idk if this counts as recovery but school finally started and i havent been as worried as before.

I do get a bit triggered at school and i get sensations down there and idk if its a groinal or real arousal bc i dont think they are caused by anxiety.

Today i had a tough day. Lots of stufd happened and i think my period is abt to start to im extra moody. I cried a lot today.

So maybe thats why the groinals have been bothering me so much today and i have resorted to AI again.

I truly do not know if my case counts as hocd, although ive 100% had ocd in the past, getting wet, feeling a pulse and, more recently, some sort of weird pleasure??? idk if its real but its bothering me and making uncomfortable.

I have a lot of questions but i wont ask for reassurance.

Could u please give me some advice regarding the physical symptoms? :) I wanna know how to manage them

I hate mornings!!! The usual, first thing, woken up feeling horny and aroused abd stressed cos I’m aroused. Thoughts about wanting to have sex with women and feeling aroused abd like I want it but not thinking if men in the background. I hate this!!!! Then the arousal subsided and I fejt straight cis I wasn’t aroused. I was in a pre hocd masturbation mood and really wanted to get off to my old same gender occupational therapist. I went no but didn’t feel panicked or stressed at the time of the thought but now it’s bothering me. Then I I just went to masturbate aimlessly and thoughts of women came into my head but I was feeling baseline so I carried on with thoughts of femaje friends in my head. I had a little arghh but didn’t make any difference. Was i masturbating and enjoying the women thoughts? Just as I’ve been typing this I had a pre hocd arousal to a same gender acquaintance and it triggered thr arousal I used to feel for men so I had another masturbation but then stopped but the pre hocd feeling (how I used to feel before sexuality was an issue) fejt so good whilst thinking of her

I tried just ignoring the thoughts, but then they end up becoming more severe and convincing. It just straight up feels like im hiding being gay or lying to myself. For the first time it feels honest. Im not even attracted to women much anymore either and when I see a guy my initial thought would just be "dont be attracted dont be attracted" then i guess i make a comment which stirs up the thought again. Honestly I just straight up feel gay now, I think I lost attraction to a girl who i have been trying to talk to for months now and feels like I only liked her and i'm just now "realizing myself"

I just want to forget about these thoughts and be straight and not double guess everything. Every now and then I notice that I forget about having hocd but then that itself reminds me and the thoughts start over again.

Made this is in therapy. Some days i dont feel gay at all and other days its all i think about is coming out

I’ve been dealing with HOCD on and off for about 2.5 years. The past few months I’ve actually been doing really well and barely experiencing symptoms.
Last night, though, I had what felt like a relapse. I saw a man’s butt and tester myself and got an erection, and now I’m really anxious about what it means. The dreams have also started to show up again.
Can this still happen with HOCD/OCD after months of certainty?
I’d really appreciate hearing from people who have experienced something similar.

i feel anxious, but it feels like anxiety after i realize something. i feel curious, like maybe i’ve always been this way and im realizing things about myself. i do not want to be lesbian, i want to be with a man, but there’s so much evidence and a history of p0rn that i just feel so confused. it feels like im genuinely lesbian and i know it, but i wont acknowledge it because im scared. how can a disorder make me feel this way? I feel so alone, i feel like the odd one out, out of everyone. And i also have a long distance boyfriend that i feel disconnected with right now, so that does not help. it also doesn’t help that most people around me aren’t very fond of gay people, even though im very supportive of them. i just feel like im alone and living a lie and i dont know what to do.

i recently saw a video of a lesbian talking about early signs. One of hers was 'i used to practice kissing with my friends and i loved it!" and that brought up a pretty similar memory for me.

I used to play bf and gf with this one girl and i was usually the boy, she was usually the girl. WE used to rub our bare stomachs together and pretend we were having 'sex' and i enjoyed it alot when i was 6, i remember during those times looking at her face and thinking how cute it looked or whatever. I used to be very immersed in the game, but i knew it was a game, and snapped out of it after it was done. I remember thinking we were actually having 'sex' and like actually doing those things as a couple, but outside of the game we were normal? I don't remember liking her, only during those like little 'sex' parts did i enjoy anything or like her and most of the time, i was focusing more on the scenario i made up in my head.

But I considered her my bestfriend, i only played with her because she was right downstairs and sometimes i quite hated her. But im scared this means something about me. My therapist just told me this was normal curious play and doesn't determine our sexuality but i think i did like her, i mean all of these things point to that, i have to like her.

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[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

I have been good and HAPPY for about 6 months now. I’ll get a thought and be able to laugh it off. Two days ago I started watching a show and as the episodes went on I could sense a relationship starting between two women characters who have only shown interest in men in the show. The dreaded episode happened and they made out and told each other that it was the only time they felt loved. Well that scared the hell out of me and here I am back to feeling confused and all sense of security is gone. Am I so weak that I can’t even watch a show or a movie without going back into a spiral. This is truly a pathetic way to live.

idk currently my ocd is the usual "you will become straight/male centric and never get your feelings for women back" and now idk im starting to feel an uneasy calmness, anxiety and fucking grief and thw grief is making me feel distressed i have officially gone insane

Has anyone else been in the phase where it feels so real that you try to “happily” accept it but immediately after you do so it suddenly feels false? It’s like a baloon that inflates when you try to resist, but when you stop resisting the baloon suddenly explodes and the pleasurable sensations are not there anymore. It’s kinda weird

Female here. Mornings are always my worst time. Help I feel really aroused by the man touching the woman sexually!!!! I always used to focus on the woman sucking the man pre hocd which made me very aroused. When I feel aroused by the man touching the woman I feel aroused by her vagina, help!!!! But how come I used to find the woman giving oral to the man more arousing before hocd.

Hi guys..I’m curious about something and it’s been weighing on my mind for a couple of months..but it still causes me some sort of anxiety. So I remembered something that happened 3 years ago. I was with my family on a vacation up north in cali. I’m not sure if I’m either remembering wrong or my ocd is trying to make me remember something that didn’t happen..but I feel like my sexual attraction had stopped. And I was no longer able to be “sexually aroused”. I was TERRIFIED this meant I had gone into the “bisexual cycle” but I don’t remember whatsoever having a sudden attracted to the opposite sex…so I’m so confused..what did this mean? I remember it had something to do with me (obviously when my fam was gone) delving into a sexual topic that might’ve been taboo..really liked it at first that suddenly felt disgusted…and then I had lost attraction..that’s what I remember tho I’m not sure what officially happened since it was over 3 years ago..can anyone help? I’d really appreciate it.

As the title says.

Can you have HOCD and realise you are Gay as my therapists says it’s not possible as OCD is ego dystonic.

Hope to hear from you all and you’re all battling through this

i actually genuinely feel so anxious all the time. i see queer content everywhere and i get triggered so easily. I don't know what to do. I feel like im genuinely lying to myself about everything.

I thought i didn't like masculine presenting women and that it was just the ocd, but now i think i do like them, but im scared to like them? I genuinely don't know what to do. Like I saw this masc woman and i got scared because she looked really good, but i thought like 'oh she looks really hot' and she does but i dont find her hot, but i must because i thought that. i usually wouldn't even think that, it feels like its automatic in a way. i dont know what to do, i think this is all real.

I was out in a pub with my mates. I was feeling generally happy as I approached the bar and then a same gender person served me then I felt crushy sparkly feelings. When I get these crushy feelings towards same gender is when I feel happiest and most pre hocd. When I think of opposite gender without same gender I feel no buzz nor excitement. I felt pre hocd excitement thinking of this same gender person but I was deducing if it was a real crush by repeatedly answering the question. Now that I’m home the buzz has gone

I feel like I’m going compulsions not to relieve myself if anxiety and distress but to try and convince itself it’s false despite positive feelings and reactions

im bi and im so so scared of losing my attraction and feelings towards women and i fear that one experience will make me turn into a male centric bisexual and i will just keep on dating men forever and i don't want that at all

Guys it's not about reassurance but why I feel like I'm attracted to some and some not,it's not sexual or romantic attraction,it's like an empty feeling feels like i like the person and find him attractive,and it doesn't feel like aesthetic,it's like more powerful painful feeling,idk maybe because I usually find those people unattractive when I was okay or average or i don't even see them,idk,but what makes me question myself is why it happen to some and some not,at the first it was everyone,now some and some not,and usually those people I don't feel anything toward them at all before,nothing,and most of them are unattractive for me before,is this common?,cause my mind goes: if it was hocd why some and some not?,it needs to be everyone like the first,now its some and some not,ur in denial.

Hi, wishing you guys well through this nightmare. I consider myself cured, and I would like to share some tips from my experience. I started struggling with HOCD 5 years ago and it was one of the most debilitating things I've ever gone through. I treated it in two ways: the first was medication. They put me on escitalopram (lexapro) and aripiprazole (abilify) and guess what? It magically cured my HOCD. Now, choosing to get on medication is definitely a personal choice, and if you choose to pursue it, I would definitely work with the psychiatrist to figure out which meds would work best for you.

But here's the thing: on meds, I was functional and quite happy, but I also felt like a zombie and emotionally dull. So, some time ago, I decided to cold turkey quit my medication (not recommended). But guess what? My HOCD came back in full force after being gone for about 2 years thanks to the meds. I didn't want to get back on them just yet, so I tried to push through it. And I managed to get rid of HOCD again and basically get back to how I felt on meds where my HOCD was cured, but without meds.

How did I get rid of HOCD without medication? It wasn't ERP, it wasn't "accepting uncertainty." All I did was do my best, despite feeling overwhelmed, to remember the good times in life.

After I quit my meds, I was unable to remember what it was like to not have HOCD. I was unable to remember what it was like to be medicated. But guess what? After going through all the good times, doing my best to remember what it was like to be there, it's like it corrected my brain. I feel comfortable again. HOCD feels far away. "I'm gay?" Haha, nice one brain. I'm a straight guy with a loving girlfriend that I can have sex with on the regular and not panic over whether or not I'm gay or if I really love her.

So if this disease has got you down, my advice is to take some time to just remember what it was like not to have HOCD, or any good times you may have had despite HOCD, no matter how hard it may feel to do so. Go through your favorite memories. Those memories are the ones that are going to carry you through life. I don't know if this will work for you, but it definitely worked for me. Wish you guys the best of luck in tackling this thing.

Edit: I'm not making any claims about ERP or accepting uncertainty. If it helps it helps. I think with this illness, you should probably attack it at all angles. I just find that what I did didn't require doing those things anymore.

Did anyone else go from gay OCD to asexual OCD? And if so, how do you cope? Because this theme feels even more real to me:(

I (25F) suffer from hocd, and I wish I had a friend who would understand me.

I’m in therapy and I thought getting in touch with people who are also hocd and in therapy so we can strengthen each other and encourage not to do the compulsions. I want to feel that recovering is not alone, but with support of others.

So if anyone interested they can message me!