Struggling with anxiety over sexual orientation and loss of attraction—any advice?

SOOCD or just not accepting the truth HELP

I was 26. Seemingly normal (albeit) anxious man. Was with a newish gf. Seemingly at the same time I had some performance issues, I had the thought come in “you don’t feel anything for her” Instant loss of libido, instant loss of every emotion except pure dread/anxiety. It consumed me - the why? It was like I was being forced to feel something I didn’t want? And I couldn’t stop it. In my obsessive search for ‘why’ the thought changed to ‘am I gay?’ And exactly the same dread/anxiety overcome me. For months. My life became just solely focussed on ‘where is my attraction to women gone?’ ‘Searching my past for proof’ ‘checking my emotions’ ‘googling’ ‘figuring out how?’ ‘Was this true?’ I’m now 36. I’m married and have a young son. But my life has again been consumed by this. It’s like my mind seeks evidence to prove something I don’t want to be. And it’s so all consuming and all questioning that it feels like I actually want it? It gets so bad that I’ll even doubt I find it distressing and that I’m just making it up so I don’t have to tell my wife :/ It’s so distressing. Up until this thought came in, I never had to question what I wanted. I just knew I liked thinking about girls. I wanted to be close to them. There was never a thought about a guy? Doesn’t that mean I’m straight? Surely by 26, there would have been some incling of physical or romantic attraction to a man? But I’ve never felt the same since that day 10 years ago. It’s like I’ve lost the ability to feel happiness and to feel libido and attraction. Almost like I’m unable to until I figure it out? I’ve been diagnosed twice by psychologists. But it ‘feels’ like I don’t agree with them or I doubt it. My psych has been pushing me to practice response prevention. Sit with the anxiety of how real it feels. Accept it may be true and sit with the anxiety that causes. Ground myself in moments. The anxiety is so consuming. And I’ll go 3-4 days without looking for reassurance, ruminating, checking, but then it’s like a ‘feeling’ of ‘this is true, you know it’ and it destroys me. I panic, give in, and seem to compulse. Does this resonate with anyone? Is it still not getting any better after years because I keep doing the compulsions? Or am I just a gay person who didn’t realise till later in life and found out through losing feelings for my gf? Please help

Username: gp gp

Date posted: 36w ago

Any thoughts right now would help

Username: hr247hr247

Date posted: 36w ago

but you did get everything back for 10 years, right

Username: gp gp

Date posted: 36w ago

@ocdposting Sadly not. My life has never returned :( I had a couple of years in between where I was just kind of numb, then ROCD came back, then a 6 month period of feeling pretty good, now another year or so with SOOCD.

Username: hr247hr247

Date posted: 36w ago

@gp you should really do your exposures man

Username: AnonymousAnonymous

Date posted: 36w ago

I think we have to sit with the uncertainty and avoid reassurances if at all possible. You are surely not alone in your struggle. I think we have to embrace all uncertainty and move past finding an answer as you will never be satisfied with one anyways

Username: Quieter2024Quieter2024

Date posted: 36w ago

This is exactly what is happening with me. You are certainly not aone. From your experiences you've been through sound very similar to mind and I do believe it is your OCD. It started 10 years ago when I was 25, now I am 35 with a wife and son too. I started a relationship with my now wife at the time when i was 25. I went for a night out with old work colleagues who were wanting to get with women all night. I wasn't interested because I had just met the woman of my dreams. They started saying comments to me like "you're gay" etc, I just didn't want to cheat because I was very happy with my now wife and didn't want to jeopardise our new relationship. The rumours started at work about that night and was sort of bullied most days at work.. all of this happened and from that night a thought entered my brain.. what if I am gay? Over the last 10 years have been horrible at times, where I have searched for answers to why I am keep having these thoughts. Looking for answers by looking at previous memories, thinking did I sound gay or look gay. The anxiety i have is very much consuming, I am never happy, I feel drained and tired. The last week I have had a spike in thoughts and constantly looking for reassurance, ruminating and checking. My anxiety is that bad that my wife understands I struggle but doesn't know the reason why i am struggling.. but because of trigger words, it sets my anxiety and panic off and she can see I am clearly suffering and the physical symptoms present. So she sometimes says some trigger words to try and get a reaction. Then thoughts come, why is she saying this? Then I think i am gay, my wife is correct! Then the whole process starts again.. i hate feeling like this.

Username: gp gp

Date posted: 36w ago

@Quieter2024 Why us dude? Like why let us live a seemingly normal happy life until mid 20s and decide to torture us? I do t get it

Username: Quieter2024Quieter2024

Date posted: 32w ago

@gp Exactly mate. It's a living nightmare. Doesn't make sense.

Username: AnonymousAnonymous

Date posted: 11w ago

@Quieter2024 How are you doing now?

Username: AnonymousAnonymous

Date posted: 11w ago

How are you doing?? I had this back in 2010 for a month or 2 and some how got better. Then a lesbian girl said something to me in the last 5 months and it hit me hard. Thinking about my past friendships and relationships with girl friends and now my wife. Like has this all been a lie. It scares me so much because I don’t want to lose my wife. My life will be over. I have never had the want to do anything sexual with a guy! I fricking hate it. I got off of meds and had to go right back on them because of this, and now my anxiety is low but still have to constant thoughts and it’s making me in a constant depressive state! I hope you’re doing better sir!! I hope we all are doing better! I want my life back with my wife and kids where nothing bothered me. People used to joke and call me gay and it never bothered me. Now I hate it.

Username: gp

Date posted: 1y ago

Looking for others similar - any thoughts?

I’m looking for others out there that might be similar to me. I was 25(m), infatuated with a new gf. I had a performance issue. Next morning I woke up with the FEELING that “you don’t feel anything for this girl”. And the anxiety that came with it. I felt sick to my core. Enter 3-6 months of obsessively figuring out why. It made no sense. I was infatuated with this girl, I was so happy, so confident, I could see such an awesome future with her. But once the feeling of “you feel nothing for her” stuck, I felt I had to break up. But why? During this 3-6 months it felt like I lost all positive feelings, like I could no longer be attracted to women (or anything). Nothing mattered except figuring out why I had lost feeling? I remember thinking it wasn’t fair that I’d been robbed of my ability to be happy and to love. Googling everything, asking friends etc. it consumed my every waking hour. During my obsessing, I had this random question - “are you actually gay?” Enter obsessively figuring out wether I was actually gay. I was 26. I had never even considered I was gay. I think I had crushes on girls, I certainly fantasised about them and was much more shy around them than guys. Put simply - I had never thought of a guy as anything other than a mate. This obsession changed to kind of “I FEEL gay”. It was/is like deep down I believe I am gay, despite never seemingly being attracted to guys before. I’m now 35 and this same obsession has been with me on and off. I’m now seeking treatment. Question - most of the online resources call out that ‘deep down’ you know you’re not gay. What if deep down there is a FEELING like you are? Can an obsession be a feeling? Can HOCD convince you that you ARE gay rather than just question? I’d love to hear anyone similar.

Username: gp

Date posted: 1y ago

How to stop believing the narrative SOOCD creates?

Question - my mind uses any trigger to prove I am gay. My mind kind of auto defaults to the ‘worst case scenario’. I’m kind of stuck in this mindset that I ‘believe it’, and if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be suffering from the ongoing anxiety. Do others have a similar feeling? Concern? Experience? I’ve been battling what I think is SOOCD since I was about 25/26. Literally overnight it felt like my brain broke. Infatuated by a new GF, woke up. Had the thought “you feel nothing for her”. Obsessive worry, figuring out why. Led to “you are gay”. I’ve been diagnosed twice by two seperate therapists, but as we know, it’s hard to believe you have ocd. Ultimately, I’ve never thought of men in a romantic way until my brain broke. I still don’t think I do, but I can’t stop being sick with anxiety that I have changed or that I’m lying to myself?

Username: evilsnail999

Date posted: 1y ago

Suspected HOCD

Sharing my story as I don’t know how to go on/to see if others can relate… I have been suffering with these thoughts for almost 5 months now, triggered by a very specific event. For context, I have only ever had crushes on girls/girlfriends and never had any sort of attraction to men - the vision I had of my future was always with a beautiful wife and kids. I have never felt compelled to have these crushes/visions, they just came very naturally. With that said, a very very small part of me was curious to maybe try and have sex with a guy just once to see what it was like. I never expected this to actually happen but it did, 5 months ago. Long story short, it was an experience I really really didn’t like or enjoy (I left halfway through), and I have absolutely no desire to be intimate with a man again. However, ever since, I have had debilitating intrusive thoughts about being gay and actually liking the experience even though I know deep down it’s not for me. I now get really anxious around the same sex (especially people I do not know) for fear of some sort of false attraction to them and find myself ‘noticing’ them more, which is causing significant distress. On the flip side, I feel like my attraction towards girls has diminished, which is just as if not more distressing, as I always found my attractions to girls happened often and naturally (I.e. not forced in the slightest). It feels like my life has been completely taken over and it feels so lonely sometimes. Any form of intimacy with a girl now feels like a mountain to climb - I’m scared that if I’m not 100% attracted to a girl instantly or enjoy intimacy 100%, that must be proof that I’m not straight. A lot of my time now is spent checking my previous sexual encounters for ‘proof’ that I’m straight but I have a crippling fear that I’m lying to myself and all the genuine attraction I have felt towards women must be a lie. Even though deep down I know I am straight, the thoughts feel so real and convincing. They seem to attack all the values/genuine visions of my life that I have, and I just want to return to being as carefree as I was before this whole thing.

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Struggling with anxiety over sexual orientation and loss of attraction—any advice?

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