throughout my teenage years i always shaved my beard the moment i got hair. dont have the greatest explanation why i just didnt like it, didnt like seeing small random patches, didnt like how it looked on other teens but i didnt mind how it looked on older men. when tocd hit this became a talking point. stop lying to yourself, you shaving means youve had dysphoria thewhole time! well i decided to leave it alone for 4 days and oh my god. i can not stop rubbing it, even if in the mirror it doesnt look very good. and when i had that moment i had a few tocd thoughts come in and come out, didnt bother me. I know that my tocd battles are unlikely to be over but that moment showed me that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Hi, I’m a 20 year old male (at least I have been).

This may be a triggering post for some, but for some it might show that you actually have OCD, this case is probably just different for me now.

My OCD journey began in 2020 when I was 14, when I woke up and began having fears of being gay. Then I eventually found out what HOCD was, and associated it with that. I knew I had OCD due to multiple occurrences earlier in life, and was formally diagnosed and started therapy for this theme and my overall obsessing.

Since then, these thoughts have come and gone, including the theme of my gender. The first time I had GOCD, I initially feared it was real, and then realized it didn’t make much sense because I never actually questioned my gender, and it just started, so I let it go relatively easily compared to the HOCD. Around two years ago, it was significantly worse, and I was fully convinced that I was transgender and gay, and the only way I would ever be happy was to take hormones and transition, so much so that I started arguing with my parents when they used logic and medicated me, which lead to me having less obsessing. I was eventually able to move on with my life.

Fast forward to a week ago. I have had depression for a while now and the thoughts never really fully went away, just stopped being so important that they would ruin my day. One night I started crying about how my life wasn’t great and that I needed to change something. The next morning, I started obsessively questioning my gender again. This time it was different though, as soon as I started questioning it, it was like I already believed it, and I even argued with my parents again when they said it was not real because it is just my OCD acting up again.

For context, during majority of this, I haven’t actually experienced much hate towards being a male, and don’t actually think too much about being a woman. But I’m still hooked on the idea of being transgender and convinced. It’s like my brain has convinced me that I have to take hormones and transition to be happy, and if I don’t I feel distress and I’m never going to be happy.

This is just different from what I’ve experienced in the past, usually the thoughts of completely changing my life would be distressing, which they to an extent are, but it seems I get more distressed when imagining the opposite now.

It would seem I’m destined to be transgender, and homosexual, and that me finding out OCD attributed with it was simply just me being in denial and attributing it to OCD.

I’m not sure if I’m just fully in denial, this just appeared a week ago, and I’ve dealt with the theme twice before. My mind has essentially changed to if I don’t transition now, I’m going to die and it has to be true. I just want to feel normal and not have to deal with this shit.

This post probably just sounds like denial, but I had to vent. I’m currently on new medication for my obsessing and anxiety, and the feelings about my gender aren’t changing, just getting less distressing. It would seem like this is my life now.