OCD sufferer looking for clarity (wall of text)

Hi there! For the last year or so I have been (at times) completely obsessed that I am in fact gay and living in denial. While I have not been diagnosed with OCD (I am working on a lot of things including social anxiety and depression and have made a lot of progress lately), I most certainly obsess way too much about things (be it that the car will break down the at the worst possible moment to that I have HIV or am dying of emphysema).

Now, in my teens I formed a very harmful mastrubation habit where I would mastrubate multiple times a day IF, and only IF, I felt down for any reason, which I did alot due to depression and anxieties. I formed an addiction to a particular compilation of shemale porn and sessions would only last 10 seconds or so, and I would feel very bad afterwards. I experimented with anal stimuli and found that I enjoyed it, which is something I don't deny. I also sometimes mastrubated to penises (just the penis, not a man) preferably a penis on a shemale and I think that I had a penis-thing. Scenario's such as going to a glory hole and sucking dick would cause such anxiety and distress so I would quickly mastrubate to get relief. I have never acted on any of these fantasies/thoughts and I honestly belive I don't want to. But this is where my doubts come in. Mind you, I had sex (not a lot, though) with strictly girls, and I was strictly interested in girls in real life. Also, on a good day, I would imagine sex with a girl and mastrubate(it had to be a real person, someone I knew I could get with in real life, whereas when mastrubating to shemales/penises it had to be an unknown). After doing that I would feel good about myself, no guilt or unhappiness.

Anyway, after meeting my first girlfriend with whom I have been together with for over a year, I stopped mastrubating and have never felt better. We have great sex almost every day and I have no erection problems. If I ever feel like mastrubating nowadays, I think of another women or my girlfriend, but I still seem to form these fetishes. For instance, I love imaging my girl in high heels.

So, because of my previous mastrubation habits, my (still sometimes) low self esteem, the fact that I enjoy anal stimuli and my extreme OCD I think that this might mean that I am in fact gay. I have, after all, mastrubated to gay fantasies (well, penis fantasies) and despite these causing my more harm than good I, at the time, found them stimulating.

This is all very confusing and I love my girlfriend to bits and plan on marriage, but my greatest fear is that I am lying to myself. I have never been happier but I don't want to realize I am gay later in life.

 

I don't think I have ever felt this confused, these last 24 hours has been the worst of my life. I can't come to terms with this. As mentioned, I spent much of my teens mastrubating to things I considered taboo, and while I don't have any urges to do so anymore I think that if I really tried I might.

I just don't know what to do. I am in a commited relationship with someone I love extremely much, I can't even imagine life without her. We have spoken about the future alot, we both want the same things in life and I love thinking about a future with her.

When I hear things like people being married for over 10 years and then "realizing" they are gay, or that you can't be bisexual - that it's just one step in accepting you are gay, I almost get panic attacks. How can they do it?

I know my love for her is not fake, nor my attraction. I have never felt attracted to a man, yet I have watched porn involving penises and fantasized about things I just don't think I would want to in real life. But I just don't know..

My fears are very irrational. For instance, after a night out I stupidly had sex with a prostitute (female) and even though she barely gave me a BJ and then finished with a handjob I feared for a year that I had HIV. The risk were something like 1 in 10000, and that is if she had HIV. For a year I was convinced I had HIV, and went to get tested. Tests obviously came back negative, but I was still not convinced. I carried on worrying for another 6 months or so until I did another test, and after that it eventually went away. Now I am worried about this instead. It's almost like I need to worry about something all the time. For instance, when I smoke weed I get more anxious and normally I would worry about the HIV-thing or my sexuality, but the last time I smoked (my girlfriend hates me smoking) all I could think of was that I let her down - and not once during the high did I worry about anything else.

I can't get out of my f*cking head that I mastrubated to gay stuff when I was younger. I did it alot but I was never interested in anyone of the same sex. They were all self destructive fantasies that I would never do in reality. Thinking of it in real life disgusts me and makes me suicidal.

So, what the hell do I do? I can't 'explore' since I am in commited relationship. I can't go on worrying that for some reason my attraction for my girlfriend will die out (despite the fact that sex is better than ever) later on in life. I can't propose to her if I am not sure where I am sexually. I am having a real crisis, people. How can I get closure?

 

I just don't think I can tell her. She knows me extremely well, I think the only thing she does not know is this. She is a actually a pyschotherapist, and she has told me many times how I have improved so much since she met, how I am a different person, much happier etc. and that is true.

But she has her own issues with the past, with previous boyfriends cheating on her and her trust is extremely hard to gain. I have her trust and I don't want to lose it, I worked hard to get it.

I know no one else can give me an answer. Only I can know where I am sexually. But I just don't, and it brings me to tears every time I think that perhaps I am gay and despite being so happy and in love with my girlfriend I have to leave her. I seriously do not have any intrest in men in real life, but because of my doubting (OCD) I tell myself that maybe I do and it just goes on and on. I cannot see myself waking up next to man, loving a man or anything like that. It just does not feel like me. But how can I be sure?

I hope with time I will realize where I stand, but right now I am feeling hopeless and suicidal. I lead a depressed, drug and alcohol abusing life where I mastrubated not for pleasure but for a dopamine high, and I think the consequences are coming now. Happier than ever with someone who feels right for me, who feels like someone I want to spend my life with, marry, have kids, grow old - I still have to feel like this. I have worked out most of my issues, quit all kinds of drugs, still drink sometimes but it does me no good (I don't even want to know what 100cl+ of booze once or twice a week has done to my brain). I don't know why I drank so much, I think I just could not control the intake. There was no stopping me, no throwing up or knowing my limit like everyone else. I know that I could easily go back to that should I lose my only reason to live - my girlfriend.

I have actually been near death a couple of times from drinking, with such high amounts of alcohol in my blood I should be unconcious (normally I entered zombie blackout mode and attempted to make my way home). I did this for years, every weekend - blackout every time I drank.

I need to stop obsessing about it, it does me no good. I want to talk to a therapist, but it is just not possible for me at this time.

I consider myself open enough to accept that I am gay, if I in fact was. It doesn't feel right and makes no sense but if I actually thought I was I would be ok with it. I just want to be happy. I have spent too long being unhappy.