I just need to speak up about something. I am scared. I am scared that one day there’s a chance that I may leave my boyfriend/ husband because I realize I am gay or bisexual. The thought of this makes my throat tighten. That would change my whole plans and it is so heart breaking to me. And for some reason my brain goes “but maybe then you will be also happy with someone else” like wtf no I don’t want that I do not want that at all and I don’t know why my brain is trying to rationalize something that I don’t want because when there’s something that I do want my brain just turns it into a bad thing. I am scared that this is a possibility,, my brain is filled with “what if’s” and these what if’s just make me even more anxious and it makes me so entirely sad I don’t want to be gay. I don’t want to be bi. I want to be me and I feel like I will lose my identity because that is not who I am. But my brain keeps trying to tell me “well you aren’t these things because you’ve never given it a chance“ maybe because I am attracted to men??? Like why isn’t this enough? And I feel like every type of OCD theme I have had is something that in the end hurts my boyfriend and maybe it has targeted him because he is so important to me and I care for him so much. It’s just crazy and I don’t like it at all. And I feel like I keep torturing myself with these thoughts instead of living a happy life like I used to

Exactly!! Like it is so crazy so when you feel happy you somehow know something is gonna happen that you don’t expect. I guess before I looked at the worst outcome and told myself well they are all manageable and then bam it hit me with something even worse so I was definitely shocked that it even went there but I mean you can’t do anything about the thoughts from what I have learned you just have to accept them (even though this is one of the hardest pills to swallow for me)

I don’t know I guess it just makes me incredibly sad to think about and I don’t want that to happen to me at all you know and I feel like I will lose myself

@sofiaguerrrero Yes I understand that it's your fear. As blunt as this sounds, have you tried to not play through the scenario and worry about consequences etc when you get the urge to? I know it feels like an itch you need to scratch and you just want it to go away. But "what if" thoughts happen to everyone in the world, the only way to get the obsession with the question to go away is to stop treating the question like it's important or trying to find out an answer to it. You don't need an answer. Whatever could happen in life, you'd be able to handle it. Upsetting yourself over it isn't going to prevent it. Only keep you unhappy.

@Louw You know what you are very very right thank you for that. I feel like I have to see what if statements and they always turn out to be negative and to be honest I know that if I tried to stop doing this I will be so much happier in the future. I guess it’s just scary to think about and sad to think about because it’s targeting something I love so much. I try making sense to this theme comparing it to any other theme because it’s a lot about certainty and we can’t have that. When I compare my theme to other themes I kind of understand how to go about it more. But thank you so much for your input

@sofiaguerrrero Yep, it feels like a very scary and wobbly idea to not do our familiar run-throughs of "what ifs". But you deserve to get your life back. Yes I'd agree it's pretty sad for you that it targets a happy part of your life, but any trying to work out whether that means something (like that you unconsciously don't want to be with him/are gay/want the thoughts) is for sure another compulsion. You don't need to answer those questions either. No matter what in life, you will always have your choices. You have a lot of control in what your life looks like- I don't imagine you'd ever leave your boyfriend unless you actually wanted to do so, there's no alien part of you which is ever going to drag the rest of you kicking and screaming into gaysville. You're in the driver's seat and should make decisions according to what you want, not what OCD tells you is required in order to be safe. We can't predict what we'll want in the future, but try to trust yourself to make the decisions and choices which make you happy and bring you the life you want. You don't and can't know the future. But you'd handle it.

@Louw You are very right thank you so much for sharing your wisdom!! I really appreciate this so so much. And you are right I control my life and I have to accept that we can’t know what the future holds but we can live in the moment!!

ROCD came first and I didn’t ever question anything. I actually had two episodes of HOCD but they vanished sooo quickly so I didn’t worry about it and everything was still with my ROCD. I was actually doing so so well with it like I came to the point where I kind of felt numb but I knew that it had nothing to do with my partner at this point it was more of a disconnection with myself and I remeber the day something triggered because I was tanning and I said to myself “you are going to get through this, everything has a solution in life... after this you will not let any thought bring you down” but literally 20 minutes after I said that something triggered me on snapchat and it was just my cousin posting a picture with a girl saying “finally started dating this one” and a simple question I asked myself which was “what if that happened to me” has stuck with me for almost 2 weeks now without any sort of relief. And I have just sunk down the rabbit hole this whole time