- Date posted
- 3y
- User type
- Staff
- Date posted
- 3y
It's important to remember that OCD isn't about the content of our thoughts or even the feelings they bring up- it's about the way we engage with them. Oftentimes OCD wants us to urgently figure something out. It's like "hurry quick! If you don't know the answer RIGHT NOW, total catastrophe will happen!" Whenever you feel that urgent need and find yourself flip flopping between answers trying to "figure it out", I'd encourage you to take a second to stop and notice what you're feeling. Instead of engaging with the thoughts, practice labeling and sitting with the uncomfortable emotions. Lean into phrases like "maybe I am in denial, maybe I'm not." to practice sitting with the uncertainty.
Related posts
- Date posted
- 17w
I’ve always been straight my whole life and I’ve never considered being different nor have i ever had attraction to women but lately I’ve been going through a lot of different thoughts that definitely feel unlike me. When I was a kid and I don’t remember how old I was but im sure like 7 or 8 and my cousin that was I very close to had me do inappropriate things to her that I didn’t really know anything about at that time. After that happened to me I knew it was wrong and I felt so bad and disgusting and scared but at the time I didn’t really know anything and I remember when my mom would drop me over my grandmas house while she would work, I’d take my grandma’s phone and I looked up kissing videos and I saw the kissing scene from Jennifer’s body and looking back on it I just feel so much shame and confusion bc it certainly feels embarrassing. My cousin always liked girls but I never did. I loved sitting and watching Disney movies preferably princess and the frog and wanting to be a princess getting married to a prince just like in all the movies. I knew who I was from a very young age and that never changed about me. When I learned what porn was at an older age, I started becoming hyper sexual so I watched tutorials videos of women to learn how to pleasure myself. When I was a kid and to now I’ve never looked at women in that way. I’ve had best friends and sleepovers it’s never been anything sexual, romantic, or intimate. Just simply innocent friendships and hangouts. When I got to high school that’s when i started remembering what happened to me and i remember how the girls would talk about their first kisses and i remembered my sa and how I felt so scared to say anything to anyone bc I didn’t want people to think badly of me simply bc my first kiss was like that so I would simply just not say anything. Lately I’ve been having obsessive thoughts out of nowhere wondering if my sexuality has changed or if im bi or is it just my thoughts? I’ve always had ocd and even in school, the kids would pick at me because I always eat my food in order and by the lightest color. But lately it’s gotten worse. It’s like I’ve never had thoughts like this nor have I ever been like this. Not even when I was a child. And humans question themselves of course but this feels like something different. I’ve gotten distant from my best friend who’s also a girl and I’ve just cut off social media and female friend relationships at all because for some reason my brain tells me that it’s “gay” to even hug your friends or hold their hands anymore like you used to do when you were kids. I even got to a point where I would watch women porn and try to masturbate just to see if I was attracted to it or not like that’s how bad the thoughts got. It felt like an evil voice was in my head trying to convince me and sweet talk me to do and enjoy those disgusting things even when my body didn’t want to. I eventually had confided in my bf about it because he was also a victim of sa and so he helped me through it and I stopped doing it but then and my bf (now ex) broke up a couple days ago and now ive been dealing with this alone which feels like the hardest part for me. So I’ve texted my bff a lot to catch up because I’ve been distant dealing with this and I was just checking my phone awaiting for her responses to my texts because she tends to type slow and usually I never think anything of it because I used to check my phone all the time when I would await my boyfriends reply or simply just a text from him and so now im having thoughts like “why am I awaiting her texts” “do I like my friend?” Its just so many obsessive thoughts and so much overthinking that I am getting tired of because It’s been going on for months so I know this is a lot but please if anyone can please help me I beg, it would be such a great help appreciated bc this has became a really big impact on my life and not in a good way lol. Thank you !!
- Date posted
- 11w
I feel like the thoughts and feelings are getting stronger, to the point where they feel like they are my own and that I want them and want them to happen. Recently I’ve even had feelings of ‘wanting to be gay’ and that I ‘don’t want to be straight’, or that being with a woman would be nice even though that’s literally the one thing I don’t want otherwise I wouldn’t be constantly thinking about it day after day surely and if I wanted it I would just know? I feel numb and sick and terrified that I’ll just be what I’ve feared all this time. Why does my brain do this. I feel like I’ve lost so much already, I couldn’t concentrate on university work and I’ve had to delay my degree for a year, I’ve lost my purpose, and I feel so ashamed that I can’t tell anyone the real reason for it (I just told everyone the course was too much stress and was causing me anxiety) and it just feels like it’s getting worse to the point that it’s actually coming true, and I’m going to have to leave my boyfriend because I can’t be with him anymore. Why do the thoughts sometimes feel good? Why does it feel like real attraction? Why why why does it feel like DISAPPOINTMENT with the idea of never being with a woman wtf this is literally what I don’t want and never have? Even just writing that out my brain is telling me ‘it is’ and ‘I’m lying’ and I just can’t even believe myself anymore. I’ve tried telling myself the whole maybe maybe not but it just doesn’t work. It feels like if I accept I like woman I’ll want to be with one and leave him. Why does the idea of being with a man not fill me with excitement like it used to why do labels terrify me I genuinely just want to give up I still haven’t even told anyone about this cause I just feel like they won’t understand and that they will just think I’m struggling with my sexuality and the worst thing is I don’t even know what I want anymore cause of the thoughts and feelings I don’t know what to believe what if I am actually just struggling with my sexuality cause nothing feels right anymore
- Date posted
- 4w
What if these thoughts aren’t intrusive thoughts but signs of my true identity? What if I’m lying to myself? What if I’ll never feel attraction towards men again? What if I never actually felt attraction towards men? What if I was just forcing myself to have crushes on boys? Is this false attraction? Then why does it feel so real? I don’t know who I am anymore, I don’t know what I want, I don’t know what I could do to escape the thoughts, and I’m not sure if I really want to escape them.
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