HOCD is a whole lot harder when you were raised in a family that doesn’t support the LGBTQ community :/ ok, so, i haven’t told ANYONE about my HOCD. i’ve been dealing with it on my own (i’ve actually gotten a lot better compared to when it started a year ago). its already hard to say u have HOCD but it’s even worse when ur family doesn’t necessarily support people being gay. it’s making this so hard because i know for a fact that if i were gay, they would definitely disapprove of me. there have been multiple instances where people we know came out and my whole family was very against it and didn’t support it. obviously they’re not mean or anything and would never do anything to hurt those people but they just HIGHLY disagree with it i guess. and the worst part is i used to be the same way...i just never really supported it. until now. my whole view on it changed and now i’m much more supportive. i guess that’s the OCD of it though. OCD plays off your worst fears. and my worst fear is to be gay since i know how my family would react to it,,,and it’s not good. that’s the root of my HOCD. i don’t want to be gay because i’ve never viewed a girl in that sense before but i mainly don’t want to be gay because of the fact that if i were, it would be a disaster for me. i LOVE my family and if i were to be in that situation, it would crush me. obviously there’s no way in knowing but i just feel like i would be more ok with having these intrusive thoughts and HOCD if my family wasn’t so anti-gay. ugh. idk what the point of that whole thing was hahah i think i just needed to vent. i know i didn’t ask for advice but any kind words would be appreciated ?

you’re so right. i just don’t get it. one day i was sure of who i was, what i liked, who i wanted to be with, and who i saw my future with but the next day it was completely upside down. i was never afraid of being gay before this,,, i had never even thought of it. i was always so secure and knew what i liked that it didn’t even register in my brain that it could be a possibility. i don’t even know when or how the thought came but i just remember being in a complete panic. “omg what if i’m gay what if i’ve been gay this whole time what if i’ve just been lying to myself” and the most goes on and on as you probably know haha. i would always (and still do) think, “omg what if i’m gay. mom and dad are gonna kill me. everyone’s going to hate me. no one will support me or love me anymore. they’ll just leave me”. my HOCD mainly revolves around other people. i always worry about what if i’m gay? and then... what will mom and dad think? what will grandma and grandpa think? what will happen to me? i’m scared of the aftermath. that’s what this is all about. and it’s so much different than other themes because while other people fear things that seem very irrational and nearly impossible, i KNOW how my family would react to me being gay. if that makes sense. sorry u had to read all that!! i got carried away hahah

That’s exactly how I was I was TERRIFIED of telling my family my thoughts and fears like I might secretly be gay. You’re exactly right though that’s the ocd part of the fear, cause you know you’re really not but you’re ocd makes you continuously doubt yourself and it sucksss! Ocd is egodystonic Whig makes us ruminate on things that are the opposite of what we want, are, etc. I was so embarrassed to tell my family my thoughts I was sobbing uncontrollably when I did and my mom looked at me and laughed and said “youre not gay, got ocd honey!” Luckily for me my mother so has ocd as well so it was easy for her to recognize it in me but when she told me I was like, “what!?!” And then I learned the real truth that ocd wasn’t just neat freak habits and perfectionism, rather our worse fears on steroids. Hope this helps, feel free to share this with your family if you do decide to tell them!

Hi Sophiaa, no problem I get carried away a lot. It's a part of OCD and anxiety, I always end up sending novels to people instead of short messages haha our brains are overactive. Anyway, not all parts of our thoughts are irrational. For example, thinking that people would get hurt if the house was on fire is not irrational, but thinking that you left the stove on when you just checked it 10 seconds ago is. Does that make sense? So, thinking you might be gay when you have never been attracted to the same gender in the past is irrational, but thinking that your family wouldnt like it if you were gay is rational. There is usually a little reality in our thoughts, otherwise we wouldn't get so anxious about them.

that could not make more sense. this helped me so much. everything tends to blend in my brain and i guess i couldn’t really differentiate the two but now i can after reading that. thank you SO much!

My story is also same

I had HOCD for a while when I was in high school...it stopped once I realised that someone's sexuality wasn't so important. After I stopped caring about it, I realised I was heterosexual as I was/am attracted to men and not women. Having bisexual and homosexual friends has also helped me, as I realised being gay/bi isn't something to be scared of at all. My family are not very homophobic though which probably made a big difference in my case as if I had turned out to be gay/bi it would have only been ignorant kids in school I would have had to deal with and honestly I got bullied every day anyway as my school was horrible... Without homophobia HOCD wouldnt exist because no one would be scared about being gay. Unfortunately society still has a long way to go...

Your last sentence is not correct. Even if there wasn't homophobia, HOCD would still be around. I have nothing against gays, what they do is their own business, and not anyone else's. Like me, I always liked girls, always had multiple crushes, but I never asked a girl out bc I have low self esteem. (I'm working in it?) A year ago i created HOCD by over thinking a nightmare (hocd related) and here I am, living the hocd of life. Homophobia has nothing to do with it. OCD makes you think that you're something you don't want to be. I'm 20 years old and I always liked girls, but the last year I have been dealing with Hocd and I hate my life. I just want to date girls and not the other way around.

Maxt32 if there was no stigma around being gay then OCD wouldn't latch onto it. It's subconscious. Just the same as if we lived in a world where people didn't get bullied for being "unattractive" there wouldn't be any body dysmorphia. You don't have to he homophobic to have HOCD, I never said that. Just the same as you don't have to dislike unattractive people to have body dysmorphia.

Sophiaa glad I could help :) Take care!!!