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HOCD and loss of aesthetic attraction


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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?

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This is OCD, not HOCD. 

So you got better, which in large part would have been due to abstaining from compulsions. Well done. But, a new obsession came along and what did you do? You slipped into doing compulsions. You wrote them out in your post. I tested myself. I looked for cases similar to mine. Etc.

Unfortunately, you were not aware enough that OCD switched gears and fixated on something else. And you did all the wrong things.

Take a deep breath and start again. List out your compulsions. Start working on stopping them.

And learn from this. OCD can change its guise at any time. Recognize it and don't fall into rhe compulsion trap.

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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.

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  • 1 month later...

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.

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