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So I’ve had this recent obsession that has made me upset. It’s basically an obsessing about blushing… when you’re young and see your crush people tend to blush for example, but people can also blush in situations of feeling embarrassed, anxious, joyful, excited, happy, nervous, feeling flattered etc… I am in a committed relationship and love my man immensely, ocd has been putting these thoughts/ideas of what if I blushed at someone and trying to make it seem like it’s a romantic/sexual/crush type thing… which I feel is making me very hyper focused on blushing… like it’s just making me uncomfortable because though I know we have no control over blushing, ocd saying to me I’m going to or have blushed over people because they’re attractive while I’ve been with my partner - makes me extremely uncomfortable!!! As I said blushing comes from lots of different emotions, it does not always mean you’re romantically/sexually interested in someone? I know this is kind of reassurance but can someone explain to me it is possible to experience blushing from multiple emotions and just because I see an attractive person doesn’t mean I’m going to blush over seeing someone attractive?? Like I blush when I smile (I have naturally very pale skin and redness in my cheeks a bit, and I find even smiling can trigger blushing)… I also go quite red from being anxious or embarrassed. I’m not in highschool and don’t have “crushes” on anyone, I am in a committed relationship and don’t want to feel I would be “blushing” over someone that’s not my bf in the way I would blush over my bf??? If that makes sense? Sorry I know this is so far fetched but I’ve been obsessing for days and trying to work on not confessing to my partner. Wanted to come on here to ppl who know what I’m going through and maybe see if anyone has any advice for me in this situation? I have started therapy but only see him once a fortnight and he isn’t an ocd specialist…

Up until who knows when, i was always straight and showed no signs of being gay, and this is what i know for sure. I do not remember what its like being attracted to girls anymore, it has been so long, i do not know what i want at this point. I do not know what is hocd or what isnt anymore, i feel like i have been so worried about being gay for so long that i dont even feel the symptoms of hocd anymore. People say “if you feel like being gay ruins your image” or “if you get anxiety when thinking gay thought or feeling gay feelings, then you are not gay and that is false attraction” but i dont feel anxiety anymore with those, i feel anxiety when thinking about being in relationships with women now, idrk if it is being gay that does that or being hurt by past relationships so much that it does. I cant tell what feeling is what or anything. I know i was feeling what people say are signs of being straight at some point but i do not anymore. The feeling of being gay and gay feelings or thoughts are overtaking me and its like i am gay at this point but i just dont want to be and i dont know why i dont want to be anymore. I just need advice and i dont know what to do.

Have you had nights where you didnt sleep completely because of the hocd ? I didnt sleep the whole night yesterday 💔

I hate to admit this but I used to watch a lot of porn. I always had crushes on boys and wanted a boyfriend all my life. And I indentified as heterosexual. I’ve had this theme twice and gotten over when another theme took over. Unfortunately I watched a lot of female porn, and woman to woman porn and now my mind is telling me I’m bisexual. I’m so sick of this cus I don’t wanna be bisexual. I get false attractions all around. Am I suppressing sexuality? I feel so ashamed. Completely stopped watched porn.

I was in the back seat of the car and my granda was directly in front of me and my little sister was standing up directly in front of me and so she bend over for something and her bottom touched my knee i am absolutely freaking out i feel like my life is over 😣

I had these horrible nightmares that covered the most disturbing of my ocd subtypes and intrusive thoughts. They were so vivid and all disturbing and I just woke up. Thoughts of what if it’s something you want or other what ifs. And I’m so uncomfortable which is an understatement. I don’t even want up get up because I’m so uncomfortable. This is awful

I’m just curious if anyone has ever experienced this? Whenever I spend the weekend with my boyfriend the following day my anxiety is extremely heightened & I find myself over analysing everything from the time I spent with him. I feel very sad / anxious when I should be feeling happy which of course then adds further evidence to HOCD thoughts.

Today I'm 100% sure I'm straight and so in love with my bf, tomorrow I will be crying thinking I might be okay being with a girl and thinking that I want to.. lol is this normal? Do gay people feel like that? Like they know they are straight one day and the next day they don't think like that anymore

i’m really scared. i’ve had hocd for the past 3 years but i’ve only known what it was for about 6 months. i have groinal responses really anytime i look at a woman, i am scared that it’s arousal. i’m scared that i’m gay and don’t really like boys and im scared that things from my childhood “made” or “proved” me to be gay. i feel like feelings are butterflies when like im close to my friends but i think it’s just anxiety. i have intrusive thoughts that tell me to kiss my friends and i get really anxious around them and ill think i’m attracted to them. i have a really great boyfriend and i really like him and when we touches me it feels amazing but my mind tries to tell me it’s not real and it’s anxiety. also TMI i get lubrication from groinal responses but i also get wet from my boyfriend which makes me confused on which is real. i don’t want to be gay, i want to be straight. i want to just be able to live my life. someone help me!! I also research ALOT and try to figure it out and reassurance works for only a few minutes. I am trying to figure out the answer so bad. I also have really bad anxiety thinking about these things from the past and also about the thoughts that i’m gay and attracted to women.

Can hocd actually make you feel like you ga?

I know there is something wrong with me. Maybe it’s because of expose at an early age to mature content or maybe it’s undiagnosed hyper sexuality I think I’ve had for a while. Maybe I should unalive before I hurt someone. I’m addicted to fanfiction and my phone and I have been for a long time. I at a very early age knew everything to do with s*x and BDSM and kinks of all nature and nothing ever phased me really. I myself was an online victim of a p* but I led everything, he just never declined. “Vanilla” became boring in a way, a way I now know has led me here. I read fanfiction and things sexual with underage people, I thought oh there’s no harm because is just fiction and not real life and if stuff like that exists on the website and is able to be written maybe i can treat it separately from real life. But what if I am a p* for reading etc? I’m spiralling because I seen the comments under one of those stories and 1/4 were death threats, 1/4 are disgusting comments and the rest were neutral. I suspect I have C-ptsd, autism and adhd which all worked together in a very unhealthy tandem to led me to this. All I can feel is disgust and shame and the desire to end it. I don’t really know why I made this post or what anyone can say really but I’m sorry.

I used to avoid the Reddit spiral but after making the mistake of looking up comphet last night for the first time in years I am absolutely spiraling. Have spent this whole day googling things in my bed in the dark. Not responding to anyone, not doing anything. I have found more comfort in the bisexual Reddit sub where there are more people criticizing the master doc but as my brain keeps spinning and spinning it feels like it all makes sense. A lot of them don’t understand how someone can be at some point sexually attracted to a man or want to do anything with them and then somehow be lesbian? Like if they didn’t feel forced, i mean. If you were consciously doing it because you were aware you were under pressure then that would make sense, but I feel like that doesn’t apply to me?? Maybe in some ways, like I felt convinced I needed to fit in at school and there was a couple times someone insinsuated i was not straight when I was younger and then like I’d feel the need to prove it with an existing crush like no I think _____ is cute but I don’t recall any of those crushes being formed as a RESULT of that. I just wouldn’t really do anything about my crushes and definitely had some experiences with limerence when I was younger. And even a couple times recently which drove me insane. At the same time me being super horny kind of coincided with the time that I got my iud in?? Maybe that’s the problem?? I don’t know. I also don’t remember fancying any women sexually or noticing it until I got the first same sex dream which is what I believe triggered my SO-OCD. I tend to be much more avoidant in such I would avoid googling things and avoid tv shows with gay characters and stuff like that. I would still check my attraction but now I’m the opposite and constantly googling. I’ve been sitting here all day nonstop. I’m psychoanalyzing every interaction I’ve had with both genders and am like losing it. It felt like I related to too much on the comphet doc and subs for this to not be true. But how can that all be a lie? I just don’t understand. Last night just to ease my cognitive dissonance I said ok fine maybe I’m bi. I’m bi whatever. And that eased a bit of my discomfort. But now 1. I feel like all of my attraction to men is gone now that I apparently confirmed my attraction to women and 2. Now I’m convinced I wouldn’t be bi enough and I’m just a lesbian??? I don’t even know. It never stops. And the thing that triggered me was people talking about how distressing it was for them to realize they didn’t like men. I guess I thought that was an SOOCD thing but nope another thing to worry about. Like how??? It just all feels so damn real and sometimes I feel like I’m just using HOCD to cover up my true desires. Writing this post I feel like I’m just making excuses. But if I swear I’ve felt genuinely sexually attracted to men, maybe not now but in the past and have enjoyed doing things to them, then how can I be a lesbian??? It doesn’t make any sense. I’d honestly be fine if I was bi if that meant my attraction to men was still there. I know it’d end up fine if I was really lesbian but it’s so hard for me to believe that all of that just wasn’t true. I never felt much pleasure through penetrative sex and struggled to get turned on. Like I feel like now at least men’s bodies don’t do it for me and women’s could if I let my mind accept it. In the past I feel like I’d go crazy over vlines and veiny hands like I literally remember looking up veiny hands on my own because I thought they were hot. And there’s things I love about men too but I just don’t know if it’s comphet or what. But I literally have gotten turned on to a man’s body from both solo porn and videos sent to me so what?? I don’t feel disgusted by men, maybe a bit uncomfortable around them but mainly the ones I considered attractive. I know I’ve seen a man and thought wow I’d totally fuck him. But I guess when it comes down to it I don’t enjoy it as much as I think I will?? Maybe I’m asexual, or bi, demi, or graysexual or heteroromantic or whatever. Any of those I’d honestly be fine with. But it’s just the idea of being a lesbian that freaks me out, and I don’t like to think it’s because of internalized homophobia but because this is something I’ve known to be true about myself for so long and something I rarely doubted albeit maybe a few times after crude comments from classmates. But I don’t know. It’s all just wild how different things feel. It feels like my brain is telling me I’m just lying when I was sobbing crying over a man two days ago. Like what?? It brings me nothing but stress and anxiety. I haven’t slept well in days. I’d usually go to bed fantasizing about a man and now I can barely even do it because my brain is telling me it’s not what I want. Ugh.

idk the false attraction feels to powerful, like i can't just let it go or,"observe without judgement" Like i physically cant do that. With false attraction it feels like real physical attraction like it feels super genuine and I hate it. Idk how to describe how I feel but now its like 90 percent of the dudes i see that are attractive dudes. its very hypersensitive thing idk. But it grasp on to that so I cant let it go it sucks. What makes it worse is that i feel no anxiety, no distress and no discomfort it doesnt feel like. Basically it feels like real attraction. and whenever i get to the stage of trying to figuring it out i tend to make my HOCD worse idk im getting weird tingling feelings now and it feels like im gay, this usually happens when im trying to look up stuff, but when this happens it feel so ridiculously real, like I've been convinced of being gay, and now it feels like the thoughts don't give me depression or anxiety or distress now. what sucks is ive been dealing with this for so long, but now it feels genuine and ive become ok with everything, the false attraction, the thoughts and not in the good way.

i’m really scared. i’ve had hocd for the past 3 years but i’ve only known what it was for about 6 months. i have groinal responses really anytime i look at a woman, i am scared that it’s arousal. i’m scared that i’m gay and don’t really like boys and im scared that things from my childhood “made” or “proved” me to be gay. i have intrusive thoughts that tell me to kiss my friends and i get really anxious around them and ill think i’m attracted to them. i have a really great boyfriend and i really like him and when we touches me it feels amazing but my mind tries to tell me it’s not real and it’s anxiety. also TMI i get lubrication from groinal responses but i also get wet from my boyfriend which makes me confused on which is real. i don’t want to be gay, i want to be straight. i want to just be able to live my life. someone help me!!

I feel like mine isn't really thoughts anymore it's just rumination, doubts, anxiety and compulsive checking. But because I don't get intrusive thoughts anymore or as much I feel like I don't even have OCD and it's really triggering me making me feel like I'm actually bisexual or attracted to men. I'm losing attraction to women now as well I hate this

I tried doing ERP and recorded a loop of me saying “I’m bisexual” to try and sit through the discomfort. I did a loop like this a few years ago with my former NOCD therapist and cried. This round I didn’t feel anxious and that made me anxious. I felt calm and that terrified me. I ended up engaging in compulsions, my body feels hot, and I ended up crying. It feels too real. I know that it’s a thought and thoughts are not facts and the goal of ERP is to sit with the thoughts. Maybe it wasn’t wise to start with an exposure like that without a therapist. I had one session last month and I’m just afraid to start again. I’m not sure if I connected with the new therapist and it’s scary being vulnerable with a new therapist. I am afraid what if this time it’s different? I am afraid what if there is “new evidence” and it’s not OCD. What if I’m in denial and using OCD as a coverup? What if I discover I really am bisexual? There’s nothing wrong, but it’s not what I envision for myself. What if I’ve been purposely making myself disgusted? I’ve read all the OCD fears and of course I have OCD. I have done the OCDLA HOCD quiz 30 times, and I have HOCD. It just feels so real, especially with the new thoughts that keep generating through the endless compulsions. I feel like all my compulsions, mental checking, reassurances have brought more damage than comfort. It feels like all the words I said to fight against OCD are now powerless. It’s added more confusion. The thoughts are distorted and feel real. I miss my old self, I know doing guided ERP is going to be hard. I’m going to Mexico for three weeks today and I’m dreading it. I am going because I don’t want to miss being with my parents due to OCD. I just miss my attraction to men, it’s still there. I don’t want to be with a woman sexually or romantically. I know I haven’t changed. But it feels so real. I have missed important milestones, such as Christmas, my dad’s 80th birthday to this. I’ve been homebound, I’m scared of being around people, I only watch nature shows or Anthony Bourdain when I’m not feeling as triggered. I live in the Bay Area and have been surrounded by queer people and wasn’t triggered even after doing ERP a few years ago. I was able to interact with people of all walks of life and go to bars and restaurants and concerts. I was able to live a semi-normal life, go on dates with guys, travel and stay in hostels. I just fear what if this time it’s different. It’s so hard to let go and live with uncertainty. I hate how OCD tries to use my past against me and distort it. I need to stop doing compulsions, they have brought me to such a deep pit of confusion I feel so far off. I fear that if I let go of the thoughts, it means it’s true. But that’s the point of OCD recovery. I feel like being in fear and anxiety has kept me safe, and living with the uncertainty that maybe, maybe not is real scares me.

Hi all, I’m really having a hard time with my OCD. I start ERP therapy on Friday, I had an intake session last week. I had a horrible OCD episode that knocked me off my feet last April and made my life so small. I lost my Nana, who was dying a slow death from cancer and I obsessed over this and criticized myself so much and started having existential obsessions. I worried if I loved her too much or not enough and it made me sick. I’m an artist, I stopped making art because I was having doubts and intrusive thoughts that I’m a bad person and I’m not truly an artist. I stopped doing freelance, which was my entire income. Then I got my dream job at a museum, then I started having doubts about deserving a good life and “living a lie”. Then I started obsessing over my sexuality and my relationship. Terrified that I can never get married or have kids because of my OCD. I was abused as a child and have a lot of shame about myself and also fear of trusting people. As a kid I dealt with horrible intrusive thoughts, as well as obsessions about my health that took so much of my childhood from me. The thing that scares the living crap out of me is many of these recovery stories where people had to “let go” of their entire lives and entire selves in order to get better. I feel like I’ve worked really hard to give myself a chance at life and I’m following my dreams, but I feel like OCD derailed those plans. So in order to get better, do I have to give those dreams up for good? I’m so scared. Would love to hear from someone who is in recovery or anyone who has similar fears.

My dumb ass has been reasurance seeking so much, researching, Reddit, quizes, gay Vs denial, bisexual Vs denial, and checking aesthetically good looking men and now nothing reassures me for long periods of time. It's ruining my relationship I'm losing attraction I have porn addiction too not compulsively checking but I do check alot of the time and it's also escalating onto things I wouldn't do in real life. My life feels ruined by this relapse because life was finally good I finally got a beautiful amazing girlfriend, went gym, got new clothing, haircut and was overall happy but just finding men handsome, liking their voice etc causes me alot of anxiety because it's not every so often it's a very common thing now and it makes me so upset not because being bi or gay is wrong but because I don't want sex with men it doesn't make me happy or excite me I wouldn't even do it for money. Women make me feel so good inside, excited, butterflies I just want to be married and spend my life with a beautiful women but with this shit I doubt everything I can't even have same sex friends out of fear that it'll be more than platonic. I wouldn't care if I was 10% bisexual and 90% straight because id always be straight over everything I love women even though they make me nervous my response has always been positive. I really REALLY need help I can't live like this I'm not suicidal or anything but I'm extremely depressed it's causing my girlfriend to become distant we don't do nothing sexually even though before this relapse I was craving it all the time cuz of how much I love her. How do I stop this anxiety and doubt? Why is there even anxiety around this? I'm confident enough to say I find men handsome but that's all it is? So why can't I figure this out? No matter how much research the next day I just find myself repeating it trying to solve the big question if I'm gay or not. Even though logically I'm attracted to women exclusively I may have done things growing up as curiosity but crushes have always been women, sexual fantasies always women, women have always made me excited I loved it even growing up I was obsessed with wanting a girlfriend not because of society but because that's what I wanted? A romantic and sexual relationship with a woman. If the cure is to sit with this discomfort why do I have the discomfort in the first place? Because I can find men handsome? But that doesn't make me attracted to them sexually I've never looked at a man and thought "I'd love to have him all to myself and fuck him" I've only said that about women? Groinal responses as well they're a pain in the ass especially when I check porn it's a massive anxiety trap and makes me question shit even though it may cause a physical response I don't like it mentally I want it gone I want this all gone without any doubt. If anyone spent their time reading this thank you. I feel so alone at the moment and isolated with confusion with no one to talk to

Its making me feel like im noticing guys constantly, and giving me intrusive thoughts of being "bisexual" and intrusive images of men i see... i despise this so much...

Can hocd start by false attraction, urge , sensations or just a thought pops up in the mind ?