Sexual orientation ocd is high today, but it has been for the past two years so why not act on my values anyway?! 🤷‍♀️ Moving forward with working on buying a house with my partner even though it's a huge trigger. HUGE. Lol What will you do today to act on values, rather than fear? Please tell me I'm not alone 💔💖

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.

Earlier today I did some pretty high-level contamination exposure, inspired by my therapist, and now I'm listening to a triggering song on repeat — the very song that kicked off my first serious bout of OCD in high school. There is a part of my brain that is telling me I can't handle the song and that I should find a compulsion to do, but my goal is to have it in the background while I go about my self-care tasks. I'm already starting to get used to it 💪 How are y'all challenging your OCD today?

Having a little bit of a rough morning. My boyfriend and I are finally ending long distance next month and moving in together! I’m so excited, but the big change means some ROCD and SOOCD flaring up. I also got triggered by a tik tok of a bisexual woman this morning. I’ve been ruminating about: - ending long distance and being in a more consistent routine will make me realize I don’t actually love him and that we’re not compatible - I will not like spending so much time with a man but I enjoyed a long vacation with a girl friend one time (my best friend and I took a 7 week trip to Europe after we graduated college early and I had so much fun and we hardly fought / disagreed) - if i have been suppressing my attraction to women, even though I really don’t think I have feelings for women. I admire their beauty and always have, but I truly think that’s as far as it goes - substance use ocd also came up this morning? Worrying that I will become an alcoholic / that I secretly want to drugs and drink all the time I’m also getting my period in a few days and have flair ups around this time and my ovulation time. Just looking for support 🫶🏼