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

This is killing me slowly day by day, im a straight female 20 years old, i started getting hocd after a break up with an ex and coming off intense use of 🍁🍃 for a few years on and off, i think it has messed up my brain so bad… my hocd is weird because ive been with men my whole life always wanted to be with men.. i also used to always question every relationship “do i love him? Does he love me? Am I with the right person?” Anyways after my hocd triggered my tocd due to researching hocd and finding they can often be linked, I started getting tocd and it’s worse then ever because it’s not who I want to be and I’m going back to situations where my abusive ex partner called me a “man” during a fight. I’ve always been a tomboy but never had same sex attraction. Help. This is killing me. I haven’t been able to study or leave the house most days, and work! I’ve lost motivation for everything and I’m in a dark hole. I need some success stories please

I’ve recovered from HOCD before and got my attraction and my usual actual identity back. I was recovered from end 2022- start 2025 until I got triggered UGHHH😭 My HOCD is REALLY trying to convince me and it’s SO annoying cause I genuinely don’t want these thoughts. I know I naturally like men and always have done so. I can’t wait for my first therapy session in two days Omg! I need your advice, not necessarily reassurance, but more advice? My HOCD is throwing random “proof” I did/ saw as a child in my face, which back then had no meaning in my life and I continued to live a perfectly heterosexual life. I’ve educated myself about arousal non concordance / child’s play, but it still doesn’t remove the HOCD. I’ve read therapists great explanations on how it’s not a sexuality issue, BUT ITS AN OCD BRAIN ISSUE. So basically I’ve been straight and i will die as straight. But my ocd is still continuing with the intrusive thoughts/flashbacks. I’ve had some moments where I haven’t done as many compulsions and had less anxiety but still had those damn thoughts and I DO NOT want those damn thoughts. I have so much proof and factual/logical explanations but HOCD is still continuing to thrive. I absolutely hate this and I feel so alone. I wish there was a reset button cause I don’t want these thoughts to happen. I want a man and I stand by that. How do y’all deal with these situations? Cause sitting with the thoughts is clearly not helping.

Hey everyone, I’m reaching out because I’ve been going through one of the hardest mental spirals of my life, and I’m hoping someone can relate or shed light on what’s happening to me. About 4 months ago, I accidentally came across a trans porn scene. It didn’t do much at the time, but later it triggered this overwhelming intrusive thought: “What if I’m gay?” Since then, it’s been absolute hell. I’ve always been into women—emotionally, sexually, everything. I’ve been in a long-term relationship with a girl I love deeply. But after that moment, my brain started spiraling into nonstop analysis. I began checking how I felt around men, whether I felt attraction, whether I was in denial, whether I was lying to myself. Literally everything became a test. I got stuck in this loop: • A thought pops in → panic • Try to solve it → brief relief • Another thought → worse panic • Repeat. At times, it got so bad I couldn’t feel anything at all—toward my girlfriend, toward women, toward myself. I started doubting everything. Some days, I feel emotionally flat, like I’ve lost my personality. Other days, I wake up with a full-body jolt of “truth” like “I’m definitely gay”—only for it to fade into numbness again. I’ve also noticed that I get short bursts of peace when I stop reacting, but then the fear comes back louder, like “See? Now you’re accepting it. That means it’s true.” Therapy hasn’t helped much so far—it felt more like general counseling. They told me to sit with the thoughts, but didn’t clarify if this was OCD, identity questioning, or trauma. That just made it worse because now I’m back to thinking “What if I’m just rejecting my truth?” I’m exhausted. I’ve lost connection to everything I used to love. • I want to love my girl again the way I used to • I want to feel desire without overthinking • I want to trust myself again I’m not looking for reassurance—I just want to know if anyone else has gone through something like this, and if this sounds like HOCD or identity OCD. Thanks for reading.