I just discovered what ocd is and I feel like Ive always had this without realizing it. Ive had various themes that lead to intrusive thoughts but recently I cant shake this one off. Its been soo soo bad and I hate living this way. I have sexual intrusive thoughts about a family member and I know I would never do that. Id rather lock myself up than do any of that. I tried to realize that my thoughts were irrational and my anxiety lessened until I read a post yesterday about a guy who said that his ocd fear turned real. He was having intrusive thoughts about men when he always seemed to like women. He says that now he only finds men attractive. I want to think that this person was also bisexual but didn’t want to admit it and thats why he had anxiety. Many people say we should just accept uncertainty but I just cant when it comes to the particular ocd thoughts I’m having. This is about a family member. I just can’t and this frightened me. Does anyone have some advice? This family member and I had such a good bond and I never thoight about this before until a weird thoight that randomly popped up once. Now I dont even want to be near that person. Pls I would appreciate any help! Thank you for reading in advance

It’s very very common to have these sorts of intrusive thoughts about family when you have ocd. It looks like you were doing a compulsion (internet research seeking reassurance about ocd) and it backfired on you, creating a really bad trigger. I’d encourage you to stop doing internet research about things like whether or not someone’s ocd theme came true. We don’t know enough about who this person is, whether they actually have ocd, or what he means when he says he’s only attracted to men now. OCD loves to go deep into the internet for evidence our themes might end up true. But one story online has nothing to do with whether your theme is “true” or not. Are you in therapy with an ocd specialist? Getting a proper diagnosis and specialized care with erp would really help you. You need to learn to practice having these thoughts and not performing any sort of compulsions to make yourself feel better (like reassurance seeking, internet research, avoidance, physical or mental checking, mental reviewing etc) to try to find certainty about your feelings and try to neutralize, disprove, or get rid of the thoughts. That’s where erp and mindfulness come into play.

Do not run away from situations that bring up the thoughts - we call that avoidance. Instead, exposure is about placing yourself or your mind in situations where those thoughts occur and your anxiety spikes. Response prevention is about not performing compulsions (such as avoidance) that make the thoughts “go away”. The more you try to make the thoughts go away, the more they will persist and bug you. In the end, try to be able to sit with the thoughts, the discomfort, and the uncertainty. Teach yourself that this is an uncomfortable thought to have, but that is OKAY. You are not your thoughts, and thoughts do not equal action. Please, work with a trained OCD specialist on an ERP hierarchy. Best of luck!