Okay, this is a really specific and embarrassing thing that I’ve been ruminating on to the point of exhaustion since yesterday, if someone could read this and try and give me some advice, I’d really appreciate it. It feels like too personal & embarrassing of an issue to go to family & friends about, and I know that there will hopefully be a lot of likeminded individuals here, who understand what it’s like to have a tendency towards obsession. So, my friend brought me along with her to apply for a new job. I’m 16 (17 in July), and have been looking for a little part time job to do alongside school. We walked in, and it was this room of about 12 people who had all previously applied for the job. Me and my friend were applying for waitressing. There was two owners of the resteraunt there that day, one Italian man, and one British man (I’m British - live in England) The second guy would just stare at me intently while he was talking, and never looked at anyone else, and it felt uncomfortable and it seemed like he was attracted to me - bear in mind he knew I was 16, and he was probably in his mid to late 30s. He was telling us an anecdote about how you can never ‘get away’ with being off work sick when you’ve been drinking in a pub/club the night prior, because he’s on a group chat with all of the pubs/clubs in our area, and he will know if you have been drinking the night before. Because of how much he was staring at me, I had to respond to him saying, ‘well, you won’t have to worry about me because I’m only 16!’ And everyone laughed, and then the Italian man said - ‘look, you are staring at her haha!’. My friend afterwards was like, ‘what the fuck, that man would not stop staring at you’ - and it made me not want to go back, because it just felt really weird and uncomfortable. A couple of days after our first shift, me and my friend found out that this man and another co-owner (not the Italian man) were actually gay together… now, this is where things got slightly obsessional. I am a perfectionist when it comes to my appearance, I’m never happy unless I feel that I look pretty and feminine. I’m HIGHLY critical of my own appearance, and am constantly checking myself to see if I look okay. If I feel that I don’t, then my mood drops instantly and I usually want to leave the situation I’m in - that’s how much I obsess over appearance. This guy was giving off the vibes that he was attracted to me - but he was gay… (not to go off of stereotypes, but he SEEMED like a straight male, if that makes sense) I started to have this horrible feeling in my chest, like intense dread and disgust with myself. ‘What if I look like a man?’ I thought. ‘His boyfriend is quite feminine, what if I look sort of like him?’ Each time I thought this, I was almost brought to tears it was that devastating of a possibility. I try so, so hard to be pretty, and the idea that I could appear masculine in any regard was like my life was crumbling around besides me, and I KNOW how dramatic that sounds, but it was just how I felt. Has anyone got any thoughts on this? I’ve not stopped thinking about it since I heard…

I’ve always been straight my whole life and I’ve never considered being different nor have i ever had attraction to women but lately I’ve been going through a lot of different thoughts that definitely feel unlike me. When I was a kid and I don’t remember how old I was but im sure like 7 or 8 and my cousin that was I very close to had me do inappropriate things to her that I didn’t really know anything about at that time. After that happened to me I knew it was wrong and I felt so bad and disgusting and scared but at the time I didn’t really know anything and I remember when my mom would drop me over my grandmas house while she would work, I’d take my grandma’s phone and I looked up kissing videos and I saw the kissing scene from Jennifer’s body and looking back on it I just feel so much shame and confusion bc it certainly feels embarrassing. My cousin always liked girls but I never did. I loved sitting and watching Disney movies preferably princess and the frog and wanting to be a princess getting married to a prince just like in all the movies. I knew who I was from a very young age and that never changed about me. When I learned what porn was at an older age, I started becoming hyper sexual so I watched tutorials videos of women to learn how to pleasure myself. When I was a kid and to now I’ve never looked at women in that way. I’ve had best friends and sleepovers it’s never been anything sexual, romantic, or intimate. Just simply innocent friendships and hangouts. When I got to high school that’s when i started remembering what happened to me and i remember how the girls would talk about their first kisses and i remembered my sa and how I felt so scared to say anything to anyone bc I didn’t want people to think badly of me simply bc my first kiss was like that so I would simply just not say anything. Lately I’ve been having obsessive thoughts out of nowhere wondering if my sexuality has changed or if im bi or is it just my thoughts? I’ve always had ocd and even in school, the kids would pick at me because I always eat my food in order and by the lightest color. But lately it’s gotten worse. It’s like I’ve never had thoughts like this nor have I ever been like this. Not even when I was a child. And humans question themselves of course but this feels like something different. I’ve gotten distant from my best friend who’s also a girl and I’ve just cut off social media and female friend relationships at all because for some reason my brain tells me that it’s “gay” to even hug your friends or hold their hands anymore like you used to do when you were kids. I even got to a point where I would watch women porn and try to masturbate just to see if I was attracted to it or not like that’s how bad the thoughts got. It felt like an evil voice was in my head trying to convince me and sweet talk me to do and enjoy those disgusting things even when my body didn’t want to. I eventually had confided in my bf about it because he was also a victim of sa and so he helped me through it and I stopped doing it but then and my bf (now ex) broke up a couple days ago and now ive been dealing with this alone which feels like the hardest part for me. So I’ve texted my bff a lot to catch up because I’ve been distant dealing with this and I was just checking my phone awaiting for her responses to my texts because she tends to type slow and usually I never think anything of it because I used to check my phone all the time when I would await my boyfriends reply or simply just a text from him and so now im having thoughts like “why am I awaiting her texts” “do I like my friend?” Its just so many obsessive thoughts and so much overthinking that I am getting tired of because It’s been going on for months so I know this is a lot but please if anyone can please help me I beg, it would be such a great help appreciated bc this has became a really big impact on my life and not in a good way lol. Thank you !!

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.

I’m. Lowkey freaking out a bit at the moment. So I’ve had kind of a thing for hyperfemininity most of my life (really just on men but that’s beside the point). A lot of what I find attractive is similar to Sabrina carpenter’s aesthetic. Like frilly lingerie for example. There was this clip where she was wearing like a babydoll or whatever they’re called and everyone said she looked like a toddler. I thought it was ok bc I’m only attracted to adults, and in this case it’s only concerning my attraction to men, but I was listening to a podcast today about Sabrina Carpenter (bc while I do think she’s very pretty I disagree with a lot of what she does) and the person speaking said she presented as a “sexy baby” and that it was pedophilic. Now I’m pretty frightened because I can’t just go “that’s false attraction” and be done with it. I AM attracted to hyperfemininity and now I feel like a predator for it. I’m scared