Sometimes I really wish I wasn’t gay. It’s dumb but I get incredibly upset over dumb things that shouldn’t cut so deep. Pink News grossed me out because they implied they were against republicans making child drag shows illegal. And in my opinion children shouldn’t be involved in any beauty pagent esque thing at all. But some people in the twitter comments seem to think that this proves gay men are predatory and it cuts me deeply. It doesn’t matter if most gay men don’t even know child drag queens exist, it doesn’t matter if the kids aren’t actually being harmed (not that it shouldn’t be banned for that), it doesn’t matter if this is an incredibly uncommon occurance. My OCD screams at me saying it’s proof that gay men are pedophiles and I hate it so much. It sucks especially because I was feeling mediocre and ugly when I woke up already. But even then I felt like maybe I could find a guy who could make me happy. Now I just wonder if we’re all monsters.

It’s ridiculous how much people discussing HOCD bothers me. I know it’s a form of OCD, which I understand is out of the person’s control. I know mental illness is not a choice. I have OCD, so I get it. I get invasive thoughts about being hetero, so it makes sense that it works the other way too. I know the people who have HOCD aren’t necessarily homophobic. It does kind of make me feel like my sexuality is a worst case scenario, though. I can’t help but think “people are as afraid of being like me, as I am of heart attacks”. Idk. It just almost feels like people are saying “oh no what if I’m gay” “don’t worry, you’re straight. You’re okay because you’re straight” (which I know isn’t the case). It could just be because of the lack of positivity I’ve seen surrounding the queer community lately, though. I’m not trying to call out or invalidate people with HOCD though, I know it’s something that they don’t enjoy, and it’s something they suffer with just as much as I suffer with my OCD. Sorry, just needed to get that off my chest

A little clarification on my (and many others’) experience with HOCD. Yes, “I don’t care what my sexuality is, I just wanna know for sure” makes the case for HOCD stronger and more ‘qualified’ sounding- however that is not the only HOCD can manifest. Saying that, can trigger some HOCD sufferers who are simply weary of identifying as lgbtq (an understandable fear). Do NOT get me wrong however. I would do ANYTHING for my friends who are bi and gay. I love them SO dearly and will fight for them for forever. Lgbtq folk who struggle with their identities, and not being loved by the people who are supposed to love them no matter what- INSPIRE me with their resilience. Their strength. Their confidence to live out who they are to the fullest extent. I watched the movie Love, Simon and cried like a baby, and am incredibly excited that Pete Buttigieg is the USA’s first openly gay presidential candidate. However this does not discount the struggles that many lgbtq people face. So many are not accepted by their families, have extremely difficult life transitions, and agonize over coming out. These are not things that people willingly want to go through. Is is completely unreasonable for someone suffering with HOCD to also fear these things? As an example (I’m black)- there is a difference in saying that you wouldn’t want to be black because you believe we are less than, versus saying that you wouldn’t want to struggle with the same things that we do. Just because you understand the trials and tribulations that black people go through in this country and would not want that for yourself, does NOT mean you are racist. It simply means you understand that there is pain. And no human willingly wants pain. Although these are exact things lgbtq people have to deal with (making HOCD distinctly different from most other pure o themes because it becomes impossible to differentiate us from people actually struggling with their identity) it shouldn’t be ignored that HOCD sufferers fear them too! Why wouldn’t we? This is such a deep rooted issue for sufferers because, where you could say someone who is suffering with POCD would never hurt a child simply because their thoughts horrify them (and a real pedophile wouldn’t be scared of their thoughts) you can’t say the same for HOCD. For some of us HOCD people who have these specific fears, it’s even more difficult to trust that what we have is ocd and it’s even more difficult to explain to someone else that what we have is ocd. I’ve had different themes of OCD throughout my life and the obsessive and compulsive behaviors have been the same, but this one makes me feel like I don’t even get to qualify. What a mind-fuck for us, huh? Also understand, this definitely isn’t my only fear. I have been attracted to, day-dreamed about, and desperately wanted to be with one gender my entire life. Having a husband was something I’ve wanted for so very long. It IS a part of who I am and what I want. It’s distressing to think this could all be lost one day. To have these ‘dreams’ stolen by obsessive thoughts, and be made to believe that it was all a lie- is just as hard to deal with as any other form of ocd. When I envision the life that ocd is telling me I “actually” want- I’m filled with sadness. How do any of the rest of you deal with your ocd telling you that you want (or want to do) something- that you actually don’t? I know this can be controversial, and truly truly hope I do not offend anyone- lgbtq friends, I truly do love you. I just want everyone to know that what we can struggle with within each theme, can be very different- but none are any less important or qualified than the others. If you truly disagree and want to share, please be kind. I am just as fragile as a lot of us on here. I’m suffering too.

Having POCD is the most damaging thing to ever happen to me. Like even if I get better or even if I get cured, the compulsions will always haunt me. I've always wanted to be a famous person. And my naive ass still has that dream, but if I get famous, I really wanna talk seriously and raise awareness about how extreme OCD can get. The problem is, how do you explain all this shit to people who don't have OCD and also convince them that youre not a genuine freak. How do you explain that "oh some people with POCD willingly think of sexual scenarios to check for arousal" or "Some people with POCD masturbate to their thoughts to see if they can achieve an orgasm and some of them do by pure stress response" and also how am I going to explain that I've seen rare cases of people with POCD who try to find CP in order to see if it arouses them? How am I going to explain this to people without them being like "so where is the fucking line drawn? Just because none of yall have ever hurt a child means that we should trust you?" It's bad enough as is that just because that one dude with OCD comitted a heinous crime and already people are pulling out the "its his mentol ewness that made him do that" shlock but also the fact that I've read that in extreme cases some folks with HOCD test themselves out with same-sex partners. Like to a normal person saying all this shit basically looks like I'm trying to paint a paraphilic disorder as an anxiety disorder problem, but at the same time it is what it fucking is and I still haven't seen anyone with POCD hurt any child. Just because there are some bizarre cases of desperate and extremely anxious possibly teenagers doing dumb shit doesn't mean that POCD isn't or has never been a treatable anxiety problem. I talked about this with a friend and she was like "why would you have to talk about any of that when you can just keep quiet?" Because it makes me feel like a creep in disguise. Yes, compulsions have made me do gross things but at the end of the day it was all self-harm basically. It never had anything to do with doing harm to anyone but myself. Yes people with OCD have the choice to resist compulsions, but if you don't even know whether or not you have OCD and you're not working with a professional, most likely scenario is you're gonna give into a lot of compulsions. People don't choose their compulsions as OCD is highly-individualized and different for everyone. And there's no such thing as a compulsion where you hurt a child to test yourself. That is absolute bullshit. I'm upset, because there was a study by this dickhead that was like "people with HOCD regularly or excessively look at gay porn. If CP was accessible, no doubt that people with POCD would be seeking it out too." ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NOT. Whoever wrote that can fucking choke. I'd rather die than see shit like that. FUCK OFF. These fucking mental health researchers are crazy sometimes like someone tried to test how high pedophiles and other paraphiliacs scored on the Y-BOCS test.....What the fuck was the reason for that? Can you do something more productive? I am upset with how horrible this disorder is and how much nobodys ever gonna get it. I want them to get it, because OCD is treatable and harmless, but people are too busy trying to milk their own perceived moral highground to try and take this seriously. It's bad enough that most of us can't be convinced that our OCD is actually real and is OCD and that we aren't being lied to by our therapists or whatever, but if the more severe cases of OCD get exposed to the general public we're gonna have them reinforcing that to us too. I feel completely hopeless and I honestly wish that the people who would raise their eyebrows at someone who has severe OCD, do something to make fictional CP illegal, instead of being willfully ignorant at already tormented people with a harmless mental disorder. Like I seriously can't even look at erotic fanart of a buff rugged adult fictional character without having the most disturbing shit pop up in the "recommended images" section AND THIS IS GOOGLE IMAGES like this isnt some nasty smut website I got on. If people really cared about the safety of children they would be doing everything BUT making people with POCD feel like menaces to society.