Hi, I'm a man, 25, I had HOCD. Before getting to the heart of the matter some precisions: I have untreated sleep apnea which can cause erectile dysfunction so my erections are weaker than they were before. I always had a strong libido. I had HOCD until the end of 2021. My doubts were dissipated, I understood that I was not gay and that I would never become it, I always loved women, never men. I've been consuming quite a bit of trans-trans/trans-female porn this year. About ten days ago, on IRC, I started talking to a "sissy" (roughly speaking, a feminized man, unlike transvestism which is casual and where the man is a man in women's clothes, sissies want to live as a woman constantly and be treated as sex objects). I mostly saw her as a trans woman, never as a man. We mostly talked about sex and we had some of the same delusions, it was pretty exciting (I got a good quality erection quickly, even though it was pretty quick) and, we talked every day for five-six days in total I would say, I liked those moments. I was a little anxious in the middle of it all (or was it kind of love ? I hope it wasn't but this question loop in my head), but then I figured a girl's a girl, whether she's trans or not. I tell myself that I have to stop talking to her, for fear of falling back into the OCD analysis spirals and I don't really know how to tell her. Flashforward to yesterday, we talk again, I don't think about it anymore and then she tells me that she wants us to stop talking. It suits me but I feel bad, like I've been beaten up. I am anxious. Since last night I've been ruminating, wondering what it all means. Was I in love? I don't think so, I talked to her for a week, we never saw each other and we only talked about sex. But there's always a damn "what if my anxiety isn't anxiety but a sign of love (like when you have butterfly in stomach)?", "why did you feel bad?" running through my head. So I get anxious. I'm afraid that something has broken inside of me, that I'll never fall in love with women (and more specifically cis women) like I used to. I am aware that this is stupid. If anyone can help me see this more clearly, I would be grateful. Was it love ? Why such an intense reaction to such a random "relationship"?

Hello, im a 21ye old male. All of my life i was always atrscted to girls, even if it was only a hug by a girl i liked i got a boner. I always fantasised about doing fun stuff (not onyl sex) with my gf. Had a gf for almost two years. Two months ago i fell into severe anxiety about my sexuality changing. It happened to me 2 years ago bit then i had my gf and i did not need to worry if i will find a girl i love or will i be able to because i already had her. The toughts were realy intense but they faded and for 2 years i did not experience any doubts or fears about it. Then it happened again in december. For 2-3 weeks i was realy down...constant toughts about doing things with men i never wanted to do, fear that i liked someone, fear of denial...but them bc of getting back with my girlfriend it was okay for three weeks almosf. Then we broke up again and after a few days i had the worst days of my life. I felt like i actually changed, i did not know what to do. Then after a week I went out with a girl and when she laid on me when we wafched a show I got aroused like i always did with my ex. I felt such relief and i could handle my fears and anxiety for almost a month. Then a week ago the fear returned and i am again in a very bad spot, i dont know what else to do, i have no girl that i love, i am afraid i will never be able to experience those same feelings and moment that i had with my ex and then again the toughts of being in denial came back. I dont know what to do. My psychiatrist said i dont have ocd but onyl simptoms and that my anxiety is the proboem. Any one experienced something similar? Thanks

can someone read my story i’m feeling lost and confused. MY STORY i’ve grown up in a mostly supportive family and area and we are not homophobic. i grew up knowing what gay people were and i don’t care i grew up not to care. im from nj. my parents are friends with a lesbian couple and we see them once in while. i grew up watching people like joey graceffa whose gay. i also had some school friends that were gay like this kid kevin and this girl elizabeth. i also babysit a little gay boy who likes to dress up as a girl and i always tell him to embrace it and defend him. from a young age i liked male attention and had labeled boys as crushes from my mom says when i was younger to middle school to kissing boys in high school. my mom said every since i was a little girl i would tell her i liked boys. as i got older and in middle school i always wanted guys to want me and thing i was funny and pretty and i would get awkward around them. but i remeber i didn’t have specific things i found hot or attractive and id someone said something was hot i would just agree and start telling myself it was hot even when i didn’t care i just wanted to be cool. then hocd hit at 13-15 during covid where i was so confused. the first time i had hocd i would like not avoid the thoughts i would do a lot of testing to figure it out for hours and hours in diffrent ways and would feel the same arousal and attraction im feeling now. but i remeber wanting to end up straight and try and rule out gay stuff. but it wasn’t avoidance i didnt have anything against gay people. when the thoughts were still there i still would only act on stuff with boys. when i first had it i remeber crying to my mom for like a month and i was like whatever she’s not helping im gonna figure this out by myself. that’s when i started testing myself for two years. over time it was just there. ofc it was distressing but i don’t remember much. slowly when i went to high school it faded because i loved going to parties and flirting with guys and talking about them and thinking what boy am i gonna kiss tonight it’s gonna be a crazy night.when covid ended and we went back to real like i started going to parties and kissing boys. i started dating one boy and we would talk all the time just not really hangout so we broke up because i wanted more male attention and was kinda bored of the relation shop. i started hu with this one boy and like didn’t really know if i was into it cause i kinda wanted to hoe around and we were kinda like locked in and i didn’t know if i wanted that. so he got the hint i wasn’t into it and stopped talking to me moved on to another girl and got popular in the span of like two weeks. after this i was obsessed with him and got all nervous to see him and i always just wanted to be like can we go back to the way we were. we then started to “hate” eachother and i was so sad all the time he didn’t want me anymore and moved on. we hooked up in and off for two years. then i started hooking up with this one kid cause i always thought he was really funny and chill. we hooked up for a little and then i started to get the ick. i then got with like two other boys at parties. so then we stopped talking and i started talking to the “hate eachother kid” again. we then started dating and he’s my current boyfriend of a little over a year. all these instances made me feel good and i loved the attention and drama. but i struggled with committing with people. i don’t know if this all for validation because i loved when men wanted me it gave me an ego boost and still does even if i didn’t really want them or couldn’t get it to last with a boy. i’m scared it was all for attention and confidence there attention gave me. i liked feeling like a baddie. i liked when the hot funny guys liked me now at 18 it’s back and for six months all i been doing is talking to my mom my sister and my dad about it constantly researching and checking and for those six months i was in a haze of just despair. i was also in erp but it was so bad i couldn’t sit with the distress so i didn’t make much progress and my pyscuatrust told me to stop for a while until we get my brain right with meds. after three weeks no erp and more meds of seretonin and rexulti i finally don’t feel distress or anxious but the feelings of attraction are still there. i thought there supposed to vanish. here’s a little more about me or my story a second time i wrote it. i’m from nj and from a supportive family and ig supportive environment and friends. i’m 18. just an fyi my mom is confident in not comphet and she says my attraction to men was exciting and real for me. and in high school okay so growing up my mo said i only liked guys and would talk about guy crushes and had two celebrity guy crushes. this was all the way up into middle school. then when middle school came around i started liking this guy cause he was funny and popular. then we started dating and everytime he would do something affectionate i would start crying and get so tense and freak out so i broke up with him. a year later i still liked him and i got back together with him and the same thing happened so i broke up with him. i think during middle school i liked guys. my mom said i did. i also would get really nervous when any of them would come around to hangout and i wouldn’t talk. but i would also just follow what my friends and sister said. if they said a guy was hot i would just agree. i dont know if i actually found them attractive. i still kinda do this to this day. then covid hit for two years. during those two years i was in my house house and got hocd. so i had hocd sexual intrusive thoughts only and had the groinal really bad. but i would still try and have crushes on guys and think i did. but my hocd also attached itself to one of my pretty friends who was a girl. it made me have a lot of sexual thoughts that i would masturbate to about her. it was about her waist and stuff. before hocd me and her were bestfriends and really close and im not sure if i had feelings for her. i mean i was always jealous cause all the guys always wanted her and thought she was pretty. then we got out of covid and i was now in high school. the hocd slowly faded my freshman year. in the begining of freshman year there was this tall brunette guy who i started talking too for months and started dating and i would get all nervous when he came around. then we broke up cause we never hung out. after that for the next two years i developed what i thought two be two genuine crushes. i would make out with cute guys at parties for the experience and to add cute guys to my kids list. but one thing i did is i would always try to prove i was straight to my mom. like if we were watching tv i would say a guy was hot. i didn’t want her to think i was gay even though she wouldn’t care. i was hooking up with my guy best friend but then started to looses interest but he was still obsessed. one day he caught on i wasn’t into it started hanging out with older people and going to there parties and started hooking up with this older girl. i got super jealous and heartbroken cause he didn’t care about me. i don’t know if this heartbreak and crying was because he got popular, he wasn’t giving me attention, we weren’t friends anymore or because i actually liked him. i always had a thing for him after this. i started going to the older people parties and i always wanted to see him there and make him jealous. one and half years later we started talking again and we started dating. once we started dating we started having sex. almost every time or most of the time i finish when he eats me out, we have actual sex or if we’re just humping. we say i love you and stuff. ths first six months we would do everything together like just little shopping trips or whatever. we were always hanging out. then it started to dial down and i started getting annoyed with him. but i still said love you and we would hangout and have sex but idk. i would have thoughts like we aren’t going to last because he’s not smart enough, and sometimes my mom would say this too. but she would also say how much he loved me and how he was such a sweet guy and how he would do anything for me. but idk i just wouldn’t feel it. then hocd hit again. this time much worse. it was even stronger it felt like with the feelings. the first three months i was in this haze and was crying everyday that i might be gay and how i really really really didn’t want to be. i still have hocd and im in therapy and on medication. i cant tell if my attraction to men is real. my mom says it is and she knows me and im not gay and ive shown genuine excitement about guys. my sister says the same thing. but it feel like ive just been doing it to fit in. the thoughts got bad and ive told my mom my sister my dad and ive wanted to tell my bestfriend. i’ve always found women attractive and i find it easier to find them attractive. i feel like i’ve always maybe had a thing for women but my mom and sister both say i never had and it’s only been men but i don’t know. Am I attracted to men? am i attracted to women? i don’t want to be gay! but i feel like i am and i have internalized homophobia since i just want to be straight and normal. it feels like i really do like women but i don’t want to accept it. i get turned on when i kiss my boyfriend and i finish driving sex most the time but i’m scared i don’t want to be kissing him. what if i lack a strong connection. i mean i enjoy cuddling and stuff too. i have all these feelings like butterflies groinals and feelings of alignment with sexual and romantic thoughts with women. i feel like ive just been following along with what i know when it comes to being straight. i’m not like other girls who are obsessed with guys and have all these celebrities crushes or are obsessed with biceps and jawlines. i feel diffrent cause i don’t even know what i find attractive. i don’t even know what im supposed to feel. it feels like i feel attraction easier to women. like little things about them. i feel like i maybe always had this feeling but pushes it away as admiration. also i had “crushes” on any boy that gave me attention. currently at 18 im in a relationship right now for over a year. when we have sex i finish most of the time. i finish during sex and head. i’d say i enjoy and im engaged. like today me and my boyfriend had sex twice he gave me head and fingered me. i finish for all four. i like nararate what’s happening in my head to get turned on and focus. like how we’re having sex and about things about him how he’s so good to me. or like i think of a sex scene i’ve seen on tv and imagine that like i’m the girl ig so it feels like im focusing on the girl but like i don’t think i am. if i let my mind go blank i don’t feel anything. i have to really relax and tell myself things that are happening to turn me on. if i was lesbian would i do this like does this show im attracted to men? also like when my bf talks about marriage im not like other girls i feel like im not obsessed with it like my sister or confident that he’s the one even tho he’s perfect. its so unfair. like i just think to myself i haven’t experienced enough and what if this is going no where and idk i don’t day dream or think about getting married. why?? im just scared all this attraction hasn’t been genuine or “comphet” which ive read about. recently for the second time with hocd it’s this undeniable pull of attraction towards women and it’s confusing and i think most of the time makes me really sad. im diagnosed and medicated for my ocd for this theme. the feelings are strong and intense and sometimes feel like it’s me or i want or enjoy it. it’s really confusing because i don’t want to be gay but idk if it’s for the wrong reasons. these feelings are really easy and strong and like idk not like what i feel to guys. it’s just idk if im as obsessed with guys like my friends are. it comes easily to them and im always like do i feel that why dont i feel like hes hot. i mean idc if people think im homophobic ig but like im not i think like i dont really care what you are and i babysit this gay boy and i always tell him to embrace it but lesbian and bi women idk make me feel a lot and i hate it. like i feel strong arousal or a feeling of a pull towards women want it or an urge or nervous excitement and butterflies. i am taking a break from erp since my physcatrist said im not ready since i cant sit with distres yet so she started new meds for my ocd and now the distress is like gone but the physical symptoms are still there and feel really strong and real and come effortlessly or easier. i just wish i had this for men. like six months of just crying distress non stop and now it’s just like calm but like all the feelings are still there and i thought they were supposed to go away when the distress went away. it’s like i don’t feel the fear anymore. it feels like im considering it. its it real? i still feel depressed when i think it is. like idk its like this darkness. when im straight im happy. its like yeah the distress went down but i still dont want it to be true but cant tell if it is. idk it just feels like its stronger then men. like have i been pushing aside or not realizing attraction to women and to busy with male validation? do i have internalized homophobia because gay feels like the scariest outcome? would i have had all these experiences with men if i wasn’t attracted to them? would my mom and sister also confidently say i like men? is this all just hold false attraction? i hope so. it’s weird cause i have hocd fear of being lesbian. i would love to be straight and feel that way again all the problems would be solved. like i rather be straight then won the lottery. or if a genie gave me three wishes i would wish to be completely straight. would i feel this way if i was actually lesbian which is my fear. And back to u know how in covid i had hocd where for two years i was trying to figure out if i liked girls. and then it slowly faded when covid ended and i was 15. after covid i went back to kissing boys at parties and down the shore when i would go out because i enjoyed there attention it made me feel good. it was also fun to do like kiss boys and flirt and it added to the night it was fun to talk about it. i only would act on stuff with men want to snapchat men like male attention and was jelous when other girls got it and snaps from boys or kissed i hot guy i wanted to kiss and have that experience. i didn’t really think about girls i don’t think. i mean sometimes it popped in my head but i think it scared me or i would just brush it off. would i have done this if i was comphet lesbian? or like i just want to know is it likely i’m lesbian or bi and didn’t realize or did but ignored it? like i feel like liking girls is so normal where i live but idk i still feel uncomfortable like when i go to the mall i always see lesbians. and like my straight girl friends have crushes on girls. or there’s lesbians in my school. but idk i still have this feeling when u see them. or when i imagine it. it’s like would i have gotten into a relationship at 17 with a man and have sex with him and consistently finish and hang out once a week and we’re still dating after a year and a half. like am i attracted to men? can the attraction to men go away? can i conclude i’m not lesbian and will never be one. like im either straight or bi with prefrence for men not women or can that change. or like would my mom and sister know since we’re super close?

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.