I have been thinking lately about how I had pretty debilitating HOCD when I was going into high school and I want to share my story with you all because it seems there’s so many who are going through what I went through. My HOCD started when I had a group of friends at my catholic school who were extremely homophobic. If anyone in our class was unique, or different, or annoying, my friends would say they were gay. It was the go-to insult at the time. It’s normal for any child to question their sexuality, but imagine my inner struggle when I thought any girl was pretty, I had an internal panic. If my best friends found out that I thought a girl was pretty?? They would ruin me. Then one of my main best friends told me that one of her friends from another school, came out to her. My friend told me she stopped being friends with her. I started to freak out and think the same thing was happening to me. I started getting intrusive thoughts and distanced myself from that friend. My fear of being gay overtook my life. I was just entering high school when this all went down, and I was triggered all day at school because I went to an all girls school. I was “checking” myself all day. I was a nervous wreck. I literally begged my mom to let me go to a public co-Ed school. When I started going to a co-Ed school, my HOCD didn’t get better, it actually got worse. I was getting attention from boys that I never got before. They would flirt, ask for my number, they were relentless. And I was petrified. I had terrible debilitating panic attacks thinking if I dated a man I would hate being with him, and I would have to come out. I was resisting, doing compulsions, ruminating, having fake attractions, (any attraction I thought I had, was just anxiety) and I was stuck in this frame of thinking. Then there was this really cute guy who started flirting with me. I couldn’t deny I liked him. And we started to date, and I was genuinely in love. My HOCD pretty much disappeared for our entire relationship because there was no denying I was attracted to a man. It was in the background every once and while, but not bad at all. But, the best thing I could’ve ever done was after gaining some confidence in myself, I started going to a technical school for cosmetology. I was working with other women all day every day. Shampooing their hair, painting their nails, talking and making good friends. Now that I look back, that was the best exposure therapy😂! I started to realize wasn’t attracted to any of them. I was just a hairstylist doing my job. I didn’t know it at the time, but spending time with other women and making friends with them and exposing myself to that environment made me realize I wasn’t gay at all. Now I will say, I enjoy looking at women and I think they’re beautiful. But I do not f want to date or sleep with a woman at all. I am confident in how I feel because of my experiences. I want the younger people who are struggling with HOCD to understand how important it is to put yourself out there and experience life, make good friends, expose yourself to the things that scare you. Please just push yourself through those fears because there’s a whole other side to this and there’s clarity in your future. I have two kids and a loving husband now, and I’m so happy that I have myself a chance to overcome my fears