Can obsessive thoughts create a genuine feeling of being gay?

@FerrisBueller123 The bit that hit home to me was your description of feeling gay, yet up until that momentary thought/question, didn’t even consider the possibility. It’s essentially - something keeps telling you that you are gay without actually having any attraction or evidence. It sucks

@Maraki Thanks :) I am really struggling with tolerating the feelings and just allowing it to be there. I.e. I literally have to watch coming out vids of people who realised they were gay later in life, and I have to just sit and watch it. Let it all feel like that’s me (despite not seemingly having any attraction/evidence) and let my mind just be panicked/anxious. How on earth do you do that?

@Maraki Thanks you once again :) your advice is sound and mirrors my psychologist. I also acknowledge you may not be a psych etc but it’s nice to find people with similar presentations - especially when everything you read you find so much that doesn’t relate, which fuels it. how did/do you deal with how real it felt? Like it FEELS like you are gay without the evidence? Did you ERP that too? I.e. if that’s the thoughts or feelings you had, you just sit with it? Is the case study in that book? Did you ever (before or just starting treatment) believe you were gay? I get really stuck on believing my thought/feeling and then giving up. But because of how it’s all happened and the accompanying anxiety, it feels wrong too.

@gp Jumping back in here with a follow up question for anyone with advice. I don’t have any (obvious) compulsions related to these thoughts. They just happen and there’s nothing I can do to make them go away. I was diagnosed at age 5 and have lots of experience with ERP, but I haven’t found anything related to erp that’s helped me get past these thoughts. The only advice I’ve been given is to accept/ignore them… but is there anything more specific or concrete I can do? @gp I hope this relates to your question as well

@FerrisBueller123 Yeah it does in a way. And the generic advice seems to be that an experienced psych will identify what compulsions you are doing internally etc. but not sure that helps in this moment. I’m probably a bit luckier (wrong use of the word) Like, I’ve had this obsession for almost 10 years and in my case, I’ve had a lot of the generic compulsions (rumination, googling like mad, reassurance, checking attraction etc) so I guess there are some more obvious compulsions? Your question relates to me, I’d love to see the responses and advice :) On a seperate note - are there any active forums that help with this stuff? Like, I’m in Australia, have a psych, but the internet seems like a trap for anything sexuality/ocd. Is this app the only ‘accepted’ good forum?

@gp Hi GP, it sounds the the 'real feeling' of being gay is the obsession at the moment and so you'd need to treat it as such. So the response would be 'maybe I'm 'really gay', maybe I'm not'. Before I had treatment I thought that I had turned gay and it felt really real. Maybe there was/is even evidence - like I kept checking to see if I was attracted to women then couldn't tell if I was or not. Now my brain registers masculine looking women before my eyes even see them and I get sensations in my body. Also when I compulsive scanned my teenage past I remembered thinking a school mate would be cute if she was a boy. So I've had to accept that these thoughts, sensations and worries exist, but I choose not to engage with them. I don't even look down the rabbit hole of 'what if I'm in denial' as I've done it before and it goes nowhere. At the same time I've had the same theme of obsessions for over 25 years and during that time I still dated, fancied and fell in love with people of the opposite sex. As I mentioned I still get the intrusive thoughts feelings sensations and urges sometimes but I just let them exist. It doesn't feel comfortable but I don't go down the route of trying to work out if I'm gay, 'really' attracted, in denial, or lying to my partner and myself. So my advice is just to sit with the 'real feeling of being gay', don't try to figure out what it means, and live your life according to the things that matter to you. Yes the case study is in that book. Kimberly Quinlan uses the example of a gay woman who worries she's really straight and is lying to her girlfriend. One of the things I have noticed is I used to get these urges to bring into my mind really graphic sexual acts and get a visceral sensation in my mouth. Once I realised that these were a form of obsession I was able to let go of the notion that because I thought them I must want them. Now I don't get them anymore. The same with the groinal responses - when they happen I know that they happen for all sorts of reasons, and they don't bother me anymore. If you are able to accept the the 'real feeling' is an obsession it will be easier to not engage with it. Do get your hands on Kimberly Quinlans book as she guides you on some super compassionate exercises on acceptance of your OCD and the distress it causes. She also helps you to think about what your obsessions are. It sounds like you haven't maybe recognised or accepted this 'real feeling' is another symptom of the disorder.

@FerrisBueller123 Hi there, it sounds like you really want these thoughts to go away (as we all do!) but the treatment is not about making the thoughts go away. As humans we can't stop our heads from churning out spam, so your therapist advice to not engage with them is sound. I wonder if you're asking how to not engage with the intrusive thoughts? That's about accepting that you have OCD. OCD doesn't want you to believe you have OCD and so you worry that the thoughts are true and meaningful, but they are just spam. When they pop up, notice them, say hello again OCD, and don't try to figure out anything, just get on with your day. If you get anxious just let that horrible feeling of anxiety be there. Its sending out a false alarm that your in danger and is priming your body for survival. If you were a caveman in the presence of a wild animal wanting to eat you for lunch it would be helpful to be ready to fight or flee, but you are not in danger and you just wait for the anxiety to pass.

@Maraki 100% I need to see the ‘feeling’ as an obsession. I think what smashes me is the fact all the common symptoms you read online are ‘thoughts’ and ‘you know you’re not gay’ - this obsession is obviously at odds with that. And I use that as evidence.

@Maraki Thank you for sharing your experience and knowledge, this is extremely helpful. I appreciate all the time you took to write these responses. Wishing you both all the best ❤️

@gp Feelings are also obsessions. If you're on Instagram Kimber Quinlan and Alegra Kaskens and OCD and Anxiety do lots of OCD education and are worth following (not as a compulsion though 😉) Also there's a podcast called the OCD stories which interviews specialist and sufferers and there's lots of helpful psychoeducation there.