Katie's Sexual Orientation OCD Story

Some people describe a “before and after OCD” - that is, before they had OCD, and after their onset. They often describe a peaceful life relatively free of doubt, until…

I don’t have a “before”. I don’t remember not having OCD. I remember experiencing my first obsessional doubts very young, in kindergarten or first grade, and since my memory before then is patchy at best, I can barely conceptualize a life without this disorder. 

I also don’t have a “before” or “after” being bisexual. This is something I have always known about myself, and I was as secure in this as knowing my favorite color or pizza topping. It was an irrefutable fact about myself. It just was. I believe I was born this way.

Some time late in middle school, I became aware of different labels regarding sexuality and quietly labeled myself “bisexual.” I remember thinking, “that’s it!” and happily carrying on with my life, not questioning it for several years. It was not until some time in high school that my boyfriend at the time suggested that I was a lesbian because I didn’t want to be intimate. It was this irritated off-hand comment, seething with pubescent hurt and rejection that would absolutely shatter my sexual self-concept, and lead me to reason my way into a 15-year-long obsession that nearly cost me my marriage. 

It’s all about the story.

The OCD brain is like a filing cabinet. It holds onto selective information that justifies an obsession, and tends to disregard or distrust information that contradicts it. Objective facts, possibility, things we’ve heard from others, personal experiences and rules all get rolled into a story about why an obsession might really be true. Since I was young, at the very inception of my OCD, I have always been concerned about the possibility of being a clueless person - someone who makes mistakes, someone who might not be privy to a critical piece of information, or is perhaps too unintelligent, too negligent, too inattentive. And so, with this vulnerability - the feared possible self in I-CBT - all of my obsessions revolved around being clueless. What if I don’t plan adequately for disaster? What if I accidentally hurt my dog? What if I think too hard about the nature of the universe and it crumbles, killing everyone? And the most relevant to this particular article: What if I really am a lesbian?

The story that spawned this obsession was robust and convincing. 

“I might really be a lesbian because I actually am attracted to women. And I know that other people have not realized their sexuality until later in life. I’ve been wrong about things before, I could be wrong this time too and this is something I don’t want to be wrong about. You really shouldn’t be in a committed relationship if you’re having doubts about your sexuality. I drive a Subaru, and Subaru markets to lesbians, so it’s possible I subconsciously fell for the marketing and I really am a lesbian. Maybe my eyes lingered too long on a woman on TV, and if someone were to assess how long my eyes lingered on the woman versus the man, they might conclude I really am a lesbian. Such technology does exist. I don’t always want to be intimate with my male partner, this could be a sign that I am not actually bisexual. I had a female friend that I spent so much time with, other people speculated we were in a romantic relationship. Do they know something I don’t? My mom told me that she’d still love me if I were a lesbian, what is she trying to say? Someone called me a homophobic slur in highschool for holding hands with a female friend. But I am attracted to men too, so why do I still have these doubts? Why would I still be worrying about this if it’s not true? Maybe it really is true. I don’t want to accidentally confirm that I am actually a lesbian, so I will avoid other women, media depicting same-sex relationships, and people in that community. My outfit today might have been too gay, do I look straight enough? I will make extra effort to appear “straight,” check myself and my thoughts, and monitor my thoughts and intentions.”

This story played in my head - along with all of the other obsessions I was grappling with - and was added to daily. The longer it went on, the more information and experiences I collected, and the more real this story seemed, the more compulsions I did. And the more compulsions I did, the worse I felt, the smaller my life got, and the worse the OCD became. 

Reykjavik, Iceland, 2019

I am 30, and it is my wedding day. I am standing in the bathroom of my hotel room, in my black wedding gown, trying and failing to tie the damn corset by myself. I stop and look at myself in the mirror. “You’re a fraud,” I think to myself. “How could you trick this man into marrying you when you think you’re a lesbian? What is wrong with you? Here you are, kicking the can down the road. Well, the day is here and you still haven’t figured it out. Now it’s too late. You’re a terrible person. If this relationship crumbles, you deserve it.” 

I try to suppress the thoughts and carry on. It’s raining. One more bad omen, I think. It’s too late to back out now, and as I walk out for the ‘first look,’ I am positively steeped in guilt. It’s supposed to be the happiest day of my life. It is. 

But it’s not.

I suppress the thoughts enough to be present for our ceremony, a Norse Pagan ceremony performed by a goði - a pagan priestess - in a sacred site just outside of Reykjavik. It’s a lovely, touching ceremony, and I’m glad my real self won out that day, but looking back I feel deep compassion for the person who suffered so much and so needlessly. We spent the following 10 days stuffed in a camper van together, living off of gas station burgers and peanut butter sandwiches, in what was one of the most breathtaking trips of my life.

Fast forward to 2020.

My husband and I are set to inherit our current home. The pandemic hits, and we commit to move anyway. My husband is laid off, I am sent home to work remotely and my job is asking us to justify our continued employment by tracking our productivity. Every client cancellation or no-show is another strike against my employment. People are being fired for failing to meet productivity standards. In the United States, domestic terrorism is on the rise, the economy is tumbling, and the vaccine does not yet exist. I am afraid for the lives of my family members, and worried about making enough money to continue to afford to keep our home. I still don’t have a diagnosis of OCD, and I don’t even know that I have it. Like the rest of the world at this time, there are many natural uncertainties that are keeping me up at night. 

One afternoon, my husband and I get into a tiff. We are both under tremendous stress and it is manifesting in more frequent arguments. I lie on the couch and ruminate on the rightness of this relationship. As I lay there feeling sorry for myself, I decided to figure out once and for all if I really am a lesbian. I stew on it. I ruminate on it. I cry about it. I decide, this is it. I have to tell him this horrible secret that I’ve been keeping inside for years. For two days, I mope about the house and hide. He finally confronts me, and it spills out. I sob, “honey, I think I’m gay.” He looks hurt, dejected, but he reaches out and touches my shoulder gently and says, “It’s okay. I love you,” he smiles. “You’re my best friend. I’ll come to your big gay wedding.”

But wait, that doesn’t feel right either!

After I confessed, I experienced rebounding stress, and immense confusion. I had expected to feel free, and light, but all I feel is confusion. The stress of confessing had fallen away, but this doesn’t feel right either. I love this man, I don’t want this marriage to end so I can pursue a relationship with a woman. I had been struggling with the possibility of being a lesbian for 15 years, so why does finally admitting I’m a lesbian feel wrong? This is not at all what I was prepared for.

I call my therapist at the time, a lovely woman but not an OCD therapist, for an emergency session. She rightly says that the realization of being a lesbian is supposed to be ego-syntonic, something else must be going on. “You’re not supposed to be having GI upset from the stress of a realization like this, it’s supposed to be happy and feel right.” This doesn’t feel right. I am baffled. Now what? I had been holding on to this secret for years, and grappling with it almost daily for that time. So, why did it feel so bad to finally get this secret off of my chest?

That's because it wasn't a secret truth, it was an obsession.

I take to the internet, where I find Dr. Fred Penzel’s article on sexual orientation OCD. As I read it, I can feel the inferential confusion slip away. The scales fall from my eyes. Hold on, I think. Is this what I’ve been struggling with all along? There are a few moments in my life where I get access to a new piece of information about myself, and it's like completing a puzzle. I look back on my life through this new lens, and realize: my god. I have OCD. And I've had OCD almost my entire life. This is profound, life-changing information. It's like my entire perspective shifts.

I run downstairs to share the article with my husband, who is a little confused but overjoyed that we don’t have to get a divorce.

Almost overnight, this obsession fades. I wish I had a more triumphant story, that I struggled and did painful exposures and then overcame it, but perhaps I suffered enough. Having an adequate diagnosis and understanding allowed me to put this obsession down. I had the answer. I have OCD. I finally realize that I have nothing to figure out. This is part of OCD, and if it’s part of OCD then there’s nothing left for me to do. Certainly there were more persistent obsessions I had to contend with in treatment, but for me this obsession nearly disappeared. Life carried on, I got into treatment, and later I found I-CBT which got me into recovery. It’s been nearly 4 years since this revelation. I realize now I should send Dr. Penzel a gift basket for saving my marriage!

You can see me talk more on sexual orientation OCD here.

Concepts of feared possible self and inferential confusion from: O’Connor, K., & Aardema, F. (2012). Clinician’s handbook for obsessive compulsive disorder: Inference-based therapy. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. www.icbt.online