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anyone who has recovered from this theme, how did they do it because i’m really struggling, does medication help?

I’ve been having better weeks recently. Weekends are still a struggle for me but I’m pushing through and each week they are getting easier. I went out yesterday and had a few drinks with my partner it was lovely to have a laugh and get a little drunk. I usually avoid alcohol because I’m always scared of how I’ll feel the next day. Today I’m a bit anxious thoughts are swirling around but to be honest I just keep agreeing with them. I.e. “Ah yes maybe that is true” I’m not arguing with my head. I’ve been conducting my own erp which to be honest has been hard and has lead to me crying afterwards. A game changer for me in my recovery process is talking to my mum and fiancé about what is going on with me and the thoughts I have had. Part of the shame was the fact I hid these thoughts and feelings for so long. 7 years in-fact. I buried them deep down! Now it’s not a secret anymore it’s out there if my ocd gets bad i know there is someone to turn to, someone to talk to! They are great at not reassuring me, which is annoying sometimes but for me necessary which is amazing! From being a little girl my I was never career orientated, I mean I want a good job but it wasn’t my main ambition. For me my dream was to get married and have children. I was so shy as a teenage and would get these intense crushes on boys (looking back probably obsessions) I would just want to be with them, day dream about having a boyfriend. I was a bit of a later bloomer compared to my friends and didn’t get my first boyfriend until the age of 15. He wasn’t particularly nice to me and as a woman now I can see how that damaged my self -esteem. Fast forward 5 years I meet my now fiancé at 20 after having my first ocd breakdown at 19 which was in relation to sexual orientation. Before this the idea of me being potentially gay or bisexual never crossed my mind. I became plagued with intrusive thoughts of a sexual nature. I began to think I was attracted to my friends and that I couldn’t be around them. I thought I was lying to my new boyfriend and using him because I hadn’t told him about these thoughts. These thoughts have plagued me for all of my 20’s. At no point was I aroused by them it was the opposite. I tried to seek help several times and I just couldn’t be honest and open because I thought my therapist would confirm my worst fears “I was gay or at least bisexual” At 26 my boyfriend became my fiancé. We bought our first home 6 months prior. I went into a state of panic and shock. Questions began to whirl around my head “Is he the one?” “Do I love him?” “What if I am gay and I haven’t figured it out yet” “what if we get married and I figure it out then and I’ve trapped him into a marriage with me” This was the moment I realised I cannot avoid this anymore I lost 3 stone in weight was unable to sleep, eat, I got signed off from my job it was awful. I had therapy but it wasn’t overly great and I’m back on a waiting list but I am getting better. I’m not avoiding triggers however uncomfortable they make me feel. My life is moving forwards, I’m getting married next year, I’ve booked my venue, I’m getting small glimmers of excitement for the future. The future I’ve dreamed of! I’m not weird, disgusting or manipulative I’m not hiding my “true self” I’m someone who has suffered with a very misunderstood mental health condition for nearly a decade. If anything I’m strong, I’m courageous, I’m resilient and I can and am getting better! Go me!! 💕

Does anyone else see someone attractive of the same sex and start intrusively thinking things like “cute” or something beyond just acknowledging them as good looking? I avoid looking at good looking same sex people on tv shows because I get those intrusive thoughts and it makes me question what does that mean of me. I don’t want to be gay and I feel so uncomfortable and it feels like denial every time I try and do a compulsion. It’s hard to look at men on TV shows because my mind comes up crazy stuff and I don’t know what it means

How can i know that im not actually faking my attraction to hide my denial and hiding my real attraction like its so scary and confusing

Throughout my life really at this point… I’ve suffered from intrusive thoughts regarding attraction to the same gender… Often these intrusive thoughts target people I know and I get hung up on the question of, “What if I’m attracted to this person?” I then constantly “check” to see if I’m genuinely attracted to said person and each time I do check very rarely am I met with reassurance but a strong feeling of anxiety. It’s happened only a handful of times, but it just terrifies me to think that we have no choice over who we find attractive.

I have a really weird question. I don't know if I have OCD however I feel like I am having intrusive thoughts because of porn so I try and stop watching it but I can't even go 7 days without it. Forms of OCD are POCD and SO OCD, in the past back in high school I might have had harmful OCD, I was afraid of hurting girlfriends and friends I had and because of those thoughts, I pushed them away and made them hate me on purpose.

Anxiety is causes me to loop back to negative thoughts about my sexuality. I have had a gay experience when I was a young teen/preteen. Can’t remember the exact age and don’t remember every detail. It’s not something I would pursue or try again. Since then I’ve had multiple girlfriends I’m 31 now. I have a son but these thoughts don’t come when I see a man or even a sex scene with a man. It tends to just pop up the worse times are at night before bed when I’m completely alone. I use to have a bad porn addiction or have one still it’s been a full week sense I’ve done PMO. Of course usually I’d smoke weed and then PMO. Now without it my anxiety is high. I question if I’ll even be able to get hard with a woman, what if I changed and now I’m just not interested in women? What if I used porn to avoid being gay? I’ve never had these thoughts before and never watched gay porn until I developed this SO-OCD. Then i did watch gay porn on two different occasions to see if I would get any sort of arousal. Eventually I would just lose interest but it would also lead back to me watching regular porn and getting turned on and most of the time I caved and did PMO. I’ve fought the urge to do that and have been trying to just sit in my doubt watch some tv, using different show to rewire my brain away from being so over sexualized. Because even tho this happens when I’m alone it also can happen while watching tv. I’ll envision them being sexual. I never pictured myself in these situations until someone asked if I could see myself doing it. That’s when Id get super uncomfortable and nauseous almost like I gotta do something I truly don’t want to but someone is forcing me to do it. An image appears and my mind says well you can see it. That means you’re gay. Trying to do any of this without reassurance is the hardest part. Sometimes I self reassure and have to catch myself. But letting go seems similar to me saying fuck it and having a drink that I don’t want to have. Like I might be capable but I don’t want it

I didn’t have any female desires before this. I was so happy with my bf and only wanted him. Now it truly feels like I’ve been lesbian all along though even though I don’t really feel like I’d be truly happy with a woman. I was just with my bf right now and I felt nothing. I tried to picture a life with him in the moment and I felt nothing, I look at him and feel nothing. but after that and watching him leave, I just started sobbing. My heart feels like it’s in my throat, my eyes won’t stop burning, I cant even breath right. Watching him leave felt like a goodbye. It really feels like I have to break up w him and tell him what’s going on and I don’t know what to do. I know I love him so much and before all this I had no doubts that he was my best friend and my partner and everything. The one person who truly felt like home and now even though I’m still not even sure if this is ocd or not, or if I’m gay or not I feel like I have to break up with him. I feel like I have to tell him. I feel so guilty that he’s with me and I’m feeling like this he deserves so much better.

Yeah ik if you read my posts I clearly exhibit behaviors of “POCD/OCD” all together but I don’t entirely believe it! Despite me really needing it to be! Yes, I’ve had a therapist tell me I have OCD. No I have not done any kind of ERP cause of my doubt of the diagnosis. One, let’s be honest, I have a porn addiction and these thoughts wouldn’t have gotten the way they got if I just let that be but every time I try to enjoy myself sexually, THERES THE THOUGHTS! I try to take some abstinence from it but then I go back to it cause i simply just want to, despite the thoughts then fall deeper into misery. Two, I never had ERP or actually doing the work in mind when I started therapy. I just wanted someone of expertise to tell me straight up that I have OCD so I could move on but DIDNT work. I’m a very impatient and miserable person so how could I really do the work when I just want it all to STOP for good and forget about it? Three, I know EVERYONE with OCD says this but I’m not a good person. I’m not a good friend, I’m not a good brother, or a good son. I’ve used guys for sex and never had the courage to actually MEET UP with them to actually do anything cause I’m that scared. Not to mention how much internalized homophobia I have. I’m selfish and only care about my own self interest. I could care less about everyone else’s problems cause how am I supposed to help? I’m literally convinced of being a fucking pedo and I likely am at this point. I’m sorry, I plan on talking to my therapist about all of this during the 4th session and hopefully she can help me understand better but I’m SO TIRED. All I wanna do is go to sleep and never wake up again this is FUCKED. My life feels like it’s over and what am I supposed to do when this feels so real? I don’t wanna do anything with myself except read, eat unhealthy food and sleep. I’m done and I’m sorry to everyone trying to help me when I can’t even help myself.

Hello! I was wondering if people with religious or moral scrupulosity can relate to this! I identify as gay (I’ve known it since I was a preteen) and I grew up in a religiously conservative household and in a culture that does not accept the LGBT community. Growing up, I’ve made a lot of progress in accepting myself and learning to love myself for who I am despite the lack of acceptance and support from my cultural and family background. …however, it has obviously been a tough road. And recently, I think I’ve started developing scrupulosity around my sexuality. Basically, I wanted to rediscover my faith in a way that helped me, but it ended up just causing me a lot of distress because the LGBT are not exactly affirmed by the Catholic Church. And despite my best efforts, I feel like I’ve slid so far back into a pit of guilt, shame, and disgust with myself. I have so many intrusive thoughts that being LGBT is not natural, is not right, is something that can and should be changed or fixed, even when I know these to not be true. I’m curious to know if anyone else with religious or moral scrupulosity experiences similar feelings of guilt or shame about who they are. Not only do the intrusive thoughts themselves make me feel guilty, but I have intrusive thoughts that I AM bad and that I should feel shame and disgust about myself. I’m hesitant to post this not only because I don’t want to trigger others but also because I don’t want it to be reassurance seeking or a compulsion, but I do have doubt that this isnt just from my OCD and that I should be exploring other forms of therapy to deal with these problems.

Everyone on here keeps saying they know they re str8 but the ocd is making them doubt it. I’m breaking down because i dont even know anything anymore so that must mean its not ocd

I am a woman in a long term relationship of over 5 years with a man who I genuinely love. I have identified as bisexual my whole adult life but I have only ever dated men (just by chance). For months I've been having obsessive thoughts about whether I am actually a lesbian and have been lying to myself- I keep going through temporary periods where I make peace with the worries but it always seems to come back with a vengance. This week the thoughts have been so constant that any quiet moment my brain immediately starts stressing over the possibility. My partner is aware of the thoughts (has has dealt with OCD as well and understands) but I still feel SO guilty because I am happy in my relationship and I don't know why I can't move past the thoughts. I logically know that I am attracted to men and that I find my partner attractive. But I get worried that maybe down the line that will change and things will only get more painful if we needed to separate. I feel like I'm so obsessed with ways things could end that I'm missing all the good that's actually in front of me and it feels so sad and isolating 💔

anyone with hocd have intrusive thoughts that say wife instead of husband? i want a husband so bad but my brain will always use the word wife in place of it. it’s scary bc i’ve been having this thought for so long it feels “natural” now but i know that’s not what i want

Hey guys, I think/hope that this is just ocd and not me but I can’t differentiate. I m dealing with uncertainty „am I a lesbian ?“ since 3 years and it comes with so many anxiety. I have to say that I like lesb cOrN and exactly this stresses me out !!! I ve been dating men for my whole life and one day the thought comes up that I could be lesbian. It comes and goes month to month. When I m in this „episode“ where I m questioning my sexuality i m googling the whole day if this thought could be true. Also I m checking my feelings by visualising myself with a women and it causes so much anxiety. I just don’t know what to do I try to meditate or to calm down but I can’t go on without having this answer :/ Also I m so anxious to „heal“ myself because then the truth will came out ( my brain says it to me). When I m with men I get aroused and everything works but then my brain says to me that it is just because of the fact of having sex yk? Like it tries to convince me that I m a lesbian… Last month I believed in this and outed myself as Bi in front of my friends although I m not really sure that I m into women. I ve never dated a women or felt any kind of attraction that I felt to men, but what if I m just trying to suppress the attraction to them ? Is anyone dealing with the same shit ? Tik tok triggers me everytime that’s why I deleted this app because everyday I get these videos about people coming out as gay after their relationship.

When I look at my bf, I find him very cute etc but sometimes I dont feel anything… which I know is normal because you cant feel everything at every moment in your life… but the thing is everytime I think about us breaking up or him disappearing from my life, I feel like hes the “last” guy im ever gonna be with and then I’ll only be with women. Like whatttt?!?!? Whyyy?!

everything about it scares me. it sounds painful, terrifying, traumatizing. I know it sounds dumb but every time i see something that remotely affects me sexually it sends me spiralling and i get this like white knuckled fear. im scared to hug people because what if it turns me on, especially if its a man because what if i accidentally turn HIM on and then he cant control himself and forces himself on me? I hate seeing my body especially my private areas now because im worried about turning myself on and touching myself and make myself feel even grosser, which then other people around me can tell ive done and then they KNOW how gross i am for doing that and start leaving me. i keep seeing other womens stories about sexual trauma and i relate to it but then i feel bad for relating to it because i havent actually been raped or molested so then i feel like a fraud taking other peoples stories and making it about me. everything about sex seems terrible but i keep thinking about it that it feels like my body is broken and i must secretly be some sort of degenerate freak.

Im a Catholic and therfore I have scrupulosity too. Im a man and I cant live with my thoughts regarding sexuality. I find women attractive and I know that is the most normal thing in the world but somehow I dont know when or if it becomes a sin. I cant even look properly around when I am in public because everywhere might be a possibility for sin. I know that I cannot prevent any coincidences but I want those feelings to stop. Is there anything I can do?

hello all im a male 26 kinda new to dealing with this. for as long as i can remember i used to really stress out about my health and if i was ever sick i would assume the worst ang google symptoms of everything multiple times a day. i was extremely afraid of throwing up as a kid which i think plays a roll in ocd recently i watched a tv show that affected my overthinking and cause me to spiral out. thats when the SOOCD started to happen, growing up i always was with women and dated women and still dating women i never had these thoughts until 6 months ago i now feel uncomfortable around other men, i dont like to make eye contact and im always checking for a groinal response or sensation in my body when i watch tv or out in public. its affecting my daily life and i dont know where it all came from. i get intrusive thought daily could be a made up situation or a image of something i saw on the internet.

I always come back to watching straight then gay porn, then analysing my reaction. And now I had a stronger physical reaction to gay porn, so what if I'm gay? I thought I was over doing this but I'm back with the doubts and anxiety. Sorry for just complaining but my mind is doing circles again.

I hate it so much because I'm not homophobic but I just don't want a y if this. My whole childhood and up to before this started I was disgusted by gay porn I never thought it was wrong it just wasn't for me and I was obsessed and loved the idea of being with a woman sexually. I've only crushed on women irl and only wanted to be with women the most towards a guy is I've found them aesthetically handsome but never wanted sex or crushed on them. When I check gay porn now I feel arousal but in my stomach I feel pain because I don't want it or like it. When I get arousal towards women I feel good, butterflies I want to do it in real life and I seek out a romantic and sexual partner I just don't get it why am I getting arousal response when I don't actually like it or want to do it in real life? It's so uncomfortable and depressing I feel like I'm losing myself cuz being straight has always been a big part of my identity and loving women.