How have you guys dealt with your stickiest / most long lasting theme? For me this is HOCD; I had other themes popping up in the last few months but I was able to get past them quite quickly with acceptance and a sort of shrugging manner, like ‘the probability of this happening isn’t enough for me to waste my time obsessing over’. However HOCD has always been different, it was what started my ocd and what I obsessed over for a year before discovering I had this disorder, and it often feels like when I decide not to obsess over it, I’m just sweeping the issue under the rug and not thinking about it. I’m better with a lot of the triggers but the big ones, like ‘comphet’ and my relationship nerves, are so hard to ignore. A part of me is always saying ‘you’re just ignoring this, you shouldn’t be!’. This is always been the theme where I find it so hard to distance myself from the content and look at it from an ocd perspective because when something relates to your identity say, I find it harder to ignore than obsessions about health or existentialism for example.

Here are some things that make me feel alone and isolated in my journey with sexual orientation OCD: 1. This feels like a complete identity crisis. I think that is what makes it so hard. It seems to go against everything I believe myself to be and who I always have identified as. 2. My compulsions, thoughts, triggers, and everything else that comes along with this disease feels and seems like I’m the only one that struggles with those things. My thoughts and images in my head often seems so real that it can only be me in denial. 3. Because this sub type of OCD is so sexual in nature, it has made my sex life with my husband, a really hard situation. Because I always get afraid and sex that I will think of these thoughts, I subconsciously then think of those thoughts, and if I have any type of feeling associated with those thoughts, it feels like proof that those thoughts are real and that makes it even harder. 4. Because a lot of the pleasure that comes with sex is on hot for me while I’m figuring out in this journey with OCD, my mind has convinced me that it is because I will only feel those things if I were with someone at the same sex (I am a straight female. I have a fear of being homosexual.). Well, all those things have made it really hard for me to function daily, I am doing a lot better at finding ways to combat those. I wanted to offer some of the things that I find that help me move past these thoughts and while it’s not always a perfect fix, it’s really helped. 1. I tried to remind myself daily that while love is a feeling it’s also choice. I have to remind myself to get up every single day and choose my husband not because I always feel like choosing him because that is who I choose. That is who I want. That is who I want to grow a relationship with to have a child with Thus why I always don’t feel that love, I always choose it. And while this can be really hard because just society as a whole has made us have these unrealistic ideas about what love is and made us think that love is just this huge with butterflies and sparks, it’s not always that. 2. I try to remind myself that these are just thoughts. And thoughts are not who I am. I don’t have to become the thoughts. I’m not a bad person for thinking of thoughts, and I don’t have to believe the thoughts. 3. When I get, like I often do, groinal responses to the things that I am thinking or seeing in my mind I just remind myself that those are responses to the anxiety I have. I’m not thinking those because I want to think those, but it’s in a response too The fear that I will think those and that I will get that response and then in turn I get the response. 4. I tried to remind myself that this isn’t a fear of coming out like if I was gay, this is a fear associated with a thought that I would be because that’s not who I am. If I really was gay, I would like the thought I would like the pleasure and I would be afraid of coming out. But in this situation, I don’t want any of the thoughts not because I’m afraid of coming out of this because it’s not who I am. If that makes sense.

I was just thinking about how OCD tries to be tricky and switches themes on us!! The amount of times I have said to myself in the past, IF ONLY I HAD THE OLDER THEME I USE TO WORRY ABOUT BECAUSE THIS NEW ONE IS SO MUCH WORSE!!! Has anyone ever experienced this before? Once I started ERP therapy, I began to really start understanding what mental/physical compulsions I was doing to really keep my OCD alive! While I did this, I would also tap into my self-compassion bucket, even when it felt like it was dry at times, because it was SO easy to judge myself for because of the sheer presence of my thoughts. I would also have the most self-compassion for myself for those taboo intrusive thoughts that really felt so strong, ego-dystonic and real!!! My OCD would hop around from theme to theme and just when I thought I figured it out (compulsion) it would hop again and make me discouraged! I noticed for me that once I really understood my compulsions, it didn't matter when the theme switched as I could tackle it at its core. If I was able to stay steadfast and resist compulsions the best I could, I started to notice that my CONFIDENCE increased in the long run! I also noticed that some of the core fears were the same for different OCD subtypes. OCD treatment is hard BUT living with OCD is harder. I have experienced subtypes including Harm OCD, ROCD, Moral Scrupulosity, Sensorimotor, Contamination, Perfectionism/Just Right, Hit and Run, Magical Thinking, Real Event/False Memory. ERP therapy allowed me to really work on stopping these compulsions and switching from theme to theme. I was fed up with what OCD took from me and I needed to do something about it. I talked to an ERP therapist and it was one of the best decisions of my life. If you are struggling, keep pushing and get the help you deserve!! You got this!!!

Struggling with TOCD has probably been the hardest theme I’ve had to deal with so far For reference. I’m a gay male 20yr old Before this theme I was so open with my gender expression, love drag and used to do it for a time. A lot of my friends are trans women and my whole life is queer When this theme hit. It’s like I completely lost who I was. Questioning everything I enjoyed, not participating in anything because it triggered me so heavily. I went through a whole gender journey awhile back and the trans path never spoke to me when I looked into it. I love my physique and my face but now when I look into the mirror i feel like a shell of who I was. I can’t find any sort of pure enjoyment without the accompanying “what if” or “you’re this” intrusive thought I still enjoy how I look. I’ve not looked in the mirror and felt like anything is missing from me or needs to be taken away I just feel like a spectator in my life while this disease tells me I’m not who I know myself to be I affirm myself every day I know who I am and it may change in the future but that’s not important. It’s highly unlikely it will but it may! Giving into the uncertainty has been so hard but it’s worth it! My ocd has really picked up since getting into my first serious relationship I care about my boyfriend with my whole heart but over the course of our relationship my themes have included Health Relationship Irreality Harm I just want to be who I was again before this current theme it feels unbearable to live like this BUT! I’m seeking appropriate treatment and not giving into a majority of compulsions I just wanted to write this to see if anyone can relate and if they do. Know that you will overcome this! I know I will and you will too