I’m new to the site but not at all new to OCD. I’ve seen a lot of posts about “hocd” and just generally posts about people thinking they’re gay or whatever. I’m a lesbian and honestly it’s a really confusing and awful thing to see. I’m sure the posts aren’t literally homophobic but like, it’s shitty to go on an app to help your mental illness and then to see people portray homosexuality as an illness!!!! I know that there could be straight people who have these intrusive thoughts but HEY!! I had those intrusive thoughts too and I ended up being gay. I thought it was all anxiety but it wasn’t! It just feels so weird to see this stuff. If I saw those posts as a teenager, I might still be closeted and self-hating. Anyone else have thoughts?

Is anyone here actually gay and has/had sexuality or religious ocd? I don't have it at all haha I'm a lesbian myself without socd or religious ocd but I'm just curious: what's it like and how did you deal with the whole "biggest fear coming true" thing?

I was wondering if this also happened to anyone. I grew up very open-minded and allowed myself to question my sexuality when I was younger. I explored feelings for both genders and attraction to them from afar, because I didn't have any friends or experiences to guide me through them. When I started dating, I was open to both but slowly and surely naturally phased out women. It always felt performative, like pretending to be upset they didn't respond, choosing who to be attracted to, and while present with them, wanting to back away or feeling a level of discomfort. When my SO-OCD started, these experiences made it very difficult to navigate the anxieties and intrusive thoughts. My thoughts often circled back to the idea that if I wasn't attracted to women, I wouldn't have tried to in the first place. This type of thought is like a Catch-22. On one hand, I am surveying my past actions or memories for any signs of true attraction or trying to pick at moments where I could prove that I was actually uncomfortable. On the other hand, the thought of being uncomfortable with a moment is tainted in my brain because of the idea that I could just be in denial. Any emotion I've ever had gets scrutinized in hindsight, making it feel like any way in which I feel is wrong. SO-OCD has been particularly difficult because of the fact that I've never been pejorative towards being queer or the LGBTQ+ community. It goes against my own values whether or not I am actually queer or actually straight. I remember growing up in an environment (whether school, family, or friends) that was always lined with prejudice towards any type of outsider - OCD makes me feel ashamed for my own want to understand any group or background different from my own. Essentially, I wanted to know if that's also something that plagues others with SO-OCD. For me, no matter what side of the fence I fall on my OCD rewrites it as bad: Either I'm in denial and lying to everyone even though they already secretly know, or I'm a homophobe. Sometimes they even mix. It doesn't make any sense.

Ok so TRIGGER WARNING if you are not in therapy for SOOCD or are early in therapy for SOOCD please don't read this. Hi, I'm Maddie. I'm 19 and bisexual and diagnosed with OCD (mainly harm OCD and contamination OCD). I am religious and am a nonacting bisexual that happens to be married to a man. Despite this I am still attracted to women. I have also dealt with SOOCD or internalized homophobia, I'm not sure which, where I have second guessed my sexuality over and over and had intrusive thoughts about kissing random people, mostly girls. It took me from 6th grade to 9th grade to finally accept that I am attracted to women as well as men. I would compulsively take sexuality quizzes, avoid thinking about women I found attractive and a lot of things that were definitely compulsive, but I am not sure this was SOOCD or not because I actually am bisexual. At the time however I was thinking I was straight and absolutely terrified of being gay. Now I have accepted myself (conveniently after finding a boyfriend during my questioning) and the compulsions have passed, though some avoidance still occurs. This said, I am wondering if what I experienced was SOOCD or just internalized homophobia from being a Christian? ( Now I believe that being gay is not a sin but acting on it may be, though I don't know for sure. Please don't hate me for that, it's something I only apply to myself not to others. I have no desire to force others not to act on their feelings or beliefs)