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How do I know if this is ocd or not? Not diagnosed but I don’t want to waste anyone’s time :/ I’ve been having intrusive thoughts about my gender since September and about my sexuality since much longer. I haven’t had a single day where these thoughts haven’t been in the back of my mind. And when it’s not thoughts it’s the lingering feeling of being off, being fake, or that need to see if the thoughts are true and that I have to inspect them to figure it out. I came out as a lesbian to myself once and gave it a few days but the anxiety just skyrocketed. I felt relief in the moment but it only lasted a day or two before I started wondering why I did that. I have constant headaches and body aches. It’s been so long of this that idek what the truth is anymore. I’ve always been attracted to men and have had crushes on them too and thinking about them felt natural but now it feels so forced. It started off as thoughts of ‘what if I’m a lesbian?’ after a really bad trigger for my trauma, and that plagued me for months. Now when I talk to my friends, my brain starts imagining kissing them or them becoming my girlfriend and it confuses the heck out of me bc I’ve always loved them but not like that but it feels like I want it even though I feel so uncomfortable with it. I’ve never thought about girls THIS MUCH my entire life, and I thought I was bi for a few years (I think I’m just aro, which feels nice to me). It’s constant, the thoughts are just hanging around and I feel like I need to address them but when I do I can’t even figure out where to begin or where I need to end up because it’s just so confusing and anxiety inducing and I can’t hold onto an answer long enough (other than aro) for it to make sense. I keep feeling like I’m in denial bc I try to avoid the thoughts as much as possible since they bring on so much anxiety. I don’t even have any strong feelings against lesbians but this feels so ridiculously forced and wrong for me that idk how to even go about it. Part of me is afraid of confronting the thoughts bc if they’re true I’m going to have to put myself in relationships and situations I’m just not comfortable with but idk!!! I keep feeling like maybe I’m just not giving myself the chance for it to feel good which stresses me out too.

Does hocd make you think of men in general and make you think of scenarios in your head like i keep picturing myself with a man. I cant even think of women anymore. But when i see them out and about i go shes nice. But then my mind is like your forceing it 😞

Anyone else a Christian here find it very hard/distrrssing the coand to forgive our enemies and those who hurt us? I have scrupolsity and moral OCD, so even the thought of 'but how do I truly know that I have fully forgiven someone in my heart? What if deep deep down somewhere I haven't forgiven them and God knows it.' is super upsetting for me because I just want to do the right thing for God.. 😔 Doing the right thing for God in all situations is basically a big essence of my ocd. Thanks guys, I always appreciate people who help me.

Hi everyone. I tried to stay of this app lately because it‘ one of my major compulsions. However I‘m spiraling so bad atm and I just need someone to talk to. Hocd is my main theme. I‘ve been googeling nonstop and now I just feel empty and numb. I feel like my whole live was a lie and like I just faked my attraction towards men. I feel like I have to leave my bf and it breaks my heart. I just don‘t know what to do I‘m just so in pain. Please help me 😔

Im so done with this. So ive got up this morning. Crying into my pilllow saying i dont want to be gay. But i keep saying sneaky things in my head like i want to be with a man im excited for the future. When in reality im not. I feel like im getting worse 😥

On video call now with my LDR partner, feeling more disconnected than ever. I can't seem to snap out of it even when I practice some erp. We aint talking I'm just writing on here feeling this really isn't gonna work. Any tips? So lost.

Hey it’s been awhile since I’ve been on this app but here we are lol So I’m terrified to take Zoloft. I was just prescribed 25 mg of it, and I’m actually SO SCARED. Lately depression has been at the forefront and I’ve been feeling depressed for months so my doctor thought it was a good idea to try it out. And now my head is going through all the possible worst case scenarios after reading all the side effects I’m officially freaked out. Help?? Does anyone have experience with this drug?

has anyone gotten medication for their ocd? and if so what has been working (ik it differs person to person)

I need advice...So both of my parents know what's going on with me, they don't know every thought and every detail but they also don't believe it's ocd. They think that's I'm just putting myself through this and only I can control it but unfortunately I can't all by myself. My dad thinks I need therapy but my mom doesn't believe in therapy and that I'm self diagnosing when I truly believe it's OCD. I really hope so because I'm scared to death of what goes on in my head it makes it really hard to focus or function. I ask for reassurance from my parents all the time and they are getting tired of me. Well when one obsessive thought goes away, I start obsessing about something else and I can't seem to stop. Like today I've been worried about a mistake I made in the past that to me was the worst thing I've ever done and I hate myself for it, I told both my parents about it and they both told me to let it go but it's really hard to. I have anxiety because of it, guilt, shame, and I can't get it out of my head because I don't believe I deserve to be forgiven (I am Christian so I believe God forgives me but I don't forgive myself).. Well I mentioned it again to my dad and he told me that I'm being too stubborn about it because I won't let it go. Why is it so hard for me to just let it go? Am I really making it worse than it really is? If I have OCD could it be that making it worse? I'm so tired of all of this I could scream. I want to go back to normal 😭

I keep getting the urge to look at a man’s crotch, and then I’ll actually do it. Every time I do it, it feels like I’m coming closer to being bi, and it feels as though I actually like it. When I was younger, I went through hocd (before it went away and came back), and I used to look at women’s bodies the same way, although I did actually like it, and I later came out as gay. I feel like this might turn out the same way, but I don’t want it to. Every where I turn I see bisexual related content, and my mind always goes “you won’t be alone even if you are bi, there’ll be plenty of other people to share that title with you. It’ll be ok.” BUT I DONT WANT IT TO BE OK! I’m ok being a lesbian, but honestly I don’t know if that’s what I am anymore. I hate this so much...

Does anyone else get freaked out by memories from childhood? Like I used to look at woman’s bodies in photos and movies when I was goi g through puberty, but I never thought of it as an attraction thing you know? Like I knew that I liked boys. Honestly I think that was my way of learning what was going to happen to my own body... but now that I have hocd those memories are so scary. I wish I could be like when I was a kid and I knew that I was only attracted to men and felt so secure in it

I hope everyone is doing well! I’ve been doing better and my anxiety levels have gone down even though I still have the intrusive thoughts which I am happy about because it makes it easier for me to respond in a healthier way. I was doing an exposure and was playing the “choices/episodes” game and I do the lgbt episodes because I have hocd. I always get a little anxious while playing and constant thoughts about “what if I want this” “im aroused when it gets sexual, what if that means I want to be sexual with a woman and I’m not attracted to my boyfriend/don’t want to be sexual with him” these are the ones I’m struggling with and really just trying to sit with the anxiety. It doesn’t help that ocd has affected my sex drive/libido so it’s constantly attacking that as “evidence.” I’ve held off trying to post about it for sneaky reassurance and compulsive reasons. I just would love some advice to keep sitting with it and letting the thoughts be there without freaking out?

so i’ve had the NOCD app for about 15 months, and I’ve been posting on there every 30-60 days about HOCD. But what’s weird is I hadn’t had a proper “episode” before my most recent (34 days ago) since December 2018, which lasted more or less until August of 2019 when i left for college. Still, I’ve been posting on there looking for reassurance sporadically. Is me posting (even though it’s irregular) a compulsion?

just been triggered by someone saying "are you sure its harm OCD" now extremely anxious as I'm always thinking what if it's not OCD? what if I actually want to do these things. sometimes looking for support makes it worse 😔

i’m not doing therapy, no way in the world. how are you to tell me women have realised they were gay/bi after HOCD. how is that even possible. where they even ever straight then. ffs. I HATE EVERYONE SO MUCH FUCKING HATE MY LIFE I WISH I COULD JUST BE BOOTED UP TO JUPITER AND JUST STAY THERE FOREVER AND NOT SEE ANYONE EVER AGAIN. FUCK.

I did something a long time ago that I didn't realize was so bad at the time until a long time later, one night I was about to go to sleep and I remembered doing that thing. It was something I did willingly but it didn't cross my mind at the time at all that what i was doing was so wrong and I didn't know it was that bad if that makes sense. I feel so terrible the guilt is eating me up. I don't know what to do. I would never ever make that same choice or mistake again but its really upsetting me... I'm a Christian and I try to pray about it I even talked to my parents about it they told me to let it go but why is it so hard to?

I’ve seen so many people, particularly women, who realized they were bisexual through HOCD. Also, I don’t have intrusive thoughts- I never have. It’s more like a paralyzing feeling, followed by rumination, checking, groinals, etc. How the fuck can I have OCD without intrusive thoughts? I really believe that Ive duped everyone into believing I have this illness all because I have horrible internalized homophobia and cannot accept myself. I’ve watched lesbian porn, I’ve masturbated to the thought of a girls body (one time), I used to watch lesbian kissing videos as a kid (along with other sexual videos that I just stumbled on), I worried I had a crush on a girl when I was 11 (before hocd), and this theme has been on and off for me for 7 fucking years. I feel like at first I was just realizing I was bi/gay and couldn’t accept it, so I clung to this label of OCD. here’s the thing though- when I read the first article on HOCD i didn’t feel like everything clicked. it was like, “oh my gosh, I do a lot of these things but not all of them” and then i tried to do MORE of the symptoms (like avoiding gay TV) I think I was just really concerned about figuring out if I was gay or not, but also, when I first imagined sexual scenarios with men and then women, I got the groinal to the female scenarios but not the men. FROM THE BEGINNING. isnt that not hocd??

When you wake up do you really feel like you don’t love your partner anymore....every day it like that..

Today was the worst day. I finally got tired of fighting with the anxiety and said I'm just not going to try and figure this out anymore. I worry I'm not handling this the right way. I feel like I gave myself reassurance earlier because it got so bad. Before I was able to tolerate uncertainty better, today feels like not at all 😥

If thoughts are just thoughts and feelings are just feelings, why do we do anything? Or how can I tell what I really want?