Can you cure hocd

But then I feel I am not as I have always been In love with the opp gender.. I must tell you …these thoughts are very much convincing and may convince you that you are not what you think you are. I am not so sure anymore. I just want my normal life back. Jessa how are you doing now? This is also a question for everyone else. I will update in maybe a month time after using the tips from this article and seeing how I feel them.

This is a disorder. I have been experiencing this gay intrusive thoughts for two months now. It feels so real and when I ignore it, it feels like I am in denial. Since then I stopped hanging out with same sex friends because of the fear that I might actually in love with them or wants to be in a relationship with them. This is so scary.

The thoughts are too disturbing and I feel disconnected to myself. I have only known what this was since today, but I definitely relate to this by a lot.

Sometimes I question it a little, but when I reassure myself with Asexuality videos, it goes away since I do relate to Asexuality a lot. I keep having intrusive and compulsive thoughts that absolutely disgust me. The only thing that makes me stop thinking about it is forcing myself to sleep, nothing else. My online friend is 12 hours ahead and has Zoom classes, so he never has time for me anymore. Or steak, cuz I always like steak and baked potatoes along with salmon.

The obsessive thoughts started this year. I really started believing I was a lesbian but it just seemed really odd to me. Cause I love guys. As a person that comes originally from a homophobic country, such HOCD impulses do tend to be accomplished with suicidal thoughts.

This article is extremely helpful, thank you so much!! I wish more people could understand and be more informed—particularly health care professionals. Especially after reading through the entire post, feeling somewhat better about your illness, to come across your comment and end up back to square one. I personally think your comment should be removed.

Two weeks after we broke up the thought of being gay started to manifest in my mind. I struggled with thoughts of kissing a dude, having a serious relationship with a dude and even have intercourse with a dude.

I keep asking myself am I sending out gay vibes or am I acting gay and the thought just rips me to pieces. Please any advice is welcome. I suspect in a different world, where being gay was no different than wearing a red shirt instead of a blue shirt, this disorder would not exist.

What is the prevalence rates in countries without a stigma around being gay? As a gay man I have a deep understanding of how strongly someone may want to reject being gay.

I struggled for for a few years to accept this about myself. I struggled for many more to admit it to anyone else. I considered hiding it forever at times. It does not help that there is a huge stigma about being gay. Political correctness masks this and can even make it seem like people prefer it when they find out you are gay. Societal behavior tells us that being gay means a whole slew of things that it does not actually mean.

Since we are social creatures you will likely adapt some of these behaviors, at least around others. We tend to play into the expectations of others. Everyone who went through the coming out experience will tell you the same thing.

If you end up being gay, you will not be happy if you suppress it. At the same time you have to be ready. Hopefully the doctors can help with that.

Can you recommend someone? Your email address will not be published. Notify me of new posts by email. Greene, Ph. If so, are they right? What if these thoughts never go away? Maybe not enough! What causes HOCD? How is HOCD treated? Can HOCD change your sexuality? When will HOCD go away? But compare it to the alternative. You isolate yourself from the people who care about you. You avoid sex and all sexual expression in an attempt to cleanse yourself of any possibility of an unwanted sexual thought or feeling.

And then at the end of your life, you decide this was all a sham. But you threw your life away for no reason other than the avoidance of fear. Which scenario is ultimately more disappointing? A groinal response in the context of the OCD experience is:. A sensation is a sensation and whether we define it as wanted or unwanted is all about the narrative we have about this experience.

The same is true of thoughts. Though we notably identify obsessions as unwanted thoughts and distinguish them from other kinds of thoughts, the truth is that thoughts themselves are simply words or images appearing in the mind. It is the judgment and analysis that gets us into trouble with OCD. Any sensation anywhere in the body is going to have a variety of potential sources, the most common of which are:.

The phenomenon of groinal response in HOCD is easily re-created in other parts of the body. If I ask you to divert your attention to the pinky finger on your right hand, you will immediately trigger the firing of nerve endings in that area. Now, focus only on the knuckle of that finger… now on one crease in that knuckle. Whenever your attention shifts away naturally, try to bring it back to the crease in the knuckle of your right pinky finger.

Now tell yourself it feels weird. Does it feel weird? Something is setting it apart from the rest of your body. The attention causes the magnification of thoughts about sensations. This leads to the perception of sensation and sensations themselves. Furthermore, thoughts and feelings about these perceived and real sensations intensify the experience, creating a vicious cycle of thinking, sensing, fearing, thinking, and sensing some more.

The HOCD sufferer is very likely to have groinal responses around the same sex for the precise reason that they are checking and telling themselves not to. Just as trying NOT to think of a purple unicorn just made you think of a purple unicorn, trying NOT to experience sensation often generates sensation in this very sensitive part of the body.

Conversely, trying to generate groinal responses to the preferred attraction will often fail to produce results. By trying to create the experience, you are generating a somewhat synthetic version of what you were hoping for. In the end, obsessions are more than intrusive thoughts. They are intrusive experiences.

Testing is a form of reassurance seeking that involves initially exposing oneself to triggers and then analyzing the reaction to those triggers with the intention of getting certainty about the meaning of those reactions.

Truly, it is exposure without response prevention and not OCD treatment. Many also describe compulsively looking at their historically preferred erotic pictures or videos and then analyzing whether they liked it enough or as much as the triggering material.

This often involves checking the body for signs of sexual arousal and then analyzing the significance of the findings. Nonetheless, OCD takes the experiences from compulsive testing and uses them to strengthen your obsession. So, what is denial? Denial is actively choosing to behave in a way that directly opposes your values or beliefs without acknowledging it.

One common concern among HOCD sufferers is that if they choose to accept uncertainty and stop doing rituals, they may discover that they are gay and that discovery will result in a revelation to their partner that they have been lying about their orientation. So, in addition to imaginal scripting exposures in which the sufferer could write out the feared consequences of persisting in gay denial in a relationship, the sufferer might also do exposures to strengthening their relationship.

You might feel that you know your sexual orientation, and then suddenly you start thinking about the opposite orientation — thinking about it so much that you become obsessed. Understandably, the thought of discussing your sexual concerns with a complete stranger may be uncomfortable. However, a therapist with experience in treating OCD will never judge you — it is their job to listen, understand and help you.

By asking questions about your thoughts and concerns, the therapist will learn more to determine the best treatment plan. Often, the plan will include exposure and response prevention ERP therapy, which is often regarded as the gold standard of OCD treatment.

During ERP, your therapist will work with you to build a plan specific to your OCD to help you learn new ways to manage thoughts, feelings and responses to your obsessions.

This could involve starting with the exposure of identifying same-sex indivduals who are attractive or watching movies featuring a LGBTQ storyline if you typically like opposite-sex individuals.

Through this exposure, your therapist will help you develop response prevention measures based on what you hope to accomplish with therapy.

Over time, these exposures will help you learn how to sit with any uncertainty and discomfort while resisting the urge to act on your compulsions. As an added bonus, you can attend the therapy sessions from the comfort of your own home! To get started, schedule a free minute consultation with our clinical team, who will help determine the best options for you. Keara E. Valentine, Psy.