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Has anyone successfully conquered this type of ocd, if anyone does I really need to talk to someone and ask a few questions❤️

I don’t know if there is a light at the end of the tunnel anymore this feels so real I get headaches all the time and the thoughts are like if you come out it will go away and life will be back how if used to be i hate hate hate this just had enough I miss having attraction to women and it feeling natural and not a checking ritual this is hell and I just don’t know what to do I am so down every day with this I just don’t understand why this has happened to me I feel cursed it been 4 years now I never felt like this or had any thoughts like this as a kid or a teen this all started when I was in a toxic relationship with my ex girl friend and some one on a night shift said I can see why gay guys are happy they don’t have women in their life and bang ‼️ it started a thought out of no where saying I am gay on loop it been that way ever since I just want to be at peace it don’t help when I hear sexuality is fluid or on a spectrum that is very triggering for me and it don’t help that I have Aspergers as well which only magnifies this whole thing times a million I just feel so lost and have no idea what to do just want to be like I used be I feel like I have a massive chunk of my life robbed from me I feel so alone I have no problem with gay people at all you what you like I guess but me and don’t want to be like that I want to be with a women but my mind is like no you don’t it’s torturing this is can anybody help PLEASE !!

Hi! I am posting this NOT to give reassurance but more to give hope and help in people’s recovery. I have had really bad SOCD since I was 14 I’m 29 now and started experiencing false attraction for the first time which sent me spiraling and it was VERY debilitating and confusing. I can now say it’s been two months since I experienced it and I feel I have conquered this aspect of OCD and am no longer experiencing it. Now let me say that these feelings did not just “go away” but I put in the work. I sat with the ick, I didn’t overanalyze, I recognized it for what it was and let it go. Easier said than done I KNOW. Is it possible I will experience it again? Maybe. But if I do I know I can face it and overcome it once again. So yeah just wanted to share my recovery with you all and let you know it can and will happen for you too ☺️❤️

Today was so nice, I had a girl who I’ve like for so long at my house today and she was hugging me and laid in bed with me. My heart was racing everytime she laid with me. Life didn’t feel real. She made me hard every time she was on me. But then when she left I got the scared thought that what if I don’t really love her and what if I’m gay and bring a guy home one day. What does this mean.

I'm having a hard time with sexual ocd kinda stuff. I feel like I will never know what's real or get any kind of certainty around my fears. It's just so scary and uncomfortable and it's so hard to talk to my therapist about. I've overcome pretty much everything else, but I've been avoiding this part so bad. I've just been obsessing and compulsing about this stuff for so long it's left me so confused. I genuinely don't know what to do, I'm so scared of talking to my therapist about it, I say very minimal things in my sessions.

Hi, I have never posted on a forum before because I’m scared someone will come back and say ‘it’s not OCD’. Anyway, I have always had obsessional thoughts. Always obsessed about my health and if I was going to die. I have always had intrusive thoughts and when I was around 16 I had my first awful one HOCD. This made me feel so sick and I couldn’t leave my bed. Would look at women and get groinal responses and would avoid anything LGBTQ. I then suffered with POCD, which I nearly asked to be sectioned over. Now, I am with my current partner (2months) and we are moving in together in 2 weeks. I have known him since I was 14 and have always had a thing for him. Anyway, last year there was this person at work who I forced and convinced myself to ‘like’ don’t even know if I even did to be honest. But his background is awful and everyone around me said it was a bad decision and I knew this too. We used to talk all the time but yeah, anyway… I said I didn’t want a relationship and distanced myself from him and never really thought about him. I’m now in my relationship with my current partner and I adore him. He is fully aware of what is going on in my head. I have also just started therapy. My head is comparing him to this guy at work. Makes me think they look alike, but this all stemmed from when my current partner was talking about his family past and I instantly thought oh no, I hope my family doesn’t think this is bad (they love him). So now, my head is saying ‘what if you love this other guy’ what if the reason you can’t get this out your head is because the universe is giving you a sign’ ‘what if everyone told you not to go there, then what’ the thoughts are endless and honestly, I can’t stop crying, it is making me physically sick, have panic attacks. I confess to my partner all the time and he is honestly so supportive! I feel like I’m mentally cheating or what if I’m denial. When we first got together I was fine. No thoughts and then bang I’m consumed. My head is filled with them. I feel congested with him. I feel disgusting. I look for reassurance. I constantly look on Quora and Reddit. I can’t cope. I love my current partner! And we tried getting together years ago but it wasn’t our time and since, I thought about him every now and again and now my brain is saying ‘oh see, what if it’s the same situation with this guy a work’ I just want coping mechanisms and relief. This honestly feels like torture.!!! oh and my head says ‘what if you go to therapy and discover your true desires and it turns out that it isn’t ocd’

Anyone often worry were they arousing ovr someone because of intrusive thoughts and groinal responses? I was grabbing ny bag strap snd it was near my lap in public snd i worry was i doing something inappropriate. I get stuck snd dwell on it worrying then i worry more if i was doing something. But i was like why would i do a bad thing especially in public. Ugh its exhausting.

I thought I was doing better with not having rocd intrusive thoughts for a while but then they started up again. I always blame the thoughts on pms, but whenever it happens any other time, I think they’re real. I feel like I’m always critiquing my bf in my mind, and think small things are genuinely big problems. It’s like I can’t accept that he has flaws, just like me. Also yesterday I hung out with this new friend I made, and afterwards I kept getting thoughts like “you like her, you think she’s hot”, etc (she’s a lesbian and I am straight), and then a trailer for a new movie w/ kristen Stewart keeps popping up on my feed and I think that I’m gay. There would be nothing wrong with that ofc but I’ve been straight my whole life, but I’ll get thoughts saying “you’re gay and you’re not attracted to your bf anymore”, etc. I generally get intrusive thoughts that I’m not attracted to my bf but it’s never bc I’d be attracted to the same sex. Also, I think this is normal with intrusive thoughts but whenever I get these types of thoughts about my relationship/my bf, it’s like I don’t recognize him, or even fully realize that I have a bf, and it scares me so much. I’ll be with him and I’ll suddenly get the realization that I’ve been in a relationship with him for a year, or I’ll look at him and I’ll start getting nervous that I don’t find him attractive anymore. Recently it’s been the not recognizing him and thinking about “alone time” with him and not feeling turned on or thinking that he doesn’t pleasure me the same way anymore, which isn’t true. I just feel guilty everytime these thoughts pop up.

Do we choose what we're attracted by? Or it is simply something subconscious that we can't control? Because I have no problem getting attracted if I notice the curves of a girl my age, but I get extremely uncomfortable and anxious when I notice those same inappropriate parts on a young girl. Instagram reels trigger me often. I obsess over the fact that I've noticed those parts in the first place because a normal person wouldn't even notice them at all, and I wonder if these are the signs of being a p***. I feel the need to check the inappropriate parts to check if I'm attracted or not, and to see if I can stop seeing it as triggering but as something that is just there without being unwantedly se&ualized by pocd. (I also feel more gross because I'm staring at those parts, even though for a compulsive matter and not for malicious intent). I'd feel like ending my life if these things were all just subconscious instincts of my brain making me one of those monsters, like you can't change that and I'm just lying to myself. I'd feel more at ease if everybody notice those things the same and just chooses to not be attracted according their morals, the fact that physical attraction could be a choice and not an instinct would make me feel better. There is freedom of action, but is there freedom of feeling and being? Or is that already predetermined? If I see a girl my age who's my liking I have no issue feeling attracted se&ually. If I'm born with the genes of a monsters it wouldn't matter what I do, I'd constantly be in denial of my sick twisted nature, right? Obviously I'd end my life before even dreaming of doing those horrible things that happen in my mind in the form of intrusive thoughts and image, as costant daily torture. Maybe there are people born bad but that overcome their nature and live a life of good deeds, but I can't tolerate it. If I'm born as a **** I have to die. I'm clinging of the fact that this is just POCD, just an ocd theme like the others that've come before. One thing that reassures me is that I've memories and proof of lots of different ocd themes throughout my early life till now. I'm diagnosed with OCD, but I don't trust it completely because my psychiatrist was a bit of a weirdo and his answers to my questions more triggering. I don't feel attracted on young girls, I avoid them, I only have interest on girls my age, but I'm so afraid that sometimes I could be because what I feel when I get triggered is so confusing and fuzzy, I feel like throwing up and I squint my eyes and contort my face (even more these are not enough to prove the fact that I'm disgusted because I think I could be just faking it, lying to myself), and maybe in that mixture of distressing sensations there is an element of denial of the horrible truth. There have been a lot of triggering moments when I genuinely thought to myself that I was attracted and that made me feel desperate, wanting to cry.

Peace to you all. I have sexual and contamination ocd. Being a father has been one of the greatest blessings in my life. Having ocd has made it challenging for me and unfair for my wife as I often burden her with seeking reassurance. Im a devout Muslim and value my family deeply. So being born with pocd and sexual ocd along with traumatic experiences throughout my life has been unbearable at times. Im also in the middle of moving to back home to my country and trying to balance work and family duties has flared my ocd. The other day i was multi tasking. My wife was talking to me and asked me to change our childs diaper, I was running late to a meeting while trying to get ready myself. I normally wash my hands after I change the babies diaper because of my contamination ocd. However due to the stress I was rushing I went straight to the toilet for myself before I left for a meeting an hour away. Since I didnt wash my hands and used those “dirty hands” for my own personal hygiene using the restroom the OCD said if i wipe with those hands its sexually inappropriate because I used it to change my babys diaper and didnt wash. I remember being mindful of the thought. Normally i would wash my hands or use s side of the toilet paper that didnt touch my hands. I was going back and forth in my head until i just wiped with the side that touched the hand i used to change my babys diaper and went about ny day. And since i used that hand for her hygiene snd my own my sexual ocd and contamination ocd has been freaking out saying i did something sexually inappropriate. Saying did i act on the thought “Why didnt i use the clean side? Why did i forget to wash my hands”. I feel like if i were to clean my hand it may be giving into s compulsion but if i dont than im doing something wrong snd inappropriate. It bothers me because its against my core values, i have no history of anything inappropriate, but ocd convince me this time its real or this time i did something bad or this time i had a ill intent. I cant afford therapy and dont have insurance coversge. Its been bothering me for a week and im unable to perform at work and am distancing myself from my family. I talked to my wife snd she reminds me im a good person. Its ocd. I didnt do anything. Othr people wouldnt worry about this. Please advise! 💔

I was 26. Seemingly normal (albeit) anxious man. Was with a newish gf. Seemingly at the same time I had some performance issues, I had the thought come in “you don’t feel anything for her” Instant loss of libido, instant loss of every emotion except pure dread/anxiety. It consumed me - the why? It was like I was being forced to feel something I didn’t want? And I couldn’t stop it. In my obsessive search for ‘why’ the thought changed to ‘am I gay?’ And exactly the same dread/anxiety overcome me. For months. My life became just solely focussed on ‘where is my attraction to women gone?’ ‘Searching my past for proof’ ‘checking my emotions’ ‘googling’ ‘figuring out how?’ ‘Was this true?’ I’m now 36. I’m married and have a young son. But my life has again been consumed by this. It’s like my mind seeks evidence to prove something I don’t want to be. And it’s so all consuming and all questioning that it feels like I actually want it? It gets so bad that I’ll even doubt I find it distressing and that I’m just making it up so I don’t have to tell my wife :/ It’s so distressing. Up until this thought came in, I never had to question what I wanted. I just knew I liked thinking about girls. I wanted to be close to them. There was never a thought about a guy? Doesn’t that mean I’m straight? Surely by 26, there would have been some incling of physical or romantic attraction to a man? But I’ve never felt the same since that day 10 years ago. It’s like I’ve lost the ability to feel happiness and to feel libido and attraction. Almost like I’m unable to until I figure it out? I’ve been diagnosed twice by psychologists. But it ‘feels’ like I don’t agree with them or I doubt it. My psych has been pushing me to practice response prevention. Sit with the anxiety of how real it feels. Accept it may be true and sit with the anxiety that causes. Ground myself in moments. The anxiety is so consuming. And I’ll go 3-4 days without looking for reassurance, ruminating, checking, but then it’s like a ‘feeling’ of ‘this is true, you know it’ and it destroys me. I panic, give in, and seem to compulse. Does this resonate with anyone? Is it still not getting any better after years because I keep doing the compulsions? Or am I just a gay person who didn’t realise till later in life and found out through losing feelings for my gf? Please help

Does anyone feel like they “like” their intrusive thoughts? Like after a while the fear and the disgust you used to feel about the thoughts becomes numb and you wonder if you just like it? And that the thoughts are happening bc you just like and want that thing? I’m beyond confused. I (23F) still feel like on some level I know I want to be with men and end up with a man. But I’m growing unsure there’s a man that has what I need in a partner and am not happy in my current relationship which certainly isn’t helping my case lol. I’ve been dealing with this for almost 7 months and I’m so tired of the incessant thoughts and physical responses I feel like I should just give up and give in.

Worrying because I have never orgasmed with a partner despite having had several (13) partners. I went on r/latebloomerlesbians and apparently this is the case with basically every lesbian when they had sex with men. I have also had issues staying wet or being wet enough for penetrative sex, which is also a hallmark of being a lesbian. I know that other things can cause this, but I’ve had this obsession since I was 12. The signs are pointing to lesbian. Please help.

I initially started therapy on NOCD due to sexual intrusive thoughts revolving around many taboo themes. The scariest one being POCD. Today, I can say that thoughts around this theme rarely impact my ability to live life and enjoy life. I thought that once I got over this theme, everything else would be easier. However, that’s not exactly the case. My obsessions have now attached to something which my mind believes to be scarier than being a pedophile, it’s being a necrophile. I am taking many of the things I have learned from therapy up to this point and applying it to this new theme, which has helped tremendously. Also, I’m not doing a lot of the harmful compulsions (before I knew what compulsions even were) that I did when I was in the thick of POCD e.g. rumination, checking, testing. I am much better equipped to tackle this new theme knowing that in the end ERP can work for any theme since it’s all just OCD. My issue is that when I brought this up to my NOCD therapist she had never heard of what necrophilia was or had any past experience with it, which was a little disheartening to hear. However, we thought of some exposures I could implement and am currently working on those. One of them being looking at photos of family members who are now deceased since my original fear came from a sexual intrusive thought I had about a deceased family member. Does anyone here have any suggestions on exposure to combat this theme? I understand it’s not the exposures themselves but the response prevention that leads to healing. However, in order to do the response prevention portion a good set of exposures would be great!

Am I right that sexuality shows from puberty and doesn’t switch? So for me, naturally I wanted to be physical and emotionally close to girls. I enjoyed it. Was like a natural pull towards it. Not obsessed, but daily that’s what I’d think/want. Up until 26/27, I’d never even thought about my sexuality, it just was. For those with same sex attraction, is it the same just that it’s towards the same gender? Like, it can’t be mistaken?

What medications are people taken? I am currently on mirtazapine 30mg. I think it may be time for another docs visit as I don't think it is working well anymore.. sick of feeling the way I do. Constant brain activity with hocd is very tiring. Can't seem to catch a break lately. This last week has been horrendous interms of obsessions and then checking. Having a massive effect on my relationship with my wife (she knows i struggle with anxiety but doesn't know the reason why). My trigger words during normal conversations make my anxiety spike so much that she can clearly see this happening, then she starts to say words that she knows triggers my anxiety.. like the most trigger word for me right now is "come out", which is used in most conversations but I just can't stop the anxiety when I hear this, my brain starts to ask questions..

I feel like hocd happened to woman not man because every time I’m on this app it always girl talking about hocd and not guy

Everytime i try, my attraction to men is always just constantly underminded by constant intrusive thoughts. I just feel like what excuse do i have at this point. Im so unstable i cant tell up from down. Id feel like myself one day, and the next im convinced i have 0 attraction to men anymore, so what choice do i have but be straight, just to have a crush on a dude the next day. Being thrown through the ringer just kills me. It feels like my personality is being rewritten day by day, and I cant tell which thoughts are real anymore.

Just wanted to let you guys know . I hop in from time to time to read and check in and wanted to let you guys know that I’ve dealt with a lot of the things mentioned here if not all . I am not a trained therapist. I’m just telling my own testimony in hopes to help others. 1. It’s not the thoughts that are the problem …. It’s the relationship we have with the thoughts. The more we realize that OCD thoughts have absolutely no meaning , the quicker you can move forward. The anxiety will lessen once your relationship changes and you’ll be able to overcome. 2. There’s not a different regime for each subtype . ERP is the best approach ..Don’t run from these thoughts …. Sit with them And retrain your brain to learn that they don’t mean a thing. If you’re having SOCD about a particular friend , have the courage to go out and hang with them. It’s tough but the more you expose yourself to the environment that you’re afraid of …. The more your brain realizes that these fears are irrational. If you’re having self harm OCD . Expose yourself to the things that you fear … At the root of OCD is fear and doubt….. it’s not the subtype itself …. Approach them all in the same manner. OCD hit me like a ton of bricks 4 years ago …..I struggled tremendously about 2 years before knowing how to handle it or even what it was. I lost my Job due to OCD and almost admitted myself in a hospital several times because I thought I was going crazy. It was almost two years of debilitating anxiety until I learned what I was dealing with was OCD. A few subtypes to name : health anxiety, sexual orientation ocd, self harm ocd, sleep anxiety , fear of being a pedophile. It’s like once I got over one ….the next would come until I realized they were all coming from the same thing ….that’s when my life started to change Fast forward, with the help of God, I learned to retrain my brain and not to worry about intrusive thoughts when they come in from time to time. actually learned to take them as the joke they are . The more I exposed myself … the more I trusted myself . Nobody else can reassure you … better yet you don’t need reassurance because it’s actually what keeps you in the cycle. Just Trust God Now I’m a Middle school teacher , in graduate school working towards my degree in counseling with a bright future ahead. I say this to say that, if I can do it , you can do it too …. I’m no different from any of you … I didn’t have a therapist at the time so take advantage if you do. Don’t view OCD as bad ….. it’s apart of you that you will learn to manage. I don’t regret OCD cause it has made me a less fearful person …. I’ve fixed fear and doubt that rooted from my childhood through the struggles of OCD . So it was a blessing in disguise. This is a temporary phase for all of you , trust me . And I know how hard it is to believe that when you’re in the middle of it . But remember. Once your relationship with the thoughts changes that’s when you Free yourself Love all 🙏🏾

When I first started having so ocd symptoms- my thoughts always revolved around the sickness I get to think that I’m bi (even knowing I’m straight). Like repeated thoughts of evidences, sensations, false attractions etc. never did I think about my family and friends. Once i knew about ocd- it was sort of manageable until it turned to thoughts about my family knowing that I like girls or I’m bi (writing this phrase has already gotten my stomach twisted). It’s so triggering to have other people involved cause they’re really important to me, now it feels like I’m in the “closet” or in denial for the sake of my family’s approval. The only family I’ve told is my sister about this type of ocd- i cried so much cause I didn’t want her to think that I like girls or that I was coming out. It felt so good to say that I’m straight like it was the real truth. She was supportive about it and wanted to help me manage these thoughts. She even told me at some point in her start of college life- she even wondered if she liked women. But that was just about it- she didn’t think anything else after that. Somehow I got the bad part and just stuck to these thoughts and feelings. I’ve always been into men, always fantasize being with the love of my life. These thoughts feel like they’re normal now, like I’m living with them inside me as if they’re the truth. I just want all these feelings and thoughts to disappear, I’d honestly rather be asexual rather than liking the same sex.