Anyone here afraid that they'll find out that they wont enjoy sex (im avirgin)with guys in future because they are actually lesbian. Im sooo afraid of that.

Ok thanks. Idk if this is even hocd being anxious like this and i dont even have a bf yet. Thanks

Me too

me toooo!

@rlr It's tough. I only see my bf every other weekend for the most part, but even if it's a good time, I find myself thinking "okay maybe I can have romantic feelings for him but prefer women sexually." It seems never-ending, but I've been doing a better job at resisting checking compulsions, and I'm feeling a bit more "like myself," but I know it's going to take time and patience.

@butwhatif yeah I definitely need to stop checking and giving into compulsions. I had hocd and rocd for a while last year and they started to finally settle down and I felt better and then about a week ago they came back really really bad. I keep checking online and stuff as my compulsions but today so far I haven’t and hopefully that lasts!

@rlr That's awesome! Checking online is one of the ones I slip into pretty easily because it's something I do normally, and don't even realize it's OCD until I'm like "Okay why am I doing this like multiple times a day and why am I miserable? Ohhhh right"

@butwhatif lol yeah I feel that. what are some of your other compulsions if you don’t mind me asking?

@rlr Yeah no problem! They're mostly mental, so things like imagining people nude or in sexual contexts to check my response (sometimes even happens automatically or before I realize I'm doing it), looking at different types of porn to see how I react, checking how I feel toward my bf...those are the main ones currently. Before I realized I was probably having an OCD episode, I would also write a lot in a journal about my sexuality to attempt to de-stress, with a lot of detail, and write text message drafts to my bf explaining everything I was going through and breaking up with him because I thought I might be gay or mostly gay and didn't think it was fair to him (which ended up making me sad leading me to never send them). And then of course researching various topics. I've had others over the years, like lurking and posting in forums related to my theme, and so on. How about you?

@butwhatif oh shit I do all of those too. I didn’t even realize the scenarios in my head are compulsions. and I like say I love you to my boyfriend a lot to see if I feel anything. just checking and checking in every way I can ahhh

@rlr Yeah, I'll also do weird things like look at pictures of my boyfriend and start wondering what he'd look like with breasts and trying to feel if I like it more. It's unusual to say the least, ha. But yeah, some people use the term "Pure O" to describe OCD that has primarily mental compulsions. Apparently that's because it was considered "purely obsessive" without an observable compulsive component, but that's just because they take place mentally

@butwhatif ohhh interesting I didn’t know that. I guess it makes me feel better knowing that my thoughts like that are compulsions and not real

wow very well said. that’s super hard to think of but I’m sure it’s helpful and Im gonna start trying to think like that too. my ocd is driven by fear I feel like so accepting the fears is part of erp I feel like

@rlr I hope it helps! It's definitely not easy, but I agree that just trying to minimize checking and accepting fears is in line with ERP. Good luck and stay strong ✊