Hocd anxiety and intrusive thoughts

[Kay1990]

Please help me as I feel I am going out of my mind. I was always a very nervous anxious person even as a child but it all started three years ago when I was feeling very anxious I was out walking my dog and suddenly had a horrible feeling come over me about harming my sister then for weeks and weeks I was terrified of her sleeping next to me in case of loosing control and smothering her in her sleep, it lasted a few months then I seen a video on Facebook of an animal being harmed and I feared I would do this to my dog then I had obsessions about having illness cancer ext but it's the latest that are bothering me the most with all the talk of gay people and gay marriage I heard stories about people turning gay in their 30s ext and I now have a constant fear I will turn gay and never marry a man like I have always dreamed for my whole life I am 25 years of age and always been crazy about men the thought of turning gay makes me feel suicidal because I never want this to happen and I am constantly looking for reassurance online ect I cannot eat or sleep and have constant headaches please help 😭😔

[Oosh]

They're just suggestions based on your fears. Don't attach meaning to them just because you suggested them to yourself. A suggestion doesn't mean it's true. Doubt will have you wondering if the suggestion has meaning but that's just doubt.

Recognise the suggestions as just that.
Recognise the doubt as just that.

It's hard for them to have any power over how you feel when you recognise what they are each time. They're easier to dismiss.

I've had all sorts of them and was troubled by them for a long time.

[MyNameIsTerry]

Hi and welcome to NMP :welcome:

I would suggest moving your thread to the OCD board on here so you get more replies off people with similiar issues. It would also be worth reading about other OCD stories and the advice people give as many people on here will have worked through their issues.

Seeking reassurance to dispell or mitigate fear in OCD is a compulsion/ritual and all it does is reinforce the disorder. It may bring some temporary relief but long term it is reinforcing the disorder because your subconscious makes the association between the obsession and the resulting compulsion and makes attachments at a deep level. This is why stopping or reducing compulsions is important.

These are intrusive thoughts and the thing about intrusives is that it is considered rare for someone with OCD to act on them. Consider harm based (as you have had, me too) and ones like POCD. If there was a risk, wouldn't the government, police & courts be all over OCD? But they aren't because there is no evidence that people with OCD turn into their fears. Thats key to this, they are fears and often they can be quite serious opposities to your character like harming your sister or dof who you would love a great deal.

OCD doesn't turn people gay, just like how OCD doesn't turn someone with POCD into a paedophile (a well known fact as the drives are very different in a paedophile)

Intrusive thoughts are being sent to the conscious mind because the subconscious knows it has to trigger them, for whatever reason, but doesn't know what to do. The conscious mind is expected to make a decision. Sadly, you also end up making yourself worse by reacting with more anxiety and there is an area of the subconscious looking exactly for an emotional response, the stronger the better. This tells it that it did something "valid". Notice the use of the term "valid" and not "right"?

Stopping that anxious reaction is key to stopping the resulting compulsion and that feedback loop to the subconscious. Learning to be non judgemental about thoughts is one way to acheieve this, as I did, with techniques such as Mindfulness.

And remember, you said you are crazy about men. Thats the real YOU talking. In fact, don't you think your OCD has chosen the subject of homosexuality because you have a strong belief about your heterosexuality? Just like how a new parent develops harm-based OCD or POCD about their child, who they love and would do anything to protect?

My harm-based thoughts were about my parents and I would give my life to save their's...so why would I want to harm them? I've learnt to be non judgemental and the thoughts have lost their power and no longer fire because the subconscious wasn't getting any feedback other than neutral and in some cases I started to laugh or be amused or smile at how ludicrous they were and then they disappeared altogether.

We have to retrain our brains just like any other form of learning. It's all in neuroplasticity.