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I’ve been struggling with HOCD since I was 12. I don’t know how the theme came on, one day I just had the random thought “imagine if I was gay lol” and I’ve been obsessing over the theme ever since. It’s ruining my love life and I don’t know what to do, I’m so scared that I’m never going to leave this obsession behind. I grew up very religious and had a few religious themes growing up too, which is kinda were the whole gay thing came from. I’ve had crushes on guys since I was a little girl and I still get crushes on guys but my brain always tries to find evidence that I’m lying to myself and that I’m actually attracted to only women. Whenever I see a girl with similar hobbies and interests as me on the Internet, I stalk her social media until I find out if she’s gay or not because my brain keeps telling me that my hobbies and interests are proof that I’m a lesbian. I stalk forums all night to read about other experiences. I’ve never had a high libido, so when I read about girls instantly getting aroused by men without having some sort of emotional connection - it scares me. I’ve only ever found myself attracted to guys that I feel a connection to. Even in fictional scenarios, it’s the personality that always fuels my attraction. I always thought that women are more aesthetically pleasing than men and my brain also uses that as evidence that I’m lying to myself. Sometimes I lie in bed and force myself to question why I’m attracted to men because compared to women, they just seem boring physically. Like I can understand why someone would lust after a woman they don’t know anything about but I don’t understand how someone could lust after a man they don’t know. I know that this is probably just a mix of society generally portraying women as sex objects and just me being more emotionally driven but the idea still scares me. For the record, I’m an atheist now but years of brainwashing still has hell ingrained as a fear. I’ve wonderif I’m bi a lot because I find women very pretty but I can’t really picture myself in a relationship with a one unless she was really masculine. (The idea of being bi doesn’t scare me that much) Women generally all look kinda the same to me, whereas I’m quite picky with guys if we were judging solely on appearance. I’m not looking for reassurance, I just want someone to relate to. :/ The theme generally fades away whenever I’m dating someone that I really like but the moment problems come up, I start doubting my identity again.

Hello! I don’t mean to ask for reassurance so I’m sorry if it sounds like it. I’ve been fixating a lot about having “crushes” on other people while in a very happy relationship. For example, if I see a certain hairstyle, or clothing style, or body physique, personality trait (ie they’re the “popular person” or they’re super sweet) etc that I find appealing on someone else other than my partner, I tend to get that “swoony” or “crushy” type feeling. The kind of feeling that is like “*sighhhh* ??”. It may be a celebrity or someone I actually know. It’s really upsetting me because I keep worrying that it is “mental cheating”. My partner says it is normal and I did compulse and google, which says it is normal... but I’m so worried that what I’m experiencing is different than what those people are deeming “normal”. It’s driving me crazy because now that’s ALL I notice in other people! I’ve never been the type to look really at anyone else other than my partner so it’s really heart breaking to me. Any advice or similar situations would be super helpful because I feel like I’m going crazy! Thank you!

FUCK I was watching how to know if you’re bisexual and this girl was like I would always find girls really pretty and wanted to be like them but I’m retrospect it’s because I wanted them I’m triggeredddd

Ngl, thinking bout having to come out gives me maaaaaajor anxiety. Makes me feel like im just surpressing this

“ERP” simply doesn’t work for me. It MAKES me need to check more. Months ago, I purposely didn’t wash my hands after touching my eye. I had conjunctivitis, and convinced myself it was caused by an std, even when I had negative results in my std tests. I used the toilet at work after touching my eye and now I feel absolutely TERRIFIED I infected myself and my partner will think I cheated and leave me. NOW I feel that I MUST go back to the clinic to make sure my asshole isn’t infected by my own fucking eye all because of “ERP” which is nonsense as far as I’m fucking concerned

i’m from Portugal and i’m so dissapointed. there are 0 psychologists that have especiality in ocd. what do i do now ? i went to one with no especiality and it felt like he didn’t know what he was saying

I’m in this phase with my sexual based ocd where I’m pretty much constantly aware/feeling a physical feeling. It’s so sick and awful and scary and I’m trying to remind myself that it’s just OCD or even if it’s not it’s not connected to my obsession but every time I move or do anything I feel like I’m trying to make myself feel that way on purpose. I feel so awful.

Having a horrible time. An old theme popped up and I feel like I’m on the brink of confessing. I spoke with a crisis counselor and they said to move on and not have the real life event affect me anymore, but it’s rearing its ugly head again. I wish I could enjoy my time off but I can’t.

IMPORTANT MAY HELP YOU As my usual slight hocd attack started (it was nowhere near what it used to be but i still had a little feeling in my stomach) i decided to sit with my thoughts for a couple of minutes to calm it and i came to a though that will help me so much in the future and it makes sense Every straight person has the same thought we do about wondering whether we are gay or bi or whatever , but to them they're just another one of their thought our HOCD clings to these thoughts making us think they are worth something , so to get over don't give them any importance because they don't deserve any . you are no diffrent to anyone else you have the same thoughts yours are just manipulated , i beleive in you all

I can’t stop thinking about how my whole life is a hallucination and really I’m in a mental hospital watched by hundreds of scientists as I act out my everyday actions. It’s not an uncomfortable or bad thought. It doesn’t freak me out or anything. I just think about it. Is this normal or could this be linked to the OCD?

does anybody else have like intense rage/ possible anger issues and then go “oh great, just another sign that im a serial killer.” or ill often have no empathy when people are excited about something or even want to make people upset because i get upset easily?? i just feel like sometimes i have the intent to hurt people and i hate when i get like that, its usually when im having a good day and i want to lash out back at people. i dont know

I’m at my friends house right now, I spent the night for New Years and I kept looking at her to much while talking. My brain immediately went to, “what if you like her?” And I got this really weird feeling in my chest and stomach, that made me panic even more... I got up and went to the bathroom and started looking on this app for something! And then I started thinking, “what if I’m bi?” That scared me more, the thought of me being with a girl makes my stomach churn... I then started to shake my head like I usually do to get the thought to go away, and it wasn’t working... WHY WASNT IT WORKING!? IS IT NOT OCD?! AM I JUST FAKING IT ALL!?! I NEVER USED TO THINK LIKE THIS BEFORE!!! WHAT HAPPENED TO ME!!! I just want to go home and cry all day...

Hey everyone ❤️ I need some tips: When I’m feeling guilty and hate myself for my thoughts and things I’ve done in the past, what can I do to have compassion for myself, or like, self care tips for that? Thank you dears ❤️

WHY CAN’T I BE NORMAL AND GO TO WORK LIKE EVERY OTHER FUCKING PERSON. What is wrong with me. What the fuck is wrong with me. Wow, I feel like such a fucking failure. I don’t understand. My family is so disappointed in me I can just feel it and this is the first time they haven’t given me shit about not working. The silence is deafening. My head is spinning. My family is disappointed in me, my mom is definitely pissed and my dad doesn’t understand mental health and probably sees me as weak and pathetic. Every time I think about work I start shaking. I haven’t worked since the summer because of college but it just made this all worse. I don’t know everything about how to get back to work or what is going on at work so I sent one email to the wrong (probably) supervisor and that was it. God I’m so dead. I need a car because the one I use now belongs to my parents and they’re taking it for my brother and I don’t have the money to pay for a car and I don’t know what I’m going to do. What am I going to do. I’m going to force myself into unemployment and everyone will think I’m pathetic and lazy and i don’t understand why I’d rather cut myself a hundred times than go to work because all I want is to make my family proud of me. I’m just failing. I can’t do it. My brother talks about how he’d “do anything for money” and I just CAN’T and I feel so helpless like he has this advantage over me and I just can’t do anything. I’m so scared I’ll get to work and mess something up and my bosses will scream at me. I’m so scared of being the reason everything goes wrong. I don’t want to be yelled at by customers or my boss and it doesn’t make sense but I can’t pick up the phone to call anyone because if I do bad things will happen and people will yell. I don’t know what to do I feel like my life is spiraling out of control and I just feel like I need to say I’m sorry to my family and to god over and over and over because I can’t take care of myself and it’s affecting the people I love and I don’t want it to.

Hi everyone, I have sensorimotor obsession. I have something like breathing and Swallowing. When I read a book that talk about schizophrenia. It really freak me out. And one the of the symptoms is hear the voice. After I read those book am really scare that I would have schizophrenia. So I keep checking the sound to make sure something is not wrong. And I keep checking the noise and ear start to ring. And the more I focus on it and it become loud. I go to check up at the doctor and the doctor say my ear is completely fine. Is this tinnitus or just my mine play a trick on me.

Yall girls wirh hocd just lost ur femininity? I dont enjoy getting ready anymore like inused to. Putting on lashes and nails is jusr not giving me that sparkle u kno its like makig me feel nothing. Looking cute and got me feeling cute anymore. I miss those days in summer where u feel al clean and pretty snd go out to dinner n shit. All i feel is anxiety now. Getting ready for a party is anxious while it used to be so fun to do it with friends with music blasting. I dont feel like the pure woman i used to be i feel disgusting and ruined. I was so girly and i miss the girly me. Like the developement of me growing in to the adult me has been disturbed by hocd and now im growing up to be the woman i wasnt supposed to be. Im so scared im missing out on becoming thr woman who i was suppose to be if that makes sense. Hocd grabbed on to very little thing i enjoyed and poisoned it.

Did I act? Harm OCD but I was also actually angry? Hi everyone could use some advice here. A little background - I remember having OCD since I was a teenager. I’ve had everything from religious OCD to sexual OCD fears like POCD and so in. You name a genre of OCD, I’ve probably had it. Also, lately I’ve been dealing with some anger issues. I’ve had some trouble feeling frustrated with my wife. I know this is not part of the OCD but it has led to some events that have been entangled with Harm OCD symptoms. Let me be clear: I don’t think that I’m the sort of person capable of hurting anyone. I’m afraid of causing harm to others. I always have been. However, a couple of times I’ve driving with my wife in the car while we’re in the middle of an argument and this terrible thought of pulling into oncoming traffic pops into my head. I have a history of apologizing to her about not driving carefully enough. One night, I found myself feeling really frustrated by a discussion we were having. I was driving at the time and I remember having an awful, awful, dark thought while at an intersection as I about to make a left hand turn. It was, "instead you could pull out in front of this oncoming car as it's approaching and it would hurt both of you". I was feeling frustrated and angry about our conversation. I also don't remember the car being so close to where I couldn't get around it, so I went for it. I pulled out in front of the car and accelerated really quickly so that we would be sure to get around it. She was on her phone, but joked about how fast I was driving. I think I was accelerating so quickly so that we'd get around the car and that we wouldn't be hurt. But why on earth did I pull out in front of it in the first place? I MAY have been angry and acted in anger. I beat myself up over this for months and months, however, I still don’t know what happened. I feel like there’s a strong chance that OCD made the entire situation seem way worse than it actually was. I honestly don’t know. Sometimes when I’m frustrated with her about something, some impossible Harm OCD thought will come into my head where I’m hurting her. Now I’m better at thinking “Ridiculous. I would never do that” and blow it off. Well, a really similar situation happened yesterday. I was driving and I happened to be upset at my wife about something. I let the angry thought kind of flow through me and didn’t react. However, I found myself in the same left-hand turn situation again. My brain produced the thought - “you could turn left again in front of oncoming traffic and hurt her and yourself”. I blew it off. Of course I would never ever do that. But, in that moment, I noticed that my hand on the steering wheel slightly turned in that direction. Like I said, I had no intention of pulling out. Maybe my hand just did this because I was prepping to turn left after the cars had finished coming and I could make my turn. Again, I HAD NO INTENTION OF PULLING OUT. But what I can’t figure out is, why do I remember this slight pull the left of my hand on the wheel after the thought? Was I really just driving as normal, positioning the wheels to turn after the cars had passed? Or did my body react to the OCD thought? I would never want to cause harm to my wife. The anger I was feeling complicates this and makes it feel like I intended to do something even though I know I wouldn’t intentionally hurt my wife. So confused. Can anyone relate or offer advice?

So I told myself "I am a bisexual and I know I still like boys and there's nothing wrong with finding girls attractive too" I don't know what it was but i felt anxious but at the same time a kind of relief. I think I'm a bit more comfortable right now even though it did make me cringe a bit.

Hi guys! I’m new to this and trying to get some advice. My OCD has gotten out of control the past couple years and it’s becoming debilitating. It’s to the point where it takes me an hour at night to check and make sure my door is locked when i know it’s locked because I’ve checked it 50 times. I’ll even take pictures of the door, but when i get the urge to get back out of bed and check, looking at a picture doesn’t help. Different scenarios run through my head: “Well what if it unlocked itself? What if i accidentally touched the door after I took the picture and now it’s actually unlocked?” Same with making sure the faucet is off and other little things. It’s interfering with my life at this point. Can any of you share your stories with me on how you’ve taken control over your OCD? Or even if you haven’t and you’re still struggling...you’re not alone. Thanks in advance!!!

I just feel like my hocd isn't ocd. It doesnt feel like I can determine if I like it anymore. It just feels like I like it now and that im trying so desperately to relate to people with it. I want to just cry and crawl into a hole an die. This isnt what I want but it feels like have no choice and I'm trapped. It feels so real that im at a point where I feel like there is no way it cant be real :(