- Date posted
- 4y
- Date posted
- 4y
The first thing that really helped me was talking to my OCD therapist. I had a breakthrough when i told him exactly the thing I thought I couldn't tell anyone about gay ocd. He was like oh yeah you're testing. As soon as he said it I felt relieved and a lot of the resistance went away just with the realization that what i was doing in my head was no evidence of being gay or a terrible person it was the ocd testing to reduce anxiety and gain assurance. That was towards the end of 5 years of ocd therapy with a specialist. Even then i was still fearful of sharing what was happening in my head for fear it would turn out to be evidence of "gayness." Basically, sharing what you don't think is acceptable with people who do accept you no matter what and also who understand ocd help(Ed)s reduce the energy behind compulsions a lot, at least for me it did. Maybe you can see that your process follows a similar pattern. You have a thought(obsession) you believe is distressing or wrong and and you perform a compulsion to reduce the anxiety or gain security. In your case arguing with your thoughts seems to be the compulsion. You could start to allow yourself to experience the thought without arguing. Maybe at first delay arguing for 30 seconds and see if you can extend the time as you realize that the thoughts aren't harmful or linked to reality. I'll go back to my original statement about accepting all your thoughts. When you watch a murder movie the image of a man killing another person goes through your mind. That doesn't make you a killer. Imagine a pink elephant in your minds eye. Are you a pink elephant? No you're not. Think of turd now. Lol does that make you a turd? No it doesn't. So you are not your thoughts. Thinking about stuff doesn't make you that. Of course this primarily applies if you aren't actually doing the things but even then you aren't you're thoughts.
- Date posted
- 4y
Yeah no, i haven’t or have thought about ever doing anything sexually with that of the same sex. I’ve never been turned on or attracted to that type of life. I knew how to get my OCD to calm down for a bit when I first found out what it was, but then i found out my brother had done something with that of the same sex and it made me worry and constantly think that I may do something like that as well when I know I would never do such a thing. One week it’s HOCD another week it’s ROCD and the week after that it’s self harm OCD that I constantly deal with. It’s always the thoughts that we know aren’t true that bug us the most and that’s what kills me about it since I’m one to wear my heart on my sleeve sort of speak.
- Date posted
- 4y
The closest thing I’ve remotely done to being gay was one time in fifth grade while watching a step mom and her son make out, I basically was getting one off at a young ass age lol. I was a kid and I just persisted on letting one go, and to do that I was saying random shit. Some of the random things included my hot teacher, a cute girl in my class, then I said I’m gay. Now once again, I had never and have never been attracted to guys or like guys in anyway. If I did then I wouldn’t be here talking to you, but I did that and after I was like, “wtf? I’m not gay though.” Nothing like that had happened since... I seemingly forgot about it and it wasn’t a big deal to me until I started dealing with HOCD in 8th grade after worrying that I might be a gay NBA player after seeing a video about one on Instagram, even throughout that time I loved girls and still do.
- Date posted
- 4y
@tscott30 Has happened*
- Date posted
- 4y
I had a similar experience as a 6 year old child playing with another child. I saw a show about a talk show host with ocd when I was 11 or so and was like I have that exact thing and told my mom and she was like oh, no you don't have that. Anyway, i think it's pretty normal for kids to have those thoughts. I think the difference with ocd is we think it means something and resist.
- Date posted
- 4y
Holy shit, I thought I was the only one bro(excuse my French) but a friend of mine also dealt with heavy ocd and it took over a majority of his childhood causing him to do things differently than most. I was afraid to tell people the thoughts I was having up until about 5 months ago because I finally had enough and decided to look up what the hell was wrong with me and sure enough it led me here. It’s cool to know that there’s people who deal with the same things as me, I just wish they would go completely away though and i guess I have to take affirmative action.
- Date posted
- 4y
@tscott30 Yeah for sure it was totally debilitat mentally for me in the past. My mind was raw from it. I'm past the ocd now but I still have patterns of negativity and anxiety that I'm working on but the obsessing and compulsing that was mental hell went away. All of it can get better when you work through it.
- Date posted
- 4y
I’ll sit here and argue with myself saying that I know that I’m not gay, and that I’m not attracted to guys to try and fight any intrusive thought coming in. Whenever I worry about suicide or depression I do the same thing, I’ll say that I live a good life and that self harm is never an option. And it’s the same with my relationship
- Date posted
- 4y
Your fused with your thoughts. I've begun to accept my thoughts and find myself resisting them but them more I accept all of them and feel the effects of the thoughts in my body the more they disapate. For me there is an underlying false belief at times that my thoughts and the emotions they represent are fixed or real. That makes it more difficult to accept them. It's not true though. All my thoughts are acceptable. There is nothing wrong with having the thoughts or experiencing them. Once accepted new thoughts and emotions can take their place. Your disturbance is coming from the belief that what you are going through is not ok. It is ok. Thoughts and emotions are not external actions in your case. Nor in mine.
- Date posted
- 4y
So for example whenever I’m at the gym anytime I see a guy ANY guy, the thoughts will be like “you think he looks good”, or something like that... and everytime I argue with it because it simply isn’t true. I have to allow for them to happen? And not allow myself to get caught up in arguing anymore?
- Date posted
- 4y
Yes exactly. Just because you have a thought doesn't make it true. It also doesn't mean anything about you. It might be hard to see at first and cause anxiety but that's ok. The more you can accept all your thoughts and see they are not you and don't mean anything the more fluid it becomes. Really any thought that comes in is ok.
- Date posted
- 4y
So how did you like train yourself to become okay with not arguing with them?
- Date posted
- 4y
it's not a big deal to have thoughts like that. I like to think I'm in control of my thoughts but the reality is I'm much more free when the thoughts can just flow. Accepting all the thoughts.
- Date posted
- 4y
I get that, but it’s tough sometimes to accept the thoughts and I’ll try trust me. But when I look at any guy it’ll be like “oh wow you think he’s fine” and then I’ll try to let it happen but then I start to argue with it being like “I don’t swing that way and I don’t think every guy I see is hot as hell” now I know there are some better looking guys than myself (I also know that I just told you this sorry for repeating) but it gets hard to even scroll through Snapchat or Instagram without these thoughts driving me crazy. Would you know how to do ERP?
- Date posted
- 4y
I'm not a therapist so I can only share my experience with it and with getting better. What I was describing in a post before about allowing yourself to experience it without arguing, first for a short time and then increasing the length is a form of ERP. A therapist would be able to give you more structure and it would work better. If you feel like it's impeding you that much internally it would be worth talking to a professional. It's a gradual thing. You wouldn't just go from arguing with yourself all the time to zero overnight. If you can build up the time you accept or experiencing what's going on that's progress.
Related posts
- Date posted
- 23w
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.
- Date posted
- 19w
I tried checking if I like gay stuff and it’s genuinely disgusting to me. I can tell whether or not a man is attractive and when they are it does scare me and makes me question myself yet, it’s always the same response, I don’t get how you can do that with another man. Doing anything sexual just feels so gross and wrong. I don’t think that I am magically turning gay. I don’t think my orientation is changing or hasn’t been explored. I simply find that stuff gross. I have never had anything wrong with gay people and I am a true believer that people have choices they can make with free will so it’s not that I’m homophobic, just keep that stuff away from me lol. Saying so, I don’t get why I am getting these thoughts. These images in my head, constant need of checking if I fall in the spectrum, constant checking whether I like someone of any gender, constant checking whether or not I am getting groinal responses. No matter what answer I get, my mind still wants an answer, an answer to the next question that it’ll create after answering the one before it. I have always liked girls and always been so proud of it, I am in a relationship right now with a beautiful girl I’ve had a crush on since 2nd grade. (I am 19) Whatever mental illness I have has ruined our relationship. Everything feels forced on my side, I don’t remember the joy I had before this but I have glimpse throughout the days of the things we’ve done together that makes me happy and look forward to life. I am constantly checking to see if my attraction is still there for her and the scary part is, when I am stuck in my head, I am not but, to alter that, when I get that freedom and feel like my normal self, I get a hyper amount of love for her and it feels so nice. These thoughts all began after me and my girlfriend had an argument, 5 months ago we got in an argument over her not giving me enough space. She always wanted to be a part of a plan with my male friends. I never minded her when it was just us two so it’s not that I hated being with her, it was just that I had no time to be independent. ( I also had no job and nothing going for myself. ) One odd day after spending so much time stuck in the house due to weather, I had random thought on whether or not I truly loved her. We were only 4 months into the relationship so I didn’t have an answer and since it felt like I needed an answer, it became obsessive, I couldn’t stop checking. After hours with that thought, I started to wonder whether or not I was interested in other things like K I D S. This thought was an automatic no and I began to fight it. I wasn’t going to accept that, each day felt like a living hell. The questions would change each day, do I miss my ex, was my ex better, do I like my M O M, do I want to K I L L so and so, do I want to kill myself. One day I woke up and had it all in control, felt like magic, after I watched a video on ROCD and realized, oh, I am not the only one but, this is where my compulsions got even worse. I couldn’t stop checking the internet, seeing if I relate to others, watching more videos. I regret this everyday because this compulsion created so many new thoughts and questions for me to answer. About 2-3 weeks went by and a thought passed by that has been stuck with me since along with other thoughts. I thought back to what I did as kid and in the past. I remembered a traumatic event where my brother touched me (5yr old M) inappropriately. This made me question whether or not I liked it and I couldn’t find an answer, couple years (10yr old M) after that I unfortunately did the same to my cousin (8yr old M). I feel so much shame and guilt for it. My mind turned black and white, “Maybe this isn’t a do you like your girl or not but instead, maybe you just like boys I mean, you obviously never asked yourself if you like what you did so”. This question was terrifying for me because it meant that I could no longer love my girl, my whole life till now has been a lie. So I began to question everything in my past up to date to find an answer. No matter what answer I fed my mind, it would not be satisfied and simply create more questions. It felt like my mind was forcing me to be gay, whether or not I liked it. 4 months has passed and the questions have just gotten worse, something I was initially so afraid of. I am in constant fight or flight mode, I am always anxious and I can’t feel nothing. I get times of relief when I am reminded of my past, when my gf turns me on, or when I find an answer to question my mind conjured up. I started to go to church but it’s always been a struggle for me to believe. I can’t go to the gym anymore because everywhere I look I am questioning myself. My porn addiction has went away but mostly because I can’t find anything attractive anymore. I can only find comfort and discomfort. Something that was once so easy for me would 1 day be nonexistent and hard to live without. I don’t know what the truth is anymore. My life feels like a made-up lie. Though I have always loved women, fantasized about them, get extremely nervous around them, pray for them, romanticize them, etc. I now have no idea what it feels like to be in love, interested, or even happy for a woman. My attraction hasn’t vanished completely, I still can look a girl and be stunned, l simply just can’t destroy the feeling it gives me. I get so anxious and begin to question everything about the women, the feeling, myself. I am having a crisis.
- Date posted
- 7w
Hello, so I’ve been struggling really badly with so-ocd where I am worried that I’m not actually straight when that’s what I’ve always thought and wanted to be. I’ve been with my boyfriend for about 2.5 years now, he’s my first boyfriend and I really love him so much and want to spend the rest of my life with him. I remember one time, before I had struggles with so-ocd, I had a thought along the lines of ‘what if I’m missing out on other men by staying with him’ and it didn’t really cause any anxiety but I felt quite guilty for thinking that. But I moved on. However, right now I’m in the depths of so-ocd it started back in March I believe, and today I had a thought along the lines of ‘what if I never get the opportunity to try being with a woman because I’m in a relationship with a man’ and that has really set me off today. I’ve had a meltdown over it, my chest feels heavy and it felt so real like I actually wanted it and I had a feeling of wanting to be gay even though that’s not what I want in life. Why is this happening to me and I feel so horrible for thinking this like it felt like it was me and not the ocd and that I’m just lying to myself and my boyfriend. I’ve tried scrolling on here to see if anyone has had a similar thought or experience and I am aware that this is reassurance seeking but I just need someone to tell me that I’m okay
Be a part of the largest OCD Community
Share your thoughts so the Community can respond