SO-OCD Thoughts

Hi All, Great community, it’s been really helpful. Please note that this may be triggering and I’m not looking for an exact answer (our worst outcome) but was hoping to see if anyone has had similar experiences. I struggle with SO-OCD - I’ve been thinking I’m gay for the past month. At first, my intrusive thoughts were questioning and I had panic attacks/acute anxiety. I’m on session 2 of CBT (my third round of CBT overall). Before, I had ROCD. Luckily, I managed to get over that bout. The crux of my situation is this - my thoughts have moved from questioning whether I’m gay to stating in my head “I’m gay”. I’ve never wanted to with a man or considered myself anything other than straight until the past month I started on Wellbutrin, which doesn’t help with OCD but does help with anxiety and depression. As of this week, I have not been feeling anxious but I am constantly ruminating and Googling (5-10 hours a day). I’m getting groinal response (wanting to sleep or kiss every man I see) and I’m checking for attractiveness in both men and women. I am trying to do exposures, but I’m not getting any anxiety from the ones I am doing. I get a delayed response and I feel revulsion at what I’m writing. My SUDS doing these is max 4 and I’m unable to get it higher. Because I’m not getting the anxiety response, I’m unable to get uncomfortable with the thought, even though I am uncomfortable with the whole idea of being gay (because I don’t feel like I am when I’m rational) This has got me very confused, so wanted to know if anyone has any good triggers to practice, and if anyone’s thoughts had been super assertive rather than questioning Thanks in advance ❤️

Sexual Orientation OCD

kaa0120

Date posted: 1y

CAN BE TRIGGER🚨🚨🚨 Physically writing stories about your worst fears helped me A LOT. My so ocd stemmed from rocd. My main concern (which involves my trigger) was that I would marry the love of my life/my boyfriend, have a seemingly beautiful life together with kids, and turn out to be gay. That fear/thought drains the soul of out of me, so that’s what my writing was about. I was crying, breaking down, and almost vomiting when I first started, but it slowly got more tolerable and the anxiety lessened. Naturally my next thought was “you aren’t responding how you initially did when writing these stories, so you must be gay” and rly all you can do is tell yourself “maybe I am maybe I’m not” and leave it at that or if you rly want to humor yourself and “shock” your ocd, say “yup! I’m the gayest bitch in the world” I think another term to describe the exposure I just explained is imaginative scripting if you want to look it up. It rly rly rly helped me.

starfish321

Date posted: 1y

@kaa0120 that is also one of my worst fears. i was doing so good for a month and this girl posted a story about how she got engaged with a man later to find it she was happier and more attracted to women so they broke up. so i started spiraling again. def gonna try that script!

Anonymo12

Date posted: 1y

@kaa0120 I was doing maybe and maybe not and then I got a image with a man doing stuff w him and I didn’t react to it and it gave me a groinal response and it made me think I like it😞. And I want it. I was abt to spiral but I jus kept saying okay cool, maybe maybe not. But I felt so much fear in that 5 mins

ryan_12

Date posted: 11w

What is this ?

Hey everyone, I’m reaching out because I’ve been going through one of the hardest mental spirals of my life, and I’m hoping someone can relate or shed light on what’s happening to me. About 4 months ago, I accidentally came across a trans porn scene. It didn’t do much at the time, but later it triggered this overwhelming intrusive thought: “What if I’m gay?” Since then, it’s been absolute hell. I’ve always been into women—emotionally, sexually, everything. I’ve been in a long-term relationship with a girl I love deeply. But after that moment, my brain started spiraling into nonstop analysis. I began checking how I felt around men, whether I felt attraction, whether I was in denial, whether I was lying to myself. Literally everything became a test. I got stuck in this loop: • A thought pops in → panic • Try to solve it → brief relief • Another thought → worse panic • Repeat. At times, it got so bad I couldn’t feel anything at all—toward my girlfriend, toward women, toward myself. I started doubting everything. Some days, I feel emotionally flat, like I’ve lost my personality. Other days, I wake up with a full-body jolt of “truth” like “I’m definitely gay”—only for it to fade into numbness again. I’ve also noticed that I get short bursts of peace when I stop reacting, but then the fear comes back louder, like “See? Now you’re accepting it. That means it’s true.” Therapy hasn’t helped much so far—it felt more like general counseling. They told me to sit with the thoughts, but didn’t clarify if this was OCD, identity questioning, or trauma. That just made it worse because now I’m back to thinking “What if I’m just rejecting my truth?” I’m exhausted. I’ve lost connection to everything I used to love. • I want to love my girl again the way I used to • I want to feel desire without overthinking • I want to trust myself again I’m not looking for reassurance—I just want to know if anyone else has gone through something like this, and if this sounds like HOCD or identity OCD. Thanks for reading.

ncopas

Date posted: 8w

SO-OCD flare up

i'm a lesbian, i was sure of this for many years, until soocd started messing with me around a month ago. it's hard because lesbians with soocd aren't well documented and it's hard to find similar experiences from others. i hate this, my mind is telling me it's not ocd and that i actually like men. i don't even know if i wouldn't like it. i guess that's accepting uncertainty but i don't want to like men. i want to marry my girlfriend. i don't want to be with a man but my mind doesn't let me feel anything regarding that, neither good nor bad, and i cannot tell if i enjoy that thought or don't like it. it's horrible. i'm so exhausted. i get groinal reactions too which i've never even had before this subtype flared up because im on the asexual spectrum. it's insane. has anyone else had any similar experiences?

evasprog

Date posted: 7w

New sort of intrusive thought

Hello, so I’ve been struggling really badly with so-ocd where I am worried that I’m not actually straight when that’s what I’ve always thought and wanted to be. I’ve been with my boyfriend for about 2.5 years now, he’s my first boyfriend and I really love him so much and want to spend the rest of my life with him. I remember one time, before I had struggles with so-ocd, I had a thought along the lines of ‘what if I’m missing out on other men by staying with him’ and it didn’t really cause any anxiety but I felt quite guilty for thinking that. But I moved on. However, right now I’m in the depths of so-ocd it started back in March I believe, and today I had a thought along the lines of ‘what if I never get the opportunity to try being with a woman because I’m in a relationship with a man’ and that has really set me off today. I’ve had a meltdown over it, my chest feels heavy and it felt so real like I actually wanted it and I had a feeling of wanting to be gay even though that’s not what I want in life. Why is this happening to me and I feel so horrible for thinking this like it felt like it was me and not the ocd and that I’m just lying to myself and my boyfriend. I’ve tried scrolling on here to see if anyone has had a similar thought or experience and I am aware that this is reassurance seeking but I just need someone to tell me that I’m okay

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SO-OCD Thoughts

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