7zurg

Thank you for your answer. In your post you say it could be OCD but not just that. What do you mean by that? What could be with OCD?

Hi, Unfortunately, I will not be able to see a doctor for a few months.

Hello, I had all the symptoms of OCD for about sixteen months: intrusive thoughts, constant anxiety, constant ruminations, impression of feeling attracted to same-sex individuals, imagining scenarios with each sex to see which one I liked best, questioning the meaning of the word attraction and plethora of other things. In February 2018, I realized that I was heterosexual, that it was only OCD, I stopped reacting to the symptoms by letting anxiety and thoughts pass and everything started to get better. I no longer had any anxiety and intrusive thoughts, impression of feelings of attraction to same-sex individuals, everything had almost disappeared for a few weeks. Shortly afterwards, I began to notice defects in the girls I found attractive, things I had never noticed before, and, I began to lose my aesthetic/physical attraction to the opposite sex (when I talk about aesthetic/physical attraction, I mean the ability to find women beautiful, pretty) I first thought of a HOCD effect, I didn't have much or no anxiety, but I started testing myself on images of women to see if the attraction had returned. All the attraction wasn't gone, but a big part wasn't there anymore (it's not really quantifiable but except for the very very beautiful girls, I don't find any pretty girls anymore) Little by little, I started to doubt, the anxiety came back a little bit and I was afraid that my attraction would never return. Anxiety was not always there, but I sometimes cried wondering why my attraction had not returned, talking to myself asking me to make the attraction return (some kind of prayer I guess, when I am not at all a religious person). Every day, I thought about my lost attraction and said to myself that I wanted it to come back, I wondered why the attraction had gone, looking for stories of loss of attraction due to OCD on Google. All this lasted several months, until October. Anxiety has totally disappeared (and was not very present between February and October 2018). Since January, I stopped testing myself on pictures of girls to see if I found their faces pretty but nothing came back in terms of attraction, I only find beautiful the very very pretty girls now, it's as if I had become a thousand times more selective). So I no longer have any anxiety, the aesthetic/physical attraction that has not yet returned, but I think about it every day, I am a little worried that the attraction will not return as before. I don't know if I can still consider it OCD. I have been told here that OCD can make my aesthetic attraction to women disappear, but I don't understand how since I no longer have anxiety. Could someone please explain that to me? Of course, I know the "backdoor spike", but for so long it seems unlikely to me. I have always read that physical/esthetic attraction comes back once the anxiety disappears, but I am no longer anxious and the attraction has still not returned. The little worry I have left doesn't seem to me to be enough to say that it's anxiety, I can function normally. Before, when I had anxiety, I had a knotted stomach, I was really not well, it was not manageable, now it is, hence the fact that I think it's not anxiety. I am aware that this email looks like/is a request for comfort but I don't know what to do anymore, I just want my aesthetic/physical attraction to girls to be like before, I miss it so much. Is it still OCD? If so, do you have any advice on how to make this attraction return? 7zurg

I can't do it. I can't do it. I mean, before the loss of aesthetic attraction, when I had things like a false attraction or wondered if I was really heterosexual, I could understand that it was just intrusive thoughts and it would get better. But the loss of aesthetic attraction is different. It's not a thought, it's not a feeling, it's not an image. It's just as if my tastes have changed. I can't handle it at all, I just want it to come back, but.... No matter how much less I think about it, no longer have anxiety, fewer compulsions, nothing changes. Girls in general are no longer aesthetically attractive at all. I don't see how it can come back. I don't understand the mechanism around it. Being in a relationship has always been very important to me, but without finding them beautiful, it won't be possible (I'm aware that it's not just the physical, but it matters a lot). I can't take it anymore, sometimes I just want to get it over with.

The problem is that it's much more concrete... I mean, before it was just about intrusive thoughts and then tests, but the attraction was still there. But now... It's so concrete, I have a feeling it won't come back. I can't understand how that can make me lose my attraction. I can't believe the OCD can do that.

Hi A year since I lost my attraction to girls. I'm afraid it won't come back, I can function normally, it's horrible. What do I mean by "loss of attraction", how did it manifest itself? Last year, everything started to get better: I understood how my obsessions worked, little by little they almost went silent, more intrusive thoughts, more false attraction, more anxiety. At the end of all this, when there was almost nothing left (a few intrusive thoughts, nothing more), I started to focus on the eyebrows and notice defects on the faces of girls I found attractive. And little by little, my attraction almost completely evaporated. I found fewer and fewer girls attractive, I found them more and more flaws. Little by little it spread to the whole female gender. It's as if I had, overnight, become incredibly more selective with women. And nothing has changed since then. For a few days at first, I thought it was just OCD, I was testing myself, I had anxiety at times but nothing more... And little by little... Anxiety increased, attraction never increased, sometimes it even decreased. I was afraid, I tested myself, hoping that my attraction would come back, I looked for cases similar to mine... In the evening I cried, I prayed (although I am not especially religious). My loss of attraction occupied most of my time, when I had nothing to do, I thought about it. Then I contacted psychiatrists/psychologists by email explaining my situation, those who wanted to answer me told me that I most probably had OCD, that everything could come back as before, offering me therapies, unfortunately, we are not on the same continent and it is beyond my means. In short, it's been a year, a year since my aesthetic attraction to the opposite sex almost completely disappeared, a year since nothing has returned, a year since it gnaws at me from the inside. I just want the attraction to return to the way it was before. I'm afraid it'll never come back or never come back entirely. I don't really know if it's HOCD or not anymore. I don't really have any anxiety anymore, I almost don't test myself anymore, I don't even think I care about my loss of attraction anymore since somedays. Everyone seems to recover their attraction once in this situation, but not me. I don't even feel empty, not even bad. I don't know what to do anymore. All my life I have loved women, I have found them beautiful and overnight nothing more. I don't want to stay like this, I don't know what to do anymore. - Do you think my attraction will return to the way it was before? Is that possible? - How do I get my aesthetic appeal back?

Hi. I've read a lot of your posts and I've seen mine in your story. I also have a sexual obsession (commonly called HOCD), and I went through pretty much the same steps you've described in your posts for years (currently, I also go through the loss of attraction to the opposite sex even though I have more intrusive thoughts and almost no compulsions), but I've also gone through the fear of denial. There was an article that helped me a lot (and reassured me, it's true), but I don't know if it's allowed to post links and your PMs don't seem to work (I can't send you any, I don't know if it's wanted). Anyway, I hope I'm not doing something that shouldn't : https://ocdla.com/doubt-denial-ocd-5342 If you ever want to talk in private, don't hesitate, by the way. 7zurg

I just realized that I forgot some words in the post about the whole. Of course I have hobbies and many other things, but they are less important to me than girls. I'd rather kill myself, to be honest. I hope the attraction will return. Last night, I have the impression that the attraction had slightly returned. She left again, but I think if it varies, it's because it's OCD. What kills me the most I think is the confusion between the meaning of attraction in English and French. In English you make a difference between physical/esthetic attraction and sexual attraction. What we do not do in French. I've read so much about loss of attraction without knowing if people were talking about aesthetic attraction or not. I think that if I knew it had happened to others, it would help me to have this little impulse, to say to myself "it's okay, you're not the only one, it's HOCD, stop the compulsions, the attraction will return". Thank you all for your answers.

I think it's a translation problem (I'm not a native-english speaker). By "everything", I mean the entirety of the whole.

My existence is not only based on that, but girls are an important thing to me. It is a whole and attraction is part of that whole. If I don't have any more attraction for girls, everything falls apart. I always wanted to find a girlfriend, wake up next to her, make her happy so I could be happy. You will understand that if my attraction disappears, all this disappears too. And considering how real my loss of attraction looks... I'm in distress

I find it harder and harder to believe that it's OCD. I try not to check my attraction to girls, not to ruminate, but it's too complicated. My libido is falling more and more, as for my attraction to girls... Very few are still attractive to me and I have the impression it's decrease more. I try to tell myself that it's OCD, but every time I see a girl, I don't see beauty anymore, I see defects, I don't feel anything anymore. I always found qualities, pretty things in girls. It's horrible not to see anything as before, not to feel anything. When I was in great pain, the only thing that kept me from thinking about death was my attraction to girls. I could have all the intrusive thoughts in the world, be mentally tortured, be afraid to become attracted to men, I still had an attraction for women, and even if nothing was going well, it kept me going. Not having this ability to see beauty in girls anymore, only seeing flaws now is the worst thing that has happened to me. The more time goes by, the more I think it will never come back. My attraction to girls is becoming like the one I have for men: non-existent. I don't see the point in living if it's to live without my attraction to women, sometimes I hope to fall asleep and not wake up.

At the moment I test myself much less and I don't see any improvement. It scares me. If I stop, I feel like I'm abandoning women, like I'm doing this, everything is lost. That said, even when I test myself, when I see that girls who attracted me no longer attract me... It's almost the same horrible feeling that gives me the impression/that makes me believe that it will never come back. It's stupid, I know it's OCD (if I really have OCD, which I hope I do). It gives me a false sense of control, it makes it less unpleasant in a way. I can't believe it's just OCD, and if I stop it, it'll get better. It's like I'm abandoning women and I don't want to abandon them. I feel stuck, in a dead end, writing this. How did people who overcame OCD stop checking the opposite sex ?

Hi, thanks for your support. I think my biggest problem is not the lack of interest, it's the lack of attraction to what I've always loved, appreciated. Not being sure it's OCD doesn't help either. As time goes by, I lose my "sense of attraction" more and more. I am increasingly unable to remember what attracted me to women before OCD. I'm afraid to expect something that won't come back, most of the time I feel depressed, anxious, when I'm none of that, I just feel sad and empty. I wonder if I've really been attracted to girls. I have been in love, rejected by girls, felt sad because of it (besides, the pain I get from OCD is the same as when I was in love and I was rejected, except that this time it doesn't last a few weeks, it has lasted for several years). As time goes by, I start doubting again. At the beginning of the year everything had become very simple, it had to be OCD, the compulsions stopped little by little... Since I lost my attraction little by little, everything is back to the way it was before January. I'm afraid it's never the same as it was before OCD. If I am logical, knowing that I have always noticed girls, never men, that I have fallen exclusively in love with girls, that I have fantasized about them, that I have dreamed of being in a relationship with them, that I was looking for them, that before OCD I never noticed a man's physique, I must be straight. Except a straight man, who would often cry if he wasn't attracted to women anymore? Who would feel so bad about that? All that's happening is like someone ripped out a part of me. When I first started having OCD, I wondered how I knew I was attracted to girls, and for a very long time, I only had logic. Now I realize that it was just so natural that I didn't notice it in a way. I mean... I was seeing a pretty girl, I thought "she's beautiful", and something so natural was going on that I didn't put words on it, it was there, it was normal, a little like breathing. Now there's nothing left. I think that if the OCD has been able to "add" attraction, it must be able to remove it, but it's hard to think like that when you don't feel like you used to. Last year, the attraction helped me to get better. It was probably hope and compulsion but I could imagine myself with a girl I liked, feeling a feeling, it made me think that it would eventually work, after all, I was attracted to girls, never to men (confusing attraction and anxiety it happened but I could manage even if I doubted very much). I spent a lot of time doing research, trying to think logically, to understand, even if I was in trouble and very often it really wasn't going to happen (no longer feeling straight, groinals responses, feeling attracted to all men, intrusive thoughts almost constant). It was the attraction to girls that kept me going. I am also afraid of not expressing my ideas correctly in English, of translating too literally from French into English, and even if I use a rather powerful dictionary and translator to really be sure, I am afraid of misinterpreting what I feel in English. If only my attraction could come back... Something would take over but it would already be so much better. I can handle a lot of things, but the loss of attraction, no longer seeing the girls as before, they that I saw so beautiful, and that I now see as lambdas beings, less attractive, not to say more attractive at all sometimes.... I don't know what to do to make it come back, today I mainly felt empty, without anxiety or almost. I almost didn't go to see pictures of girls, but when I went... Still nothing. I was wondering if I found them attractive and... Again, it wasn't like before. A lot more no's, and a different feeling than before OCD. The most obvious way to feel better would be to cut off any compulsion, I cut about what I can, but the girls' check is... Complicated. I mean, it's like taking a child away from you, telling you that maybe you'll get it back and telling you it'll be at an address. Any parent would go to the address given as much as possible. I feel exactly the same way. Rumination is almost as much but in a different register. If you have, in addition to this solution other advice, I am a taker. My life is becoming more and more unbearable because of OCD.

Hi Lynz. Thanks for your answer. Unfortunately, I don't see a therapist and I'm not on medication at the moment.

I forgot to mention that I have a kind of blockage to imagine girls since I have this loss of attraction. I feel like all the progress I've made since I got OCD has evaporated and I've returned to the starting point. I think about it and chew it up very often during the day. This fear of never finding women beautiful again is horrible. I wonder if it's still OCD. I've had so many different fears (fear of becoming gay in the future, of being in denial, of being in denial, of realizing that I have always been gay and so many other fears...) from the beginning, but this is the worst.