I was petting a dog and my brain sexualized it but I continued. I didn’t do anything wrong to the dog and I never would but it’s like I still mentally indulged even tho it’s still not me as a person?? Unless it is bc I still indulged ? Help!
OCD will attach onto anything, like literally anything. It will make you feel and think from the worst case scenario lenses all the time. There’s nothing sexual about petting a dog, but OCD will make you feel like it by triggering thoughts and suggesting contexts that aren’t there. And the uncertainty feeling it creates is what makes you latch onto those thoughts and makes you ruminate and question yourself. You actually did the right thing by continuing to pet your dog, that is a great exposure exercise, the only thing I’ll add to that is just label the uncertainty and the thoughts as OCD and keep petting your dog. Try to avoid questioning yourself or give into the thoughts. Just label and keep moving. I promise you over time the feeling and the thoughts you’re doing something wrong will fade away. Once they do, you’ll start to realize how it was just OCD distorting a simple act of affection towards your pet. Good luck, keep petting your dog, it’s a soothing act for both you and the dog. Nothing sexual about it and it’s a great ERP exercise.
@Amilton I really appreciate this but I think everyone is missing the point where I still mentally indulged. In my head it was sexual for whatever reason and I LET it be. It wasn’t ERP for me. Ik ocd itself is what sexualized it in the first place but that was my decision after the fact
@Anonymousssssss So you’re saying that OCD made it sexual and you just went along with it and indulged it. How exactly? The feeling of petting your dog ? The fact that OCD made it a sexual context and you enjoyed petting your dog within that context? Also I want to add something, petting your dog/pet is an enjoyable experience. You don’t think you could just be enjoying petting your dog even if OCD made it sexual ? Even if you made the decision to continue after OCD sexualized it because you enjoy the feeling of petting your dog and not because you indulged in the sexual context of it specifically? Your brain is hyper aware when you have OCD, specially during an episode, you enjoying the feeling of petting your dog after OCD sexualized it could very well be your brain going like “see you’re enjoying this even though it’s a sexual context so there must be something wrong with you” but remember that context was triggered by your OCD. All this to say, OCD making it sexual - you continuing because you actually enjoy petting your dog could be 2 separate things even if in your hyper state you conclude that you enjoying petting your dog means you indulging it in a sexual context. Hope that wasn’t too confusing
Can't really say anything to help you. Both because that would be reassuring you, and also just because I literally don't know what I would say. But my brain does the same. My lil Chihuahua will walk up wanting pets and my brain is like "This is you pleasuring the dog" or something like that. Hate how I can barely look at my pets anymore without setting off something in my brain.
@LiteralPileOfGarbage See if you can reprogram yourself to think of it more like a hug for your pet. It’s not pleasuring your pet, they are not getting aroused. It’s comforting your pet. Like when your parent, or you to your own children, give a reassuring rub or pat on the back showing them love.
So recently my husband was telling me that I better not think about someone else during intimacy and it triggered a memory that I believe is 1-2 years ago. Me and my bf were being intimate and I had just watched a movie with a certain celebrity said celebrity popped into my mind. Along with him being on top of me and being the one being intimate with me. I cannot remember if I continued with it and kept imagining it until the end or not but I can’t imagine doing that because I feel so guilty about it now. However I do know it never happened before and its never happened again. I find my partner the sexiest person alive and the thought of cheating makes me sick it’s something I would never do even when my brand wanders to fantasize I always stop it so idk it feels confusing to me. The memory kinda just popped into my head so I honestly don’t know how real majority of it is or if any of it is. If I did do that, is that cheating? Should I confess. I feel I shouldn’t as it would just cause insecurity for my partner and I don’t want that but I’m worried I cheated somehow if I really did imagine the celebrity the whole time we were intimate.
I saw a video of an animal that someone was cleaning or doing something to the intimate region, and I automatically sexualized it and got some strange feeling, something like groin, even the animal looked like it was enjoying itself and I just feel different and disgusting because I know it's not normal, I didn't have zoocd and it's not clear to me how that feeling precedes my thoughts...
help. it all happened too very fast. i was having a random b*ner, and i wanted to stop it by forcing an er*ction so it would go down afterwards, i had also seen a yt short of cyberpunk 2077 phantom liberty, in which a beautiful redheaded character appears, and i had random thought abt how maybe she wouldn't be truly that pretty and it was just make up. i imagined a scenario in which i had an okay looking girlfriend but that would look very hot with make up on, and i thought that was the perfect scenario to release the b*ner by momentarily forcing an erection and as i did that i remembered a highschool crush i had of a girl older than me that i found very beautiful and i distinctly remember in the past being excited to see her with make up on during a play, and this memory associated immediately. it went like this -> imagine girlfriend that is beautiful with make up on as i prepare to have an er*ction -> this reminds me just like that time in highschool -> the positive memory of my crush appears as i force an er*ction to happen at the same time without thinking too much (this all happens in a span of a millisec) i don't know how but my brain didn't register that memory as a threat, i had forgotten the context, it didn't even cross my mind that it happened years ago in highschool, i just had this memory. now im worried that i committed a horrible disgusting act. the erection wasn't caused by the memory of the crush, i planned it to happen with a safe image and that image of the crush appeared as i remembered and it didn't register it as a threat and this just happened; because i don't believe i was aroused by the memory, i was just remember that she was pretty. i don't know if it was just coincidence. it wasn't intentional, but now im disgusted at myself. there are 3 possibilities: 1. i already had made the conscious decision to force an erection from the scenario before and as the memory appeared, as it all happened in a millisecond, i didn't have enough time to process it with its due context and i didnt perceive that memory as triggering or something inappropriate and for my brain it was okay to be in the background while the er*ction happened. 2. it happened in one second, the conscious decision was already made from the scenario before so the er*ction randomly happened during the remembrance 3. worst case: in the moment of the er*ction as i remembered the crush i put myself in those shoes of the young me and as the memory happened very fast i forgot the context and the distance of the period frame in which had happened (long ago) and since i remembered her being older than me i still perceived in that fragment of the memory that way, and since i was in the memory itself i found her attractive normally, indistinguishably and separated from the present time, and for that split second i perceived her normally as if i was attracted to a girl in my present time, it literally felt a "normal" perception of a girl i liked and i didn't realise it wasn't the case; and my mind since it lacked the necessary context it allowed it to be non dangerous and not wrong to force an erection, and i realised it was a mistake only after it happened hence the panic... so it all happened before processing the context of the time in which had happen that would result as inappropriate. im afraid that the 3. is what happened and that it is unacceptable.
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