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Porn Addiction and HOCD?? HELP!

Discussion in 'Rebooting - Porn Addiction Recovery' started by SpideyMan, Dec 14, 2014.

  1. SpideyMan

    SpideyMan Fapstronaut

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    I posted this initially on another forum but I'll post it here:
    -----

    Background information
    I am a 22 year old male who has liked girls since 1st grade (I've had crushes for as long as I can remember), and never even thought twice about liking men. I didn't exactly grow up in the most accepting environment for homosexuality, but I've become more accepting after attending a very liberal arts college that I just graduated from. I have been in a relationship with a girl for the past 4 years and currently live with her. I discovered porn at the age of 12 or 13, and as time went on, my porn viewing has increased, especially in my high school and college years. It came to the point where I would wake up every morning and watch porn for HOURS and masturbate. I basically became addicted to PMO, and I got too desensitized to a lot of the content and would spend a lot of time just looking for new content. *Usually I will see something in porn that doesn't affect me in any way (long before I had this possible HOCD). Then I would process that image in my mind and get aroused by it, and I would find an urge to go back and look at it.*

    In my junior year of college, I took a class called "Queer Media Convergence" to fulfill a major requirement which consisted of watching a lot of gay porn. This was long before my obsession with my orientation and I didn't have any signs of being gay or bi then. Didn't react to it gay porn I did with straight porn and I didn't get aroused.

    Where the HOCD may come in
    A few weeks before thanksgiving, I watched a movie that showed a man's butt. I wouldn't call it arousal, but for the first time I became too "aware" of it. In the past if I ever saw that, it wouldn’t bother me since I was confident I liked girls. I started thinking about this more and more and started getting nervous about being gay. Being around other gay people and some men in general started giving me some anxiety. I then watched an episode of a TV show where men are showering and their butts are the focus of attention, and suddenly my fear grew worse. **NOTE: The butt has generally been my favorite part of a woman for some time**

    After getting more nervous, I felt this need to “test” myself and would use porn sites to see whether or not I liked men or women. Every time I saw a man’s butt, I got incredibly nervous and started doubting my sexuality more and freaking out; lots of confusion as to whether or not I liked it, but it made me feel horrible. I continued searching through Google and YouTube looking at men in thongs for example to test how I felt. I would doubt myself more and spend long hours testing myself (I never looked at actual gay porn at this point, just straight porn videos and images of naked men on google).

    There was a morning when I woke up thinking about women and suddenly felt confident again. I gained a reassurance that I was “back to normal” and almost felt incredibly good. I got an urge to test myself of course and I went right back to where I started: feeling depressed, thoughts of suicide, not eating. I found myself continuously talking to my girlfriend each day about it for reassurance. She said maybe I’m just opening up sexually, curious, or appreciating the male form, but that doesn’t mean I’m gay.

    Eventually I came across a blog by Jonathan Hershfield about 'HOCD' and started noticing I had a lot of the symptoms. I realized I was doing “evil testing” by looking up porn and stopped doing it; anxiety decreased greatly. Eventually I started getting mental imagery of homosexual acts and would get a tingling response in my groin. I thought this was arousal and had a much stronger orgasm when I masturbated, and then thought this was proof of me being gay. I did more research and believe this may have been a groinal response. I would continue to wake up in the middle of the night with these gay thoughts and groinal responses, giving me great anxiety. While experiencing a groinal response after thinking of gay thoughts, I had sex with my girlfriend and felt a wave of depression immediately after.

    I began doing research every day on HOCD and the possibility of a porn addiction being the cause. I would start analyzing childhood memories for signs of being gay, or even paying attention to the way I speak or look to see if I resemble a gay person. There came a point where I started feeling less anxiety and wasn't as depressed, and THAT worried me! I kept thinking, "what if this means I don't have HOCD and I am actually in gay or bi denial?!" I would then start looking up "how to come out as gay or bi" on google and start panicking. "If I didn’t have the same extreme depression and anxiety, wouldn’t that mean I DON’T have HOCD at all?" I'm a little frightened of going to a therapist because of fear of being told I am in the closet.

    I then continued thinking about my overconsumption of porn and masturbation being the cause; is it possible that my brain has gotten “tired’ of what I usually masturbated to and is looking for new stimuli? I found a site called “your brain on porn” and felt somewhat relieved, but that didn't last once I saw a lot of counterarguments and realized there is some lack of scientific research.

    I try my best to avoid looking at porn to test myself, but I keep getting thoughts of gay sex in my mind, and the thoughts get more detailed and less abstract each day. And these gay thoughts start to involve me in the act of having intercourse with another man (usually a very muscular man) and I begin to have very strong erections. I get anxiety and great confusion, and this worries me a lot because I am unsure if I like it. Does this now mean I am gay or bi, or does it mean that I am getting excited over brand new types of sexual thoughts? Every time I try to rationalize this, I feel like I am in more and more denial. At one point I’ll have this fantasy and sort of “let loose” and enjoy it, but then I feel like I am giving in. At other times it feels like I am simply enjoying the rush of the possible groinal response (if that's what it is), but in reality I know that I don’t want to have gay sex. I’m frightened.

    Yesterday, I started fantasizing about having gay sex with a very muscular man (even as I type it, I start to have a tingling sensation in my groin) and feel this “rush” that I usually don't feel when thinking about girls. I can’t explain it, but it felt incredible as it was happening and I would start masturbating, which then confused me even more. There was a point when I would think to myself," this actually feels good and maybe this means you are confirmed gay or bi." But I get a rush of anxiety afterwards, so this pushed me to look through Google images for gay porn to “settle this for once and for all.” As I was scrolling down on my phone, I got a lot of anxiety. Gay sex was not how I imagined it in my thoughts and was entirely different. Although I felt myself get more erect at times, I wasn’t enjoying it emotionally. I kept switching back and forth from gay to straight porn and I just had knots in my stomach. Problem is that I usually don’t get a good erection when watching porn unless I’m masturbating, so it makes it hard to test. But I know that I didn’t like what I saw, yet I still doubt myself. I tested myself for about 2-3 hours and now I feel depressed and am up past 4am looking at Spider-Man videos to get it off my mind. Next morning I woke up with tons of images based on what I saw and started freaking out and had anxiety—was afraid of now liking what I saw last night because I think I “felt something” down below and I desensitized myself to those images. But I kept thinking that they are just thoughts and started distracting myself.

    The day after I had been looking at gay porn, I kept getting intrusive thoughts in my head. I felt anxious when I was outside and seeing girls walk around because I wasn't enjoying it like I normally do. I get anxious when I see men wearing tight pants and feel great confusion. Every night I get intrusive gay thoughts and start feeling arousal, mixed with anxiety, and it usually wakes me up. I woke up thinking of myself having gay sex and getting an increased heart rate and what I'm guessing is a groinal response. I had sex with my girlfriend to see how I felt, and I'm scared because I usually have a harder time maintaining an erection during sex. I was incredibly hard, at least in the beginning, and that is unusual. All I did was think of having gay sex with a man's butt and didn't masturbate or look at porn... :-[

    This morning I woke up with an urge to look at men's asses. I couldn't believe it, but I went right to my computer and searched for it on google. And I started getting erections and I masturbated to it. I switched to looking at actual gay sex on google and it didn't do much for me (at least not right now) and I'm worried. I switched back to just men's asses and continued masturbating compulsively and I enjoyed it (it felt completely wrong in the back of my mind). Then I went to pornhub and looked at straight sex videos and finished myself off. Now I've had stomach knots and haven't been feeling that well, and I'm so confused. Did years of watching straight porn lead to me growing tired of it to look for something more "exciting"? Did my obsession with my sexuality eventually get me to find men's butts sexually arousing? Or did I just find out that I'm bisexual after 22 years... HELP!

    Is it possible that I've conditioned my brain to feel aroused by men's butts? I keep telling myself that I will stop looking at porn and masturbating, but then I a voice in my head says, "why? You're trying to deny the fact that you're gay. Might as well just watch porn since that's probably not the cause."
     
  2. SpideyMan

    SpideyMan Fapstronaut

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    I'm really scared and I don't know what to do. I went back to pornhub and started looking at actual gay porn videos and starting feeling the same amount of arousal as I do with straight porn. I don't know what to do!!!!! I want to stop porn but I'm not confident enough anymore. If I do stop completely and "reboot," what if I have arousal from gay thoughts still? How do I know if my overconsumption of porn has lead me to finding homosexual acts to be a turn on?

    Just to put it simply: A year and half ago, I had a class that required watching gay porn throughout the semester (not a large amount) and it never did anything for me. When it comes to straight porn, there are many instances where I see something, and it does nothing. Then I "process" it and review it in my mind and then I get an urge to go watch it and masturbate to it. It feels like the same thing is happening here with gay porn. But what if this is me in denial and porn is actually revealing my true desires??

    Another thing: when I was young, about 14 years of age, I had fantasies where I would have sex with my dad's wife. I would get seriously aroused by it and masturbate to it. This went on for a period of time. But whenever I saw her in person, I couldn't even think of really having sex with her. It was just a fantasy I enjoyed for a brief moment of my life. It was the rush or taboo of doing something forbidden. Maybe something similar is happening here with these homosexual thoughts?
     
  3. tomtom

    tomtom Fapstronaut

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    Many PMO addicts experience their taste in P changing over time and finding gay P arousing is one of the possible changes, even if you are not otherwise gay.

    If you quit PMO long enough to reboot most if not all changes should revert back, at least mine did.
     
    E.U likes this.
  4. IGY

    IGY Guest

  5. SpideyMan

    SpideyMan Fapstronaut

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    Thanks for the feedback. My question is: can I trust "your brain on porn"? A lot of people especially on "empty closets" claim that porn does not make you like things outside of your orientation, but instead reveals your bisexuality. I think they're a little biased, or at least I hope that's the case.

    I share one computer with my girlfriend, so I had her change the password to something I wouldn't guess. I'm going to try and get off porn and reboot.
     
  6. tomtom

    tomtom Fapstronaut

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    They also say that we are all somewhat bisexual... I guess few things are really black and white.

    What I do know for sure is that long time exposure to PMO can make you look for new ways to get aroused as the old ones just don't work that well any more.
     
  7. SpideyMan

    SpideyMan Fapstronaut

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    I guess of everyone falls on a "spectrum," excessive PMO can really bring that out to someone. I don't know. When you said, "they also say everyone is bisexual," were you referring to society in general or the people on "empty closets"?

    Well I just woke up and I keep getting thoughts of having gay sex and naked muscular men and I'm getting aroused. And I hate it. I'm resisting the urge to masterbate or try and look at porn on my phone.

    I know you can't diagnose me, but does it sound like I have hocd, or do I just have some hocd symptoms? What makes me doubt my sexuality even more is that someone said of you weren't gay, you wouldn't have ever had the urge to go look up gay porn or images of naked men... :(
     
    Last edited: Dec 15, 2014
  8. SpideyMan

    SpideyMan Fapstronaut

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    I also think sexuality is a bit subjective. To me, bisexual means you are interested in both men and women almost equally; you can come out of a relationship with a woman and then go into another one with a man after and it's not a big deal. If you happen to find some men sexually attractive here and there or notice men's good looks, maybe you're not 100% straight, but does that really make you bisexual?

    ---

    Just to add again, if I had any sexual interest in men, wouldn't I have had any signs of it throughout my life? When I was in the gay porn class, shouldn't I have had some kind of realization? I'm afraid of being gay or even a bisexual person not because of "society" (I live in a very accepting environment and my girlfriend says if I was bi then she would be no issue with it at all), but I'm afraid that I've become a different person. It's like an identity crisis.
     
  9. SpideyMan

    SpideyMan Fapstronaut

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    I woke up again having gay thoughts and it scares me. I feel like I'm getting aroused or getting groinal responses, I can't tell. And it's causing me great distress. I feel uneasy inside and I don't feel right... :'(
     
  10. You seem like you're in a lot of confusion, anxiety, and even at times depression. You keep asking, "How can I trust yourbrainonporn?" Well, here is a suggestion: take 90 days off of porn and masturbation and see what urges you have after those 90 days are up. If yourbrainonporn is correct, your brain should be a long way back towards having been reset to "factory defaults." There is only one way to know for sure: Do the 90 day challenge. I'd encourage you to try.

    I did the 90 day challenge, though I did have an orgasm on day 89. I can tell you that there were changes in me, particularly regarding sensitization of my penis, and a lack of interest in porn (of any type). Since that streak I've only given into porn once, and spent a coupe hours online "skimming" to a bunch of genres which used to really arouse me. Nothing got me going much, and eventually I closed down my computer without coming to the porn.
     
  11. SpideyMan

    SpideyMan Fapstronaut

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    Yes, I do have a lot of confusion, anxiety, and depression. Today is day 2 of no porn or no masturbation.

    I'm so paranoid that now I'm even doubting I ever had a porn addiction! I know I did an my girlfriend noticed how much porn I've watched (my viewing always fluctuated over the years, in some cases I didn't watch actual porn for a while for some reasons), but I've been watching porn since I was 12 or so. And since I was in high school I started watching a lot more porn and slowly becoming more tolerant to everything that I've been watching.

    I'm a person who is not very confident. I was always confident in my sexuality though and now I don't even have that. I guess I would be more confident in "your brain on porn" if there was more concrete evidence and not as much anecdotal. But I'm the type of person that always comes up with a list of "what ifs...". What if it's not true, what if porn only revealed what I truly like, what if that, what if this. I'm going to try and do this 90 day challenge. As soon as I bring it up to a psychiatrist or therapist I hope they can get me more support in person.
     
  12. SpideyMan

    SpideyMan Fapstronaut

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    I am remembering a time when I was about 19 or 20 and I didn't watch porn for at least a couple of months (2-3 tops). I'm worried now that it proves I don't have a porn addiction and that quitting won't help me... I'm scared. :-(

    Of course then I did have some erectile dysfunction issues and masturbation problems, and my porn usage has gotten a lot worse since then. I graduated school this past May, and shortly after my porn use escalated. Like from June to December (about 6-7 consecutive months) I starts watching Internet porn almost each day, sometimes multiple times per day. And hours of clicking and clicking for new videos.
     
  13. SpideyMan

    SpideyMan Fapstronaut

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    I'm disappointed in myself. I started having gay thoughts and got aroused as soon as I woke up (I'm noticing a pattern). Then I continue to lie down and think about a number of sexual things to see how I react. Every time I thought of something gay, I got rock hard. Thinking of sex with a woman got me about half as aroused. I then felt confusion and took a bath. I started touching myself and thinking of a number of things and kept edging. I never orgasmed, but I edged myself a few times. Should I start my 90 day of no PMO over again and count back to 0?
     
  14. NoFapsWereGiven

    NoFapsWereGiven Fapstronaut

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    (Sorry for poor English)

    Ok, first thing you gotta do is STOP CHECKING!! Checking whether you're gay or not will make things worse! Often, checking will make you feel better because many times you wont stop checking until you checking 'says' you are not gay. For the short term you will feel better. But for the long term your thoughts about being gay will get worse! Thats because you are feeding the thoughts. STOP CHECKING!!

    There is only ONE person in this world who knows whether you are gay or not and that person is YOU! So if all those gay thoughts dont make you happy and you dont feel like its really you, than it's most likely that you arent gay! You need to trust yourself and I know thats VERY VERY hard at this moment, but running away from your fears will only make the fear chasing you! You need to embrace it and then step by step the fear will fade away. If intrusive gay pictures/thoughts/anything come up in your mind, then dont try to eliminate/fight it but just accept it. Just think like: "Hm, thats one hell of a crazy thought", and go on with your life!

    Then the groinal response and even the boners, it's probably created by fear. I've read stories of people who got n orgasm by just looking at a good looking mans butt, created by fear, not because the were really aroused by it. Yes, you can feel like you're aroused sometimes, but if you pay attention and compare it to a situation in which you were really aroused, than you can find a difference. Arousal happens in your head, not in your dick.

    I can make this a very long story, because I suffered from HOCD myself for about three years really bad. But I'm not going to because I dont want to trigger you or feed your mind with all my thoughts and shit that you might have not thought about yet.
    I can say you this:
    - become an expert in (H)OCD, with that I mean, you need to understand whats going on in your mind. Do's and don't, google until you've read everything, and then STOP! Don't visit sites or forums you already read every day, because that might be CHECKING. Just know whats going on and read (not too much) stories of others. BUT be aware, some people might experiance things that you dont, or the other way around, you experiance things that you cannot find in stories of other people. Dont let that freak you out! Thats why you need to stop reading at some point. (Google things like: "HOCD", "groinal response hocd"
    - STOP CHECKING
    - Dont run away for the fear!!! Try to look at the thought and think like I said: "Just a crazy thought, nothing more, nothing less". Sometimes I even thought like: "Okay, I might be gay, no problem" Probably not, but why should I fight it? It's about not paying attention to the intrusive thoughts...
    - Last but definetly not least!! STOP PMO! Seriously, you NEED to stop it!
    Im in nofap for 52 days right now and it feels like this is the last piece in the puzzle of getting rid of the anxiety/gay fear/hocd. Seriously, cant say this enough, but just STOP IT!

    There is so much more I could tell you about this, but I think for now this is enough to know. And if you have any questions, than be my guest and ask them. If there is such thing as hell, HOCD makes part of it.. You have to fight it (not the thoughts ;)) and never give up! Ive been there bro, and look at me now, 52 days into nofap and feel great right now!

    Oh and one last thing, this HOCD thing probably crept into your life and so it wont be gone tomorrow, next week or even in a month. So dont freak out if you fall back after a while feeling good, it happens. Two steps forward, one step backward, and sometimes three steps backward...Just keep fighting and keep trusting yourself!

    If something is unclear because off my poor English, than just say it! ;)

    Good luck man! You can do this!
     
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  15. SpideyMan

    SpideyMan Fapstronaut

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    I thought your English was fine :)

    Anyways, what scares me is that my erections feel like my erections from when I was younger and started to lust women for the first time (or I think it does). It's getting to the point where I feel like I'm not scared of getting erections no more. I just worry that it means I am certainly gay or bi :-(

    I have been feeling okay today (got some bad thoughts but I brushed them aside and kept working), but then I start thinking, "if I have hocd shouldn't I be in constant depression and anxiety? Shouldn't I feel the need to test myself at least an hour a day?" But then I try to stop over-thinking it and let it go. I am aware that testing is bad and that's why I'm not doing it (as much) and as a result that's why I'm feeling better (for now).

    Anyways, thank you for your post. Hearing from others always makes me feel a little better. I am going to go for the NoFap/PMO challenge and it will be difficult (I've been doing PMO for about 10 years. That's a lot of damage), and I just hope it helps me!
     
  16. Earnest Lee

    Earnest Lee Fapstronaut

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    um- does anyone else think it was incredibly abusive of the university to force students to watch gay porn? (Any kind of porn, really). How is that legal? This is nuts. I would argue that viewing pornography in itself is an activity which is sexual, therefore your university forced you to participate in a sexual activity. Will they be raping students next semester before they can receive diplomas? You should totally sue the crap out of them for the damage and confusion they've inflicted upon you. Wouldn't solve that confusion, but it might make them think twice before imposing it on other students in the same way.
     
    Last edited: Dec 18, 2014
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  17. SpideyMan

    SpideyMan Fapstronaut

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    As for taking legal action, idk if that's possible since I received a warning before signing up for the class. Wish I never took it. :-(

    ---

    I woke up in the middle of the night with insane urges and a lot of confusion. I failed my PMO challenge after 3 days. And even worse... I had gay thoughts. I would think, "I wonder what it would be like to have sex with a man" and voluntarily pictured a bodybuilder's butt at one point. I'm not happy with myself. I had some anxiety and heavy breathing, masturbated a second time, and went to bed. I masturbated again after waking up this morning and thought similar things. I'm really confused about myself because by the third time, I had no anxiety when thinking these thoughts. Making me doubt more and more of who I am. But then I say, "it's just hocd and you obsessed so much about this that it got you curious. So what? You don't actually want to ever have sex with a man and you know that's a fact." Saying that made me feel better.

    And I'm not giving up on the NoFap challenge. I hit a bump in the road and I'm going to keep going.
     
  18. NoFapsWereGiven

    NoFapsWereGiven Fapstronaut

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    That's just the point. Try not to be so upset about having gay thoughts. Everybody has gay thoughts sometimes, there are even people who try out sex with someone of the same sex, but that doesn't make you gay. One is gay guy because he falls in love with other men, love having sex with them, be intimate with other men, wants to share his life with another man. NOT because he has obsessive and intrusive thoughts about gaysex NOT because you're NOT scared of your own thoughts. If I think of myself jumping in front of a driving car, it won't scare me. But it does not mean I'm going to jump in front of a driving car really.

    Also, it's possible to get aroused by gayporn/sexthoughts. Just because it's a sexual thought in nature. I'm pretty shure there are gay guys that can get a boner of watching straightporn....

    Try not to confuse anxiety/nervousness with real sexual arousal/liking a person (i mean the feeling when you see your crush), with both you'll get increased heart rate, start to transpire, feel "butterflies in the stomach" all because of adrenaline.

    As I said, I know how you feel, I've been there. And at that time I also was confused about all those thoughts but you need to stay strong and step by step you will climb out of this shit!

    But seriously bro, it may be helpfull to see an OCD-specialist/therapist, and good to hear you you're not giving up on the challenge!! I'm almost certain of it that PMO has to do with HOCD.
     
    Last edited: Dec 18, 2014
  19. SpideyMan, you need to stop the testing and analysing. I know what you're going through, and it's really horrible at times. I've been addicted to porn for over two years, since 18, and started out on lesbian porn, and then quickly escalated to more hardcore material. It got to the point in November of this year when I'd become so bored of the porn I'd been watching, and tried gay porn. It didn't turn me on as much as the other porn had been, and before watching it I'd been watching straight porn, so was still slightly aroused aroused. Anyway, I saw a few seconds of it, and then shut it down thinking wtf? I then started panicking that I had turned or was turning gay, which the following testing and analysing only made worse.

    Like you, I've only ever fancied girls since I was young, and have never fancied a guy. HOCD makes you doubt everything about yourself, and even whether you were really attracted to girls, or just thought you were. I too started to feel anxious around other guys, and had spikes every time I recognised one as good looking. Because of this, I started avoiding looking at guys directly, and checked girls out constantly to see whether I was turned on by them. As you probably know, the anxiety kills any attraction you use to have, which only makes you feel worse.

    Funnily enough, the night after I looked at gay porn I had an erotic dream with a woman, so who knows what goes on in the brain.

    My advice is:
    1. Stop all porn immediately. If you keep watching it it will only make the re-wired neurons stronger.

    2. Read all the relevant articles on Your Brain On Porn, about porn addiction, escalation, and what your new porn habits mean.

    3. Stop doing research on what makes you gay, how you know you're gay, and when you know you're gay. It will make your anxiety levels skyrocket, and make you more aroused to what makes you anxious. Anxiety actually makes you more aroused, weird I know, and anxiety can often feel like arousal.

    4. Watch Gary Wilson's video on porn addiction. His theories have now been backed up by a study on porn addiction done by Cambridge University, so there is some science behind the theory.

    5. Read his book "Your Brain On Porn", available as an ebook. It provides lots of facts and details, with accounts from recovering and suffering addicts. It helped clear up many things for me.

    6. Once you've done all that, delete all record of porn, HOCD checking and research, and YBOP. The only way to beat this is to stop checking and researching, as this will just make things worse. You may need medication to cope with the increased anxiety while your brain detoxes, as it can go up hugely, just warning you.

    Good luck my friend, you may feel like it's all hopeless now, but give it time, and I mean months of healing and you will get a sense of who you are. You are in the right place for support, so stick with it.
     
  20. SpideyMan

    SpideyMan Fapstronaut

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    Thanks guys, I honestly have to say that hearing from you makes me feel better. I'm having a better day today at work and starting to feel somewhat back to normal (despite some intrusive thoughts here and there). I really hope I can see an ocd specialist ASAP.

    I have cut out porn, and I'm trying not to do PMO. Does that mean I should cut out sex as well? I also bought Gary Wilson's book which I'm enjoying very much.
     

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