Encountered a pretty bad OCD trigger today. I suffer from mild sexual orientation OCD. It used to be pretty bad, but I tackled a lot of it with ERP, and it got significantly better, but I got super busy with school and slacked on my sessions a little, and things have started to get a bit worse. I went to the city on a ‘girls day’ out with a few of my friends today. We were just talking, and my friend thought she saw a strip club, and I said “I’d kinda like to go to a strip club, just for the experience”, and she looked at me confused, and said “girls?”, and i said “yeah, it just seems like it’s fun with the music and stuff” - HOCD not even in my mind at this point, I just genuinely think strip clubs would be fun, not in a sexual way, as I said - and then she went, “you sure you’re not a lesbian” and started laughing. I was hugely triggered. I know I’m not a lesbian, and I knew what I meant - but OCD does what it does, and that really triggered me. But, it didn’t make me nearly as anxious as it once would’ve done, and the silver lining is that it was a good exposure! I just felt like writing this here, because I know there’s a lot of likeminded people who will understand how that was triggering.

I’m completely fine now! Just thought I’d share it to see how others would’ve felt, glad to see I’m not the only one - I’d STRONGLY recommend ERP!

Yeah, I could imagine that being triggering! Well done for getting through it, you’ve come a long way to be able tolerate that, even if it was hard, and yeah, it’s a good exposure! Nice to know I’m not alone ❤️

Hey! I experience that exact cycle myself, and I’m sure that everyone else with this theme does too, so you’re not alone. Well, I began with creating a heirarchy for myself, which involved identifying what I found triggering, and organising it from the MOST triggering, right down to the least - this is a fairly difficult task within itself, because it can be hard to organise something as complicated as OCD, but once that first step is done, you’re already moving forward. And then very gradually moved from the least triggering upwards through the heirarchy. As I said, I only got so far as school & life got in the way, and I guess I got cocky because I was already seeing results. Those first steps on the ladder were creating noticeably less anxiety, and I was massively less anxious at this point. So, my advice would to just be consistent!! You will very likely start to see results fairly soon after beginning your recovery, but don’t get cocky like me, and just keep going until you reach the top! Best wishes!

I want you to know that you’re not alone and it’s common. I had it very severe at first then it felt like it went away then it came back. Sometimes it’s mild or moderate and sometimes it’s severe. A lot of it is the nature of OCD, but some of it is because I’ve been somewhat inconsistent with treatment which is something I need to work on personally. I get it though and there’s nothing to feel bad about. It definitely gets very annoying tho haha