- Username
- sim8964
- Date posted
- 5y ago
Oh okay gotcha! People use HOCD for both terms sometimes so I got confused!!! Okay so I had SEVERE sexual orientation OCD, I convinced myself I was gay and thought it would never go away, that i would always be plagued with being a “lesbian”. But I am totally back to normal now!!! It’s completely gone, it’s just your fear of being gay that causes you to be “sure” you “must be gay”. I had the exact same thing and I am not. It doesn’t change your sexual identity, it’s just the stress hormones released by your anxiety that make your normal sex drive not as strong :)
Please believe me, I struggled so long and so hard, ever day with it. But it is gone now. Completely. I still feel anxious, but anxiety apart from the story we give it is SO EASY to extinguish!
Gotcha, I’m glad to hear that! I’ve also been away for 2 weeks for the holidays, so I haven’t seen him at all in person and we’ve only been talking via FaceTime and text. So I’ve had a lot of free time to be ruminating and worrying. Any tips on dealing with the guilt thing around the thoughts?
Just knowing that those thoughts are just neural pathways ocd has carved out, but the more you just dismiss them as fake and just like not worth thinking about at all bc I promise you no matter how bad or real they seem, they aren’t. I spent a YEAR worried about my sexuality and I wasted that time worrying about something that wasn’t going to be changed no matter how much I thought i was lesbian, I wasn’t. Working on dismissing them creates neural pathways the thought patterns that are positive, and positive thought patterns release more dopamine and feel good chemicals so you will begin to feel better day to day :) does that help? Let me know if you are stuck on something specific
Hi Dianaaa, I’m interested to know what kind of ERP or things you did to challenge and ultimately dismiss the HOCD?
Harm ocd? Or sexual orientation ocd?
Sexual orientation OCD
I feel like I won’t be truly happy with him unless I tell him about it- then I know that’s exactly what the anxiety wants me to do, because that gives it attention when it doesn’t need to be given attention.
Tell him! Be honest about it but also include “that’s what my ocd makes me feel.” Let him know you are aware of it. If he is a good guy and right for you; he will not judge you and understand. We all have weird things we think about, even people without ocd!
Had a feeling you might say that- and I agree that if he’s a good guy and the right guy he’d understand. But I don’t want to tell him. I don’t want to give the ocd the attention that I know it is craving, and I don’t want to give in to what my brain is telling me to do. It’s almost like “tell them or else ___ will happen”. But if I don’t, and I just keep going, and that horrible thing doesn’t happen- maybe that will help me understand it’s all in my head and it will go away. All I know is that I’ve never met anyone like him and I could see us being so amazing together- I couldn’t imagine him not being around. The OCD is just making it so hard for me to let all this go ??
I don’t think you will be giving ocd attention if you tell him - I think it will be reducing and harmful to the ocd because you aren’t letting it make you do anything, you are purposefully letting him know. People with other things like severe depression or scizophrenia — more severe but still - need to inform their significant others of this fact bc it takes the attention back onto the person despite being honest about your struggles. Don’t tell him Bc if I don’t then_____, tell him bc I think he deserves to know if you all have a shot. But that’s my opinion, hope I’m helping
I actually did not do erp, just waited it out in agony for a year!!! Convinced myself I was lesbian, has groinal responses, literal false attraction that was so real, every single night for a year. I just learned whenever we obsess about something with ocd, it’s completely ego dystonic, which it’s never about something we are or will do, only things we are afraid of doing. This fact does not make the ocd go away but it takes you out of trapping yourself in the fear...
Anyone with HOCD/ROCD have any tips about going on a date when the thought of it makes you want to die of anxiousness? I’ve been talking to this guy on tinder who seems nice and everything but every time in the past that I’ve started talking to someone and say yes to a date, I literally cancel the next day cause I’m so deathly afraid. This isn’t even necessarily ocd’s fault I’ve always just been scared to death of this kinda thing but obviously having hocd, and what I believe is pre-rocd thoughts, make it seem literally impossible. But I WANT it. I think about having a boyfriend all the time. Ocd is so detrimental to everything you want it’s so frustrating. Ik- news flash haha. Anyways. Should I go? Is this bad timing- will I make everything worse for myself? He’s really cute and seems really nice. Jeez idk idk idk.
Ok... I was doing good until a few weeks ago. I really was making a lot of progress until a few weeks ago. Backdoor spikes turned up and ocd came back with full force. Or at least I think it's ocd... I hope it is. My theme is hocd, by the way. I try to not give the thoughts much attention, but they're making me mad. It feels so real, and when I see coming out stories it just adds up, as if I should come out too. It terrifies me, every day I think about wanting to die, to not wake up, to cease existing. It's been so draining, and so lonely. I don't want to be in the closet, I don't want to have romantic relationships with women. And ocd makes me question why that: because of my morals? What if your sexuality goes deeper than your morals and you're just denying you like women? Maybe you should try it out, you'd like it. This scares me so. much. And the thing is: I watch same sex porn. It turns me on. I've seen on the internet many women actually watch same sex porn, but ocd makes me question if my case isn't different from other women. All the time I'm worried that I'll just lose control and kiss any woman that's by my side. I haven't had any experience with men either, as I'm reserved and a hopeless romantic (high expectations). I've liked men before, though, and I still have many crushes today. Ocd tries to convince me this is just a cover up. This is just destroying my life. This is daily torture, I can't imagine myself living with this forever. What am I supposed to tell my eventual boyfriend, my husband? How am I supposed to have children in this state of mind? What if some day I just snap out of this and actually realize I'm gay? What if this question is actually me already admitting that I am in fact gay? Honestly, it's too much. This was quite hard to write, and I tried to include here as much as possible of my insecurities. If you read till here I'm grateful. Just wanted to say that I DON'T have anything against gay people, even though they're making me very anxious since this all started, which adds up to my endless collection of intrusive thoughts (it makes me think I'm in denial because of some prejudice).
I’m new to this app and just wanted to share my story. As a young girl I definitely had compulsions. My mom always told me she would take me to a psychiatrist (I would cry when people sat on my bed). Anyways, as I got older I definitely grew out of a lot of things. I’ve never been diagnosed with OCD but I have GAD. I know I definitely have OCD because I have done a lot of research. Recently I have really, really been struggling with HOCD. I’ve never experienced this before, and that’s why it’s making it more scary. I’m a young adult woman and have been in a very serious relationship with a male for many years. I love him so much. I am also very athletic and not very girly. I always loved the fact that I was a guys gal, but lately it has made me super insecure. A lot of people at school assume I’m bisexual because I’m super pro LGBTQ rights and idk? Idk why I give off that “vibe”. It never bothered me, I always thought it was funny, and I have no issue with being gay, but I’m definitely not?! During this quarantine my guy friends have said I have way way more guy friends than girl friends, someone asked my teammate if I was bisexual, and I have never had an orgasm from my boyfriend. It started really getting in my head and I keep being like “am I gay and that’s why I don’t orgasm”. This seems so pathetic and writing this actually helps and makes me realize there is no way I like women. But anyways THE THOUGHTS DO NOT STOP. I keep worrying that I do not know myself, and maybe I don’t love my bf, and maybe other people see something I don’t. Anyways, how can I help myself? I am noticing I’m reassuring and checking and starting compulsions
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