Let’s share our tips for living with an open / unanswered question! For me, the open question I live with is “how do I know I’m not / don’t be attracted to (insert taboo content)?”

I know the solution is to always say “yeah that could be true, but I am choosing to live my life anyway.” However, I feel like my biggest issue is my brain always assuming that it is immediately true when I do that. Like if I say “maybe I’m attracted to teenagers, it’s possible,” then my brain INSTANTLY starts rationalizing that thought and defending it and being like “oh okay so you think this now and it makes sense because xyz, and now that’s who you are and your real desire is now and always will be teenagers.” I feel really alone in this area of feeling like my brain “accepting the thoughts” means my brain immediately accepts them as true. I obviously don’t want to think they’re true but I feel so stuck now.

(Possible TW; mentions of taboo sexual topics.) Hi, I (22M), have been suffering with OCD for many years now since I was a kid, and I suffer with POCD in particular as one of my main themes. On top of that, since I was young I've also had quite an excessive use of porn, which led to me to watching or reading quite a lot of different taboo porn/hentai and erotica. I engaged with a lot incest content, and when I was younger and going through puberty, I (unfortunately) even looked at a lot of animal hentai/erotica too (most of it being fake obviously, but I did seem some real stuff too which also aroused me. This is another main theme of my OCD, and I should stress that I very much regret, and I haven't interacted with such content for many years, nor have I felt the desire to, and the fact that I ever did makes me feel very disgusted and ashamed of myself). Now, groinal responses are one of the parts which I struggle with most, mainly because the feel incredibly real. Often times, my brain will create these very graphic and detailed sexual thoughts, surrounding whatever taboo theme, (it doesn't matter really; I struggle with pretty much all kinds of themes you can think of lol) and a lot of the times, I try and let the thoughts just pass without freaking out or reacting to them, but it feels like the longer I allow the thoughts to sit in my mind, the higher chance I have of becoming "aroused". For instance, if I have a sexual thought about a close family member, and simply let it happen, it feels like my brain focuses on the taboo aspect of it and tries to make the thoughts seem more detailed, or "erotic", and it causes an intense erection, very similar to how it feels when I look at any kind of "kinky" or taboo porn. Obviously this makes me worry even more, because it makes it feel even more real which only makes me question myself even more. It's like there's a disconnect between my brain and my body, because no matter how horrified of these thoughts I am, and how much I want to avoid any of those topics, my body feels like it's on a different page altogether, and becomes aroused, and sometimes even more intensely than it is with "regular" arousal. Another example is through my years of excessive porn use, I looked at a lot of (again, fictional) incest porn, a lot of which was centered around mother-son relationships. In all honesty, I probably do have a bit of an incest kink, but only between people who AREN'T my real family. I don't fantasise about my own family members, instead I usually just imagine made up, fictional characters. I'm so worried that now I've created an association within my brain between that topic and arousal, because of two reaons; One, I even experience arousal when I see people recalling real events of incest (I should mention that through the posts I've seen, it was all between consenting adults. Not that it makes it necessarily much better, but I thought I should clarify). Even though it seems to arouse me, at least physically, I try to do my best to avoid such content because it just feels wrong given that it's real. Additionally, my brain will throw intrusive thoughts at me of my own real mother, and it feels like it causes this same "taboo arousal" that the porn itself does. I do not want to be aroused or attracted by mother in any way, so this in particular is quite bothersome for me. So my question is, is it possible that over the years of watching different kinds of porn, I've trained my brain to become aroused by "forbiddeness" or taboo aspect, and THAT'S why I feel physical arousal from my intrusive thoughts? It feels like in my mind it makes sense, because as I mentioned before my body seems to react to ANY kind of sexual taboo, even ones I never had any interest in at all (enter POCD). But at the same time, my mind is trying to convince me that I'm just lying to myself to make myself feel better lol. I'm trying to look for reassurance, but I would like to know if anyone has any information on this kind of thing. I'm not currently in therapy as right now I simply don't have the funds for it, but I am working on finding a therapist as soon as possible. I apologise for the long post, and thank you all for any help. :)

Hey everyone, I’m reaching out because I’ve been going through one of the hardest mental spirals of my life, and I’m hoping someone can relate or shed light on what’s happening to me. About 4 months ago, I accidentally came across a trans porn scene. It didn’t do much at the time, but later it triggered this overwhelming intrusive thought: “What if I’m gay?” Since then, it’s been absolute hell. I’ve always been into women—emotionally, sexually, everything. I’ve been in a long-term relationship with a girl I love deeply. But after that moment, my brain started spiraling into nonstop analysis. I began checking how I felt around men, whether I felt attraction, whether I was in denial, whether I was lying to myself. Literally everything became a test. I got stuck in this loop: • A thought pops in → panic • Try to solve it → brief relief • Another thought → worse panic • Repeat. At times, it got so bad I couldn’t feel anything at all—toward my girlfriend, toward women, toward myself. I started doubting everything. Some days, I feel emotionally flat, like I’ve lost my personality. Other days, I wake up with a full-body jolt of “truth” like “I’m definitely gay”—only for it to fade into numbness again. I’ve also noticed that I get short bursts of peace when I stop reacting, but then the fear comes back louder, like “See? Now you’re accepting it. That means it’s true.” Therapy hasn’t helped much so far—it felt more like general counseling. They told me to sit with the thoughts, but didn’t clarify if this was OCD, identity questioning, or trauma. That just made it worse because now I’m back to thinking “What if I’m just rejecting my truth?” I’m exhausted. I’ve lost connection to everything I used to love. • I want to love my girl again the way I used to • I want to feel desire without overthinking • I want to trust myself again I’m not looking for reassurance—I just want to know if anyone else has gone through something like this, and if this sounds like HOCD or identity OCD. Thanks for reading.