After reading a lot of comment I’m starting to feel like ocd is just ocd there are no limits or themes u can be ocd about any thought...and I think I’m right bc u all know people with ocd have an imbalance in the serotonin in the brain or something like that I’m not sure,so if u have imbalance in ur braind doesn’t mean u have to have hocd,pocd,rocd the brain doesn’t control that thing so that’s why,I guess

I need to know if someone else experience this because I think this may be the root of some of my ocd themes. So basically even when I don't really have a theme going on I get intrusive thoughts of different topics. For example if I'm reading an article about a person with ADHD my mind tells that maybe I have adhd and because if I had I'd be different, and it feels like I want to even though I don't do because I know how destressing it is to live with such disorders and who would ever want to develop a disorder like that. I get intrusive thoughts like about illnesses, identities and other things and my mind says that I have to have those things because they would make me different and my mind wanted me to be different in that way. And it felt like I wanted those things even tho I know how terrible they affect people and didn't really wanted to have them. Now it tells me the same thing about gender and sexuality that I have to be different in that way while I don't and it's causing me hocd right now. I guess this is my final answer but I wanted to know if somebody else experienced something like this. Like sometimes I get depressive episodes because of my anxiety and ocd but once I became obsessed with the idea of having chronic severe depression and I got so anxious but then felt relieved when I didn't but then my intrusive thoughts would pop up here and there

I find it helpful to distinguish between pure O and OCD because, while I do have some triggers in my environment, they’re not consistent enough to really establish a theme, and most of the time I’m triggering myself with my own thoughts. For years I didn’t think I had OCD anymore because my OCD was so adaptive, and I had no physical compulsions, besides reassurance seeking and avoidance, but the compulsions were so covert that I rarely, if ever, noticed them. It wasn’t until reading about Pure O that I was able to expand my understanding of OCD as a WAY of thinking rather than a strict set of obsessions and compulsions. As I learned about how my OCD had creeped into the way I thought about practically everything, I became envious of those whose OCD was traceable in a specific theme, e.g. contamination (although I know this is an oversimplification, and people with contamination OCD don’t have an easier time with OCD at all), because I felt like OCD was always two steps ahead of me, distorting my thinking about things big and small. Now that I’ve gained some serious ground, I can see OCD in every area of my life through the way it distorts, but it’s still a constant battle, and I have to do mental exposures all the time. It would’ve been helpful though for people to explain that thoughts can also be triggers, because that distinction kept me in the dark for years. I thought “oh, I don’t have OCD, because there’s not a SPECIFIC trigger I can trace all my obsessions back to.” No—my obsessions are also my triggers, and they are also my compulsions, combining into one great maddening combustible mass that becomes so circular that it’s impossible to figure out where it started. I hope that people can understand this and not just think of OCD in its most stereotypical form. I suffered from harm and morality obsessions when I was really young, and I prayed and tapped and did all sorts of things that made it much easier to diagnose back then, but since then, 20 some odd years later, OCD had crept in the back door in a way that was much more difficult to track, and I spent countless hours and money on therapy that made me worse. It’s frustrating to think back on all the lost time, especially KNOWING I had OCD as a child, and that it duped me for so long afterwards in college and young adulthood. I’m more accepting towards it now, but I just really can’t emphasize enough how important it is for people to understand that OCD is not limited by “themes”, and that it uses anything to its advantage. The good thing is that once we realize that, the common denominator of OCD-thinking is easier to recognize in day to day life.

Does HoCD mean this is not true? Does POCD mean this is not true. Definitely read these two articles! I do not know for sure, but perhaps your therapist said that it could be true because ERP is about accepting uncertainty. This is something you might want to clarify with them the next time you meet. In short, if you have SO OCD, you are not denying your true sexuality. Any OCD theme is about unwanted and distressing thoughts that are not true, but that a person fears is or will become true. This is what I was sent from a therapist??? I am so confused as people on here saying it can be true then some people saying it means it’s not true so which is it??? This is what’s leaving me so badly with some much conflicting Information.