TOCD

Don’t know if anyone can relate to this, but I have TOCD. It always screams at me that you want to be a woman, you have a vagina etc. I am very happy as a man and have never questioned my gender. Sometimes the thoughts even say I like them which isn’t true. Even the thoughts say I’m in denial. This is textbook ocd right?

Hello and welcome.

If the idea of being trans fills you with despair and you can't bear the thoughts of it, then that sounds like intrusive thoughts. I'm bisexual. I don't want to be, I wish I weren't. Yet the idea of not being what I am is at the same time disheartening. Because it's not an intrusive thought, it's not 'the worst thing in the world', it's not the end of 'me' to be bisexual. It would be the end of 'me' to not be.

These are what they call ego-dystonic. People get thoughts that do not match their core being. An OCD style intrusive thought is like, where we lose sight between thoughts that are merely thoughts, and things from our Id.

In my opinion, if you were trans, you might not want to be trans, but at the same time, you'd find being male to be simple unbearable. I'm male. I'm male who happens to have a really strong feminine component to my personality. I'd rather have been a girl. But- and here's the difference- but being male isn't this unbearable thing. It's merely a disappointment. It sucks, but it's not as if I feel dead unless I'm female. Bona-fide gender dysphoria, as far as I can tell, simply doesn't take such a casual attitude. Ergo, not trans.

I'm not sure we ever fully rid ourselves of OCD style intrusive thoughts, but with practice (stubbornness) it can be managed. I have Harm OCD, and I had to make myself not act on any compulsions as a reaction to intrusive harm thoughts. Instead of doing things to ensure I didn't you know, like kill anyone or anything, I had to learn to ignore them as if they weren't there. After a while they lessen in frequency and in intensity- I still get them, but for the most part I shrug them off. That's what normal folks do- they get all sorts of ego-dystonic thoughts, but they shove them aside and just think 'well that was weird'. I don't do that- unless I make myself do it. And that takes practice. And it hasn't helped me with all my OCD behaviors- but you know, you take the wins you can get.