This episode covers a wide range of topics, from telling people about HOCD, to dealing with HOCD and incest obsessions, to managing POCD obsessions and the morality of the thoughts’ existence!
I hope everyone is making the best of their 2020 so far and is making steps toward their goals! Thank you all for listening and your continued support.
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HOCD and NoFap. Solving this once and for all
Hello.. This is my first time doing NoFap and I’m nervous, anxious, and scared about my possible HOCD. I’ve had numerous girl crushes over the years and never once considered myself gay or bisexual in the slightest. But approximately 5 months ago, my friends called me “sus” for knowing a gay scene from the movie moonlight, and I have been nonstop questioning my sexuality and my identity obsessively. As the months went by, memories which I had long since forgotten had begun to suddenly re-emerge. I remember getting erections to everything since I was a child, but the two most terrifying instances of memory were when I had erections to the Incredible Hulk game when I was 8-9. Everytime the hulk took heavy damage, he would start heavily breathing, and I got an erection to that. I then found masturbating at the age of 11, to a woman masturbating, and continuously did so during 2 years, leading to masturbating to gay porn three or four times when I was the age of 13-14. It was there when I got an erection to the gay scenes from the take me to church music video. When I first had a crush on a girl at the age of 13-14, I began to get erections to only women, masturbated exclusively to women for the next 6 years (I’m 19 now) and most importantly, never watched gay porn ever again. In fact I was so terrified at the notion of being gay, that I tried my best to get out of situations with men in large groups (such as the locker room and the public restroom). I never questioned my sexuality however, because I only fell in love with many women during elementary, middle, and high school, and had even dated a woman in my junior year. Flash foward to five months ago. Me and my friends were looking at Netflix and stumbled across the movie moonlight, and I knew the movie because it was an academy award winning movie, and the fact it was made by A24, a company that I love very much. Anyways, we stumbled across the scene in question, and I pointed out the movie to my friends and they in turn called me “sus” for knowing what the movie was and what the scene was too. I became terrified and reassured my friends that I wasn’t gay, but the thought became engrained in my mind and I have been obsessively going on every OCD forum I can to make sure what I have is HOCD. I don’t want to be gay or bisexual. I would never be involved with a man romantically or sexually, but all the memories and false attractions, groinal responses, and intrusive thoughts make me question everything and anything related to this mess. I do not have any hate towards the LGBTQ+, I only respect and encourage their right for love, equality, and opportunity. I don’t want to be gay or bisexual because it doesn’t fit me as a person. It doesn’t sit right by me and It makes me anxious and nervous. One more thing to add is that I was manipulated into sexually experimentation with my friend at the age of 12-13 that involved intercourse. It only happened once, we never finished, and I was left ashamed and disgusted by the act itself. I just want to know if what I have told you is an indication of HOCD and if so, what can I do to stop and prevent it?
Thanks for the comment, and I’m sorry to hear that you are going through such a tough time. What you’re describing sounds like textbook HOCD, along with the unhelpful compulsive behavior (checking, rumination, etc). The best thing to do is to start working with a therapist on these thoughts and developing an Exposure and Response Prevention plan. Before that, you should take note of what you are doing compulsively to get reassurance that you’re straight/ will never be gay, and resist and/ or eliminate them from your life. Response Prevention (not doing compulsions) is the best thing someone can do to overcome their OCD.
I hope you are able to connect with a therapist and make some progress soon. Thanks for listening, and best of luck!