Deleted post.

Hey sorry to hear you're going through a rough patch. I know how it feels! My first piece of advice is to do whatever you can to *not* research anything about this fear from now on. Or at least try to reduce the amount of time you spend researching. I completely understand that it *feels* like it's what you need to do, but that is a compulsion that will keep you in this spiral indefinitely. Second, it's never an either/or scenario when it comes to OCD. What I mean is, when people have intrusive thoughts about something, it's not, "I either have OCD, or these thoughts are true." That's what it may feel like, but that's not really what's going on here. OCD isn't the thoughts themselves. It's not the "false attraction" or anything like that. OCD is the way we *react* to those thoughts and feelings. It's the extreme difficulty letting things go. It's the insatiable craving for complete certainty, and an intolerance of any uncertainty. On top of that, you don't have to meet the OCD diagnosis criteria to experience a spiral of intrusive thoughts. Everyone gets intrusive thoughts, and sometimes they can spiral because of them. OCD is more about the frequency and intensity of that happening. As for how to escape this spiral, the key is to stop engaging with the thoughts. Not only do you do that by refusing to research the topic, but when the thoughts come up, try to lean into the uncertainty and respond with, "maybe, maybe not." This will make you feel anxious, and that's okay. Practice sitting with that anxiety and the uncertainty. Watch how it affects you physically, and watch as it comes and goes on its own. There is a popular therapeutic method for OCD called ERP, which I would highly suggest looking in to, whether you have OCD or not. Here's some info about it: https://www.treatmyocd.com/what-is-ocd/what-is-erp All-in-all, the main takeaway is that you won't get anywhere by trying to logically figure out if you're gay or not. That's only going to make things worse (even if researching it might make you feel slightly better in the short term). Try to get more in touch with how you *feel* moment-to-moment, rather than what the thoughts are saying. Hope this helps!

I've done similar man and the same stuff you wrote is horrifying to me as well