hey guys, PLEASE read this. so i haven’t been on in a while cause i was doing really well. but recently i started talking to this guy and he’s really sweet and a really good guy. but every time we text or anything all he does is compliment me and it’s just kinda getting old and boring. don’t get me wrong it’s sweet. but i’m getting bored of it. and because i’m starting to lose feelings for him it’s making my hocd bad again. i honestly think i’m just not ready for a relationship because i have to work on myself and it’s just not a good time. and also everytime i see a masculine lesbian (mostly on social media) i think i’m attracted to them. and i just keep analyzing and wondering if i’m attracted or not and i hate it. and also last night after realizing all this i found myself thinking what my life would be like if i was bi and then almost as if i was trying to convince myself it wouldn’t be that bad and to stop worrying which made my hocd worse because it made me think once again that i’m bi and i don’t want to admit it. i don’t even know what to do anymore someone comment some tips on how they helped their hocd

also i got freaked out last night because i saw this guy being all cute with his gf and in my head i thought “aww i want a boyfriend” but out loud i accidentally said i want a gf. and i had been looking at the girl so maybe that’s why my brain said it but i don’t know it freaked me out and made me think that’s what i secretly want

and i’ll think about like famous people who are bi and think “look they’re living a normal life” like why am i thinking this stuff it makes me think i’m truly bi. but it just doesn’t seem right for me. it doesn’t feel right. b it then my anxiety makes me question that

No problem! It works on the principle that all feelings are physiologically very similar and can be processed through experiencing them in the body. Rather than feeling our feelings phsycially with the intention of getting rid of them, try to do this with the intent of feeling them, letting them exist, knowing that they'll pass through you once you honour them the way they need to be honoured by feeling them and noticing them and letting them happen. When they pass through you it is extremely relaxing and relieving, the first time I did this method I felt better at the end than I had felt in literally years. I had a big dam of feelings I wasn't letting be felt because they were so uncomfortable and scary. Try to go somewhere safe and comfortable and familiar where you won't be interrupted, I'd say. Know that you're nice and safe and that nothing's going to happen while you do this. You won't lose control of yourself, nothing will happen, your worries won't become true, you won't be left believing them. This time isn't about your worries intellectually, this is about helping you out with all the suffering they cause. Answers are for later, now is for feeling. When you think of the maybe, it's going to bring up your anxiety which is usually where you jump in trying to relieve that anxiety by trying to find out an answer to the question, but when we do ERP, those things are for later, not for right now. Instead you can take some nice deep, slow breaths. What you'll need to do is try to notice where that anxiety is in your body, and just begin to notice what it feels like. Maybe it's in your chest or your stomach, maybe it even makes your head start to hurt or gives you pain from tension in your neck and shoulders. You might even feel it ache in your arms or other parts of your body. Try to notice what that feeling is like and label the sensations. Is it a squeezing? Maybe a heaviness, or a feeling of density. It's not comfortable, but notice that you can bring your focus to those sensations and you're okay, breathing deeply and noticing the sensations in parts of your body. No need to judge them, no need to know what they mean or find another way to get rid of them. Just physical feelings, just aching. What else is it like? Maybe it feels a bit like the sensation you get when you're excited. Maybe there are some other feelings in there too like fear or guilt. But we don't need to work out what they meant or judge them or push them away. We're moving out of the mind and into the body, gently leaning against those physical sensations, noticing where they are and focusing in more, noticing any new ones, taking nice deep breaths. If you start to follow a thought, that's alright, it happens, there's no need to worry or give up, it doesn't mean you've done anything wrong, we can bring the focus back into the feelings in your body. Stick with this. If your mind has started to wander, gently remind yourself again of those triggering thoughts, not reminding yourself of your arguments for and against, not solving the problem right now, just feeling all of those sensations in the body. As and when you feel able to, try to relax parts of your body which are tense, one by one, still focusing in the sensations in the different parts, leaning right into the feelings. You can even ramp up as you can confidence by really focusing on the main area of the sensations in your body and with deep breaths just letting it be as bad as it wants to be. Personally this method, if I do it until my anxiety reduces so much that it's gone and doesn't come back even when I remind myself of the triggering thoughts, can take several hours. And that's okay. I had a bad OCD a few years ago which I cured by doing this twice, around 2 hours the first time and under an hour the second time. It never came back.

One small bit of reassurace: A Freudian slip doesn't have to mean "secretly want", he just considered it *something* in your unconscious or your repression space leaking out. Makes sense for it to slip out during a time you're trying to bury it. What we resist, persists. Anyway. I'd get bored of that guy too. It's giving you intrusive thoughts but it doesn't have to make your OCD bad. It's doing all those thoughts which come after the accusation that it could be proof that you're gay, which are a problem- because you're engaging with them. Debating them. Wondering. It sounds like it would be a good time to do ERP and sit with those uncomfortable feelings of incompleteness/lack of total confidence for a while without trying to solve them or get rid of them or answer them. Is ERP something you've been trying to do? It can be hard and seem scary because it means stopping doing this task (analysing) which never feels complete, and choosing to respond in a different way. Ah yes, the bi thing, for some people that can help them on their way to accepting not feeling you have a 100% answer, as it takes away some of the black and white nature of the fear and reminds them that there is a big space between "what I am" and "what I choose", and that they can choose the life they want, choose to be with their opposite-sex partner, etc. Which of course you could also choose to do if you believed you were gay, in fact! Your life is yours and so are your choices. If you want to marry a man then you damn well get to marry a man. OCD can't change what you want, it can only make you question whether you're sure it's what you want. If you focus on making the decisions you want in the here and now, you will be just fine. You're certainly in no way obliged to keep texting a boring guy. Something which might help is to make a list of all the things you would still have in your life and the choices you are still allowed to make if your fear was true (hint: it's pretty much everything ;) ). It can feel a bit safer to say "maybe" to our thought and then get back to doing whatever we want, when we have a bit more confidence that if the fear somehow "is real", it's not going to do us any harm that we can't handle.