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Scared and afraid of TOCD and HOCD

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Scared and afraid of TOCD and HOCD

Postby instantkarma30 » Wed May 06, 2020 12:41 pm

(Again, i tried to write this post 3 times and i don't know if i succeeded... Sorry if i'm spamming, i don't do it on purpose but it logs me out after i submit)

Hi everyone.
I'm a young italian woman, i'm 23 and first of all sorry for my poor english, as it's not my first language.
Anyway. I'm having a hard time right now.
I've been locked at home due to quarantine since march, and maybe being alone worsened my symptoms? I don't know.
In february i started worrying constantly about my sexual orientation. It's not the first time. It all started because i can't have an orgasm, nor feel too much pleasure, with my boyfriend. Actually, I never succeeded in masturbation even alone. I really love him (i think???), he fits in all the boxes I always had when i imagined my ideal boyfriend/husband: he's cute, clever, understanding, and loves me a lot.
When i met him i had been single for a little more than a year, succeeding in getting out of a sexless (because of some of his erection problems) relationship with another guy which lasted from FIVE LONG YEARS. After having a lot of issues with my self esteem (which i always had) i woke up after a dream in which i was being raped by a female friend of mine with the endless question AM I A LESBIAN?
It quickly escalated in a nightmare, i started checking every woman aroud, feeling disgusted and anxious about it, with sexual thoughts about my female friends that i felt were terrible. After a week it evolved into a form of POCD which only regarded baby girls. I felt totally miserable, hopeless, and i started seeing a psychologist who told me it was all due to my inexperience and psychologically abusive relationship. So i left him and started living again. Sometimes i remember the thoughts popping out, but they never scared me so much.

So, when i met my current boyfriend, in October, i was kinda worried because i didn't want to loose my freedom, but was happy because i thought it was the opportunity to finally be with somebody i could love and who would love me back. And he does! He's really caring, and i actually couldn't wish for anything more.
Yet i couldn't understand why i didn't come. He's skilled in my opinion, i feel that i want it and all, but what actually arouses me more is seeing him aroused.
And so the thought (AM I A LESBIAN?) morphed again. DO I LIKE BEING WITH HIM BECAUSE I WANT TO BE HIM? AM I ACTUALLY A MAN?
And this literally made me crazy. Literally. Now i feel like i can't be with both men and women, i can't even watch a movie or read a book because i don't know who i will identify with!
Sometimes i feel like thinking about normal sex doesn't turn me on anymore, but i used to fantasize about it or having a boyfriend a lot! I remember cuddling with my pillow imagining a boyfriend, but at the same time it's just like my brain turned 180 degrees and now i'm somehow convinced that all of my deep friendship with girls were actually crushes and the men i always crushed on were somehow THE PERSON I WANTED TO BE.
I'm really scared even because i can't imagine me as myself in a relationship with a woman... So then why i don't feel sexual pleasure with men?
Sometimes i force myself to imagine being a man with a woman, and think deeply about how it may feel to have a... Penis during intercourse. And i feel like if i think about it long enough i can imagine it. And it scares me! Because i shouldn't be able to do it i think.

I know that I suffered from rejection from men, but my mind tells me I also suffered when some of my friendship ended!
And then it tells me 'how can you be sure if you like men if you don' t masturbate?' and i KNOW that i love it when he holds me, kisses and hugs me, i know that I wanted him doing some... graphical things to me, but how can i be sure that i actually liked it and it wasn't a social construct?

I'm seeing a therapist. She's an expert in both gender identity issues and sexology, and she says it's a form of OCD and that some of my issues with intimacy with my female friends (i don't like to be hugged) are caused by my mother being a very cold and problematic person.
I would love to talk about everything, to explain every little thing which seems very important to me only to recieve as an answer: YOU'RE OK, YOU CAN BE A WOMAN, YOU CAN BE WITH A MAN AND LIKE IT.
I don't want to be a man. All of my life i've felt somehow different from the other girls, but always considered myself a proud peculiar woman. And after all, i always wished i had bigger boobs, but now i feel like i wanted them because i actually was ATTRACTED to my friends boobs.

This is a nightmare. I don't know what to do. I'm scared and anxious and feel like i'm living a lie.
Can you help?
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Re: Scared and afraid of TOCD and HOCD

Postby Snaga » Mon May 11, 2020 6:58 pm

Hello, and welcome!

To keep from being logged out, it helps to check off the box labeled, 'Keep me logged in', when logging in. Long posts tend to get lost, if that's not done.

I would trust the therapist, especially if they're also trained in gender and sexology. If they say it's OCD, I would take that as Gospel, personally.

I'm both bisexual and also don't consider myself fully my birth sex in personality, and have OCD, and I will say that the fears that are described for TOCD and HOCD, don't seem to jive with my own personal experiences.. when you're actually gay and/or trans, your anxiety set isn't going to be this, nor do you feel the need to 'check', in my experience. Also part of you would resist the idea of being straight and cis. To be blunt, the idea of not being me is boring, even if I don't like what I am. But I know I am it... and in these pages, there's so much doubt, from the posters, such as yourself.

Please try to trust your therapist. From my experiences with harm intrusive thoughts, it's a matter of accepting that these thoughts will pop up, but learning not to listen to them or allow yourself to be bothered by them. It's not foolproof, but it's not magic, either. Takes lots of practice. But please try to relax and think about how you were, before you had these fears- had you ever questioned your sexuality or gender, before?
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Re: Scared and afraid of TOCD and HOCD

Postby instantkarma30 » Mon May 11, 2020 7:51 pm

Hi and thank you for your kind answer!
Again, sorry if i spam...
Btw i never actually questioned it, especially my gender... It is, for me, a fact! Sometimes i asked myself what it would be like to be a man , or considered my social behavior somehow more 'masculine' (i've never been shy, until now and always tended to speak for myself, but i don't think i never depicted masculine interests. And to be true, i'm not even good in stereotypical masculine manual activities). Somehow, however, my close friends and family consider me very feminine (always been an empath).
I remember always admiring beautiful women since i was younger, but i never had the slight thought about it until i was 21, which felt uncomfortable and not a part of me, even because i always crushed for guys, since i was very little (again, i have always been kind of a serial lover, meaning that all of my crushes kinda look similar. Could it mean anything?).
Again, i always thought my fascination with boobs was somehow related to my body issues (i'm very thin and always felt like a ugly duckling).
Actually, i always felt bad because i love vintage fashion and due to my slim body i can't wear the kind of dresses i prefere, and i always had to chose a more 'masculine style' (think diane keaton, she's my idol)
Anyways, before having sex for the first time it was a big deal to me, always thought about it, thought a lot about penetration (with me as a reciever, but in my fantasies male arousal was fundamental and a way to 'prove' somehow my power). When i discovered oral sex i always asked my ex bf to try and perform it, but he did it in a way that made me feel so needy and worthless, and only after months. And it's like i have associated it with 'no pleasure' and think i will never like it again.
And now i'm questioning everything because i never had an orgasm and i feel like i'm loosing my identity and creating false memories. Plus, i always wanted to be a mother, but now feel like i could never be one.

I trust my therapist, but i feel hopeless somehow.
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Re: Scared and afraid of TOCD and HOCD

Postby butterfly896 » Wed Jul 08, 2020 9:22 am

Hi babe, I struggle from that to. I cry everyday and sometimes I feel like I'm going crazy. I always been girly but I don't want to be like other girls because I'm a serious person and I liked to be like this. But it all started this two months. I have it all. SOCD, ROCD, HOCD, fear of contamination and now TOCD. All that you said you have, I have it to. I want to be me before this. I was super happy and I am a photographer and I loved to make picture of myself or other girls and never in my life compared me to other girl, I was happy because I have good pictures with beautiful girl. I never wanted to be in a relationship with a girl, it don't feel right for me, and as I saying this it still trigger me but that is the true and my stupid brain need to shut up. I never wanted to be a boy this is crazy, never in my life, I want to be me. Now I look at my pictures and it don't feel like me but I'm working on this. I wake up every morning shaking and my heart feels like it will explode if I don't do something and I start to count, from 1 to 100 and from 100 to 1. All you said in the post it's what I experience and still trying to find a way out.
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Re: Scared and afraid of TOCD and HOCD

Postby dlnewhouse » Wed Aug 05, 2020 12:14 pm

What are TOCD and HOCD? They are not in the dictionary. I consider myself very OCD.
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Re: Scared and afraid of TOCD and HOCD

Postby Snaga » Wed Aug 05, 2020 1:30 pm

They're just convenient acronyms for Transgender-related OCD and Homosexual-related OCD; specifically, fears that one is in the LGBT alphabet soup.

You'll also see ROCD mentioned a lot here, that would be Relationship OCD, freaking out over your relationship.

And you'll see a lot of POCD, fears that one is a pedophile, hebephile, or ephebophile.

HOCD, TOCD, and POCD are the Big Three around here and it's common to see those abbreviations used. I have a lot of Harm OCD, which doesn't rate its own letters, ha.
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