- Date posted
- 5y
- Date posted
- 5y
Ok so obviously the answer to what you're going through doesn't lie in dressing up and trying to convince yourself that you like men. Let's just pretend that travesty of a comment never happened ? I'm wondering whether those unwanted romantic feelings in your teen years had the same quality to them as the other intrusive sexual thoughts? I'm not sure whether this is/has been an OCD theme for you or if there has just been some resistance to natural feelings. It's also possible to be gay and develop an OCD about being gay because you have reasons in your life for not wanting it (fears of judgement, of being an outcast, of discrimination etc). It's ALSO possible for it to be a bit of both. You describe 'unwanted gay thoughts' which you tried to keep away, and that could be OCD, could be what I've described. Why were you trying to keep them away? Were they very upsetting? I'm curious really... Whether the unwanted romantic feelings seemed to come out of anxiety and analysis (fear that you have romantic feelings, obsessing about the possibility and intense anxiety about the prospect of it being true romantic feelings, checking your responses to your friends to spot anything sexual, etc). As opposed to being crushes which you felt ashamed of or that they were an inconvenience. At the end of the day, though, regardless of your sexuality and what it might be, if you have OCD symptoms (do you feel that you do?) then it's worth addressing and treating those. After that, perhaps you could try something like ACT? Deciding that you'll accept yourself and act on your desires and values going forwards whatever they might be, without needing labels, that you'll do whatever fulfills you and makes you happy rather than what you feel you ought to do.
- Date posted
- 5y
∆∆∆∆i agree with everything scoggy said. I'd try to be "relaxed curious" about the experiences instead of "urgent need to know right now"
- Date posted
- 5y
definitely in the past (and still) they are unwanted thoughts that i feel really bad about. my family is extremely religious and anti-lgbtq. i’m religious as well and these sexual thoughts conflict with my faith. i am afraid that i really am gay and that my family will disown me and shame me all because of my thoughts (even if i don’t act on them). currently, the most pressing thing is that i am conditioned to think theyre “bad” and so i feel really secretive and sneaky and dirty for even thinking them. and it causes me a lot of distress and none of my usual compulsions seem to help them go away.
- Date posted
- 5y
@mb123 The stigmatization and homophobia clearly give OCD some extra grist for the worry mill. It may be a reasonable precaution to not disclose the thoughts to your family- not because the thoughts are meaningful, but because it is likely your family will misunderstand and think they are meaningful
- Date posted
- 5y
Im really scared this is going to happen to me not that theres anything wrong with being gay
- Date posted
- 5y
Keeping in mind the future of your happiness may depend on it, you might want to devise a test. I recommend going to a pubic place with high foot traffic and people-watching to try and identify a type you may like. Sort of initiating yourself into liking men. Do it with a pro-lgbt woman or gay man in your life if you want support. Before you go, you're going to want to groom yourself and practice self-care. Non-greasy food eaten, water drank, facial hair trimmed, maybe a haircut or eyebrow trim. Just putting positive energy into yourself gives you confidence to be yourself, plus looking yourself in the face os nice when you have a lot on your mind
- Date posted
- 5y
Mb123 please ignore everything about the comment I'm replying on.
Related posts
- Date posted
- 17w
I had a bad rumination spiral yesterday and went to bed hoping I’d start over in the morning. I was wrong. I had dreams about liking women and not being attracted to men anymore and my entire body has been in a state of anxiety since. I genuinely feel like I’m gay and just need to accept it. I have this urge to accept it. Maybe if I do I’ll get some sort of relief because this feeling is awful. I feel like my brain is telling me that I’ll get relief if I just accept it and come out. The intrusive thoughts don’t even seem to be around sexual images anymore, just to come out.
- Date posted
- 16w
i had recently been triggered to have so-ocd. its been on my mind non-stop. (i am a heterosexual female) and my mind has been all over the place questioning if i have been in denial the entire time. ive always had people tell me they sort of got that vibe it it never really affected me until my own mother had her suspicions. so i would constantly get triggered un public around the same gender, while knowing my true sexuality. ive always been attracted to men but as of recently ive been having super bad anxiety to where i cannot eat or sleep and feel weak all the time. it was like that for a week or so. now im in the calm where i have been trying accept the uncertainty but it still isnt fair as im getting triggered. im a little worried because it feels like i have been lying to my parents the entire time although ive never had the desire to be with the same gender. and i keep getting intrusive thoguhts that make me feel anxious and uncomfortable. its all starting to affect my friendships as im constantly getting triggered with the intrusive thoguhts. i feel a little less anxious compared to how i was a couple days ago. im really scared on why im having these thoughts now when i have been having romantic feelings for a guy the past year or so. ive also been struggling with false attraction and loss attraction to men. it makes me feel uncertain of my life the entire time
- Date posted
- 11w
I’ve always been straight my whole life and I’ve never considered being different nor have i ever had attraction to women but lately I’ve been going through a lot of different thoughts that definitely feel unlike me. When I was a kid and I don’t remember how old I was but im sure like 7 or 8 and my cousin that was I very close to had me do inappropriate things to her that I didn’t really know anything about at that time. After that happened to me I knew it was wrong and I felt so bad and disgusting and scared but at the time I didn’t really know anything and I remember when my mom would drop me over my grandmas house while she would work, I’d take my grandma’s phone and I looked up kissing videos and I saw the kissing scene from Jennifer’s body and looking back on it I just feel so much shame and confusion bc it certainly feels embarrassing. My cousin always liked girls but I never did. I loved sitting and watching Disney movies preferably princess and the frog and wanting to be a princess getting married to a prince just like in all the movies. I knew who I was from a very young age and that never changed about me. When I learned what porn was at an older age, I started becoming hyper sexual so I watched tutorials videos of women to learn how to pleasure myself. When I was a kid and to now I’ve never looked at women in that way. I’ve had best friends and sleepovers it’s never been anything sexual, romantic, or intimate. Just simply innocent friendships and hangouts. When I got to high school that’s when i started remembering what happened to me and i remember how the girls would talk about their first kisses and i remembered my sa and how I felt so scared to say anything to anyone bc I didn’t want people to think badly of me simply bc my first kiss was like that so I would simply just not say anything. Lately I’ve been having obsessive thoughts out of nowhere wondering if my sexuality has changed or if im bi or is it just my thoughts? I’ve always had ocd and even in school, the kids would pick at me because I always eat my food in order and by the lightest color. But lately it’s gotten worse. It’s like I’ve never had thoughts like this nor have I ever been like this. Not even when I was a child. And humans question themselves of course but this feels like something different. I’ve gotten distant from my best friend who’s also a girl and I’ve just cut off social media and female friend relationships at all because for some reason my brain tells me that it’s “gay” to even hug your friends or hold their hands anymore like you used to do when you were kids. I even got to a point where I would watch women porn and try to masturbate just to see if I was attracted to it or not like that’s how bad the thoughts got. It felt like an evil voice was in my head trying to convince me and sweet talk me to do and enjoy those disgusting things even when my body didn’t want to. I eventually had confided in my bf about it because he was also a victim of sa and so he helped me through it and I stopped doing it but then and my bf (now ex) broke up a couple days ago and now ive been dealing with this alone which feels like the hardest part for me. So I’ve texted my bff a lot to catch up because I’ve been distant dealing with this and I was just checking my phone awaiting for her responses to my texts because she tends to type slow and usually I never think anything of it because I used to check my phone all the time when I would await my boyfriends reply or simply just a text from him and so now im having thoughts like “why am I awaiting her texts” “do I like my friend?” Its just so many obsessive thoughts and so much overthinking that I am getting tired of because It’s been going on for months so I know this is a lot but please if anyone can please help me I beg, it would be such a great help appreciated bc this has became a really big impact on my life and not in a good way lol. Thank you !!
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