Can OCD wax and wane?

Hello all,

I am back after 5 years of being off this forum. Some of you might remember me (if you are still here). For context back in 2017-2018 when I was very active, I had HOCD. Laast year I dealt with harm OCD, but that's long gone. So now, I am dealing with sexual orientation OCD again. Started in January when I got an astrology reading for fun and the astrologer told me I have indications of homosexuality in my chart. I freakeed out a lot. Then I remember watching this cooking show with a very masculine female as the host and I found her very attractive. So that made me wonder, am I gay in addition to the whole astrology fiasco. Fast forward to now, my therpist who I see for non OCD related stuff basically implied I am probably gay and that I need to pay attention to my thoughts because they are there for a reason. So the whole day today I have been online in different forums trying to figure this out. The problem is that my OCD has been very mild this year. I have thoughts but I am able to move on, I'll have momentary anxiety but nothing long lasting. I can't decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I am so scared right now that my therapist was right and that my thoughts are actually trying to tell me I gay. Just having these thoughts and images that are unwanted makes me gay It's starting to feel so real right now.

In answer to the question of the title of this post, yes, it can come and go. As anxiety levels go up and down, so do the symptoms of OCD. The higher the level of anxiety, the more intense the expression of OCD symptoms.

Also, anxiety isn't something you can gauge solely by "feeling" if you have it or not. High levels of anxiety are going to be self-evident and easily perceived. But anxiety can be present and affect our thoughts and behavior even if it doesn't "feel" like we have anxiety.

Does your non-OCD therapist know you have OCD? I don't know the details of what you said to them but a therapist telling a patient to listen to their thoughts when they suffer OCD is not good advice. The therapist should take things in context and ask the proper questions to assess what is happening.

Lastly, as has been said on this forum countless times regarding HOCD, you are not gay if you find the same sexually attractive. I am heterosexual and I find plenty of men attractive (I am a man). Relationships are about being with someone in a deep and loving sense, something that goes far beyond anything sexual.

o

Otter wrote:In answer to the question of the title of this post, yes, it can come and go. As anxiety levels go up and down, so do the symptoms of OCD. The higher the level of anxiety, the more intense the expression of OCD symptoms.

Also, anxiety isn't something you can gauge solely by "feeling" if you have it or not. High levels of anxiety are going to be self-evident and easily perceived. But anxiety can be present and affect our thoughts and behavior even if it doesn't "feel" like we have anxiety.

Does your non-OCD therapist know you have OCD? I don't know the details of what you said to them but a therapist telling a patient to listen to their thoughts when they suffer OCD is not good advice. The therapist should take things in context and ask the proper questions to assess what is happening.

Lastly, as has been said on this forum countless times regarding HOCD, you are not gay if you find the same sexually attractive. I am heterosexual and I find plenty of men attractive (I am a man). Relationships are about being with someone in a deep and loving sense, something that goes far beyond anything sexual.

o

Hey otter. Thank you for replying. Nice to see you are still here and providing support to people.
I did tell my therapist I have OCD in our very first session. She did tell me during our last session when all this happened that she doesn't specalize in OCD. I didn't wanna talk about it but you know with OCD you get these impulses...I just blurted it out and she said "your thoughts are telling you something and you need to pay attention to them". I havent been able to get this out of my head and then obviously one thought led to another and then another and i have questioned my whole life, all my past experiences because now everything feels like a sign

Gwendolyn wrote:Hello all,

I am back after 5 years of being off this forum. Some of you might remember me (if you are still here). For context back in 2017-2018 when I was very active, I had HOCD. Laast year I dealt with harm OCD, but that's long gone. So now, I am dealing with sexual orientation OCD again. Started in January when I got an astrology reading for fun and the astrologer told me I have indications of homosexuality in my chart. I freakeed out a lot. Then I remember watching this cooking show with a very masculine female as the host and I found her very attractive. So that made me wonder, am I gay in addition to the whole astrology fiasco. Fast forward to now, my therpist who I see for non OCD related stuff basically implied I am probably gay and that I need to pay attention to my thoughts because they are there for a reason. So the whole day today I have been online in different forums trying to figure this out. The problem is that my OCD has been very mild this year. I have thoughts but I am able to move on, I'll have momentary anxiety but nothing long lasting. I can't decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I am so scared right now that my therapist was right and that my thoughts are actually trying to tell me I gay. Just having these thoughts and images that are unwanted makes me gay It's starting to feel so real right now.

Hey there. What I'm about to ask is probably a compulsion of my OCD. You started posting in December 2016 and stated you were 19 at the time. You're now 25-26 correct?

I'm a 36 year old male that's suffered HOCD since May 2006. I suffered intrusive thoughts that greatly impeded my life from May 2006 until late 2007. My HOCD affected had a moderate to high impact on my life until maybe the Fall of 2022. It ebbs and flows, however, it's weaker now compared to what I endured from 2006-2010. You just can't let it consume you.

I find with OCD you have to be ever vigilant. It's insidious and can creep in during times when you think that you're all good and your OCD is more of a thing of the past. If you start letting OCD dictate your actions again it can come back on really strong, and undo a lot of your progress. It's frustrating, but that's how I've found it to be.

I can relate a lot to what you wrote, in that I've had experiences where some event triggered my OCD to doubt if I was right about my conclusions, and then it just so happens that another event causing doubt happens soon after that, which then throws me into an OCD spiral again.
OCD can really cause you to read into things way too much or blow things way out of proportion. I wouldn't warp the words of your therapist to mean that they think your thoughts are trying to tell you you're gay. I also wouldn't put any merit in astrology personally.

Also, sometimes therapists don't understand what it's like to have OCD. As an example, I have a friend who also has OCD, and my friend had recurring anxiety about the fact that he had got drunk and ended up blacked out in a biker bar one night. His previous therapist told him that 'he'd have to accept the fact that he might have committed horrible crimes with the bikers that night.'
If you knew my friend this is genuinely laughable. He would never do anything like that. But this comment almost ruined him. Luckily he knew himself just enough on a deep level to see that there's no way this would be true and eventually got out of it. However you can see how this is exactly the wrong thing to say to a person with OCD who's fixated on something there's basically no chance of. People with OCD tend to look for anything that will confirm their doubts/fears.

In the end you know yourself better than anyone. For someone without OCD, I think it makes sense to 'listen to what your thoughts as telling you', but for someone with OCD the advice should be 'you are not your thoughts.' OCD usually comes hand in hand with intrusive thoughts & feelings. If every OCD person paid attention to what their intrusive thoughts were telling them, they'd be convinced they're monsters.

If I were you I wouldn't let a few triggering events throw you back into the deep end of OCD. In my experience it's better to refuse to ruminate on it and ride out the anxiety. Then, whenever a triggering event should happen in the future you'll have a better foundation from which to let it drift by without causing you to act on it.