Accepting the thought

Yesterday I had a bad day, when I was l lying next to my girlfriend and had this memory of being on a party, it was Fun with my friend and I had this wierd thought about penis and I accept it and felt like yeah whatever and I felt erection coming up but I accept it as well and I felt this physical arousal so I thought I am accepting this as well and I thought „it feels good yeah” I know that physical arousal is pleasurable this is how we are designed but After I accept it and felt pleasurable physical arousal I felt bad anxiety and I felt a sleep, in the morning I still had a anxiety of the roof it makes me feel bad really bad. Accepting and telling yourself it feels fine to make it go is bad I hate it my anxiety is really bad now. I had to take medication to calm down my anxiety



Does this make me not straight ?

I don't like it when people refer to 'accepting the thought'. That implies accepting the premise of the thoughts, which I personally don't believe in doing. Maybe it's just a communication issue with me, I don't know- but this is a good example of it.

With Harm OCD, I don't accept the thoughts that I'm going to kill myself or others, or pets. I reject those thoughts! What I do accept, however, is that the thought is there. I don't fight the thought, because it's only a thought. Thoughts of all sorts come and go out of peoples' brains. I can think all sorts of things but that doesn't mean they're things I want, or want to do, or am. Sometimes, a cigar is only a cigar...

As a sexual example, I don't generally have POCD. That doesn't mean it doesn't nibble at me, however. Whenever a pedophilic thought pops in my head, I accept the thought is there- but I of course reject any premise that I'm a pedophile. Why? Well, because I'm not. Why? Well, I don't have a history of it. And because I said so. I don't fight the thought, I don't try to think if I'm really a pedophile or not, I don't beat that thought with a stick over and over. And five minutes later, the thought is gone- because it was just a thought.

Yeah I also disagree with the wording of "accepting the thought," or really I think it could be reworded a bit. I always thought that accepting the thought meant that you have to accept it as being true. As my name implies, I suffer from sexual orientation themes. So for months I thought that acceptance meant accepting my sexuality as being something I did not want. But that's now what acceptance is in terms of OCD treatment. Acceptance is more about accepting the feelings that the thought provokes in you. If the thought makes you feel anxious, if it makes you feel terrified, you accept that feeling and go on with your day without trying to do anything about the feelings. This goes for sensations too, such as a groinal response. If you were to become aroused by something that goes against your orientation, the ERP approach to responding to that would be to accept that the arousal is there and just go on with your day without doing anything about it.

I think you have to also not care. It's deferring anxiety for when there is a reason. Would it really be so bad to be gay? And you're not, so it's moot. Therefore, defer the anxiety for when you actually are with the same sex. Not before.