Is this even ocd anymore??

Question

Hello everyone. I am new to this site, but unfortunately I am not new to ocd. Ocd has plagued my entire life, and unfortunately that is something that I have just now realized. I’ve been living with terrible anxiety my whole 21 years of existence. I’m so scared right now I don’t even know where to begin. I have had many themes that have plagued me, but the one I am going through now has been the worst. I have been dealing with hocd for almost an entire year now. This whole entire year has been wasted. It’s started off worse than it is now. But I feel like I am starting to spiral again. I don’t know what to do anymore. I was feeling better. I’ve been going to counseling which has helped but unfortunately with my busy schedule I have not been able to go for a while. I knew this was ocd. I was starting to feel better. But I have this constant doubt feeling that I live with 24/7. I have moments when it’s worse but I am always able to talk myself out of it and calm down. But today it’s been really bad. I have used forums like this before. I even found one that I really liked. I was able to talk to some people on there and we have really been able to help each other when we have bad moments. But today when I went to go on the website was down and now I can’t talk to anyone. I felt like I was alone again and that scared me too. I always knew I had that site it my back pocket and today seeing how much I freaked out when I knew I couldn’t get to it scared the crap out of me. I’ve been depending on these sites for so long I can’t get on with out them. Today what scared me was I was reading a story. And unfortunately through my ocd journey it has ruined anything I enjoy. I get intrusive thoughts everywhere I go. I’m constantly checking, analyzing, and debating this stupid hocd theme. I have been straight my entire life. I loved the way boys made me feel. I have had hocd before but I can’t remember the last time I went through it how relieved I felt when I realized that it wasn’t true. I can give you the exact moment in time where I was and even what I was wearing when it finally clicked that I didn’t want these thoughts. But unfortunately it has crawled it’s way back into my brain ruining my life yet again. Anyways I was reading this story and there was a point in the book when these 2 people became best friends and they went shopping together. The whole time I was reading my mind kept making me think about them doing sexual things and I almost had no anxiety but I felt so foreign and weird. I have this heavy feeling in my heart and I hate it, but then I had a thought like I was one of the friends and it made my heart ache. I felt like I wasn’t repulsed by the sexual images or thoughts and it makes my heart ache tremendously. It makes me feel like this is a desire or something because I didn’t feel repulsed like I used to. As a teenager and a young adult these things always made me feel uncomfortable and I knew I had no desire for it. I can remember thinking of the way guys made me feel and feeling so great about how happy I was feeling. But today when I thought about it, I didn’t feel repulsed or uncomfortable, but I started feeling this really hot and panic/burning sensation in my neck and chest and a terrible heavy ache in my heart. I also had a panic feeling and I hated it. But my mind made it feel like it was because I just desired it. It was like the thought wasn’t intrusive or something like I made myself think about it and now I just feel this numb ache inside of me. I can’t figure out if I want to cry scream or stare into space. I feel so lost. It felt so real like I would actually do these things. I’ve never wanted this before. Why does my mind make me feel like I do now. Please someone tell me this is just my ocd. I don’t know how much longer I can’t take of feeling like this. I don’t want it to be true but my mind keeps making me feel like I’m lying to myself. It keeps fighting every time I think of a guy saying things like “that could be a girl too” or “you could like a girl like that too” and it almost feels true and then I don’t get the instant anxiety and the numb feeling occurred like I could imagine it snd it could be true. Please somebody help me. I simply cannot keep going on like this. Anytime I think a girl is pretty my mind always has them in my thoughts making me dwell and analyze every single thing about why I felt they were pretty. When just a year ago I wouldn’t have gave 2 craps about it. I crushed on boys and always have. Now it’s like I can’t even distinguish attraction from comfort or certain feelings from others, everything feel the same and nothing is uncomfortable anymore. So someone please tell me this is all just ocd and I’m experience all of the false attraction and feelings I keep reading about. My heart aches all of the time and is so heavy all of the time. I don’t want to feel this way anymore. I cannot go on feeling like this anymore. I don’t know how much longer I can take this. Please help.

Paxiled · Answer

I assume you're in therapy, as you say you've been diagnosed.  Is that true?  You're thinking yourself to a tizzy.  Again, if you are gay or bi, as Mom says, so what?  More fun, I guess.  If you're not, fine too.   But this wouldn't bother you if you didn't have a fear about being gay, and that fear is there because society has said for so long it's a bad thing.  If you're not in therapy, you really really need to be.  Meditation might be of help to you.  Sex isn't the only thing in life, but it is pretty important.  When we're young it takes up a large amount of our thinking.  That's just life.  So again, the problem isn't that you have these thoughts, it's that they bother you this much.  Peace.

Mamcg316 · Answer

Like for a minute I will start to feel better and happy again and then my brain says “that’s right it’s because you like these things and have accepted them and know you want them” but then I start feeling terrible and panicked all over again and feel as if I could have a panic attack. It feels like my brain a true snd hat all of these intrusive thoughts are things that I want and I hate that. My mind says that the only way I will know is if I try and I hate that. It makes me feel a huge deal of anxiety. Something that I never felt with guys. It was so easy and natural being and feeling attracted to guys. It feels as if my brain is trying to convince me that this is who I am and it’s starting to feel all to real. Your sexuality just doesn’t change like that. I’ve known I have been straight for a very long time. You don’t just suddenly change at the age of 21. So please tell me now why it feels as if I could actually want these things. It really makes me want to rust into tears. I really cannot deal with all of this anymore. My heart feels so heavy all of the time I cannot take it. I have this constant nagging feeling in my chest that makes it feel like this is what I desire or want but all I feel is anxiety and I hate it. I want to feel like my normal self again. But my mind keeps making me feel like these things are what I want and all it does is cause tremendous heart ache. Please tell me this all is not real

Paxiled · Answer

First, you're really not describing OCD, you're describing a phobia about being gay.  I say this all the time.  My fear is that people look on Google and see this HOCD thing, but know that there are tons of diagnoses drug companies and docs use for different reasons but when you use them on yourself, you can define yourself by it.  Why this is important is because therapy for OCD is quite different than therapy for a phobia.  You also describe feeling scared all the time, which if it's about things other than this phobia about being gay and is about lots of things, that's called GAD, but again, not OCD.  Okay, others on here will disagree with me on this but it happens on this site all the time and because it affects how you see yourself and what type of therapy would work best, I bring it up.  So no, it's not "just" OCD, but it is anxiety.  Every single person who has depression or anxiety only has it because of intrusive thoughts.  If we weren't thinking anxious or depressed thoughts we wouldn't be anxious or depressed.  That doesn't mean it's easy to stop doing it, because it's not.  Nobody knows why some humans get this way.  In therapy, you should be being taught relaxation techniques and tackling head on ways of changing the way you think.  If all you're doing is talking and no pressure is being put on you to do anything, the therapy probably won't fix it.  Okay, the fear of being gay is very common.  Most of us get this feeling that we're gay at some point when we're young because sexual relationships are really hard and bring out insecurity, especially because they usually end really painfully.  So we think what might be wrong with us, and the idea we might be gay can come up.  That's one way it can arise.  But the main reason we fear it and get so bothered by it is the generations now of repression of gay people have made it seem like an awful thing to be gay.  Historically, this wasn't always true, but it has been for centuries and it's hard to break out of that way of thinking especially when the religious groups that developed this anti-gay bias are still with us.  If you really are either gay or bisexual, so what?  Doesn't really matter objectively, only matters judgmentally.  If you're not gay, again, so what?  It won't make your life perfect.  We are what we are.  You sound completely heterosexual, but there's nothing to rejoice in that, it just is.  If you can stop feeling like being gay would be a horrible thing to be, you will demystify these thoughts and they'll stop being so problematic.  Then it's just a question of who you want to have sex with, right?  And again, that question seems to have been answered by your actions, which have been heterosexual.  Heterosexual people can find members of the same sex to be attractive.  The test is, do you want to have a romantic relationship with someone of the same sex?  If you do and have, that's your answer.  If you really don't and haven't, that's also your answer.  Now, that's objective stuff, and mental illness isn't objective.  It's how you're thinking.  You have a big fat phobia and you need to see someone who knows how to treat phobias and help you get over it.  Peace.

Mamcg316 · Answer

Also I’m really scared because now I feel like I’m overthinking anytime I thought a girl was really pretty. It feels like I only thought certain girls who all had similar features were prettier than others, but I never felt any attraction or anything but now my mind is making me feel like I did snd just didn’t realize it. But wouldn’t I have realized something like this years ago?? When I started feeling attraction to guys at a young age? I’m freaking out because I feel like I’m specializing all of my thoughts and picturing all of these sexual things now. My mind keeps telling me that I want these things and that I could actually picture them. But all I feel in the heavy feeling and great anxiety. I feel like I don’t feel repulsed by these thoughts anymore but I feel this terrible ache whenever I think of them that makes my want to cry. I get an extreme panic and terrible feeling. Similar to a feeling you get when you know you’ve don’t something wrong. Like when you get pulled over or get caught doing something wrong. Almost like a terrible guilty feeling but not guilt more like panic. And now my heart physically hurts. It feels like that was attraction now and I hate that. It makes my heart ache so much to the point where I could cry. Oh god I hate this. Someone please tell me that this is just my ocd. I’m so scared I might be bi and I don’t want that. Thinking about having to accept that makes my heart ache extremely. I’ve never felt sexually attracted to a women or attracted at all. So why is my brain making me feel like I am or have been before and just didn’t know it or something. It’s all starting to feel real again someone please tell me this is all just ocd

Is this even ocd anymore??

Sensorimotor ocd???

HOCD OR DENIAL?

Tocd is convincing me

My mind have been driving me crazy, my thoughts, SCARED

Sensorimotor ocd???

HOCD OR DENIAL?

Tocd is convincing me

My mind have been driving me crazy, my thoughts, SCARED

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