Hi! Firstly thanks to everyone on this group, such a beautiful supportive network. I wrote earlier a few times but basically wanted some advice...so I’m a girl with HOCD so fear of being gay. And my wonderful therapist (who’s helping me with CBT/ ERP) is a female and she’s been amazing with help... and now my OCD is giving me intrusive thoughts about her (HOCD themes). Has anyone else encountered this? Is this normal ? And most importantly, so I persevere? Thanks again!

I’m so tired of my OCD changing “themes.” And no matter what it changes to, it’s always directed towards a specific person - my mom. My mom and I are very close. I consider her my best friend and we live together. I can share anything with her and she’s very supportive. I’m 32 now, but harm ocd started when I was 15 and she was the main target back then as well. I had a bad flare up this year and the harm thoughts came back, but about a week ago they turned into sexual thoughts. Graphic thoughts and images about incest. These thoughts typically make me feel panic and dread, and just an overall depressed feeling. It has made me uncomfortable to be around my mom, since I can’t even look at her without a sexual thought or image popping up. Even watching a romantic scene in a show, listening a romantic song, etc. My brain wants to put an image of her in my head. Even me fantasizing about a man that I’m attracted to will replace the man with my mom. They just keep popping up. So this of course makes me think I actually want these things, and are actually fantasies. I have started to wonder if I’m in actual denial or that these are my true feelings. I have never been a relationship before due to not having much interest in it plus my mental health issues started as a teen, but someday I would like to get married. But now I’m thinking maybe I’ve never pursued a relationship with someone else because I’m actually in love with my mom and want to be with her, but I can’t so I’m just suppressing my feelings. And I do love my mom, but I question myself is this just platonic or familial love? Also questioning our relationship in general now - is it unhealthy or too dependent? It makes me feel doubt, since I have never really been in love before with someone else so I have nothing to compare it to. Always just crushes or finding a man attractive, and I identify as straight. But I also have not thought of my mom in a sexual way before, so I’m hoping this is just my OCD acting up. Even thinking about a future relationship with a man is making me feel nervous, since I think if I have feelings for my mom, will I ever be able to be in a serious relationship someday? If I’m with someone will I actually just picture her? It makes me feel hopeless, like I can’t help how I feel and what if these things are true? Would I act on them? My brain even made me think, “you want to ask your mom to be in a sexual relationship with you and/or want her to ask you.” I feel like such a pervert for writing that, like a truly disgusting person. I know I don’t want these things to be true, but what if they are and I can’t help how I feel? Again just feel doubt and uncertainty, that I’m in denial, and not to mention just feeling like a very sick individual.

Hi everyone, I wanted to reach out to see if anyone else has experienced something similar with OCD and intrusive thoughts. I’ve been struggling during moments of intimacy because intrusive thoughts, particularly ones related to POCD, feel so ‘sticky’—like they’re all I can picture. Even though I really want the thoughts to go away, they persist, and I’ve been trying not to avoid intimacy because of them. However, that makes me feel like I’m somehow ‘enjoying’ the thoughts or images, which I really dislike. It’s like my brain is playing this awful trick, and it’s leaving me feeling confused and gross. I guess I’m supposed to not let the thoughts bother me and continue as if nothing’s wrong, but I’m scared that by doing so, I’m almost training myself to get off to them or something. This fear makes it so hard to trust myself in those moments, and it’s been overwhelming. If anyone else has been through this, how do you handle it?

I’m really struggling with something related to me ocd, and I would appreciate kind and supportive advice. If you can’t relate or don’t think anything you have to say would be helpful, I kindly ask pls refrain from commenting this is a really sensitive topic for me. Recently, I’ve noticed a pattern that feels something extremely new and distressing. The first time it happened I remember telling myself before self pleasuring that I am in control no matter what thought comes into my mind because I wanted to prove to myself that these thoughts are just from OCD and I know who I am and an intrusive that came out of no where, and i suddenly felt an intense fear that I was acting on it. In the moment I genuinely felt like I did. And afterword, I panicked and started questioning myself. This SAME FEELING has happened three times in a row each time, the intrusive thought was unwanted and random, and completely against my morals most recently it involved pocd and it feels even worse because it generally felt like I acted on it the thought in the moment while I was self pleasuring the panic doesn’t hit until afterwards when I stop :/ I start thinking that maybe I generally made a mistake and I’m now just realizing that it’s wrong because it generally feels like that :( but when I actually think about it again goes against my morals and values doesn’t make sense it feels incredibly real, and I can’t seem to shake this feeling off that I may have acted on it I’m terrified because I never wanted these thoughts in the first place. And I definitely didn’t choose them. If I had known, I would’ve had these intrusive thoughts I wouldn’t have self pleasured in the first place but it’s extremely hard to convince myself that this may be OCD because I feel like I have no other reason to believe that I didn’t act on it :/