DRS1

Yes Exposure and Response Prevention. You need to challenge OCD here instead of responding with your compulsions

The forum covers OCD. Doesn't matter the "theme", the kinds of intrusions or the compulsions. We all have a variety of experience of different things on here

So what would happen if people on the forum answered your question? What would you get from that?

What is the compulsion you are doing by asking this?

^ This is the difference Cora. This is the difference. The person who did what they did to my family did it with the intention to make our lives hell. They didn't say it because they were just annoyed at us for something (although we never did anything), they wanted to "be the neighbour from hell" but by all means go ahead and take saying stuff you don't mean to your family that they know you don't mean as the sign that you are the root of all evil.

You are so close to getting it! The answer to this whole thing is literally in that sentence that you just said and one of the earlier replies you may to my question. You have all the pieces of the puzzle here now, so what do you want to do with it? Here's what you have currently: The feelings are distressing and feel real and you want them to stop You are trying to confess to make the anxiety and uncertainty less overwhelming You don't want to be gay because then you'd be someone who you don't identify as because you identify as heterosexual I'll just jump the gun and spell it out for you: The feelings are distressing and feel real and you want them to stop - The reason you feel the need to confess because you don't want it to be real You are trying to confess to make the anxiety and uncertainty less overwhelming - the compulsion You don't want to be gay because then you'd be someone who you don't identify as because you identify as heterosexual - the obsession Forget the rest for a second, let me take the details away from you. Forget the following for a moment: All the testing to porn, women, men, all of that All the focusing on arousal and all the issues around that And literally everything outside what I've just said above The most fundamental part of this is obsession, anxiety/uncertainty and needing to resolve it in some way and compulsion. Then the more you do the compulsion, the more you have the intrusions (obsessions) and then the more anxiety you have so then you do the compulsion again. Then you do this whole process over again... and again... and again... forever. You can't take away the obsessions, sorry it's just not human to be able to do that. You can't do anything about the anxiety/uncertainty and you actually have proof. Look at how many times you've tried to convince yourself that you are not gay only to try to convince yourself you are gay. Has any of that ever worked or has it only fuelled the doubt and uncertainty over it? Your compulsions don't work, well they do, but not the way you want them to. They make you get stuck in this loop that you've been in for years. You cut that out and start being able to see things a bit clearer without OCD tinted glasses. I don't think your problem always is being worried that you may be gay sometimes, I think the problem is you don't know because it could be possible. Just like it's possible for you to be straight and just be in the same uncertainty. Uncertainty is going to be there, you cannot get rid of it. I know it sucks but what can you do? I do not mean to come across as really harsh but only really blunt. I don't think you will understand it, acknowledge it and definitely not try to take it on board but I'm trying my hardest as someone with OCD to try and help

" I was feeling upset (and probably still am) with my bestfriend because she wouldn't share something on social media, something serious and vital. I understand now how that is probably a stupid and childish reason to be upset with someone. I was already on my social media when I made that mistake. I was feeling upset and furious with her and decided to click on her profile, thinking that I would have some bad thoughts, deliberately, about her as a revenge (yes, evil!). When I was on her page and looking at her pictures, I started having thoughts about her physical appearance and that she deserves all the bad things that have happened to her. I don't (and can't) remember if those thoughts were unwanted, but given the circumstances it happened they most probably weren't. " Okay Cora, so you don't like her for this reason... and? Well, then you have doubt over whether or not you wanted the thoughts or not but because you were upset with her you have made the presumption you did. Are you certain? How certain, 100%? " As soon as that happened, I had one of those moments where I wished with all my heart for it to be a nightmare, one of those from which you struggle to wake up but do no matter what. But of course that wasn't true. I just don't know what's wrong with me. I should have not clicked on her page if I felt upset. I should have gotten up from my bed and moved around until it went away; or should have kept myself busy with my chores which always helps me in calming down after this type of moments. But I chose to be evil instead. Of course I don't think she deserves all those bad things or think she's unattractive. But in that moment it felt so true and it felt like it was coming from the real me, hiding deep, deep down. I know this is really dramatic, especially with what's happening in the world at the moment, but I honestly make it so difficult for myself to want to be alive. " I can describe evil to you, I know someone who tortured my family for 35 years up until this year. So if you really want to go down this path of thinking your evil consider just the following: Have you been calling children horrible names (literally would have to be censored on the forum they are that bad) since they were born and memorable to them as young as 4 years old? Have you terrified them to the point where they cannot look at you, where they actively live in fear of you? Have you, I don't know, threatened their family in some way with violence? As open as I am on this forum, there is a whole lot more stuff buried in my head that I don't talk about that has contributed to OCD being an issue at all. I'll stop at that for so many reasons none least because I'm not sure where else to go from here on that and I don't think any further explanation is relevant to your post. This is what frustrates me with you. You need to take back control in your own head and stop letting OCD walk all over you and at times so do I when I struggle. Sit down and try and write it out when you aren't so caught up in it. Give yourself some breathing space to look at it objectively not in the middle of OCD harassing you. That's when I find I can look at what the approach needs to be the next time it comes up. You have a choice here

So let me ask you this then. Having read the post I made and the response I gave you, why are you different? Am I awful? I don't think I am. I don't think its justified to try and seek forgiveness or anything of the sort for the things I've experienced. If it didn't feel real, you wouldn't care. That's the hard truth of it. The reality is either you are a person with OCD and all of this is OCD, or everyone on this forum are people who use OCD to mask who they really are and that they are perverted, disgusting, harmful, irresponsible people. You get to decide that for yourself.

Do you not see the confessing as a compulsion here?

What purpose does confessing this on the forum serve you at this point. What are you looking for?

I'm not immune to this either @eualice2, I have experienced this sort of thing, that's why I wrote the post I did. I've experienced a lot of what others who come here have experienced. I still have my difficult days but largely its improved, especially in this case for two reasons: Being able to understand that our bodies do things that may not align with what we may want to happen or value in that moment Being able to understand and accept that these feelings/reactions are going to happen regardless of what we value or want to happen. At the moment you are looking at it from "it felt pleasurable therefore it means I enjoyed it", however, what you are really doing is ignoring point 1 above. You end up finding it unacceptable that you don't have that much control over your own body in determining whether or not you should/should not feel things and experiencing arousal. The fact of the matter is, it is that attempt to control it that is causing you so much pain. If you stop focusing on how it feels, where you feel it, what it means, it goes away. You become less hyper fixated on it.

There's a section in that post I wrote on this very issue. The thing is, arousal will feel good, regardless of whether its wanted or unwanted. If you wanted to avoid feeling these sensations, you'd have to be not human and without thousands of nerve endings that are all sensitive and will make you feel something. Just like a thought, the arousal feeling here and whether or not it feels "pleasurable" or "good" is irrelevant. It's all about your response to it. If your response is try anything you can via a compulsion to get rid of those sensations, you are just going to focus more on it and make it feel even worse.

Why would you need to break up with your boyfriend? Ami missing something here? How does that help you do things you want to do?

That's a really unhelpful way of looking at it. If that's the case that we can't have sexual intrusive thoughts that are perhaps not reflective of our sexual orientation and do compulsions around that and that being OCD then I guess the same applies to the following: People who fear they have hit someone and drove away have to be people that would do it and maybe have done it then People who have harm intrusive thoughts will commit serious violent crimes People who have sexual intrusive thoughts and images about family members are incestuous perverted excuses for human beings People who have the fear that they will contaminate someone or will be contaminated will end up with any disease they fear and anyone they fear something happening to will happen I'm just using your logic here @Eric Dave, nothing else. If your logic is right, none of us have OCD. In fact, most of us would be very seriously messed up individuals. You say you are a no BS kind of person so which is it? Either the things I've bullet pointed here are false and what you have written about "hocd" or "soocd" being a made up term to allow people who are (sorry for the way I've phrased this) "in the closet" but are in denial but really are a different sexual orientation. I'm sorry but this is black and white. There's no point going over the fact with you that people experience what is termed arousal non-concordance when they are being sexually assaulted because you simply will dismiss it and say that for you it's different despite the fact that's not how the human body works. You want to keep reading articles just to check "maybe this time I can confirm I'm not gay" and then see just one sentence, maybe 3 words that then gives you "confirmation" that nope it's true, it has to be. I'm sad for you that you've had to deal with this so long that you aren't willing to even consider that there is evidence for it not being true as well.

Cora if there's one thing I've learned, there is no such thing as normal. Just doesn't exist. Why regret you are alive? Just because of OCD. OCD shouldn't be allowed to make any of us feel that way. @malina is right, you are trying and that's more than what you were doing before because you were too afraid to try. It's okay to have ups and downs with it. Don't try to get it perfect. I don't feel "normal" either. I felt and was even called an Alien throughout my entire life so far, and yet I'm just me. A person with Epilepsy. A person with OCD. An autistic person. I get it's hard but even just less than an hour ago something @snowbear and was also in the new OCD-UK magazine helped a lot during a trigger where I have been for all intensive purposes doing a compulsion around it but this time I noticed it. I don't have to try and do ERP for it right now, just being able to notice "Oh, that's the compulsion there, okay". From there I can then choose how and when I want to tackle that. Do things sometimes suck? Sure. There are days where I feel like hitting my head against the wall, no one said it'd be easy. OCD is a menace!

Let's try this again. That "messed up" dream. What did that mean?

See this where you really have some lack of understanding. The amount of weird messed up dreams that a lot of us have had if they were reflective of who we are, none of us would be the people we think we are. So is that the case @Eric Dave? As for the wet dream aspect, you are telling me you've never had a wet dream where the dream content wasn't exactly what you'd want? I'd find that really hard to believe. Even if you haven't, plenty of us have. It's not exactly the nicest experience but it is part of being a human male. You can't do anything to change that. Right now all you are employing is the attitude of confirmation bias and to be honest at this point I'm wondering if you are maybe unwilling to accept that you might not be gay as there is so much uncertainty and anxiety around it for you. The part you seem to be forgetting is sometimes our bodies don't react in accordance to our sexuality or what we may value as our identities. You've got to remember that part of your brain is a bit simpler than you think it is. It's never going to care about what tells it to start the arousal process. Wet dreams are not different. You have limited control over these. There are things you can do to reduce their frequency sure, but what's so bad about experiencing it and having a dream that accompanies it that just don't make sense. Let's take an example. If you had a wet dream and the dream content was I don't know a basketball bouncing off the ground and as it did each time it got higher and higher and then you ejaculated in your sleep. What would you take from that? because all your dreams and thoughts and sensations and images all have to mean something right? So what would that mean?

For the sake of it. If someone else told you they had the exact same intrusions that you have with all the same worries and same compulsions, would that help you? Would you then know that it's OCD? Or would it not be good enough and there would still be that doubt at the back of your mind. Would that be "evidence" that it really may all be OCD?

Just because one medical professional didn't do something right, doesn't mean your GP won't or anyone else. Don't take 1 bad experience to mean that every other experience will be like that

How do you know this? If you haven't had this conversation, then how can you know this will be the case?

You can message the mod team, there's a link on your page (contact mod team)

I mean in that scenario, you can re-expose yourself and respond differently. Send the text in a way that makes you feel like it's not right and don't try to correct it

This cannot be stressed enough @Eric Dave

I'm sorry that you have that medical condition. It must be so frustrating. Rather than try to convince you anymore, I'll just leave my post I made here as a response:

Don't presume or in this case, catastrophise what a therapist may think if you disclosed this. Also, what part about you literally physically have no control over what you get aroused to and when is escaping you here? Anxiety is playing such a huge part in you not being aroused by the things you want to be and equally you are testing the ever loving nonsense out of yourself. If you truly want to get better, here's one for you. Go look at these topless photos of men or product images of male models displaying underwear. Or better yet, try to picture it in your head. In your case you will probably focus yourself into having an erection but you know what, how about you use that as part of the ERP. Let yourself feel all of the feelings of being aroused. Actively notice all the sensations and don't do the compulsions around it. Just experience the arousal. Cool, you got an erection when looking at these things. The part of your brain that decides whether or not it gets aroused truly does not care about your values and what you would want to happen. If it did, as males, we wouldn't have unwanted erections at times we would rather not have them, but we do. We all do, regardless of sexual orientation. It's a fact of life. Why can I and many other males who identify as heterosexual have erections around other people wanted or unwanted, see erotic content and have arousal from it, look at buying underwear etc. and not care? Because it's just a body response. It's not reflective of our sexual orientation. To be quite frank the jokes that it has a mind of its own generally aren't false. A lot of the time, you are a passenger to what your body decides to do with your sexual organs. Oh and for reference, I have intrusive thoughts that I'm going to get aroused around family members or in situations I don't want to and I feel its anxiety inducing. However, in all cases the best thing I can do in that scenario is to accept if it happens, it happens. There's ultimately nothing you can do to test it won't happen or to try and effectively employ mind control or hypnotise the sexual response system of your body. It does not care. It happens to people when they have the groin medically examined regardless of what sexual orientation or gender the medical professional may be. I'll ask you this, why am I different from you? Why ultimately are you somehow different to everyone else who identifies as a heterosexual person with OCD? @taurean, @snowbear, @Caramoole, @Ashley, @PolarBear, myself and so, so many more people have been trying to get through to you on this for a while now (for others listed a very long time). The reality is, either we are all absolute idiots and can't see this clearly isn't OCD or it's that obvious, it's frustrating to see you continue to suffer in the way you do despite this information. I get it's not easy. Right now I imagine you almost feel like your body/mind is effectively betraying you by the fact you aren't getting aroused to what you want to be and that's got to feel devastating. However, if you truly understand that there is no way for you to control all the things you are trying to control and try to accept that every time you experience arousal or not experience it, it may be completely unconnected with your values and your sexuality and that's okay. The only part that is making your life so miserable has literally nothing to do with your erections. It's how you perceive your arousal and the compulsions you are doing around it because as @taurean has correctly said, your core fear is of being homosexual. In fact, lets take it back a bit. Your core fear is being something that you don't feel is part of your identity as a person. Even if it's just one piece of advice, take at least one and try to take action based on that. You don't realise how strong you are with how long you've been dealing with this. I recently made a post on sexual themes in OCD that I might ask if I could move from the OCD-UK members chat to the main forum to share and I can reply with the link to that post on here at least for a bit of education on how sexuality, and sexual themes ultimately play out in OCD and the kinds of things we can do to get our lives back.