Discovering Your Sexuality with OCD

People don’t understand obsessive-compulsive disorder. They understand how it can be made a punchline of, or the visual of someone repeatedly washing their hands, but there's a lot under the surface that goes unspoken. That’s why the reality of intrusive thoughts is relatively unknown to those who don’t experience them regularly. That isn’t necessarily anyone’s fault. It’s difficult to understand what can’t be seen. It’s why I both envy and fear the Mantis Shrimp—a weird little sea guy that perceives thousands of colors. That’s good for you, Mr. Shrimp, but I’m still trying to figure out yellow.

Intrusive thoughts are unwanted, unprompted thoughts and ideas that disturb you, that you can’t stop thinking about. The subjects of these thoughts vary greatly, but a running theme is the fear of losing control, and doing or becoming something you’re afraid of. To feel like you have some agency, these thoughts can manifest into compulsions. For me, doing things four times feels like the best way to prevent the chestburster from “Alien” from going all a-bursting up in me. Logically, you know tapping that lamp an even number of times probably won’t stop a baby extraterrestrial from destroying your tits. But wouldn’t you feel like an idiot if a baby extraterrestrial did destroy your tits, and all you had to do to prevent it was tap that lamp?

Even now, writing this, every typo that I make results in a well-rehearsed dance involving four presses of the delete button and four presses of the spacebar in rapid succession. It’s like my fingers are mentally ill ballerinas. Incidentally, my fingers were the inspiration for the movie “Black Swan,” because my hands also occasionally have lesbian fever dreams.

Which brings us to the crux of this article. Intrusive thoughts can revolve around sexuality, and there are a few reasons for this. For one, society deems being something that isn’t straight as “other.” It’s unknown, and therefore something that people consciously or unconsciously fear. There’s also the fact that it’s impossible to have a 100% clear answer. Of course, if you have sex with a woman and enjoy it, there’s a decent chance that you enjoy having sex with women. But anxiety will pick away at that truth, until you’re questioning the very thing you’re questioning. Fun!

Anxiety and questioning your sexuality have a similar effect: they both make you fear the totally unknowable nature of your future, and make you doubt who you actually are. So how are you supposed to determine if your thoughts are actually you being a little bit gay, or if they’re an exercise in your brain trying to make you panic? And if this intrusive thought turned out to be true, does that mean other ones could be too?

First of all, no. Just because one thought is true doesn’t mean that every worrying notion you’ve ever had is suddenly real. Just because I did wind up being a lesbian doesn’t mean I’m also housing an alien parasite baby in my person. I could be, but they aren’t connected. Don’t worry about that, and don’t let that be a deterrent in figuring yourself out. Don’t put off self-discovery just because you’re afraid of what you might find, like how I avoid ultrasounds in case infant E.T. is waiting to kill me.

Let yourself feel the anxiety that comes with discovering who you are. Revel in it, and try like hell to find any feelings underneath. Other than fear, and maybe shame, is there a glimmer of hope peeking its gay self out? I won’t lie, this is really, really difficult. Anxiety is great at dulling other emotions. To be fair, it is literally your brain setting off warning bells that I’m sure were incredibly helpful when trying to figure out whether or not you should run from lions. And yes, you should run from lions. They’ll still get you, but at least it’ll be more fun for them, and you’ll get some cardio in.

Just try to remember, as terrifying as it feels, there is no imminent threat or danger. Your life is not over if you’re something that isn't straight. Think of your possibly reluctant sexual awakening as a lion chasing you through wherever lions live (some kind of nondescript desert, probably). You can run, but it’ll still catch up to you. But then, instead of it tearing you apart like you feared, it holds you in a warm lion embrace and tells you that everything is going to be okay.

Of course, I can only speak to my own experiences with having OCD, and figuring out my sexuality. Even though I’ve been out as a lesbian for years, anxiety still causes me to question myself all the time. That doesn’t take away from my identity, it just makes me a more fully-fledged, anxious-as-hell, version of myself. It’s entirely possible that your experience isn’t anything like mine, so maybe my advice doesn’t apply to you. I still think it’s helpful to read about what other people have gone through, just to know that you aren’t alone. Even if the journey or destination isn’t exactly the same, just knowing that other people are finding their way to some kind of self-realization is a comfort in and of itself. As the wise oracle Miley Cyrus once said, “it’s the climb."

The next piece of advice I have is, if you’re comfortable with this, try to do something gay. “Something gay,” other than being the newest addition to “something borrowed, something blue,” is entirely subjective. That could be going on a date with someone of the same sex, trying out flirting, or just looking at some butts. Obviously, do not be creepy about any of these things, because trying to figure out who you are is never an excuse to make someone else uncomfortable.

There may be some growing pains, as there are to any new experience. Being with someone of the same sex for the first time (or anyone for the first time) is usually kinda weird. It might be awkward, but that’s unavoidable to an extent. Still, always be aware of how the other person is reacting to you. If it seems like a no, it’s a no. But don’t think that because it didn’t work out with one person, it’s all over. My first kiss with a woman was a gross, tongue-y wasteland of tongues and grossness. If that was so bad, maybe I didn’t like women at all. As it turns out, I did, I just really didn’t like that woman. So while experimentation is all well and good, you might need a varied sample size.

Only do things you’re comfortable with, but figure out when your comfort zone needs to be pushed for the sake of growth. Sometimes, you have to embrace a little bit of fear to get out the other side. At the same time, trust yourself to know if something feels truly wrong. That’s a lion to run from.

Discovering your sexuality is an ongoing journey, as is dealing with OCD, but the two don’t have to be at odds with one another. Both of these things are aspects of who you are, and you aren’t something to be afraid of. You should be afraid of lions. I’m so afraid of lions.