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I’ve dealt with SOOCD for a while, but does anyone else who is straight, have their obsessions go from being gay to being bisexual or bi-curious? How do you deal with this?

Hi, Sorry for the short title and reduction on words, it’s just you can only use 50 characters, Now what confuses me is I have been diagnosed with HOCD and told I am not gay or bisexual, but then people keep responding saying it doesn’t mean you are not gay and slightly confused as my therapist said it does, Now what’s confused me is a girl called Ellen Warren was diagnosed by NOCD with sOCd and realised she was actually a lesbian. I am freaking out. https://iocdf.org/blog/2021/06/21/bisexuality-sexual-orientation-ocd-double-invalidation/ https://www.treatmyocd.com/blog/bisexuality-so-ocd-the-invisible-so-ocd https://www.treatmyocd.com/my-ocd-journey/is-it-really-poison

as the title says. i am trying, i really am but i cant help but think that i have been gay this whole time. it feels like i can never be happy again unless i come out. i cant do it anymore. everyday is hard. there are not easy days. i just want to love my partner and i cant. i look at him and i get this wave of anxiety and guilt. why can i just be me again? i miss the days there this was just a past thing. i feel alone and i feel stuck like this forever. my heart hurts all the time. i am trying to sit with uncertainty but i cant because it feels certain and that i know i am gay but i dont want to be. its really really sad. i hate my life and i need it to end. bye.

i’ve been thru rocd thru out my whole high school year with the girl i’m still with to this day. i’ve been back and forth with her for the longest and even broken up with her and got back and it would repeat all senior year. i got over the rocd and slowly just accepted that it’s my thoughts and i stayed with her and still with her to this day. we’ve been together for 2 years and soon will be hitting 3 years and i times i still have rocd and yes it sucks but at times i know i just gotta keep pushing. what hurt more in my relationship with my girlfriend is hocd.. it just hit recently in october 2024 near my birthday and i was completely devastated. i’ve never been with a man, never kissed a man or even did anything 18+ with a man but recently my mind has been making me think things i don’t want or even make me feel like i’ve completely become gay. recently it’s been pretty low but at times i still think and it’ll give me this gay vibe or even make me feel weird about everything or even like things gay. i hate it man, i hate it all and i just want it to stop. at points my mind doesn’t even budge anymore when something i should be saying no to or even weirded out to it just my mind accepts it. i clearly don’t wanna be gay but it’s bad like at times i think i look gay, act gay or even might be gay for the rest of my life. its making me be bad in my relationship because i can’t even find myself and it’s hard. i don’t wanna lose my girlfriend and be lonely for the rest of my life cause at times i can’t even find her or any females attractive. what am i gonna do.. all the females i used to find attractive in the past all gone, i haven’t been trying to find them attractive to be unloyal to my girlfriend it’s just to make sure i like women still. i’ve just lost myself and i think im gonna just ruin my life with this mind and i even feel like a gay brother or a gay son to my family. its hard to hang with my own father cause i always feel so feminine or anything along those lines cause of my curls or just in general. i hate this life and it’s getting really bad to where i don’t think ill ever be helped at all. if yall have any answers or anything please give me some..

I’ll cut a long story short… SOCD/ HOCD was one of the first themes I got when I was a teenager. The first one was health but I didn’t know that was OCD at the time. Anyway, I have had SOCD for 11 years. Sometimes it leaves me alone and it feels like I’m my own self again! Don’t get me wrong it lingers but I manage. But… IT IS BACK!!! My head is telling me that I am a lesbian and that I need to just admit it. I hate it. I have a boyfriend who I love unconditionally and this has just sprung out of a dream I had -.- I don’t want to be a lesbian! The groinal responses have always been the worst. It started when I was around 16, I woke up one morning and my brain just said ‘you’re a lesbian’, as you can imagine I freaked out, panic attack and cried. Then, my brain starts looking into my childhood… well it’s had a field day. When I was around 9 my friend showed me girls kissing on YouTube and then I suppose I got addicted to it. I then used to play on Habbo and walk up to girls and say ‘kisses’ etc. my brain is now saying that this is evidence that I’m gay. I DONT WANT TO BE A LESBIAN!!! I have no issues with gay people, I just don’t want to be gay myself. Sometimes, when the thoughts come in I don’t seem to get anxious but I get groinals and that freaks me out! I just want peace. I hate this. I get so many different themes. Now it’s this one and I just want to crawl under my duvet, sleep until they’re gone but then I end up dreaming about it!!!

like should you just say you’ll struggle with ocd? because everytime ive told about my false attraction thoughts, its ruined relationships and friendships so should i just not tell the themes? especially because im a teenager and teenage guys arent very understanding. so do i just not tell the themes. because i also have it with religious stuff, and sexuality? so idk. and confessing is a really bad complusion of mine, so should i just say i have ocd, and have intrusive thoughts or what? please someone help.

im having a unusually hard flare up for two months. ive never had it this bad before (ive had this on and off for many years - thank god not constantly.) lately, i keep having these images in my head and scenarios in my head of me "coming out" in the future and ending my relationship with my amazing fiance who i love dearly. he knows everything but i still feel like i am constantly lying to him, my family, and friends. i need to know that this is something the SO-OCD can do to you? the weird thing is, is that i have never been attracted to woman. i do admire their beauty and wish to LOOK like them or have a specific feature they have, but i dont have any urges to like be with them yet i am dealing with this really bad flare up. My brain keeps telling me that since i have never tried it, i would never know, and i am just getting really distressed from it. i just want to be happy again and it seems impossible. I am convinced i am only person that is using SO-OCD as an excuse. Any guidance or advice, or anything really, will help. i just feel alone and scared and sad all the time.

I’m really struggling with something related to me ocd, and I would appreciate kind and supportive advice. If you can’t relate or don’t think anything you have to say would be helpful, I kindly ask pls refrain from commenting this is a really sensitive topic for me. Recently, I’ve noticed a pattern that feels something extremely new and distressing. The first time it happened I remember telling myself before self pleasuring that I am in control no matter what thought comes into my mind because I wanted to prove to myself that these thoughts are just from OCD and I know who I am and an intrusive that came out of no where, and i suddenly felt an intense fear that I was acting on it. In the moment I genuinely felt like I did. And afterword, I panicked and started questioning myself. This SAME FEELING has happened three times in a row each time, the intrusive thought was unwanted and random, and completely against my morals most recently it involved pocd and it feels even worse because it generally felt like I acted on it the thought in the moment while I was self pleasuring the panic doesn’t hit until afterwards when I stop :/ I start thinking that maybe I generally made a mistake and I’m now just realizing that it’s wrong because it generally feels like that :( but when I actually think about it again goes against my morals and values doesn’t make sense it feels incredibly real, and I can’t seem to shake this feeling off that I may have acted on it I’m terrified because I never wanted these thoughts in the first place. And I definitely didn’t choose them. If I had known, I would’ve had these intrusive thoughts I wouldn’t have self pleasured in the first place but it’s extremely hard to convince myself that this may be OCD because I feel like I have no other reason to believe that I didn’t act on it :/

I’ll cut a long story short… SOCD/ HOCD was one of the first themes I got when I was a teenager. The first one was health but I didn’t know that was OCD at the time. Anyway, I have had SOCD for 11 years. Sometimes it leaves me alone and it feels like I’m my own self again! Don’t get me wrong it lingers but I manage. But… IT IS BACK!!! My head is telling me that I am a lesbian and that I need to just admit it. I hate it. I have a boyfriend who I love unconditionally and this has just sprung out of a dream I had -.- I don’t want to be a lesbian! The groinal responses have always been the worst. It started when I was around 16, I woke up one morning and my brain just said ‘you’re a lesbian’, as you can imagine I freaked out, panic attack and cried. Then, my brain starts looking into my childhood… well it’s had a field day. When I was around 9 my friend showed me girls kissing on YouTube and then I suppose I got addicted to it. I then used to play on Habbo and walk up to girls and say ‘kisses’ etc. my brain is now saying that this is evidence that I’m gay. I DONT WANT TO BE A LESBIAN!!! I have no issues with gay people, I just don’t want to be gay myself. Sometimes, when the thoughts come in I don’t seem to get anxious but I get groinals and that freaks me out! I just want peace. I hate this. I get so many different themes. Now it’s this one and I just want to crawl under my duvet, sleep until they’re gone but then I end up dreaming about it!!!

A few years ago I was watching porn and stumbled across a very grotesque video. I do not wish to say many contents of the video but included an underage person and a person over the age of 18, it was very inappropriate and boarderline sickening. Just a few days ago my mind jumps back to the time I stumbled across the video and my mind immediately starts jumping to conclusions that I’m pedophile. As well as my mind making up different scenarios that could’ve happened when I saw the video because I don’t remember in full detail of my thoughts looking back at it now. Such as my mind saying i’m a pedophile. Even though i’m not. I know i’m not. I haven’t ever reached out to those kinds of videos voluntarily and I have deleted the browser that I would normally go on for pornography. I’m very lost since and I’m having an internal battle with the myself and my own mind. It has made me feel sick to the stomache just thinking about when I stumbled across that video involuntarily. It has made me feel as though I don’t deserve the love, happiness, and support i’m getting today. Please if anyone has any tips on how to help letting go of past mistakes or moments like such reach out to me. This app has brought me some ease because it doesn’t make the other moments I face struggling with OCD a problem I face by myself. My OCD has ruined my past relationships to the point where I am agreeing to never get into a relationship again. I’m only 17 and I feel completely trapped. Since yesterday marks the second year I was diagnosed with OCD.

I’ve been dealing with intrusive thoughts as long as I can remember. I’ve had several different themes that always come up at the worst times. Example In 2009 I married my high school sweetheart. Before that time my theme always revolved around health concerns. After we got home from our honeymoon someone at work said “nice ring, looks gay on you”. That statement alone sent me into a spiral of questioning my sexuality which I’ve never done before. That theme lasted a while and I can now burst out laughing about how ridiculous it was. Fast forward several years. I’m dealing with harm and any thought that my mind labels as intrusive. It’s very difficult because I have two kids that my OCD loves to attack. My family is my whole world but my intrusive automatic thoughts make me doubt everything. Do you sometimes check your feelings and notice that you are numb? I’ve even started being stuck on the idea that maybe I’m bipolar which terrifies me. Does anyone fall in the trap of reading symptoms and now you think you have them? OCD is a terrible thing. Just looking for someone who can relate. Knowing someone can relate is a big help. Stay Strong out there my OCD friends.

So for a while i have been suffering of HOCD combined with a little of ROCD and had massive episodes of anxiety and panic attacks, because of that I lost my attraction and my libido while also being in a relationship and that stresses me bad. Also since the start of the severe anxiety I started to lose it gradually over time and at the moment I do not feel any anxiety anymore while having these thoughts which makes me think that I want this to happen because they don’t disgust me anymore. Any advices on how to hold on and get over my OCD? Also is the disappearing of disgust a sign of recovery or denial?

Now the OCD is making it feel like I hate my natural attraction and want nothing to do with my natural attraction, also it’s trying to make me feel like if I don’t act on the urges, I’m gonna be unhappy I just wanna go back to how I was two months ago. I’m trying to continue with my life do the stuff I love doing well, hoping and praying that my natural attraction will eventually return with little to no trauma behind it, but the OCD is trying so hard, to trick me into believing that I’ve accepted the OCD’s reality while I’m trying to live my life, tell me I’m not alone. Tell me that the night is darkest just before the dawn that it has to get as bad as it can get before it gets better, because if I can’t return to how I was a couple months ago I will take a vow of celibacy, I refuse to compromise my beliefs and values, and do something that I never identified as all because a little voice in my head is pushing in my skull to do so, even seen this now it’s trying to convince me that’s wrong to stay true to my beliefs and values

I’m struggling with something and wouldn’t mind getting some advice from someone who has experience with Pocd today im panicking and shaking and fully convinced im a pedo and I can’t take it anymore earlier today when I had woken up for my dream well right when I was about to wake up I had a dream involving a child and while I was dreaming, I kept rejecting the thoughts and false attraction I was feeling in my dreams telling myself I don’t want this but then I had an intense reaction where I felt like I was clenching my gronial area responding to the thought mind you this happened when I was half awake n half asleep so it’s very confusing for me and I didn’t feel any arousal. I woke up feeling panicked, wondering why I did that even thought Ik deep down those aren’t my real desires but idk it FELT like I enjoyed it :/ and idk if anyone else has experienced this is it common to have physical reactions like clenching during a half asleep state when dealing with dreams and thoughts I’d like to say that the thought that I had in my mind was intrusive but again it honestly felt like I enjoyed it in the moment and now I’m terrified and it’s so confusing and blurry for me because I wasn’t fully conscious I know for a fact if I was 100% fully awake, I would never like respond to a thought or anything or I’d make sure to like push it away or something just doesn’t make any sense to me because earlier in the dream I kept rejecting all the false attraction that I was having and then all of a sudden I have this horrible moment and also these past couple days I’ve been struggling with like grown responses and intrusive thoughts, and I even promised myself that I would never do anything bad but like I’m literally losing my mind

(Sorry for the fault english is not my first language) Three months ago my gf left me, and it was my fault (i cheated on her) so i enter in a loop of introspection, I was constantly watching what I was doing I was doing well, even though I was sad I could go to work and continue my studies, to see my family every weekend, I was rather proud But exactly 1 month ago, I started to spin around on a topic and make big panic attacks It happened suddenly, on a Saturday night after work I realized that I was watching pornography that did not correspond at all to my real practices And hell began I spent my days in anguish in bed (sometimes 8 or 10 hours per day), telling myself that I was horrible, that I deserved to die, that if my entourage found out they would hate me. I made an appointment with my therapist who reassured me, but it was not enough for me The next week, I hosted my little brother at home because I found him an internship in my city He stayed for a week, it went pretty well until one night my brain said "what if you were actually attracted to him?" , I didn’t really react and it went pretty fast I thought it would stop there, but on my way to work a few days ago my brain said to me "What if you were attracted to children?" (I work in a bike shop, and I spend a lot of time with kids" It horrified me, I had a feeling that my head was going to explode, I was crying and my colleagues did not understand why I started antidepressant treatment a week ago (Effexor) and I double the dosage today My thoughts are mainly directed at my family, I wondered if I was attracted or in love with almost all members of my family It is also in relation to children and animals Sometimes my thoughts are so present that I have trouble knowing if they are true or false, I can’t concentrate anymore, I don’t go to work and I failed my exams at university I feel sorry for myself, I had a lot of confidence before, I loved spending time with my family, I liked my job, going to university, spending time alone I feel like I would never get away, every day I wonder "Why me", I look at others and I’m jealous, every day I remember how I was before and it makes me sad I wish I was someone else, anyone I shared everything with my mother, she also has psychological problems (chronic depression), so she always listened to me and accompanied me in my steps I was diagnosed with bpd 3 years ago, And she always helped me and loved me It hurts me not to be able to tell her, I love her very much and it drives me mad that my thoughts sometimes get to her Every night I pray to wake up in someone else’s body, or in mine but without my brain And every morning I realize that I have no choice but to live with the hell in my head My life before I miss it so much, and that’s one of the reasons why I stay alive but it’s starting to get too long, and I’m really starting to lose hope and think that the only solution in all this is to die I just want to be normal, why me?

I went to a therapist, I told her about the doubts I was having related to my orientation and the continuous compulsion to check again and again and the thoughts. I told her about my resources -podcasts by Ali Greymond, Chrissie Hodges 's videos, and the books I read to overcome and control myself. She said a couple of things that confused me: 1> Her daughter once asked her "what if she liked girls?" As a mom my therapist said, "Start exploring", and the daughter said naahh. I wonder if the daughter had a thought or was it a chain of intrusive thoughts that plagued her day and night like in my case. 2> She said my sources are right, but I should forget that and not think that I have ocd. 3> She also said if there is any chance I am straight, I should walk on that path- because she has seen lesbians and gays have no feelings for the opposite sex. She said she could see that I was not gay or lesbian in any way. 4> She was interested in my education and masters degrees wasted a lot of time talking about that. 5> She said all these thoughts are causing me anxiety disorders (but I don't have ocd, doc?) 6> She pointed out that being happy and in the present removes these thoughts totally but I am causing myself unnecessary distress. I was doing well before this talk with the therapist now I am triggered a bit. Please share your thoughts.

I've been going through this for 3 months now and my OCD has been so bad this all started because of a ccompulsion I did in October which I didn't want to do and now led to one thing or another and now I'm at a point we're I don't know who I am anymore I litterly though I was attracted to freaking infants 2 months ago and way worse and now it's litterly got out of hand I would get anxiety out of no where when I was out and I litterly that I was attracted to certain younger people Idk why it does this shit of course I wasn't because that's passed but this time It litterly felt genuine and real and it felt like I actually liked it and i still feel that way what does this mean I know I've been checking for months now and every time I feel like I was I wasn't but this time i think I just accepted the feeling and my OCD latched into another younger person this one feels very real i mean i was hyperfixating alot what if thats the reason and i still do alittle bit of compulsions to get rid of the thoughts but its rare ive been around kids all my life ive never ever felt this and i dont ever want to become this person is it possible this is still OCD because I didn't even get anxiety in that moment I felt lightheaded though and I kept replacing my words with aww or adorable but it didn't feel genuine I keep thinking about and obsessing about and no matter how hard I try to distract myself it's always there that younger person is there and its scary this is like one of the worst things a human could ever go through and I feel like this anxiety in my chest every time I fall asleep I wake up with it in my chest like I'm really concerned I've been sleeping all day and I've even been checking to see if I am actually attracted and it litterly feels like I am I'm so tired I feel like I'm denying how I actually felt in that moment and I feel like I'm suppressing something Idk if I even have OCD anymore.

It feels like I’m lying to myself constantly and everyone. There feels like there is a weight on my heart from the moment I wake up till I go to sleep. I don’t want to be gay. Idk why it doesn’t register. Now everyone I see I have to see if I’m attracted to them. I see good looking men and I feel like I’m lying to myself that they are good looking, I see women and I see if im attracted to them. I look at everyone and I feel jealous. I want my fucking life back. But now my OCD (if this is even OCD) is telling me I was never happy and I was always suppressing my feelings of being gay. Why is this happening? Can OCD do this? I can’t enjoy anything ever.

i know i’m spamming on here and i want to die i don’t wanna be a boy it feels like i have to be i can’t keep living like this. i don’t feel like my anymore its true 😭😭

Does anyone else just worry they feel ‘off’ or have anxiety because they are suppressing what they really are? And they don’t even have ocd. It feels so real and like I’ve just supressed it but I love my boyfriend and don’t wann not be with him. It’s also been Xmas and I’m on a plane from the uk to Australia for a month long trip so it could be ocd trying to attack that or it could be what I said up there, denial