I’m still doing ERP, and when the thoughts come in I try to ignore it. But now it’s feels like the thoughts are natural and the HOCD is trying to make me like it. No anxiety too. Fuck me.

Whenever I imagined myself in same sex scenarios, I would be filled to the brim with anxiety and panic when it came to sexual scenarios, but romantic scenarios didn’t give me much anxiety or sometimes even at all. My HOCD is now using that as a means to target me and say that “because of the lack of anxiety to romantic scenarios, this means your gay” etc. this manipulation by HOCD is a cruel motherfucker.

@helpplz It is indeed.

@Missy I’m guessing HOCD can make you think you like the thoughts? Or stuff like that?

@helpplz Hi that’s asking for reassurance and will only make things much worse trust me I’ve been down that hole before, it’s a very dark place to be. The point of erp is to do your exposure until you don’t get anxiety, then you do a different exposure until you’re numb essentially, to the thoughts, like they don’t bother you. It’s not that you won’t have the thoughts anymore but you won’t spiral anymore.

@beth21 It’s just a very terrifying thing to experience. Like I just had a thought about some actor and the words “sexy lips” popped up in my head. I posted another thing where I talk about smelling my clothes because I went to Sedona and swam. I put my wet towel and my swimsuit in my bag so I was wondering if my clothes smelled bad from the wet towel and I smelled my clothes. It smelled good because I was in my friends car for several hours with several friends. And now my HOCD is telling me that since I liked the smell of my clothes cause I was in my friends car, this means I’m gay or bisexual. It’s these types of situations that usually end up with me trying to find reassurance. It’s fucking annoying.

@helpplz Yeah I have HOCD too, and it sucks, it really does, and I used to see it all the time, do erp, don’t give into reassurance, a year ago I was in the worst place, not eating, crying all the time, I was a slave to google and coming out discussion boards, suicidal, but I’ve been doing erp for the last two months maybe, and it’s gotten so manageable compared to then, I still get the thoughts but I just have to let them go away on their own without giving in. I don’t really get anxiety much when doing erp, I guess I should switch it up, but it always kills me when I see people asking for reassurance because it only makes it worse and never makes it better, it just makes you spiral more. For example when I get weird thoughts about strangers or even my friends, I just turn it into something like, Yeah Beth, that’s so gay, you’re such a lesbian” telling myself something I know will trigger me and then just going about my day. I have a fashion degree but I used not not wear certain clothes in my closet because it thought it made me look butch, but just yesterday I purposely wore an outfit that I associated with queerness and being lesbian and went out in public with it and let people thing whatever they want. Doing erp is challenging but it’ll get you so much farther than reassurance ever will.