What is the difference between hocd and homophobia?

I know a lot of people suffer from hocd, but are those people with indirectly homophobic? What makes them so afraid of being gay? And why?

What makes someone born with an intense phobia of heights freak out when they're standing on a table in their living room?

Anxiety disorders are irrational and ego-dystonic (in conflict with the larger personality) almost by definition. So it's, generally speaking, a mistake to assume that there will be a direct, clear, and simple link between a person's beliefs and their OCD. There certainly can be, but often the mental connections will be circuitous at best.

Regarding HOCD more specifically (though I wouldn't presume to speak with authority for people whose obsessions are different from mine) from all the people I've spoken with it seems like a lot of sexual OCD relates to an inner challenge to identity. People with HOCD seem to say, almost universally, that they don't hate people who are gay, but they're really invested in being straight.

In that sense it could almost be understood as a kind of purely mental shadow-image of forced conversion therapy; people with OCD have a mind that constantly pushes on them that their orientation is something that a deeper part of them knows they're really not. And like anyone would, they react to that with fear, panic, and grief.

I have HOCD and I'm a huge supporter of the gay community! I know from the outside looking in on what HOCD is how it can look like homophobia but what it really comes down to for me is that all my life I've liked boys (I'm a girl) and all of a sudden I'm thinking I might be a lesbian. That freaks me out because to my knowledge that's not what I am nor is it what I want, and your mind kind of forces you into thinking that is what you want. It's very confusing. I guess what really scares me is I've always been comfortable and happy with my identity, having girls as just friends and being romantically interested in guys. So now it's kind of like I feel like I'm having to do something I don't want to and I also feel anxious because I feel like I've been "living a lie." So maybe that clears it up a little more? HOCD is just like any other form of OCD, you worry and worry and worry about something that your brain is telling you could be true but you don't want it to be. Not because you're anti gay but because you're just not gay. Just like people who have these thoughts but with pedophilia. They are freaking out about it because their OCD is telling them they are but they don't want to be because they aren't interested in kids!! Obviously being gay isn't wrong but it's still not something a straight person would want because that's not who they are.

I think the thing is people from less secular countries have a societal notion of homosexuality being in some ways immoral in either a traditional/religious sense, and so it has a potential to become a fear for them. In my mind, as someone who has made their harm OCD manageable, I see OCD as an abstract (rather than concrete) phobia - as such people can develop ritualistic behaviours to deal with it (rather than someone with arachnophobia dealing with the spider physically - e.g. getting someone to dispose of it - to alleviate their fear). For me I was worried about hurting people all the time by losing physical control in some way (either because I was evil and I wanted to, or through some sort of fugue state), and so in that situation it only really makes sense to steer clear of people.

However, I think this is where the misunderstanding comes from. This forum is now largely dominated by homosexual OCD with a smidge of relationship OCD, to more or less the exclusion of all else. To people from secular countries where a religious bias against homosexuality is less common, the prior form of OCD immediately starts to feel like homophobia. However, I really think it is a societal thing that countries with more progressive ideas of sexuality find quite alien rather than a sign of genuine homophobia.

Still, I think the large preoccupation on the forum with homosexual or relationship OCD is interesting. It strikes me that other forms or OCD are either unreported on this forum, or possibly peoples' previously conventional OCD fears are no longer what people commonly worry about.

I would say I'm unsure of how to progress for people with HOCD, as I would wager to say most people are in a teen to early twenties bracket and will likely be aroused more readily than most too - making exposure to gay fears a tricky concept. I also think that admiration and sexual attraction can be a grey area in the first instance, even for straight people looking at the same gender - it really depends on your conceptions of sexuality in the first place.

I guess people should attempt to find exposure therapy that works for them, and then try to sit and wait it out like most people with OCD do. It sucks, but over time it goes away.

I still think it's homophobic to some extant. Some cultures and societies have persecuted homosexuals for centuries. Homosexuals were seen as deviants and lower than human. I think that's still the case today with hocd patients. They're homophobic. You don't need to be explicitly told this. They were likely raised in a culture that made this readily apparent even if was never said as such.