Confused, are these real feelings or fear? HOCD

[neverinpeace]

This post might cause spikes or might relate to somebody with the experience, please know before reading this*

Hi, I am a 17 year old. for a while I've been healthy, all my life I have been known I was straight. I had never been diagnosed with OCD ever, which makes me wonder if HOCD is real and if  people without OCD can actually get it. I've been having fears all my life but I don't think it counts as far as OCD but more like anxiety and depression.

2 months ago I was having intrusive thoughts which were triggered by a class discussion. A story that which heavily made me wonder. The story seemed normal to me until we had a class dicussion about it. The teacher ended up saying the kid had been homosexual and was explaining through the whole time subliminally. when I heard this I immediately spiked and wondered f me even looking at a guy a certain or talking to one at all made me gay. That whole first week I spiked and had intrusive thoughts about if I was gay or not, which I almost began to believe. After a while 3 weeks ago I had found out about HOCD in hopes and questions that I wasn't gay when I typed about the feeling of me starting to think I was gay becase I had these thoughts: then I found out about HOCD and I completely related to everything, the symptoms, the thoughts and eventually the compulsions.

Compulsions which made me feel good for a couple of minutes until I had to read again for reassurance. I then took these compulsions to the other level and they made me feel horrible. I have thought well, maybe gay guys like to penetrated and they like things up their anus, so I tried to put my finger/s to check if i liked it. I tried thise 4 different times on different days and I didn't like it one bit. me trying them out still made me feel ashamed and sad that I went to that extreme. Eventually I grew out of it and i still thought about that and felt ashamed, THEN to make matters even worse I tried a compulsion where I tried to suck on an object to see if I ever wanted to perform oral on another man, I tried two times the same day and I threw up. the point is now I want to keep doing it to see if I'm gay or not, I have thoughts about trying all day and I start to get scared thag I might like it. My mind gave in to my compulsions each time and told me "Keep doing it, You like it" and I don't, I refused to the first compulsions after the 4th time but when I tried the second compulsion to see if I liked oral, I then threw up twice as mentioned. Every day I have these thoughts that go and say "Try it again" and I don't want to, I fear everyday that I might like it. I've never watched porn or wanted to check it but the thoughts disgusts me and I dont wanna try it, what scares me is that My mind keeps goingto try oral and it some days convinces that I do might like it or would wanna try it. When I get those thoughts I feel like I have a knot on my throat and I get nauseas and feel like throwing up. Before that I went to the emergency room and they took me in and explained what i was going through and they diagnosed me with Acute Stress Reaction, the doctor was really nice but eventually she made me spike and told me that people that are LGBT often have intrusive thoughts about being gay and are disgusted about it and it made me wonder. It sucked a lot and made me worry a ly more. after that emergency room visit my compulsions stopped until A few days ago I tried to suck on an object which I explained. I tried because every time I see my penis or think about it my mouth gets watery so I thought that this meant that I wanted oral so i tried it and completely regreted because my mind was telling me that I could like it and now i feel bad. i have lost my appetite, lost sleep and have even woke up already thinking about what the day offers me and what I have to battle, At times i feel like the compulsions really do define what i want and that I fear i an actually gay. all my lfe i have been straight and have loved girls and I am in a relationship right now with a girl that I truly love. lately my libido and sex drive has gone down and I know that I am straight and I get happy and excited when I think of girls and it makes me feel better but Now at times i think im gay. I dont want to be gay at all, as other HOCD sufferers I have never been homophobic and I respect people but now I can't be around gay people or even guys and start thinking im gay. my thoughts have calmed down lately but they fear me that that might mean I'm gay. I recently thought about a thought of me and a guy being together and it didn't bother me for a bit until i thought about it and started fearing that this meant I was gay, I really dont want to be gay, my heart tells me that I'm straight but my mind tells me that I'm gay and I know I am not,

[JGF25]

Beautifully said.  I'm glad to see you are doing well.  JGF

[bringmejoy]

Hi, yes this sounds just like HOCD. Definitely consider seeing an ocd specialist, don't try any talk therapy because that just doesn't work in this case. If you can't see a specialist then there are loads of books designed to help with ocd and i would say the first thing you need to do is stop the compulsions. i know that sounds hard but at the moment you feel like you need to do the compulsion to give yourself the evidence that you're not gay ie. they make you sick. you need to learn that the 'evidence' you're so desperately seeking is completely unnecessary. Another thing is the only reason that these thoughts keep coming back is because you're giving them a reason to, you're giving them an importance so you're brain thinks that this is something you should keep thinking about. When you get an intrusive thought, just go along with it and say 'ok cool that's fine', or 'sure I'm gay thanks'. I know that sounds completely wrong but believe me, it works. Think about it, you're not gay, you're just worried that you are. Get rid of the worry by making fun of your thoughts and eventually they will go away because they loose their meaning. Just take away the meaning and fear behind the thoughts and they will leave you. Also, check this website occasionally but try and stay away from it, it only makes things worse in the long run.

[123tushar07]

Its hocd, you are saying you don't have other obsessions like checking/washing. But it is not necessary for a person from ocd to have all symptoms. I think your condition is getting bad and you need to consult a psychiatrist.

[neverinpeace]

I didn't mention other compulsions and thoughts because they are similar to others and I have experienced all of them and I relate 100% to a person with HOCD. I fear this will never end and that I might end up liking these thoughts, they are completely out of my character and I dont look forward to being gay. I feel like i am in the biphase where the thoughts don't bother me but I certainly still don't find pleasure in. please help to anybody who reads this I know that some people have even gone as far as to face their fears and actually be with a man but that would scare me even more, Im scared I dont want to be gay. I have opened up to people I trust and they accept me every step of the way and I've never worried about anybodys opinions of me so I certainly don't feel as If im gay or in the closet, because like mentioned they have fears of being rejected by family and society.