange—something was “off.” My mind convinced me I was having a stroke. I called an ambulance, launching myself into one of the darkest periods of my life. I visited doctors multiple times a week, terrified I was dying, yet every test came back normal. The fear never loosened its grip. For years, I cycled in and out of therapy, desperately trying to find answers, but no one recognized what was really happening. I was always told I had anxiety or depression, but OCD was never mentioned. I was suicidal, believing I would never escape the torment of my mind. It wasn’t until 2022—after years of struggling, hitting rock bottom, and finally seeking specialized OCD treatment—that I got the right diagnosis. ERP therapy at NOCD was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but it saved my life. Today, I’m 34, sober, and living a life I never thought was possible. Do I still have hard days? Absolutely. But I am no longer a prisoner to my fears. The thoughts still come, but they don’t control me anymore. They don’t dictate my every move. Life isn’t perfect, but it no longer knocks me off my feet. If you’re struggling with health OCD or somatic OCD, I see you. I know how terrifying and isolating it can be. But I also know that it can get better. If you have any questions about health & somatic OCD, ERP, and breaking the OCD cycle, I’d love to tell you what I’ve learned first hand. Drop your questions below, and I’ll answer all of them!
Looking back, my introverted nature and struggles to find belonging in high school may have set the stage for how OCD would later impact my relationships. I had my first relationship in high school, but OCD wasn’t a major factor then. It wasn’t until my longest relationship—six years from age 18 to 24—that OCD really took hold. The relationship itself wasn’t the issue; it was what happened after. When it ended, I became obsessed with confessing past mistakes, convinced I had to be completely transparent. Even when my partner was willing to work past them, I couldn’t let go of the intrusive thoughts, and that obsession landed me in the hospital. From there, my struggle with ROCD (Relationship OCD) fully emerged. For years, every time I tried to move forward in dating, doubts consumed me. I would start seeing someone and feel fine, but then the questions would creep in: Do I really like her? Do I find her attractive? Is she getting on my nerves? What if I’m with the wrong person? I’d break things off, thinking I was following my true feelings. But then I’d question: Was that really how I felt, or was it just OCD? I tried again and again, each time hoping I could “withstand it this time,” only to fall back into the same cycle. The back and forth hurt both me and the person I was with. By the time I realized it was ROCD, the damage had been done, and I still hadn’t built the tools to manage it. Now, at 28, I know I need to approach dating differently. I recently talked to someone from a dating app, and my OCD still showed up—questioning my every move, making me doubt my own decisions. I haven’t yet done ERP specifically for ROCD, but I know that’s my next step. Just like I’ve learned tools for managing my other OCD subtypes, I need a set of strategies for when intrusive doubts hit in relationships. My goal this year is to stop letting uncertainty control me—to learn how to sit with doubt instead of trying to “figure it out.” I want to break the cycle and be able to build something healthy without my OCD sabotaging it. I know I’m not alone in this, and I know healing is possible. I’m hopeful that working with a therapist will help me develop exposures and thought loops to practice. I don’t expect to eliminate doubt entirely—after all, doubt is a part of every relationship—but I want to reach a place where it doesn’t paralyze me. Where I can move forward without constantly questioning whether I should. And where I can be in a relationship without feeling like OCD is pulling the strings. I would appreciate hearing about your experiences with ROCD. Please share your thoughts or any questions in the comments below. I’d love to connect and offer my perspective. Thanks!
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