Being gay vs. having gay ocd (HOCD or SO-OCD)

I'm really just not sure if I am suffering from Gay OCD or I'm in the closet or something. I'm a guy in my early 20s and I've suffered with what I would consider this HOCD stuff for several years quite seriously and for even longer on and off. I want it to just be HOCD but I'm constantly wandering "what if I'm actually gay?". I can think of a few times growing up where gay related situations came up and caused me a lot of distress. In middle school, I used to be pretty quiet and shy and I remember a kid kept asking me if I was gay for some reason. Then a few years later, I said something meant to be a joke in front of a bunch of people while at summer camp and they thought I was gay, and I was so stressed and freaked out and just wanted the camp to be over. Again in high school we had a school assembly where gay/lesbian/transgender people came in and I freaked out again that I could be gay. It happened in college while watching a crime tv show that involved a married man being gay, and again caused me to sorta freak out about it. Over the last few years its been pretty unrelenting. I've had long term girlfriends and have hooked up with girls throughout the whole thing. I remember being really young and getting turned on by female WWE wrestlers and by my friends' older sister and her friends. But its just this constant thing. Like I said, I want to be straight and therefore want what I'm experiencing to be OCD, but I'm just not sure. I self diagnosed myself with HOCD. After several months of suffering from it severely, I eventually cracked and googled "fear of being gay" and all the stuff about HOCD came up and it was a huge relief. Since then I feel like I've gone out of my way to find other aspects of my life that are affected by OCD, though I've been told my whole life by people that theyve thought I have anxiety issues.

Essentially all of the symptoms of HOCD seem to fit for me, and when I read or remind myself of those symptoms I feel temporary relief, but I can't shake the idea that this could all just be me denying my sexuality. I've seen therapists but am never able to follow through with seeing them and struggle to even discuss this stuff for fear that they'll say they actually think I am gay. Similarly I know that treatment is the way to go, but I find myself afraid that if I expose myself to gay stuff, i'll realize I actually do like it.

I'm pretty sure I do find girls attractive, but find myself constantly questioning and doubting that. Not sure if thats an extension of the severity of the OCD or if I'm actually just not sure how attracted I am to women. I also watch a lot of (straight and some lesbian) porn and have done for many years. I'm not sure if this could be me trying to cover up my sexuality or if alternatively it could be a reason I suffer from OCD in some way. I know this post is all over the place, i'm trying to cover a lot of things. Overall its a constant and debilitating thing. I'm just looking for some insight.

I read your post and I really think you just have HOCD.
I personally think I suffer from POCD and I hate it. But I dont masturbate at all now so that worries me. I have the pedo feelings etc ugh. And another bad thing is that my mind tells me I actually like it.

Gays are pretty happy with their choice.

Orwell1984 wrote:Gays are pretty happy with their choice.

I'm going to partially disagree... however I'll offer up a variant on that.

I'm Bi. Didn't ask to be, didn't want to be. But I is. Not 'happy' with it... but also I feel it's the natural state of me, and I have a hard time imagining myself gay (ew, what about girls?) or straight (well THAT sounds boring!), and even when I feel miserable over it, I don't feel I would change it; there's a 'rightness' to it, that I wouldn't think is there in HOCD.

HOCD people talk about fearing you've been in denial, but to steal the meme, I don't think that word means, what you think it means... denial implies you really know the answer..... I always did, even when I was in denial.... because I was denying it... Denial, is not cluelessness. I never had a time that I wasn't excited by the idea of sex, with anyone, guy or girl. If you didn't have established history before you got the anxiety, then yeah, I'm gonna be lookin' at you like, "really dude? I don't think so.... "

Never did I feel this utter, visceral, if-I'm-gay-I-don't-want-to-live, fright and revulsion, that the folks evince here in OCD. There's a difference between, Oh crap, am I gay???? and Oh crap, I don't want to like other guys (but I do).....

I also know that what I'm trying to express is very hard for me to put into the right words, and OCD finds a way to twist anything towards more fear and anxiety, because that's what OCD does. Clouds our thinking.

Just my thoughts.

Snaga wrote:

Orwell1984 wrote:Gays are pretty happy with their choice.

I'm going to partially disagree... however I'll offer up a variant on that.

I'm Bi. Didn't ask to be, didn't want to be. But I is. Not 'happy' with it... but also I feel it's the natural state of me, and I have a hard time imagining myself gay (ew, what about girls?) or straight (well THAT sounds boring!), and even when I feel miserable over it, I don't feel I would change it; there's a 'rightness' to it, that I wouldn't think is there in HOCD.

HOCD people talk about fearing you've been in denial, but to steal the meme, I don't think that word means, what you think it means... denial implies you really know the answer..... I always did, even when I was in denial.... because I was denying it... Denial, is not cluelessness. I never had a time that I wasn't excited by the idea of sex, with anyone, guy or girl. If you didn't have established history before you got the anxiety, then yeah, I'm gonna be lookin' at you like, "really dude? I don't think so.... "

Never did I feel this utter, visceral, if-I'm-gay-I-don't-want-to-live, fright and revulsion, that the folks evince here in OCD. There's a difference between, Oh crap, am I gay???? and Oh crap, I don't want to like other guys (but I do).....

I also know that what I'm trying to express is very hard for me to put into the right words, and OCD finds a way to twist anything towards more fear and anxiety, because that's what OCD does. Clouds our thinking.

Just my thoughts.

I read your post and I don't know what to think. Am I just in denial? Because I have these pedo feelings and I feel almost no sexual attraction to adults now.. And it feels like I'm in denial. Can you explain this?

And when I worry less, I worry a bit about that too because shouldnt someone with OCD worry constantly? Because I'm kinda able to function.

I believe HOCD is not too old, perhaps mid 80's. This was a time of HIV, so people became OCD about that too. POCD, is more 90's because of the church thing. So OCD latches onto these things because it thinks you need protection from them. But you don't.

I just don't know it anymore.. I'm just 20 years old and I have SEVERAL problems going on and this is the worst I think. Today I didnt feel that much of the POCD but its still there. My libido is so low and I worry if it will ever be normal again or not. When I think of children in a sexual way I didnt even react much today. I just think it's wrong and I don't want it. I just hate this and want it to stop. I want to be normal.

I'm not sure if this is going to help since I never really had HOCD (I have POCD or at least I hope it is POCD and not something more serious) but I did have some fleeting uncertaincies about being gay in past. It started when I was 14-15 and some girls asked me if I was gay (for no obvious reasons) and mocked me, which made me struggle to behave in ways to prove I was not. I also remember being obsessed with certain male celebrity and watching his photos on the internet for no apparent reason and I had groinal respones (almost erections). I was confused about it and I would quickly close it because I didn't want to have experience of getting erection while looking at a man. Then a question popped in my mind: "Why did I almost have erection? Am I gay?". However, I didn't develop a fear of it because I told myself that I have no problem of having some hidden homosexual tendencies as long as I get to keep my natural and since always present attraction for girls. I was never afraid of it again and now I'm even more confident I'm not gay, even though I have to admit I sometimes find some guys to be handsome or good-looking, but I think that's normal even though many heterosexual guys wouldn't admit it or openly talk about it.
You also mentioned you started to question if you're really attracted to girls. I've read a lot of articles and posts on forums about sexual obsessions (and HOCD and POCD are some of them) and found out this is quiet common and I struggle with that too. I have POCD and whenever I see attractive girl I start to wonder if I'm attracted to her because she looks younger (which should serve as "evidence" I'm pedophile) and start to analyze her physical traits in search of "child-like" traits, which has taken huge toll on my sex drive. Also, obsessively worrying about losing your natural attraction or that it was all made up and this being-gay thing is real and all this doubts about your sexuality overwhelm you and make you unable to enjoy looking at girls and being attracted to them as much as you were before. OCD is usually accompanied with persistent anxiety (at least it is in my case) and anxiety is known to reduce sex drive in general.