Hello people, for anybody who is suffering from HOCD or OCD in general, I hope my story can offer hope to all. It all started in my late 20s. Now, mind you that I have had many heterosexual relationships and experinces before the onset of OCD. I also am a very good looking guy. I dress nice and I'm articulate. I hardly fit the stereotype of a typical guy media portrays us to be. My story starts when I was 27 and I was with my then girlfriend for about 3 years, going on 4. I wasn't really ready to get married to her, she had been pushing me to get married but I knew I wasn't in love with her to the point of marrying her. I dragged the relationship on hoping my feelings would change. One day she told me of a conversation with her and a gay co-worker of hers. He had told her not to marry me because I would "come-out" one day. She told me this and it really bothered me. "How does he know that? How does he know I will be gay one day?" This started a period of suffering that would go off and on over the next two years. I started questioning myself "How do I know I'm not gay? How do I know I will not turn gay? What if I turn gay? What if..."
Over the next two years, I would find that I felt like myself again and be happy again. Then something would trigger it and I would find myself ruminating and obsessing about it again. I couldn't understand what was going on. I would ask my then girlfriend for reassurance that I wasn't gay. Off and on the symptoms would come and go. Then around last year sometime in the spring, I found myself suffering again and each time it returned, it seemed worse. I would wake up in the middle of the night feeling nauseous, dry heaving and panicing. I started having problems making love to women because I would think about too much if I was really enjoying it or not. Then sunddenly the thoughts vanished. I thought they were gone for good and I never wanted to feel like that again.
Life was good, I felt myself again, I started dating a co-worker of mine and we seemed made for each other. We had fun, we laughed, the sex was awesome and we seemed to "get" each other. Then suddenly it was back, one day I was having a beer with my friend and a thought of me kissing him came into my head. I immediatly felt disgusted. I went home that night replaying the image in my mind and looking for any signs of pleasure and feel disgusted at the thought. Knowing it repulsed me only relieved my anxiety for a little time, next thing I knew I was having the thought again and not understanding why it kept coming back. I would ruminate about it endlessly. I was suffering agian, next thing I knew the thoughts became more graphic and intense. My mind would fire off phrases of "I'm gay," and I would feel disgusted when I would hear it. I would debate with myself. I started to review evey past relationship with friends and girlfriends to see if there were any "give aways." my relationship started to suffer everytime my woman wanted to make love I would feel anxious and feel nausues. I was anxious to see if I was really enjoying it and I didn't want any thoughts to pop in my head when making love to her. I was suffering in silence, alone. I felt depressed, angry. I started avoiding my friends because I didn't want any thoughts to come.
I was starting to get fed up with everything. By this time I told myself fine, if I'm gay I'm going to find out. I started doing research on the internet about gay people, how to know if you are gay, how to know if you are straight. Then I came across a website about anxiety disorders. I saw sypmtoms that described me and I finally got the courage to make an appointment with a therapist. I was dreading they would tell me that my thougths represented true desires and I would get used to them. Before I went, I had asked my ex-girlfriend why her co-worker thought I was gay. She told me because I'm good looking and dress nice and not many straight guys look or dress the way I do. Now how ridicoulous is that?
After seeing a therapist, she initially told me I had GAD. And signed me up for coginitive classes. After leaving that night, the group thereapist mentioned OCD as having obsessive thoughts and acting out compulsions to rid the sufferer of the thoughts. I thought this sounded like me so I did more research about OCD. I came to realize that sufferes of OCD sound exactly like what I was experiencing. I bought books on OCD and started doing my own research. I started to realize that OCD is a anxiety disorder caused my an overactive part of your brain. I started seeing an OCD specialist and she confirmed my suspisions about having OCD. In fact what I was going through was a very common type of OCD except most people do not report it because it can be quite embarrasing. It can even affect people about the reverse. Meaning a gay person with HOCD can obsesse they are not really gay and they really want a relationship with the opposite sex.
I institued my own recovery plan. I created a hierarchy of things that were likely to cause a spike in OCD. I was determined to recover. I wanted my old life back. I started by rating attractive guys from 1-10 and rating how attracted I was to them. I started going to the gym again and using the locker room again. I forced myself to sit next to guys while riding on the bus, train whatever. When thoughts would come, I would actually agree with them, when talking to my girl or making love to her a thought of "you really want a guy." or "I'm gay!" would come. My answer would be "Maybe I really do want a guy, in fact why not a football team or Oh yeah I'm gay, I forgot!" I would refer to myself as gay to myself. As my tolerance for the thoughts built I made bigger exposures. I wrote an essay about how I wished I was gay and that I wanted to be gay. As I wrote more essays, I would get more graphic and intense. I took all the gay tests on the internet and answered each question to get a gay score. I started to look at provocative pictures of guys and rating them. The hardest part was imagining myself in a homosexual experience and not ruminating about it and reading coming out stories. Then as time when on, I realized I was having less and less thoughts and I was feeling less bothered by them when they did come. My doctor put me on Prozac 20mg. When the medicine took affect, I noticed the exposures were not even bothering me anymore. After a recent visit to my therapist, she asked me, how do you feel. My response was, I can't even believe I was afraid of all that. I feel the way I did before all this, happy, worrying about things normal people worry about like work, money, loved ones. I felt I had beaten OCD. My girlfriend bent over in front of me and I immediatley wanted to rip her clothes off.
Now I've been in recovery for about two months and I almost forgot how good life can be. With a combination of Cognitive Behavior Therapy and Exposure Response Prevention and Medicine. I have put my OCD on check and it does not control me anymore. Once in awhile I will catch myself slipping but I stamp it out before it gets any worse. I feel like me again and I intend on staying that way. You know you are recovred when you feel like you how you could have possibly been anxious about your obsession. Like you awakened from a bad dream.
For those of you who are suffering, please get help, find an OCD specialist and do your homwork. Use the CBT ER and medicine to get better, you can take your life back from OCD.
Disclaimer- I've never been a homophobe and I have nothing against gay people. I think sexuality is determined before you are even born. I am only talking about people who are truly heterosexual and only obsesse about being gay.