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question about OCD/HOCD

Discussion in 'Sexual Orientation' started by Leah061, Sep 27, 2019.

  1. Leah061

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    I recently listened to a podcast that talked a bit about HOCD and they talked about some things that I hadn’t thought about before. From what I’ve seen, usually when people talk about HOCD, it’s in reference to a straight man who shows no real signs of being attracted to men, but obsesses over the possibility that they’re in a very deep denial and will eventually realize that they are or will become gay. But on the podcast it was talked about in a broader way, where it can be anyone who obsesses over their sexuality, not just straight men who are afraid that they’re gay, but also possibly someone like me who obsesses over whether they’re bisexual or a lesbian. For me, I’ve wondered for a long time if there was something compulsive about the way I’ve questioned my sexuality. I am definitely beginning to think that I have some OCD tendencies, and now I wonder if the way I constantly question my sexuality is connected to that. It’s so uncomfortable to not know what I am, because that makes it hard to know how I need to move forward in the way of coming out, planning my life, and how I interact with people. I do not understand how some people are fine going without labels and I can’t help but think it’s a little dismissive when those people say to questioning people that labels aren’t important, because realizing you’re someone who can’t live a “normal” straight persons life is such a difficult thing to navigate. It feels like the only way out of this gray area of not knowing how I really feel about men or women is to constantly analyze myself to the point that it just seems irrational. I think gray areas are what I’m afraid of, and I think that’s one of the reasons why I desperately do not want to be bisexual, even though it seems like I could be, although it’s hard to tell where OCD stops and plain old internalized homophobia begins. After all, as I mentioned in an earlier post, when I begin to think that I’m only fully attracted to women and not men, and realize that this means I’m a lesbian, I freak out, and focus on all the ways I “could” “hypothetically” like men, and then I feel so guilty and like a bad lesbian, so then I feel like I should be bisexual. I compulsively obsess over ways I might be attracted to men, and that is what’s so stressful for me in identifying as a lesbian. I think that fear of being somewhere in between straight and gay or questioning and certain, and of course normal straight person or lesbian/bisexual person, is what drives me to compulsively question myself. I guess what I’m asking is if it’s possible for HOCD to manifest in different ways other than straight men wondering if they’re actually gay, or does it stop being HOCD at some point and begin being classified as a non specific symptom of OCD?
     
  2. Chip

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    First, I'm always disappointed when people put out resources for others based on inaccurate or unsupported scientific ideas, especially when it relates to human self-awareness and social adjustment. It's a huge disservice for people to be producing podcasts perpetuating the idea that HOCD exists as a standalone disorder. It does not. There's only OCD. Now, if you have OCD, it is possible that you might have, as one of the intrusive, obsessive thoughts, the fear that you are gay even though there's little to no evidence to support that idea. But that's still OCD.

    Now... with regard to OCD, there appears to be a measurable increase in prevalence of OCD in the past 10 years, and some people with OCD will have, among their obsessive thoughts, questions about their sexual orientation. Women as well as men can suffer from OCD.

    The key is, with OCD, the thoughts are constant, intrusive, create anxiety and discomfort, and in the case of OCD where one of the obsessions is on sexual identity, the individual asking them is never satisfied with what they are told, or with whatever data they come up with disproving whatever their concern is; no matter how compelling the evidence against it, they'll find some tiny sliver and convince themselves that this keeps the question open. That's the nature of OCD.

    The other attribute of OCD is that... it is impossible to logically, rationally solve whatever question the person is obsessing over because the the obsessive thoughts are not based in reality and thus the person will never be satisfied with the answer. The drive to obsessively try to answer the question (which, in the case of EC, revolves around the sufferer asking the same question, with very slight variations) about 10,000 times, getting 10,000 "no" answers, and continuing to ask over and over is driven by the compulsion. It is a malfunction of the brain that completely hijacks reason centers, and thus, no amount of even insurmountable evidence will be enough to stop the person from questioning.

    Now in your case... I don't remember your questions and posts to be the sort of obsessive questioning that I'd characterize as typical of those with OCD... but that doesn't mean you don't have OCD, only that your posts haven't stood out that way to me as they often do with the members here that are likely on that spectrum. So your concern about whether you're bisexual or lesbian might be characterized as simply a discomfort with uncertainty, which basically resolves back to a discomfort with vulnerability. If you think about it, absolute certainty about much of anything is kind of a myth, and for many things, we make decisions without knowing with certainty what the right decision is. So there's no reason, for example, that one cannot simply say "This is what I feel like is the case" and act on that. The idea that we must absolutely know who we are, and have an absolute, unquestionable label when we're not certain is something that we create in our minds; it isn't an absolute requirement to exist or function or be happy, unless we choose to make it such.

    That by itself may not help you, but it might encourage you to see if you can work toward becoming comfortable with a bit less certainty. That could be a worthwhile topic to discuss with a therapist, along with a more detailed discussion of whether or not you fit the criteria for OCD.
     
    #2 Chip, Sep 27, 2019
    Last edited: Sep 27, 2019
  3. Broccoli

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    I haven't read all your posts and have no expertise in mental disorders, but what you've said just sounds like someone with a highly analytical nature who is trying to figure out a problem they don't have an answer to yet. I recognise loads of those traits because I have them myself and see them in people around me (I work in academic science so am surrounded by obsessive analytical thinkers!), particularly the constant questioning, challenging your own thoughts and feeling the need to classify everything (so obsessed with finding a label). It comes with strengths and challenges, like most qualities, and one of the challenges is that it's easy to get stuck in your own head trying to obsessively trying to think through something when you don't have enough data to know for certain either way... but it's not OCD.
     
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  4. beenthrdonetht

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    Like @Broccoli, I am, and work with, analytic people. So when a post ends with a specific question, I like to answer it, before going on to opine or pontificate. So, first we rewrite HOCD to be "OCD about H" and then answer "Yes, the commonly-observed straight-but-obsessive guy is not the only way that people are O and C about H." In other words, you do have grounds to speculate that maybe you too are "that guy" — not necessarily in a pathological sense though. I am sure that real clinicians like @Chip see people obsessing about all sorts of things (silverware drawers, parking places). But surely the most-commonly-obsessed (in the colloquial sense) topic would be sexuality. Like everyone on EC...and everyone else too! Join the club... oh wait you already did.

    Moving on to the opining, what I recall most about your posts is your clear answers to the same sorts of questions from others. When I find myself typing "You know, straight people don't ask themselves about [fill in topic]" I feel like I am channeling you. To put a positive spin on it, I suspect your, let's call it extensive self-examination, makes you more empathetic to others. If only we could take the good advice we have for others. You should!
     
  5. Broccoli

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    Ha, touché @beenthrdonetht :grin::joy:. Okay, in answer to the actual question: This is outside my area of expertise and any answer I provide would be the result of an internet search, which I presume @Leah061 is capable of and has no-doubt already done! :innocent:
     
  6. beenthrdonetht

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    Glad you laughed, @Broccoli. Tbh, I was more sort of pre-apologizing (rationalizing?) for myself, since it's thought stereotypical for a guy to try to "fix" the other rather than listen to them. Tweaking you was a side-benefit. I'm all for analysis — properly balanced with synthesis and sympathy of course. In short, what you said.
     
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  7. Leah061

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    I know that I can over-analyze my thoughts to the point that it drives me crazy and nothing makes sense, but I have started to wonder if some of my neurotic tendencies could be the result of OCD. I won't get too much into all of it, because it's hard to describe, and I know how crazy it sounds, but to give an example, I used to think that I was just a neat freak, but only about very specific things, like the way that dishes get cleaned. I thought I just had my preferred way of hand washing dishes, but there have been times where my roommates or friends try to do them, and I have to run to shut myself in my room and have a full on panic attack, because I don't know exactly how the dishes are being done, and as soon as I'm able to re-do the dishes without seeming rude or ungrateful to whoever tried to clean up, it's the first thing I do, and I can't shake the anxiety until I do them myself, even if I know that there was probably nothing wrong with the way the other person cleaned them. I thought it was just very important to me to be excessively clean, but with people being more willing to talk about mental health now, I'm starting to see myself in some of the stories I've heard about OCD, and I think I may need to see a therapist.

    I think what compelled me to make this post was that I have recently noticed that I may have some OCD tendencies, and while I've seen the numerous posts on EC and other places where a straight guy is convinced or obsessively worries that he's gay, I haven't heard of someone's OCD affecting the questioning of their sexuality in any other way than that very specific experience, so I didn't know if it was possible to experience HOCD in any other way. But I guess if I think about it, the panic inducing feeling I get with dishes isn't really the same as the intensely uncomfortable feeling I have about my sexuality, although it is something I constantly stress out over.