Understanding a Nightmare?

[SherrySher]

Did you get a chance to read my post above? Any thoughts to it?

[JCDallasNJ]

So, do you think maybe this is all a type of anxiety and not actually being gay? There is a type of anxiety like this, and it's based more on an OCD type of anxiety as it's thought that keeps cycling. People think about what if they might be, or what might happen (fill in the blank) and they get anxious over it and then continue doing the same cycle over and over without the chance of the fear even being real.

 

It's more or less just a thought and you're attaching anxiety to it.

 

What would work best in this situation is if the thought comes, and you reply to it with..."So what". At first it will seem strange and you won't believe yourself, but the more you practice it and the more you say it to yourself, the less the fear becomes a threat.

 

If you get the thought.."what if I am gay? Or what if I do eventually have a crush on a man?" Instead of having an anxious reaction, change the reaction to a nonchalant one and say.."so what".

 

You then take the power away from the fear, (which is what could be keeping the cycle going) and it has less threat to continue in your mind.

 

Because realistically, even if you were bi or gay, it's not a huge deal, you'd find a way to deal with it, as would others around you, and life would go on.

 

Sometimes the mind is bored and finds things to do to keep itself busy so to speak, and this might be all it's doing being as you have a lot of time on your hands right now.

 

Try not to stress over it. It's all good either way.

 

Did you get a chance to read my post above? Any thoughts to it?

 

Hey I actually missed this the other day, thank you for your post. I'm personally convinced it's almost definitely both OCD and Anxiety, but my therapist suggests that's what I want it to be, and the actual truth could be that there's a chance I'm bisexual and I'm trying to become okay with the idea of it.. Either way, whether it's OCD/Anxiety or actually truly bisexual, we're trying to become more okay with the fact it could be a real possibility, and that everything's on a specturm.. It's just been tough for myself to picture myself as a bisexual considering for 26 years I never once had a real life experience or reason to consider myself as anything other than straight, so that's why I'm almost certain it's OCD

[musicman777]

Hi JCDallas,

I hope you get to read this response. Someone else referred me to your post on here from a thread I started. I just wanted to offer my words of support on how to overcome this. I'm a 30 year old man and late last year, I suffered from the vicious monster that is "sexual orientation OCD". I 1000% understand everything you are going through, and some of the responses here, these people don't quite understand the severity of this mental illness and how to deal with it.

I'll give you a very brief backstory. I had a negative sexual experience with a woman last year. She wanted it , and I just wasn't turned on by her at all. The fact of the matter is, she wasn't the most attractive woman in the world. She had bad breath, nasty teeth, facial hair. The whole thing happened very fast and showed me a side of her that I wasn't really expecting and actually kinda didn't like. Most normal-minded people would say oh well, she wasn't the right one, and move on. For me, it's like a switch got flipped in my brain. "What if I'm gay?". That question caused a cataclysmic earthquake in my brain.

 

My sexuality became an obsession. I would think about it, at its worst, 300-400 times per day. What if I'm gay, what if I'm bi, what if I'm asexual, would I have a threesome with a girl and another guy, could I take a guy to an amusement park and feel comfortable? I mean these absolutely ridiculous, constant, and intrusive thoughts. I couldn't go five minutes without worrying about it! You start checking constantly. You check out boys, girls, fantasize about people in your life you never fantasized about seeing if you get a reaction. You start watching unhealthy amounts of porn, comparing how guys vs. girls turn you on, and oh boy if you can get off to a male, you MUST be gay!

Yep, I been there. And the OCD jumped ship to my health, where I had a constant fear of dying and was making compulsive visits to the hospital at 3AM. So, how I beat this. I had a therapist who wasn't working for me. In fact, she was feeding the OCD thoughts, telling me I "wasn't gay". She was completely unqualified to help and I found out later was an awful therapist. I went to someone new who was an OCD specialist that specialized in issues of sexuality. I then went to my MD, who did his residency at a mental health hospital. As soon as I told him what was going on, he knew right away, "you need to be medicated for this".

 

My doctor prescribed to me wellbutrin,150mg twice a day. It took about 2~ months for the medication to work into my system. But once it did, it's like, the fog totally cleared. The therapy wasn't doing squat for me at first. But once the medication kicked in, it helped actually put the therapists techniques into action on how to deal with anxiety and work with such thoughts. The longer I've been on this medication, the more it has helped. It's come to a point where my doctor would like to try to ween me off of it, but he's letting me do that whenever I feel comfortable in doing so.

I'm not a doctor, but everything you wrote sounds exactly like what I was going through. I was given the official diagnosis of OCD and anxiety disorder by my therapist. And the medication, it shows, I had a serious chemical imbalance going on in my brain. And that's what people need to understand about this. This has little to nothing to do with your sexuality. It has to do with constant fear, anxiety, and ruminating thoughts. This is a mental illness.

 

When it comes to sexuality, you will *never* prove you are or aren't gay. If you look at something hard enough in a sexual way, you're going to get a reaction to it, regardless of what or who it is. It's an unwinnable battle. Normal people don't worry or obsess over this. But to an OCD suffer, it is something personal that you will obsess over. I don't want to give you "reassurance" here. But, having a thought doesn't make it true. You could think about, fantasize, explore, and even have sex with a man. It wouldn't make you "gay". The fact of the matter is, it sounds like you have the same mental illness as me. If you feel the therapy isn't working and you haven't gone to a doctor yet... go do so. A simple medication can significantly turn this around. And there's tons of different psychiatric meds for OCD. You may get something different than me, or what I took my not work for you. But, OCD is extremely treatable through medication. Thanks to the meds, I have a normal life again, and the therapy on top is really helping rewire my brain in a positive way. I'm also taking other actions; improving my diet, taking vitamins daily, trying to get as much sleep as I can, and eliminating stress. I actually quit a side job I had to remove stress out of my life, because I didn't need it nor the extra money. So, it's a process and I chose to fight it on all fronts.

And as far as my sexuality goes, I'm going to continue dating women because that is what feels right and is who I am. I still think about and even have dreams about dating and marrying a woman some day. I've liked women for as long as I've had memories, since I was freaking two years old I had a thing for princess Jasmine in Alladin! My arousal towards the same gender feels like something that happens only when I consciously think about or focus on it, unlike women. That kinda tells me that it's not who I really am. And fantasizing about it consciously, well, guess what? That's probably more common than you think. You know the porn most watched by women is same-sex porn? A lot of people enjoy same-sex porn and literature because they can relate more to what the person is feeling vs. the opposite gender. That doesn't make you gay. Fantasy land is a much different place than reality.

 

Sorry for the wall of text, I just wanted to let you know you aren't alone, and this is a very treatable condition if you get help. You are welcome to message me anytime if you want someone to talk to about this that has gone through it. Just keep your head up, get help, go to the right doctors and you can easily stomp this!