Hi - my daughter for the past 3 months has had thoughts she is becoming gay. She was completely straight before then and she has had active crushes on guys. She currently obsesses on being gay all day and she feels like the thoughts are so real. She is 12 going on 13. She has even started questioning her crushes by saying “did I even like them”. She looks at girls and wonders if she will kiss them or she thinks they are pretty and then gets worried she might act upon her thoughts. I am just not sure how to help her . I think this is HOCD

Thanks I will do that. Also she says she doesn’t want to do any kind of exposure therapy- it gives her anxiety. And she doesn’t know what she wants to be - gay or straight . The HOCD I think has messed with her brain

This sounds like HOCD! Awesome job on your part for reaching out, that's really beautiful to see a helpful and concerned family member on here. I agree with my peers, I think you should let her have an account and perhaps let her receive therapy through NOCD. It is effective and it will be difficult for her but it is the best possible way to ease the discomfort in the long run. OCD is not easy to deal with, it is a chronic condition. But with the right help, she will start to live a better life and gain control of her OCD symptoms.

Thank you . She is so scared to create an account. She is even scared to her help. Before her hocd kicked in she use to watch romance movies with me - now she doesn’t do that because she thinks she will only look at the women. I told her let’s look at a Victoria’s Secret catalog together she said no because she will have anxiety after that. Today when she was in the shower she thought a friend of hers who is a female and she said she thought about kissing her and she had a panic attack In the shower and had to come out. She has been straight for as long as she can remember , and has had huge crushes on guys but now she refuses to believe me when I tell her someone cannot just turn gay overnight . I don’t know how else to make her take the first step towards recovery. Any help is appreciated

This is HOCD for sure. If she is obsessing over it to the point that it is taking over her day I think it is HOCD.

She says the HOCD thoughts feel so real. I just don’t know what to do. I want to help her but I also want to tell her she isn’t turning gay.

Should I have her hang out with some male friends she has had crushes on? Some of our friends - their kids have sons and she has liked them in the past. Because of Covid we have not seen each other. A friend of hers came out last year as gay and that didn’t affect my daughter at that time. Now my daughter says that she has fantasies about rhis friend all the time in her dream. What could be the connection ? Also- up until 4 months ago she had her life planned out and she would grow up and get married to a man and have kids. Now she has anxiety because she says she sees that same life with a woman and the uncertainty kills her. She says she wants to grow up and see what she “wants”. Is this all Normal In HOCD type of behavior

Thanks- what kind of compulsions can she do. Yesterday I told her because she was so convinced she is gay. I told her “ok it’s fine . You are gay . Let’s move on. Let’s accept that you are gay and we will deal with it one day at a time “. Then she replies back with “ my brain wants me to be gay but I don’t want to be gay “. I guess that’s a sign this is a HOCD thing ?

She also said that she thinks crush on her aunt ( my sil) , her algebra teacher because she said she thought she was cute and pretty. This all started in the last 3 months

May I add somewhere in between she has also has sexual thoughts of men and women and family members. I guess that falls under the sexual obsessions ocd umbrella

My daughter is talking to a therapist now and every time the discussion of sexuality comes up the therapist “it’s ok... it’s ok if you don’t know who you are attracted to right now ... you have your whole life to figure this out”. I truly do not think rhis is a proper therapist who knows how to handle HOCD.

I told my daughter not to get overwhelmed with the thoughts. All she thinks about is how she will end up doing stuff with a woman. Etc etc . How she will grow up and run away with a woman but until 3 months ago she was going to grow up and get married to a man

And she keeps wanting to increase her dosage of medication. My daughter is on 25 mg Zoloft and the therapist keeps suggesting increasing the dose