Why do I feel doubtful like if I get intrusive thoughts it bothers me but when I say like my thoughts don’t defy me and I know I’m straight I get like a weird panic attack and feel doubtful even writing this makes me feel doubtful but I know what I am and I know what I want and know who I want to be with now I feel doubtful but I don’t like this feeling it makes me sad can anyone relate ???

I hate how my mind is making me doubt of my intentions when i clearly know that I don’t have any desires to act on my thoughts. It makes my intentions feel so uncertain, and sometimes it would even make me feel like if I wanted to act on my thoughts when I actually don’t, because I wouldn’t be doubting if I did. So since I feel my intentions so uncertain I need to come to an answer, and sometimes it is so damn hard to get that answer, which makes me anxious and disturbed. It would also make me think of my past like, how were you okay without having these thoughts? Or makes me think of my future like, will you be okay without these thoughts? So it would make me think that these thoughts are really desires and I won’t be okay unless I act on them. As horrible as it sounds. And I don’t know if someone gets this too but, it would also make me doubt my feelings. When my family tells me cute things like “I love you” and stuff, I would feel so bad, because my thoughts are towards them. So I would say “ily too” but I feel like an hypocrite saying it, or like I don’t mean it at all, so it makes me doubt if I really love them or not. This is all so overwhelming, and I have gone through so many disturbing and crazy thoughts, feelings and situations, that I don’t know if this might be OCD.

My initial thoughts are not as scary bc I’ve been doing erp. For example, when an initial thought comes across I don’t go into panic mode, instead when the thought comes across I tell myself “maybe yes maybe no” and I feel better. But the thing that is getting to me is that the next thought is usually “did you just suppress a gay thought” and that makes me go into panic mode. And I feel bad because I’m like damn if I am suppressing these thoughts that would be sad like why cant i just decide on one so that I could be happy. You know? And I didn’t have these thoughts before. It’s so annoying because I constantly feel like what if I’m in denial. And it makes me question whether I’m happy with or attracted to my boyfriend. I want to be happy so I’m like do I leave him and maybe date women, but then Im like oh no i don’t want to do that I want to be with him and be happy with him. Anyone going through something similar?

Does anyone else feel like when they say their identity out loud it is a lie? Like I am a straight woman and have been straight my whole life and have been in two relationships—both with men who I was happily in love with. I can draw my intrusive thoughts back to childhood, but it was always a very brief experience where I would be like “oh I finally have nothing to worry about” and then my brain would be like “wait nevermind you have to worry about the fact that you are gay and in denial.” But every time, these thoughts would go away and I would never have them when I was actually in my relationships or talking to someone. These fears are now back and more real than ever, making me feel like I am actually physically attracted to women and losing my natural biological attitude to men. I do not want to be gay at all and the thought of being that has been making me physically I’ll because it is just now who I am and want to be. I think what makes this all worse is that it’s been awhile since I’ve been in a relationship, so having these thoughts and feelings feels like reality because I have no recent experience with being in a relationship with a man and because of that, my self esteem is extremely low. I now feel triggered by every little thing in life, from hearing the word “gay”/“lesbian”/“lgbt”/“coming out”, to seeing any women of literally any age or appearance out in public, thinking I must be attracted to them. I keep checking my attraction to both males and females and am fearful because I feel like I am losing my attraction to men, which is something that never happened when these thoughts appeared in my life before this most recent flare up. I don’t know if any other people who identify as straight have similar experiences to this, but I cannot help but feel like I am the exception because I did have these thoughts before now (even though they went away for years). I would appreciate any help/insight because the longer I struggle with these thoughts, the farther and farther I feel my old, true self drifting away. I was always able to hang onto the fact that I want a future with a man and want a husband and kids, but now it’s like even that is gone and even though I never want to be with a woman, it’s like these thoughts have convinced me that I will never be with a man. Please help.