Sorry for the long post. I’ve been on these forums having a look at peoples experiences for about 5 months now and thought it was time to post myself. I’m 26 y/o male and have always identified as straight. I’m overweight and have a very low self esteem/body image and because of this I ended up losing my virginity quite late at the age 24 to my current girlfriend. I have no other sexual experience other than with her. My girLfriend has a a lack of experience too and my expectations were a bit high but we've both developed and it has definitely got better. At uni I indulged in recreational drugs and since then I have suffered from anxiety and depression and have been on and off meds since I was 21. When I had sex for the first time after years of porn abuse and SSRIs I found it very difficult to ejaculate and could often not ejaculate at all or it would be very delayed(a very common side effect for Setraline) or I’d have to masturbate. These difficulties in the bedroom casted a seed of doubt about my sexuality which has now grown to an uncontrollable obsession. Since covid and being working from home my mental health has got much worse and in August I started having a bit of breakdown. I’ve went back on the meds and I find it difficult to finish again so that played on mind even more. Again I’ve come off the meds and can seem to only ejaculate in certain positions and always find doggie my favourite. It’s become a really mental battle for me as I think I’m not going to ejaculate and that means I am gay so I try and force it and end up getting very stressed out and feeling Unrelaxed. Again this seed of doubt as I read somewhere this could be a sign of not being totally straight. I now constantly test myself for signs of arousal with men whether that’s out and about or the TV whilst having sex with my gf. Twice I’ve even thought about a same-sex experience for a few seconds and then finished in a position I wouldn’t normally. The thing is I don’t know if I was close anyway or was it me diverting my attention from worrying about finishing to something else and or could it mean I am bi? I don’t have any attraction to men, I notice someone who good looking but I never have that desire that I do with women. Occasionally, when I test I feel like I might be getting aroused because it’s a bit taboo - don’t want to offend anyone with that term. But I never get hard. As for actually wanting to do it, I feel no desire. When I drink now it’s the only time I feel like myself again and thougts go away and I’m totally at peace and feel confident I am straight. Day to day though I have no idea and feel like I’m a totally different person. When I initially started having this anxiety about my sexuality I googled it and up popped HOCD. That for a while made perfect sense to me and I referred for therapy and scored 102 on the OCD test with the threshold being 40. The waiting list is long at the moment so I’m seeing a private therapist and haven’t had much progress. The thing is I did the test over the phone and I’m questioning whether I actually do have OCD or not. I certainly have other behaviours but did I make it more severe because I want to have it rather than actually having it. I’m just really confused at the moment and could do with some help. Thanks Andy
This is a mental health issue. HOCD does not exist as a standalone diagnosis, but OCD is skyrocketing in new diagnoses. Everything you are describing is textbook classic OCD, and this is almost certainly what's going on with regard to your sexuality. The interesting thing is that some SSRIs, in addition to being helpful for many with depression, are also helpful in managing OCD. It often takes a number of different adjustments and/or medication changes to get the right combination of dosage and medication to manage it, but once you do, it's like a whole new world for most people. Therapy can be helpful, but there are a *lot* of shitty therapists out there and if you aren't making progress, you may need to change. There are several different approaches, therapeutically, to OCD, and the skill of the therapist has a big impact on how effective therapy is for OCD symptoms. I would also suggest the book "Brain Lock" which is super helpful and includes both an explanation of the neurochemical origin of OCD, as well as some practical strategies for handling OCD.
Thank you Chip! I appreciate you taking the time to respond. I have started listening to Brain Lock on audible as I saw you had suggested it a few times. I have had some success with relabel, reattribute, refocus, revalue strategy. Unfortunately, for me it’s always one step forward two steps back. I’ll go through periods where it’s more intense than others and I can manage symptoms more effectively with meditation etc. I always end up trying to do one more test because the last one wasn’t effective enough. And that’s the hardest thing for me. It’s always need to make one more test. I’ve been very open with my gf about it and she said to me how do you know your attracted to girls - you just know right, you don’t need to test. It’s make perfect sense but my brain won’t accept it.
This is textbook classic OCD, and if it's intrusive enough that the cognitive interventions aren't doing the trick, you probably need medication. This is again how OCD works. I described it to someone a while back like this: Imagine there's a large plot of land. It's empty. But you see a house on it. You can walk up and down the street and see the different angles of the house. But you're the only person who sees it, because it isn't actually there. And I'm there with you, and I tell you that there's no house there. Finally, we get a dozen people who gather on the sidewalk. No one but you sees the house. So we all walk onto the property, right to where the house you see is. But as you and everyone else can see, the house isn't there. Yet when you go back to the sidewalk, you still see the house. That's how OCD works. It literally hijacks the brain's capacity for reason and ability to interpret the signs you see. And that's why cognitive interventions can only go so far. The good news is, once you get on medication that is effective (and that often takes a few tries), you'll find that the problem almost completely goes away.
Progress is rarely a straight line - more like a zig zag , but you might want to try additional things like therapy if you feel you're not making enough progress yourself.
Andrew.....what I can tell you about OCD is that it can hijack your brain and convince you of all kinds of things that you would normally never believe or normally never do. I know, I've been there. Then it can cause you to do these things over and over. My OCD almost caused my everyday life to come to a halt due to the compulsions that it was forcing me to do. You have probably been told this before, so I'm just reinforcing what others have said. OCD can affect anything...including things concerning sexuality. I've never shared this before, but before I accepted that I was gay and got medical help and help from a therapist, when I was still intimate with my wife, afterwards I had to go to the bathroom and clean myself off so throughly that I almost rubbed my skin raw. I had to do this every time before I could go to bed. Later on we stopped being intimate as both of us had health conditions that made it impossible and after I had accepted that I was gay there was no possibility of being intimate. So my point here is that you have several issues that are affecting your sex life. OCD really does appear to a significant one. The only way to really get a handle on OCD is by working with a qualified therapist and by connecting with a doctor who will help you find the right medication in the right dosage to control it. This will take some time but when you get the meds right and you do find the right therapist, as Chip said, the problem will almost completely go away. I still have OCD, it's not something that you are normally "cured" of. However, there are days when I don't even notice it and even my "worst" days now are nothing at all like before and I can handle them with no real problem. So please work at finding the right medical help to overcome this...you won't be sorry that you did! .....David
Thanks guys - really appreciate it. I’ve taken a few days away from the forum because I end up becoming obsessed with reading people stories to reduce my anxiety. I’m in a real rough patch at the moment with ups and downs and have reached out to the doctor to try meds again. I’ve asked for a non-SSRI because last time I tried those it actually made me worse because of the delayed gratification and constant questioning. I feel extremely numb at the moment and being intimate with my girlfriend is a double edged sword. As I want ti be but I’m constantly thinking you don’t feel anything wh
My reply got cut off. Basically I was saying…as I want to be with her intimately but I’m constantly thinking you don’t feel anything, why don’t you think about gay sex that will turn you on. Then I’m intensely checking for and forcing sensations which feel so alien to me. The only thing that keeps my head above water is I know that I’m not attracted to men physically or romantically. I’ve done a few ERP excersises which I’ve found online like looking at play girl, watching queer eye and reading stories but it doesn’t do anything for me. The worst thing for me is thinking have I been in denial the whole time and I’m allowing just allowing these sensations to happen. It’s very odd and very scary for me.
