TOCD and HOCD (Back again) Anyone able to help?

So. It's been a couple of years since I finished therapy for OCD (in the UK you're only entitled to so many sessions I believe) and though it wasn't a fix for all my OCD symptoms and themes, I felt like I had overcome the worst parts of it. Those worst parts being worrying that I am secretly a guy, that I want to transition, that I am secretly a lesbian.
I thought I was over all of this
Apparently not
During this time of global panic about Covid 19, it feels ridiculous to be worried about things like this, but I am.
I have experienced in the last few months the long and slow breakdown of a relationship and met someone new. He's a great guy, doesn't know my OCD themes yet, because I am worried it will scare him away. (and now I'm worried that that's not the real reason I'm telling him and that that just confirms all the feelings and worries)

These obsessions started up just a few days ago.
- Worried I'm not feminine enough, not thinking like a female, not enjoying female things enough
- Worried that I'm not living authentically enough
- Worried that I'm not attached enough to feminine pronouns and the word 'woman'
- Worried that wearing feminine clothes will confirm I'm not comfortable in them and then that will confirm that I am indeed trans
- Related to previous comment. The fact I've always felt more comfortable and more myself in pants/trousers (jeans especially) must mean that I am a dude
- Worried I've never liked wearing women's clothes and that I've just been lying to myself
- Starting to feel very aware and uncomfortable about my body, which I didn't feel like for months, or did I and I was just very good at pretending to like the sex characteristics of my body
- That my desire to be a wife and mother one day have always been fake, that I was just saying it because I was raised Mormon
- Worried that I suddenly want to cut my hair short even though I've liked having long hair for a long long time
- Worried that I suddenly actually want facial hair
- Worried that I've only ever been attracted to guys because I secretly want to be them
- Worried that the fact I think girls are objectively prettier in general must mean I'm a lesbian
- Worried about the fact that I like the word 'lesbian' it's a pretty word
- Worried that I'm only close to my female friends because I might be a lesbian
- Worried that I can identify with some male characters in media because I am secretly trans
- Intrusive thoughts like "well, just get on testosterone, you might as well - you clearly want to"
- I'm not so worried about what people will think of me if I were to come out, I'm more worried that I want to or that I've been living in a way that is unauthentic
- Worried that the fact the theme came back it must be real (but it didn't do that with POCD. Good god I would rather have POCD or Harm OCD than this $#%^ again)
- Worried that it's not really OCD
- Worried that I swear to much to be a girl

I feel resigned to this idea that I must really be trans or a lesbian. A little while ago I was excited and nervous about the possibility of this new relationship with a great guy, and now I've got the most annoying combination of thoughts and worries that I wish would just go away
If anyone has any advice or can just tell me this is OCD and that I'm not trans that would be great. If there was some way for me to just make sure that I'm a girl and stay feeling that way, I would do it (even typing that out made me worry that it's fake and that really I should be a boy)

I'm... not going to try to address or argue against each individual worry, except to say that if you were trans, you'd be really, really unhappy- you'd have diagnosable GID. NOT transitioning, would feel like the worst thing in the world.

If you were really lesbian... yeah, no. You might have angst, but you'd be excited, as well. You'd know, really.

I see in these forums, folks get to analyzing every single thing they do, the way they dress, talk, act, etc, every passing thought scrutinized. Trying to make yourself pass some sort of purity test. When in fact we all possess male and female traits... you wouldn't know it to just SEE me, but I possess a lot of feminine traits. I mean, my avvy is Tinkerbell.... Doesn't make me trans, though. And back in the day, it.. wouldn't have bothered me, to be trans. I think I should have been female, but I just don't happen to be, nor do I feel that enough to make me trans.

It's okay to not be whatever image, you have in your head, of what it means to be stereotypically female... and it not mean anything, except that you're an individual, unique to this world, who, like everyone else, is a mix of traits. We're not going to be 100% this, or 100% that. We're grey, we're not black or white. We're analog, we're not 0s or 1s. We're fuzzy logic.

OCD don't like that of course. It's going to insist that if you don't act 1000% straight, 1000% whatever it means to be feminine these days, then omg you must be something else. At least that's been my experience, and it seems to be how it works in these forums. It won't be happy, once the fear gets established, that you can be 99-44/100% straight and cis. It's going to take every little perceived variation, and shove it in your face as if to say See? You're this thing you fear! Doesn't matter that for all practical purposes you're straight/cis. Your anxiety want absolute proof, of something that by its very nature, can't be absolutely proven. Just mostly proven.

I'm pretty convinced that if a person really is something, they generally have a suspicion, and also, and more importantly, these base desires and identifications that are so close to our core being, come thru. You could hate being a lesbian, but you wouldn't be worried that you were, in my opinion. Being one, wouldn't be the end of the world, it's just the ramifications that would give you angst. You'd still want what you want. From my experience, you'd want what you want, and would even have trouble imagining NOT wanting what you want.

That's a feeling I do not get from most of the posts in OCD.

and you're sure it doesn't sound like I'm secretly in denial?
I've been hyper aware of my body and feeling weird about it, looking into FTM to see if it matches me, worried that I seem too feminine or too masculine, worried that if I put on a dress and don't like what I see or how I feel that it will confirm that I'm trans. I am really freaking out. I have a phone appointment with a therapist tomorrow morning to discuss my self referral for mental health treatment, so I suppose I'll be back on board with therapy soon either way

I decided yesterday that I'd make a big list every day of all my intrusive thoughts ** edit** in a diary, not just on here, but these are the ones freaking me out the most.
Currently worried that I've never been a girl and that I've been pretending my whole life and that I've just been making myself look like the type of girl I'd want to date, and that I've been dating the kinds of guys I'd want to be.
I wanted to be tall when I was growing up, all I wanted was to be tall, can't remember if that was to be like my guy cousins or like the tall girls at my dance school who were older and prettier than me.
My image of myself is so distorted from what I know or what I know I look like and how I've felt for the last few years after getting over TOCD/HOCD the first time round.
Worried that I've been a trans guy/ a lesbian for the longest time and been behaving with closet transphobia or homophobia and that I've been suddenly suffering with OCD about the other direction.
Worried that I'm feeling detached from my body - is this normal for people with TOCD? I am very confused and overwhelmed.
Worried I'm not attracted to the guy I'm talking to/dating casually, that I just want to be him instead. I ######6 hate it. I just want to flick a switch that makes me feel like a happy straight (but at one point I was convinced I was Bi at one point) girl again and then there's this voice in the back of my head that says "No, you don't" but I'm really overwhelmed. What do I want? Why do I feel so out of my body and like I've never wanted it? Can OCD convince you of these feelings? Is this really OCD or have I always been been in denial?
Have I never really been attracted to guys before? Have I only ever been interested in them because I wish I was them and had the feelings they get from sexual interaction with a girl? I am very overwhelmed. I don't think I felt like this before but now I'm questioning if I did or didn't. Have I been a fake this whole time?

The common thread here is worry. If you were those things, you'd be more worried that you could never be them, I think.

Does wearing my father's blazer jackets when I was little count as being a sign I'm trans?
I liked how soft the lining was and how big it felt on me to wear when I was little. At least I think that's why I did it, but now I'm not so sure. I am definitely looking back through all of my past and getting rather worried that I've been in denial my entire life and not living authentically.

I get this feeling that maybe I am trans and I'm just scared to admit I've been in denial. If there was a pill to make me a 100% woman comfortable in who she is, I'd take it but then my brain says "no you wouldn't that's like a lobotomy" and I'm not sure where that thought came from?

All I ever wanted was to get married one day and have kids, and now I'm worried I was lying to myself the entire time. I'm worried that I'm just copying things I've seen sufferers of TOCD say as an attempt to protect myself from internalised homophobia and transphobia.

I'm seeing a therapist soon, I think, my referral and consultation was made the other day, but with it being the weekend I'm not sure when I'll next hear about it all.

Mittens120995 wrote:Does wearing my father's blazer jackets when I was little count as being a sign I'm trans?

No more than playing with my momma's shoes and purses did... as far as I know, before putting children that cannot make informed decisions, thru hormone replacement, became a fad- and that's what it is, in my opinion as a forum mod, and as someone who doesn't consider themselves gender normative and has OCD... to me, it's a dangerous fad that angers me both on behalf of people genuinely Dx'd with GID, and folks with TOCD- wearing/playing with the opposite sex's gender normative items was not generally seen as something to greatly worry about, just like when a child declares they're the opposite sex. They also declare they're kitty cats. That doesn't make it so, they're children, they have imaginations.

Heck, when I was a child, in the 60s/70s, colors weren't considered for one sex or the other, the in thing was bright colors for children regardless of sex. Now if a little boy likes pink, omg. All I can say is, vintage toy Thor/Spiderman on a scooter (look it up).

Why do you think Tinky Winky carries a purse? He's not gay, he's not trans, he's doing what young children do, despite what Reverend Falwell used to think on the matter.

I think you're overthinking this.

It just all feels very real. Very very real. Like I've been living in denial my entire life. I started thinking about living in the opposite gender and I'm concerned I was happy about it and that I've been lying to myself and everyone else about my gender my entire life. It's all very upsetting and confusing

Mittens120995 wrote:It just all feels very real. Very very real. Like I've been living in denial my entire life. I started thinking about living in the opposite gender and I'm concerned I was happy about it and that I've been lying to myself and everyone else about my gender my entire life. It's all very upsetting and confusing

Hi @mittens120995, how are you doing at the moment? I hope much better!
Those thoughts are also happening to me right now, I am 32 years old man who always considered himself as straight, and never had arousal about other men, only women... And one day, all of the sudden, after different obsessions / OCD sub-types, chronogically:

1. Existential OCD for almost 2 years non stop (sense of life, why do we look the way we look, is the universe real, why do we see colors, does God exist, etc.)
2. Pedophile OCD for several months (afraid to be attracted by children especially my nieces that I love more than anything on this planet)
3. Chronic earworm (broken record syndrome - music snippets all the time in my mind when not busy)
4. Health OCD (about various concerns: candida, brain tumor, bacterial infection, mineral deficiencies, poisoning, skin cancer, Lyme disease, etc.)
5. Fear of psychosis (felt on the verge of losing my mind, one of my biggest fears in life)
6. HOCD in parallel of 1 / 3 / 4 and 5 (fear of being attracted by men, fear of appearing "gayish")
7. Transexual OCD now since a bit more than a month, full power...

I keep checking on internet, keep worrying if it might be true, I don't feel the same about my self identity anymore, but it was the case with 1. also as those obsessions were eating me alive too.

I am going through the same things you've mentioned here, even feeling weirded out by my body that I always loved so much... Bloody scary! My psychologist and psychiatrist are both saying this is OCD playing my mind again, but it feels so damn real!

I cross fingers for the both of us so we can be back to our normal sense of self!

Hiya, I am from the UK too. It should be possible to get mroe therapy on the NHS if you are still struggling. Some places say you have to wait 6 months to a year and then you can refer back and it sounds like it has been a while since you were there so I think it would be worth referring back or asking your doctor to refer me.

The only thing is the service might be closed down now due to coronavirus but hopefully it will reopen soon. Maybe it is still open in your area, I'm not sure.

I have TOCD too and it is such a nasty insidious disorder, I really hope you can find your peace. Try and accept the uncertainty and get on with your life, as difficult as it may be.