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We should be too strong for Wales. We have a strong squad. I might play Callum Wilson and rest Kane. I could go for a back 3,play Coady, present Wales with a flowing five man midfield. Then bring on Foden and Rashford. If Wales beat us I would be surprised, but we wouldn't have been good enough as a team.

It's good to read your experience. This is exactly what Dave needs to do. Stop carrying out experiments (it's a compulsion) just let it all be without emotion, and gradually those groinals will ease away. Why? Whatever it is in a brain's transmission system that forms the false messages, OCD loves an audience, needs a response. And when it doesn't get one, it loses interest.

Sand

Sea

Hopefully I wasn't misunderstood and if so that's my bad for not being clearer but I don't disagree what you have said at all. I wasn't trying to suggest that it is easy to just cut out the compulsions though so hopefully that never came across like that or as too harsh but if it did let me know. On the latter part, I wouldn't just be willing to bet, I'd go as far as saying with my own experience of groinal response issues within OCD, that doing ERP and accepting that it was normal for it to be there and didn't have to mean anything made it go away over time because I no longer cared about it.

For me personally these themes of OCD are all about us NOT being what OCD is telling us. And the way forward is always going to be that acceptance. Does the person with paedophile OCD fsncy children? Of course they don't. Does the person experiencing inappropriate thoughts about touching their children want to have them? Do I want to experience violence theme intrusions? No of course not. This is what the disorder does.Flips our true values, sexual or otherwise. I don't think Dave has ever accepted that. Its down the compulsion route. And what do compulsions do? Strengthen the obsessive thinking. If we could, magically, eradicate all the compulsions of our forum members what would we see? A whole load of people gradually getting better. Dave, stop worrying about what you are experiencing. Accept you are getting false readings from the communications within your brain. It's not nice but if you accept it and get on with your life you are sending a big message o OCD that you won't go along with the falsehoods. And I am willing to bet that once this becomes the normal, those false readings will ease down

Baltic

Scandinavian

What you are doing now is actually something I have seen a fair amount on the forum now which is relaying previous parts of your posts in the hope to seek reassurance or even provide yourself reassurance in things like saying you don't mean to be homophobic. You know how the sexual response cycle works. You know that it is ignorant of your values and what you are sexually interested in. The only thing left to do is not fall for OCD's but this time it's different game and start to lean into these things. Again I reiterate, all it takes is a signal to be sent to the part of your brain that controls your arousal response. Doesn't matter what is labelled as sexual in order for that to happen. You need to accept that the arousal response means absolutely nothing and that you can't no matter how hard you try figure this all out. Who knows maybe you are gay and you never realised. Or maybe you aren't. Is doing all these compulsions going to get you any closer to answering that?

Sounds like you are making progress- stay strong and you’ll get there in time.

It just feels too real and the groinal/arousal is a cause and effect with men. It doesnt appear to be random, say happening for a tree or a dog etc.... Its not happening for women. I cant even remember what I was like before all this and think maybe I was born gay and never realised. I started a new job and there is a gay guy in the office and I feel really uncomfortable around him and get this squirming groin/arousal sensation. I dont fancy him but the fact that he's gay is triggering. I do not mean to be homophobic in my posts. I'm not. I never talk bad about gay people to others or anything and am nice to everyone I meet. I'm just trying to be truthful about what is happening with me by being honest. I'm insecure.

Why are you still questioning this and trying to figure all of this out? What good is it doing you? You know now you literally don't have control over arousal or the sexual response cycle so why keep coming back to trying to figure it out? It's OCD and the anxiety that you are trying to lessen but its not working by doing all these compulsions. Feel the arousal, let it be there and don't accept meaning of it just because of it. I think you need to look at how you are responding to these triggers and thoughts/images/sensations and decide whether or not it is serving you well by continuing to go back into the compulsions. Notice the presence of urgency and don't engage with it. Arguing with it, trying to figure it out etc. isn't going to work. Nor is seeking reassurance compulsively. It's up to you now to be willing to take the risk that all the connections to things that OCD has made could be false and don't have to mean anything about you. I don't know what else to say at this point other than go back through this thread and have a look at information has been provided and see if that helps. We can't give you reassurance and certainly not answer that question as it's not going to help you at this point. We would end up just feeding OCD and we can't do that. I don't want to do that because I would rather you get better and not do anything by reassurance giving that would keep you stuck in this loop. What is holding you back currently from being able to take the risk that OCD may be right or it may be wrong? I would also look at getting back into therapy if already had done previously as they will be able to help you a lot better than we can on an individual level

The difficulty we have here is that the thread is becoming another compulsion. In all the time that you have had this theme, how much time has there been when you have taken on board the advice given, stopped carrying out compulsions and tests, stopped believing that the unwanted arousal and apparent attractions are real and you are gay? Fact is, in the same way that OCD gives us unwanted thoughts and images, because it lies within the communication systems in the brain, it can produce arousal signs and signals of a gay person within a non-gay one. What I do think is happening now is it's become stronger, more upsetting in the way it manifests. And that's all it is.

I just have to look at a guys face on tv and I feel something down there like a squirming/slight arousal. Is this what gay guys feel like everyday?

Finish

You're welcome Malina 😊. Good luck for the future. Unfortunately I think sometimes other OCD sufferers on these forums can't look past their own perfectionist tendencies and black-and-white way of thinking about the world, so their advice tends to apply those same perfectionist rules on to other people's problems. I always try and point out that there is no perfect world and the real world doesn't work that way. If everyone waited for these perfect conditions to exist before having children then nobody would ever have children! I think also as a man Handy is speaking from a position of privilege that many women don't have when it comes to having children, which is time! In contrast we have a relatively small window of fertility in which to have children, so we can't really faff about for a few years hoping we will get magically better and for everything to be perfect before trying to have kids.

Exterminate

I'm trying to respectfully say that you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about, Handy. A large bulk of my professional experience in my job in healthcare has been with mothers and babies, many of whom have had mental health issues (the mothers). Most have handled their pregnancies and newborns well. Whereas the sum total of your experience comes from reading a few posts on a forum, which is only going to feature the small amount of people who aren't doing so well at the moment. I don't understand why you feel like you know better on this when you don't have any real life experience of this issue. And you also need to tone it down in telling women what to do about having children or not because that is not for you or anyone else to say. The OP didn't come here asking whether she should have kids or not, she came here to ask for advice on her medication. To then tell her she shouldn't have kids is completely crossing a line.

The only main issues I have is around being pre-disposed to black and white thinking which feeds into OCD, deciphering which are which between sensory issues and just right/perfectionism issues in OCD (that one is a challenge and a half) and I think that's mainly it. To be honest the black and white thinking I just have to be aware of. The sensory issues/just right/perfectionism stuff is still a struggle now. My issue is mainly with sweat. At this point I'm no longer sure whether or not it is a sensory issue with the sensation of sweat or a perfectionistic/just right compulsion to basically rid myself of sweat. I live day to day at this point I'm a software developer which works out for most autistic people as STEM has the largest amount of autistic people job wise.

Dalek

Hi DSR1, I think you touch on some really relevant aspects here. First, good to hear that you found the help you needed and that the psychologists did notice you had ASD. I think it's still often misdiagnosed. Especially for women. How is it for you to have OCD and ASD? What are your main struggles and how do you cope with these? How do you look towards the future? Maybe a somewhat bold question: how old are you and in what sector are you working? I am 26 years old myself and work as a scientist/physicist. In my job, I have to discuss a lot with collegues. I don't have an office, but we work in large rooms with about 40 people in 1 room. So, that is quite noise and also doesn't really help with my OCD unfortunately. I often judge myself and feel inferior to other people, seeing them having fun with each other, which all seems so eays and natural for them. The future scares me to be honest. Sexuality isn't something which really bothers me now. If I could go back to the situation as it was: being relaxed while watching tv and having a conversation without feeling tension, that would mean the world to me. I think you're right about the thin line between certain mental issues. A couple of years ago, I was treated for anxiety. Then, about 2.5 years ago, I asked my GP for referral to a GGZ institute which also does autism diagnostics, since I still had anxiety issues and I felt like, there must be an explanation. I had to fill out a large amount of questionairies, had to do some tasks and my mother was involved in the whole process. The outcome was that I have some characteristics which are typical for ASD. But not enough to diagnose ASD. My psychiatrist thought it would be OCD. And to some extent, I agree. I mean, that I even have this issue with watching tv is more related to OCD than to ASD I guess. But as I said, it could also be both. So, I reached out to an institute which is (as they say) specialised in treating OCD. But this also didn't help. So, I have no idea how to proceed now. A second opinion is one of the options I am also still considering. But I don't know how much it would help. I mean, ASD is not a term that describes the cause. ASD can still not be demonstrated objectively, based on someones brain function for example. It is merely used to describe certain behaviour. I can have eye contact issues, without having autism. The opposite is also well possible: having ASD, but no eye contact issues. So, I don't know if ASD would help to find a way to deal with the anxiety I experience. But maybe it could help to accept, or the ASD psychologists could help to accept, the difficulties I encounter with eye contact. Thanks for your replies btw, I appreciate it

I live with my family but I do indeed have a good job that basically plays to some of the benefits of being autistic. I can focus on the conversation to an extent but it depends on the volume of other surroundings in the process. A lot of the time I will kind of zone out as I'm thinking of the next thing I want to say which can seem rude but it's because I want to prepare to continue the conversation and for me knowing when to start and stop a conversation is really not that obvious. Thing is too, to be clear, being asexual isn't a ASD thing. It's just statistically more common in the ASD population. So is the number of LGBT people. I'm heterosexual so I don't really fit into those statistics as do a lot a lot of other people with autism. These are all statistics, they don't really mean anything significant though. There is way more to unpack/learn about ASD and sexuality and relationships than I could ever list on here without making an almighty megathread and it's really unnecessary for this context but its just to say sexuality is complex anyways and for autistic people navigating sexuality and relationships is difficult and then couple that with OCD and you have a not very good time. They no longer use aspergers as a term and have grouped it all under Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) or as some people who are autistic refer to it as Autism Spectrum Condition (ASC) as it's not really a disorder like OCD is. OCD is flat out a big problem. Being autistic comes with its difficulties primarily socially for me but also has its benefits. Being autistic and having OCD is quite challenging at times. Aspects of being autistic feed into OCD and sometimes the line can be blurred as to whether something falls into being an autistic related thing or an OCD related thing. It wouldn't surprise me that OCD would go after social challenges for autistic people since that's something we want to do well at. At the end of the day, if you feel like you may need to go through the assessment process then it could be worth doing it again just to get a second opinion. In the UK, I was given the AQ and when initially filling it out was barely on the spectrum. When I gave the form back though, the psychiatrist and psychologist thought that maybe some of it wasn't quite right and they were correct. I just hadn't really understood the questions correctly. I also wasn't aware of anything I had been doing that was autistic behaviour at that point. There is a fine line here and I honestly think that rather than attempt to figure this out any further what could be of more use is to get in touch with people who can medically look at this (i.e. psychologists, psychiatrists). I know I got lucky with how good the psychologist and psychiatrist that diagnosed and treated me were and how unlikely it is to have ASD picked up on for an OCD diagnosis at adulthood but there are hopefully others elsewhere in the world (and also specifically hopefully where you are in the Netherlands) that are able to pick up on both and at least let you know if you are or are not autistic. If you aren't, and OCD still continues to question it, you know at that point it's OCD.

Hi, Thanks your your reply and for taking time to respond so extensively I'm sorry to hear about your issues. Must be a real struggle too! Do you live on your own and do you have a day job? About the first part, you are right. I am doing a lot of compulsions and checking. If I don't look people in their eyes, it feels like weird and I don't get any non-verbal signals. I wouldn't say that I have (or actually, had) difficulty reading non-verbal cues. However, when I look people in their eyes, I feel overwhelmed and completely stressed out. I feel like I am just staring in their eyes and I don't know when to look away. I just stare, feel overwhelmed, and don't get the content of the conversation. When not looking in their eyes, I don't know where to look and I feel stressed too. I can't focus on the content of the conversation. How is that for you? Can you just look into the surroundings and still focus on the conversation without being distracted by thoughts? I have had 1 relationship. I think I am (somewhat) asexual. I am at least not the same as most NT people on this aspect for sure. This relationship also gave me some stress and anxiety. In new situations (being among family, friends etc of my partner) I initally had quite a lot of stress. This improved over time. However, social situations in which I felt I had to be the best version of myself to be accepted or to be liked, caused me stress. On the other hand, I also really liked the intamicy and love a relationship can bring. I'm not sure whether I have autism. When I have it, I think I would also fall into the Asperger's classification. Although, I don't think they still make a differentiation. I can at least mask my issues very well and nobody has ever made any comment about it. About your last part, my shrink typically gave the example of a white bear. If you tell me not to think of a train, obviously I would think about a train. However, over time it would go away, since I don't associate a train with any danger or stress. I can be obsessive over other body functions too. If I now think about it and write this, I am aware of my breathing and blinking for example. Actually, now I type this, I can feel my stress level rising. But I know that it will go away over time. I can be present for a couple of minutes or even a couple of days (in the past). But the eye contact won't go away. It's just too deep rooted I guess, I don't know. Or it is just a combination of ASD and OCD which makes it so difficult to overcome this issue. Really no idea. I also really don't know how to accept these thoughts without overthinking it. Without feeling stressful when I get invasive eye contact thoughts. I feel like my tension level is so high, that just any trigger immediately triggers the ocd and causes a headache.

I would take issue with not looking into peoples eyes as abnormal or weird. Being autistic doesn't make anything less or abnormal, it's just a different way of doing things that society unfortunately can struggle to adapt to. You are doing a whole lot of checking here too, all compulsions. This just continues to seem like an OCD problem as you can't let go of it. I don't try to make eye contact if it's too difficult for me. I'll try my best for a period of time but if it feels too overwhelming then I stop and look around the person instead whilst still appearing like I am staring at them. This isn't that far away from one of the (many) issues I have/had dealt with in OCD which was the fear of staring at people's body parts. Not really any different to your situation other than I constantly tried to avoid feeling like I would stare and you are constantly trying to avoid not staring. Same game, different content with OCD. For me I can't do anything about my sensory issues other than what I try to do (masking) to appear like everyone else. I've certainly noticed more autistic traits when I'm alone versus when I'm around others. As for the last part. I do not have a partner. In fact, I've never had a relationship. Never went on a date or anything. There are a few reasons for that. I put that to the background whilst finishing my studies and equally I'm terrified of dating. I want relationships but its incredibly difficult especially when you suck at non-verbal cues. I worry about not knowing what to do in every situation. Also without a relationship, OCD still tries to plague it with intrusive thoughts of somehow getting someone pregnant and not wanting to do that which leaves me feeling like I just don't want a relationship or intimacy ever (even though I know this is just OCD being a nuisance as I value having relationships and intimacy). I'm looking forward to trying to start dating at some point next year but social communication is a great difficulty for me. Eye contact I can mask to an extent, but non-verbal cues is what is the worrying factor for me. Some autistic people don't want relationships. Some are asexual. Other autistic people do want relationships and are interested in being intimate with a partner. Communication wise NT/ASD relationships require more work as the Neurotypical person needs to understand the challenges of their ASD partner. Every autistic person is different. I fall into the ASD Level 1 side of things which I guess is more towards what they used to refer to as Aspergers but the levels themselves aren't necessarily a scale but a range of different things that we may struggle with. Sorry for the long post here but what it comes down to is. I don't worry about eye contact, it's not something I actively think about as an autistic person although I am considerate to note from time to time when it pops up as an issue. I'm certainly not ruminating or doing compulsions around it though like you are. Put it this way, if I told you don't think of a train and told you to stop thinking of it, what do you think would happen? Do you think that you would just move on and not think of a train or do you think that you may actually then think about over and over again for every time I told you not to think about it?

Thanks for your reply. I only now realise that ASS is the Dutch abbreviation for autism and that it's ASD in English... Excellent question you ask and I feel like the "overthinking" is indeed a large contribution to the problem. However, it feels like I cannot stop it. It started two years ago with noticing the problem. At that time, it felt like I had to constantly check how other people make eye contact, to figure out whether I was abnormal or not. So I started paying attention to how people make eye contact and where people look, even in movies. But also people I cross at the street for example. I realised that people just make eye contact, while being difficult for me at that moment, and this even increased the focus on eye contact. This built up to the situation I am in currently, where being around people already makes me anxious. I don't really have to find the cause for this problem, but I can't let go of it either. I think, deep down, I still have the feeling that I have to make normal eye contact, otherwise people think I am weird. But also when I try to let go of it and just don't look people into their eyes, there is constant anxiety. As I said, even with movies. I just can't look wherever I want without overthinking. Accepting that I am who I am and that I look wherever I look sounds like the way to go for me. But I don't know how to get to this point that I just accept it without overthinking. It seems so simple, but in reality is so hard. How did you come to the point of acception? And how do you deal with eye contact in social situations? Do you have a partner? And how do you deal with that? In the past, I didn't like being on my own. Now, being on my own is the only situation I can really calm down...