Help HOCD or denial?! It doesn't feel like it oh man.

Okay I'm 26 and male. I've had bouts of HOCD before, one when I was 13, one when I was 16 and one when I was 20.

I believe this one was a slow and steady one and it doesn't feel like my previous bouts. This one seems less severe but I still feel like I need reassurance. I've been straight all my life, and I've always masturbated to thoughts and the thought of sex with a woman always seemed arousing.

Then the onset of HOCD began last week and it's scaring me. I recently tried to shrug it off and tried to control it but it was hard because I felt like I can no longer get aroused by women (aka low sex drive) and my brain no longer reacts much pleasure and arousal if I see an attractive woman. Which shocks me. I don't know and now it's reacting to the HOCD thoughts and it scares me. I know I shouldn't go online and ask for reassurance but if I leave it alone it will feel like denial which HOCD has been telling me a lot. It's hard to reassure this time cause my sex drive has gone much much lower. I just need help. Today I stood next to another man at work and it gave me these thoughts and I felt like "oh man it feels real I need to stop it". Ugh.

Do you get arousal when you see a man? Why does the fear of losing some attraction to women make you think you like men?

1. No I don't. I've never had a boner with a guy.
2. I fear cause it feels bad, I've been worried about this and it's getting worse the more I try to masturbate to get rid of this. Not too long ago a new pretty female coworker gave me a boner. It's hell and it's making me believe your sexuality can change even though that's possible.

Rest assured your sexual orientation cannot change.

If you were in denial, the fear would not be fear of wanting to be with other men, but the fear of how others would accept it, and how it would impact your life if you came out to others as gay. If you're fearing that you might suddenly begin to find men attractive because you haven't been interested in too many women lately, it is HOCD.

There's absolutely no rational or legit basis for what you're fearing right now.

Right now, as a 26 year old man, it is possible that maybe you need to see a doctor about your testosterone. When I was around 15 to 23 or so, there would be times my libido would hit rapidly and I'd have sexual arousal every couple hours, but it tended to go away a bit more by the time I was your age as it begins to level out after you are around 25. That doesn't mean you won't experience arousal anymore, but the days of it being so much that you want to have sex every day are probably no more.

Okay Thanks. Although s hard to get reassurance because there's a lot of things that might trigger a spike. I'm afraid they mirror arousal.

In general, for OCD, I could try reassuring you all day long, but it wouldn't really do much of anything. You pretty much just have to experience it and get through it by living day to day and understanding the difference.

Also, maybe it might try to help to accept that even if you were gay, it really doesn't matter anyhow. The way you're talking, it doesn't seem like you're ever going to want to be in a relationship with another male or you'll ever desire sex with other men, so I guess maybe just accept the feelings whatever they are and don't worry about what happens if you see a guy and you think there's a chance you may end up finding him attractive.

Also, what may help is that a lot of times what happens is men see other men that they envy their looks and physical fitness because of the women they likely can get, and sometimes get aroused at the thought of being them, not at the thought of being with them.

The main task at hand for you is letting go of trying to prove you're not gay. I was experiencing something similar where I had to let go of trying to prove I wasn't a pedophile. It just can't be done.