I have seen some answer to worried people in SOOCD and HOCD posts like: "Just be yourself!" "If you feel so convinced then you are!" "There is a lot of sexualities out there that you can choose." Is okay to not give reassurance. Is not okay to trigger people that is asking for help.

Warning: This might be triggering for people with POCD But very often when someone (me included) seeks reassurance with POCD people say "well a pedophile wouldn't worry about being a pedophile so you are not one" or "the fact that you are stressing about it means you care and you are not a pedophile" It's just pissing me off when people say it (I know they are trying to help) cause it seems like they have no idea what are they talking about. Even some therapist here said something like that to me once and it makes it hard to trust them after that, cause this is not true... Pedophlia is a paraphilia, and paraphilias can be ego dystonic. So a pedophile CAN be distressed because of his attraction and can worry about it too. Doesn't mean he is suddenly not one. I've seen multiple reddit confessions from actual pedophiles (non-offending ones) and most of them seem to hate the fact they have this attraction. Even saw I guy who thought he had POCD but then after years of therapy understood that he actually has this paraphilia. So those words just never help me

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)

Too often this community tab is just an echo chamber of mentally ill individuals reassuring each other and encouraging negative behaviors that exacerbate OCD. Every other post ends with someone asking "Am I a bad person?" Here's the answer: I don't know! You don't either! Nobody knows! You think Jesus Christ is going to climb down from heaven and tell you if you're going to heaven or hell? No! You are not going to reason your way around this. You are not going to find "one weird trick" to cure your OCD. Nobody is going to tell you the perfect combination of words that will let you finally know if you're a good person. Those words don't exist. There's one question that matters: do you, or do you not, want to get better from OCD? If you do, then get therapy, make a plan with your therapist, and follow that plan. But don't pretend that the resolution, the perfect unattainable answer to your OCD, is waiting on the community tab of NOCD. Sorry to be blunt, but 90% of the posts here are reassurance seeking. You are not going to find the magical phrase that cures your OCD here. The short way is the long way - do ERP with a licensed professional, embrace uncertainty, and augment your care with medication and other supports as needed. Everything else is noise that is fed to you by your OCD to sustain itself. You *can* do it! But you have to *do* it. It gets easier. I promise. But you have to do it.