I feel like one of the hardest parts of dealing with sexually themed is OCD is the confusion around feelings. Physiologically, there aren’t a lot of differences between arousal and anxiety. It’s basically impossible to tell the difference between fear and desire when you have OCD, which sucks. It’s a vicious cycle, and the only way out is to try and disengage, acknowledging physical feelings and sensations and continuing on with life. Doesn’t make it any easier.

more advice for sexual/pocd sufferers I read somewhere that if you hyperfocus too much on your body's reactions to intrusive thoughts, you're unwillingly just making it intensify the sensations. Your body, after enduring severe anxiety and stress from sexual obsessions, will now just react to anything sexual that comes into your mind, whether forced or randomly. It can happen in any way. OCD makes anything possible, and is driven by fear. Knowing this I realized, it doesnt matter at this point, and to let it happen. And you guys should too. Remember what your real values and desires are. It can feel as real as it gets, but it is still not you.

This shit has to be one of the most confusing subtypes of ocd because no matter what you will never find clarity. When it started it wasn’t as bad and confusing because it was mostly anxiety. But when it started getting physical that’s when it got extremely confusing because I feel tension and fear when thinking of gay stuff but while testing I get arousal sensations so the big question is “if I am afraid of it how can my body respond as if I’m into it and if I’m into it how does my body respond with fear as if I’m not” and it’s endless. I wish I never started testing my arousal so I never started getting groinals to gay stuff in the first place. But there’s no going back now.

Hey y'all Just wanted to ask - I've been having sexual intrusive thoughts for many months now and I'm in recovery, luckily things have gotten way way more manageable but one issue still remains There are moments where you 100% don't want these thoughts to appear. And my brain has learned, through weeks of avoidance and checking, that every time I go and try engaging with anything sexual, I must wonder about every single thing that's happening. What do I mean by this? Example: You start experiencing legitimate arousal that aligns with your desires, identity etc. Immediately, your brain goes "Okay, but did you just have an intrusive thought just now or what? What if you did?" so you check, which only leads to the intrusive thought actually appearing. Sometimes I have this weird effect where I feel like I had an image or thought pop into my head but I can't tell whether it actually happened, even if I don't think it did. I'm so hyper-vigilant about my own thoughts that I basically find intrusive thoughts where there were none. It's really messed me up, because I feel like I can't actually enjoy things that I used to before, and I'm not even that anxious because of ERP which makes this even more confusing. It feels like the intrusive thoughts have become "normal" or "fine" which I know they haven't, but then, I still used to be able to engage with sexuality and enjoy it to some extent, even if I had intrusive thoughts. That ability has gone down over time, especially with ERP for some reason, and I don't know why. I'm scared that this means a genuine change in preferences or paraphilia, but like... I know it probably doesn't? Has anyone in recovery from Pure OCD / sexual OCD had anything similar happen? Thanks in advance.