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I guess I'm gay. This is it. Im attracted to both men and women, but I get a stronger sexual reaction to women. I dont want to be gay. I'm with a boy who I love, but now I'm scared that I love my best friend instead of him. Before hocd I had no feelings for her at all. I dont want to have feelings for her. Before HOCD I didn't think I was gay, but because of comments that I saw yesterday it feels completely true now. I'd like to identify as straight, but that feels wrong because if I was healthy Id most likely want to be gay, right? I hope that isnt true. I'm not allowed to identify as straight because that's just proof that I'm in denial. I'm deep in denial. I want to die. I need help. But I can't afford help. I don't get a sexual response from looking at either gender now, which is very distressing because checking no longer works. I don't want my boyfriend to leave my life. I dont want to stop being intimate with him. I love talking to him, holding his hand, and hugging him, and kissing him and having sex with him. I'm scared I'm only with him for reassurance now. I dont want to get help if that means leaving him, but now I'm scared that's because I want to be straight, not because I love him. The most fucked thing about this is when I first developed hocd it was when I was going through puberty. I'd be terrified that I'd accidentally look at a girls boobs or butts, not even because I had the inclination to. It started from there and for some reason I got the shit end of the stick and it developed into being true. Have I convinced myself that I'm gay and I'm really not? I've been dealing with this so long I honestly have no idea. This bothers me so much because it's all about sex. What the fuck does sex have to do with loving someone? Love is not sex. I fucking hate societies view on sex and sexuality. I'm scared that if I dont react to these supposed feeling for my friend then they'll haunt me for ever. I dont want to lose my boyfriend.

This is gonna be another long one sorry but i need to vent again. The past 2 days have been pretty good i’ve had some intrusive thoughts but i didn’t focus on them and i just allowed them to pass but tonight it’s not that easy. I’m fully convinced at this point that i’m literally bottom of the barrel and just a terrible weird person and now i’m thinking back to previous thoughts wondering if they were even intrusive thoughts or if some things i think it do are even correlated with ocd and it’s just who i am as a person. i just wish i wasn’t me. like a day or two ago i had an intrusive thought or at least that’s what i’m categorizing it as because i’m not sure. basically i was in the shower and i thought to myself that this would usually be a time i would have an intrusive thought and i feel like i made myself think of one. i didn’t agree with it enjoy the thought but i made myself think of it because i guess i thought that would be something that could have popped up into my brain any other time and i was kinda surprised that my mind didn’t automatically think of it if that even makes any sense. So i don’t know if it’s an intrusive thought because i thought of it on my own but the thought was also similar to intrusive thoughts i’ve had in the past, i’m really trying to make this make sense sorry. And i feel like it was hard to move past because the thoughts involved my sister and her bf snd ughh i just feel so gross and terrible for thinking that even though i didn’t have a groinal response or anything it’s just the worst when my thoughts involve other people. Another thing also is i was watching a tik tok and this girl was doing a storytime about how she was driving and found a dead body that was covered with a blanket on a bridge and watching the video i felt fine until she mentioned the position of the body saying it was laying on its side with its legs curled up and then it seemed like i had a groinal response and it was really unsettling because that was something i literally didn’t expect to trigger me in any way so now i’m thinking i’m some creep that is attracted to dead bodies and it doesn’t help my situation that i used to watch a lot of crime shows where there were killers who were into stuff like that so it could be possible that that’s who i am even though that actually gross, but what if i’m in denial about who i really am and all these thoughts and things are really just how i feel and i keep on labeling it as ocd. I kept on going back to the video to rewatch that part to see if i’d hace the same response and sometimes i did and sometimes i didn’t but who knows if that’s because i was actively trying to avoid a response it if i just didn’t feel any type of way and it was dumb to do that honestly because i know that’s it’s a checking compulsion and it didn’t even help me in the end to figure anything out. i feel like i’ve been questioning myself a lot lately because it’s hard having these thoughts and responses a lot and just brushing them off because these are real things bad people feel so i could actually just be a bad person that has yet to evolve or come to terms with who i am. i really just want to be a normal girl and live a normal life but it’s so hard when the thoughts are running through my mind telling me that this is who i really am. i really want to get a therapist and just vent and talk about every single thing going on in my head so i can get just an ounce of clarity because i can’t keep on telling myself they’re just thoughts because my mind is a part of who i am and if these thoughts are do frequent would that just mean it’s who i am.

Do you guys get flashbacks to your childhood and think about how that might have contributed to your OCD? Sometimes I get false memories of me, enjoying staring at some girl. I hate these flashbacks and mental images. I've never looked at a woman in any way other than aesthetically, but with my flashbacks, I feel so uncomfortable and scared. For example, I was rewatching a few ASMR videos to help calm some stress down and suddenly I got a thought of me in the past watching these videos and how I enjoyed watching the lady. I vividly remember that I only watched ASMR for the soothing sounds, not the person doing it. Can OCD and false memory OCD have some type of correlation? (I'm a female btw)

I saw a lot of stuff today dealing with HOCD and I’m someone who once identified as a lesbian. But I’ve been questioning it as of late like what if I’m bi. Those things don’t necessarily cause me that much distress. In ways it does but not the same as the obsessions of “what if I’m straight”. I don’t know if it helps at all but being gay or being bi whatever I am I can tell you it does not look the same distress as what you guys face. I have been on the end of the spectrum where I’m like “what if I’m straight?” Before and THAT caused me extreme distress. So yeah I can tell you actually being a sexuality and your ocd making you confused and distressed is not the same.

me and my bf got into a small disagreement cause he kept leaving me on read and it made me anxious and he said he doesn’t do it purpose but now i feel bad for even bringing it up and my mind is making me blow this out of proportion and is like “this must mean u don’t wanna be with him. this must mean ur relationship is bad” ughfhdhhhh

I am a Protestant Christian, and I fear that I might be in the wrong religion and might go to hell. Is it possible for me to overcome this obsession in a way that still allows me to believe in absolute truth, I.e. that there is only one right religion? Because I would rather continue being OCD than give up the exclusivity of Christ’s claims.

I wish I knew how the future would be. I’m scared of my harm ocd and intrusive thoughts and more. I’ve been fighting this for 6 months and everyday is a fight. I hate feeling alone cause my family doesn’t understand and I hate knowing I make them worried about me. Day to day is hard at times. The last 2 days I’ve been stuck in a hole and seems I can’t get out of this. I’m scared about sailing again and if my thoughts will follow me.

The recent thread on HOCD and people then coming to terms with their sexuality is so triggering/confusing ? it kinda counters everything you learn about how arousal and groinals don’t necessarily mean anything

I need some help. I finished therapy not too long ago, exhausted every ERP exercise me and my therapist could think of and I still feel like shit. I feel like a fucking freak. My therapist said that usually after therapy OCD just won't be there for a long time and it's still here. Infact it feels like I'm slowly regressing. Is this normal? I need to talk to people who have finished OCD therapy. I had therapy for 6 months with some of the most gruesome exercises. I don't have money for more therapy, I don't want to get on meds and I just want to be OK. I've been accused of being my worst fear on this app like 4 times so be really careful with what you comment, please.

I’m afraid to ask this, but is it common for OCD to present as a fear of wanting to do something bad? I’ve had thoughts like “maybe I do want to”, “just do it”, “that sounds like a good idea” and so on. These thoughts are unwanted, but it makes me really confused and scared because I used to dismiss thoughts by saying I know I don’t want to do that. Has anyone experienced this? I’m afraid to treat this as OCD because they feel more real..

For anyone who struggles with “just right” obsessions and a lot of compulsions are mental ruminations, how do you practice exposures? So far I’ve mostly talked to myself for exposures but it hasn’t felt strong enough, so I’m also considering recording myself and listening back to it (as much as I don’t want to listen to my own voice!) what do you guys do?

If the brain develops neural connections when we think of stuff repeatedly, wouldn’t ERP be counter intuitive and make people believe our thoughts? can someone explain how that works?

Anyone dealing with one thought for a long while? Like a month or 2?

my mind is making me feel so guilty for all the shit i put my boyfriend through when it comes to my mental health

I'm broken. I'm at the point of a panic attack, and I'm so angry I just want to smash everything in my room. I was getting better, everything started to make sense. I realized how these irrational fears made no sense and I was facing them, one by one, and winning, constantly proving to my mind she was wrong. My OCD grew branches on sexuality and spirituality. As a Christian and spiritualist, I thought that if I watched porn, I would bring some kind of low, negative energy to my computer and that would cause it to burn out some pieces. There is this whole vibrational thing going on, and also demons or evil spirits that are attracted when you do something of "low vibration". And for Christianity (at least on the majority of churches) masturbation, pre marital sex and most sexuality things are big no no's, as they fall under the category of promiscuity. With my computer being my only way of distracting myself, with games, TV shows, social media, home schooling and artworks, this became a no no for me. I got to the point of not masturbating at all for months. Any time a sexual urge would appear in my mind I would pray for God to take this temptation away from me, because I "knew" that somehow if I gave in, I would infect my computer with this low energy/vibration and cause it to malfunction/die/burn out some pieces. After a few therapy sessions and also talking to my mom about this (she is very open), both her and the therapist said one thing has nothing to do with the other. This was just another trick of my OCD to make me feel guilty and afraid. Okay, I decided to follow their advice. It made sense. I watched porn this morning, to try price to my mind she was wrong, and guess what happened in the evening? MY KEYBOARD STOPPED WORKING. Not just one keyboard, I had a reserve one and it also doesn't work! I've just spent hours trying to fix it but for nothing, and I have essays to finish for tomorrow, and it's holiday here, so I won't be able to find a technician. And then there is the weekend... But not only that... No. That would be too easy. My bedroom lamp also burned out AT THE SAME TIME, which stands just by the side of my computer. Now, what are the chances of that?! I had this lamp for several months (and also the keyboard) and never had a single problem. What the fuck is going on?! I'm laying on my bed in complete darkness wanting to punch something while I just laugh of this nonsense out of complete rage.. I'm broken. My emotions are all fucked up now. This will probably be another night with insomnia. I was facing my obsessions, putting them to test one by one to show my unconscious mind that these irrational fears were not real. I had to pray constantly and compulsively before each exam, several times, or I wouldn't perform well on it or God wouldn't bless me. I decided to stop, and put things to test. This week I did two exams and I didn't pray in any of them, not only once, and I got max grade. That was the light at the end of the tunnel. My fears were unfounded, they were beginning to crumble and I was starting to conquer them. But then this happens. What are the chances? Is it REALLY just coincidence?! I don't know, I'm just tired and I don't know where to go from here or how to proceed. Can anyone share a light?

I finished my 8 sessions through NOCD app. My anxiety, depression scores lowered by half. I'm more able to expose myself to my fears now. And I do not panic as much as I did when I started the therapy sessions. I would definitely recommend therapy to anyone here. It does take a lot of work on your own, and meds with therapy is much better. Consider it if possible.

I don't usually make a post like this, but I'm genuinely curious. I've read a few things/seen a few videos which sort of touched on it but I think only seen one post in here where somebody mentioned urges to do this. Confession-compulsions are pretty well known as being part of trying to relieve guilt and anxiety, and have links to perfection and moral OCDs. But who here has experienced false-confession-compulsions? I'd be interested to hear your experiences. I'm talking about something like when you have POCD and tell someone you're definitely a paedophile, or false memory OCD where you tell someone "I did a hit and run on the way home". Basically repeating whatever the OCD keeps telling you. I also know that statistically it's quite common for people to do it, sometimes people walk into police stations and claim to have committed a crime, also obviously happens a lot during interrogation (OCD pressure is a HELL of a lot like interrogation). I have responsibility/guilt/real event OCD and I've done it several times when I had been letting feelings dictate facts and didn't know that I had OCD, so I had reasoned the bit of it telling me "you're in denial, you did X/Y/Z" was my conscience. Yet even since finding out it was OCD it's been hard to fully pinpoint the reasoning behind it- I'm leaning towards thinking it was a combination of 1. To try to get guilt relief 2. To test whether saying it "felt right" 3. I just wanted some peace from the thoughts, like if I can just embrace that I'm an awful person maybe I can move on from that point. Of course it never actually worked. I think I probably got temporary relief for about 2 minutes before panicking about how I could've just said that. I've also had similar compulsions for years of when someone in the household says something like "who ate the last of the biscuits?" or "who moved my shoes?" or "did you leave this plate in here?", I always feel massive rushes of guilt and urges to say it was me when it wasn't. I even sound guilty when I deny it even though I didn't do the thing. Just wondering if anyone else has experiences to share? I've made a ton of progress on this with ERP/somatic processing in the face of guilt triggers, as well as working on codependency and complex trauma which have been factors in developing my type of OCD. I don't say the little things around the house were me when they weren't anymore, and even though it makes me feel guilty I try to stand my ground when something or somebody triggers guilt, rather than taking the feelings for facts or absorbing it as my truth.

Ugh my rocd is making me so sensitive to everything my bf says like I’ll ask for his advise and when he gives me his opinion My mind goes straight to “he’s being mean to you” “he didn’t say that nicely/ loving therefore he doesn’t love you” or especially when I talk to him when I’m anxious and he knows not to reassure me (my therapist told him not to) I get all these thoughts about him not caring like he used to in the beginning and that he’s mean now and ur going to have to leave. Does anyone have any tips on how to not take everything to heart and deal with this type of intrusive thinking I know it’s my ocd doing this and making me feel like he doesn’t care as one of its tricks, but it’s just this one is so much harder bc I always have seen my bf as such a sweet and caring person and now that’s clouded:/

Okay so my bf is everything I’ve ever wanted but for some reason when I see him all my brain does is criticize him...? saying he’s not cute or he’s not funny or he’s immature ect. ect. even though I know he’s now...? my brain aso downplays the good things and amplifies the bad...it’s really annoying and I don’t know what to do....I’m about to see him for the first time face to face in two months and I’m so nervous....

So I have been battling OCD for 7 months. I saw a psychologist for 15 weeks. I have recovered up to 80% then had a relapse but now I am starting to feel better again. But these are a few takeaways that have been a game changer for me that I think can help people with their recovery: 1) Acceptance - accept anything OCD throws at you. Anxiety, thoughts, urges, sensations, pain. You must accept all of this. As soon as you accept anything that is OCD things will start to get better. Don't push it away. 2) ERP - voluntarily think of things and do things that give you OCD and anxiety. You must voluntarily expose yourself to the fears and thoughts etc. If you keep having a thought the bothers you spend some time intentionally thinking about the thought and completely agree with it. 3) If you do the recovery work you will get better. But you have to do the work. Set aside 20-30 minutes a day and just concentrate on exposures. If you do the work you will recover. If you don't do the work you won't recover it's that simple. If you have a trouble some thought right this second agree with it 100%. Then take the thought and do and exposure with it. Intentionally think of the thought for 5 minutes. Make sure the thought gives you anxiety. Tomorrow the thought will be less I guarantee it. Just keep at the exposures its the only way to get better. ❤ If you fall down today pick yourself back up tomorrow its that simple.