For starters, I was diagnosed with OCD @ a young age. It wasn't until a year or so ago I started to deal with a form of pure OCD. In this case, compulsive thoughts about my sexual identity. (similar to HOCD) I just want to share my story in hopes to receive advice & insight. Here is how I started to develop these compulsive thoughts: There was this boy a couple of years ago that I liked. We hung out a couple of times. One day, we went to a movie and suddenly, I thought about kissing him. A rush of nerves came over, making me hesitant to make a move. From there, I thought, "Oh no, why do I feel like this, is it because I'm asexual or something." It's hard to explain, but from having this one thought created a domino effect of more compulsive thoughts. Some days I would spend hours online, typing things in, answering questions in my head... all to prove I wasn't asexual. Then, these compulsions would subside for a month or so, but before I know it, a new one would come back. But this time it was be a different orientation such as gay/aromantic/or bisexual. The cycle repeats... and repeats... and repeats... Now I am at this point where it is effecting my life way too much. I will see a guy that is cute and when he talks to me I get excited, but then a thought pops into my mind like "but what if you're not really straight." And it just ruins the experience. Today I had a thought running through my head all day. I was scared that I wasn't straight because I can't remember who my first crush was & I didn't talk about boys very much with my friends. (still don't.) And yesterday I feared I wasn't straight because one time when I was about 12/13 i went on a bisexual chat room out of curiosity & started flirting with the same sex. My thoughts and headspace has gotten so out of control I don't now what to do anymore. I've never experienced obsessing over a specific subject of thoughts for this long. I want to mention in the past I've had compulsive thoughts where I believed I was a pedophile & other insane crazy thoughts. Why can't I figure this out and banish these thoughts. It's really getting in the way of my everyday mental functioning. I also want to say I in no way believe there is anything wrong with being an orientation other than straight. Plus, all of my family & friends are supportive of all orientations.
If you are obsessing over your sexual identity constantly it can of course be very hard to know your orientation for sure. I can relate a little bit. I also have anxiety, though not in the form of OCD. I am fairly sure about my orientation but I can find myself thinking way too much about it at times. It must be hard for you who does it so much. Have you seen a professional? A professional could help you sort your feelings out if you confide in them. That could help with the obsessive thought and give you some clarity and certainty, perhaps.
I would say I was a little similar in that when I was younger, I identified as straight, then thought I might be bi, and then realized I was actually gay but trying to hide the feelings. Another way to think about it is this: What would it take for you to consider yourself to be gay or straight or something else? If you had sex with the same gender, would this make things clearer for you? Do you get romantic and/or sexual feelings toward both genders?
CodeForLife: What did it take for my to question my sexuality? I have never had sex with either gender. I have kissed a couple people of the opposite gender, that was years ago. I think my first experience was when I was 12, I went on a bisexual chatroom and flirted with girls. I don't know why I did this. I never did this in real life. I just thought I was bicurious b/c most of my friends at that age displayed 'bicuriousity' or whatever you wanna call it. It wasn't until I hung out with a guy I thought I liked. That is the first time I questioned if I was asexual or something simply because I was too nervous to 'make a move.' Fast forward it turned into an obsessive OCD spiral of not knowing which thoughts were real/fake and questioning every possible orientation known to mankind. When the OCD calms down, sometimes I'm like "oh my gosh I'm straight, I've always been straight, why can't I stop obsessing over this." and then a thought will pop into my head where I try to name off guys I may have likes as a young child. And once I think of someone (so I can prove to myself that I've always been straight) my mind goes "Well, you just 'liked' them cus your friend did" or something. My biggest fear is that these thoughts will never go away, and I will never have a relationship because of my thoughts.
I guess another way to think of it is a series of simple questions: 1. Can you see yourself being happy in a romantic relationship with a man? 2. Can you see yourself being happy in a sexual relationship with a man? 3. Can you see yourself being happy in a romantic relationship with a woman? 4. Can you see yourself being happy in a sexual relationship with a woman? If you answer yes to only 1 and 2, you might lean more toward the straight side. If you answer yes to only 3 and 4, you might lean more toward the gay side. Any other combination is a bit more complicated of an answer, but completely ok too. Hopefully this helps as a good starting point. (*hug*)
CodeForLife: It is hard for me to answer those because I've never had a relationship, nor have I had much experience with dating in general. I've always been quite shy and quiet and have never experienced much in the dating world. I would like to answer yes to 1 and 2 if I found the right person. I would like to say no to 3 and 4 because before I had obsessive thoughts over sexuality and romance, I didn't really think of sex/romance with the same sex to be an important part of my life. The only time I have 'experimented' with the same sex was kissing a girl at a party when I was drunk (which I didn't enjoy much) & once when I was 12 I went on a bisexual chatroom and tried to flirt with people. Which I still, to this day don't understand why I did that. Does that mean I'm not straight?
I don't want to label you, but I just have a few questions based on your comments. Is it possible that you are just obsessing over a few actions you did when you were bored/curious/intoxicated? If these actions didn't mean anything to you at the time, why do they matter to you now? If you are certain that you would say yes to 1 and 2 and not sure about 3 and 4, you might be considered "bi-curious" right now. You are interested in learning more about the same sex, but it doesn't sound like you have really answered "would I want to spend the rest of my life with another woman? would this make me happy?" That's absolutely fine. That is what this site is for. (*hug*) For me, I'm in the same boat regarding not having been in any relationship. However, I am only really attracted to men, so it's a no-brainer for me.
codeforelife: Thanks for the reply again! I am working on trying not to obsess over the two things I did in the past that would be considered bi-curious. I don't think I'm bicurious right now because I don't really want to do anything with the same sex right now. For me another hard thing I'm trying to overcome with my OCD is when it comes to answering questions like "would being in a romantic relationship with X, Y, or Z make me happy?" gets me going into an ongoing spiral in my head where I question things like: -How do I know this is romantic attraction? -How do I know what romantic attraction is? -How do I know I don't want to be just friends? It's a series of compulsive questions with me trying to figure out the answers but never quite getting 'there.' It's quite confusing.
No problem at all . I can see where you're coming from though. When I was younger, I felt like I always had weird relationships with guys. When I thought I might be bi, I would see guys patting each other on the back and such and think, I want that. That can be seen in a few ways, but I think in general society calls that camaraderie. When it comes down to sexual attraction though, that is now only one-way for me and it is for guys. Yes, I have not been in a gay relationship before, so I can always second guess myself, but I have not been in a straight relationship before either. When I think, which would I want to be in and why, the truthful answer is I want to be with a guy and I am ok with accepting that now, whereas I would have denied it before and chose women because it is normal in society's view. It is hard to put all of your eggs in one basket though if you aren't sure, so you know what, you don't need to. Just keeping talking through it and I recommend reading other people's stories to see if you can relate your feelings/experiences. This has made it a lot easier for me to accept myself. And no, I'm not out yet, so I'm definitely not a role model for being out in the world. I am comfortable with this on EC though.
codeforlife: Yes you're right it is hard to put all my eggs in a basket if I'm not sure. I know I don't need to be sure, but these thoughts have been going on for too long, it would be great to be sure. I wish there was a special test I could take that would just tell me my orientation without me having to think about it. Ugh, I just found this post, and it has made my head-space worse. If you want to take a look, here is the post: Anagnori : I'm trying to figure out whether I'm aromantic and... Posts like these make my thoughts go crazy. In the post it says, " I once thought that I had a crush on a boy, but in retrospect it just turned out to be aesthetic attraction, with no real emotional investment. I didn’t care about it in the same way, or to the same degree that my peers cared about their crushes. He was just a pretty face; I never actually wanted to touch him or get to know him. There was no romantic desire in it. If your crushes were similar to this, it may mean that you’re aromantic." This got me thinking things like: -What if the people I thought I liked were just merely me thinking they looked cute -or what if it was merely a fantasy :/ ---------- Post added 13th Jul 2015 at 10:08 PM ---------- There has even been points where I have shortly labeled myself as aromantic, asexual, and what not just to shut up the doubts in my mind.
What freaks me out the most is that the asexual/aromantic community makes so many different kinds of attractions and rationalizes why they're not sexual or romantic.
I'm now looking back to my first fantasies. I can't remember when my first one was, but the earliest one I do remember was of a celebrity and of a kid in my class when I was 15. Is that late to have fantasies? I'm reading up on the internet and others have had them when they were as young as 6! I guess my first experience of sexual arousal was when I was 10/11 but that was just from experimenting with myself, it wasn't from thinking about a guy. I'm really confused, because I've thought I was straight, but also when I was in 7th grade (12/13 yrs old) I went on a bisexual chat room and flirted with a girl on there and I think I talked about wanting to be touched or touching them or something (I cannot remember the exact details at all) and then I logged off cus I felt dirty and guilty. I would have felt equally guilty if it was a guy too, so it had nothing to do with being thinking bisexuality was wrong at the time. I was just taught all sexual things were to be held off till marriage at the time.
Medication works. Please try it or switch to a more effective medication (I had to try a few until I found one that worked well for me). I speak from experience, ocd caused me to think constantly and repetitively about my flaws until I became seriously depressed. You can keep unintentionally milling over your insecurities or try to get help. And as for labels, just stick with something you're fairly sure about (really, sexually it's not that hard. It may sound crude, but whatever sexual imagery makes you feel something pleasurable will definitely point you in the right direction). If you like both men and women, that's totally okay too. Don't feel like you need to be certain either, it will come in time. I didn't realize I was actually gay until relatively recently in my life.
Bubblemonger: Most medication isn't for me. Figuring this out for me has been confusing because some thing in my head is saying "you're straight, you've always been straight, stop obsessing over the fact that you went on a bisexual chat room when you were 12 and tried to talk 'dirty' to the same sex. You used to kiss pictures of boys you thought you were cute and you asked a guy to marry you when you were FIVE!" ^^That's the logical side of my head coming out. Then there's this weird confusing OCD that... well, if you read everything I've written above, you'll see this 'ocd' thing I'm talking about. And also for looking at sexual imagery, I see both sexes as good looking. But, when I compare to a picture of a hot girl and a hot guy, I think I'd rather have the guy on me. But how do I know for sure? I watched lesbian porn when I was really young even, but from what I've read, porn isn't a good way to indicate sexual orientation. But then again, when I was 10 I remember being curious and looking up pictures of naked playboy girls on my computer because my friend showed me them and yeah... Sorry for the ramble.
Sunshine, I'm no expert on Pure OCD, but I did read an article a while back, about someone who was having a very similar experience to yours. I can't remember how she resolved it, but the first step was talking to a mental health professional about it. I heavily recommend that. We are not here to tell you what to feel or not feel. I mean, if you are questioning, that's good. But if it affects you in a way that you perceive to be that negative - and because obsessive compulsive thoughts are rarely rational - it could be best to just not do that. So seeing a doctor or your GP and asking to be referred to mental health team could be beneficial to you.
