Dear Bianca:

You are welcome and thank you for your kind words! Good to read that you will be having your first therapy session soon. I hope you that you will like the therapist. Otherwise, we can talk about the topic here. I am very familiar with the topic because I communicated with many members about it in various threads, plus I suffered from OCD for half of my life.

Notice the HOCD you mentioned (“I have read up on HOCD, and the symptoms match me”) is a type of OCD. The therapist you will be seeing, or a medical doctor may consider this diagnosis for you, or not.

You also mentioned intrusive thoughts. What I learned is that thoughts are intrusive (uncomfortable, distressing) only when a person is afraid of these thoughts. I learned to not be afraid of my thoughts and guess what… after half my life suffering from OCD, I no longer do!

You are suffering because of thoughts about your sexual orientation. These thoughts are invisible, aren’t they, they only exist between your two ears. They are mental happenings, like many of the thousands of thoughts you have every day… and none of those thousands of thoughts is dangerous. Do you think that your thoughts about your sexual orientation are dangerous?

anita