OCD or shame

[Dave321]

On 14/05/2020 at 12:52, Orwell1984 said:

Right there- physical problem.

It mushroomed into an OCD problem.

I hope you are right.   I am having constant higher heart rate and groinal when seeing any sort of topless man.  I had some horrible dreams last night too.  I feel like pure **** today (as usual).

My heart rate doesnt go up when I see pics of girls. It  does when I see guys.  Are you sure this isn;t some sort of proof I am gay and turned on by men? 

[dksea]

16 hours ago, Dave321 said:

My heart rate doesnt go up when I see pics of girls. It  does when I see guys.  Are you sure this isn;t some sort of proof I am gay and turned on by men? 

If the idea of being attracted to men causes you distress and anxiety, it is very possible if not likely that you would see an increased heart rate in such situations.  If a person who is afraid of spiders sees a spider they have that same kind of reaction.

I strongly believe that over time your reactions to these fears have created a Pavlovian response.  You have sensitized yourself to respond to these situations.  If you freak out mentally when you see a picture of a topless man because you worry about how you'll respond to it, eventually your brain will start to do that automatically.  The longer you continue to respond in this way to these situations, the more your reaction becomes automatic.  But that doesn't make it permanent, nor does it mean you have genuine attraction, merely that you have SOME kind of response.  Just as you sensitized yourself to these types of images you can desensitize yourself.  By being aware of how you respond and actively mitigating your responses (such as not assuming it means you are gay just because you have A response) you will train your brain to stop freaking out. 

My personal initial OCD fear revolved around throwing up, particularly in public.  As a result I became highly sensitized to things which would remind me of that type of experience.  Feelings of slight nausea from riding a bus for example.  Mentions of throwing up or related terms in media such as books or tv or movies, these things would cause me to become both very anxious and nauseated.  I had to do work over time to desensitize myself to those triggers.  I had to work to break my instinctive reaction and ride out the anxiety.  To confront those type of triggers and not avoid/run away so to speak when I encountered them.  I had to ride busses, I had to read books.  etc.  ERP works very well for this kind of thing, you could set up an ERP process of your own for dealing with it.

[Dave321]

I agree there is some sort of Pavlovian response  ( I hope so anyway) but the more I look at men doing exposure or just seeing them during the normal course of the day the response gets worse and stronger.  Sometimes just looking at a mans face on tv and I get this squirming sensation and sensation in my groin.  The worst groinal responses happen when I am caught off guard and I am say flicking throught he tv channels and see  sex scene on tv with a guy taking his top off  (slight groinal even typing that).   I get a very strong response then.  Almost like an acute anxiety/apprehension/sexual response.  Its frightening.  Like my groin is out of control for a few moments.

When I try to tell myself this means nothing about my sexuality the groinals and doubts gets stronger and I end up having a bigger crash.

I just don;t know how to react to this.  If I treat it as intrusive meaningless reactions I end up having an enormous come down once the doubts and groinals build up and reach threshold.

If I expose myself to pictures multiple times a day on purpose I seem to just reinforce the groinal response and make it more grooved.

 

Then these failures make me believe its not ocd and just a plain sexuality crisis.   Then I try to accept it and embrace it and masturbate to topless men or gay porn and then I cant even get a proper erection and I am back to this horrible vicious circle.  

I just feel as if my body and identity has changed against my will.  I used to get aroused by seeing women.  I used to happily spend my teenage years masturbating to thoughts of women and pictures of lingerie models. Now those reactions are gone and replaced by these instant groinals. 

I got a private message on here a while ago from some guy who had HOCD and he said the only way to get over it is to try getting with a man.  I really hope thats not the only way out for me.

 

[dksea]

4 hours ago, Dave321 said:

but the more I look at men doing exposure or just seeing them during the normal course of the day the response gets worse and stronger. 

It’s expected that you will experience a negative reaction when doing ERP. Part of the process is having the negative/unwanted reaction and NOT trying to neutralize it or respond to it. The desensitizing occurs when you experience the unwanted thought/situation and do nothing. At first it’s going to be very hard. Up til that point you almost certainly engage in neutralizing behaviors which help blunt the negative experience at least somewhat. 
 

Think of it like a cold swimming pool. If you try and slowly get in you’ll probably pull back. The sensation of being cold will be unpleasant at first and you will try to avoid it. ERP is like jumping in the pool and then forcing yourself to stay in until you adjust to it. The analogy isn’t perfect because ERP is repeated over time so you adjust over and over so you can last longer and longer until it stops being a problem, but you get the idea hopefully. 
 

Having a professional to help you set up and start your ERP is valuable specifically because it’s hard. Another person who can guide you and hold you accountable will make the experience better than trying to do it yourself (though it can be done) because the other person can remain objective the whole time. 
 

4 hours ago, Dave321 said:

I got a private message on here a while ago from some guy who had HOCD and he said the only way to get over it is to try getting with a man.  I really hope thats not the only way out for me.

That is terrible advice and you should not follow it at all.  It would be dishonest and disrespectful to use another person in that way.  Further it doesn’t address the underlying problem of OCD which is doubt and how we, as sufferers mishandle it. It’s merely an extreme (and unethical) form of testing, a compulsion. Definitely not sound advice.