Has anyone with HOCD ever felt completely convinced they must be gay? And feel next to know anxiety about it and then have spikes of sudden anxiety because you almost realise again how uncomfortable that makes you?

I felt totally convinced. I even said it out loud in total shock and disbelief. meanwhile I think I am 50/50 bisexual and that is improvement :/ I never thought this before but ocd made me think I missed hints.

As in you believed you were gay? Did it feel like you wanted to be but also didn’t at the same time?

@BradOCD I thought I am lesbian for 2 decades when all of a sudden my brain thought I am hetero after a trigger. it felt as if my brain and body want sex with men now while I did absolutely NOT want that. It made me panic. I started anxiously checking men and comparing to women and checked my feelings constantly. I could not even look at men for weeks, it felt as if I want them all now. I a it also felt as if all attraction for girls fade and finally was gone. I could not even watcj tv anymore, because there were men. at one point I thought I would want all my male neighbors, every age. It was a nightmare. it felt as if I am forced to be hetero now, although I did absolutely not want it. I thought I lied to myself all my life. Since I have a female body. Maybe there was no lesbian at all? my friends said I should be happy since being hetero is much easier and that I am normal now and should enjoy it. but I felt as if Iose my identity, myself. for weeks I was only able to run up and down and check my whole past, what I missed. In the end was afraid of every sexual thought, also women because when I did not feel enough I panicked. I am somewhere in the middle now. better , but not healthy and not me again. without medication I was unable to stop or slow the thoughts down. I felt like I have no will anymore and my brain and body just force me to do things I do not want. :(

@Bimmi Did you ever get scared or actually being yourself again? At the moment I feel like I’ve been this way so long it’s like I almost want it but don’t want it at the same time. I’m so confused. Like if someone could just come up to me and make me have my straight thoughts back I would say yes without a doubt, but it’s like it just doesn’t compute. Like today I read the definition of being biromantic and was almost like “hang on but I do find my girlfriend attractive and I do have romantic feelings for her” and I felt good then panicked and now it’s back to normal.

@BradOCD I lost myself and am not sure, if I will ever be my old self again. Right now I doubt it. I will not act on any straight thought, but I try to adjust to the idea I might like both in general. But not sure if this is true or just a temporary thought again. I hope therapy can help me sort a little what happened and happens here. I miss my life and self before so-ocd, but it seems lost,

@BradOCD Brad, think back to a more simpler time, when you were a child of eight or ten years of age. You must’ve had a childhood crush on someone?

@7EMPES7 When I was little and even up until a few months ago I had crushes on so many girls. I used to love the excitement of going on dates and all of that. I was always quite nervous about sex but when I met my girlfriend she completely made me feel at ease and the first few months I felt like a new man. Then I started worrying about how much I was enjoying myself so would start checking to see if I enjoyed it and then obviously wouldn’t.

Was there any event in your life, that caused you to believe these thoughts. Harassment, bullying etc?

I believe the events that caused my OCD was my father leaving me when I was 6 and then having a very complicated relationship with my mother. The result was being brought up completely by my grandmother. What brought on this set of thoughts was actually me being so happy in my relationship and with my life as a whole and then all of a sudden I had three weeks apart (for holiday) from my gf and it just felt like my world shattered. And it all started from there with ROCD and then this lead to one day someone simply saying the word gay and the HOCD started I remember when it started I almost found it funny because it sounded so silly. Then like with everything I ruminated and ruminated till I found enough evidence to make me start believing it’s true

ocd often wants you to be on one side of the fence or the other - regardless of the context or the situation. treatment requires you/encourages you to be right on the fence, right in the middle, not knowing one way or the other, not having 100% certainty one way or the other. and that's really uncomfortable but that's where we would encourage you to be okay being <3

Some days I feel certain, but I just don’t like the answer. Then other days I feel certain about another answer. If it’s the answer I like then I almost start rejecting it by thinking about all the evidence

@BradOCD You constantly doubt yourself, even when evidence proves otherwise...?

@7EMPES7 Yep! All the time. Even now