I’m going crazy right now and need help, is it possible I have Pure - O. Now a few years ago I remember I was home alone (my mom works a lot.) and I was having a bag of chips. I took a chip in my mouth and it didn’t taste right. It tasted like... plastic! I felt like I was choking, I called 911 and explained how I felt like there was plastic in my throat, they asked if I needed an ambulance and I said no because I was supposed to go with my aunt somewhere soon, I hung up and soon after I experienced something I NEVER had before. I had a panic attack. I felt like I couldn’t breathe, my heart was racing fast, it felt like the room was spinning and getting smaller, it lasted for about 2 minutes but it felt like it lasted forever. Soon after she came to get me and throughout the rest of the day I felt like I was going to die. Then for the next month or 2 I was convinced I was going to die. I couldn’t be alone, I refused / avoided eating Incase I choked on a piece of food and died, I was afraid of sleeping alone. I didn’t want to go to school Incase I died, I couldn’t go over to friends houses because I was afraid (I still do that to this day :((...) if I wasn’t near my mom I was panicking and even when I was with her I was panicking. Whenever I got a panic attack or whenever I felt a sensation (heart skipped a beat, got a tingle in my arm, etc) I immediately thought “IM GOING TO DIE.” So I quickly looked up symptoms of how I was feeling on google and came up with all these diseases / illnesses I was convinced I had. My mom took me to therapy for it and I originally went there for this but somehow we got on these other subjects? Like how I am in school, how I am in social situations, how my home life was. And I guess it helped but I still get like that to this day sometimes. With what I’m really hoping and praying for is HOCD because I experienced this last summer AND this summer. I experience some of the same symptoms, can’t be alone, afraid to be near female friends, more like any friend in general now. I’m avoiding some of the activities I used to enjoy incase I got a groinal response / thought I was attracted to the females. (Just typing that I wanted to type out males instead because that’s what I was attracted to before all of this.) I can’t even sleep in my own bed because I’m terrified. I’m only the room above my mom but I just can’t be alone. Sometimes I have this strange/uncomfortable urge to come out and I didn’t feel like that before besides last summer and this summer and it scared me. Last summer when I had the episode I told my mom and she said she’d love me no matter what but I didn’t feel better at all. When I went back to school I was scared but then I started developing crushes on boys again. (I even wanted to go to school to see this guy and I hate going to school!) I even believe I had my first love, this guy named Aiden. I did whatever I could to make myself seem cool to him. We have similar interests, he has an amazing personality and he ain’t so bad looking either lol. Whenever he called me cute or gave me any compliment I got these butterflies in my tummy. I’d want to stay up ALL NIGHT to talk to him. At first we were internet friends and then we met and I couldn’t stop being nervous, but a good nervous. When he hugged me I didn’t want to let go. I was so tempted to just brush my hand up against his and hold it. I tried to dress up my best (with what I could) to make myself look nice. I put on tons and tons of perfumes to smell nice. I felt great. Now with this it feels like I never felt that way or how my past crushes were lies. I remember when I was younger (before I understood what family was) I found my cousin attractive, I found cartoon characters (male) attractive. Even last year when I was in culinary (cooking) some of the guys, the way they wore their uniforms were attractive. This one guy named Michael was VERYYY attractive, he had the looks and he had a nice personality. I’m not the girliest girl and my perfect romantic night was staying in and playing video games and eating snacks with my boyfriend, not a big fancy dinner. ( I come from a poor background so my mind is quantity over quality) so like why spend so much money on one fancy dinner when you can get like SOOO much more at McDonald’s or something??? So maybe that stems from that but it’s just so annoying. I wanted to be with this boy (my crush) before all this started and now it’s so hard. He knows about my situation and he helps me relax and before I felt so happy he cared, I felt so loved but now it feels like a drag. Everything now feels like a drag. Is this pure - O? Am I crazy?

I think I may have SO-OCD and OCD in general. At a young age fear of death. I use to tap my heart 8 times (lucky number) for each person I loved. Then I think I suffered with ROCD and HOCD when I was 18 after 2 bad relationships who they ran off with a ‘close’ friend at the time. I’ve struggled with OCD and these HOCD/ SO-OCD about 12 years ago but the HOCD went and the ROCD came back and forth. I did previously last year have a Fear of death of my children with alligators going on holiday after reading a bad article in Florida which lasted few months. Briefly Started with ‘R-OCD’ again but went pretty quickly. Am I good enough for my partner? Is she going to leave me? What if she finds someone else? Though I saw a picture of a good looking male on a social media which my Brian instantly questioned if I was gay, panic and anxiety which lead to which I think is SO-OCD and HOCD. An obsession is an unwanted and unpleasant thought, image or urge that repeatedly enters my mind, causing feelings of anxiety, disgust or unease. A compulsion is a repetitive behaviour or mental act that you feel you need to do to temporarily relieve the unpleasant feelings brought on by the obsessive thought. I’m stuck in obsessive doubt around my sexual identity, even though I say that deep down i know what my sexual identity is but even this is being questioned at the minute and I want to cry. I have always, always been interested in women. That much I would say I had a sex addiction. My attraction to the opposite sex has pretty much disappeared. I have a fleeting thought of attraction which will set off a cascade of doubt and terror which some thoughts/ feelings make me physically sick. I’m scared of going out in public or even looking at people especially men for the fear of false attraction. I try to do ERP when I do have moments but it makes me want to be sick. My brain feels like it’s in a clamp and I can’t stop the constant thoughts. It feels like something is my head has stopped or not working correctly. Even at night. Every time I wake my chest seems to feel strange and the thoughts are suddenly there. I’ve tried ERP but it makes me want to be sick even when it subsides. I am still continuing this but I feel so drained. I just want to be myself again who I was 3 months ago. I hate that this has happened and I feel that I can’t cope, can’t be the husband I want to be, can’t be the father I want and was. These are my main issues at the moment; false attraction to pretty much any male even voices, decrease attraction in opposite gender, severe anxiety, I can’t sleep or eat, constant thoughts 24/7 and scenarios, groinal responses, seavere recriminatory thinking, I hate myself, I even have false attraction to myself in the mirror. What is wrong with me? I just want to be the husband and father I was a few months ago!

I need too know that I'm not insane, really. I am 16 and for the past two weeks, this has been completely ruining my health and happiness. I only recently came out as a lesbian like 3 months ago after a lot of confusion about my attraction since I used to think I liked men. At first, I felt so sure that I liked women, but lately, I've been having these unwanted thoughts about the possibility of liking men. I never used to feel this way, but now, every time I look at a man, my brain obsessively fixates on it. It forces me to imagine kissing him, loving him, things I don’t want, and then tries to convince me that I do. It’s painful. The thought of this fills me with fear and anxiety, leading to panic attacks and breakdowns. I don’t want these thoughts. I hate them with every fiber of my being, but I’m terrified that one day I’ll act on them and somehow like it. I used to think I liked men, but back then, I was in a very unhealthy space in a time of escapism and something deeply parasocial. I’ve only ever liked the attention and validation a man could give me, but these experiences are somehow treated as further proof that I’m "bisexual." I’ve never been in a real relationship with anyone, which makes my brain constantly challenge me—telling me, “You don’t even know what love feels like.” It won’t shut up. It keeps obsessively trying to make me prove that I’m a lesbian, testing my reactions and questioning my certainty. Is this normal?

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.