Does anyone have any feedback on if Zoloft helped them with their HOCD ? My daughter is on 25 mg and the doctor thinks she should go on 50 Mg because her HOCD has not gone away . It comes and goes in phases so wanted to see feedback

She cries every now and then . Says “I don’t know who I am anymore “

Have her do erp it will help. For an hour have your daughter look at pictures of women in regular clothing like casual clothing for an hr swiping through them left to right and every 10 minutes stop and assess her anxiety and then keep going. It pauses the distress for every time she stops to assess her anxiety every 10 minutes. Have her do this every other day for the 1st week and then when she no longer feels distress from this exercise have her sit with a picture of a women dressed in casual clothing for 5 minutes and after looking at pictures of 2 women have her rate her anxiety it would have been 10 minutes by then once she stops to assess her anxiety. Have her do this for another week or until she’s not so distressed about it. Once she feels comfortable looking at those pictures and doesn’t feel that much anxiety have her move up on the hierarchy and have her look at pictures that are more provocative like women in leggings, short shorts, dresses, with each exercise 12 pictures of these women for each hierarchy is enough. Have her do the same thing. Swipe through the pictures for an hr and have her rate her anxiety every 10 minutes for a week every other day. Then have again sit with each picture for 5 minutes and every ten minutes rate her anxiety. Then once her anxiety isn’t so distressful go on to the next hierarchy which would be women in lingerie, and bikinis and do the exact same exercise for that. She may or may not need this much exposures but this is how you get over hocd for either dudes or women. It’s tough which is why I would recommend she see an ocd specialist to help her with these exercises I suggested just before she starts I promise it will help her.

Ok thank you. She has concluded that because she has same sex fantasies about women she is bisexual

Because she also still has thoughts about her male crushes

But her ocd is so bad she looks at me and says “did I actually really have a crush on them l?

She is even questioning her male crushes

Also one thing she says which may lead to believe it is ocd - she says she wants to keep herself busy so these thoughts don’t come in her head. Usually sexual thoughts please a person- in her case she wants to avoid them.

And then to add the nonsense that social media portrays- this all happened because of a dumb TikTok video

And combine that with a 13 year old who is convinced she is gay and argues with me everyday

Literally

It’s so hard sometimes

But I try to be patient

I read articles where sometimes people never get cured and stay confused forever. Whether they are gay or not. It scares me. Right now any thought that comes I tell her take the thought in and let it out on it’s own. I don’t know what else to do

Can you elaborate when you say you acted on your HOCD? And did you realize it was something you didn’t want ?

Did you know when you were growing up though it is HOCD ? Or did you actually think you were gay

I have told my 13 year old it’s HOCD

Are false attractions a thing ?

Do usually people in HOCD try doing stuff ! I told her for namesake let’s pretend your gay and she immediately said “no ... internally I’m straight “

Oh ok

She is only 14

13 I mean

And she thinks about it alllll day long

All day

All because of watching a video

She questions herself everyday

Any idea how I can help her daily when she shares the thoughts to me without harping too much on them ?

I understand erp but how do I help her on the daily when she has thoughts

Ok

Got it

Yes if you don’t mind

Thank you

At first I thought she was scared of coming out

She keeps saying “she wants to experience what it’s like to be gay “ and usually with women sexuality is a spectrum thing . She checks out woman’s bodies and claims she is attracted to them and wonders and then thinks about it all day

But she says she doesn’t know if she wants to be with a man or woman. She hasn’t said “no I don’t want to be gay “ she just says “I don’t know my brain keeps telling me to be gay “ what does that mean ?

Yesterday she was like “maybe I should start wearing my dad’s suits because that’s what gay women do “ who talks like rhis ?

She is still getting straight A’s in her classes. I try to keep her focus on school. She is only 7th grade

How did your mom handle it? Every time she gets a thought 💭 I tell her ok it’s ok- let it in and move on

Sometimes even I get confused if these thoughts are HOCD or real thoughts . It’s hard to deal but I try to take it one day at a time.

The symptoms and obsessions I am mentioning - did they all happen to you? How did you know it was not just you coming out of the closet

Ya my daughter will be 13 this year. From 2nd grade to this October she was only crushing on guys. I just want to know if there is any light at the end of the tunnel 🙏 she still gets shy when I talk about her guy crushes.

She tells me though she is not confident about it and it scares her- and then it turn it scares me

She says things like “ok I found this girl pretty in my class and my brain was telling me to look at her “. How should I respond to that ?

Ok. Got it. She said “well I wanna grow up super fast so I can date a man and a woman and then see what I want “. Like reallt ? So she actively is looking at guys. So I told her ok let’s for kicks say “your gay ... if the problem is your parents accepting you ... that’s fine - we are ok if you are gay “ and right away she said these two things .- “my brain wants me to be gay but I don’t know if I want to be gay “. “Hold on mom I’m not sure I am settled on the gay thing”

She said she went to tennis class the other day and there was another girl in the class and her brain told her to look at the girls butt so she said

Here’s my problem- how will she know her ocd thoughts from her normal thoughts

When she actually crushes on a guy

How will she know “It’s actually her crushing on the guy and not her brain telling her to have the crush “. Teenagers are already confused as hell and to add this to the mix

But then I figured it would have happened at some point

Anyways

True

I can understand how you feel

I see her going through it everyday

Some days more

Some days less

I tell her to keep her focus on school

And then I tell her all women check our other women ... breast’s and Butt are appealing. It’s normal and move on

I spent October and half of nov arguing with her that she isn’t gay

It did nothing

I had no idea what was going on

This is just one aspect

She has other aspects of ocd

She says “before I never wanted to do drugs... now my brain is telling me that drugs are actually good for you”

I hope she will be ok by the time she goes to college

But I also have to believe she will be much older and age does bring some wisdom

She is such a smart kid so when this first happened I was devastated and I truly had no idea what was going on

No idea

But I guess I’m thankful it happened under my supervision rather than when she was 19/20 years and sitting in her dorm room wondering what is happening

Just a little scared for my 8 year old

Yes true.

I agree

She was in class today and I asked her what happened because she was quiet when she came out she said she was staring at a girls body and had inappropriate thoughts.. I said ok it’s ok.... and then I asked her ok were there any cute guys and she said yes but I don’t wanna talk about them because who talks to their mom about guys ?

But you can talk to your mom about inappropriate thoughts? I was a little confused

Then I told her why don’t we look at a catalog with women’s clothes in it- shorts/tank top etc etc . She said I don’t want to because that makes me “want to be gay “. How can you “want to be gay “?