Before Hocd i masturbated to girls twerking. I didn’t want to do anything with the girl, it just turned me on often as Id imagine doing it for a boy. What if this makes me a lesbian?

I’m glad it’s not just me. Even though I did, I never questioned my sexuality or anything as I knew I loved boys and was attracted to them. Have you started therapy?

@amyyyy Im sp scared i am i have done so many things that could make me

@byeocd2 What else did you do as I may have too x

@amyyyy guys it might feel like you’re helping eachother by reassuring that you’ve done the same things in the past but remember reassurance is a red flag!! It’s just sucking you deeper into the OCD rituals; it’s a harsh reality but you’ll never find the answer and reassurance about your sexuality by compulsive searching and comparison x

@byeocd2 -a lesbian. "I'm so scared I am a lesbian, I have done so many things that could mean I'm a lesbian" Avoiding typing your feared words so you don't think of or see them and feel triggered is a safety-seeking compulsion.

@Soph So true. I've seen this twerking theme and "things I've done that could "make me" gay" theme come up on here so many times I've lost count, and it looks like rehashing it hasn't make any difference beyond temporary reassurance and strengthening of the urges to do those compulsions. If you continue to do everything the same, nothing changes.

@Louw Literally, the more you redo a compulsion the less reassurance it gives you so you keep seeking for more and more until one day you might find nothing gives you reassurance and you lose all sense of reality. This whole concept of ‘I MUST find someone with the same symptoms/compulsions as me’ is a dangerous one

@Soph I’m just finding it so hard not to reassure myself that the things i’ve done in the past are normal and that other people have done them too:(

@amyyyy what is ‘normal’? Maybe the things you’ve done mean something, maybe they don’t - you literally will not find out by scouring the internet and ruminating and analysing; in the whole time you’ve had HOCD has your searching ever come to anything fruitful? Has reassurance ever made you anything but more confused? It’s so so hard I’ve been there but you have to take a step back and just breathe and tell yourself; this won’t do me any good.

If you don't want to be with a girl you don't have to be a girl. I'm finishing up my degree in sociology with social psychology and have done 4 gender/sexuality modules (equivalent to a year of full-time study). The one thing that really stuck with me is that the whole concept of "born gay" isn't actually accurate. It's far, far more complicated than that, gayness isn't an on-off setting decided before you're born, it's fluid and changes over time, it's a combination of genes, epigenetics, hormones in utero, hormone levels as an adult, environment, culture etc and CHOICE. My 'gender and sexuality' module leader who is a trans academic basically tore apart the idea that sexual orientation is even a trait which we can say a person has or embodies, it's an interplay between the individual and their environment. We specifically covered people who engage in clear homosexual sex acts and identify as straight, there is even an acronym, MSM (men who have sex with men). Because what you do doesn't dictate your sexuality, we all just settle on a label which we feel represents us to ourselves and the outside world in the ways that we want to be seen. And those labels are VALID. For chrissakes. Tik tok and Twitter are not good sources of information on what we actually know about sexuality. The whole "born gay" concept was a fantastic PR thing which was never particularly based in science, intended to get bigots to back off by exposing their bigotry for what it is. But it's not actually how reality works or how people work. And it's created the environment for OCDs like this one.

@Louw Thank you for this:) So does that also mean that if a woman gets aroused by another woman then it doesn’t make her a lesbian?

@amyyyy It works the same way for women, yes. If you don't want to "be" a lesbian or do lesbian sex acts, you bloody well just don't have to.

@Louw but what if this means i will never find love :(

@amyyyy Why would it mean that? This sounds like a fear based in emotional reasoning. I've just explained how it's completely valid for you to be aroused by other women and still both see yourself and identify as straight, and that you don't have to identify any differently to however you want to or do any gay sex acts that you aren't interested in doing. Or even any gay sex acts which you ARE interested in doing. You're completely and utterly in control. You've kinda been thinking sexuality works like a hair colour, where you're getting doubts about whether you're a natural brunette or have actually been dying your hair brown and you're secretly a blonde after all. But sexuality isn't like a hair colour, it's more like clothing. The fact that you wore a green shirt and enjoyed wearing it once doesn't mean that you're a leprechaun deep down. Even dressing up as a leprechaun wouldn't make you a leprechaun. You don't need to avoid the colour green. You can wear green sometimes without it "making you" a leprechaun. You can decide you'd prefer to never wear green again if that's what you want, it wouldn't mean you're in denial of being a leprechaun. It doesn't mean that you're a leprechaun deep down who is covering up their leprechaun-ness by not wearing green. In fact, there's no such thing as leprechauns, there just happen to be some people who very much enjoy dressing as a leprechaun every day and being called a leprechaun because that makes them happy. If you went to a fancy dress party as a leprechaun or regularly dress up as a leprechaun, you still don't have to think of yourself as a leprechaun if you don't want to. You get to make that choice. You get to make literally all the choices. The ancient Romans didn't even have a concept of personal individual sexuality, they just did what they fancied whenever they wanted to do it, and when they didn't they just didn't. There is nothing about the way sexuality works or about the fact that you're sometimes attracted to women or anything else which means that you can't find love. That is a seriously mismatched set of ideas. The only related thing which might feasibly be able to stop you from being in a happy loving relationship would be continuing to obsess and engage in your OCD and analyse and doubt and check and second guess. So that should be a good motivation for treating your OCD the proper way, with ERP rather than with reassurance. It's clear to me, and hopefully to you, that you have OCD symptoms. Having OCD doesn't mean that a fear is not true. However in this case, the fear is based in a popular misunderstanding of what sexuality is and how it works. There is literally no way that your fear can be true because sexuality just does not work in the black and white ways you have been thinking of it. Sexuality isn't something inherent which you discover about yourself, it's something you co-create. It's meant to be fun. Your sexuality labels are entirely your choice. Your actions are entirely your choice. You can make whatever choices you want about these things and change your mind about any part of them whenever you want. No guy is going to be scared by the fact you sometimes have sexual feelings about women and refuse to be with you because of it. There is no hidden core sexuality thing about you which you need to be true to. You can be true to yourself by making whatever choices make you happy and fulfilled. It's important that instead of using my comments here to argue against the thoughts, you do ERP for them. You should tell yourself "yes maybe I am gay bi in this black and white way that I have felt", and practice coping with that anxiety rather than reassuring it. Just because the reassurance from my comments is the truth as far as science can tell, doesn't mean that it's appropriate to use it to treat OCD. I just wanted you to *know* about it, as OCD is best treated from multiple angles where possible. What I've told you ought to reduce the black and white thinking which your fear is based in, and learning to cope when you're feeling anxious about this topic by adapting to the anxiety without compulsions, should over time undo the cycle you've found yourself in.

@Louw Thank you very much for the advice, it means the world. I will stop thinking so black and white and start ERP

@amyyyy Awesome! If you click the ... At the top of this thread, you can bookmark it to read again later. I don't recommend rereading this when you're feeling very anxious and want reassurance, as that's a better time to just do ERP. Hopefully this gives you some feeling that its okay to do ERP, that it wouldn't be betraying yourself or sweeping the question under the rug. But it's good to keep this info nearby to read sometimes when you're not very anxious.

@Louw Thank you for the help:) have you suffered with HOCD?

@amyyyy No not particularly. I've always had an intuition about the stuff I learned at uni before I learned it, because how I think of my sexuality has changed many times, same thing for many of my friends. I've had bouts of POCD though. Which I'm sure were based in similar black and white ideas of there being something that you "are" deep down, despite no evidence for that idea.

@Louw I hope your POCD is getting better. When your sexuality was altering and changing, did you question it a lot and were you really worried?Im so sorry for all the questions

@amyyyy Thank you :) I hardly ever have a worry about it anymore, and I'm good at letting intrusive thoughts on it just go and doing nothing at all about them. I'm not going to answer your question about sexuality though, because for as many people as you find who questioned it a lot or worried, you'll find the same number of people who didn't really question or worry. :)

@Louw that’s just made me more confused. then why are most people straight then? why am i straight? what happened in my life to make me straight i dont get it? why don’t i like girls but others do? oh god wtf