OCD Action

Sydney :)
Member

I have had the WORST week ever with my hocd. I had to miss two days of school this week because I had a nervous breakdown. I had awful dreams and it all became too real. I sat down crying to my whole family: my sisters and mom and dad. I was inconsolable and I told my mom everything. She asked if I thought about suicide and I didn't answer but she began crying too and we were just a mess. My parents told me they loved me no matter what and that they could care less what I was. So I told myself I would live happily with my very loving mommy and daddy forever if I was gay and that I wouldn't have to act upon it. I missed school and then went back Friday and the thoughts were awful during school so I told myself that I was a lesbian. It cleared my head and then this boy that I normally would overlook became, incredibly handsome and came up to my desk talking to me and I thought he would make a great husband one day because he has this "I'll take care of you" demeanor about him and I was just incredibly confused by it all. One second I'm a lesbian in tears and the next I'm looking at a boy all "googoo" eyed. My mom and I are incredibly close, I tell her everything. She is probably my best friend and I'm not sure if it's because I'm so vulnerable right now but I feel like I need her by me all the time. At school I'm starting to feel this way with my female friends. It's really really scaring me. But when it boils down to it I don't want to be with them in a gay way just crave that motherly attention. I began reminiscing all my crushes. My first crush was when I was 5 and had tons. When I was younger before I understood l I even had a crush on my uncle. I've always done gender appropriate things when I was a little girl. Loved dolls and dresses and bows and all that jazz. I'm not sure I've dreamt of being married with kids but the thought is appealing. I've always wanted boys to notice me and flirt with me although I've always been an introvert. My last crush was on a guy I was extremely close with but let my HOCD interfere before we had the chance to date. I had this urge to kiss him and always grinned when I saw him or talked about him and wanted to be with him. But how could things have shifted SOOOOOO drastically?? Now I have this compulsion to check my finger ratio because research has found it plays some part in sexual orientation and my ratio is accurate to a heterosexual woman.....I'm right handed....have a clockwise whorl in my hair.....wanted to be a teacher which is "people occupation" rather than a "thing occupation"......always did gender appropriate things. These are all predictors and I am now checking my hand constantly to see if my fingers align right and you don't have to say it I already know "Sydney your fingers cannot have grown within the last ten minutes you checked" but it's reassurance for some odd reason. I've even been doing research to see what it takes to be a neurobiologist so I can come up with a "cure" if I was gay. I know people are born gay but spent a ridiculous amount of time searching to figure out what it takes to be a neurobiologist. My screwed up mind won't leave me alone. :'( I'm still going to live with my mommy and daddy forever because obviously I'm gay.

Sun Jan 29 2012 2:55:33 #
Truddles
Member

Hi Sidney :),

I'm sorry to hear that you've had such a distressing week.

You posted that you saw your doctor last Monday and what he said. But apart from you saying that he said "The most effective treatment for ocd (and eating disorders), with or without meds, is cognitive behavioral therapy." you didn't mention whether he offered any treatment.

I know that you're frightened of seeing a therapist for fear of becoming dependent on them, but the whole aim of CBT is to give you the skills so that you can manage without a therapist.

At your age you're just beginning to develop your sexual identity and feelings and it's perfectly natural for you to think about this and in order to do this your mind looks at all the options. Your OCD is causing you to react to all the thoughts and is not allowing you to let them go.

Crushes are a normal part of growing up and the crushes can involve either gender. Someone without OCD would have a crush on someone of the same gender, get over it and then think nothing more of it. But with OCD we hold on to the thoughts and it's the meaning that we attach to them and the way that we react to them that's the problem and not the actual thoughts.

Over analysing your thoughts and looking for explanations will just perpetuate the OCD. CBT will show you how to not engage with and react to the thoughts and without engaging with them they will lose their importance and gradually subside. So it's worth going back to the doctor and asking if you can be referred for CBT. From what you said in a previous post he sounds very understanding.

Sun Jan 29 2012 7:49:32 #
wannabefree
Member

Hi Sidney, yes, I can remember at school I was attracted to boys more than girls... But it wasn't in a 'sex' way, more of a friendship way... The girls stuck together and the boys stuck together, such were our peer groups... The final print, if I can call it that, might not be made until we're into our twenties... When the urge to settle down may or may not come... I still greatly enjoy the company of other fellas, and I'm in my mid fifties now...
Some churches in britain have specific mens groups, the women have theirs, but it is all innocent... Please try not to worry about these things, you are a really nice person who cares, such is the nature of OCD, we care too much...
Caring less is not easily done though, I too care too much... I can't help it... But trying to care less is something to try too...
Hi Trudy, how are you today?
Wannabe

Sun Jan 29 2012 20:04:27 #
KittyCat1989
Member

Hey,
Not sure how much I can help because I don't have this type of OCD. Mine seems to be focusing itself on my relationship with my boyfriend at the moment which is very distressing.

I do remember in school that there would occasionally be girls that I would really want to be friends with, normally really confident girls presumably as I'm not very confident myself. I used to worry that I could be gay and maybe I was sexually attracted to these girls. It didn't really take over my life like yours seems to have done but having OCD definitely made it harder to let the thought go.

I did come to the conclusion that even if I was attracted to girls I wasn't gay because I'm also attracted to men. If I was bi then that wouldn't be as bad because I could just go out with men and never admit it to anyone.

Like I said it didn't take over my life, it was just something that popped up and then went away with time. I did wonder why I thought it at all and I'm putting it down to jealousy, the girls I found myself thinking I was attracted to were always people I thought were pretty and were confident. Same with celebrities, I can see an attractive women on the TV or a film and wonder why I'm thinking they're attractive but I really do think it comes down to jealousy, just like the girls at school. These people always seem to be really confident, seem to not have to make any effort to look the way they do and they always seem to have an easy time getting boyfriends. I know that I don't find it easy talking to guys, my current boyfriend is my first real relationship. I also know that I'm not confident.

I know that it was a thought that I mainly had at school when I was a teenager and I'm now pretty certain now that I'm not gay. Being a teenager is hard, I was one not that long ago, I'm only 22 and there is a lot of pressure to be accepted by peers and not have people laughing at you. I decided that any thought I had about being attracted to women were just because I wanted to be like them not because I wanted them, I just didn't want to be me anymore. It definitely did make me feel better about any thoughts that popped into my head.

I hope this helps, sorry if it doesn't I don't really know much about this type of OCD. I definitely think that CBT would help you though.

Cat xx

Sun Jan 29 2012 20:26:16 #
wannabefree
Member

Hi Cat, welcome to the forums from me...
Wannabe

Sun Jan 29 2012 21:38:11 #
Mike
Member

Sydney,

First off, it should be somewhat reassuring for you to hear that everything you described are classic OCD symptoms - analyzing, checking, doing research, trying to prove that your greatest fear is not true. So you are not doing these things because there is evidence that you're gay; rather, you're doing them because you are so afraid of just the POSSIBILITY that you're gay. As always, for any flavor of OCD, I highly recommend finding a good CBT therapist to do cognitive and behavioral therapies. The goal of CBT is to learn to live with and accept the possibility that your greatest fears might come true (because everyone accepts the possibility of everything happening, except for people with OCD on the specific topic that the OCD targets), and to only worry about this fear if you find evidence that it might be true. But the key is accepting the possibility.

For example, there are many things in the world that are worse than being gay: dying, getting sick, becoming paralyzed, losing loved ones, mental illness, etc. But since your OCD doesn't target any of these things, you can accept the possibility that any of these things might happen, and thus you don't worry about them excessively. The goal would be to train your mind to approach the gay issue the same way you approach the issue of, let's say, becoming paralyzed. Obviously becoming a quadriplegic would be horrible, and as a rational person I'm sure you admit that it's possible that one day you might become one. Yet you don't worry about this excessively, or perhaps at all - why? because you accept the possibility that it might happen, and you can live with that possibility. Once you can accept the possibility that you might be gay, the anxiety will decrease. Notice that I'm not saying you have to accept that you ARE gay, but rather only accept that it's POSSIBLE (because anything is possible!) A good CBT therapist would really help you, I think.

Mike

Sun Jan 29 2012 22:09:50 #
slogsweep
Member

It is for the best Sidney that you get the HOCD treated. My own HOCD spawned into more horrible variants of OCD after that particular fear subsided. As OCD tends to, when left alone, it gets worse and worse until you can't take any more. By having the courage to spot the OCD early you can get over this without the silent pain and suffering many others subject themselves to way into their twenties, thirties and beyond.

As Mike said so many of your symptoms are symptomatic of OCD. You've had crushes on guys too. I assure you the fear will pass. You're at an age where gay people still have an incredibly tough time. As you progress into your early twenties you'll see gay people live happy and fulfilling lives and won't be so scared of the small possibility that you might be homosexual.

Well done for coming on here and discussing it all. I didn't have the courage to even look into my problems until finishing my degree and being in a serious relationship sort of made me fight OCD for external reasons,

Sidney please message me if you've any problems, you're certainly not alone with this and I've a few years experience of this to draw upon,

Best wishes,

Slog

Sun Jan 29 2012 23:10:51 #