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To my fellow SO-OCD fighters, Do you guys ever feel like your OCD tricks you into thinking that you actually like these thoughts? And does that send you down another spiral?

I just read a post that brought me a great deal of anxiety and I honestly don’t know what to do. It had to do with lesbians not knowing they were lesbians until later in life bc they didn’t want to like the idea or bc of social norms. I didn’t even know this was a possibility but now that I do I already know it’s something that isn’t going to leave my head. Any advice? I really thought I was getting a little bit of a hang of this but now I feel like this is me and I just have to accept it

I just want to be happy with my boyfriend and I genuinely don’t know what to do. How will I get over this… every time I find some peace something from my past comes to haunt me and I always find a reason as to why that means I’m gay. Every time I think well I’ve liked guys my whole life I convince myself that it was all fake. This sucks and I’m so tired of this. I want 100% certainty and I don’t know how to be okay without it. It wouldn’t be fair to him if I’m gay and I hurt him down the road. The last thing I would ever want to do it hurt him that’s why I want to figure this out and be done with it once and for all

Does anyone find tiktoks about being ‘realising’ they are gay or coming out later in life really triggering? I have SO-OCD and seeing those things makes me question everything so deeply. How do you cope with this please.

I’m so tired of my thoughts. Some days I feel better, no thoughts or just a few, some other days I feel like I’m totally in denial and I’m hiding this part of myself to me but above all to the people around me, especially my boyfriend. I can’t really stand anymore the presence of these thoughts, make me feel I won’t be happy in my life never again and this makes me feel super depressed, I’m afraid I can develop depression. ROCD and SOOCD make me doubt myself and my feelings, and every time I see a case where a person find out later in life to be gay I literally start to cry. I can’t stand this anymore, really. I’m in therapy actually, so it is better compared to a few months ago, but I always question if it’s really ocd or not.

I'm in a relationship since November with a wonderful guy. I'm in a flare up right now. I'm very scared about the persisting thoughts on whether I love him or not, and I also still have some SO-OCD thoughts. Also, I'm thinking about changing therapy and try a new one (who does erp in the right way, I hope), so it's all very confusing. I didn't want to share my ocd themes with him because he is already dealing with some difficult stuff and I'm also scared he wouldn't want to stay in the relationship with me or he would see me in a different way. At the same time, it's so difficult to "hide" something like this... I'm afraid it will take me away from him anyway

Today was kinda hard😵‍💫 I tried to go to a new therapist who does ERP (my current therapist doesn't - I've read a lot about it on NOCD but never tried it with a therapist). However, telling her my intrusive thoughts, I got so triggered. I don't know, but the more she asked and the more I answered, my brain was like: "She thinks you like girls and you are in denial... and you know, it's probably the most logical thing. That's it". I somehow went out there convinced that was the truth. Then I had a really ugly cry with my mother 💀 and now I don't know what to do! I don't know if it's her "fault" that I got triggered or if it's a good thing... like, she didn't reassure me or give me an answer ("oh don't worry, you certainly love your boyfriend!" or "uh yeah, you're absolutely lying, you're in denial"), so maybe that's a good thing?

I am clean and free from my porn addiction. I was 8 and now I'm 18. I didn't realize it was an addiction until now and all the shame is hitting me at once. I let my porn addiction take me to dark and sketchy places. Now I can't get over the shame of the actions I did. I was shameful before but now I accepted that it was an addiction, ive been so depressed and having thoughts about what I did and if I could go back and save myself now I would. I keep getting so many intrusive sexual thoughts about literally everything. People, places, things, animals and even children. I hate all these anxiety inducing painful thoughts. Does anyone have any insight on recovering from excessive thoughts?

I realized recently my intrusive thoughts have been adapting to be “more realistic”. I’ve now become more obsessed with my life safety, work social environment, and first true love? (Apparently I’m demiromantic and he really feels like my soulmate. I’m the one not letting us be a couple for, I think a good reason, and he respects that decision.) Point is they’re getting harder to ID as OCD, which although never stopped the intrusive thoughts, it helped me apply personal tactics I’ve learned that have alleviated some distress and prevent thought spiraling in the past. Is it possible for the thoughts to adapt like this, I can’t ID them as quick this way and get in thought spirals way too far before I realize what’s happening. I even had a spout of my classical religious OCD thoughts, began repetitively praying “Jesus” to block them out which I’m sure is a compulsion. I ended up effectively distracting myself from it, so thank God. I don’t want to go down that road again. Avoidance has been the main compulsion for the ones listed before that side tangent above, I literally was not going to my apartment for months because a neighbor had creeped me out so bad. I sorta overcame avoidance with the relationship to truthfully talk to my love, but I worry my reason for staying apart has a secret reason in this… idk. It seemed reasonable to us both? The thoughts started targeting the guy I love even more yesterday, and I knew trying to fight them would make them worse, but I really didn’t want them anywhere near that. Somehow I got to a point where instead of the worries, I could literally feel nothing. Nothing bad but also nothing good and I thought I broke my brain and almost called a mental health hotline because I was concerned I lost my emotions forever and I wanted them all back. Even the negative ones. Luckily I had the awareness to at least try the emergency anxiety medicine my doctor gave me (even though I couldn’t feel anxiety), and I think this is what broke me out of that. But now I’m worried I’ll trigger that again. I hesitate to self diagnose, but given my experience and past, I definitely have primarily obsessional OCD (pure O). I couldn’t tell any of the mental health professionals I saw before because I thought I was the only one like this and that if I said anything about the worse thoughts they’d take me away from family or… well that they would do something, disgusted by my very existence. For a while my mom was the only one I let hear some of the worse thoughts and I swore her to secrecy about them. Luckily she had experienced some intrusive thoughts (not to my level but) with her GAD and she understood enough these were distressing things I didn’t want. But yea, I’ve been through a slew of the themes in my life. My biggest being religious OCD and OCD with sexual themes (I am aroace so the lack of sexual desire was very confusing, especially at first, and I didn’t know I was or that people could be that, so I guess my core worry became that my other forms of love ie familial, friend, etc had been secretly perverted and corrupted the whole time) Ugh.

It's been so long full of ups and downs and multiple themes but this theme has been destroying me mentally the most. I'm not a homophobic person but I've always been woman crazy, loads of crushes on women, dreamed of being sexual with a women and have strong sexual fantasies about doing things with women and have had multiple girlfriends it made me happy truly happy I'm not homophobic I don't care what people do but for me personally imagining doing sexual things with a man gives me icky feelings like I said not because it's wrong (it's not wrong) but because I prefer women it makes me feel comfortable, happy unlike when I imagine being with a man I get depressed, anxiety, panic etc because it's not something I authentically truly want. During this time while hocd has been ruining me mentally I've also noticed alot more good looking men and became insecure about my appearance which has ruined me even more this has done nothing but ruin my identity and mental health. I'm a handsome man, my girlfriend thinks so too and I think she's beautiful I'm able to egknowledge a handsome man or pretty women but when it comes to who I feel the urge to have sex and feel good about its always veen women. Whenever I workout, go out or feel like myself I begin to not care and feel straight again but it's moments like this where I'm losing myself and becoming confused. I also have a porn addiction too idk if that plays a role in this but I'm looking to stop and better myself I want my life back I want to have money, be in good shape, be with my girlfriend without having any of these doubts I just want this to all go away :(. One of the biggest reasons I haven't gotten therapy is my fear that I'm actually bisexual which I'm afraid of because being bisexual wouldn't make me happy or comfortable seeing men that way in real life. I can't imaging being romantic with a man it would make me cringe and being sexual with a man wouldn't make me orgasm I'd have a Intense ick feeling during the whole thing I wouldn't have the pleasure I'd have with women. I'm sorry for typing so much but I just needed a vent it's truly so exhausting to be dealing with this at times but I'll always fight and never stop fighting until this all goes away and I can be happy with my amazing beautiful girlfriend who I'm one day going to marry.

To see my life now compared to two years ago is unbelievable. There has been such a dramatic shift between who I was then and who I am now. I had my first intrusive thought at age 11. I wasn’t officially diagnosed with OCD until I was 36. I never knew what it was but was glad to put a name to it. A lifetime of suffering. I have struggled with at least four subtypes of OCD. POCD, SO-OCD, Self-Harm/ Suicide OCD, and ROCD. I can now look back on moments throughout my life and say, “wow, that was OCD and I didn’t even know it.” Regardless of the subtype, it’s all OCD. And when you learn how to adjust your behavior and response accordingly, you can heal. I started with my NOCD therapist in January of 2023. I avoided everything-people, places, church, things I loved…all because of OCD. I used sleeping as an avoidance behavior. I couldn’t even drive down the road and go grocery shopping without feeling anxious and triggered. I was ready to do something different. The meds were not working for me. Sure they helped the anxiety and depression to a degree, but they didn’t stop the intrusive thoughts which is what I wanted them to do. I now know and fully understand that you cannot stop your thoughts. You cant stop your obsessions BUT you can control how you react to them. Recovery is not linear by any means and I’ve had MANY ups and downs the past year and a half. But I’m here. I have made it to the other side. And it’s a beautiful place. If you made it this far in reading this, thank you. I want you to know there is hope. You can reach recovery and you can begin to heal. ERP saved my life. I can now step out into situations and settings without totally falling apart. I have learned to handle discomfort. I can spend time with my family, do the things I love and enjoy my life again. Most importantly, I have learned to be self-compassionate. If you’ve been hesitating to start ERP with an OCD specialist, I hope I can encourage you to make that step. It changed me in a wonderful way and I’m so thankful to be equipped with the tools to manage OCD for life!

I've tried accepting being BI. But even THATS not good enough for my ocd. Its telling me that I don't actually love my bf, the one I've been with for almost 4 years now... I feel so numb today, I don't want to ever lose him. I want our romantic spark we have, not for him to just be platonic or whatever. Somehow it convinces me that I'd be better off with a woman :(

I have been diagnosed with OCD for about 15 years now. I see a wonderful OCD specialist and she is sure that I have OCD but I just can’t help but wonder if I actually do or it’s something else and I just am lying to fit this description. Most of my life I struggled with contamination/viral fears. A lot of fear around throwing up. And for awhile I was panicked that I could be gay and not know it even though I’m not homophobic and no one would care. And now I am in the most healthy relationship I have ever been in and I obsessively doubt whether he loves me or not or if we’ll fall out of love or now that we’ve moved in together, we’re not compatible maybe or that we’ll end up like roommates and not love each other anymore. These thoughts feel AWFUL and he tries his best to support me but I don’t think he fully believes this is OCD. And that makes me panic and feel like my fears are right and that it’s something more and that I have a creepy obsession with him or that I’m wildly insecure (which is super scary to me idk why). My panic attacks from these thoughts get so bad and I don’t know how not to keep asking him for reassurance and I can tell he’s getting tired. And he goes to therapy with me and knows not to answer my questions so I take his lack of answers as confirmation of my fears and I freak out. We are both just barely over a year sober and he’s working so hard on his own stuff and after I panic about us, I feel extreme guilt that I’m roping him into this when he has bigger things to worry about and maybe I have to break up with him because I’ll hurt him. Then, that thought makes me panic and all I do is research and ask people questions and compare and idk I’m so lost and exhausted. I need help

Hi everyone, I wanted to kinda describe what I've been dealing with and dealt with in the past and see if anyone else could relate. I'm a straight male but have been struggling with my sexual orientation for years. I used to compulsively check both gay and straight p*rn to try and figure out my sexuality. Once I stopped doing this It got way worse and now pretty much all I think about all day every day is my sexuality and it's horrible. I'm in college and my school work has been a mess, I have no clue what I want to do with my future and have no goals because all I think about is my sexuality. I'm literally consumed by my thoughts and overthinking 24/7, I guess I try to just think my way out of everything. Some days it gets to the point where I get so depressed, my social anxiety is horrible. I also noticed that ever since all of this happened my attraction to girls has completely plummeted. I want to be with a girl so bad but I have no desire to go on dates or hang out with girls when this has been going on. I have always had pretty bad self-esteem issues and have been watching p*rn since I was very young so I'm sure that has something to do with it. Please let me know if any of you have had the same experiences or have any tips for me.

I'm stuck. My compulsions always centered around expelling all anxiety from myself, but now I've found something external that can't be neutralised - completely ego-dystonic centered around the most horrific thing I've encountered in my life and the thought that someone could know I had watched it and thought I was genuinely into it sexually. I always clung to this idea that I could expel enough anxiety that it wasn't bothering me. Wouldn't be perfect, but I could at least get rid of it enough to function well. But this has knocked me down completely: This is a thought that will always cause me anxiety anytime I think it, every social situation, every day at work is a ticking time bomb where I feel I have to avoid it. There's positives. I've learned a lot about my compulsions around perfectionism socially. After the anxiety passes I'm still confident, I'm still funny, it doesn't affect my personality. I know it isn't me. But I can't laugh off the subject matter like I would normally do, and no matter what I do I will always be able to think something that causes me anxiety on this. And when it does, my anxiety slaughters me. It throws me cognitively, if I've eaten anything, I get to taste it twice; that happened yesterday - Thankfully I have a great relationship with my manager and team leader so could convince them to keep it between us and keep working but the moment you feel your stomach go and the saliva starts to come, it's coming up whether you want it or not. The anxiety spike hits me when I wake up in the night, stopping me sleeping. When I'm enjoying myself 'too much, it brings it up to put me in my place. When I go to the gym or out with friends, the fear of the anxiety hits me. It's actually not even the situation anymore, it's the anxiety about the anxiety. But I've watched myself slide backwards from all the incredible progress I've made. I've made mistake after mistake feeding compulsions I never should've done, all the time working towards a different compulsion that I thought would magically fix all this. That's the most insidious thing about OCD. The more you try to fix it, the worse it gets. I've never had this before. Never something external that can't be resolved. I can't sleep much. Can't eat a lot. Watching my muscle mass deteriorate. What if it happens on a date? What if it happens in an interview? Why this? Why did my OCD latch on to something this disgusting (That one probably answers itself actually haha). Either this helps me finally realise that not all thoughts are meant to be resolved, reveals more about the OCD and helps me improve. Or it doesn't. Anyone had anything like this? A period of sustained downhill with the OCD that you pulled out of? Something external that you couldn't ever get confirmation of, but helped you in the end? Maybe didn't, but you still soldiered on anyway. Just looking for a little optimism tbh.

I don’t want to have to deal with this anymore, everyone else in my life just knows whether or not they’re a bad person and what they’re attracted to, I’m on medication and whilst that helps with the anxiety I’m never going to feel certain that I’m not a bad person so what’s the point in it anymore - I’ve been suffering for years and I just want it to stop. I genuinely don’t feel like there’s anything worth living for besides the people I love.

Is it possible to beat SOCD by yourself?

I was thinking about random stuff and then started thinking about what it would be like to raise a baby. After thinking that I had a random wave of arousal? I know it wasn’t from thinking of babies but I’m still worried it was. How do you know if it was or not? I wasn’t even thinking of babies specifically just what it would be like having one. It was random arousal and scared me.

I need help because I’m really struggling right now. There is a masc woman/lesbian athlete that came up on my tik tok and it feels like I have a crush on her. Now I keep getting intrusive sexual images about her. I don’t want to have a crush on a girl but it feels so real. I absolutely hate this and want to cry because now I feel like Im attracted to her. Has this happened to anyone else???

Recently I’ve been feeling like if I look at myself in the mirror and think I look good / hot that this means I’m attracted to the same sex because I’m female and I think I look amazing, so I obviously think other females are hot too then. It feels like such a warped way of thinking 😭. Can’t wait to have my first therapy session soon and finally start to beat this!