How to overcome Hocd and porn escalation. (Long Post)

I tried posting this on the reddit but for whatever reason it instantly got removed by moderators. This in no way discriminates anyone with different sexualities. This is simply a post that is aimed at helping people who suffer from porn induced hocd to see through their anxiety and realise that their true sexuality never changed.

I have seen alot of recent posts regarding hocd in both this subreddit and the nofap fourms so I would like to share what I know and hopefully help the people suffering from this really understand how they can overcome this.

It all begins with the same story. You've been attracted to girls every since you can remember. You grew up dreaming about them, fell in love with them, always loved them in movies, ect. You never once had a single thought about a man in your life. You never even acknowledged them. Then you started watching porn, and you started with normal videos of attractive girls in softcore scenes and gradually escalated into increasingly extreme videos. Eventually, your desensitised brain would suggest different genres of things that didn't seem right to you. But you watched them anyway. You may have tried to challenge yourself to watch something that extreme and shocking, only to be disgusted with yourself once you finished. But you never questioned your sexuality. You always knew you were straight because you loved girls and you loved that you loved them. It was who you were and whatever you watched in porn was just "another porn session" to you. You just craved that extra dopamine rush. But thats where the escalation started and the ground roots for hocd were planted.

Then eventually, something happened. Something significant, that made all of this come to light. You may have tried to have sex with a girl and had pied, which made you question yourself to insanity over why you failed at doing the one thing that you've always wanted to do. "Is it because im gay??, What about all that stuff i watched?, But i cant be gay, Ive always loved girls!, But if I always loved girls then why couldnt i get aroused??" You probably have asked yourself there questions repeatedly. You start to watch porn again and instantly get aroused and that further makes you question yourself. And suddenly you're stuck in a constant cycle of questioning yourself about something that you never thought twice about until that one moment.

Another cause of hocd could be that you were watching increasingly escalating porn genres and you started linking your reward circuit to extreme and shocking scenarios. Your brain, during a porn session, may have flashed the idea of you acting out one of those extreme scenarios in real life and you start freaking out. You would question why something as extreme as that would enter your brain when you're straight. So you'd try to dismiss the idea of acting out but it would constantly return during your pmo sessions, only to completely disappear once you finished. And once you finished to the idea of acting out in real life, you'd feel absolutely disgusted in yourself. But before the orgasm it felt so real didnt it?? Did it? No it didnt. It just felt like you were feeding the addiction and obtaining that escalated dopamine rush.

For people with hocd who can relate to that, you have porn induced hocd. If you had these gay thoughts before your viewing of porn, than maybe this isn't going to help as much, but if you knew in your heart, brain and soul that you were straight and then suddenly you were overcome with all of this, then this will definitely help you and you will overcome it. But it wont happen overnight so be ready for a rollercoaster ride.

So anyway, whether you failed with a girl or gained a thought through extreme escalation, you probably started to feel very shitty about yourself. You might feel inferior to everyone around you and any self confidence you had left would have disappeared. You start compulsively testing yourself to gay porn to see if it truely arouses you. And while the dopamine continues to sore, you know deep down that you really don't like what you're doing. But because you are being hijacked by the addiction that you didn't know you had yet, you thought that it was your natural desires. And now you're even more freaked out. Once you orgasm, you feel even worse about yourself and hate everything that happened during that reassurance session. But you continue to do it. You continue pmoing to girls aswell and you find joy and satisfaction knowing that they turn you on, but eventually you see something that triggers you and you get a compulsive urge to test yourself to it to make sure that you are not attracted to it. And you never are, but the porn addiction tries to trick you into thinking you are so you can escalate further. And when you finish you feel even worse about yourself and honestly tell yourself how disgusted that stuff makes you and how you're never going to do that shit again..

Until next time you get a trigger...But didn't you just clarify with yourself a couple days ago that you're never going to do that stuff again because you know you hate it and you know it makes you feel pathetic? But you can't shake the urge so you do it again. And again, and again. Have you picked up on the cycle yet?

Every single Hocd spike and urge is just anxiety. Every single thought in your mind or every single reaction when you see an image of someone is anxiety. Read that again. You have spent years of your life escalating to porn genres that are more and more extreme and you have unknowingly desensitised yourself to real girls during this time. Thats why you had pied during that sexual experience. Because to your brain, real sex was not extreme enough. And that's why your brain might be flashing disgusting scenarios in your head that you would rather die than to act on. Because those scenarios are extreme enough to increase the escalation that your desensitised brain craves. Your brain sees the idea of of acting out or the idea of watching increasingly shocking gay porn as the ultimate level of escalation. It doesn't care that you hate it or that you would feel absolutely zero levels of pleasure during it. It doesn't care that the act would scar you for life and completely torment you forever. It only cares about the idea of escalating, because allowing that scenario to occupy your mind is providing your brain with that maximum dopamine hit which is achieved from the highest level of escalation. So whenever you get a physical response to a mental flash or shocking scenario, don't believe that its who you are. Your brain has just been conditioned to release extreme levels of dopamine when confronted with escalating scenarios.

Think of it like a drug addict's brain for example. The idea of acting out or watching extreme gay stuff is that life threatening amount of a drug that an addict needs to consistently take in order to feel the same thing he once felt on a beginners amount.
So how do you get rid of this shit once and for all? Well for start, quit pmo. Thats the first step. It's as simple as that isn't it? Quit any form of reinforcement to the escalating addiction. So now that you've quit pmo you feel really good for the first couple days. Motivated and ready to go! But then you start to get flashes of the triggers in your head. So you start to compulsively look up non sexual pictures of guys to just make sure that you still aren't attracted to them. You start to feel anxiety over reassuring yourself but you once again conclude that you aren't gay and you continue rebooting. Until a couple days later, the same spike comes into your head. You reassure again. And again a couple days later. Ect Ect Ect.

And thats the second thing you have to do in order to overcome hocd. STOP REASSURING YOURSELF!!!

Your brain is still going spike anxiety into your brain when you see a picture of a guy because you have literally wired yourself to feel anxiety when you see a picture of a guy. And that guy can look like the most one dimensional, bland and boring person in the world, but you would still think you are attracted to him. You are not. You are anxiously fixated on him and you notice him because your anxiety has signalled him out. You're not attracted to him, but you cant stop looking at him. Thats why when you see a trigger, don't go back and check again if you noticed him because of attraction. You noticed him because of anxiety. Now move on. This is the same principle for the sexual flashes or scenarios that invade your brain. The escalation has been so used to constant reinforcement over your hocd fuelled relapses that it sees it as something necessary. Usually you go a couple days or even weeks feeling great, no hocd, and then suddenly you get a huge spike and relapse. Well, you just reinforced that behaviour again. You satisfied the escalation, so it will leave you alone for a bit while you pity yourself in self hatred. Only for the same thing to happen again in 2 weeks time. Eventually, you will ultimately relapse during your reassuring sessions as you will be so consumed by anxiety and feel as though you need to keep looking and looking at more photos of people to make sure you still don't find them attractive, that eventually your escalation addiction will hijack you, make you overwhelmingly anxious, and force you to relapse.

If you can get yourself going on a streak that involves no reassurance, no matter how anxious you get, and no reinforcing the escalation addiction by relapsing to these extreme genres, you WILL overcome this. Think of it like the addiction is begging you to feed it. And you keep saying no, so it keeps flashing increasingly aggressive and degrading images and scenarios in your head in order for you to give in and feed it. And then you feed it, you realise how stupid and how unlike you that behaviour and lifestyle is, and the cycle begins again. If you don't feed it, it will eventually starve to death. Instead of reinforcing the destructive escalating behaviour, reinforce the dismissal of that behaviour whenever it flashes into your mind. Keep this up for a couple months and you will see dramatic improvement. The flashes will not be as frequent and as you rewire your brain to enjoy real sexual experiences with real girls that you've always exclusively been attracted to, your dopamine levels will latch on to something much more realistic and pleasurable. You will flatline during the reboot and that will more than likely increase your anxiety over this stuff due to a lack of female attraction, but if you can identify your thoughts as simply anxiety, you will be fine.

So there you have it. The most important things to avoid are reassurance and reinforcement. It will be difficult and it will ultimately feel like it is getting worse before it starts to feel like its getting better. You will be hit with spikes and flashes from the escalation addiction even after 2 months of rebooting. Thats proof its starving and it is vital for you to ignore it and refuse the reinforcement that it desperately craves.
All you hocd sufferes know deep down that you're all straight. You grew up loving girls and dreaming about them. I don't believe gay people do that. When you orgasm to extreme stuff you feel pathetic and depressed. Isn't an orgasm supposed to be enjoyed? Supposed to feel amazing? When you're having sex with a girl, would you feel disgusted afterwards? I don't think you would. So don't freak out. Practice these things and your hocd and escalated dopamine signals will starve to death and eventually, your normal, innate tastes will return and you will feel twice the man you ever have.

Trust the process and eventually you'll feel how you know you should once again. Hopefully this helped.