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Struggling with TOCD has probably been the hardest theme I’ve had to deal with so far For reference. I’m a gay male 20yr old Before this theme I was so open with my gender expression, love drag and used to do it for a time. A lot of my friends are trans women and my whole life is queer When this theme hit. It’s like I completely lost who I was. Questioning everything I enjoyed, not participating in anything because it triggered me so heavily. I went through a whole gender journey awhile back and the trans path never spoke to me when I looked into it. I love my physique and my face but now when I look into the mirror i feel like a shell of who I was. I can’t find any sort of pure enjoyment without the accompanying “what if” or “you’re this” intrusive thought I still enjoy how I look. I’ve not looked in the mirror and felt like anything is missing from me or needs to be taken away I just feel like a spectator in my life while this disease tells me I’m not who I know myself to be I affirm myself every day I know who I am and it may change in the future but that’s not important. It’s highly unlikely it will but it may! Giving into the uncertainty has been so hard but it’s worth it! My ocd has really picked up since getting into my first serious relationship I care about my boyfriend with my whole heart but over the course of our relationship my themes have included Health Relationship Irreality Harm I just want to be who I was again before this current theme it feels unbearable to live like this BUT! I’m seeking appropriate treatment and not giving into a majority of compulsions I just wanted to write this to see if anyone can relate and if they do. Know that you will overcome this! I know I will and you will too

Does anyone else here daydream maladaptively? Well, I do a lot and my OCD has latched onto that as “proof” that my fear is real due to do contents of my daydreams. To preface I’m 14 and most of my daydreams consist of boys that I like so like 85% of my day is just me daydreaming about these boys in a fantasy world that I built in my head for them. The thing is I have ADHD and I’m super hyperactive and I require a lot of movement to engage in my daydreams (and with engaging in anything in general tbh) so I’m always just randomly walking/running around the house daydreaming. Anyway sometimes I’ll make the same faces my character makes in the daydream and also do like hand movements they do. And I’ve been ruminating about this for months because I’m like “does that count as imagining myself as a boy?” due to the fact that most of the characters in my daydreaming world are male and I panic. I would never imagine myself as a boy in that sense because it makes me uncomfortable, like ever since I got this theme, whenever I walk by a mirror I get these intrusive images of the boy I like starring back at me in the mirror and I get super uncomfortable. It’s like a punch in the gut. I don’t want to look like those boys at all and I know that if I was one of them I would hate my appearance and hate looking in the mirror, no matter how attractive they are. Or when I’m doing something my OCD will imagine ME doing it as a boy like in first person and with the intent of me being a boy and that also really triggers me because that’s not what I want and it makes me real uncomfortable. What I DO want is to daydream about boys, but not about being a boy. But isn’t that what I’ve been doing this whole time without realizing? Like I’m so wrapped in my daydreams that when I’m doing anything I go “Hm I wonder what [my crush] would do in this situation” and imagine him doing it but in a completely different setting and with some changes to the activity added. That really scares me because I go “what if that means I’m a boy” and I get really distressed because I don’t wanna be a boy. I don’t view any of the boys on my daydream as me at all and like, I don’t daydream with the intent to be a boy because that’s the least of my desires, all I do is want to think about boys because boys are cute ofc and I like them. But I’m still really scared. Is my OCD possibly twisting things or am I in denial? :(

I wouldn’t really say I have SO-OCD, but it manifests in some areas of my TOCD. Like if I see a woman for example my thoughts will go “what if I like her but as a man?” like my thoughts say I’m a straight man instead of a straight woman. And it’s really bothering me. If I see an attractive woman my brain will re-wire and imagine myself as a man looking at an attraction woman and it gets super uncomfortable that I have to like shake my head and say “no no no no no” multiple times to get the thought out. I know that counts as a compulsion but it’s hard to not do it because it’s so triggering. Now I don’t mind if I like women, however I’m really scared that I’m actually a straight man who likes women (or at least a bisexual man, considering I like men) and I hate it because I don’t want to be a man. Like I’ll think of my desired relationship as a woman dating a man but my OCD will switch it up to me being the man dating the woman, which is the opposite of what I want. I don’t want to be a man at all and I don’t want to date a woman, both of those are the opposite of my desires, but I’m still so scared. I’ll accept myself if I actually like women and am a bisexual woman, however I heard that being bisexual can mean being trans which scares me (for the record it was said in reddit by a sub which is mainly focused on a pseudoscientific phenomenon, that is still believed by the members to be true, so it’s definitely not a trustworthy statement, but my OCD will use anything to work against me) Does anyone here relate a little? 🥲