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i decided that i probably need to be more active on here, since i come back and disappear every couple of months haha :) i’ve been recovered of HOCD and currently show no symptoms. ask away!

I'm willing to share with you my story if anyone can help you would litteraly save my life. So I'm a 23 year old boy. My OCD started 3 years ago. I was in a relationship with a girl and one night i could'nt "get hard". That's where everything begon. I started asking myself why this happened to me. And the idea of being gay popped into my mind. Since that day 3 years ago it never leaves me. I had periods where it would be easier and i would think about it way less. But still i can't get rid of it. I'm in a relationship with my current girlfriend and the thoughts don't allow me to enjoy my relationship as much as I want to. I have to add that since I can remember i've always been attracted to girls. I had 2 relationships for more than a year and everything was great in every aspect of thé relation (libido,feelings,etc). I have never liked a Man at least that's what I though but my "OCD" (if that's what is happening to me) makes me doubt about it and rethink every frienship i ever had. I've been diagnosted with HOCD but again i always doubt this diagnosis. At the begginning the anxiety was so high that I had panic attacks, I couldn't focus on my exams anymore. ( I'm in my last year of Med School how ironic) Let me explain to you what the thoughts are : - First and the most annoying for me is during sex I have many images that popped up in my mind. And I try to chase them and focus on the act that I'm having but it makes it less enjoyable and stressfull. As a result my libido has never been so low. (Which reinforce the tought of being gay : "If my libido is that low is because i'm gay") - Second is everytime that i see an objectivly attractive man, i start to panic and check my reactions or juste avoid the contact. And the fact that i can acknowledge that so man are good looking that freaks me out and juste reinforce the fear. - In my realionship I can't be the way i want to be because the thoughts makes me doubt my feelings for my girlfriend. - When I go bed, it's like a ritual : I ask myself :"Am I Gay" and for 10 to 15min i just analyse every aspect of my life in the past or in the present to find clues of my sexual orientation. And the thing IS that i have millions of example that's says that I'm straight but i would focus on the small ones that i don't even know if they are true because i can't really remember. - An other thing that freaks me out and make me think I don't have HOCD is that this is my first OCD and when i see other testimony they all have had multiple ones. - I had many compulsions i would spend days on the internet looking for stories of gay poeple or HOCD poeple. I once or twice watched a gay porn but the anxiety was to much to handel - I avoid all the things that can trigger my OCD. And the thing that I triggers it the most is "ELITE" the show on Netflix, it makes me so anxious. I want to add that i really don't want to be with a man, but again my OCD makes me doubt it. I have had multiple crush on girls before and after the diagnosis but still i can't get rid of the thoughts. I just want to feel like i felt before. Don't spend half of my day on rumination. I wouldn't care if i was Bisexual or something but I just want to be happy and stop the overthinking and the constant doubt. I don't know if anyone can help me please I beg you 3 years like this is enough i can't take it anymore Thank you for your lecture and in advance for your advices

Okay so my issue is that i overthink everything decision i make for my bf. at first the whole do i love him and am i attracted to him started to happen but i worked on that and focused on reality and i worked my way outta thinking like that because if i really didn’t want to be with this person or wasn’t attracted id leave. and since working on that ive gotten 100x more attracted to this person fue to fight iff what my brain wanted to believe and focused on the tryth and real details. now the issue im trying to be is with intrusive thoughts with othrr boys. i try to not look at guys. i dont speak with guys at all unless i am spoken too and each time. i tell my boyfriend each detail that happened and how it happened, and basically what started happening was i started having sexual intrusive thoughts about each guy my eyes landed on so i started to leave the relationship back in the beginning until i told myself that i truly knew that i loved that person and id never ever do anything to hurt that person. i decided to try and deal with these issues because before i didn’t even know i had rocd i just thought my head wanted to put me in scenarios to make sure i loved my partner. somethings i do now is sit by the people that i know my head would have intrusive thoughts about and i calm down and dont let focus on the anxiety my brain wants to see. they still happen but not as much and they dont have as much control over me because i reassure myself of whats really going. i am with him i am not cheating i know i would never cheat and sometimes when i start to get an intrusive thought i let it hit me and i go back and fix it , i realize why it’s happening and re-imagine the intrusive thought with the reality and not what my brain wants me to believe. am i doing right in doing so?

Did anyone develop OCD while pregnant? I realized I most likely had undiagnosed OCD first pregnancy and postpartum. Had constant intrusive thoughts— very irrational and I believed them. Once my little guy was born it got worse. The thoughts then became centered around his safety but were very extreme. Controlled my day. They got better and now are back with second pregnancy. Now I find myself constantly having awful thoughts (unrelated to baby) and thinking they’re real because they upset me so much. They are a lot of “ what if I did this and don’t remember” etc. I then will believe that if I thought it must’ve happened or could. Just wanted to see if anyone else developed OCD while pregnant for the first time? I feel super alone and confused.

Is accepting the thoughts and feelings whether it be it making it feel as real and true to crippling anxiety mean recovery or your ocd coming true

Does anyone have a fear of depression or not sure if they are or not and get really scared of it ? I’m so scared of getting stuck in it or having “treatment resistant depression” where I can’t get help, has anyone dealt with this ?? I always think depressed people wana hurt themselves so it scares me

How do I stop obsessing over a past thought I had? I had this thought a long time ago that really goes against my values now and I thought I accepted it and I even told my mom that and I was freaking out but then I remembered more and I don't think I did accept but now it feels like I must've if I thought I had. Its making me so anxious every day for months I just want this to end.

Tomorrow is my birthday and today my family and I are traveling to Tennessee for the weekend and I feel so unworthy and sad because of my past. My mom knows everything about me and what’s bothering me and she told me to not let it get to me this weekend and to have fun and be stress free and I just feel it in the back of my mind and in the pit of my stomach and it won’t go away. I feel so horrible all the time I just don’t know if I can enjoy this weekend and Tennessee is one of my favorite places in the world. I don’t know what to do 🥺💔

Looking for all the flaws in my partner’s appearance makes me think that I’m just actually not attracted to him and that I’m in denial/using anxiety as an excuse. I used to think he was one of the best looking people I’ve been with and one day when I was feeling particularly infatuated months ago I remember thinking “how could I have ever have doubted this? He’s amazing!” I am now hyper aware that he’s not the most conventionally good looking person but it’s his soul that always made him attractive to me. I just can’t stop looking for ways to confirm I don’t find him attractive. I feel awful even typing this out. Even now my anxiety is telling me he’ll somehow come across all of my doubting posts and breakup with me because they’d hurt him to read

I’ve never sought professional help for OCD but when I’ve read about it it always sounds like me. I think I’m too embarrassed or scared to talk about it with someone or hope that it will get better on its own because it does seem to get better at times but sometimes it can be so bad it feels like suffering. I will sometimes replay moments in my head over and over and over again to reassure myself I did nothing wrong but the voice never shuts up. It’s the same voice that asks if I’m sure I locked the door when I’ve already checked the lock 5 times. (Not an actual voice of course but a thought or a fear) I’ll check the lock again just to quiet the anxiety that thought gives me. I just wanted to share. Thank you.

How do I tell my therapist of 2 years I want to try another therapist? She's been wonderful with me in uncovering my past traumas and providing great tools for me to cope with anxiety but.. She doesn't think I suffer from OCD, just Generalized Anxiety. She's also not specialized in OCD so I'm too sure she knows the concept of PureO and/or ocd subtypes. Our sessions are usually us doing talking about my obsessions, her giving me meditative exercises and reassurance.. I really want an OCD therapist to nip this shit in the butt once and for all. But I don't know how to tell her

I get intrusive thoughts of “What if I jump off this 3 story balcony” or what If I jump off a Cruise Ship” I usually just let it sit there til it fades away I’m not sure if it’s Suicidal OCD because I only get the thoughts like every now and then and not like all the time so I’m not sure if I should start ERP for it , I’m so confused wether it’s developing into OCD or just Intrusive thought, what it sound like to you?

Advice? In the past before my hocd started, I used to think it was "cool" to be in lgbt since my a lot of my friends where in it , and the main thing that's bothering me is that when someone used to ask me (my friends only mainly) if I was straight, I said "I think" or something like that but not yes which is really triggering my ocd even though I don't say that anymore as I promised myself that I'd stop saying that cause it's wrong, False and affects my ocd a lot so now obviously I just say yes if someone asked me if I'm straight but I'm now ruminating whether I still think it's "cool" to be in lgbt , I haven’t told anyone this as Ik it’s wrong and idk what my parents, friends reaction would be as they’re homophobic and they might think I’m in lgbt or smthing idk. Please help me with this!!!!

Have any of you ever felt that you were misdiagnosed from a provider who diagnosed you with something different than OCD? I have was previously diagnosed with depression and severe anxiety. I was put on medications that made me feel numb and I felt my head and thoughts were in a constant fog. I eventually chose to go off of them and slowly tapered off the medications intrusive thoughts came rushing back in like a Dam that cracked open; flooding everything around it. In the beginning, depression and anxiety diagnoses made sense because I believed that doctors know what they are doing because they are educated and trained in the field. As I began to question things, their diagnoses did not make sense. My intrusive and repetitive thoughts and actions made me feel like a horrible person, depressed, and anxious. I was told I had a chemical imbalance leading to my depression and anxiety, but I figured out what was really causing it was my thoughts. I eventually came across false memory OCD and other types of OCD that I never knew was OCD. I felt as though I finally knew what was going on and things would become easier by knowing, but in many ways things have not become easier. I feel that mental health awareness has improved, but the the services, education, and access to services have not caught up to the same extent with improving. I have learned that at the end of the day, it is important to not always accept what I am told by others including professionals and to question things. At the end of the day, it is myself that I am left with and nobody can know me the way that I do.

I started growing out my hair and my father is insulting me and everything about my haircut like heavily he says it’s what druggies look like and I’m selling he told everyone in my family I feel so embarrassed idk what to do

So I wanted to ask, to what extent should your family know about your OCD? And is it helpful that they know the full extent of the themes you suffer from. For myself my family knows I have OCD coupled with intrusive thoughts and I’ve described some of them such as my hit and run OCD and some lighter Harm themes, but I’ve never truly divulged the full content of my thoughts because I feel like there’s a possibility they might not understand entirely and maybe be confused by some of the more taboo themes I.e. Harm OCD, POCD, Sexual thoughts etc. Personally I feel like I don’t need to tell them absolutely everything going on with my OCD but was just curious how others have gone about it. Thanks.

And how is that going now?

Does anyone worry they are using ROCD as an excuse to not face their true feelings? I think I’m numb but at the same time I wanna cry. Lately I’ve experienced low symptoms I’ve read so many posts throughout the 2 years I’ve been suffering. My partner believes I’ve gotten everyone else’s experience mixed up with my own… he is right. But now that I am trying not to bring the feelings back and just deal with it. I feel off completely… I just wanna cry… I asked my partner for a hug 3 Times yesterday bc I was very sad and just wanted to hug him. Without trying to feel anything I just don’t feel right… like everything he talks about seems boring…. 😢 it’s really upsetting me

This is embarrassing to admit or talk about, but I just need to get this off my chest after talking to my therapist about it. a few weeks ago I got really drunk at a bar by accident/peer pressure to drink (pretty out of character for me). I think I selfishly wanted to feel good because of the torture ocd puts me through daily. Anyways, I got pretty drunk, to the point where I blacked out for some periods of time. I vaguely recall hitting on somebody pretty openly and for a long period of time. I probably was a complete selfish idiot. To make things worse I have a wife and kid. I let my wife know out of shame about my mistake the next day and she forgave me, but the damage had already been done. My ocd is making me feel convinced that something bad happened like I hooked up with that person and I’ll have a child with them and ruin my marriage and it’ll be this awful spiral. I always tell myself, “surely, if something like that happened, you’d remember it”. But my ocd makes it feel so real and it makes me really paranoid. Thankfully I have a wife who understands my brain, but I feel very worried about it all the time recently. It’s been about 3 weeks since the incident, but my brain won’t calm down. Anybody have any experience with dealing with true event ocd after drinking? What did you do to help you through the storm?

(I posted this same thing on the ocd reddit too so sorry if this isn’t your first time seeing this lol) hi so i feel like this is soooo stupid and inconsequential but i dont really know what else to do about it basically almost ever since i started having really bad ocd episodes i had like "sub-themes" where like, for example, when i was struggling with sexual intrusive thoughts, and at the time i was super into this one video game, i started getting thoughts like "well what if you started associating the sexual thoughts with the video game". and this just completely drained all my passion and enjoyment for the game, because all i could do was keep checking my emotions and thoughts and see if i really *was* associating the game with my intrusive thoughts. but the more i stressed about it while playing the game the more i started to actually associate them with eachother, or thats what i thought was happening, anyways. i hope that made sense so this has been happening for pretty much every single one of my interests ever since my ocd "started". again it sounds really dumb, but being interested in a show or book and just having passion for a piece of media was something i had always done for as long as i can remember, ever since i was a kid. ever since my ocd got really bad, i cant do that anymore without ruining it for myself. it's really put a damper on my sense of self and my happiness and passion for life. even in some of the worst times in my life i always had a video game or something to obsess over and take comfort in. i can't do that anymore, not without being constantly on edge. seriously, i feel like a completely new person everytime i get to enjoy a piece of media, at least before ocd starts attacking it. its come to the point where ill be consuming media and then i just think "what if you stopped liking it right now" and then i really dont know if im actually enjoying it or not, and that stresses me out and then the media starts stressing me out and then i actually *dont* enjoy it anymore. it makes me feel so empty and it genuinely depresses me, i feel like im going crazy and like, it feels different from when im genuinely not interested in something anymore, or at least thats what i think. i know that i can let go of interests just fine whenever i just dont like it anymore. but whenever *this* happens, its like i still really want to consume the media and enjoy it like i did before, i really do miss it, but everything in me is saying that i shouldn't go back to it, its over, ill just have to find something new again. bcs i genuinely do feel worse if i try and push through and keep consuming it. i really didnt want this to be this long but i just wanted to know if anyone has experienced something similar to this and what i should do about it? and thank you for reading through all of this lol