Hocd

@Ihateocd83 Sometimes I found some fun when going through that theme, I’d be talking to a girl I was really interested in, and sometimes even get aroused thinking about our interaction later in the day. I’d be like, “damn, well I’m going to be one conflicted gay guy if I keep wanting to have sex with girls like this! “

@Ihateocd83 The more you think about it, the more distorted and confusing it gets. I’ve gotten to a place where I try to accept that I may be bi sexual and that one day I might decide to experiment with guys. I’ve definitely learned to accept that I will find men attractive - pretty damn sure every human on the planet acknowledges attractiveness in other people, regardless of sexual orientation.

@Ihateocd83 That would freak me out and upset me as well. You can imagine yourself getting engaged to a man for following that voice and being really upset about it the whole time. You’ll be like the most unhappy engaged person on the planet when talking with family and friends. There will be a Tik Tok video someone films of you proposing to the guy, and you’re all pissed off about proposing, and he’s oblivious and all happy about it. Or, he proposes to you, and you’re like the most annoyed and reluctant person ever to say yes to a wedding proposal, you’re like, “Well, the voice in my head said I’d marry a man, so this is what I’ll do I guess.”

@Ihateocd83 I know man - I can relate to the feelings and experience. All I can say for me was when I stopped doing the compulsions and leaning into the obsession more, it got better over time

As hard as it is, you've got to let the thoughts, feelings and everything else just be there. X

@Ihateocd83 I feel you man it’s so annoying. You still do have the choice to be intimate with your girlfriend, despite the annoyance of thoughts.

@Ihateocd83 Tell your OCD, well, I do wish this was a man, I’m just settling for a woman now until I get what I really want ;)

@Ihateocd83 Good question- for me, esp with the gay OCD, I would use humor. So when the theme would get strong and confusing thoughts, feelings, I would look for opportunities to pretend I was gay, like say, “look at the butt on that, he must work out” (quoting Dumb and Dumber). Just looked for opportunities throughout the day to make jokes about implicit or explicit ways I would be “gay.” Not sure if that makes sense but it did for me- I didn’t have a set plan, it was more of like an intentional thing that instead of cowering back from my theme and staying stuck and all those opposing thoughts and feelings and doing my mental compulsions in the confines of my mind , I was going to face the world and address me being “gay.”

@Ihateocd83 My main theme now is that I’m Autistic. Had the theme for years. Unfortunately I haven’t yet found humor to work as well. I will joke about me being Autistic or possibly Autistic and people will laugh (just like the gay one). Still, I haven’t really noticed that it’s made a difference in the level of negative emotions and softened the urge to do compulsions as it did with gay OCD. Honestly I’m not sure why humor worked so well with the gay OCD and not this one. Maybe because me and my friends growing up would always play around like that so it was more natural, and maybe because the humor I used was actually a lot damn funnier than with the Autism, like maybe I need to be more creative and exaggerated w the Autism one