I recovered from Pure O (Harm OCD and HOCD), ask me anything! Disclaimer: I’m obviously not a professional! I just want to maybe offer some advice based on my own personal experiences and hopefully help and answer some questions people have

I was afraid of hurting others and occasionally myself. The most helpful thing in my recovery was literally just sitting down and watching “End of the Fucking World” on Netflix. Really great show, even better exposure! Also maintaining a healthy lifestyle was really helpful for me too personally.

I can’t personally relate to the pregnant woman one but boy do I relate to the train one! I’m really glad you’re doing ERP; that’s a fantastic start! I would say definitely continue with it. Sometimes it works overnight but most of the time it takes long, hard work—but it’s so worth it, trust me! Keep going to train platforms, keep hanging around pregnant women, maybe even write narratives of you doing the things you’re afraid of. Don’t fight the thoughts—they can’t hurt you or anyone else. Acknowledge them, label them as a thought, and gently brush them aside. Other than that, take care of yourself: eat well (especially healthy fats like avocado and fish), drink water, exercise, do things that make you happy like reading and taking baths or whatever you like to do to unwind. Also find some “fun” exposures. What helped me most was watching “End of the Fucking World” on Netflix. I legitimately enjoyed the show which made me want to keep watching, and it was INCREDIBLE exposure for Harm O. Hope this helped at least a little! Just know there is always hope, even when it feels like there isn’t. OCD can take you to some of the darkest places, but when you come out of it, you see the light even better than you could before ?

@erin174 Thank you so much! You honestly helped me so much. Everytime a thought appears I kept remembering what you mentioned acknowledging them as thoughts. I went to the train platform yesterday for the first time ever and I felt so anxious because I was with a very close friend and afraid I might push her on the train track but now I labeled them as thought, even though it feels uneasy.

@Marinrahman Aww I’m so happy for you! I actually learned that tip from Headspace—it might be worth looking into for you :)

Oh man it was a long one. It started when I was 13 after I had an intrusive sexual thought about my best friend. I’d liked guys my whole life so I was really confused. After that everything started getting twisted around in my head. I really admired Emma Watson as a role model at the time and thought she was really pretty but I started to worry that meant I was gay. Every time I saw a picture of her I’d check my response which then caused me to actually have (fake) responses. I told my mom eventually what was going on and she told me it was completely normal and I had nothing to worry about. I stopped worrying about it then but the occasional “What if I’m actually gay?” thought would pop up still. At the end of my junior year of college it flared back up again, right after I recovered from Harm O, and rhis time it was way worse. I had a panic attack in a Honda dealership after a character in a book that I related to turned out to be gay. I ended up going to therapy and did daily exposures (mostly listening to “I Kissed A Girl” by Katy Perry lol) and it eventually lessened. I started dating again and it confirmed to me that I did actually only like guys. I don’t know if any of this helpful ?

@erin174 Wow that was really helpful. I think I struggle with digging back into my past and ruminating over if I actually had a crush on a same sex friend which aggravated my HOCD. I keep noticing members of the same sex as “attractive” now when I didn’t hardly before, and I constantly check and compare if I’m like someone who is gay (similar to your story at the Honda dealership), making coming out videos hard exposures. My HOCD seems to center on if that past event actually happened, and that even after acknowledging members of the same sex can be seen as attractive and one is not considered gay, I can’t seem to rationalize how that is any different from being bisexual. I feel like my OCD has convinced me I can’t be straight anymore. Thus, I worry a lot with “what if” mental compulsions of imagining scenarios of if I’m put in a situation with an attractive person of the same sex, would I act on it? Is my OCD even real? How do I get over this/ERP ideas? Thank you so much for your help.

@evkrey Yeah I can relate I’ve done stuff like when I was like 5 I searched up lesbian kiss and I would watch lesbian porn as a child I also kissed my bestfriend once when I was like 7 and I used to masterbate to girls I would want to look like I’m just scared this means I’m bi or lesbian I really don’t want to be

HOCD is really hard but luckily it is very treatable :) You’ll get to the other side of it eventually! And when you do you’ll be even happier and stronger than you were before you had HOCD

@erin174 I also had a porn addiction and I would watch lesbian porn and when I was seven I kissed my bestfriend to the song o kissed a girl ughh it’s so triggering I also used to masterbaye to girls I wish I looked like ughh I told my mum about it and she doesn’t think I am

@cloudqueen And now it’s hard for me to differentiate between If I find a girl pretty or sexually attractive

@cloudqueen Stop trying to differentiate. Be okay with the idea of finding a girl sexually attractive. The OCD won’t be able to fight back anymore if you stop fighting, and then everything will become clearer again. I don’t know if that made sense but hopefully it did lol

Oh yeah! Towards both celebrities and people I knew. It was usually people I looked up to a lot and my OCD would twist it into a romantic crush. With anything OCD related, I believe the best defense is exposure. Spend more time with the girl you’re falsely attracted to, stalk her instagram, write out a scenario where you kiss her or something. It’s going to feel super scary and uncomfortable but recovery lies on the other side of fear and discomfort!

I’m not a therapist so I can only speak to own experience but what helped me most was exposure, distraction (through creative hobbies), and a healthy lifestyle. Good luck, you’ll get through this ?