Dear Olivia:

You are very welcome. “By ‘People like me’ it means people like me that are questioning their sexuality or think they are and actually have OCD“- I had OCD for much of my life (no longer do), ever since I was a child, and was diagnosed with it, so I am people like you in this regard.  From personal experience therefore, I know how OCD works: it almost randomly grabs a thought (something you hear, something that happened to cross your mind) and doesn’t let go of it.

“These thoughts weren’t triggered by liking a girl or anything they just came on suddenly a few weeks ago“- like I said, a thought happens to cross the mind and the OCD-brain grabs it and doesn’t let go.

“Do you think I have OCD?“- I think so, but I am not a medical doctor or a psychotherapist. How about seeing a medical professional or a psychotherapist and ask this question?

“I just need someone to tell me how to stop them… I think I’m definitely overthinking but I don’t know how to stop it“- sometimes it takes a psychiatric medication to accomplish this. As an adult, I saw a psychiatrist for my OCD and was prescribed Zoloft.  Zoloft worked very well for me: it  felt like a pair of scissors was cutting my obsessive thinking chain of thoughts, it was incredible.  If I went back in time, I would have had psychotherapy at the same time of taking Zoloft and after some therapy, I would have stopped the medication. (I haven’t been on any psychiatric medication in the past 9 years).

“I seem to be using these forums and finding others like me to help prevent the anxiety, which it does for 2 days or something and then it just comes back. I feel like I am in need of a permanent solution“- using forums so to find relief from obsessive thinking is a compulsion (the C in OCD). It is the nature of compulsions that they provide temporary relief. Compulsions never lead to a permanent solution. I suggest that you see a doctor and take it from there.

anita