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Can someone explain the difference between gender dysphoria and TOCD please? I am a female currently struggling with SOOCD and TOCD and am so scared that these thoughts mean I actually want to be a man. I don’t feel feminine or pretty right now at all and have a lot of insecurities, but I want to get back to feeling confident in my own skin. Please help.

Does anyone here take lexapro?

I have homo-ocd. I'm rather infuriated by it. For years I wondered at the possibility I could be gay. One day I got sick of the worry and decided to come out as bi to myself. Then as if a cloud was lifted, and I no longer cared about being gay, I was able to enjoy life again, and I never actually was attracted to men so it didn't matter I had about a year or two of mostly peaceful intrusive thoughts and I was able to enjoy life as a straight man again. 3 years ago right before covid struck, my hocd took a turn and I have worried ever since that I'm trans. It's insane to me that I've been dealing with the same thought over and over again for 3 years. You know what's funny? Don't even remember the last time I thought about being gay or that I could be gay. (Gay here meaning attracted to men not trans.) My attraction to women is now basically unquestionable. But my intrusive thoughts and thought cycling just goes into full panic mode at the idea of being trans. I don't feel trans, I've never felt like a woman before in my life. But now everyday due to ERP and my intrusive thoughts all I think about are being trans, imagining myself as a woman (while trying my best not to panic/ argue with the thoughts) and trying to imagine myself with different genitalia all the while internally I'm panicking. I'm trying my best to just force myself into the thoughts and be comfortable with the uncomfortable. Some days are better than others. Some days I forget that I have pure OCD for about half an hour, and then it starts up again. Recovery is hard. Some times I won't panic at the idea, which is good, I know the reaction I want is to not panic at the idea of being trans and to realize that thoughts are just thoughts. But then the intrusive thoughts about the intrusive thoughts happen. "What if you're not panicking anymore because you're accepting that you're trans." "What if you're not panicking because you have dysphoria and imaging yourself as a woman is relieving that dysphoria." "At what point are you just trans? If you spend all day imaging yourself as a woman, saying that you're a woman, and think about body parts on your body that make you a woman, is that not trans?" I wake up and go to bed in a panic most days, but I'm not thought looping thoughout the day as hard as I used to. So I'm grateful, but still angry.

Why do I suddenly feel like a stranger in my own body? This all started off as SOOCD but has turned into raging TOCD and now I fear that I no longer want to be a woman, even though I have identified as a straight woman since birth and don’t want that to change. I have never wished I was a boy or anything throughout my life, so I am not quite sure where this came from other than developing as a result of my SOOCD thoughts. I am so terrified of the thought of this being true, as I never want to transition to being a male at all. What makes this worse if that I have very low self confidence and have always had body dysmorphia, but even my recent wait loss and finally achieving the body I’ve always wanted has not made my confidence go up. This makes me fear that I must not want to be a woman, and especially with the flare up of SOOCD, I just feel like I don’t feel feminine anymore. I am so scared because I want a husband and children in the future, but for some reason I feel like I will never be able to have that. I also used to have this gut feeling growing up that I wouldn’t be able to have kids due to health related reasons (which is not true to my knowledge, but I am only 19 so I’m not sure) and this scares me even more because I feel like it proves that I am not actually meant to be a woman, even though the thought of being transgender is absolutely not for me. Please someone help, I cannot sleep at night or function throughout the day anymore and feel physically sick over these thoughts because it just feels like confidence issues gone wrong that will never be satisfied unless I did this against my will. I am losing my mind and losing my sense of self and I can’t even look in the mirror or exercise anymore, which used to be my form of stress relief, without feeling like I look too masculine.

Anyone have advice on how to spice up a relationship. Is it true when u do more stuff with your partner you fall in love more

I don't know why but the thoughts now don't bother me they don't get me anxious and am kinda afraid that I was denying all this time and am not anxious either when I have this in mind but when I have thoughts that I don't want I feel a pain on my chest And am not anxious, like I have being trying to solve this problem myself by ignoring the thoughts and don't know how this just didn't bother me anymore does it mean I get better ? Or am I in denial? And 2 days ago I was very sad and even cried and I think that it might helped. The thoughts feel that I like them but I don't my brain uses my defense to attack me. Am confused. My brain also overthinked what male and female are and was like being gay is not bad and answered it might be ok but I don't want too all I want is to have a family. Since I haven't had a girlfriend yet and I am 16 this made it worse. A lot of times also when I say something bad about a woman for example I don't like the type of a girl being a diva, it makes angry this also makes it worse. Am afraid that I might like the thoughts. But don't have the feeling of being afraid but still don't want too. Like I always wanted a family.

Anyone ever got stuck in a ocd loop about dissociation? If so, how were you able to pull yourself out of it? I tend to over analyze everything around me all the time to see if I’m back to normal reality but I can’t quite grasp that expectation. It’s been a decent amount of time, maybe little less than a year. The intensity varies a lot but doesn’t quite go away a 100%. Hoping someone has dealt with this and can offer some guidance since it can be quite debilitating, especially when it comes to having responsibilities like school, work, and a girlfriend to care for.

has anyone with like super bad ocd with the themes of pocd, false memory ocd &etc fully recovered?😞 i feel hopeless.

Does any of you play games to cope with anxiety? If yes, what's your favorite one? Personally i love animal crossing and dead by daylight.

So I LOVE writing but I'm terrified of accidentally typing out something bad, like a slur. It almost just happened and it scared me to death. I've rarely been so scared as this type of OCD makes me. And I want to stop writing because of the chance of typing something wrong but I love writing so much. It brings me so much comfort otherwise. It feels like daydreaming but better and it usually distracts me from my ruminating... but now it scares me and I hate that so much

Anyone else with SOOCD/TOCD starting to feel like these thoughts are just them finally realizing/coming to terms with their true sexuality. I don’t want to be gay but based on everything I am feeling and the constant anxiety I feel around women and all of the memories of possible attraction to women that I’ve felt in the past and the inability to feel attractive to the men around me, I feel like I must be a lesbian. I have always identified as a straight female despite having these thoughts periodically throughout my life because they were never something I would actually act on, but now I feel as though my mind is telling me that I will act on them and that I am just going through changes that are making me realize I am actually a lesbian. I do not want to be gay at all. I want to feel how I felt last year and all the times before when I had crushes on guys and was happy in my past two relationships with men that I loved. I can’t do this, I feel like I am lying to myself and to everyone and my thoughts don’t even feel like OCD anymore. It just feels like I know I am gay because that’s the only thing that makes sense. How will I ever continue to live a straight life with these thoughts.

My boyfriend knows how deeply I struggle with OCD. But yesterday I was hanging out with him and I told him how I feel really overwhelmed because I’m hanging out with him and I can’t be alone with my thoughts to make myself “feel right.” And he turned to me and said “wow, that sounds really hard, I’m sorry that you are going through that” I felt so heard. I thanked him. Idk if anyone else also has that problem but I feel like when I’m around people or in public and I’m having all these intrusive thoughts my OCD brain tells me to go be alone so I can compulsively make myself feel better. It causes me to be very overwhelmed to where my head hurts. I can’t explain the feeling.

I feel like i’m drowning. I’m screaming on the inside and no one can hear me. No one I know understands the pain I go through every day. I feel like my OCD is making decisions for me that I don’t want. I feel it is ripping things away things that I love and care about. Its ripping away my identity from me. I honestly can’t tell whats real and whats not anymore. I feel so broken down. If ANYONE can offer any kind of support i’d be over the moon appreciative. I feel so unbelievably alone. I just want to feel heard from people who understand

Yup

Hey guys so you maybe have seen my precious post about weight loss. Ok so I genuinely wanted to get real advice as to how I can accurately and correltyl lose weight . I like cardio and am considering going to the gym 3-4 days a week . Cutting food and only eating healthy . I actually tend not to eat alor ever since I had Covid it’s Changed my appetite so it’s no biggy for me. Although I do snack around a lot but that’s aboht it . So like I said I am currntly 5’5 and weigh 150 pounds . So I want to get slimmer body and lose burn fat . I want a pretty straight forward suggestions . Like for example - what kind of breakfast should I eat ? What time during day should I go workout ? How much water should I drink a day? My goal pretty much is to lose 15-20 pounds . I read online that it is realistically possible to lose 8-10 a month of course ik this depends on lifestyle . So I am doing the bare minimum I can and aiming to 4-6 pounds a month . So please can anyone just tell me what i should do? I don’t mean to sound annoying . I am consulting my doctor about this so I know I won’t be overdoing it and doing it rightly .

Literally such bullshit. These thoughts make me feel absolutely terrible and I feel so alone because I’m too ashamed to share them with my loved ones. I know I am straight and want to be straight, but my mind keeps telling me I have to be and always have been gay. I can’t keep living like this. How did I go so many years without these thoughts/being able to easily dismiss them without freaking out. I now feel like they are so real and that I am just gay and need to admit it to everyone around me. I don’t want to live a gay life, so why do I feel like I am something that I don’t want to be? Why don’t I just get to choose my destiny. I’m so scared that I am too far gone and am just going to come out as gay and that will be it. I can’t live with that though.

This isn’t OCD related I just need to rant for a moment because I’m frustrated and need to talk about it. I’ve wanted to get my nose pierced for the longest time. Just a little stud (even though I would have to start with a ring but that’s fine) nothing too major or crazy. I told my friend and she said she would go get it done with me. I was excited and I know from past conversations with my mom and grandma that they don’t like that stuff and don’t think I should ever get one. Well today I decided I wanted to do it for myself and not worry about what other people think but I’m also that kind of person who doesn’t like to disappoint people and I’ve been setback so many times when my mom doesn’t support me with things. So when I told her about getting the piercing, she looked away with an attitude and had a disgusted look on her face and said “it’s your nose” so I just left the room. When I told her a while back I wanted to go back to college (because I quit) she was acting like I shouldn’t go. But I wanted to do it for myself. Whenever I mention moving out, she gives me a guilt trip or makes me feel bad or guilt if I left. My grandma is the same way. I mentioned to my grandma once just joking that I might get another tattoo and she said to “wait until I’m gone first” but yet my brother had tattoos. My mom was supportive of my tattoo that’s permanent but not a freaking nose piercing?! How does that even make sense? I get tattoos are easy to cover but still she was fine with me getting a tattoo. I wanted to play violin when I was a kid and she literally yelled at me saying it was a waste of money because I would give it up, jokes on her I played it for 9 years and she would always be on her phone during my concerts and would never encourage me or say things like good job or good concert like everyone else would. It’s not right to me. I get it I’m now 22 almost 23 years old and I can do things if I want to but it seems like whenever I try to do anything for myself, I get discouraged because I don’t want them to be upset with me or judge me like I have been my entire life. She doesn’t support anything I do. She makes me feel so small sometimes. I love my mom but it just doesn’t seem right to me. I so badly wish I could move out. And get this she wouldn’t let me move out but when I mentioned going across the country to California to visit a friend she said “you’re an adult you can do what you want”. But I can’t get a freaking piercing without it being a problem?! I’m trying to gain confidence and love myself and do things to benefit me but I can’t do that because I keep getting discouraged. I’m over it…

Hey guys. So the ex romantic partner i had in my life has returned and when he left my ocd was terrible. Now he’s back after a year and a half and he told me when/if he came back into my life it would mean that he’s over me. Now he’s saying and doing things/ hinting that he’s still interested in me at least sexually. I feel like he doesn’t respect me and sees me as a object rn. It completely put me off of him. Im now torn on how direct i should be about not wanting anything romantic to happen. Cause every time i shy away from flirty jokes it seems like he becomes distant. I still think of him as one of my closest friends and i want it to remain that way… but if i tell him I’m not interested in that way I’m afraid to lose him. I don’t have any friends rn but 1 person (besides this app) and him and it is pretty lonely. He smothers me in attention and im ngl i love it. I tried reconnecting with other friends but honestly i think I might’ve cringed them out by how much i wanted to hang out with them idk. I just don’t want to be alone, but i don’t like this ex-romantic partner like that. I don’t want to lose him again though. Help?

To start off I am a female, I have been dealing with HOCD since I was 14 years old in late 2015. My HOCD has been on and off the past few years but late December of 2021 it came back. I feel that the start of My HOCD came from childhood same-sex experimentation and p*rn*graphy. I occasionally watched porn but not all of the time. Sometimes I would watch lesbian p*rn and straight p*rn and I would be aroused to both. I stopped watching porn after I turned 14. Even though the experiences that I’ve had led me to having HOCD, I have always been a straight female. I am attracted to males, have feelings and have only been in relationships with males. I start therapy in two weeks I’m ready but I’m also afraid. I’m scared that it won’t help and I’ll feel like this for the rest of my life. Right now im scared because I feel that the same-sex childhood experimentation and p*rn*graphy makes me feel that I am lesbian, but I am not nor do I want to be.

Compulsions are at a minimum but my brain is driving me insane. I overthink everything, I don't think I'll ever be in a normal relationship with a brain like this I hate it I hate it I love my girlfriend but I don't even know my sexuality and I don't know why it's even a big deal I feel like it's going to take over one day all over again. The weeks drag by as I crave not being sober so I don't have to think so much about anything I can just have a good time and be happy with my girlfriend.