I can almost remember the day this all first started. I was in high school, the year was 2019, and I was watching a horror movie in theaters with my friends. The movie was The Prodigy. At the very beginning of the film, thereās a scene where a woman gives birth to a child, and then it cuts to a shot of a completely naked baby. Child nudity has always bothered me severely, but this stayed with me for weeks. I couldnāt enjoy the rest of the movie because I was so bothered by it and it eventually started to plague my personal life to the point where I was questioning myself and getting extremely uncomfortable around life. Eventually, I ignored it and after a week, it went away.
A few months later, I watched the film The Boondock Saints. During the scene where Willem Dafoe is making out with another man while heās dressed as a woman, I felt something happening in my pants. At first, I panicked and checked to see if it was an erection, and was relieved to see that it wasnāt the case, because Iām not gay, Iāve never had the urge to do anything with another man before, and Iām certainly not opposed to my own sexuality. I could care less if Iām gay, straight, bisexual, etc. But because I felt something in that moment, I questioned myself every day since. Iāve tested myself many times and Iāve always came up with the same answer: I find men attractive, but not sexually attractive.
Eventually, after battling with it for three years, I decided in 2022 that I had enough. I couldnāt go out in public or be around another man without staring at them for prolonged periods of time; it didnāt matter who it was. I would get extreme anxiety, but I was compelled to keep doing it. I get a tingling, almost burning sensation in my genitals that convinces me Iām having an erection, which further coerces my thoughts, thus making me want to do things I donāt want to do. I always snap out of this state but I canāt prevent it from happening. I tried doing what I did before with children and ignore my OCD until it went away, but this time it didnāt work. I eventually fell into the rabbit hole again with POCD and, to his day, have struggled severely with both to the point where I avoid going anywhere outside of work and home in fear I might do something I might regret.
Even after I snap out of it, eventually, the intrusive thoughts come back again and I feel like Iām in danger to myself and others. I have no way of beating this at the moment, so I hope this app helps.
