figured out hocd (plz read) !

[jimo204]

hey guys, I've posted  a few times on different forums on this site and can't seem to find ppl who understand, hope you guys can help. Well I'm a 23 year old male and have this whole Idea that I think I'm gay, about a year ago I beat hocd, slowly with abit of help from antidepressants. For sure I told my self that was the first and last time I was ever going to deal with the topic, any who its come back.

So let me start off with saying that right now I'm having trouble as well & I am experiencing many of the hocd symptoms, like the questioning "am I gay?", I definitely feel like I know how to beat it but there's is one problem- I am depressed due to returning  issues  of not being able to keep a simple job so my self esteem is low. When I was a kid I had 2 same sex experiences but it was done with an innocence of mind, after that I began to look at porn and I got hooked, it was all straight all the time. I wasn't ever really a popular kid through school so as far as girls went I could only imagine. Porn definitely gave me a place to escape but also hurt me cause I never experienced love. Last few years of my life things have changed, I am now possibly desensitized to the images of women & the depression has taken joy away from me as well as my libido. I don't know what to really do so the hocd is really the only thing My mind, I was seeing a girl who I did have sex with and I wanted To be with but I had no Feelings 4 her eventhough I was trying; Soon after hocd hit. I mean I have had the odd thought where I viewed the same sex in a sexual way b4 but I knew where I stood so I'd brush it off quick as if it were nothing.
So do u guys agree its hocd, Im just looking for reassurance, its just bothersome that it came back and I can't seem to be in a relationship cause I'm not used to being with someone or I jus havnt met the right one and I don't know what to do. I welcome any input from everyone & I believe I can help  you with your hocd problems cause I did escape its grip,  feel free to msg me - thnx!

[hocdvictim]

Any kind of anxiety will stop libido no matter how much control you think you have. I definitely know it's the case with me. When I come home I just lie down on the couch and think about all the girls I came across that day and being depressed about it because I couldn't feel anything for any of them. My life wasn't like this before my HOCD hit.

When it gets to a point when you feel like you've become a slave to what your mind says then there's a good chance you most likely have HOCD. Whenever I see a girl I want to be interested in my mind tells me "Ignore her, you're gay!" and then I'm hit with a series of gay thoughts out of nowhere and I lose all arousal. It happens whenever I see girls I like and I absolutely hate it. Because my arousal for girls dropped my mind then tells me "Looks like girls aren't turning you on anymore, you'll be happy being with guys from now on." Your mind will tell you a lot of things in response to your anxiety and make you feel worse and worse about it.

The first time I defeated my HOCD I did so by letting the thoughts hang around while paying them no real attention. It got to a point where they no longer threatened or affected me and I was able to go back to girls and my life just fine. I would get gay thoughts sometimes but they would just fade away from memory almost right away. Unfortunately it came back a few months ago and that method isn't working for me anymore. I think what happened is that my mind started recognizing it as a "check" so it threw back into that spiral of doubting and questioning all over again. When you have to resort to analyzing yourself and stuff like that then it means your HOCD has got you right where it wants you.

I honestly believe if I can perform the same thing I did before I think I can defeat this monster again. It's just that it's very difficult to not get your mind to recognize what you're trying to do. When someone has HOCD their mind will do everything in its power to keep you from returning to a peace of mind, that's why we continue to question ourselves and our minds just won't allow us to settle with an answer. If anyone wants to message me about HOCD or ways of dealing with it please don't hesitate to do so.

[jimo204]

Hmm... I've seen a recurring cycle where once depression hits for me this "anxiety" also tags along. Usually  Anxiety & depression co-exist so if u have one you'll usually have the other. For myself I had to ask, "what came first? The depression or the "hocd"? , easy enough I can say it was depression because of all the obvious struggles I've had in the past. With that being said I've learned to talk about it with my therapists and learned how severely I am actually depressed, I don't even really understand how I feel so that's a good indication my state of mind.
As for your situation that's where I am right now, just questioning the past or checking to prove to myself that I am actually straight. No I don't think you or I are "gay", I would say if you don't feel good about life in general, you may be depressed. I just started taking meds for depression, last time I went down this rout it began to turn my life around I had the same anxiety and everything. As the meds began to work, depression and the anxiety lifted and I could feel again and I knew who I was. Oh and I occasionally think-"what if the world ends in 2012" or " I can die at any moment". this hocd is the only thing that's confusing the crap out of me, all around I'm just not a confident person & that's why I'm probably going through this.
Hope this cleared up some issues, feel free to post again      

[Meoff123]

Depression could be the cause for the lack of labido, I think I have HOCD and am going to therapy currently. I had a lack of labido for about two months before it started due to some heavy drinking and some depression issues because a girl I thought I was going to date rejected me and I tend to get depressed for a while once things like that happen. I get the reapeating thoughts "Im gay, could I be gay, what if I am gay, am I gay" go through my head all day. I don't feel that they are true they started happening immediately after my friend who is gay asked me if Im sure Im not gay. Do you think I have HOCD? Also do you drink heavily and have you had other obsessions before? Like I still cant have anyone drink out of my water bottle and have their lips touch the rim of it out of the fear that I will be drinking their backwash. I have also obsessed about other things before in my life. Also my brain tries to tell me that if I don't like every girl that comes up to me or is interested in me then I have to be gay, even though before my thoughts started I was definitely sexually attracted to nearly every girl I saw but their personality determined whether or not I was really into them. So in short I think it is HOCD trying to trick you into believing that you didn't have any feelings for the girl because you said yourself in your post that you wanted to be with her. HOCD, or at least mine, tries really hard to tell me that I have never had any feelings for any girls that they were just lies or that I was forcing feelings towards girls.