- Date posted
- 2y
HOCD help
I’m 14 year old boy who has been struggling with this demon for the past couple of months. I all started on a regular night on thanksgiving break and I was scrolling through TikTok and I saw a dude and I thought to myself randomly “Wow he’s a good looking dude” and that’s when it all started. After thats, let’s just say the flood gates were opened. My mind was bombarded with thoughts, questions, doubts and I had not idea what this was or what it meant. It started with me asking myself if I was attracted to every guy that I saw in public and it only made thing even worse. It was all that I could think about 24/7 it is completely destroyed my life. Then false attraction started to rear its ugly head at me and that only made things 1000x worse. It got so bad that I was boarder line depressed and didn’t want do any of the things that I enjoyed to do before this all started. Days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months and I was only getting worse. I constantly was looking for reassurance online and with my parents (preferably my dad since he gave the answers that I wanted to hear) I would get thoughts like “you’re just forcing yourself to not like these thoughts” or “you’re just in denial” which were ruining my life. One day during my “daily searching time” I typed into google “what is the fear of being gay called” and HOCD was to first thing that popped up and I matched almost all the symptoms for the disorder. I researched some more and found that this really matched what I have been going through. Every since I found out about HOCD things have been a little better for me. However I still have the disturbing thoughts/doubts/images/etc that cause me a crazy amount of anxiety. I go days sometimes weeks with the only thing on my mind is the thought of that I might be gay. But at the same time theres Days where I feel like I’m 100% straight and totally happy and the thoughts don’t bother me as much. For instance I worried that “if another guy asked me to be his bf that I would say yes” even though I wanted nothing to do with that kind of stuff (note: I’m not at all homophobic and have nothing against gay people and never have) There’s more that I will spare you of but they have bullied me for so long in I’m getting tired of it. It feels like I’m “turning gay” even though I know that’s not possible it feels like that. Sorry if I’m rambling but I’m just so scared and worried about what if I’m gay and need advice to get over this. Even when I find a girl attraction in public or in a tv show/movie it never seems like enough and my mind keeps telling me “are you sure that you’re attracted to her” and “what if you’re just lying to yourself and you’re not actually attracted to her.” Idk what’s right anymore and I’ve tried CBT (Cognitive Behavioral treatment) but after awhile to anxiety just become too much. Im also doubting if I even have OCD which is also tearing me apart. If you have any advice at all I would appreciate it a lot. I just want to be the happy kid I was before.