A post dedicated to all of those who are struggling with sexual orientation OCD, I see & hear you all. I spent a large portion of my teen years OCD free. I was anxiety prone about certain areas of life, but not to the extent of OCD. When I grew and started to develop into the person I am now, I remember a distinct moment where everything changed, and it was like someone slammed onto the acceleration and before I could stop to breathe, I had OCD. Health anxiety/OCD. A lot of people have health anxiety that isn’t OCD, but A LOT of people have health OCD that isn’t health anxiety... if that makes any sense. I was unknowingly apart of the latter group. It started when I had mindlessly approached my mum about a hard feeling in my chest. She felt it and looked concerned, thinking that she felt something that shouldn’t have been there. There was only a few occasions prior to this that I had felt this level of panic, for example, I was on a ferris wheel and the controller man shouted into the megaphone that we needed to ‘brace for impact’, as I was suspended about 40 metres in the air, terrifying... The two situations have something important in common - they were both false alarms. The ‘lump’ that my mum thought she had felt was actually just my chest bone, and the man screeching ‘brace for impact’ was actually just playing a really bad prank. The moment my mum did this, I developed full blown OCD, and did not even realise it. I was Googling for long periods of time every day, and within a couple of months, I had convinced myself that I had basically every illness in the book. I had grown miserable. When I tried to find out what was happening to me, and why I was so obsessive, the term health anxiety came up often, but so did OCD. I remember raising an eyebrow to OCD, but never really thinking that I had it - like many, I ignorantly believed that OCD was just that illness where people clean all day, I was wrong, very wrong. About 4 months after capsizing with health anxiety/OCD, I finally started to feel human again. I was back at school as the lockdown restrictions lifted, and my anxiety levels were lowering a lot. But, OCD being OCD, this was short lived. I was chilling, reading a magazine that I found on my living room coffee table. I was bored and had nothing better to do, so I started reading it. I turned to a page all about sexuality, I was intrigued and didn’t know too much on the topic, so I read on. The memory is almost engraved into my mind, the article involved different middle-aged women talking about how they had thought that they were straight their whole life, and then all of a sudden they realised they were lesbians... This article invoked such intense and sudden panic that it’s hard for me to even reflect on it without feeling my heart speed a little. I was convinced it couldn’t get any worse then health anxiety/OCD, but... it could, it definitely could. Of course, like any OCD theme, I was on a mission to find absolute certainty. I scraped my childhood and life up until that point for evidence ‘for’ or ‘against’ this question. Without going too in depth, (as I’m aware this is getting long) if you have this theme, I’ve probably experienced exactly what you have!! I tick every box in the book. And, to make matters even worse, I had no idea this was OCD - I thought that I was on a path to coming out... all because of an article. I’d managed to find myself on a ‘coming out story’ forum, and I read and read, trying to find similarities in how I felt in these stories, and of course, HOCD and the coming out process can appear very similar, and not knowing that I had OCD - I. Was. Convinced... I was terrified. Finally, I was at my breaking point. It occurred to me that something was wrong with what was going on - why was I so resistant to accept what I feared? What if this wasn’t denial, and actually something else. That’s when I found HOCD (also known as SOOCD) and everything fit into place, the health anxiety made much more sense now. I’ll admit, I was so deeply relieved and reassured. I actually remember crying. I’d felt isolated and at war with myself for weeks, I was at the point of breaking - I had no idea who I was. I then found myself Reddit, of all places. I guess the sense of community is a good thing, but in such an unregulated place like Reddit, the negatives out way the positives with OCD. I had made a post describing what had happened to me, and was essentially asking for reassurance - in my defence, I didn’t know that this was bad!!!! Anyway, I definitely did NOT get that. A guy direct messaged me lecturing me that I ought to accept my sexuality and stop resisting it and leave Reddit and live out the life I subconsciously wanted. As you can imagine, this destroyed me. This is the last thing a person with this form of OCD needs to hear, and I’ll be completely honest, I was suicidal. Now, on a brighter note I’m better now!! Months and months down the line, I am much, much better. If there was hope for me, there is hope for you, I PROMISE you. ERP is gonna be your cure!! So if you haven’t already, research and get started - however that may look for you. You are never alone. in those moments where you feel alone and scared, remember that there is inevitably gonna be other people with your fear sat at home worrying excessively about what’s happening to them, or what’s gonna happen to them - just like you. You are worthy, and you have so much potential. I love you.