[ArgIdiot]

I have had the worst 2 months of my entire life. It all started back in summer when I was visiting a female friend I haven't seen for a long time. (I'm a female). I was feeling so excited and happy because me and her had been arguing on and off, so I felt happy that everything was fine. When I later went to bed I started to question "why do I feel happy?" and the thought came from nothing, "What if I'm gay?". I started to obsess about the thought and felt immense anxiety. I couldn't sleep the whole night because I was obsessing about it, questioning every sec "What if I'm gay?" "Am I gay?", and then intrusive thoughts came up about me kissing my friend and I felt disgusted, terrified and I felt like being suffocated by the anxiety.

Since then, I have obsessed about this on and off every day. It went away after a week, but seemed to stay in my subconscious mind as I was testing and checking, looking at other females and valuing my reaction. I was so scared to be with my friends because I felt immense anxiety when being with them, a type of feeling I have never felt in their company. The intense anxiety was eating me inside-out, and I felt handicapped. It returned strongly than ever. 2 months ago, the intrusive thoughts showed up again. I started to obsess about being gay and the anxiety caused me to shake in panic. I was crying and my mother had to hold me still and calm me down. I lost my appetite and didn't eat for days. The obsessive thoughts just kept going on repeat and it was all I ever thought about for a week. I couldn't sleep properly because the thoughts was always there. Imagine not sleeping more than 3-4 h per night for a week. I was extremely exhausted. The obsessions would not stop just by questions, I was also analyzing my childhood memories to see if I ever was attracted to females. Even if I recall only being attracted to guys and only desiring to have sex with guys, the intrusive thoughts made me believe it was all fake attractions and that I've been living a lie.

Some days after that, intrusive images popped up of a child memory I had back then when I was 10-11. I was sitting with my parents colleagues child in my lap, he was 4-5 at the time and I was helping him with getting off his pants. I remember accidentally touching his genitals and the image of this has repeatedly been in my mind, telling me I'm a pedophile. This caused me intense anxiety and I felt sick. Sick of these thoughts and images being brought up and making me feel horrible.

Then after this, I would begin to analyze myself through my childhood. I've always been kind of a tomboy because I was playing football (soccer) in my early teens and I was interested in sports and video games. I grew up with an older brother and sister, and while my sister was more older than us I was hanging out with my brother a lot and he introduced me to videogames etc. And I didn't really have an interest in fashion, make up until high school where I would enjoy dressing up, putting make up on when going to parties making friends and looking at hot guys. I'm still a tomboy because I still have interests in sports and videogames, but I don't mind occasionally dressing up or putting make up. After doing this analyze day after day, a voice in my head would start saying "you are a tomboy, so you are a lesbian and have always been", and then the thought started popping up "What if i wanted to be a man because i'm a tomboy?" ´, although I have never questioned my gender before and are proud to be a woman. In fact I always enjoyed when people thought it was odd for me liking sports and videogames when I was a woman, and I remember thinking "I'm a really special girl and person" and it made me feel well.

If you have read this long text, I will applause you and thank you from my very heart because I'm in a lot of distress right now. I have been in contact with former OCD-sufferers and they all say that what I'm experiencing is a form of OCD. I've had anxiety-issues since I was 11 years old, primarily panic anxiety which I felt cured from in 4 years where I rarely expressed any symptoms.

Anyways, this is the last question. I just want to ask and see if this has anything to do with OCD. I have as long as i remember, been biting of the skin around my fingertops, the skin around my toes and the skin around my lips. I've eaten it, just like some people eat nails. (Also bite on nails but I don't eat it). I recall sitting in my room using pincets or small scissors pulling of the skin from my fingertops around the nails and from my toes. I have never been able to stop with this and my parents would always adress this and say to me "stop biting!". I would stop at the moment but then continue when they didn't see me. I bite and drag of skin daily, whether it be from fingertops or lips, also sometimes I feel a strong urge to it and sometimes I'm not even conscious I'm doing it. I have wounds around my fingertops and sometimes I even bleed because i bite of the skin to deep. I know this is a sick behavior but I haven't been able to tell what it's called or if it has something to do with OCD.

Please help me, I want to know if this is OCD or denial? Am I really gay, pedophile, trans and a finger-skin eater? I get intense anxiety when I enter these periods of obsession and currently I have intrusive thoughts about being gay and constantly checking/asking myself and reassuring. Please help me

[CANDC]

Welcome to Psych Central (PC). Sorry to hear how you are so concerned about your anxiety issues. There are many people here at PC that are compassionate and caring.

People here at PC share what they are going through together, but if precise diagnosis (dx) is what you are looking for, only a psych doc or psychiatrist can really do that with any precision. Plus they could prescribe meds that will diminish symptoms.

People go through identity crises often and meeting someone of the same gender as you that feels really good can be confusing. Is it just friendship or is there sexual attraction there.

Having a caring compassionate person can easily arouse feelings of passion when someone may have been deprived of comfort and compassion growing up. A therapist that specializes in women to women relationships or friendships could help.

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[sideblinded]

ArgIdiot, Hello. I want to extend a warm welcome to PC. There is help here at PC, as we have some very supportive people. I hope that you continue to reach out.

[ArgIdiot]

Thank you CANDC and sideblinded for the support.

I don't know if this is common when you have HOCD, but I find myself masturbating to porn (heterosexual, i also like to watch men on men action) like before when I wasn't suffering from HOCD, deriving pleasure from it and getting orgasm. I have always masturbated to straight porn getting pleasure from it. I also recall being sexually attracted when sitting in guys laps or them touching me anywhere. But now my HOCD has me to think that the straight porn is just a cover up for me being a lesbian and that the sexual attraction I felt for boys earlier is fake.

I've been reading about people (mostly females) who suffer from HOCD but have pleasure watching lesbian porn/same sex porn. Then the respons to that from the OCD-specialist would be "porn has nothing to do with your sexual orientation, we get turned on by anything sexual" and that gets me into a huge spike where I constantly believe me being a lesbian all my life but trying to cover it up by watching straight porn. I recall myself watching lesbian porn once because I was curious back in my early days (when i was like 14-15, i'm 18 right now) but didn't find it anything near as pleasurable and amusing as watching straight porn or male to male action. I'm also grossed out about vaginas. Or I was when not suffering from HOCD. In the past I had some slight obsessions about penises, getting very turned on by images of other mens penises. This surely does sound normal and I really don't know how the HOCD started because I have plenty of memories and feelings which lesbians would never encounter or feel.

This is interesting because I do find other women physically attractive, like some women can be really pretty, but there is no sexual attraction to it. My HOCD makes me believe I'm in fact attracted to other women sexually, and creates intense anxiety every time I notice other women that I believe are good looking. It also appears that I'm noticing more women than men, which freaks me out because before this HOCD kicked in I would only think about being with men, kissing men, having sex with men etc even though I acknowledged other women being beautiful. There has never been thoughts of "oh, I want to be with that women and have sex with her", more like "She is so pretty, I want to be her friend" etc. Not until the HOCD started to haunt me and i would have intrusive thoughts and images of other women which caused me anxiety and distress. That's why I'm analyzing my childhood all the time trying to find episodes and remember if I ever thought about other women sexually. I'm sure I haven't done that when being in my normal state of mind, free from HOCD, but my HOCD keeps creating false memories or finding anything that seems to be strange and in line of my HOCD attacking it.

How do you guys feel about this? Have you had the same experiences and thought-process regarding your HOCD? I know my post is compulsive and seek for reassurance, but I do find it interesting to discuss in which ways HOCD manifest itself so that I can identify thoughts created by my HOCD and apply mindfulness/acceptance.

[Skippingdisc]

I know exactly how you feel! This is me totally. I'm a female, girly yet a big tomboy myself. Never questioned myself til about a month ago , bam stupid thoughts came up and I've also had bad ocd in my childhood. You're not alone girl! It's the ocd. You're not gay, the orientation is already hard lined into you, it's your brain hats going haywire. If you need I talk, PM me. But don't freak out. Let the thoughts come thru, make their place. Don't fight em. Remember who you truly are, who you were before all this bullsh*t. You're not alone, trust me.