I dont understand gay! help i have ocd

[Patrick109]

Hey!
I am a sixteen years old teenager. Since my birth i have only liked girls, attracted to girls and never to boys. I would feel jealous if another boy took my girl, or if that girl ignored me (when i was 6-7 years old). In elementary school i fell in love with a girl and we were together (i even had sexual dreams about her) and i wasn't attracted to boys at all. In middle school i had a girlfriend and i liked her alot (fell in love with her). Then the year after i had a crush on a girl for 2,5 years and i have never ever in my life been attracted to boys. I still like that girl today and i think she's really pretty and cute... I was absolutely in love with girls and i had high libido. During those days in middle school and still now i watch porn and masturbate alot. I only masturbate with girls in my mind and i only watch porn videos with girls in, i have done that for years. I have never watched gay porn or masturbated with boys in my mind. But some times ago, me and my friends started to talk about homosexuality and all the circumstances. And we stuck on the subject on how to know if you're gay and how it begins. And since that talk, the subject has been stuck on my mind. The more i think of it, the more i become scared of being gay. Last year (when this happend) i started to ignore eye contact with my friends and ignored any physical contacts. I always thought to NOT behave like a gay person and payed attention to every movement i did. But i am so scared. I want to continue have a heterosexual life with a nice wife and children. I don't think i ever had an attraction for boys, but that thing keeps comming into my mind and i get so stressed out. Then everything in my mind just changes. I am scared that i will lose my love for girls. Many say that some people can discover their true sexuality later in life, and i am scared that i am one of them! I don't want to think about it, but the more i ignore, the more i think of it. In all my life i've only had guy friends as close friend, litterly. Never had any sexual feelings for them and i've never been thinking of them. I only go with the boys and i am very cool (with my personality too), dark and masculine voice and talk like a real man. But i have had anxiety problem recently and it only becomes worse. I am also very stressed out because of school... Once i was so stressed with all the anxiety and problems in my life that my brain became burned out and i  was tired 24/7, like REALLY tired. My mentally brain was destroyed and i couldn't study and i couldn't concentrate at all. I couldn't understand what my teacher explained to me in a simple chemical question (which i could easily solve normally). But back to sexuality. I just want someone to confirm if i'm gay or not or if i can just become gay some day? Because i currently have anxiety...

[rainaB]

I'm sorry to hear you're stressing over this too.
I was hoping you could help reach out to me in a time of need. I needs someone to help me undertanad myself and hear from someone going through the same thing I am.
Here's my whole issue. Its kinda messy so bare with me please.
I'm 17 years old . I've been going through the same thing since I was 8.I've been on and off , and sometimes they get really bad and I often say to myself if I am really a lesbian then I don't want to exsist. Its sick I get to this point but I can't help it. I feel like its the end of the world when I feel this way. I don't want to deal with his anymore.it haunts me.  
And for me also , it comes up when I'm most stressed . as a kid I don't think I've had any traumatic experience leading to this. All I could think of is my father went to war for two years and I hadn't been able to see him and my mother was strong throughout it but as expected a little unstable. She never cheated or went off the rails . she was just very upset...but you see I don't remember most of it idky. I may have blocked it out ? She is  the person I vent to. Every year at least once or twice . I feel she was at first a slight bit concerned but she always reassures me of the fact that its just hocd. I'm very close to her  we talk about they guys im intrested in all the time..and you would think just saying that im attracted to guys would explain that i am indeed attracted to guys and not lesbian but my mind refuses to agree and the thoughts fester. I live in a house of 5 girls and my father. Being surrounded by girls makes me uncomfortable in times like this.  
Growing up I was literally afraid of getting sick. To me it was the worst thing ever, I would cry and actually isolate myself from anyone and anything that could get me sick. Also I have these nervous ticks that I get for my anxiety peaks. For example like making noises to satisfy a urged feeling in my throat, or twitching my neck etc..  
Now I get upset when I eat food. I know I'm not overweight and I was always happy with my body but recently I don't want to eat at all fearing to gain a single pound. Then the hunger will control me and I will binge eat everything at once , feel guilty and start the cycle over again. I have that and this hocd right now and its mentally destroying me. 
I just need to know there's a light at the end of this tunnel.  
Boys have excited me in my life for as long a s I could remember (not sexually until a year or two ago. But even just the simple crushes I've had excited me and kept me crushing on more guys.) Its like I'm battling myself. I don't want to be gay . I don't want to find out I'm in denial  And when there's the slightest chance I can be I cry to the point of where I cannot breath and don't want to get out of bed . 
For a while I could block it out and it seems so stupid that I could ever think this way (when im enjoying a guy or in a relationship.) And that I'm obviously not lesbian but then it comes crawling back to me.  
I was happily in a hetero relationship and having sex and feeling good but then we broke up and it came back worse than ever.  
Which is right now.its been a few months since my boyfriend and I split. And I've accepted it and pretty much moved on.  
Now the anxiety and thought are rushing in and its like when I have nothing to stress over, or also on the other side of the spectrum, when i have so many things im stressing about is when it comes back strongest. I know I'm kind of rambling without any structure in what I'm saying... Its just I need help and I cannot stop thinking about it. Its controlling my life and my happiness . its been 9 years . I cannot handle this .if you could help me that would be the kindest thing a person has ever done for me. 
I know I didn't cover everything but it would be a really long post if I did. I just need help and recommendation.

[Patrick109]

Don't be stressed about how you miss the scenario where you could talk about how pretty some of thet girls in your school. The more you worry about how you can't be the same, the anxiety just becomes worse. Look what i've recommended, it seems like you are having it worse than me but I have a great ability to convince myself.

"your just being silly" is a really bad thing to convince yourself with, that phrase will NEVER make your anxiety go away. Try not to find any excuses or event in your brain, where you appear to be hetero. Soon those thoughts will just make you insecure if you are gay or not. And that's the whole point with OCD, it's playing with your brain. Rather just ACCEPT that you have anxiety, you are scared, breathe deeply. Are you homophobic? I was a homphob before relieving my anxiety. After I read on the internet and tips, my homophobic thougts disappeared. "if i'm gay then so i'm, i can't control it, i have to respect myself and be proud". That's how my anxiety actually became better.  

[Hangirl0024]

I confront it and say to myself  " yeah so what if I'm gay" or "your no different as a person"

Thanks for the advice really appreciate. Thnakyou :)

[Hangirl0024]

I have  never been homophobic coz I have family member who is a gay man.
But what I release I do is, I watch a lot of youtubers and sometimes on my recommended gay youtubers come up or coming out stories come and I avoid them at all cost coz they make me anxious so instead of make myself stressed and in discomfort I just avoid things that make me anxious for a while.

[Patrick109]

Just do things you feel comfortable with, that's how I'm right now. Boys don't really compliment other boys like girls do, so I don't have that problem. Yeah, I learned that the more you try to reassure yourself, the more the anxiety gets worse. But that reassurance is only temporary and the anxiety will come back the more you think about it. So right now when the anxiety appears I just say to myself:
"Don't think about it, there's tons more important to think about, the more I think about it, the worse it gets".
Then I concentrate on other things like the 5 senses we have, our breath or smell.
Just don't think about it, how bad could it be? If you are gay then let it be, its not like you have really chosen your own path of being gay. These thoughts are good because that relieves my stress and anxiety. Sometimes I say "I'm gay, so what" even if I'm straight, just so the anxiety goes away.
AND WHEN the anxiety and stress goes away for a day or something like that, my attraction for girls slowly increases. But your libido doesn't just increases in a few minutes that's just impossible because it takes time after the anxiety and stress are gone. Don't be scared we are still teenagers and alot of things happen in our puberty. My doctor said that in puberty there's alot of different and new thoughts that enters your mind and could cause alot of thinking = stress and anxiety.
There's also a difference between feeling anxious and feeling attracted to someone. While we are stressed and anxious, we can't
differentiate those feelings and we somehow become insecure about our feelings. I actually noticed that, that feeling when looking at guys and looking at girls i like. The feeling when looking at guys is a "scary" and anxious feeling. While looking at girls is different.
    

[Patrick109]

Yeah... Actually I already had HOCD (kind of) in spring 2015. But I didn't quite know about the problem. I just felt that me and my friend's physical contact with each other was too gay? But way back then I thought my friend was gay and not me so I didn't have that kind of anxiety. But after that I started to avoid physical contact with my guy friends. I even stopped looking in their eyes, because that scared me and I tried to act as manly as possible, not like homosexual persons (stereotypical). But I somehow convinced myself and I didn't have much problems TILL the last weeks of summer holiday when I accidently read an article on the internet on how to prove yourself being homosexual. I read that article and said to myself that I wasn't gay. But those thoughts kept clinging in my mind and messed up a bit. Somehow I was able to convince myself that I wasn't gay so those thoughts disappeared over the semester. During that semester I could find myself looking at girls and be interested in them (and not even thinking about boys sexually, romantically or having a future with them)
And now currently when it's winter holiday, those thoughts are back again.   And I have done more researches on the Internet which have made me more insecure... I am currently sixteen. But I have in my life always been Heterosexual ever since I was a little kid I was in love with girls. I can't remember one single moment where I was interested in boys actually or felt an affection for them. Right now there are weird stuff comming in and out of my brain, so the more I try to convince myself, the more I become insecure and the more I get anxiety.

I usually hang around with my best friends (same-gender) and I feel absolutely no affection for them which actually answers my anxiety and I feel reassured. But then again when i'm alone these thoughts just takes over, and I should just say from what I've read on the internet that:
1.We who suffer from this shouldn't fight the anxiety, just accept that we have it, how hard could it possibly be if you are gay and u could actually feel it.
2. Anxiety only gives us false images. Anxiety stresses me up, and stress makes my libido or affection for girls low, because there are other bad thoughts that are stopping my brain from thinking correctly.
3. Don't be stressed up by how you feel, we are still teenagers and we are currently in puberty. All kind of thoughts just make things weird for us.
4. Don't think about it so much, don't worry, why would you worry? Is there anything to worry for? If you have been straight your whole life and u don't feel affection for the same-gender then you are not gay, it's just the puberty that messes up. AND DON'T THINK ABOUT THESE THINGS I JUST WROTE. If you keep remembering these words, this will only
reassure you temporary, but if you keep thinking about it all the time you will soon be more insecure.

These are the things I have to keep in mind and what I've learned from having this dilemma.

[Hangirl0024]

Yeah your right. But when I see my therapist I don't think she will know what SO ocd is.


It's funny coz when I relies that I'm not gay and I say to my self " your just being silly" I have relief and it goes away for a few minutes but it comes right back.

It's tends to get worst when I'm not doing anything or in school holidays and in the weekends.

[Hangirl0024]

Another thing that I have discovered is that I can't look at the same sex and go wow she's pretty. At school my friends always talk about how pretty some of the girls in school are, but I can't because I just feel so anxious talking it about but before the whole scenario happened I use to talk with them about how pretty they are.

[Hangirl0024]

OMG. This is the exact same thing I'm going through. I suffer from high anxiety before this whole situation happened. I went to see a therapist and it was great, I finally felt like the old me so I stopped going to therapy then one day BOOM the thought "what if I'm gay" came into my head. That's it i Experience the worst anxiety that I have ever come across. At first I did the techniques that I was taught to do. But it wouldn't stop the thought. Now I'm going nuts over it. I look at every girl in school and go "do I like you" nothing seems to quit the thought.

I obcess about how I walk, what I wear and how I talk.

I have had crushes on boys at my school, in music bands and on TV but nothing seems to stop it. I cry nearly every night coz I can't handle it anymore. I've talked to my mum about and she says she loves me no matter what.
I've played truth or dare once and I had to kiss a boy and a girl. The boy went perfectly fine and I kinda like it coz I had a crush on him. But when I kissed the girl before my sub conscious could kick in I instantly felt wired and felt wrong. But the thoughts and anxiety still won't stop.

It's gone to the extent now that I don't feel the feeling of love no more coz my anxiety takes over it. When I like at a boy Im obsess with the thoughts "am I aroused'do I like him" and when I do feel aroused  then the thought " what if I am trying to cover up that with the fact that I am gay" and then the feeling I had with the boy just gets pushed away by the anxiety.

It's the worst feeling ever.
I have talked to my doctor and she has transferred me to a therapist. But then I feel that when I tell the therapist, that I have thoughts about sexual orientation that they think that I'm gay and I trying to cover it up. Or that they judge me on how I act and behave.

As a child I use to be a bit of a Tom boy but when I was 13 I decide to change and be a girly girl, I am currently 15 . But even when I was a Tom boy I had crushes on the boys I used to hang around with.

But I'm in the same boat as your in and I feel relieved that I can talk to someone who understands what is happening.

[Patrick109]

Yeah I understand what you mean, i really enjoy being with girls. But the stress and anxiety actually makes my affection for girls worse. If I, as an example had a girlfriend right now, it would be much easier to distinguish if i'm gay or not. But currently I have no girlfriend or a crush I really pay attention to (except girl celebrities and idols). But the more stress and anxiety I have, the more scared I get losing my affection for girls. So that becomes a problem for me and the anxiety just becomes more and more. My affection for girls during anxiety, lowers.

So the thing is: I get worried about losing my affection for girls and more worried about becoming homosexual.

School starts soon and I think I can differentiate my affections for girls and boys and I hope that can answer my anxiety.  

[Patrick109]

Hey! Thank you for the response. Because I have anxiety over another thing, i've checked it up with a doctor and there's no problem whatsoever. The doctor asked me if I had anxiety and stress over different things and actually ordered me to see a therapist. I don't know if that's exacly like a psychologist. I told the doctor about having anxiety over sexual orientation and he wanted me to see a therapist.

I can't really tell me parents about it because the atmospshere and their opinions on me will change (because I'm unsure about my current orientation, but I think they will accept it if i'm actually gay). In  the country where I live there is a youth clinic that helps teenagers to overcome or check different problems. I was there today to check if I had problems with my prostata (mainly because of  anxiety) but there wasn't. I have no problems at all meeting with a therapist.

But I really want to know if puberty can change someone's sexual orientation just like that?

The thing with stress is the "prolonged" stress. Many doctors say that it could cause lots of problems in a human body and that frightens me. I want to live a life happily without much stress, anxiety and pressure. This anxiety makes me so stressed out but I've searched on the internet about  techniques on how to lower my stress. If my anxiety ends, my stress will end too.

And about the genetics, no one in my family or in my family tree have ever been homosexual. Since I was like 10, I could even feel that my libido and my testosterne was so high and the sexual thoughts about girls just overflowed through my brain. I masturbated alot, my affection for girls was crazy.

Once again, thank you for the response.

[Sweetheartgirl]

If you liked girls and you enjoyed it then there's no way u can be gay