HOCD? Please Help

Hi I apologize for this wall of text but I need some reassurance (which I know is not the answer) as I am having a huge dilemma. Some of the details are a little blurry so bear with me.

I am a 22 year old hopefully straight male and I have been dealing with fears that I am gay since on and off seemingly since I was 12 years old. I can remember having crushes on girls since 2nd grade although I would get anxiety if anyone knew or said something about it. My first sexual thought was of a girl in a bikini I saw on a magazine when I was 8 years old at a grocery store. I went home and fantasized talking to her saying things like "you're so sexy with that bikini on" etc., and was actually caught by my dad. I also remember thinking one of my female cousins were hot at a young age, I knew it was wrong but I just thought she was hot.

It followed a summer where I constantly worried I was going to hurt myself, sparked by mom telling me someone we knew had killed himself, and I was completely convinced these were real thoughts. When I went back to school in the fall those thoughts went away most likely because I had become busy enough where my thoughts couldn't bother me. However, a few months later I was at my uncles house with him, my father, and other friends watching an NFL game and I kept having this thought to kiss the guy next to me. This thought felt foreign to me and I handled it just as I had the harmful thoughts with the idea "if I don't move I wont do it". I remember being so relieved to leave because I could get away from it.

Furthermore, there was a bisexual kid in my grade and he had come out when he was like 10 or 11 years old, and I always felt very uncomfortable around him, and other gay people. I had nothing against them I just always felt anxious and uncomfortable around gay people or hearing people say that someone was gay.I felt the same way when people talked about suicide. The kid I mentioned before had a cousin who was a girl that I had an attraction to at the time. She was easy as people would say and I imagined sexual things with her sometimes. However one day I was looking at the kid and thinking about his cousin and I had an erection, because at the time I had a girl in every period of my schedule that I liked to look at and would get erections looking at them. Now, I cant remember what happened but I eventually thought it was weird to have an erection looking at a guy. To try and make it disappear I imagined a story I recently heard about him having sex somewhere on school grounds at night and getting caught. The erection didn't go away and now I was convinced I had feelings for him. Thoughts kept rolling through my head saying that I was gay, and I could teach him to be bi and could teach him to be straight. One day while the thoughts were rolling through my head while I was in the shower, I came up with an idea to prove that I was straight. I came to rationalization that if I was a homosexual I would like giving oral and receiving anal and if I did not I was not a homosexual. (Again, due to the length of time passed since I went through this cannot remember exactly what happened.) I tried to perform oral on an object and I didn't like it, and I did not even picture a penis while it was going on, it was just an object. The thoughts just kind of vanished and I went back to thinking about girls 24/7. Within a year or so after that I was on *mod edit* one day and a kid that was a couple years older than me put up a video of he and his friends. I always thought what they did was kind of cool and funny and everything was normal and then at the end of the video the kid stuck his tongue out and smiled and I had this panicked and stressed feeling from what I can remember being the same as the false attractions I deal with now. I can remember watching this part four or five times over to see why I felt this way before I ended up closing it out and not wanting to watch it ever again. I forgot about this too and went back to my normal life.

Then I moved on to high school and everything was normal, I liked girls, had no attraction of any kind to guys false or not. I couldn't even tell you if a guy was good looking or not because I really just didn't care. I could acknowledge who got girls but never thought about why. It was around sophomore year when the harmful thoughts creeped back into my head, and I had thoughts of putting myself in the locker of this girl who I had a crush on at the time and killing myself and eventually these just vanished as well. At this point in time I was highly aroused by a hot girl even touching me or sending a risky text message, however I was scared to talk to them or do anything in person. Then one day after a basketball game I decided to shower with everyone, I had avoided this in the past because had this fear that I was secretly gay and I was afraid I would be turned on by naked guys. So I faced my fear however there was checking while I was in there. As much as I didn't want to I sneaked a look at one of my friends to gauge my reaction and nothing happened so I had reassurance that I wasn't gay and then just went on with the shower. Another part that I cannot remember that what I hope is OCD has played tricks with is that I remember my penis moving while I was in there. I cannot remember what caused this but it made me panic. After everything was over I felt great because in my mind I had proof I wasn't gay.

Within a year or so later I was watching "The Sitter" the movie with Jonah Hill with my family. Everything was fine until the scene that Jonah's character tells one of the kids he was watching that the reason he was so hurt by his friend ignoring him was because that he was gay. Then it struck me that maybe that's how I was. I was not invited to a party at one of my good friends house in the 4th grade and my mom told me I cried. This caused a great deal of panic for a couple days but again, everything went back to normal. Not too long after I was in my room and the music video for the song Firework by Katy Perry came on. I wasn't paying much attention until the part where a guy walks through a crowd of people to kiss another boy (I'm guessing his crush) and I had a feeling similar to the one I mentioned earlier in my face and I thought that this meant I liked it and I panicked for the rest of the time I was awake that night, then I woke up the next morning totally fine. The next year I was in my psychology class and the teacher was showing us the classic ink blot test and claimed one of them pointed out homosexuality. This immediately made me very anxious and I was convinced that this would be absolutely prove whether or not I was gay. He eventually told us the answer and that whatever you saw does not mean anything at all but I did not see what would show homosexuality and I was beyond relieved. A couple months later I was on Instagram and I had a really weird night. First off I was looking at a girls profile and she posted something along the lines of "you're thinking about him aren't you" and I could picture who she was thinking of and then I became worried that I was thinking about him and that was and got nervous. I also saw a crossword puzzle that stated the first word you see describes you, in reality I was just a block of letters spelling out the word gay, which made me anxious at first but when I realized that was the point,I calmed down. That same night I saw a picture of a prominent athlete when he was young and I believe I had a false attraction and when it happened I closed out of the picture as fast as I could, then checked again to see what caused this and then went on with my life.

Going forward I did not worry about being gay seemingly at all for a long time, almost 4 years. I became sexually active and enjoyed it. I would often worry that I had an STD or that I had gotten a girl pregnant and had not had a false attraction or anything spark anxiety in a long time. And ever a funnier obsession was over whether or not I would be bald. I would often ask my mom and others for reassurance that I wasn't going to lost my hair.

Then in the summer of 2016 I was on *mod edit* again and I noticed I didn't feel like myself, pictures of girls didn't make me feel the same way they used too. I kept wondering why this was and noticed I felt kind of "off" so to speak. Then the Orlando night club shooting happened and seemingly everywhere I turned anything gay was in the media. Then one day at work I had a false attraction and I thought it was odd and then I reassured myself and went on with my life for a little while. As I mentioned before, when this stuff isn't going on I do not even think other guys are good looking which is why it feels so off. But by this point my mind was just screaming that I was gay, and started checking and so on. I thought everything would be fine once I got back to school, the thoughts continued and the false attractions worsened and put me in a deep depression and rut, to the point where I couldn't eat or sleep much, I didn't want to leave my room and feel attraction to people and flat out have no enjoyed life since. I then saw a psychology professor and she then told me she defiantly thought it was OCD and recommended me to the school counselor. The school counselor then quickly agreed with her and eventually set me up with a therapist. The therapist also concluded that it was OCD and I have seen her all this summer.

While going through this severely since around November I have gone through all sorts of phases of checking.

Checked to Gay Porn- Doesn't do anything for me, a girl has to be in the video for me to be aroused.
Checking to pictures of Guys- Since I really didn't have a gauge for this I would google things that lead me to pictures of guys and gauged my reactions.
Picture Oral and Anal Sex- Made me very anxious, but while I was smuggling with this it really felt like I would like these things and then I would eventually find out the truth.

And this leads me to what's causing me the most trouble at the moment.
I've checked to the image of kissing guys and it always has had the same outcome, a face of disgust and heavy breathing with no arousal whatsoever. However if I imagine their lips touching mine I get this tingling feeling in my lips and face, almost resembling a "Spark" if you will. I recently have been trying to figure out what it was, and whether or not this really was a spark. I have noticed that it may be from my face being in so much tension. But This worries me because I don't feel this when I kiss girls, I just feel arousal and the desire to do things. This feeling scares me because I have read that when some people discover they are gay after a homosexual experience they feel like they are living in technicolor. But at the same time I feel like this could just be fear??I'm hoping that I have OCD and it is creating this feeling to mess with me, because when I picture kissing guys something deep down inside keeps telling me that I don't want my lips to touch another man's. But now when I check to kissing a man it almost feels like id like it but if was going to make out with them id have to picture a woman to be aroused? This just doesn't make any sense to me at all and I would just really like some insight.


I want to apologize again for the length of this post and I greatly appreciate anyone who will or has taken the time to read it and reply with some insight.

I apologize again for the length and I appreciate anyone taking the time to read this

nobody?

I'm 30 and have suffered from HOCD since age 19 and OCD since I was about 8. I've had STD OCD and fear that I'm going bald. I know what you're going through.

I'm glad you're seeking professional help. Remember to practice the exercises they give you. I too check pictures of attractive men to see if there is a spark but I don't know what to look for. If there is no response I assume I'm comfortable being gay. If I panic, or spike, then I assume I'm gay because it's raised my awareness. Really the only thing I can do is let the thoughts run their course, let the chips fall. I've been attracted to women since I was bout 6 or 7 and I doubt that will change. HOCD did kill my attraction to women which hurt me psychologically. I've never had a girlfriend, which I think was a catalyst for this particular form of OCD.