OCD help

[ssaphi]

Hi I'm a female who has been going through hocd, i have dealing with it for months and I'm wondering if anyone's had this. I was watching a calling out video on YouTube and I normal panic, which is what happened but my head would question everything they'd say and now my thoughts have made something else up which scares the living out of me. It started questioning whether I was just scared of what people would think about me if I was gay. I was never worrying about that when the thoughts started I didn't care because I was just trying to prove I wasn't gay, but my thoughts have made me panic. Every time I have the thought my heart drops and stomach hurt. The checking is from waking hour until I sleep. Everyone keeps saying I'm not gay which I feel I know it's just the thought that's there making constantly question. Please help

[Dave1]

Hi S,
Sorry to hear this is happening to you. I can't empathise because I don't have this problem.

But in my opinion if you were gay you wouldn't see it as a problem. So your fear of being gay proves you aren't.

[MyNameIsTerry]

You have to want to be gay. Your mind doesn't force it on you.

Whilst coming to terms with being gay will mean confronting certain anxiety provoking challenges, you must also feel attraction too.

In OCD in the form of the intrusive thoughts in HOCD, there isn't any willing attraction, only the fear response and everything that goes with it in anxiety.

If you have being suffering HOCD then trying to prove yourself not to be gay is acting giving into the OCD cycle because you will be fighting it in a negative manner. The subject isn't the issue, the anxiety is the issue.

Proving to yourself it is just anxiety is a different and positive/neutral way to tackle.

Otherwise, go the acceptance e route to neutralise the cycle - it does work, in time. When you stop feeding the cycle, it will start to be eliminated. It doesn't necessarily mean agreeing you're gay, although therapists do use this as a diffusion technique, it just means acknowledging that thoughts are just thoughts and have no meaning.

[Miznuvem0412]

I honestly think you would know if you were gay . You wouldn't question your sexuality . I know I'm
Not attracted to women it's just not there and nothing I question about it because there's no feelings there. You mind doesn't force it on you .


OCD can be tricky and make you believe so many things . The what ifs

[beatroon]

Hi there, I would echo everything Terry said. I'd also say that from personal experience of coming out, it doesn't sound at all like what you're going through.

I think what you're worrying about is that you might secretly be in denial about your sexuality and that your fear response means you are actually gay but can't admit it to yourself. Except that's not really how it works. If you ARE gay, your response to a coming-out video would be a warm-hearted 'see it can happen for me too one day' and an urge to check for more, not a panic response. You would just know how you felt - it wouldn't be limited to the odd response or worry or wonder. OCD can pour synthetic thoughts on the fire and confuse you as to what you 'really' think but at the end of the day, an urge or an attraction to another person is a pretty unambiguous signal when it's real.

If it helps, I occasionally get the odd fleeting 'what if I'm really straight???' panic thought - sort of like HOCD but Heterosexual OCD though, because I'm not heterosexual. I think these thoughts are part of life to some extent, and because humans are complicated organisms, and we can't ever achieve 100% certainty about who or what we are. When the thoughts come up, I don't worry about them - I just figure that if the feelings for another individual were strong enough to make me want to have a go at this heterosexuality lark, then I'd deal with that if and when it happened.

Do pm me if helpful, but I think what Terry has said is correct, the anxiety is the issue here and not the sexuality, and so that is the thing you should be treating!