I’ve actually tried writing this multiple times and keep getting scared. Scared because - I don’t want to be the exception. I recognize that this is typical OCD, but my OCD has been manifesting itself not in anxiety - mostly it’s just this dull nagging feeling. This feeling says that I know I’m gay - it’s like I can feel that it’s true. Yet it’s not a clarity - it just feels like this truth that I don’t want to accept. Writing this and not erasing it - is in a way an exposure so I’m going to post this. Because as I reread it, I’m scared that if I post it - people will read it and be like- oh yes that is different from everyone else. I think she’s actually gay. I try to accept the thoughts as they are - thoughts, but then things like friends will comment about cute guys and suddenly I’m reminded that maybe I don’t notice guys as much as them therefore : I’m gay. I’m trying to lean into the uncertainty - just this dull nagging starts drilling in deep overtime.

Hey everyone. I wanted to share my story and some of the things I have/am experiencing in my journey with OCD- particularly with Sexual Orientation OCD. My goal is not to use this as a means for reassurance for myself or for any other, rather as to be a reminder for myself and you all that you are NOT alone. No matter what you are experiencing you aren’t alone, and we have all gone through the same thoughts and feelings as you, in whatever form they may have been. For personal reasons I will not share my name, but I do want to share about me and my journey with what has truly been one of the hardest things I’ve ever experienced. I am a 24 year old female and for as long as I’ve remembered I’ve always been a “worrier”. My dad used to tell me that worrying will be the fastest way I’d die lol. Oh! How I wish I could go back to those days of just simply worry. For the past few years I have struggled with what I now know is intrusive thoughts. But, luckily for me they were a little calmer than what I’ve experienced now. They were the occasional worrying that my boyfriend died but I would get over it rather quickly. Well, in may of 2024, I had just graduated college, was about to get married and about to move out. So, that triggered some switch in my brain and thus began this horrible disease of OCD. My main type has been SO-OCD but I have found some moments that I’ve also struggled with ROCD as well as some existential crisis OCD. I have unfortunately not been able to go to therapy because of money but I am on meds and have been using tips and tricks I’ve found online. My goal is to still go to therapy when I can find the right time. And I, like many of you have months of great “freedom” from the disease; and then, like I find myself now, fall back into its trap. I wanted to share some of the things I’ve experienced with this to see if y’all have experienced the same things and to let you know you are not alone. For reference, I am straight (I am happily married to my wonderful husband). 1. Thoughts from the past: I slightly remember having a thought that I’d be gay when I was around 12-13… that was around the time I actually first figured out what that meant. Even then, I (more easily than now) brushed it off. Continued to have about a million crushes on boys and never thought of it again. But now, with my OCD, I feel “convinced” that that was a sign that I was gay. 2. I have always been a girls girl. Me and my friend have a joke that we are worse than men! Meaning that when we see a pretty girl with a nice body, we stare. We say they are pretty. Never have I ever thought anything of it. It was always from a place of envy and admiration. Never a place of lust or anything along those lines. But NOW. OH! If I even look that direction I feel guilty, I feel like that’s confirmation that I am gay. And even worse- that is one of my compulsions. To look and make myself “prove” I’m not gay. 3. I have lost “feeling” for my partner. I love my husband. More than anything else. I could not live without him. But since this all happened, my emotions and fears have been all over the place that I’ve somewhat lost that feeling. It doesn’t help that I’m on medicine that can have that effect. I have to just remind myself that love isn’t always feelings, it’s a choice. And I choose him every single day. 4. sex life issues: bc/ of the OCD fear as well as my medication, I don’t have much sex drive or pleasure in the bedroom as I did before OCD… and, my OCD likes to convince me that that is because I would be better off with a woman (even tho I don’t want that) and then, OH THEN, I proceed to experience some groinal sensation from that though. So- cue even more “proof” that I am gay. well- that’s all I can think of now. Let me know if any one yall struggle with those. And I hope you know, YOU ARE NOT ALONE. YOU ARE NOT YOUR THOUGHTS. YOU ARE NOT YOUR OCD 💚

Here are some things that make me feel alone and isolated in my journey with sexual orientation OCD: 1. This feels like a complete identity crisis. I think that is what makes it so hard. It seems to go against everything I believe myself to be and who I always have identified as. 2. My compulsions, thoughts, triggers, and everything else that comes along with this disease feels and seems like I’m the only one that struggles with those things. My thoughts and images in my head often seems so real that it can only be me in denial. 3. Because this sub type of OCD is so sexual in nature, it has made my sex life with my husband, a really hard situation. Because I always get afraid and sex that I will think of these thoughts, I subconsciously then think of those thoughts, and if I have any type of feeling associated with those thoughts, it feels like proof that those thoughts are real and that makes it even harder. 4. Because a lot of the pleasure that comes with sex is on hot for me while I’m figuring out in this journey with OCD, my mind has convinced me that it is because I will only feel those things if I were with someone at the same sex (I am a straight female. I have a fear of being homosexual.). Well, all those things have made it really hard for me to function daily, I am doing a lot better at finding ways to combat those. I wanted to offer some of the things that I find that help me move past these thoughts and while it’s not always a perfect fix, it’s really helped. 1. I tried to remind myself daily that while love is a feeling it’s also choice. I have to remind myself to get up every single day and choose my husband not because I always feel like choosing him because that is who I choose. That is who I want. That is who I want to grow a relationship with to have a child with Thus why I always don’t feel that love, I always choose it. And while this can be really hard because just society as a whole has made us have these unrealistic ideas about what love is and made us think that love is just this huge with butterflies and sparks, it’s not always that. 2. I try to remind myself that these are just thoughts. And thoughts are not who I am. I don’t have to become the thoughts. I’m not a bad person for thinking of thoughts, and I don’t have to believe the thoughts. 3. When I get, like I often do, groinal responses to the things that I am thinking or seeing in my mind I just remind myself that those are responses to the anxiety I have. I’m not thinking those because I want to think those, but it’s in a response too The fear that I will think those and that I will get that response and then in turn I get the response. 4. I tried to remind myself that this isn’t a fear of coming out like if I was gay, this is a fear associated with a thought that I would be because that’s not who I am. If I really was gay, I would like the thought I would like the pleasure and I would be afraid of coming out. But in this situation, I don’t want any of the thoughts not because I’m afraid of coming out of this because it’s not who I am. If that makes sense.

So pretty much I’ve been dealing with intrusive thoughts my entire life, I had no idea could’ve been symptom of OCD until maybe a year ago , I have this fear right now that I don’t actually love my fiancé and I’m not attracted to men. I am attracted to men. Let me be clear. I’m not attracted to females. I never have been and I never will be. But it’s one of the scariest thoughts I’ve ever had that I don’t actually care about the person that I would sacrifice anything for that I would do anything for. He’s pretty much the closest family that I have and I just wanna be with him for the rest of my life. A couple months ago was that I just didn’t care at all, and I didn’t have any feelings and everything that I felt was me being fake in that nothing was real. But I eventually got over that and the new thought is that I’m actually gay even though I know I’m not. And in the world we live in now where it’s be yourself be you if it comes across your mind. That’s the obvious truth. Be yourself… It’s kind of scary to think about. I just want it to leave me alone. I’m actually so scared that eventually I’ll believe it because some thoughts that I’ve learned were intrusive. I ended up starting to believe and it turned into a whole catastrophe for my life. I met this girl and she felt a certain way about her husband and then she told me that eventually I’ll feel that way and ever since then I just I haven’t gotten over this fear that I’m gonna end up feeling the same way she is. Also, I recently got over a few themes. I’m not ready to share, but I’m so proud that I got over those and I just I’m waiting for this one to leave me alone and it’s not and I’m starting to get really scared that it’s true and I don’t want it to be true. and just to be very clear I don’t care who you love what you love who you like what you identify as because you can in fact be yourself but this just doesn’t feel like me. I’m genuinely reaching out to try to get help for this because now it’s messing with our personal life. We’ve never argued so much in our entire relationship and now I realize that it’s mainly my fault because I’m detaching myself from all emotion just so that I can get over this thought I’m detaching myself from all intimacy and that’s even scarier because what if it’s not me detaching myself and it’s me just not being attracted that’s another thought I’ve hadI’ve gone all long enough so thanks.