I don’t know what I’m afraid of regarding my so ocd. I know I’m afraid of losing my identity and I fear judgement from others, but what if it’s something else? What if I’m homophobic and that’s why? I know better and I know so ocd is an identity issue, but I feel like the exception. I try so hard and I know I support everyone and love everyone. I educate myself and I talk to younger teens about their sexuality (mental health mentor) and I have no problems or judgment with them. I can’t wrap my head around why I struggle to accept certain parts of my so ocd and my scrupulousity automatically attributes it to homophobia. Like the idea of being on a spectrum is scary to me even though it didn’t use to. There was a time I used the idea of being on a spectrum to conquer my so ocd and it went away for a while. I was perfectly okay with it. Now I’m not and I don’t know why. It’s like my ocd feels that if I’m not perfectly one thing then it’s a threat to my entire identity and I know it’s not. I know it’s not a big deal and it shouldn’t be that scary, but it is. It scares me that it might be homophobia. It’s hard for me to accept the uncertainty of me being a bad person because I really don’t want to be. I don’t know what to do.

@stop. Not just that article but her entire approach is that anxiety/intrusive thoughts are just a representation/flare ups from something unresolved inside of ourself. It’s a lot of work but excavating the deeper issues in your need for certainty as it’s just a cover for something else going on….https://conscious-transitions.com/the-architecture-of-anxiety-and-intrusive-thoughts/

@lola2214 I understand. I have a lot of unresolved issues, but with that being said I don’t know which problems related to my so ocd and I still have that little voice that’s like “you’re just homophobic”

@stop. Maybe it’s perfectionism? I feel like everything had to be perfect or consistent so the idea of not being consistent or 100% is scary. Idk.

@stop. I know for me my underlying fear is not trusting myself and extensive abuse. I was never in control of my surroundings as a kid, and the one thing I had was myself. Self preservation was my go to. I knew who i was and never questioned it. I had existential ocd as a kid and contamination ocd (fear of contracting illnesses). This was never something i even wondering about and I knew what being gay was since i was 7. I literally remember watching a movie with my dad and two girls kissed and I went “that’s gay” but didnt feel anything. I literally walked out and was just like “okay.” I always liked guys as a child, only saw them as romantic interest. My hocd has freaked out that maybe i couldnt see women as an option, but girls who were lesbian or bi saw the opposite. I only ever liked boys romantically and saw girls as sisters. As i grew up, sex was a very hard thing for me, as I was sexually assaulted at the age of 9 for an entire year before I got out. And at 12, about 8 months before this hit, I told my grandparents and parents i think im starting to like guys more. Then this hit. And the rest has bene history. And the reason it scares me so much is that now i dont even feel like i can trust myself. And i was further abused by 2 different men (not sexual again) and it destroyed me. So idk why my ocd fixated on this. Im scared its cause im truly a lesbian. But idk it just has.

@hate_ocd.123 I’m so sorry all that happened to you, but what you said is making more sense to me in regards to having unhealed parts of ourselves. Idk it’s just that that article was more in the context of relationship anxiety and I don’t have one so I couldn’t relate or understand, but now I do. I’m a very hypersensitive person. I’ve had GAD since I was 3 and I have self soothing anxiety behaviors like excessive scratching. I still have scars on my legs from doing it. I also struggled with contamination OCD as a child. My parents are tough old school people who did not know how to raise a hypersensitive child with anxiety. It resulted in a lot of emotional abuse on their part as well as some narcissism from my mom. I cried a lot. Got bullied. Never got the emotional support I needed for it. I grew up with addicts. My grandfather being an alcoholic, my mom smoking cigarettes, and distant family doing alcohol, drugs, whatever. I do not have good memories with them. I was also exposed to a lot of sexual stuff as a kid. My parents weren’t the type to play censored music or not let me watch mtv. I definitely shouldn’t have been watching mtv music videos at like 7. Despite that, I wasn’t really properly introduced to human sexuality either so there was a lot I didn’t understand sex despite having it shoved in my face. I was quite boy crazy growing up. I had my first crush in kindergarten I think. Never liked girls that way. I’m a huge daydreamer and I’d always daydream different scenarios. Some of which were music videos and being someone who grew up watching rap videos many of my made up videos involved twerking and whatever I saw on tv. I wasn’t attracted to it, but I admired it in a way. Like I thought it was cool that people could move their body that way and sometimes I thought it was funny/entertaining. I’m also a dancer so many of my made up dance scenarios involved sexual hip hop stuff and I admired it from a dancers pov. I never even really thought anything of it until I was 14. This kid at my middle school was very mean and homophobic. I was so scared of him. I remember holding hands with one of my friends on a field trip just platonically and he teased us about it. It wasn’t too long after that I had that first thought of “if I think about xyz, then does that mean I’m gay” it was scary because the thought of maybe being gay meant going to school to get bullied by this kid and I guess that’s where it all started for me. Around 16 I had learned more about sexuality being in a spectrum and it’s like everything clicked. I could still be straight but have behaviors/feelings that aren’t consistent with that. My OCD melted away after that. Then it came back. It turned into “what if I’m not where I thought I was on the spectrum” “maybe it’s more than just incidental behaviors what if I actually like women and I’m bi” it just completely backfired. Now I struggle to accept that uncertainty again. I want my OCD to melt away like it did the first time, but it won’t because now it scares me. My OCD knows what beats it and now it won’t let me use it. Then it just gets all complicated with the homophobia and what if I’m just a hateful person underneath all of this and it sucks.

Most of my friends are in the alphabet mafia lol. I feel like I don’t deserve them.