- Date posted
- 4y
- Date posted
- 4y
Hey there, first of all take a breath and remember you’re brave and you’re not your thoughts. I’m sorry to hear you were in what sounds like a very emotionally toxic friendship but we all have people and circumstances we are haunted by, it’s understandable. It’s important to remember with OCD of any kind it feeds off of fear, realistically what is the worst that can happen if your admit you’re lesbian? It’s nothing to be ashamed of and admitting it to yourself whether it be true or false with no judgement will calm the thoughts. Also for me sometimes it helps to appreciate sexuality is fluid, it’ll change and mould over time! I hope this helps a little bit, you can push through this xx
- Date posted
- 4y
ty! I’m just so scared. My OCD is telling me that the truth is that I had a crush on this girl and been a lesbian all my life. I don’t want this bc I feel like it threatens my identity but at the same time, it feel so real and it seems like the truth that I don’t want to accept. Do you this it is still HOCD?
- Date posted
- 4y
@strawberry ice cream I can tell how distressing it is for you right now, it’s upsetting when you feel like you can’t tell the difference between the HOCD and just your sexual orientation. I think you can tell the difference if you’re having lots of intrusive and anxious thoughts around being lesbian and searching for “proof” of your sexuality, not just this remembering ocd comes with compulsions, when you do start spiralling about being lesbian to you want to check your reactions towards gay relationships or avoid the same sex all together? I’m part of the lgbtq community and there are times when I spiral without anxiety about whether I’m being “true” to myself or that I need to pick one but also when I look back at memories which made me realise I was gay they make me feel a sense of pride and happiness and closure that I’ve never felt before. Anxiety is all natural and part of our responses to difficult things but if it’s too an extreme I’m sure you can bet it’s OCD. But I’m no doctor or therapist so please don’t rely on my words. Hope you’re okay xx
- Date posted
- 4y
@Bella Iep I realized that when I’m spiraling I do start to ruminate and do mental compulsions such as analyzing all my past friendships, my memories, my childhood. I also tend to search for reassurance that I’m not a lesbian and when I do find it, I feel a sence of relief and happiness. However this happiness doesn’t last much. I always try to analyze my reactions to gay relationships and, when I was in a worse state, I did avoided the same sex all together (I didn’t even want to go out bc of the fear of seeing someone of the same sex)
- Date posted
- 4y
@strawberry ice cream *did avoid (I’m sorry for the grammar mistake)
- Date posted
- 4y
@strawberry ice cream Well there you go, you’re clearly intuitive and able to recognise all the patterns of OCD. Instead of focusing on am I this and am I that, focus on reminding yourself that you’re okay and remove the fear presented through your sexuality- what’s the worst thing that would happen if you were lesbian, gay, straight. At the end of the day you’re just human, OCD can feel so trapping but remind yourself how brave you’re!
- Date posted
- 4y
@Bella What happens when the intense intrusive thoughts continue and compulsions but the anxiety subsides a lot
- Date posted
- 4y
I have the same theme and I did this in a lot of my friendships growing up and those are the main thoughts that are also haunting me right now. I realize that I’m just a people pleaser and that is most likely why I would suck up to my friends. I have to remind myself the “proof” I’m finding is disconnected from sexuality. Like why should I have to go through and analyze every bit of my childhood to find my sexuality? Of course my brain still doesn’t comprehend this and gets freaked out about what if I’m lying to myself and my future will be ruined and I’ll be unhappy. But there’s no way to know that so im just trying to do what makes me happy right now.
- Date posted
- 4y
Ahh I feel so relieved that I’m not the only one going through this. Lol it really doesn’t make sense to analyze my past to find out my sexuality. And I’m indeed a ppl pleaser but this OCD is sooo sticky
- Date posted
- 4y
@strawberry ice cream It totally is all my other ocd themes were in my childhood so they felt easier to get over because I had the memory of a goldfish anyway, so this one I had no skills on how to get over it until recently.
Related posts
- Date posted
- 22w
I need too know that I'm not insane, really. I am 16 and for the past two weeks, this has been completely ruining my health and happiness. I only recently came out as a lesbian like 3 months ago after a lot of confusion about my attraction since I used to think I liked men. At first, I felt so sure that I liked women, but lately, I've been having these unwanted thoughts about the possibility of liking men. I never used to feel this way, but now, every time I look at a man, my brain obsessively fixates on it. It forces me to imagine kissing him, loving him, things I don’t want, and then tries to convince me that I do. It’s painful. The thought of this fills me with fear and anxiety, leading to panic attacks and breakdowns. I don’t want these thoughts. I hate them with every fiber of my being, but I’m terrified that one day I’ll act on them and somehow like it. I used to think I liked men, but back then, I was in a very unhealthy space in a time of escapism and something deeply parasocial. I’ve only ever liked the attention and validation a man could give me, but these experiences are somehow treated as further proof that I’m "bisexual." I’ve never been in a real relationship with anyone, which makes my brain constantly challenge me—telling me, “You don’t even know what love feels like.” It won’t shut up. It keeps obsessively trying to make me prove that I’m a lesbian, testing my reactions and questioning my certainty. Is this normal?
- Date posted
- 22w
So. I was in a traumatic relationship. for a long time. it was filled with gaslighting, manipulation, abuse, cheating ect. I would OBSESS over finding out where they were, what they were doing, who they were talking too. but I couldn’t leave. I tried so hard but I never could. they would call me names, physically hurt me, throw things, break things. because I would question them all the time. but I just couldn’t leave. no matter what I knew. they would manipulate me. I fell for their childhood trauma. it’s like I lost all logic. but I also feel like I have a pretty good memory with memories. not all the way, but remembering a lot of the traumatic things. especially now that I’m no longer with them. I keep remembering things that’s happened. even from my childhood. one time way before I even started dating this person, I had an intrusive thought about a friend of mine. that was with me. and I freaked out. I thought I had acted on the intrusive thought the next day. I asked my friend for confirmation but they said nothing happened. but the memories about it feel SO REAL. so VIVID. but they swore that nothing happened and they had no idea what I was talking about. I’ve struggled with intrusive thoughts for my whole life. so fast forward to now, that ‘false memory’ from my friend randomly popped up and I started obsessing about it, and my childhood ‘memories’ that have popped up. and then I was reading an article of someone doing something horrible, and then it sounded ‘familiar’ and so then I’ve created this whole memory of me doing something similar to the article involving my partner doing it also. the memory keeps adding new things and conversations around it. when it involves an actual real memory. but it’s like it’s been twisted from what I remembered before. I also suffer from bad anxiety. I’ve stalked pictures. my search history to figure out what I was doing that say when the real event happened. and I’ve found some things but I can’t look through my texts because I got a new phone. it has been hounding me for months. MONTHS. trying to figure out if this new ‘memory’ is real or not. if it’s been fabricated by an intrusive thought from reading the article and thinking ‘what if’ or if it actually happened and because I’m no longer in this relationship it’s a ‘repressed memory’ but the thing is I have horrible horrible anxiety and I don’t think I could have gone this long knowingly that that happened without remembering it until now. because I remember a lot of the horrible things that they did. this ‘memory’ is fuzzy, but it brings me horrible anxiety when I think of it, like I feel like it happened. but I also feel like it didn’t happen. because I know I would never do anything like that. but WHAT IF I DID, because I was manipulated. idk. is this a false memory. I really need help. because it’s been debilitating. that relationship was really traumatic. and I got manipulated into a lot of things. but I wouldn’t have just went forward knowing that that happened??? there’s no way I could have just forgotten it. because before when I would think about that night it was different, until now. but what if I just made myself forget what truly happened?? I’m a pretty self aware individual, but somehow that relationship really REALLY put me into a trance somehow where I allowed things that I have no idea how I would even allow because before I met that person I would have never allowed someone to cheat on my constantly or talk to me the way they did. or allow abuse. like I don’t understand it.
- Date posted
- 19w
hi i’m a lesbian! and i have known im a lesbian for a really long time and i have a sweet girlfriend of 1 year. it all started when i saw this masc lesbian come out as straight, after that i had my guy friend over and he’s a sweet guy and he was flirting with me (he didn’t know i was gay) im not sure but i panicked and my brain froze and i was like “do i like him”, ever since my brain has been over worked 24/7 for 2 months now and it’s spiralling constantly. im trying to control it but all these thoughts are so disgusting and my brain tries to put him and i in scenarios that make me uncomfortable and i feel panic and i hate it. i have always been comfortable being a lesbian and i still am comfortable as a lesbian, but i dislike these thoughts i have about him and men and i want it to be over. i do not want to experiment with men even tho my brain is telling me i do, i find it disgusting and i dread it, i have a sweet girlfriend and i want to be with her forever, i do not imagine anything with any men and i hate these thoughts. im scared of becoming bisexual/straight one day and i hate hearing sexuality is fluid. its a whole mix of comphet and so-ocd
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