I have HOCD and lately it’s been worse than usual. I’m wondering if it’s because I have met someone I really like. I’ve been getting to know this great guy and feel like I’m bound to screw things up based on the intrusive thoughts that I’m having. I either try to find things wrong with him or with myself. I feel like he could be someone who really could be an amazing addition to my life and I’m finding it so difficult to slow myself down because I’m always worrying about something. I’ve always been someone who feels guilty for their thoughts, like I have to tell someone or I’m not being honest. I feel like I’m hiding something from him when obviously I’m not, because they’re just thoughts. I know the OCD wants me to do this- to question, and to vocalize the thoughts and tell people- but I feel like vocalizing would give the thoughts more power which is exactly what the OCD wants me to do. But I still feel guilty and I’m not sure how to let this go. Tips on how to deal with this?

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...