thewayitusedtobe
Member
Ah, okay, here I go.
I've always had OCD. As long as I can remember, I've preformed little rituals to make myself feel more "complete" -- I would have to open and close doors a certain amount of times, read every line of a book twice, have to make every letter I write absolutely perfect, et cetera. It was definitely a hassle as a child, but I was able to deal with it and still developed emotionally normally and made friendships okay.
Then, when I was 11/12, I started developing an irrational fear of vomiting; I joined several emetophobia forums online and started trying to work through it myself, but throughout the several month period when the fear was at its worst I was pretty much incapable of eating and lost a dramatic amount of weight. It was truly terrible; I limited my diet to only bland foods without color (I didn't want to see the color of the vomit if I did happen to throw up), I never left the house, I refused to touch doorknobs, I used so much hand sanitizer that my hands were cracking and peeling...At one point I even doused my hands in bleach in an effort to get them clean. I'm pretty sure this was also related to germaphobia, but still.
When I was about 12 and 1/2, I started having the most terrible fear of becoming bisexual/a lesbian. I literally spent every moment of my life crying because I was convinced I was going to become gay and at the time that seemed like the most horrifying thing on the planet. I even contemplated suicide at one point, but one of my closest friends told me that she had gone through the same fear at one point and then came out of it straight (like she was before it started). Somehow I managed to get out of that and until yesterday, I never worried about it again because I was confident in my sexuality.
Okay, so, yesterday...I'm at my female friend's house and we're talking about boys and stuff, and I exhibit a fear of not being a good kisser. She laughs and says, "I bet you're fine, kiss me and I'll tell you if you're good or not," and so we take a practice kissing each other in a kidding way, a very kidding way (as in I was laughing hysterically through the whole thing and really didn't get turned on at any point). I went home that night and fell asleep, completely fine about the whole situation.
Of course though, this morning I wake up and I'm completely paranoid I'm a bisexual/a lesbian again. It's 8:30 PM right now and barely a second of the day's gone by without me terrified that I'm gay. I know I'm attracted to guys, know I've never had a legitimate crush on a girl, I know that homosexuality isn't something you learn or fall into, you're normally born homosexual and as a child/before I turned 12 I always had my little crushes on guys. But for some reason I can't shake the fear, and this time it's even more real to me because of the fact I kissed a girl yesterday.
I keep trying to tell myself it's just my HOCD coming back, that it's fine, that I'm not going to come out of this gay (just like I didn't last time), but the thing about any sort of OCD is that you understand the fears/compulsions are completely irrational but you can't shake them for the life of you. I know that my fear of throwing up was completely irrational, I know that this fear is completely irrational.
When I'm having bouts of HOCD I spend every waking moment of my life contemplating my sexuality, I convince myself into getting aroused by lesbians kissing/girls in general, I think about every little tiny thing that's ever happened my life that could mean I'm a lesbian (i.e. feeling safer with girls, thinking they're incredibly beautiful, et cetera). It's truly the most awful thing I've experienced, and that's why I'm so scared I'm falling back into this mindset. It completely destroyed the summer I was 12, and I really don't want it to destroy this summer too.
I've even had periods of time where I fear that I'm going to become a serial killer (yeah, I watch too much television). Literally ANYTHING can turn into a fear for me, a fear that consumes every waking second of my life. I've gone through eating disorders (binge eating disorders and anorexia) that could be attributed to OCD too. It wasn't until today, when I searched homosexuality and OCD did I come to the realization that all these things might be relateted.
Does anyone have any opinions on whether this is OCD or completely unrelated? I do have herbal OCD medicine that works astoundingly well when I remember to take it, so I've been considering starting that up again, but I'm not so great at swallowing pills so I try to avoid taking it unless it's completely nessecary. Do you think that'd be a good choice or not?
I'm just all sorts of confused.
I've always had OCD. As long as I can remember, I've preformed little rituals to make myself feel more "complete" -- I would have to open and close doors a certain amount of times, read every line of a book twice, have to make every letter I write absolutely perfect, et cetera. It was definitely a hassle as a child, but I was able to deal with it and still developed emotionally normally and made friendships okay.
Then, when I was 11/12, I started developing an irrational fear of vomiting; I joined several emetophobia forums online and started trying to work through it myself, but throughout the several month period when the fear was at its worst I was pretty much incapable of eating and lost a dramatic amount of weight. It was truly terrible; I limited my diet to only bland foods without color (I didn't want to see the color of the vomit if I did happen to throw up), I never left the house, I refused to touch doorknobs, I used so much hand sanitizer that my hands were cracking and peeling...At one point I even doused my hands in bleach in an effort to get them clean. I'm pretty sure this was also related to germaphobia, but still.
When I was about 12 and 1/2, I started having the most terrible fear of becoming bisexual/a lesbian. I literally spent every moment of my life crying because I was convinced I was going to become gay and at the time that seemed like the most horrifying thing on the planet. I even contemplated suicide at one point, but one of my closest friends told me that she had gone through the same fear at one point and then came out of it straight (like she was before it started). Somehow I managed to get out of that and until yesterday, I never worried about it again because I was confident in my sexuality.
Okay, so, yesterday...I'm at my female friend's house and we're talking about boys and stuff, and I exhibit a fear of not being a good kisser. She laughs and says, "I bet you're fine, kiss me and I'll tell you if you're good or not," and so we take a practice kissing each other in a kidding way, a very kidding way (as in I was laughing hysterically through the whole thing and really didn't get turned on at any point). I went home that night and fell asleep, completely fine about the whole situation.
Of course though, this morning I wake up and I'm completely paranoid I'm a bisexual/a lesbian again. It's 8:30 PM right now and barely a second of the day's gone by without me terrified that I'm gay. I know I'm attracted to guys, know I've never had a legitimate crush on a girl, I know that homosexuality isn't something you learn or fall into, you're normally born homosexual and as a child/before I turned 12 I always had my little crushes on guys. But for some reason I can't shake the fear, and this time it's even more real to me because of the fact I kissed a girl yesterday.
I keep trying to tell myself it's just my HOCD coming back, that it's fine, that I'm not going to come out of this gay (just like I didn't last time), but the thing about any sort of OCD is that you understand the fears/compulsions are completely irrational but you can't shake them for the life of you. I know that my fear of throwing up was completely irrational, I know that this fear is completely irrational.
When I'm having bouts of HOCD I spend every waking moment of my life contemplating my sexuality, I convince myself into getting aroused by lesbians kissing/girls in general, I think about every little tiny thing that's ever happened my life that could mean I'm a lesbian (i.e. feeling safer with girls, thinking they're incredibly beautiful, et cetera). It's truly the most awful thing I've experienced, and that's why I'm so scared I'm falling back into this mindset. It completely destroyed the summer I was 12, and I really don't want it to destroy this summer too.
I've even had periods of time where I fear that I'm going to become a serial killer (yeah, I watch too much television). Literally ANYTHING can turn into a fear for me, a fear that consumes every waking second of my life. I've gone through eating disorders (binge eating disorders and anorexia) that could be attributed to OCD too. It wasn't until today, when I searched homosexuality and OCD did I come to the realization that all these things might be relateted.
Does anyone have any opinions on whether this is OCD or completely unrelated? I do have herbal OCD medicine that works astoundingly well when I remember to take it, so I've been considering starting that up again, but I'm not so great at swallowing pills so I try to avoid taking it unless it's completely nessecary. Do you think that'd be a good choice or not?
I'm just all sorts of confused.