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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

Recently, my brother moved back in after losing his job. I now share my bathroom, which used to be mine and mine alone, with him and his constant company. All I ask is that he close the toilet lid before he flushes, and leave it down when it’s not in use. Just in case it’s difficult to remember— I have a decal on the inside of the toilet that says to put the lid down. I also have various signs in every single direction in the bathroom that ask to put the lid down. I do not feel like it is a difficult or crazy request. But whenever I calmly ask him and his many, many guests (he is always inviting his friends and girlfriend over— and they also refuse to follow this rule) to please be mindful of this, they just laugh at me or outright ignore me. My whole family thinks my OCD is just a joke. Even though I have been professionally diagnosed and dealing with the symptoms since I was in elementary school, I didn’t find out I had this diagnosis until my 20s. My whole life, they constantly tell me I’m dramatic and use OCD as an insult for me. They think OCD is not real and that it’s just my excuse to be a burden to other people. I learned not to ever talk about my symptoms so that they won’t humiliate me. Every time I enter the bathroom and see the lid open, I get severe anxiety and intrusive thoughts about contamination that keep me from sleeping sometimes all night because I'm just thinking about how everything is contaminated. Every single surface and even my skin. And then I start getting intrusive thoughts and compulsions about cutting my skin off or worse because the air in the bathroom contaminated me and even if I take a shower it won't be clean because the shower is also contaminated by the same air. Just now, he used the bathroom with the door open and flushed with the lid open. My bedroom door, which is right next to the bathroom, was open. Now I can’t stop thinking about how the air is contaminated and I need to cut my lungs out to be clean. I’m not going to do it. But I can’t stop thinking about it. I’m so sick of living like this. I understand I can’t control others. I don’t ask others to make accommodations for me ever. For example, at work in the work bathroom. I just quietly suffer with my thoughts. But. This is my home. This bathroom used to be mine only. And yet even at home, I am powerless and nobody respects me or follows my one rule. I can’t take it anymore. Why can’t they just listen? Why do they do this to me?

Every time I go to bed late and I’m falling asleep, I suddenly get an intrusive thought of a child’s face and my groinal area always responds to it. It’s such an uncomfortable experience. I am way too tired to try and freak out so I end up falling asleep. The next morning I’m always trying to figure out whether I had the groinal response first or after the thought. I start giving OCD power but it feels like If I let it go, then I’m in denial or whatever. I don’t want to ever do anything sexual with a child. I don’t even feel comfortable talking platonically with people who are 17, much less a child. My therapist says that I have a deep rooted fear that I’m this horrible person and that OCD loves to feed off of it. When you get a groinal response, it makes the thought that much more real. I never want these things to happen. I want to only be into adults. It’s so discomforting and stressful. Especially since I’m hyper checking how anxious I am, and if I find I didn’t really have much anxiety, then I’m like “well if I didn’t have anxiety, what does this mean?” And more questions occur til I end up in a rabbit hole

I keep overthinking of me being a bad gf for having guy friends is because everytime i made a guy friend or met a random guy i would get random thoughts about them but i wouldn’t think about them romantically and then i would start to have intrusive thoughts about them that what if i liked them or what if I’m think about them bc i have a crush on them or i want to be with them but then i would get disgusted of thinking about liking them or being with them it wouldn’t make me happy all i would want is my boyfriend so i knew it wasn’t a crush or i knew i didn’t like them like that at all and so then i would always remind myself why i dont like them and that i love my boyfriend but i also did like talking to them but not like that like its cool that they talk to me but then i would stop being there friend bc they would just disgust me and i felt like a bad gf and bc i kept getting intrusive thoughts but then latly ever since august i started to get scared again what if all this happen bc i liked them but i knew i didn’t still deep down in my heart i know i didn’t like them like but re searching stuff on google or tiktok just made me even more scared saying that if u think about somebody it means u like them or if u think somebody is cool that means u have a crush on them like i dont get it how dose that mean i like them idk but it just all made me scared. And i tell my boyfriend my boyfriend seems to be understanding and that its nothing to worry about and then i feel fine for a little bit and start to worry again.

So a long time ago, I made a wish at 11:11 that unexpectedly came true. Since then I have been terrified of that time of day and it’s power to grant wishes. This morning and tonight I accidentally made a really bad wish. It’s not something I want to happen. The words just strang together cause I was freaking out. I don’t know what to do. I’ve had 11:11 wishes not come true in the past, but… I’m scared. Help?

Does anyone else’s ocd cause physical things? Like I pee a lot and idk if it’s a health thing or a physical thing. I can’t sleep if I have to use the bathroom and I go to the bathroom sooo many times before bed. Also I have to pop my knuckles if I can feel my bones if that makes sense. Like I can feel each area in my fingers that needs to be popped until I pop them.

Anyone struggle with this with having ocd?

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 went to bed one night in November, and I can't quite say what happened, but I believed that I had a "memory" from childhood. I won't discuss what, but I had "remembered" doing something sickeningly awful. This thing came to me almost as clear as a real memory. I remember thinking something along the lines of 'How could I forget doing something like that?' followed by a feeling of complete horror and terror. I have moments of "clarity" where I can't believe that I'm questioning doing this thing, and it appears obvious that it's false. But now, I'm more than often believing that I did. I am spending 24/7 fighting my head, and it's taking me to dark places. I know this is the worst thing to do, but you don't understand, if this is real then I am a monster and I can't just adopt the 'maybe I did, maybe I didn't approach'. I just can't. I have to know. I'm so scared. My entire life is on the line. I don't have anyone to talk to about this. Literally no one. I feel like I'm insane, like I'm a monster, like I'm hiding my true identity from everyone I love. Does this sound like False Memory? Or am I in denial, trying to convince myself this didn't happen? Why does it feel so real? And why do I have moments of clarity? I also had my first nightmare about it last night. Please someone help me.

So I don't feel attraction to kids at all. But I do get like intrusive thoughts about people r@p!ng me like family, teacher, etc. I know this is a result of me being assaulted as a child continuously, but I wasn't sure.

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!!!

I gave up on it. Not point in wasting my time thinking at all. It’s all fake. Life has been good actually, just a little stressed here and there. Recovery is hard though, harder than those thoughts and stuff. I’m on day 10 or 11 of my life not so impacted by OCD. This year I’ll rule the year, not OCD. I’m doing good. I have a good feeling About this new method. Good luck you guys. It’ll get better!! Nothing last forever! (Here’s my chicken shaped dog) I feel so hopeful and happy. I hope you guys have that feeling too!!

I m fighting very hard to stay positive for my anxiety and depression I wake up with headaches because I clenched my teeth’s at night but what make me clench is my boyfriend staying up with the kids making so much noise this give me nightmares since I m trying to to be positive I work up and didn’t say nothing about this got up make people breakfast and everything was good until he said everything is good when I m no around them and this make me mad and obviously made me argue because how can you say that I never said all the bad things he do to me because I m trying to stay positive because otherwise ocd and depression get the best of me now I m crying because I was really trying to be good and I just argued :( because of he started and he still say I m the crazy one how ? I was good eating food until that comment

Am I the only one who compares their current relationship to a past relationship? I remember a year ago I was on here having intrusive thoughts about my relationship that I was in a year ago. I ended up leaving the relationship because I couldn’t feel that much love for him unless it was cause of all the anxiety I was experiencing, till this day I’m not quite sure what caused me to break it off but I know that when I did it after I felt relieved and happy. Now I am currently in a new relationship where we’ve only been dating for a month and I notice that I sometimes tend to compare my current relationship to my past one. Sometimes I miss my past relationship and cry and obsess over it as if I’m second guessing on myself that I broke it off for no good reason. It brings a lot of distress especially in my current relationship as me getting these kinds of thoughts and emotions isn’t fair to my current partner. I’m not really sure how to go about all of this as I feel like I am the only one experiencing this. I just want to be able to completely move on from it as we both went out separate ways and I want to focus on this new chapter of my life with my now boyfriend. My now boyfriend is very understanding and probably the first partner where he took the time to learn about my OCD and wants to help guide me through it. I appreciate the love and relationship we have for each other. It just hurts that I think about the past and sometimes get the urge to go back when really there’s nothing to go back to other than a void. I want to be able to live my current life happy with my boyfriend and friends without the past haunting me. Any advice?

I'm not sure what's going on anymore. My brain says I wanna break up. I don't even get the what if I don't love him etc etc. Truth is I miss my old self back then when all those things didn't happen. I feel lonely cause it feels like this it. This is the end. And I wanna break up. I feel like there's no hope anymore and that's what I really want. I love our relationship and he's perfect. Why do I feel like this? Why can't I stop thinking about it? Isn't OCD supposed to take only a certain amount of time from our daily lives? It's been 4 days and idk what I should do. I feel like even when I start therapy the recovery will take so long that breaking up is inventiable. I feel so trapped not bc of him. I know I'll probably regret it but I'm scared what if I don't what if this is actually the right choice?

I'm afraid to speak to a therapist and tell them something I did as a teenager because I don't know if it's a crime or not and what if they report me? I feel like I can't even get help I can't get rid of this guilt unless I get help but if I get help I feel like I might ruin my life. I'm so stuck!

Does anyone else experience this? Like it feels like 1 second after something has happened you question everything. Your intentions especially? Then you can’t remember anything clearly. I can’t tell if my intentions were bad, I had neutral intentions and an intrusive thought came in during it, or I’m making up an excuse for my behavior. Anyone? I feel very frightened.

I am in a big group server with my partner. There is another person there who i had a small crush on. I have NEVER interacted with this person in a private or secretive way. We are NOT friends, the most we’ve ever interacted was through group discussions online. We do not have any sort of intimate or close relationship at all. My partner knows about these interactions and has access to every single message in that server. A few weeks ago, this person was talking about how nobody would date anyone with a certain trait that he has. I should note that this person is kind of a big meme in the server and no one takes him seriously. A while later we were having a group discussion about something and I mentioned something about my ex and this trait was brought up (my ex had the same trait as this person). This person commented on this and said he was surprised that I would date someone with that trait and that he was surprised I wasn’t hypocritically telling him he could find someone despite this trait while being unwilling to date people of that trait myself. I said that I was surprised that he thought people wouldn’t date anyone with that trait because I “know plenty of girls who either have done so or explicitly prefer it.” I then began talking about my CURRENT partner and how he was great and how I am very lucky to have him and that my relationship with my ex was toxic (unrelated to his trait). I should note that my partner is part of this server and he knows about this interaction and was fine with it. When this interaction happened, I remembered feeling really amused because like I said before, this person is kind of known for very outlandish/ridiculous reactions and opinions. I do remember saying this WITH THE INTENTION to get him to react in some way because I knew it would be amusing and I remember sending it to my friend. I want to clarify that my intention was NEVER to flirt with him, imply attraction to him, or make him think he “had a chance” or anything like that. I just knew it would be a funny reaction. My partner knows of these interactions AND of my attraction to this person but I feel that the fact that he doesn’t know that I was doing them with an intent to get this person’s attention makes it cheating. Even though i always made it very clear i was dating my partner and I NEVER EVER EVER attempted a single romantic or sexual interaction with this person at all. I feel like the fact that I said something with the hope that he would react is cheating. I don’t know what to do. Do I confess? He knows the interaction happened, and he also knows of my small crush on this person, but he doesn’t know that I did the interaction in an attempt to get a reaction from this person.