Groinal response from Pure-O

[TiltedPillar]

I haven't been able to find any information about this and even my therapist doesn't quite know what to make of it, and it feels like I'm the only one dealing with this.

 

 

I have had Pure OCD almost my entire life. My first obsession was a religious one. It started when my cousin showed me the music video for When the Devil went to Georgia or something like that and it started my obsession with selling my soul to the devil. I struggle with repetative thoughts so I developed a repetative prayer that went like "I will never sell my soul and I accept Jesus as my savior". My mind would play that on repeat probably hundreds or thousands of times a day. I was 13 at this time, and it grew to include genital arousal. Strong anxiety, fear and the feeling I was doing something mortally dangerous created this response, and at one point, I even masturbated to the thought of selling my soul. This was not enjoyable in the slightest and it only served as a way to release that tension but it resulted in me being convinced that I had actually sold my soul and I was going to hell. I developed triggers that would give me strong unwanted genital sensations that would at times end in orgasm.

 

This arousal stayed with me through all of my biggest OCD obsessions. HOCD as a teenager, which didn't go away until I was convinced I was gay, came out, lost the anxiety and discovered I was actually asexual, to POCD, which arose when I was 20 and the random thought popped into my head one day after watching Chris Hansen videos on YouTube, asking myself "what if I'm actually a pedophile". Prior to that, the thought had never crossed my mind. I had been around plenty of kids without any second thought. Never experienced attraction or anything like that. 

 

When My POCD developed, the genital arousal response developed as well, and it has been extremepy distressing. I find myself asking if I'm actually in denial or not, and since my experience seems to be rare, and I don't have any true sexual attraction to compare this to, I'm in a tough spot. The only comfort I have is two things. 1. This never crossed my mind before I was 20, and 2. The lower my anxiety, the fewer sexual intrusive thoughts I have. It's just difficult because I have obsessions about the most morally reprehensible thing I can think of, and the fact that it's reprehensible adds to the stress and the arousal that accompanies that stress.

 

This arousal also occurs when I'm angry, when I'm running late for something important, when I'm discussing something or thinking about something that bothers me, and a few other things along those lines. 

 

I know that arousal from sexual OCD obsessions is common, have any of you had strong sexual arousal occur from non sexual obsessions and/ or stressful situations not relating to sex?

[discuccsant]

Who doesn't? I think it's fairly normal. Even if I associate something completely non-sexual like a tree, car or monitor with something sexual, I always get a groinal response. I mean. It's as if we can put ourselves into a “sexual mode”. Where we then afterwards can see through our “sexual mind”. Very weird to explain. And once we do that, our brain automatically gives signals to our groinal area. And here you go: You'll have groinal responses. There was a theologian and scientist with whom I talked once about that and he basically told me, that sexuality is uncategorizable and has to be seen more or less as something like on a spectrum. Categories are human constructs. There is no “Homosexuality”, “Heterosexuality” or whatever in the biological sense. There is just sexuality. In the Victorian age there was a real issue with men getting aroused by curvy tables. Therefore, they put tablecloth over those curvy tables, to make sure men don't get aroused by it. Sounds silly, but back then this was a real issue. It's also why people in prison do homosexual acts with each other — yeah, it's still an ongoing issue in prisons and a reason, you can get condoms from the prison doctors.

Now here we are. You get groinal responses. And I highly suspect it is because your OCD make you go into this “sexual mode”. Your OCD basically makes you aware of it, as it is triggered by your anxiety and then your OCD puts you into this “sexual mode”, without you really desiring it. It's actually so paradox, but that's how OCD manifests itself in our brains. "Don't think of the pink elephant" -> You automatically think of the pink elephant. And here is the same: You don't want to feel those groinal responses to specific things, which just then automatically makes you see those things as something sexual, which then leads to your groinal area reacting to that. It's so absurd. But it is, as it is.

Try not to worry about it. It's normal. A lot of people, also people with no OCD at all, have those moments of their anxiety triggering the sexual mode and therefore them becoming groinal responses. Difference between them and us are, that our responses are mostly triggered by our OCD constantly, while theirs is triggered by an random intrusive thought once, which they — and that's the key difference between them and us —  afterwards can easily dismiss. 

[Ashley]

Hello there,

5 hours ago, TiltedPillar said:

I know that arousal from sexual OCD obsessions is common, have any of you had strong sexual arousal occur from non sexual obsessions and/ or stressful situations not relating to sex?

Yes this is so normal.  It's actually something that happens for many people with OCD, regardless of the manifestation of the persons OCD.  I don't mean always groinal for other people, but our OCD will generate body sensations.  For example:

If you have an OCD fear of contamination from dog mess, the moment you see dog mess, even if across the road your hand will start to feel pins and needles almost from the contamination you have just seen.

If you have an OCD fear of catching HIV and you see a needle as you walk through a park, your foot will start to feel likes it's tingly and that convices our mind that we have been pricked or scratched, even though we know we haven't.

If you have an OCD fear of being gay, they will see a person of the same sex and because they focus on not being aroused, the mind forces the body to react.

and that's exactly what happens if you worry you might be a paedophile.

If you have an OCD fear of being attracted to children the moment you see a child and are trying not to be aroused, the mind forces the body to react. Even if you're not specifically trying to focus on not being aroused, if your mind is subconsciously worrying it will force the part of your body you don't want to react to react!

For example.. If I tell you to focus on your left foot right now, your left foot will start to feel tad tingly usually.

With all of these points above, when the body reacts often the person will start to to feel guilty and that reinforces what the OCD is trying to tell them, well if I am having a groinal reaction that must mean its true and I am a paedophile.  Of course that's not right, because OCD is a big lying bully. 

I have highlighted the OCD fear parts above because it leads me to my next point..

 

5 hours ago, TiltedPillar said:

I have had Pure OCD almost my entire life.

This arousal stayed with me through all of my biggest OCD obsessions. HOCD as a teenager, which didn't go away until I was convinced I was gay, came out, lost the anxiety and discovered I was actually asexual, to POCD,

 

You mention you have Pure O and reference HOCD, POCD, but actually you don't have any of those, you have OCD.  This is not just a pernickety point, it can be so important to know this distinction.  Pure O is a really unhelpful term that makes people think they don’t have compulsions and somehow their OCD is different.  As I show above it's not, the same process is happening in pretty much most manifestations of OCD.  By thinking we have HOCD or POCD you are focussing on the fear, not the actual problem which is OCD.  The thought we have 'I am gay', 'I am a paedophile' is not the problem, so not the H part or P part, it's what we do with that thought and what OCD makes us believe it means... so the problem is OCD.

By focussing on one manifestation of OCD, that's how we miss other facets of the condition and why it will shift from one worry to another.

 

 

5 hours ago, TiltedPillar said:

I haven't been able to find any information about this and even my therapist doesn't quite know what to make of it,

This is going to sound harsh, but if your therapist doesn’t know what to make of it then you really need a new therapist. This is standard OCD stuff that we know and a good therapist that understands the complexity of OCD should also know.   So you need to find a different CBT therapist and ideally one with understanding and knowledge of how to treat OCD.