OCD or?

I have taken the liberty to also check your previous thread and... I am going to say it is still the OCD talking.
You have OCD, you are diagnosed, and you are seeking treatment. That is, in the end, all there is to it.

In fact, from history of talking to people with OCD, I'm hesitant to say more than the above. It is an annoying condition, and no matter what I would say here, your brain would follow it up with "But certainly, the fact that my brain is thinking these thoughts must mean something deep about me?".

The answer, however, is that the above is really just the OCD talking, and that it is unwise for non-professionals to pick it apart on a forum.

So let's move to a more productive angle: you mentioned your therapist being unavailable in your last thread. Has that situation improved? Or is there an opportunity to talk (at least temporarily) to a backup therapist?

 

Well, you know you have OCD. Diagnosed and in treatment. So there's that for a start. It's unlikely you spontaneously lost it. And doubly unlikely that that would happen right at the moment you start doing stuff like obsessively getting into a sudden new idea/fear and testing it obsessively, which is a well-known symptom of OCD.

I'm sure there's several other times where you got completely hung on something you got totally in your head about, or that you felt the need to test over and over, and those things went away, didn't they? This is not necessarily different.

I know you're dying to get into a detailed discussion of each test you devise and to compare them to any experience an actual gay person might have had. But I also hope you understand I'm very hesitant to do so. I have worked with OCD people in the past, and in my experience, any in-depth discussion of these "tests" end up in the OCD discounting all the reasons they're different while latching on to any tenuous chance something might be really there.
So all I can say is: ejaculating means you have a functioning set of genitals, but not anything more. Trust what you already know about yourself rather than those intrusive thoughts, which are really just a misfire in your brain.

Okay, that sucks. I do think you're doing the right thing in pursuing further options, though. Keep doing that! I am crossing all my toes and fingers for it materialising ASAP!

 

Awwe. I do wish you a better Christmas! Pandemic was hard on us all, especially those of us who compulsively overthink (and, while I have no OCD, I am definitely guilty of overthinking a lot).

While I cannot make a therapist appear, I can only advise to practice on centering yourself.
If doubts or worries feel compulsive, find something physical to do. Maybe take a brisk walk in the outside air and focus on your breathing. Try to pick up a book or a series or something else you find fun and distracting. If you're with your girlfriend, focus on the fun you're having right that instant, and nothing beyond it.
Hell, if it helps, write on a piece of paper "Filip told me this is the OCD", roll it up, put it in your pocket, and run your thumb over it when you feel uncertain. Quite often it's a type of physical ritual that can keep you from sinking into thoughts.

You'll be fine. You're doing your best to deal with it and find the right help. And even though it's currently a lot of work, You're closer to a resolution than you were before!

 

Sup bro

i understand you

i’ve been through a lot too, with the tingles and there were moments where i even got hard by doing the tests

its so hard to not think about it but youre doing great

keep with what they told you, that you have ocd

i already went through things even worse like getting hard for tests and all

and they keep telling me that is ocd

so yeah you have ocd too

bc if what i went through is ocd, you probably are too

 

I can give examples of my own to you

there was one time where i tested about being bottom to a dude after a friend of mine grabbed me from behind and i felt the tingles, it turned out that i got hard testing

And there were multiple moments where i would test about doing a bj to a guy and would get hard,

and i always asked the same question

how can i get hard if im not gay

and sorry to answer but i dont know why yet

but there were some explanations from chips that would explain that ur mind is hijacked and it fuck it up with our sense and the way we feel and see things

i dont know if this explains or if this is the reason why this happen to me or to you

but it could probably be

 

Lol, you’re trying to draw me here into a discussion of each test, aren’t you?

Do please promise that you keep looking into a professional for treatment and follow-up, as whatever assurances I can give you are really only going to be “advice as a friend”, compared to what a professional can offer.


That said, I WILL say that your tests, to me, underscore their OCD nature, as opposed to proving you are secretly gay. For two reasons:

- These tests are very… mechanical and clinical. I don’t really know any gay people who think of their sexuality in that way. You don’t discover you’re gay because you counted to a number of ejaculations to pictures of your own gender. Nor, in fact, do gay people necessarily go limp when looking at a woman.

It just isn’t that black-and-white. Sometimes I have weird thoughts about a woman I get along well with. Sometimes I enjoy imagining a sexual scenario that is different from the ones I normally go for. That doesn’t mean I’m not gay. It just means that people are complex and sometimes have weird thoughts that go nowhere and don’t really mean anything in the wider pattern of their lives. I’m pretty sure that if I were to do the same test as you do, I could ejaculate to an image of a woman. Even more so, if I practiced it every day, I am sure I could do so reliably. But why would it mean anything? Except that I am a guy with a hormone system? Absent OCD, it just doesn’t strike me as a thing to obsess over.


- It is exactly the OCD that makes this so (to non-OCD people) weirdly obsessive. You seem to keep returning to the same test, and you seem to keep insisting that this one test defines you. That if you were straight, the very thought of a naked man should make you gag. That your personality shouldn’t have any weird non-sequiturs or occasional funny nonsense thoughts that pop up one minute and are gone the next without them meaning anything. You’re valuing this one test over the entire pattern and practice of your life.

When, in reality, humans are just like that. Complex. Sometimes you have a weird thought you get lost in. Sometimes you have a weird worry that turns out to just disappear. To non-OCD people that just… happens. In case of OCD, your brain starts to internalize the exception more than the rule, then turns it into a test you perform over and over, and then decides that this is your life now, and that horrors await if you don’t make it the centerpiece of your personality.

I wish I could entirely convince you of the above. I know that even now, your brain is going to latch on to a single word I phrased carelessly to find proof that everything I said is actually proof of your obsession rather than the opposite.


All I can say in the end is that, as somewhat of an experienced expert on being gay: it sounds more like an obsession than a truth about your life. It is not something I can entirely relate to. And I really hope a therapist will come through to help you with it better than I could.

 

Aww. Just to be clear here: replying is not a bother. I am very glad that you are at least feeling heard, and I hope that my opinion can give you some peace of mind at least.

I'm glad the meds are helping to at least decrease the acute anxiety. I may not have OCD myself, but I have suffered from strong anxiety attacks all throughout my life, so on that front I can definitely sympathise.

I'm guessing, though, that in the case of OCD, they are kind of like a nicotine patch. Will relieve the physical need to smoke, but will not fix the fact that for most smokers, the smoking is also just a ritual, a thing thy do, which is harder to break. And it sounds like the testing is the cigarette in this metaphor.

So all I can say is that it may be best to try to lessen the frequency of the testing? Going cold turkey on it might be a bit too much, but maybe you can try and see if you can go more and more days between tests? And try to live more in the present, rather than seeing experiences of other people as coded hints the universe is giving towards you, and rather just as life stories of others that don't necessarily tell anything about yours?

Easier said than done, I know. For what it's worth, I'll keep checking on this thread, if my reassurance can be of any help. Though also I have a family and a friend Christmas to organise, so I make no promises for promptness in the next three or four days. Do enjoy your Christmas!

 

Think about whether you want to be turned on or you are turned on by seeing a man or having sex with a man. Everybody can force themselves to be aroused by anything. Sometimes it's mechanical. Thoughts about masturbation can make erection. It's like food. You can swallow all sorts of things, but not all of them will taste good. Only you know what you desire. Intuitive thoughts are the best indicator. Think about who you look at, who you like physically. Who do you look at when you're horny.