I think I've had a breakthrough. (Long post, TL;DR; at the end) When I was 20 I fell in love with this girl, lets call her Mary. I had liked Mary from when I was young. I remember us playing and talking to each other. I remember I'd think about her throughout school. She lived in a different town and I didn't see her often, but she was one of the first girls I had wanted a physical relationship with. Fast forward to when I was 20: We reconnected when she came to visit me and my family. We had a little date where I took her out for a walk around my town, we had coffee and shared some biscuits. She even wrote me a list of places I should see in her town, which I later moved to. I began thinking of her day and night. I wanted to be with her. For a long time I had fantasized about her a lot and had a major crush on her always, but I can't say I loved her. When I moved to her town, I tried asking her out again. We hung out a few times, but never a date. I started seeing this other girl (lets call her Jennifer), but we broke it off after a while. I think it was mostly the physical aspect that I looked for in that relationship. After her there was another girl, who I didn't feel attracted to, so that ended. After all this I tried again with Mary and we did end up going out once, but she ghosted on me. I got the message and didn't bother her again. My friendship with her, I felt, was important and didn't want to lose her. It was more important for me that she was happy the was she chose to be happy. The thing is that, by that time (about 5 years in) in my eyes she was kind of... The "one". Also, I was still - theoretically - a virgin. Between work and school, there was not much time left for my personal life. I got depression because I couldn't find love and started comparing myself to other men and was eventually lead to impotence and 0 sex drive. I couldn't even fall in love because there was something blocking me. A year later was when my HOCD kicked in and the time since then has been hell. I'm getting all these intrusive thoughts. I'm reminded of all the stupid shit I did when I was a kid. And I even get flashbacks that don't even seem real. TL;DR; Fell in love with a girl who I had a crush on since I was 11. I considered her to be my "one". I pursued her for a long time, but nothing ever happened. I ended up heart borken, depressed and lonely. Question Could it be that Mary was indeed my "one" and I have lost the desire to harbor feelings for another woman? Could it be that my brain created this OCD theme to keep me from pursuing another love to protect me from a potential heart-break?

I tried checking if I like gay stuff and it’s genuinely disgusting to me. I can tell whether or not a man is attractive and when they are it does scare me and makes me question myself yet, it’s always the same response, I don’t get how you can do that with another man. Doing anything sexual just feels so gross and wrong. I don’t think that I am magically turning gay. I don’t think my orientation is changing or hasn’t been explored. I simply find that stuff gross. I have never had anything wrong with gay people and I am a true believer that people have choices they can make with free will so it’s not that I’m homophobic, just keep that stuff away from me lol. Saying so, I don’t get why I am getting these thoughts. These images in my head, constant need of checking if I fall in the spectrum, constant checking whether I like someone of any gender, constant checking whether or not I am getting groinal responses. No matter what answer I get, my mind still wants an answer, an answer to the next question that it’ll create after answering the one before it. I have always liked girls and always been so proud of it, I am in a relationship right now with a beautiful girl I’ve had a crush on since 2nd grade. (I am 19) Whatever mental illness I have has ruined our relationship. Everything feels forced on my side, I don’t remember the joy I had before this but I have glimpse throughout the days of the things we’ve done together that makes me happy and look forward to life. I am constantly checking to see if my attraction is still there for her and the scary part is, when I am stuck in my head, I am not but, to alter that, when I get that freedom and feel like my normal self, I get a hyper amount of love for her and it feels so nice. These thoughts all began after me and my girlfriend had an argument, 5 months ago we got in an argument over her not giving me enough space. She always wanted to be a part of a plan with my male friends. I never minded her when it was just us two so it’s not that I hated being with her, it was just that I had no time to be independent. ( I also had no job and nothing going for myself. ) One odd day after spending so much time stuck in the house due to weather, I had random thought on whether or not I truly loved her. We were only 4 months into the relationship so I didn’t have an answer and since it felt like I needed an answer, it became obsessive, I couldn’t stop checking. After hours with that thought, I started to wonder whether or not I was interested in other things like K I D S. This thought was an automatic no and I began to fight it. I wasn’t going to accept that, each day felt like a living hell. The questions would change each day, do I miss my ex, was my ex better, do I like my M O M, do I want to K I L L so and so, do I want to kill myself. One day I woke up and had it all in control, felt like magic, after I watched a video on ROCD and realized, oh, I am not the only one but, this is where my compulsions got even worse. I couldn’t stop checking the internet, seeing if I relate to others, watching more videos. I regret this everyday because this compulsion created so many new thoughts and questions for me to answer. About 2-3 weeks went by and a thought passed by that has been stuck with me since along with other thoughts. I thought back to what I did as kid and in the past. I remembered a traumatic event where my brother touched me (5yr old M) inappropriately. This made me question whether or not I liked it and I couldn’t find an answer, couple years (10yr old M) after that I unfortunately did the same to my cousin (8yr old M). I feel so much shame and guilt for it. My mind turned black and white, “Maybe this isn’t a do you like your girl or not but instead, maybe you just like boys I mean, you obviously never asked yourself if you like what you did so”. This question was terrifying for me because it meant that I could no longer love my girl, my whole life till now has been a lie. So I began to question everything in my past up to date to find an answer. No matter what answer I fed my mind, it would not be satisfied and simply create more questions. It felt like my mind was forcing me to be gay, whether or not I liked it. 4 months has passed and the questions have just gotten worse, something I was initially so afraid of. I am in constant fight or flight mode, I am always anxious and I can’t feel nothing. I get times of relief when I am reminded of my past, when my gf turns me on, or when I find an answer to question my mind conjured up. I started to go to church but it’s always been a struggle for me to believe. I can’t go to the gym anymore because everywhere I look I am questioning myself. My porn addiction has went away but mostly because I can’t find anything attractive anymore. I can only find comfort and discomfort. Something that was once so easy for me would 1 day be nonexistent and hard to live without. I don’t know what the truth is anymore. My life feels like a made-up lie. Though I have always loved women, fantasized about them, get extremely nervous around them, pray for them, romanticize them, etc. I now have no idea what it feels like to be in love, interested, or even happy for a woman. My attraction hasn’t vanished completely, I still can look a girl and be stunned, l simply just can’t destroy the feeling it gives me. I get so anxious and begin to question everything about the women, the feeling, myself. I am having a crisis.

Hey everyone, I’m reaching out because I’ve been going through one of the hardest mental spirals of my life, and I’m hoping someone can relate or shed light on what’s happening to me. About 4 months ago, I accidentally came across a trans porn scene. It didn’t do much at the time, but later it triggered this overwhelming intrusive thought: “What if I’m gay?” Since then, it’s been absolute hell. I’ve always been into women—emotionally, sexually, everything. I’ve been in a long-term relationship with a girl I love deeply. But after that moment, my brain started spiraling into nonstop analysis. I began checking how I felt around men, whether I felt attraction, whether I was in denial, whether I was lying to myself. Literally everything became a test. I got stuck in this loop: • A thought pops in → panic • Try to solve it → brief relief • Another thought → worse panic • Repeat. At times, it got so bad I couldn’t feel anything at all—toward my girlfriend, toward women, toward myself. I started doubting everything. Some days, I feel emotionally flat, like I’ve lost my personality. Other days, I wake up with a full-body jolt of “truth” like “I’m definitely gay”—only for it to fade into numbness again. I’ve also noticed that I get short bursts of peace when I stop reacting, but then the fear comes back louder, like “See? Now you’re accepting it. That means it’s true.” Therapy hasn’t helped much so far—it felt more like general counseling. They told me to sit with the thoughts, but didn’t clarify if this was OCD, identity questioning, or trauma. That just made it worse because now I’m back to thinking “What if I’m just rejecting my truth?” I’m exhausted. I’ve lost connection to everything I used to love. • I want to love my girl again the way I used to • I want to feel desire without overthinking • I want to trust myself again I’m not looking for reassurance—I just want to know if anyone else has gone through something like this, and if this sounds like HOCD or identity OCD. Thanks for reading.

Warning!! This will have some 18+ stuff. I know I shouldn’t be ruminating about this but this whole off and on 6 year SOOCD thing started because I thought a kpop idol (who was masculine presenting/androgynous) was attractive. It made me very uncomfortable finding out that she was indeed a woman. In some pictures and angles she looked like another male kpop idol, but in some she looked like a woman and the attraction just went away. But my brain went to full panic mode because I was worried that it meant something about me. Logically I know this doesn’t mean anything and that I can just move on. I’ve even had friends (they are straight) in high school tell me they would sometimes mistake a super masculine lesbian/androgynous woman as men, find them attractive, realize they’re women, and then just move on. I’ve even had masculine lesbian friends, teammates, and coaches, and I never thought anything about it or felt attraction to any of them (even if they were conventionally attractive). But my brain brings in past stuff like how I was attracted to a manly cartoon character, bc again THEY LOOKED LIKE MEN. I literally did not care or get triggered until SOOCD started. Idc ab childhood exploration or ab the fact that TMIIIIII!!! I am aroused by anything remotely sexual (sorry), I completely forgot about it until a couple months ago and It has never changed the fact that I’ve only ever wanted to be with men and have been attracted to men all my life 😭. It just makes the false attractions and groinal responses harder to pass by bc my brain automatically tells me “UR LYING YOU LIKE THIS! UR YEARS OF NUMBNESS, LOSS OF ATTRACTION, AND LIBIDO IS BC UR GAY!” But when ocd wasn’t at my throat, and I was entering a happier headspace, I was noticing the attraction coming back, and for the first time in years I developed a crush on someone (my now boyfriend). I’ve always found him cute and had a crush on him but ocd likes to tell me that never happened and i’m lying but whatever. Anyways, I developed a real crush again, I wanted him to kiss me, I wanted to touch him (not super freaky touching😭 just like caressing his hair and face), I wanted to talk to him and be around him, I couldn’t wait to wake up in the morning and talk to him bc I just felt so giddy and like a normal person again, I had all the crush feelings for him. Before the SOOCD flare up I was just so happy and excited. I was worried about the numbness, which i’m pretty sure is from years of not doing ERP and off and on struggle with really bad depression. Highschool was pure hell for me, I got a tiny bit better after graduating, and then I had to drop out of school for a bit bc the depression became unbearable again. Although I am better now, my new therapist now even told me I do have signs of moderate depression. Best way I can describe the way I feel is like a rock. I feel like all my emotions are muted. I don’t have any hobbies, wants, goals, I feel like a rock with a bunch of feet walking over and around me. I liked reading and going on walks but even that is too much energy again. For the past 4 years I’ve spent my days rotting away just laying down. Also, TMI!!!! I literally have no libido or sex drive, I don’t even do the self stuff (ykwim) bc I have 0 desire to do it. My man was slowlllyyy waking up all the emotions but this ocd spiral has sent me back to my rock like state. TMI!! Me and my bf have been slightly intimate but Im ALWAYS in my head majority of the time and checking feelings and arousal (esp since i have no libido) which ruins it. But when I was in the moment laying on him and we were just kissing here and there, I felt sooooooo amazing. Idk the right word but it felt so peaceful, loving, calming, and just right 😭. Even yesterday I was starting to spiral again bc OCD started to make fake memories, he called me and I was starting to tune out the OCD, and I felt the peace again. I felt the happiness just talking to him again. I’m at a point where idc what ocd says anymore, Im really tired and done debating with this evil disorder. I just want to enjoy my relationship again bc I KNOW that was the real me. It felt so freeing to have a small taste of recovery 😭. Ik I did compulsions (basically habits now bc I haven’t had proper treatment for so long) and things did trigger me, but when I was IN THE MOMENT everything was just so nice and sweet and just really amazing 😭. I hope I can feel all that again soon.