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Does therapy really help for HOCD?

So, I feel like I’ve come to a really sad conclusion. I feel like I know deep down I would be turned on by a naked woman in front of me or something and that this is all lies. This whole deep down feeling is the worst. Like the constant feeling I know the truth and I’m lying?

I know this app is mainly for people who are struggling with this because it’s like a safe place to vent. But is there anyone who has recovered from this or seen some progress in some way? Genuinely asking for help I want to get better and go back to who I was before this. Okay so specifically how do I just break the cycle? I always think back to when I had my first panic attack about this and I remembered I let go of the thoughts even though I “felt gay” in that moment and I quickly returned to my normal self. I distinctly remember just not thinking or ruminating on my thoughts, and it was like nothing happened afterwards. I guess because this was before ocd took hold it was easier to do that or I was not thinking about it and I just did it. Anyway so now what I’ve noticed I’m doing this a lot lately: I sit with the thoughts wait for the anxiety to pass and then I get to a point where I feel anxiety about no anxiety. I get the “omg you’re gay now” thought then I feel anxious about the actual thoughts again. It’s a cycle that never ends, and it’s exhausting because when I’m not anxious and not reacting to the thoughts I get a sense of clarity for a moment and I don’t feel anything towards women. Just admiration, or admiration with some anxiety which COULD confuse me if i try to analyze it if anyone understands? So if you have anxiety you could question if that means attraction or not etc. And then I get a thought that says “what if it’s not admiration and you’re in denial because hello you’re not reacting to the thoughts so clearly you’re gay” and then I don’t react right away but then the thought is still there and it bothers me so much that it’s still there so that’s what ends up setting me off and I feel like I’m back to square one. Any tips or like things to say to the thoughts when I feel like I might spiral again? My anxiety is nowhere near where it used to be 3 weeks ago when I was basically paralyzed, but it’s still there, and I’ve noticed when I try to analyze my anxiety or anything it does feel more real but it’s just so automatic (the analyzing) sometimes I don’t know how to control it and that’s what causes me to spiral. Really asking for help because I am truly just done with this. I am so frustrated and I hate constantly looking up things everyday wasting my time, feeling anxiety and depression, feeling unmotivated, not feeling like myself, not being able to watch movies like I used to or read books, not being able to go places with my friends normally, and I hate wishing to go back to who I was before this hit me I just want to BE that person again. I am so tired. So if there’s anything at all that has helped you in any way please please let me know. Any tips or suggestions that I should say or do when I feel like I’m about to spiral again? Specifically I mean. I know I need to just accept the thoughts no matter what but I’m asking if there’s anything specifically that helped. Like meditation? Or phrases that helped to say to the thoughts etc. I really want to get better.

i really thought i was getting better and the symptoms were less, as i started CBT a few weeks ago. i have told my therapist, psychiatrist, and my mom that it has been better, decreased by an hour-hour and a half. but honestly, it feels about the same. maybe even worse. i’m not sure if i just want them to think it’s better, or if since telling them that it has decreased. i try so hard to resist my compulsions and do my exercises but for some reason i just can’t. i HAVE to do the compulsions or else this or that or whatever will happen. it almost feels like i’m stuck. i feel guilty because i’m not sure if i lied or if i genuinely thought i was doing better. i really feel like i’m never going to get rid of this and the fears are realer than ever, even though i know my compulsions won’t reduce the risk of these things coming true. i don’t know what to do.

Had my high school graduation ceremony and it should have been a happy moment. But I don't have much family of friends so it was kinda lonely. Also I felt I have no future compared to everyone else. I'm overwhelmed with mental issues and and not the smartest. I feel like I'm never going to recover and have a successful life

Major trigger warning: This will be a post recounting my experience with POCD so far and what led to it. It will not be explicit. Suicide and self harm will be mentioned. I was able to track down the date of when the POCD theme began by looking through the images in my gallery. I am currently in a headspace where I am able to ask, just how are our minds capable of spiraling so quickly? One intrusive image has been enough to cause me 2 months worth of hell. Before this single image, I had I never in my life thought of children in a sexual manner, but one image was enough to start something horrifying I was not aware the human mind was capable of creating. At the time of the image, I was able to look past it. But I fell into a trap; I ruminated. A majority of us are stuck at home at the moment which means we have a lot of time to think. After the image occured, I was unable to get it out of my mind. Why had it happened? It occured in the midst of an innocent conversation with a child. What does this say about me? Do I want to do these things to children? Am I a pedophile? Google search: intrusive thoughts Google search: ocd symptoms Google search: ocd subtypes I begun to internally investigate every memory involving children. What had been my thoughts and intentions? Where had I looked when interacting with them? Had I ever done something to my younger sibling? The list goes on. Then began the intrusions. Intrusive thoughts, images and finally, the sensations. They all revolved around sex and children, two concepts I had never wanted to have intersect in my mind. I began to avoid looking at children, real or fictional. On tv, social media, youtube videos. Whenever I did look I would check for signs of arousal. Intrusive images would occur. There would be reactions at times. Checking does not accomplish anything but I did it regardless. I had to know and needed to prove or disprove the worst. Checking and testing and ruminating and researching. A cycle I kept up with in a desperate hope that I would finally be able to come up with solid proof. I never did. I have experienced so much dread, self hatred, anger, disgust, confusion, and most of all, doubt. I spent many nights pacing around my living room convinced that I was enjoying these thoughts and that I had become a sexually depraved monster, that I was becoming one, or would eventually be one. I planned out my entire new life where I would not be able to hurt children. I would have to change my career path, buy a house in an isolated area where I wouldn't have to interact with anyone. Marriage and children were no longer an option. At several points I had accepted this to be who I was now, a newly awoken pedophile. But I could not "accept" this. Because it was simply not the truth. I isolated myself and punished myself. I would purposefully imagine self mutilation and myself dying. I felt a sense of bliss from the idea of death. I deserved it because I am becoming a monster. Notes were mentally written and tears were shed. There is so much more I could say. So much I have pushed out of my mind as a result from just how stressful and maybe even traumatic this has been. I am currently at a stage where I still feel the intrusions but they are not causing as much distress which is upsetting in of itself. I have reached the lowest of lows, and am slowly, but surely recovering little by little. I am hoping this will all be in the past some day and that I am able to forgive myself. Thank you for taking the time to read.

If you’re comfortable discussing... what are decisions or actions you’ve done in life in response to your OCD? Meaning, are there any decisions you’ve regretted or maybe weren’t the best for you, but it was because it was an OCD decision now looking back?

Does anyone on here have any good sexuality resources?? I don’t know if it would help my HOCD or not to look into it but I feel if I had more education I might be able to accept some things.

im stuck. i have hocd. it mostly got bad when i was around this one girl who is about ten years older than me. i DONT have a crush on her. however, she is super friendly and smiley and makes everyone laugh. it's impossible not to like her, if that makes sense. id consider her a sister/best friend figure. it's not in a weird way though if it sounds like it, nearly everyone else I know that's my age who knows her feels the same way, i just really admire her and wanted her to like me. i have social anxiety so i was particular worried that she and a bunch of other people hated me. when i was around her i would start to get disgusting and disturbing sexually intrusive thoughts which i dont want to go into detail about. they horrified me. at the time I didn't know i had ocd, so i thought these thoughts were me having gay thoughts, even though the thoughts were disturbing and horrible and i want to bleach my eyes every time they come into my brain. however, my mind has started to convince me that i had a crush on her, which sort of sparked my hocd but it didn't fully get bad until quarantine. but like i didn't? yeah i love her (as in i have a lot of love for her, im not in love WITH her) shes acted like a freaking therapist for me in the past but it's not romantic? i just really look up to her???? has this happened to anyone else? obviously not exact same scenario, but like a false...crush i guess?? i hope im not alone. i most definitely do not want to EVER act on these thoughts, however now they're super widespread over ALL girls. every single one. ughhhh. im losing my mind.

The most uncomfortable thing about this is looking back at my childhood and finding proof that I'm gay. At this point it just seems true and it's hard. I don't get why sometimes I feel ok and other time it feels like my world is exploding

Sometimes I worry that I don’t have ocd and that I’m losing my mind and that I’ll never feel better again. I was starting to feel really good last night and I thought it was finally over so I went ahead and did a lot of the stuff I enjoyed doing before this happened (the reason I had to stop was because certain things were triggering in either one way or another) but eventually I hit a point where I just could not bring myself to do something because it was causing too much anxiety. I got this horrible image last night in a dream and then I began to get a flurry of bothersome thoughts, so now I have 2 obsessions to worry about now. The first one is kind of in control but I’m just afraid what’s going to happen to my brain and I’m worried about having an episode in front of my family, who I’m supposed to be having a small dinner with today. I don’t want to tell them what’s going on but I’m afraid they’ll notice that I’m not well. I’m never present because I’m always in my head analyzing and ruminating and worrying. The feeling last night gave me hope that I could be myself again but I just worry that these thoughts will always linger and make me lose my mind. :(

I often get these urges to begin my life again by engaging in a long and complicated “just right” series of compulsions. I keep trying my best to not give in because this has cost me jobs in the past!! It is so difficult (nearly impossible) to resist.

hi everyone ? I’ve been dealing with POCD with false memory for about 3 months now and it’s been really difficult, right now there’s this memory that is really bothering me. About 2 months ago i was laying in my bed and having a really bad day with OCD and my sister who’s a toddler comes into my room and she climbs up in my bed and i was laying on my back. There’s this game me and my brother have played with her a few times where she sits on our backs while we’re on all fours and she jumps up and down like she’s riding a horse, she wanted to play the game with me and at first i didn’t want too cause i knew my brain would see it as something sexual but i thought no i’m gonna play it no matter what my brain tells me cause i love my sister and it’s good exposure and just f*ck OCD. While we played the game my brain kept telling me this is something sexual and what if you’re doing this cause you’re a pedo but i just ignored the thoughts and didn’t pay attention. Well today when i woke up the memory suddenly came back to me and now i’m questioning everything, is the game sexual? did i do something wrong to my sister? were my intentions sexual? do other siblings play this game or is it something i made up as an excuse to be inappropriate with my sister? am i pedo? etc. my anxiety is really high and i cant calm down cause my mind is telling me that i deserve to feel it if my intentions really were evil :( did i do something bad? do i deserve to feel this anxiet?

Hocd 16m I use to wank 5 times a day So I have hocd, and I can’t let go of the fact that I watched bisexual mmf and liked it, I only watched it 3 times and always came over the girl, even came before the vid even loaded so I didn’t get to see the acts, but idek I just can’t let go of the fact I watched it, I’m pretty sure this was because of porn addiction because I also ended up watching other fucked up topics and stuff like that, now the porn and gay acts don’t arouse me they make me feel sick, I’m only two days into no fap I think I watched these vids because of the oral thing not because the man was hot or anything like that, I have never had a crush on a man and always had crushes on girls, and like idek. I even got bored of these mmf vids and went back to normal porn and thought watching mmf was fucked up, but I can’t let go of I watched it and liked it

I’m so frustrated. I feel like my church has all these rules and strict ways of thinking, but the people aren’t actually consistent with the logic. They seem to “know better than their doctrine.” They can still listen to their intuition and be like “Well, that’s going too far.” And here I am—raised and trained in this convoluted complex hermeneutic and I’m trying to actually be consistent which means I’m the one who has problems with living. I’m the abnormal one. “Can I just stop thinking? Can I just act and not know why something is ok and just model my behavior after a normal person?” I asked somebody tonight. She couldn’t say yes. Instead she tried to argue why a rule I see isn’t actually necessary. I’m so frustrated and confused. I don’t know how to jive the contradicting advice of “Live more, think less” from my therapist and the “You need to have a solid argument for why something is ok” from my community. I’m frustrated. I just want a life. I want a good job, a husband, a family. But there’s just too much mess in my head that I can’t logic away.

I’m an obsessive person. Even with things I enjoy. Listen to the same song repeatedly Play a scene in my mind repeatedly Research one topic obsessively Maladaptive daydreaming The most embarrassing one is I get obsessed over one particular man at a time. I’ll Google everything I possibly can, watch the same YouTube vids over and over, compulsively look at Google Images of him, and (this is the freaky part) even reach out to him and interact with him if possible. I spent $240 to be able to interact with one guy on his livestream. Like, I can’t pickup my phone without looking at images of him. That’ll go on for a couple months or so and then I’ll move on to the next one.... ..... .....I’m really glad this app is anonymous. I’m beginning to realize I need to treat these enjoyable obsessive thoughts and compulsions the same way I treat the scary ones: “Ok. You can hang out in my mind. But I’m busy right now. Doing that compulsion doesn’t bring me closer to my values.” Please tell me someone else does this....

Would you like some OCD advice from an ancient Roman Emperor? If so, here it is. From The Daily Stoic Instagram message for the day: "You always own the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can't control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone." - Marcus Aureliius

I have all the HOCD symptoms: gronial response, mental images, intrusive thoughts, you name it. Despite this, I still feel a sense of uneasiness and uncertainty that makes me uncomfortable. Let me give you some contextual information: I have been attracted to men for longer than I can even remember (my mum once told me a story about a boy I liked I pre-school. I’d always hug him, apparently. I don’t recall this but, according to her, he was my first real crush). I also developed crushes on the same men (tall, thin, blonde and sporty) and daydreamed about the future. As forward as this sounds, I’d indulge in fantasies deemed as inappropriate (sexual, let’s say) and it always made me feel exhilarated. My whole life I always knew who I was and who I wanted to be and I wasn’t afraid of being myself even if I was bullied for it. Now, this is going to get a bit uncomfortable for some. When I was seven-years-old I was sexually assaulted by my older step sister (she’s not my step sister anymore). She’d influence me into doing inappropriate things. She also told me a lot of sexual things I shouldn’t have known at my age. At the time, I used to see a social worker and she used to ask me about all the things that happened to me. Over the years, I’ve struggled with my mental health repeatedly and I’ve been to many mental health institutions. However, every single time I’ve been to a mental health institution they’d ask me about my sexual assault and it’s long term effect. It makes me incredibly uncomfortable but I know that they believe that my issues are deep rooted and connected to that. Bearing this in mind, my HOCD started over a completely unrelated event. I was watching riverdale and I was led down on the sofa. I distinctly remember that I couldn’t focus on the plot because I was worrying about my weight and counting my calories (I’m not on a diet, I just get very upset with my weight so I like to calorie count). I was also suffering from body dysmorphia at the time and I had developed an obsession over my nose. Anyway, I had just stopped worrying about these two things so I glanced back at the screen and I accidentally caught sight of an actresses boobs. THEN MY HOCD STARTED. Let me just say: it was an accident. It honestly was. I hadn’t been admiring her nor was I pay attention to her. In fact, I was trying to estimate my daily calorie intake so I could figure out how many calories I was allowing myself for the rest of the day. I COULDN’T LET IT GO! I replayed the same scene over and over and over. I then started getting intrusive thoughts over EVERY SINGLE FEMALE (no matter what they looked like or acted like. Thin, fat, blonde hair, brown hair, black, white, Hispanic. Literally anybody). I started getting headaches that kept me up the majority of the night, I became easily agitated, I would frequently break down and cry, I would obsess over the little things e.g and I wouldn’t allow myself to find someone pretty, I would get false attraction and false memories that I would analyze for hours at a time (this false attraction and false memories would focus on SO many different people that looked and acted entirely different. For example, my obsessions would branch from Kiera Knightly to Billie Eilish to a goth girl in my media class with green hair). Specifically, I get false memories surrounding people I met for a short amount of time/haven’t seen more than once. Half the time I worry about people I haven’t even looked at properly. With regards to the girl with green hair, I recently received an intrusive thought that made me question whether I fancied her because I was happy/excited when around her. I thought “did I mistake that for butterflies?” Then I realized that I felt the exact same way around her male friend and I was probably just excited because I didn’t have many friends and I felt overjoyed when they sat next to me (because I knew that I was going to have more people to bother with). With regards to the female body, I don’t find it attractive. Shirtless muscular guys with tans, on the other hand...they make me feel good. I don’t even want to THINK about the female body or the possibility of sexual or romantic involvement ?. I still can’t let it go because I get intrusive thoughts over every female I meet. I also question past events frequently and try and figure out their meaning.

How do y’all not engage with your thoughts? My therapist told me to just watch my thoughts pass, but that seems so impossible.

When I talk about HOCD on here and people try and reassure me by saying “Well, everyone’s on the spectrum,” and “Sexuality is fluid. It could change tomorrow,” I want to ball my eyes out. I don’t think people understand: I do not want a relationship of any kind with a woman. Not sexually or romantically. The idea gives me headaches (that sometimes last hours), makes me cry and makes me feel sick. It’s like saying “Oh, she feels sick around spiders but she must be in denial and secretly like them.” UGH! Guess what: I dOn’T wAnT tO tOuCh A sPiDeR. I mUsT sEcReTly LoVe ThEm AnD bE iN dEnIaL.” Jesus Christ alive! It’s the same as saying “It might be clean one day and not the next,” to someone worrying about cleanliness. Now, they’re going to start cleaning that thing more. DRIVES ME NUTS!