Scrupulosity/Sex

@Cicadas Thank you for being willing to share your experience - I’m sorry to hear how it manifested in your life. Scrupulosity sucks, I can’t believe I had never heard of much of any of these themes until like last year when I was diagnosed lol. If you are comfortable with sharing, have you found that anything in particular has helped? I think exposure will help me over time, but because I’m still dating and have yet to meet someone that has gotten beyond a few dates, that’s not really been an option lol. Couple my own struggles with the terrible dating culture like oof it is tough out here

@soul22 Honestly so far it’s just a lot of proving to myself that the world doesn’t end if I have sex. Fingers crossed therapy helps

@pureolife It’s definitely possible, I grew up very much steeped in the church (southern baptist to be more specific) and I think there were a lot of comments that I likely picked up on and registered because I’ve always been a highly sensitive observer/listener type. On top of that, my parents taught at private christian schools that I attended (when I was super little and then again in 8th grade) and so I think I’ve always felt a bit of pressure to be a “good kid”. But then again one of my biggest fears around sex is fear of pregnancy and I think it’s because I don’t have the best relationship with my parents and really want to decide when I have a child if I end up wanting to and have good systems set up to support them because I know how tough and neglectful it can be for a child to not have those things. So there’s really just so many layer I am not sure what the main cause of my intimacy issues is.

@soul22 Interesting. It sounds like there’s plenty of opportunity for harsh views on sexuality to seep through, even subconsciously. But you also seem to have a pretty grounded view of all of these things. Rather than trying to further psychoanalyze the “why,” it might be more helpful to simply address the feelings themselves. Can you sit with those disgusted feelings that arise after without performing compulsions? Compulsions here might be body checking, checking your memory of the occurrence again and again, ruminating, trying to get rid of/neutralize the thoughts and feelings. I think if you get some practice “handling” those feelings without compulsions, those things might dissipate over time. I’m not necessarily recommending you to find a sexual experience for this purpose. But maybe some ERP scripting around an imagined one could be useful. Not sure if you have practice creating scripts and doing erp though.

@pureolife I definitely struggle with rumination the most - the problem is I’ve been doing it my whole life and so it feels like a natural state that I thought everyone did but now that I am keeping an eye out for it I realize just how much I do it 😭. But yes for sure and I’m working with my therapist using ACT so I think you’re absolutely right that I will just need to learn how to sit with the discomfort. ocd is so annoying lol.

@Alliesun thank you for sharing your experience, I’m glad you’ve made progress towards your goals. It gives me hope 🫶🏼