My HOCD story

Hi there, I am new to the forum and I have to say a big story of how I wasted 6 months of my life due to this vile and devastating inner demon that nearly drove me to complete depression.

I have always been attracted to girls in my entire life (i got my first ejaculation to an image of a woman in middle school, i am at high school currently) and I always wished I would have a girlfriend and be in a great relationship. However, when HOCD took over, I thought different and fake things that nearly took over my mind.

So, here how it started.

In 7th grade, as a part of being bullied, many people asked my orientation several times, which was horrible, since I knew i was straight all along. However, it was at 9th grade when a homophobic classmate called me gay on facebook just because I hanged out a lot with my best friend. I was furious at those lies and I was afraid that people would believe me.

Also, my dad a bit homophobic (exclusively on gay celebrities). When I asked him that if he would kill me if I were gay, he said yes. I was shunned a bit, and I started to become afraid of gays, especially with the fact that they are so damn overrated in the media. (not all gays are weirdos though, but still I believed other stuff).

Also, before telling you how I suffered for 6 months, I will inform that in 9th grade I had a fear of being autistic, which stemmed from people thinking I had autism in 7th grade (they were calling me the r-word a lot. I still react badly to that word)

And also I like masturbating and in the past I did it like 3-4 times per day, although I have cut it a bit.

So in the beginnings I started developing a crush on a popular girl which was extremely nice to me and quite beautiful, and I was quite obssesed with her for months. I wanted to tell her, but I hid it for a big time, due to fears of rumors spreading and possible rejection.

Also, I was quite homophobic, reacting badly to LGBT stuff. I remember that I was furious at a commercial that promoted a gay couple live on TV.

My life was going normally for a long time.

However, during early spring, things would never be the same for me.

One day, a thought about me being gay and liking boys suddenly appeared on my mind and I started to become anxious about it. I tried to suppress it, but it would come worse every day. All things that said the word girl were replaced by the word boy, and it would repeat itself on my mind.

And all this happened while I had no intention of ever being intimate with a guy.

It was not that severe in its early stage. But it were two things that caused it to become severe.

First, it was a dream that drove me to confusion. It was about a girl falling away from me (my ex-crush) and then my best friend (a guy) kissing me on the cheek. This dream confused me a lot and I did not know its true meaning. The confusion caused me to falsely realize that I was bisexual and I had to come to terms with my (nonexistent) gay side.

Second, it was my best friend's gf telling me and my friends that a girl found out her bf was a closeted gay. That story freaked me out completely.

Now, let's go to the intrusive thoughts part.

Sometime after the dream, I got some horrible intrusive thoughts about my best friend kissing me and it would not leave. I was becoming more and more of an emotional wreck. I did not want the thoughts at all, and besides, I did not have any intention to kiss him. Because of this, I started lashing out violently to anyone (I once threw a blasphemous slur at my family and I regret it a lot), I also started developing serious internet addiction, having no interest in schoolword, which resulted to falling grades and getting subpar grades to the summer exams, and starting to become more anxious about that supposed gay side of my supposed bisexuality.

The anxiety went so severe that I decided to come out in order to become free. I did it in front of my crush (who friendzoned me some months ago) by the way.

I thought I was free, but in reality the anxiety went even worse.

I tried to come out to my mother twice, but never got the urge. At the second time, my mother told me that it would possible be some stupid stuff I thought it was real.

These words were the ones that helped me realize what was going on.

I tried to find attraction in guys and attempted to masturbate, only for it to fail hard. When I did it to an attractive woman, it worked quickly.

Last month, I made some research and I discovered HOCD. Quickly, I realized that those four letters were the stuff that was tormenting me all along and made me waste so much of my life.

After finding out the truth, I started to become a better person. I reduced my hours on the PC drastically (from 10 to 2-4) and I stopped lashing out that much. Also, I fell in love with another girl almost instantly and I even had a sexual fantasy about her.

Also, I realized that if I were really a gay teen, the same-sex fantasies would make me happy, which does not happen, since thinking about a guy or being touched by one, makes me emotionless, while girls make me smile with satisfaction.

I still got some intrusive thoughts, but I realized that their power was not even close to how they were in the past months.

In this was, it stopped for good.

For people who have HOCD, don't be afraid of the thoughts. In fact, just don't care about them.

I wish I would find it out earlier.

Hello ancientogre: Thanks for sharing your experience. I see this is your first post here on PC. So... welcome to PsychCentral. I hope you find PC to be of benefit.

I'm glad you're feeling better now ...although I hope that your homophobic thoughts have disappeared as well.

Those homophobic thoughts have been gone for good. Simply, I think now that sexuality does not determine if a person is good or bad.

Also, I forgot to mention how effective ERP is when it comes to avoiding intrusive thoughts if they try to emerge again, although it might take a few minutes for them to actually fade away.