Everyone is living a normal life and don’t have to question themselves and that’s when I really get sad!!! I see everyone talking about boys and them being cute but if I say something my brains like no you’re gay you have to say this. I used to be such a happy person before this happened to me.

i fee this exact way. now whenever i talk to boys it feels like i’m “faking it” even tho before this all happened i was so into them and wanted to spend time with them. i was also so happy and would love going out spending time with friends etc. but now every time i’m around a lot of people i question everything and look at every woman to “test” myself. (don’t do this it makes everything so much worse.) when did this all start with you?

You guys let’s me friends drop your instas or snaps if you’re comfortable doing so. I’m 19 and suffer with HOCD

Ahhh I’m not comfortable putting my name out sorry!! I wish more than anything there was like a chat feature. I’m 20 with it and I wish more than anything I could talk to other girls. Do any of you get intrusive thoughts about being friends with girls? I really want to talk to more women about this but my brain goes ‘you want to talk to women? You’re gay. If you talk to any girls you’re gonna fall in love with them’. I’m like on the verge of tears writing that out.

I get those thoughts all the time and it made me literally run away from girls. So I decided to face my fears and make friends who were girls and let the thoughts come. It was one of the hardest things to do but I did it and now it’s gotten 100 times easier.

@MaeGreene it’s so hard. When I was younger I really wanted like a stereotypical female friendship group too like in films?? so it was always really important to me. And since this happened I have like 2 female friends to my name and I am absolutely terrified of making new ones (I also have social anxiety so that doesn’t help either).

@helloworld287 Yes I absolutely hate it. I automatically feel like I have to look at every woman and I don’t even get anything from it but I do it anyway and I wish I could literally force myself to not do it but it just feels like I have to. And I automatically feel nervous around women ‘just incase’ and then I think ‘omg I must be nervous because I like her’. I tend to stay at home all the time now. No my attraction has gone, I haven’t had a genuine thing for an actual boy for years because of this and my social anxiety. I used to have sooooo many celebrity crushes, I used to love watching films with attractive male leads and stuff but I feel nothing anymore. It comes back sometimes, for example yesterday it came back (for Shawn Mendes hahahaha) and I was happy and smiling and I swear it disappeared in 5 seconds. That was lengthy sorry.

Oh my god I get like this all the time. I work with my best friend and whenever we see an attractive man we usually like run over to each other and are like look! (Sounds stupid hahaha) and now I feel like I cannot do that anymore. And if I do it my brain says ‘you’re doing this just to pretend you’re straight’. Also as I’m writing this I’m panicking incase I’m lying and I didn’t ever do this with my best friend when I know we did? Crazy.

Don’t worry honey, when this first started with me it was none stop sobbing and then suddenly I focused on more important things in life, like graduating. Then suddenly I met this wonderful guy who I thought was super cute and it was like HOCD never even was a thing in my life. Then came my relapse, I remembered what I struggled with for months, but this time was different because I knew what was going on but I held onto it and became convinced it meant I was a lesbian my entire life and I was just hiding it from myself. It’s a lot better now, at work I’m not constantly telling myself I’m okay, I’m okay, I’m okay, everything is ok, when I see a girl. Now I see cute guys and know and am confident I find them quite attractive. The thoughts are still there every now and then. I’m not completely over my fight. But I know I’ll win and I know you will too!

Totally, 19 as well. My insta is MaeGreene07, made it a month ago thinking I’d use it and never did... but this is as good of time as any I guess ?

It’s literally SO nice to hear from other women around my age with this. Where abouts are you all from?

it’s just so sick and twisted. when you guys go in public is it bad for you too? i feel like i stare at every female and if they’re pretty i get SO anxious. have you guys felt attraction to men anymore either? i used to be in love with this boy right before this started and now i can’t seem to imagine anything anymore.

fair i guess i’m just scared too bc i just graduated from university and im moving to chicago and iM TERRIFIED. bc i feel like all of my worst nightmares will come true and ill be a lesbian. i don’t want to be gay. and since it’s more accepting there is scared it’s gonna influence me to act that way which i know sounds irrational i just am happy to have you guys here to listen that understand .

I wanted to visit the UK! I lived in Europe for a couple years before moving back to the states! Will do my best to stay safe!! And I’ve kinda been doing my own erp even though that’s looked down upon.

What happened for me is o started worrying about mpre important things and then eventually I ended up finding a guy I’d really like and boom it was like HOCD never actually happened

i feel like I’m sort of interrupting this convo now but it just made me so happy to read and find people I can relate to!! Literally just relate to everything you’ve all said, I hate having this illness so much it torments me everyday of my life, sorry to hear you’ve all had to suffer with it too:/

Oh my gosh, same!! I wanted that and then I also wanted mine my main best friend to be a guy just so I could really fulfill the stereotypes that just about every tv show and movie produced

I live in the states, currently North Carolina. Literally right now HOCD is one of the things least on my mind thanks to the up and coming hurricane that may hit us as well now ? Number one recommendation from me is to just find something else more important to focus your attention on

@MaeGreene have you gone through ERP? I’m in the UK. Stay safe!

have you guys gone to therapy? or are on meds?

I have done therapy and gone on meds but I now realize my therapist sucked and my medication either gave me panic attacks or would change me completely. But that’s also just me, it’s different for everyone.

i’m doing both rn and the meds don’t really seem to be doing anything and my therapist is sweet and trying to help as best she can but any ocd specialist around me takes like 8 months to actually be seen and i won’t even be here by then. it’s just awful. what have you found to be helpful for you in trying to recover?

I haven’t done any therapy or meds☹️ I’m too scared to go the doctors. How long have you guys been going through this

for me, it’s been about three months but i started getting help about a month ago.

First started April of last year and last for at least 3 to 4 months and started back up in June of this year

how did it go away for you the first time? the same thing happened to me last year where i experiences this for three weeks then i woke up one day and it was gone. i’m hoping that this happens again for me and you guys too because this is god awful.

Kind of worries me because I’ve had it for 4 years, nearly 5. There’s been times where it’s quiet and times where it’s been loud. Trying not to freak out that it’s been sooo much longer incase that means something.

i’m hoping that happens for me too, what made it come back for you?

You’re not interrupting! I’ve just been spiking a little bit and reading your comment really made me smile. Hope you’re well!

Oh gosh, sorry I was at work till now. What made it come back was me not admitting that I had seen sexual content to my parents, it was another type of ocd ultimately when I think about it now. But anyways, not jumping down that rabbit hole for now, I had ultimately convinced myself I didn’t deserve anyone or to be happy because of it and fell into a deep depression which my parents of course had noticed. And because I refused to tell them they began guessing and one of those guesses was if I was gay. It is a totally reasonable thing to think I’d be upset about, especially since my family is religious. But it wasn’t it, but it rattled me so badly at the thought that they believed that was a possible issue. And there was no interrupting! I love when these posts turn out like this, just everyone relating to one another.