DRS1

I would trust the assessment normally, however, my assessment took 2 sessions. I have OCD and ASD. Reading the start of your post, I can see parts of what may be ASD behaviours/traits and OCD throughout your post but I'm not medically qualified to tell you if you have or don't have these conditions. A diagnosis shouldn't and I don't think can be made in just 15 minutes so you may need to advocate for yourself to get adequately assessed in any case.

So what are you going to do about it? No matter if you think it is or isn't OCD at this point, your experiencing the exact same things right now. If you are genuinely concerned about persistent genital arousal disorder, go see a doctor. Yu are saying it's any thought or image but I thought you said before in this very thread that anything with women doesn't cause arousal anymore? If anyone hyper focused on their genitals as much as you do we would experience the same similar sensations. It's a very sensitive area. Have you heard back from the therapist you emailed?

You keep saying that you must now definitely be gay but even for someone that's arguing they are in denial of it, you seem to have an awful lot of doubt over whether you are or are not gay.

Trigger Core Belief/Anxiety Compulsion Core Beliefs/Castrophizing I'm a very black and white person but the only person casting any judgement on your actions is you. You only even considered confessing because he brought up the fact someone else mentioned it. Did you even think about it before that point? Have you felt like confessing before that or was the urge to do so only really there because of the trigger of it. We cannot possible answer this. This would give you reassurance, which is currently what you are seeking. Here's the facts. You "cheated" by flirting and you regret it. You have continued to punish yourself since then every time you get a thought about it - this is not helpful regardless of whether or not you have OCD or not. There's nothing you can do to go back on this and that's not the issue here. Also can we clear up the idea of the word "normal". There is not a standard for normal for humans. No one's abnormal if they dye their hair green for example. Still a human... There's no reason why you can't come and post here, especially if you need support. I think to some extent at least no one who is doing better than they used to that has OCD wants to go back to its worst but technically you can't. You've learned things to actually combat it, doesn't matter if it feels just as bad, you actually have resources to get yourself out now.. Who does confessing really benefit here? You or your partner?

No. @Handy is quite right here. A person without OCD would not ruminate over this and try to figure out what it meant and doing so without it actually resulting in an answer that settles it. A person without OCD would be able to acknowledge the dream as something weird they had no control over and be able to carry on with their day. They don't need to work out what it means or how it relates to them or who they are as a person.

and what do you do when it all comes back?

because you are clearly still doing compulsions whether or not you realise it. The compulsions definitely don't fix it. That's a lie OCD has made you believe that's kept you in this cycle. Just for the sake of it, I've had similar wet dreams, but that's all they are. Not pleasant but just like intrusive thoughts. If all you do is focus on that via rumination or try to control it via compulsions, then of course you are always going to be stuck. It's more than just the behavioural part of CBT here it's also the Cognitive bit. You need to be willing to accept that it might not have meant anything but that you can't know for sure. That doubt/anxiety is what you need to be able to be comfortable in experiencing. If I can get to where I am at now with similar experiences by stopping my compulsions, why can't you? The only thing that is ever going to keep you stuck is not the thoughts. They are not the problem. Compulsions are the problem within OCD. You may want to look at self-help books on OCD to be able to learn the kind of skills you need to be able to get yourself out of this cycle you are in right now

This is actually backwards. The compulsions are the reason why these thoughts are sticking about and affecting you. Try and answer those questions.

I get it, and I certainly understand where OCD's interfering here too. Here's something to think about though, what can you control? Can you control what other people do? You can choose to not listen to something or not go to a shop for whatever reasons you want. I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with that. However, are you doing that because you feel in someway "contaminated" or yourself "tainted" by the fact that you did listen to that music or go to that shop and now need to avoid it?

I think you are looking for reassurance here. Instead I'll give you some questions to think about. How is a dream any different from an intrusive thought? How is a wet dream where the dream has things you don't like happening in it any different from one that aligns with your preferences on sex? Is it not the same uncontrollable process? How many guys do you think have had these wet dreams with the unwanted content? Should everyone that's had that same experience end their life or hate themselves or punish themselves because of it?

So what's happening right now is you are spiralling a bit there and now are doubting you even have OCD and yet that's exactly something OCD would do. Even after you are in recovery from OCD, it will through this last ditch attempt by trying to get you to do compulsions under the premise of needing to do therapy correctly (aka get rid of OCD correctly) I want to try and avoid giving you reassurance here in case it becomes a compulsion but I'll say this all once. You can shrug it off by taking the risk that it might not be OCD. I know that sounds backwards but there is this idea of accepting the worst outcome and being able to understand if that happens you will need to deal with it at the time. At some point you need to take that risk if you want to get better because if it is OCD, then not taking that risk means never getting better. You are believing one of OCDs mind games currently, the idea that your OCD is different to everyone else's and therefore you must not have OCD because you can't find something that exactly matches what you experience. Wrong! Whilst this is something OCD will try to do, it's important to understand whilst OCD intrusive thoughts or images content may be different for everyone, there is always a commonality with rough "topics" or "themes" e.g. when HIV was a prevalent issue in the news it became more prevalent of a theme in people with OCD. Same goes for COVID. I can give you an example or two that cover the same ground as what you are dealing with. Intrusive thoughts where you feel you may have hit someone with your car and drove off. Someone that has that thought may compulsively ruminate or drive around the area where they thought it had happened only to find nothing. Secondly, where there may have been sexual intimacy with two people and despite the fact it was both consensual at the time, OCD may throw a doubt in there e.g. what if they didn't want to do that and this ended up being sexual assault. Note what the core fears are here for both. Doing something the person considers wrong and illegal but also what's the worst that would happen? In the first they'd probably go to jail and in the second they could go to jail, end up on the sex offenders register or both. I think you are misunderstanding intrusive thoughts and triggers. The world is a trigger for them. Sure they can just randomly pop in, but it could also be because of for example watching the news and seeing a negative headline, being around certain people or engaged in certain activities. It still comes out of nowhere or rather putting it differently, you experience an unwanted thought. I don't think you really believe that last part of your post. You wouldn't be on this forum if you really did. You may have the doubts that you might not have OCD but there's obviously been enough to give you an idea that this is what you are dealing with.

I don't know that you should never have seen your therapist. I understand you are terrified, that's completely understandable. You've just unloaded the scariest things you experience in your head to someone else that isn't another online anonymous person. When you put it like that it sounds daunting, but... I was in the same position as you. I was terrified to tell someone about my thoughts (and if you get someone who isn't a therapist or otherwise trained on OCD then they may not understand it,which doesn't sound like you have someone like that which is good). It was everything. Sexual images of sex acts involving family members. Images of genitals, stabbing myself or other people if I went into the kitchen with a knife. Pushing people down the stairs (almost hilariously common it seems), whether semen was somewhere in the bathroom and somehow someone would touch it and get pregnant, that my next door neighbour was going to sexually assault me whilst I was in the shower, that I was somehow just going to go into the living room and choke out my family for literally no reason. The list goes on and on. I told them everything. They did not bat one eyelid. They deadpanned it all. They may not have heard of every single thought/image I had listed before but they did understand OCD. I do not regret telling them. I don't think there's enough open discussion outside of a medical setting on the realities of intrusions content which probably is furthering the stigma around it but OCD-UK and a few other organizations are trying to turn that round. It's okay to feel scared but also try to give yourself a bit of hope. You've just taken the risk. The risk that it can get better. The risk that it might not be OCD but if it is, you want to get better. That is one of the best decisions you could have ever made for your mental health. Congratulations

How so?

Or you are just continuing to catastrophize the whole thing in the hope that you will be told you are 100% definitely not gay. If you already know what they will try and do or not do, why haven't you managed to work this out for yourself then by this point? Clearly all the catastrophizing here isn't working and the doubt over your sexuality isn't going to go away for as long as you keep doing the things you are doing. If you don't want to get better then don't go to therapy. If you want to take the risk that you could be gay and it might not be OCD, go to therapy. If you take that risk, you may find out that you have lived for so long without help for a condition that had nothing to do with your sexual preferences but actually used your sexuality and the fact that it's part of your identity to cause this the whole time. I'd say take the risk. Someone telling you that you are gay at this point won't change anything. It won't stop you doing the same things you are doing now. However if you find out the whole lot of this is OCD, by not going to therapy, you will be in the same position. On the other hand if you go and it is OCD, then you can get a whole lot better than you are right now.

So there's a bit of an issue here. The entire post is asking for compulsive reassurance so no matter the answer we give it might be okay for a bit and then you'll come back to this. Secondly, the main issue here is you can't remember so you are now trying to get a definitive answer. You can't get that definitive answer. No one is in your head able to experience that in that moment. Equally, all you are doing by trying to figure it out is make it worse. The problem has nothing to do with how the thought or image got there, it has everything to do with how you want to react to that worry

This is reddit we are talking about. Assuming that everything everyone says on that platform is somehow the truth is maybe not the best idea. You could have the strongest erection to seeing men and I still wouldn't be convinced that you are gay. However you are in the complete opposite world from that. I can't say anything that we haven't already said now. The porn isn't going to help you, if anything it just sounds like it's making you anxious as part of your checking compulsion. It's kind of like you are doing this: "No, I need to make sure I only get aroused to women" after being triggered by seeing men. You watch porn and try to get aroused in the most anxious way possible and nothing happens. What you want to happen is not happening because you are that anxious So then you believe that as proof that you are gay... Until the next time you get the trigger and you try the exact same steps again hoping for a different result... But it never changes. What this really comes down to is being able to accept that you don't have control over arousal and the more you try to fight erections and focusing on them, the more they will stay. The more anxious you get when they don't appear to what you want, the less they will show up. Next time it happens, find a comfortable place to be and just sit there with it. Allow it to do what it's going to do. Put yourself away from your phone/computer. Just let yourself feel the sensation. Don't try to get rid of it. It will go away on its own but it's important you be present with it. You need to realize that you can cope with it and not have to try and annihilate any kind of response you don't like.

No one should even answer that. Think about why you are asking that question

This was the exact point I was making in the disclaimer part of my response. Also the DSM still doesn't cover everything that someone with OCD might face so whilst it's helpful it's not the end all be all of what OCD is exactly

This is it Cora. No more needs to be said on this than what @malina has said.

At this point, I don't want to give you reassurance but your problem at the minute seems to be no matter how much we tell you, you won't believe us because you are somehow different. So, one last time before I can't give "knowledge" before it just becomes reassurance to you, check out Chrissie Hodges YouTube channel. She has dealt with OCD for most of her life and has a book (Disclaimer: Before anyone says that Pure OCD doesn't exist, it's the title of the book, she still has compulsions. Pure OCD as a label is a misnomer that "implies" that there could be no compulsions and only obsessions but categorically this is incorrect and most often people who may identify with this are people who have harmful, sexual intrusive thoughts and images and have mental compulsions that are not so obvious!) called "Pure OCD" that is a memoir of her life growing up with OCD. She is not shy about this topic of sexual intrusive thoughts, groinal responses, arousal, it happening during orgasm etc. I get that you may feel alone. For me, what made me feel less alone was reading a book and watching a series called Pure (again disclaimer above applies here! ^) which I found was the first place that ever just said how it was from someone's actual point of view. This was pre-joining the forum but this and Mark Freeman's The Mind Workout (You Are Not A Rock is the name depending on the country) were instrumental in starting the process of understanding. It's worthy of note, that if you are looking to convince yourself that it's only just OCD every time, then you are going to get nothing from the above bar temporarily relief. Currently, I'm under the assumption that you might just need to hear someone else that you can see who it is not anonymous talking about it to really take it in, rather than an anonymous forum of people with OCD. I don't want to answer any of the questions posed in the post itself as I worry I would just give you reassurance.

If you rephrase that question and take out the words weird and creepy, do you need to have solutions to every feeling, thought, image you ever have. Do you always need to have answers? This is something I've been having a bit of a blip with at the moment myself. I've had a spike of a few old intrusive thoughts/images that you could call "real event". Initially I did the wrong thing. I reacted, ruminated and brought myself down so low I genuinely thought that was it, my life was over it was worthless... But... My life isn't worthless and not only that but I realized I've been down this exact same path before, just as you have @Cora with all the same kinds of intrusions you have. The fundamental difference is that I've chosen to break the cycle because I already know this out of despair and compulsions isn't making anything better. It's horrible yes but I can do ERP, I can change how I respond. Its not about just living with these thoughts and feelings, it's also about doing what you do want to do... Whilst importantly recognizing that the reason why they stick around is because of your reaction. So if you cut out the reaction each time then the more you will be able to live. From your logic with the hole I dropped myself into in the last week, I shouldn't even deserve to be here right now based on shambolic nonsense of my own head. We need to be able to live. We suffer enough so we should choose to live our lives not be suffocated by OCD

I don't see the point you are trying to make here. @taurean isn't suggesting "Pure O" is a separate form of OCD. In fact, if anything he has clarified that we support everything here because it is all OCD, regardless of what people might want to call it. As for the "Pure O" aspect, OCD-UK in the most recent edition of the OCD Magazine for OCD-UK Members has sections talking more in depth about "Pure O" when referring to taboo themes as well as going over "subtype" names e.g. HOCD, SOOCD, ROCD etc. and what they actually mean, not that they are entirely helpful.

You could have all the evidence in the world and it wouldn't be enough. OCD will never ever accept it

If the charity got £1 for every time this kind of comment appeared on the forum over the years, that would a reasonable amount of money

What if I told you that what you are looking for will not settle it for you. You will get an answer but never be content? You will simply eventually worry again and the answer would mean nothing?