Porn Addiction and HOCD?? HELP!

That is a great, supportive post MusicMan89 - thank you.

 

SpideyMan, YBOP has stories of people who escalated or saw gay porn, and became worried about their reaction to it. They got aroused because it was new and gave them a bigger dopamine hit.

This was what happened to me, and I sort of felt that it wasn't "real" arousal because I didn't find it as pleasurable or enjoyable as the straight porn I had been watching before. I only watched a few seconds, and closed it down. and thought that something was wrong. I then of course did all the things you're not meant to do and started googling, which made me panic and made my anxiety spike big-time.

Google is your worst enemy in this situation, as it makes your anxiety get worse, and makes you think more and more about what you are worried/panicking about. For instance I read an article that described the physical attributes of gay men. and I have some of them, but have never been attracted to men, which only made my anxiety worse and ;ed to more compulsive checking.

What I found helpful is that it is not only straight guys who go through this, but also gay guys. There is an account on the Gay/transgendered person porn page on YBOP from a gay man, who says that he started finding women really attractive after becoming bored of gay porn. He says that he couldn't look at women without thinking of having sex with them. He did say that after going without PMO his tastes reversed, so it is possible.

I have also had obsessions in the past, and am very susceptible to stress, which only makes things worse. My porn usage got worse over the last year and a half after 18 when I went through more stressful situations, and I turned to porn as an escape. Needless to say, it only made me feel better for a short time, and made me feel worse in the long run.

You really need to cut out all PMO if you want to beat this thing. As I said before, I thought and checked it so much that I started checking it in my dreams, which was really weird. Once you have cut PMO entirely, it does get harder, sorry to say. Your anxiety will increase, and you will want to check more and more. Follow the advice on YBOP, and on here as well, and you have a chance of getting it under control.

Hope this helps.

 

Great reply,

As I see it, HOCD sufferers become aroused to gay porn NOT because it is sexual but more because of the anxiety or extra dopamine it causes.

And if you start the rocky path of forcing yourself to masturbate to gay porn, you are building neuro connections in your brain to become aroused to this. This would explain why you are having dreams about gay experiences and waking up thinking about gay experiences.

Has this ever happened before you tested yourself? I'm sure the answer is NO.

So why is this happening? And does this suggest your sexuality is totally flexible. Again no, I don't believe this to be true. Your sexuality is fixed. Arousal comes in the form of anxiety and this is simply what is happening here.

Like I said before, be careful with who you tell... Your girlfriend might be receptive now, but she will be telling her girlfriends, and believe you me, if you tell someone about HOCD no one will believe you and suspect you're in the closet. Don't be niave about this... I just wanted to warn you in advance.

Second, if like me you've been watching porn since a young age every day. *THIS* reality is normal for us. Why wouldn't we feel depressed and have all these OCDs. It is NO surprise, we've been maxing out on dopamine everyday for years on end. Normality is depression- when in fact this is false.

I liken it to be on drugs. Have you ever taken MDMA, as soon as you are off it you feel the 'come down.'

You feel depressed, but this is not the reality. You just feel depressed because you were high before, so comparatively you are depressed. This is the same with PMO. I just thought being depressed was normal. But it is only because I was so used to PMO'ing anything other than PMO felt like depression.

It is only after a reboot that things return to normal. My voice is deeper, My OCDs are non-existent and feel confident.


You need a good reboot spidey, as I've said before, the issue here is porn, what you're experiencing is simply a bad situation where you have let it get out of control. In time, I KNOW your sexual preferences will return to normal.

If you need anything, please PM me.

*You've also got to stop asking questions, like does this mean _______ or does this mean________? Or this guy has HOCD but has never masturbated to gay porn, maybe I'm secretly gay. These are questions that keep your illness alive, as that is what HOCD is.

More to the point you will NEVER get a definitive answer. You know you're straight and always have been. Simples.

Your boy Tweeby

 

This is frighteningly similar to my experience. Although I know now I'm not gay or bi, it took me having a dick in my mouth to figure out, and I began to thanks to PMO addiction to stop thinking of people as people but as walking breasts, vaginas and penises. If you're bi or gay don't worry you'll find out eventually, you're 15, sexually speaking you have a long journey ahead. For now I'd advise you to cut back on the porn so as to have a healthier image of people.Finally, it's not wrong to think of girls or guys as hot and appreciate their body as long as that's not the only thing you think about them or that you're thinking about them in this way along with sexual contexts, so relax. Cheers!

 

Indeed, but don't be niave. She may say she'll be supportive and everything, but nobody understands HOCD unless they've experienced HOCD.

Girls being girls, they tend to tell their best friends everything. Their best friends will be putting ideas into her head. In fact you tell ANYONE, 'you're not gay but you masturbate to gay porn' they will roll their eyes and think otherwise.

Remember HOCD exhibits all the symptoms of someone in the closet, doubt, nervousness... Strap up and prepare for a lot one helluva frosty reception here bro. I'm warning you in advance. I'm not saying hide this, but like I said before, unless someone has been through HOCD they have no idea what to think.

In regards to the poster above I think he/she posted in the wrong thread, so you're good to ignore it.

Once again, I can't underline enough the fact that you can't turn gay or bi, this is something you won't ever discover the possibility of finding out. You would have known about this at puberty. This is simply the escalation of your porn usage and needing a higher dopamine hit.

Second, how did the therapy session go?

Third, what I found helped was exposure to gay people. I was so scared off turning gay anything 'gay' sent me into panic. With any OCD a good therapy is exposure therapy. I would suggest going to a gay bar just to see what 'REAL' gay and lesbian people are like. It will make you feel better to know there is nothing scary, and it should put to rest any doubts you have about being attracted to men.

I did, I got hit on some guys and I felt nothingness. It also made my fears less apparent. Gay and lesbian people are simply normal people with same sex desires. In fact when I was there a lot of guys came up to me and asked if I was straight. They knew I was straight!! Haha.

 

Discover is the wrong word, accept is what they mean. That's what all gay and bisexual really mean, but they loosely throw around the term discover because society has kept them in the closet.

You my friend display all the symptoms of HOCD. Get it out of your head this ridiculous notion of 'turning gay or bi.'

Sorry but that's all there is too it. I understand why you still keep having the urge to ask and question, to me this proves you have an OCD.

Take a break if you can from anything related to HOCD.

 

You will always feel the need to ask questions, over time it will diminish.

But it takes time, even now sometimes I walk by shop windows and look at myself in the reflection to check if I'm walking with a gay swag. As ridiculous as this sounds.

A year back when it was really bad, I would flip a coin, and say if it lands on tails I'm gay, if heads I'm straight. When it landed on heads, I would be like so relieved. But I would flip it one more time to be sure. And it landed on tails, and I thought fuck. But let me just flip it five times and do the best of five.

Then I would do online tarot readings...Asking stupid questions like will I get a girlfriend,etc,etc. To describe OCD is nothing short of a living hell. It really is.

I can't suggest anything more other than to stay off porn and try to develop different neuro connections when you feel the need to check yourself.

At the moment, checking provides you relief, but also conflict. It is a double edged sword. Over time you will avoid this checking for good.

Good luck bro.

 

Yeah, it is one hell of a rough ride. I'm now a month into my reboot and feel a bit better. I had an erection when looking at a girl the other week, and it felt natural. What was worst for me, and is still a problem, was that I was worried that I had been "trained" to like girls sexually because of watching straight and lesbian porn, and that this hid my "true" gay feelings. What made it worse for me was that I'm a late developer, so I thought, and do still think at times, that my true sexuality was coming out (no pun intended) when i watched gay porn. However, I remind myself that I was never attracted to guys when I was younger, and neither was I in my early and later teenage years. I should have known a couple of months to three months ago that porn had damaged me when I thought "gosh, sex with a real, normal girl seems kind of boring. How will it ever live up to what I saw in my favourite porn scenes?" At this point, I didn't have any worries about being gay, and hadn't had any gay thoughts, and if I had, it was something that didn't do anything for me.

What helps is that I remember before porn that I used to look at girls and be turned on by them, not because I felt I had to be to fit in, but because I enjoyed it. I also think what was especially harmful for me was that I have never actually orgasmed to porn, so have spent two year edging to it, which I get the impression from YBOP is particularly bad for you.

Another weird thing is that all my wet dreams have had women in, and no men (apart from me obviously). If I am indeed turning gay, which I don't think I am, then I would have thought that my wet dreams would have been with men, not women. However, the HOCD made me question this as well, and I wondered if I had trained myself to be aroused by women as previously mentioned, and so the cycle of questioning and mental checking goes on.

I'm slowly beginning the healing process, and it takes time. As I said before, guys over on YBOP have said how it takes months and moths for them to recover, so don't expect it to go away in a matter of weeks. I also strongly agree with the advice to not tell anyone about it, as they will just say you should accept these "feelings" and enjoy your identity, which will only make things worse for you.

Imagine if you're a gay guy, and you have gone through the whole emotional ordeal of finding you have feelings for other guys, then accepting them, and then coming out to a possibly unfriendly reaction, only to find that your tastes have apparently gone the other way. How much would that suck? Those are the guys I feel for, and it is because of porn that they got to this point.

Keep going my friend, you're doing well. I know it doesn't feel like it, but the darkness does get lighter.

 

Hello. I've noticed that people who are usually a certain sexuality, can sometimes get aroused by stuff that you wouldn't imagine liking if you weren't horny. For example, I am straight, but while i am masturbating to porn i sometimes get off to transgender porn. That was awhile ago, but i just wanna let you know that i think you're just worrying too much and being attracted to things in porn that you wouldnt usually like is common, and you are most likely not gay.

 

yeah, I agree with Newlife100. Just try it for 90 days and make a conclusion from your experience of this challenge. Maybe its time to find such answer of that troublesome problem of yours by avoiding what caused you to become like that, since you can't create images in your mind if you haven't exposed yourself to that kind of views. Though it is just my opinion.

 

It is definitely worth the effort. Even if there is a relapse, the progress cannot be erased.