Taking Control of HOCD

Hello Everyone,

I’ve been meaning to make a post on this HOCD topic for some time. As a former sufferer I have a great deal of love and compassion for all of you out there struggling with this beast. I know some of you are sitting in your rooms right now shaking and clinging to the internet for answers, caught in a seemingly endless cycle of ups and the most horrid downs you could imagine. Perhaps some of you have even gone so far as to contemplate suicide. It feels like “it” has taken your life away doesn’t it? Well, I’d like to humbly offer my help to you in this matter and with any luck help at least one of you to see this for what it is. It’s time to take control. To preface the rest of this post, there may be some “spikes” so if you are not ready to be “spiked” please read at your discretion. On we go!
I’m not going to go too much into what exactly is meant by the acronym HOCD as I believe most of you reading this are more than painfully aware of what I mean by using it. A bit about me. I must be some sort of late bloomer as this first appeared at a seemingly later age than most. I am a 35 year old male, (if you are female simply reverse the gender references throughout this post). I am married to a wonderful woman and we are coming up on our 5th anniversary. I have 2 young children, a successful career and a past that is completely contradictory to the content or “story” of this disorder. I am able to see that another man is an attractive person but somehow my mind flipped a switch and associated that notion with more than its intent. By that I mean my whole life has been about Women and never once about being with a man in any way. Sure there are guys out there that have attractive features and I am able to recognize those yet never once in the past associated this with a meaning (gay). It was never a sexual thing, it is simple appreciation of the human race and not romantic in the least bit. At this point I could throw in the token patronization of the gay community but I will refrain as, paradoxically, it has no bearing on the information being covered.
To address the content of my “illness” it started during a highly stressful period in my life (business, money, kids, etc. etc.). I don’t watch much porn anymore. In my younger days (teens & 20’s I watched A TON) I have never watched anything other than hetero porn, but if you have dabbled in other flavors, no big deal. I’ve never had any sexual encounters with members of my own sex and have never consciously had the urge, or felt it to be something that I would find enjoyable. Quite the opposite, as a matter of fact, which is the crux of the whole matter and the reason that this particular topic became so terrifying to me and surely to all of you. Although I should point out that there is nothing wrong with wanting to experiment or have the occasional thought about what it would be like to be with someone of the same sex. Just because this wasn’t part of my experience doesn’t mean it is for you and doesn’t mean, as it relates to this particular illness, that we are in a different position by any means.
Let me take a minute to explain to you what it is that is going on with you right at this very moment. It may sound very simple, but at the heart of the issue, when you take away all the “stories” attached to your current emotions with this demon, it really is simple. What’s going on at the very root of this is that Your mind is not taking orders from you. You have falsely identified yourself with something that is supposed to be a tool for you to use (your mind) and let it run rampant. You may not like hearing this but while all this is happening, you are getting sucked in more and more to the “story” (gay stuff) and not to the root cause and the root emotion (fear, Guilt, etc.). Let me put this a different way. Lets take the subject of this terror that you are feeling (afraid you are gay), now lets throw that commentary away and just look at the feeling that It brings up in you. For some this is fear, for others it is guilt etc. when you identify this feeling and what it feels like when it is triggered by the commentary in your mind, what you have labeled “HOCD” then you can start to deal with the root cause of this pain. If there is one thing that I want you take away from this is the following “what you accept, you transcend and what you resist you are stuck with”. So tell me, will you be stuck, or will you transcend? It is completely up to you! I must point out that I am not asking you to accept the “story” or the notion that you will somehow “turn gay” or “have always been gay and just didn’t know it” because frankly it is not the point and not the issue here. I’m asking you to accept that the feeling of fear or guilt is present and to let it be there. Treat it like a small child, let those feelings know that you are a grown or somewhat grown person and can take care of them and that there is no reason for such outbursts of the mind.
I think I should make another point more clear. When I use the term “story” I am referring to the content of your mind when these feelings of terror arise in you. For example if you have had thoughts about any sort of encounter with the same sex that breeds fear, terror, and guilt in you then the pictures/narrative/situation that you are experiencing in your mind are what we will call the “story”. The “root” is the feeling that these “stories” produce, again fear, terror, guilt. It is the “root” that we are interested in and not the “story”. The “story” is a false play of the mind to get you to address a “root” feeling or emotion that is completely unrelated to the content of the “story”. These extreme feelings are manifestations of issues/experiences in your past that have not been addressed and accepted fully. Take a moment to look back at your life. Now I want you to bring about some situations or experiences that may be very traumatic for you. Some of you may find these situations much more subtle from an emotional standpoint. For some these may be rejection or a feeling of alienation while for others there may have been some events in your life that you would just as soon forget about such as abuse, be it sexual verbal or otherwise by someone close to you. The problem with these sorts of things is that they do not go away on their own and are the reason why you are in the place you are in at this very moment. You may be thinking to yourself “yeah that happened but I got over it”, and to you I pose the question, did you simply just say you were over them or did you truly FEEL the pain and Accept it with a relatively objective mind? The underlying emotions from these past experiences have reached a fever pitch and your body and mind are screaming for you to address them and accept them by compulsively repeating “stories” in your head to bring your attention to the “root” emotion. The tricky part here is that not everyone will immediately find something so blatantly obvious as a cause of such feelings. Some of you may need to look and “feel around” for a some time before finding what it may be that is behind this and has gotten so wildly out of control.
With that being said the logical next step is how to deal with these emotions. This is very simple yet can be very difficult in practice. You must completely accept these feelings and emotions and at the risk of sounding silly, Nurture them. Now make no mistake, I am not talking about simply saying to yourself “ I accept this” and in doing so trying to trick yourself in an attempt to move on or run from the pain. I am talking about TOTALLY immersing yourself in that situation or emotion and accepting with EVERY CELL IN YOUR BODY. As hard as you may try you can never fool yourself, trying to do so has landed you here to begin with so let’s take this thing head on. As I said, treat yourself and your emotions with love and kindness. Welcome them to stay with you and notice that they are present. Also notice that the “story” has nothing to do with who you are as a person and has NO POWER to change who you are unless you are willing to let it. I want you to feel them FULLY and not back away. I want you to act as the “witness” of these feelings and emotions and if stories present themselves then by all means act as a witness to those as well. Meditation helps with this concept and you will find that after some time you will be able to live with these forces present and not let them control you. If you take time to work on this everyday, it is my 100% guarantee to you that you will start to see that there is nothing to be afraid of and that you call the shots in your mind and actions. Soon enough you will be able to look at things that once sent paralyzing fear throughout your body and be able to sit back and watch it happen without labeling or connecting any of the content or stories to who you are. Don’t get me wrong, this will take some time, but the only thing standing in the way is you.You will come to a point where you may want to “spike” yourself because you know how to handle it. Wouldn’t that be a great day… It’s not far off if you take the steps to get there.
In closing I hope that my personal solution helps at least one of you. Some of you may understand this totally and others may not. For some of you this may make zero sense and just a bunch of new age self explorative babble. I’m ok with that. Each and every one of you will find your way through this in one way or the other. Some of you will do nothing at all and simply endure this short but painful period in your life and find you wake up one day completely “cured”. You can send me private messages and I will respond as time permits. If you do find this helpful, I only ask one thing, that you reach out to someone else in need and give them your assistance. They sure could use it right about now. I wish you all well and, no, you aren’t gay you just need to do a little self inquiry to get to the bottom of this!

“The Perfect man employs his mind as a mirror, it grasps nothing, it refuses nothing. It receives, but does not keep” –Lao Tzu

-J

Thanks man I really needed this. For the past couple months my OCD has spiked and my self-image and self-worth has severely dropped. My initial response when my OCD got bad was how the hell am I going to have a beautiful wife, kids, and a successful career if I imagine gay things and cross-dressing 99% of the day with so much extreme disgust it literally paralyzes me. I really wanted a personal testimony of a guy who's been through what I've been through and came out alright in the end. I should be focusing on the root causes of these thoughts and start from there. I hope that I'll end up like you when I'm you're age, finally confident and with OCD beaten.

Hey Man,

It sucks, Believe me, I know. No worries on the wife and kids. If that is what you truly want then that is what you will have. The good news is that you don't have to wait long to get over this! It will only go on as long as you let it. You should be experiencing as many ladies as possible at this point in your life instead of dealing with this HorseSh!t! I'll list some things that helped me and I hope you give them a shot. just remember that this absolutely DOES NOT have the power to change your orientation or who you are in any way shape or form. I know its hard to "accept" the thoughts as you are probably thinking, well if I do that then I'm going to turn gay for sure but make no mistake it's not the "content" you are accepting it is the thought itself, which is literally meaningless and 100,000% false. Remember that it's just a story. If one of your worst fears was spontaneously turning into a giraffe then guess what? you'd be having GOCD right now. CONTENT DOES NOT MATTER. Go easy on yourself and live for NOW. Part of the problem is that you are living in the future at this point, and you are always worrying about something that "might" happen and being so hyper guarded about possible outcomes. You know who you are even though they say that reassurance is a "bad" thing for OCD but you really do know!

Read this book-----> "practicing the power of now" by Eckhart Tolle

Do This--------> MEDITATE. Get an app called "insight Timer" in the App store and start with "journey through Pain" guided meditation by Andy Hobbs. Other silent meditation is good but you need to sit back and be "the observer" of your thoughts. Just kick back and watch what is going on in your head and DO NOT judge, label, attach them to you in any way. JUST WATCH & OBSERVE!

Research this-----> Buddhism. I'm not trying to make you believe it or follow it, its just an interesting perspective on the human condition and suffering.

Listen to this--------> Alan Watts on youtube. he is philosopher and he talks about some CRAZY Sh!t. It will help open your mind, or at least occupy some of your time. It's really interesting and super deep. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uaxmtlj6Yfo

PM me if you need to. I'll do anything I can to help you brother. and remember YOU GOT THIS!

Thanks man! I'll definitely look into all that

HI - Thanks for posting this. I know it's been 5 years since this post, but my story is very similar to yours. This issue "popped up" for me "later" in life as well. I'm currently 41, married to my wife now 18 years and we have 3 kids. Last year, before turning 41, this HOCD stuff just hit me with a random fear of turning gay. Similar past where I had no real trauma, no thoughts or urges for experimenting, just all women all the time. Straight porn when younger but tailed off that shortly after having first child.

Currently in therapy and we have been doing some ERP. I wanted to ask if you did specific in vivo exposures or just learned how to work with the thoughts and the fears. I also have found a lot of success stories where people just agree with the thoughts. So if a thought comes that you're gay, you simply say "yep, that's right", or "yep, I'm attracted to that guy there". I'm curious if that's the technique you used or if you simply found a way to stop engaging with the thoughts.

The other thing I wanted to ask is how do you truly accept feelings of fear and anxiety? I see a TON of positive research on acceptance, but telling yourself you're accepting while secretly just trying to get through it and accepting are different. Any tips on true acceptance?

Hope you're still doing well