Did you get more anxious after learning about ocd?

Before I learned about hocd I got nervous a lot, but it was 'over' after reassurement (at least for a little bit). I think I read an article about porn addition and it made me realise that I watch way too much and it made me anxious. Then because of that I started reading about HOCD and realised almost everything checks out. Now, even tough I mentally I'm better since I recognise when I shouldn't reassure myself, I feel somewhat anxious all the time. I cannot yawn but I want to all the time , breaths never seem to be deep enough and sometimes there's a lump in my throath. Did anyone else go though this and what did you do? (I'm 17 and don't feel ready to talk about gay-ocd to my parents to get therapy at all.)

Sexual Orientation OCD

blazed

User type: OCD Conqueror

Date posted: 2y ago

This is similar to what I’ve experienced too. When I started researching my symptoms and found out it was OCD, I felt relieved, but that only lasted so long. From there on my anxiety grew and became very severe. Overtime I learned to manage it better with mindfulness, medication, therapy, and putting myself in uncomfortable situations. I’m not fully recovered yet, though, I’m doing much better now than before.

zebrava

Date posted: 2y ago

thanks for the reply. I really hope you'll fully recover. How long did it take since first noticing the worsening anxiety until you felt your 'baseline calmness' again (not sure how to say it, when you are able to sometimes relax like you did before)? I really wanna stay strong, but I miss being able to take a deep breath so much already, and it's only been 2 months.

blazed

User type: OCD Conqueror

Date posted: 2y ago

@zebrava You’re welcome! I’d say it took around 6-8 months for me to feel relatively stable and calm. It took a while to get there because I kept ruminating like 80% of the time. But you can definitely get better faster than I did if you start reducing your compulsions now. And as for not being able to breathe properly, the same thing happened to me! My chest was super tight and tense all the time because of the high levels of stress. Reducing cortisol levels by meditating will really help with this. I hope you fully recover from this too. Keep pushing through and reach out to a professional for help if you haven’t already 🫂💗

zebrava

Date posted: 2y ago

@blazed Thanks. Reducing my compulsions makes me super anxious for now,bc I go into the tought: maybe I'm gay in denial and this isn't ocd and I'm faking crushes on girls etc. etc. (I think i have so-ocd) Talking to a therapist would mean coming out to my parents (i'm pretty sure i'm bi) and that's one of my biggest fears. + they'd be super worried about me Or I could talk to a school counselor but sometimes he tells teachers/other students what's been said which seems very unprofessional and scary

Wessers19

Date posted: 15w ago

Could being exposed to content as a kid affected me in this way?

Trying not to seek reassurance, but rather connect the dots on my OCD and possible reasons as to why I am the way I am. I have severe OCD (or at least I hope I do) mainly surrounding POCD. I've had symptoms of OCD the majority of my life but this theme has come up more recently. When I was a kid, and i'm talking 6-7, I was first exposed to some really gross adult content online. It was introduced to me by a friend of mine around the same age of me. I saw some really disgusting things that a 6-7 year old should definitely not see. This was not a one time occurrence, as I had been exposed to taboo topics online years to come after that, such as the same friend introducing me to Omegle... And i'm sure you can imagine how that went, theres a lot of genuinely disgusting human beings on there. Coming back to the reason for making this post; is it possible to early exposure to this content could be one of the reasons I struggle with POCD? It genuinely scares me to death because you hear that real p*dos dealt with simular situations when they were kids, so thats kind of making me feel that this could be more than OCD, and I could be a genuinely bad person. My POCD feels so real, that at times i'm fully convinced its not OCD. Sometimes I can't even distinguish the feelings of attraction between a younger person and an older person, except for the feeling of anxiety and fear. Its really hard to explain without going into detail, but it just feels so real. Some feedback on this would be great, thank you all.

tryancav

Date posted: 14w ago

Health OCD

It started when I became an adult, and started receiving my mental health diagnosis. I hyper fixated on each and every action I did and how it could be related to my diagnosis’s. It then lead to fixation to my physical health — making appointments and seeing every specialist I can to rule out every possibility. I currently have been suffering with obstructive sleep. I woke up the past few days with severe pain from the lack of sleep whilst believing I was oversleeping. Luckily my fit watch tracks my sleep cycle and it turns out I am not receiving any sleep. I had an extreme panic attack — bursting into tears on the phone with my mom wondering what this case might be. She told me it could be sleep apnea and that a simple sleep study could figure this out. However, knowing my family history I made appointments to every specialist I can to make sure it is nothing serious. The unknown of health can be scary to me. Watching my mother suffer with her physical health chronically since I was a child lead me to be very conscious and aware of how my body is functioning. This morning was one of the worst moments of physical pain. I should just take one step at a time with the sleep doctor instead of taking measures to see every specialist that could pertain with this issue. However, that is very hard to me. I don’t want to ever wake up in the pain I was this morning. Does anyone else suffer with health-related OCD? And if so, how do you find a sense of ease during moments like I expressed?

Mt2019

Date posted: 11w ago

Question about HOCD

Sorry long post. Anyone feel like now they’re just in extreme denial. Like when I was little I noticed guys more than girls in movies and was more drawn to them. I remember changing my mindset to switch that. 98%of my life has been straight until recently. I felt drawn to some guys but never thought of it sexually. Always had girl crushes dreams and porn. Now I watch porn and I feel like straight takes longer and then I go and watch gay porn and feel nothing until I tell myself it’s two attractive dudes and love is love and imagine physical sensations and then it hits like suddenly. Like I have to convince myself it’s alright. Then when I try again I can do all that but feel nothing and then straight porn works. Idk if it’s just getting a fix or the first time works with anything or what but it’s confusing. On top of that I’ve felt girl relationships including my wife maybe miss something and a guy maybe matches that feeling that but then I feel like I’d be missing something without a girl or my wife. Idk I’ve had some rough times in life with male figures in my life but idk. I feel like I have to convince myself more and more that I’m straight even more than the first time I dealt with this. Can someone relate? Please

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