HOCD Getting bad each day

[Guest_89244889]

I need some advice 

My Hocd started june 2023. in english class we were watching a documatry called love on the spectrum. In the video a certain male said " he didnt know what his sexuality was he said he used to think he liked guys but after watching porn he thought he liked girls. This simply line made me start overthinking and worrying about what if im realy Gay or Bi. Since than whenver i see a good looking guy i overthink and think becuase their good looking this must think i wanna date them and do romantic stuff with them and when i think about sometimes i think i dont mind the though and others i think i dont like it all. It has caused me great distress and anxitey at the thought of being gay or BI. Before watching this video i had never had an homosexual thoughts what so ever and has just had crushes on girls. I now dont feel much for girls and only get attraction if see girls in real life and even than my brain says ur faking it. I just dont know what to do

[Guest_9989]

It sounds like your experience with HOCD (Homosexual Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder) is really distressing. It's tough when something triggers a lot of self-doubt and anxiety about your sexuality, especially when it's different from how you felt before.

Here’s a simple way to look at it:

1. Recognize HOCD: HOCD can cause you to fixate on whether you’re gay, bi, or straight, even if that wasn’t something you worried about before. The intrusive thoughts can make you question things you never had doubts about before.

2. Understand It’s About Anxiety: HOCD makes you doubt your own feelings, but it's more about the anxiety than actual desire. Just because you’re overthinking or having doubts doesn’t mean those thoughts are true reflections of who you are.

3. Avoid Overthinking: Try not to overanalyze every feeling or thought. It can help to acknowledge the thought and then let it go, rather than engaging with it.

4. Focus on Feelings, Not Thoughts: Pay more attention to how you feel about real-life experiences and relationships rather than what you think your thoughts mean. Real feelings and attractions often become clearer over time.

5. Seek Professional Help: Talking to a therapist, especially one experienced with OCD or anxiety, can be really helpful. They can provide strategies to manage the anxiety and help you understand your feelings better.

Remember, it’s okay to feel unsure, and it’s okay to seek help to work through these feelings. You're not alone in this, and with time and support, it can get better.

[sbella02]

Hey, thank you so much for reaching out. As somebody who struggled with my sexuality before coming out as bisexual (and who still sometimes struggles with it), I have a bit of insight into this that I'd like to share.

I'd like to start by saying that pornographic media shows people, particularly women, in an unnaturally provocative way, creating a cycle where people become reliant on the content for arousal. Arousal from this kind of performative content doesn't always reflect real-life attraction, although it can be easy feel like the lines are blurred, as could (potentially) be the case with the man from the documentary. Either way, porn can make these feelings even more difficult to sift through, if you're struggling with defining your sexuality.

Sexuality is highly personal and unique. Whether we feel like we connect with a certain label or not, or whether we drift between labels is something that only we can determine ourselves. When it comes to sexuality, I personally view labels quite trivially - there are so many, and I think picking one that feels right can make things quite complicated if you're already struggling to define how you feel. As humans, it's normal to experience a range of feelings at different points in our lives. We don't have to put a label on these if we don't feel the need to, nor do we need to express these labels to others.

If I may ask, how important is it to you that you label these feelings? Does it cause you any distress thinking about the labels themselves, or does your distress derive more from a desire to define whether you're feeling attraction at all?

If labels are important to you, and you feel that you aren't entirely straight, "queer" may be a good one to look into - it's a good umbrella term if you're struggling to define your attraction. 

Looking into various types of attraction may also help narrow down what you may be feeling and perhaps help you categorise your thoughts. Put simply, attraction is the desire to act on your appreciation for somebody, whether it's romantically, sexually, etc. In other words, you can appreciate that somebody is good-looking without having the desire to take this appreciation further, and that doesn't denote attraction. 

Hopefully there's something in here that resonates with you, otherwise if you have any other questions or anything on your mind, we're here to listen and give advice where we can. I have a lot of experience with my own sexuality, as well as insight into the experiences of my friends with theirs, and I'd be happy to give more recommendations if you need some further insight. 

Take care, SB