Dear Tiggy,
I am a 17-year-old boy from India and I believe I’m suffering from HOCD: homosexual obsessive compulsive disorder. It started when I began obsessing on a mildly sexual scene in a movie and it developed into a fear of being gay. During this phase, I lost my attraction to girls even though I was seriously into them until then. I constantly checked myself for signs of arousal while thinking about boys (which did not occur).
After a few months of this, I consulted a therapist via computer and began treating myself with cognitive behavioral therapy. Now I feel better but I do still get these thoughts sometimes. The therapist told me that I had to coexist with such thoughts and let them flow. At this point, my obsession has changed from being gay to being bisexual since my attraction to girls is back.
So, have I been bisexual this whole time and didn’t know it?
-King123
For a therapist that you randomly found online, you sure got a good one. They’re absolutely right: just let the thoughts happen. Trying to control them is what’s heightening your anxiety. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is exactly what you need to practice. As I suggested in a recent column, I hope you’ve picked up a copy of the essential CBT book, Feeling Good by David Burns. You might also try the easier-to-digest and equally helpful Self Coaching by Joseph J. Luciani.
It will be nearly impossible to sort out your sexuality without first addressing your anxiety issues. In addition to the CBT, please seriously consider talking to your doctor about medication that could effectively address what may be a biochemical cause of your OCD. Few clinical anxieties can withstand the one-two punch of CBT plus proper medication.
Dealing with these obsessions through compulsions — including and especially constant self-testing for arousal — might make you feel better for a second but no more. Some psychiatric professionals encourage people with OCD to undergo exposure therapy. When you consistently face what you fear and no harm results, your anxiety should be quelled. To employ this method, start viewing gay movies, literature, and so forth in increasing amounts. As your therapist counseled, don’t monitor yourself to see if you’re aroused, just accept any reactions you have. Your goal is not to eliminate obsessive thoughts but to tolerate them without discomfort.
“Bisexuality” is just a label, and many people feel that all sexuality is a dynamic entity with a lifelong arc. You may never be able to pinpoint your sexuality label; your best shot at sanity is just to accept that. Additionally, please recognize that while you can’t control your thoughts or feelings, you always have agency in how you react to them. Even if you have sexual thoughts about men every day for the rest of your life, nothing will force you to act upon them, tell anyone, or label yourself as bisexual if you don’t want to.
King123, the only person who can tell you how you identify sexually is yourself. However, I want you to know that if you are, it’s OK. It’s shameful that the Indian government reinstated the ban on gay sex last December but there’s still a thriving, happy bisexual community in your country and far beyond. Obsessions typically alight on a trait that you think would make you a bad or sad person. Therefore, if you don’t think bisexuality is a negative attribute, you’ll likely stop obsessing on it. And lucky for you — lucky for all of us — it isn’t!
I’ve saved the best for last: Jezebel.com posted this great article on HOCD in 2010 and, for the first time in internet history, the comments are the most supportive part. Uniformly insightful and perceptive, they come from people who have been affected by HOCD in some manner. I hope that reading about their experiences feels to you like a thousand dollars’ worth of therapy! Here are some highlights that speak astutely on this condition — and in many ways, on bisexuality as a larger concept.
“I think OCD really seeks out the very things that are impossible to prove absolutely, as well as the things that have the potential to change your entire view of yourself.”
“Almost all of my obsessions boil down to the one concern that I may not really know who I am or I may be living a lie.”
“The anxiety came mostly from just not knowing, being constantly uncertain, and spending hours trying to figure out something that, I now know, doesn’t have a black-or-white answer anyway.”
Here’s a comment from a bisexual who obsesses over thoughts that they’re not bisexual:
“I know instinctively that I am bisexual but anytime my brain perceives a challenge to that understanding, it kicks into overdrive and wants to prove it FOR SURE. Being bisexual, my brain is constantly being ‘challenged’ because any attraction to anyone, boy or girl, could mean that I might really be gay or really be straight. It can be never-ending and quite incapacitating mentally.”
“I think that no matter whom I’m in a relationship with, man or woman, my OCD brain would always question if I should be with the other… Would I be happier? Would it feel more ‘right’?”
“It is so incredibly hard to accept that it’s ok to not know because, oh my God, everyone else on the planet already knows, why don’t I?!” This commenter answers: “Actually, most people don’t really ‘know’ anything for certain. They just don’t spend endless hours trying to figure things out to scientific precision.”
This one is my favorite.
“My partner, who has severe OCD, struggled for most of his adolescence with the fear/obsession that he was transgender. I suspect it was the same idea. He got past it by reaching out to transgender persons and making friends, and learning that he would have support and friends even if he was transgender (even though he would likely lose others) and eventually realized he is not transgender. As a result, he has many wonderful friends he might not otherwise have met, and one of my bridesmaids will be a pre-operative MTF transsexual.”
Flashback to Fashion Television on VH1
You gotta roll with what life gives you, whatever it may be. Bisexual, not bisexual — it just doesn’t matter. It just doesn’t matter.
© 2014 Tiggy Upland. Tiggy Upland reserves the right to use all submitted queries anonymously, in any medium.