Im really involved with my church and I ya youth ministry. Something I am doing is researching and looking into the Bible and what is says about the LGBTQ+ community. Personally, I don’t think there is anything wrong with same sex attraction it marriage. I’m not one of those people who says “I don’t support same sex marriage but I still love you” no I support all of it. I struggle with HOCD, and it used to be very very very bad, but then I got treatment and after intense ERP I was able I get a bit of my life back. I was able to like boys without worrying that I secretly liked girls and didn’t know it. Of course I still struggle from time to time, but not as much as I used to. Doing this research is kind of triggering, but it’s important to do because I want to make an argument that LGBTQ+ marriage and rights is ok and there is nothing wrong with this community. But I was doing some research online, I searched “what’s does the Bible say about being LGBTQ+” and I clicked on a website that said it talked about the Bible, but then it randomly took me to a sight that was for gay men to find other gay men and it had random pictures with men holding there penis’s out and such. Even though I am 17, I have never really exposed myself to stuff like that especially since I’m saving my first time for my husband. But then when I realized I wasn’t attracted or aroused by those unwanted and sudden images, I began to freak out. I started getting that feeling in my stomach that I had when I first got HOCD. When I was about 11 or 12, I was exposed to lesbian porn and was aroused by it (this only lasted for about 1 or 2 months and then I stopped because if felt icky to do it. Also I didn’t masturbate or anything I just watched it and was a roused). Even as a young girl I knew I liked guys and wanted to marry a guy one day, I mean I was boy crazy. And despite being aroused by that lesbian porn stuff, it didn’t make me doubt I was straight. But then when I was like 15 or 16 the HOCD started and that stuff came back to nip me in the butt and I constantly worried that because of the porn stuff that meant I was attracted to woman and was just in denial about it. Which made me feel sick because I didn’t want to date a girl because the idea of doing that didn’t feel right to me. But now because of what happened with the website leading me to that gay dating site thing, and I wasn’t aroused or attracted to the stuff I saw, my HOCD I starting to freak me out again. I know I’m attracted to guys, all I ever think about is having a boyfriend and getting married, I’m kind of a hopeless romantic. But because of all that stuff in the past and then what happened today does that mean I’m actually gay and just in denial of it? My worst fear is that either I will have my first kiss with a guy and then realize I’m gay, or one day a random woman will just come into my life and I will realize I am gay and want to be with her. This really sucks and I’m scared because within seconds now I feel like I’m back at squarer one after battling this OCD stuff head on for 2 years :(

trigger warning!!!!!! I’m really scared right now. I’ve been reading Elle Warren’s articles about her experience with HOCD/SO-OCD, and it feels so similar to mine. She went through the same fears of being a lesbian, felt distressed by her attraction to women, and spent hours ruminating, Googling, and analyzing her feelings. She even experienced groinal responses and revisited old memories, just like I do. Eventually, she had a moment of realization in college when she flirted with a girl, and everything clicked. She now identifies as a lesbian. I’m terrified that the same thing will happen to me. I thought the OCD fears were supposed to never be true and that HOCD thoughts are usually just compulsions that don’t end up being real. But reading her story, it’s like I’m seeing my own experience mirrored. What if it clicks for me, just like it did for her? What if I realize that I am a lesbian? Elle’s story makes me so scared. I thought my feelings of attraction to women were just OCD-driven, and now I’m questioning everything. I thought I was straight, but now, reading her journey, I’m wondering: could my OCD fears actually be real? Elle’s experience was very similar to mine: • She got distressed when she thought she might like women, not relieved. • She spent a lot of time ruminating, Googling, analyzing, and comparing. • Her attraction to women only became intense when her OCD flared up. • She said things like, “I feel peace when I believe I’m straight.” • She had already been diagnosed with OCD and had a history of this pattern. After years of fear and distress, Elle had a moment of calm and realized that it was true. I’m scared that this could happen to me too. Will I have a similar moment of acceptance, where everything clicks and I realize I’m gay? Or will I come to accept that this is all OCD, and that I’m straight, with the possibility that I’m not? I also keep thinking back to when my OCD lessened the first time. Did I go back to men because I wasn’t actually attracted to women, or was it just because the grip of the OCD had loosened? Elle also talked about the shame associated with non-heterosexuality. She mentioned that, like many of us, she had internalized stigma around being gay, and that it made her fear the possibility of being non-heterosexual. I can relate to this so much—growing up, I never saw it as an option to be anything other than straight, and now it’s hard to shake that fear and shame. Elle mentioned that she found reassurance in seeing other people with HOCD who worried that their fears would come true, but eventually realized they were just OCD thoughts. That idea is comforting, but also a little scary, because what if that moment of realization happens for me too? What if I finally accept that I am a lesbian? Or, what if I’m just struggling with OCD and eventually realize I’m straight? I just don’t know. The scariest part is that, just like Elle, I feel like I don’t have any obvious signs. She had no idea she was a lesbian until one day, everything clicked. She was 21, just like me when my OCD fears really flared up, and she had a breakthrough moment in Denver when she made friends with lesbians. That hasn’t happened for me yet, and it’s terrifying to think that it could happen in the future. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I’m really scared about where this will lead.

First I want to start off with, as a kid, my brother touched me inappropriately, I watched him do the same with my cousin, than later on I did the same to my cousin. I feel great shame for it and I have yet to forgive myself. Now, since than 10 years later, I have always loved women, fantasized about women, constantly prayed to have one and do things to be with one 1 day. I struggled with porn a lot as a kid because I was shown it at such a young age. I remember first watching lesbian porn, than moving to guy and girl, than countdowns, etc. I was so hooked that it took an identity crisis to end this porn addiction. (I have only been sober for 3 weeks.) Now I only mention this because I think my porn addiction somewhat ruined me, same way as what I did in the past did. A year ago, I started to talk to a childhood crush I had, and things felt so great. We started to get along but I knew all I wanted to do was have sex and move on as wrong as that is. I ended up falling in love with her and asked her to be my girl. 9 months in, we were having constant arguments and she had this problem where she couldn’t give me a break. We were with each other 24/7 and it felt like dealing with a sister at some point. I remember talking to my friends and asking them what would they do and they always advised me to leave but I was not willing to because I knew I loved her and the way I was feeling was temporary and couples argue. Couple weeks in, I started to have these thoughts that we weren’t going to work out and that I no longer found her attractive. I kinda ignored them because it simply wasn’t true, I still found her attractive and would get hard ons for her yet, I still had this mindset that, “Oh, there’s other hotter girls” and, “Your ex looked so much better.” and I couldn’t stop these thoughts. One day I randomly woke up and remembered what I did as a kid, my whole world felt like it flipped. The thoughts were now, “what if you don’t like her because you’re secretly gay?”. I first laughed at the thought because of how ridiculous it sounded, but than it just kept going. Two weeks from a cycle of unwanted thoughts (1st stage of my ocd), I finally got over the thought with simple toughness and determination, I did lots of research on what was going on with me and went with the, “thoughts are just thoughts” method. I was doing well until we watch a netflix documentary “American Murder: Gabby Petito” and all of a sudden my mind began to think, “What if I’m secretly a psychopath and want to kill my gf?”. For about a week straight, It’s all I was able to think about. It scared me so much and I didn’t know what to do. I started to get urges to KILL my gf. I didn’t know what to do so I left the room and crawled up in a ball, crying to god asking for help.These thoughts went away but were quickly replaced by, “You want to kill your gf because you’re just gay”. This sent me into such great panic, I couldn’t eat for days and couldn’t feel anything but anxiety. Days went by and I finally went to a doctor, at first I started to feel better as If I was getting help and things were going to be okay. The thoughts went away again as I began to start doing more things and get out of my room (head). I felt like I was back again, I was able to love my gf, I started to go to church, I felt that god was real and than boom. Here I am again and this time things have gotten really bad. I can’t stop “checking”. As soon as I wake up I check if my gf is “good” enough for me. I check my past and see if I have ever done anything that show signs of being gay. I check out other girls and guys to see whether or not I like one or the other. Even when I accepted the possibility that maybe I am just gay, my mind will fight me and tell me that I’m more than just gay. Truth is, I don’t know anymore. I’ve always loved girls and my gf. I don’t know if this is OCD anymore but I wish for my old life again. I’ve always been so proud of my sexuality and loved everything about it. I never been homophobic but gay stuff does make me uncomfortable. Each day feels like I lost another part of me. I feel like I can’t live like this anymore. I lost all my belief in god, my morals and value feel so weak, and my life is no longer a fun enjoyable thing to look forward to. I need help.

I tried checking if I like gay stuff and it’s genuinely disgusting to me. I can tell whether or not a man is attractive and when they are it does scare me and makes me question myself yet, it’s always the same response, I don’t get how you can do that with another man. Doing anything sexual just feels so gross and wrong. I don’t think that I am magically turning gay. I don’t think my orientation is changing or hasn’t been explored. I simply find that stuff gross. I have never had anything wrong with gay people and I am a true believer that people have choices they can make with free will so it’s not that I’m homophobic, just keep that stuff away from me lol. Saying so, I don’t get why I am getting these thoughts. These images in my head, constant need of checking if I fall in the spectrum, constant checking whether I like someone of any gender, constant checking whether or not I am getting groinal responses. No matter what answer I get, my mind still wants an answer, an answer to the next question that it’ll create after answering the one before it. I have always liked girls and always been so proud of it, I am in a relationship right now with a beautiful girl I’ve had a crush on since 2nd grade. (I am 19) Whatever mental illness I have has ruined our relationship. Everything feels forced on my side, I don’t remember the joy I had before this but I have glimpse throughout the days of the things we’ve done together that makes me happy and look forward to life. I am constantly checking to see if my attraction is still there for her and the scary part is, when I am stuck in my head, I am not but, to alter that, when I get that freedom and feel like my normal self, I get a hyper amount of love for her and it feels so nice. These thoughts all began after me and my girlfriend had an argument, 5 months ago we got in an argument over her not giving me enough space. She always wanted to be a part of a plan with my male friends. I never minded her when it was just us two so it’s not that I hated being with her, it was just that I had no time to be independent. ( I also had no job and nothing going for myself. ) One odd day after spending so much time stuck in the house due to weather, I had random thought on whether or not I truly loved her. We were only 4 months into the relationship so I didn’t have an answer and since it felt like I needed an answer, it became obsessive, I couldn’t stop checking. After hours with that thought, I started to wonder whether or not I was interested in other things like K I D S. This thought was an automatic no and I began to fight it. I wasn’t going to accept that, each day felt like a living hell. The questions would change each day, do I miss my ex, was my ex better, do I like my M O M, do I want to K I L L so and so, do I want to kill myself. One day I woke up and had it all in control, felt like magic, after I watched a video on ROCD and realized, oh, I am not the only one but, this is where my compulsions got even worse. I couldn’t stop checking the internet, seeing if I relate to others, watching more videos. I regret this everyday because this compulsion created so many new thoughts and questions for me to answer. About 2-3 weeks went by and a thought passed by that has been stuck with me since along with other thoughts. I thought back to what I did as kid and in the past. I remembered a traumatic event where my brother touched me (5yr old M) inappropriately. This made me question whether or not I liked it and I couldn’t find an answer, couple years (10yr old M) after that I unfortunately did the same to my cousin (8yr old M). I feel so much shame and guilt for it. My mind turned black and white, “Maybe this isn’t a do you like your girl or not but instead, maybe you just like boys I mean, you obviously never asked yourself if you like what you did so”. This question was terrifying for me because it meant that I could no longer love my girl, my whole life till now has been a lie. So I began to question everything in my past up to date to find an answer. No matter what answer I fed my mind, it would not be satisfied and simply create more questions. It felt like my mind was forcing me to be gay, whether or not I liked it. 4 months has passed and the questions have just gotten worse, something I was initially so afraid of. I am in constant fight or flight mode, I am always anxious and I can’t feel nothing. I get times of relief when I am reminded of my past, when my gf turns me on, or when I find an answer to question my mind conjured up. I started to go to church but it’s always been a struggle for me to believe. I can’t go to the gym anymore because everywhere I look I am questioning myself. My porn addiction has went away but mostly because I can’t find anything attractive anymore. I can only find comfort and discomfort. Something that was once so easy for me would 1 day be nonexistent and hard to live without. I don’t know what the truth is anymore. My life feels like a made-up lie. Though I have always loved women, fantasized about them, get extremely nervous around them, pray for them, romanticize them, etc. I now have no idea what it feels like to be in love, interested, or even happy for a woman. My attraction hasn’t vanished completely, I still can look a girl and be stunned, l simply just can’t destroy the feeling it gives me. I get so anxious and begin to question everything about the women, the feeling, myself. I am having a crisis.