[long] QUESTION/VENT - please help! Unsure if I can continue to live my life, I feel like I have turned more gay every day

Hi everyone, throaway acc maybe, and massive TW I guess, long post (sorry)

My attempted recovery from whatever has been down down down with ups that make it bearable for breif moments.

TL:DR how can previous experience I didn't like and a real genuine desire for women become flipped and descend into an ever debilitating mental state. What have I done to deserve this? How can I salvage my life? How can I stop myself ever feeling sexual ever again if my ultimate nightmare turns out true? Does it sound like my story is simply denial?

It's taken all my strength not to post anything anywhere and this is my first. I am at the end of this very depressive tether and honestly unsure if I can continue living my life if this is my reality. No OCD formal diagnosis. I wouldn't like to self diagnose, but seeing this and other forums about the condition, some make an awful lot make sense. I have always been an obsessive about anything I can latch onto, and suffer from massive presistent anxiety about anything worth worrying about just a tiny bit.

I am 22 and have had no questions apart from my weaker erections about my sexuality up until maybe a half a year ago (the first thought) and rarely crossed my mind (maybe once every 2 weeks or so) until December 2024. The last few months of my existence have for certain been the worst of my entire life. The past 2 weeks have seen me service and repair a 60k car - mistakes on my head be it, present my final uni thesis and deal with my declining family member without even a single worry or care for these things. This is so unlike me, so alien, things a tenth of the size would normally have me worrying, dry mouth, hot flushes if that's what you call it etc. The entirity of my conscience has been taken up with what I really really really really hope is HOCD, or maybe just worrying about the denial I will be ousted out of into an even deeper hell by me or someone else.

So here's the trigger: When I was in my mid-teens mainly, I had repeated sexual experiences with a family member which I didn't want. It did start off with "seeing how it would feel to be with a woman", consensually, then became more demanding and worse stuff that I never wanted to do. While some parts did feel good, especially at first, this person made it clear that I couldn't say no and asked to do more extreme things that they had "seen" or "heard about" otherwise they'd tell people what we'd done, telling me that some people he knew already knew, which now I know is a lie since that wouldn't have ended well for anyone, but seemed very real at the time. I became less and less aroused every time and this needed more and more forcing every time it came to it, if I knew I'd be around this person I'd spend ages worrying, being stressed and worried and wishing bad things would happen to him, which is unkind. I felt sick, and couldn't tell anyone why I was tetchy or angry. I hated these feelings and felt degraded and upset about the things I had done, so one day, older than I'd care to admit, I put and end to it by basically telling a dangerous lie to this person, and felt far better. Say what you want about what I have done, I'm not sure how it happened but I know it went on too long and it's embarrasing and unwanted, OK, I am sorry, I cannot chnage the past and If I could I would. Worst part of this is this person is unaffected by this and I believe is straight, which makes me sick with anger now.

Growing up I managed to separate myself and supress it since it happened regularly but infrequently, I was for certain attracted to women and needed no questioning, it was natural to me. Any porn I watched was about women and usually not very frequent as I did a lot of imagining as well. The one or two times I naturally ventured into gay porn just to see what it looked like, I just went, urgh, and went back to women, never comparing it to anything I had done because that simply wasn't me or something I wanted to continue and not something I equated to genuine willing sexual feelings or desire.

I was always told that I could love whoever I liked and all would be fine by MY parents. I never have had any issue with the LGBT community, I participated in jokes etc but always felt like I was the only one not to have a problem with them when it came down to it. Much to the disgust of my already disliking-me closed minded school "colleagues" - I defended the openly gay exchange student and lost friends and respect over it. I just thought it was wrong to be mean. Even though I now worry this makes/made me gay or an ally or whatever all that time ago, I never questioned it at the time and just felt it wrong after people being unkind to me, to be unkind to someone just because of what they liked. I think having genuine crushes and sexual desires about women going through school was kind of the only thing stopping all the popular lads in school not hating me completely and made me relate to them and vice-versa! My parents like a load of gay artists music come to think of it, never shied away from being open minded, had a load of gay customers, I was lways around gay people, media, relationships. I am pretty sure then, that my underlying self and my sexuality that I hope I still retain was born out of nothing but a real love for women and that's that! The below WILL make me sound homophobic, and I am sorry for that. My mind has pushed me this far.

I have never quite made it into a full relationship with a woman and never questioned it, just am not the best looking guy not right girl etc. Love the feeling of talking to a woman, taking her out, making her laugh, thinking about going further etc. and that's how it was up until my last attempt late last year. I noticed from about half way through last year I was looking at loads of women online like ALL THE TIME and the arousal just wasn't as powerful thinking about them and it has been frustrating me, I got into more porn and more fast-paced porn and I noticed it was getting more penis focused which began to worry me as I worried I was looking at that more than being aroused by a women doing it to me. Every time I'd see a handsome man on insta an instant sudden spike of anxiety came, and it only got stronger snd to less and less attractive men. I stopped. I reduced porn, I deleted insta, I needed to stop it. To reset. Since then masturbating has been full of penis focused intrusive thoughts (that only really became fully prevelant maybe october last year) and worry and I may have gone off of women and anxiety about real-life sex. I started to look at women every day to check and think "no I couldn't get aroused to her if she was with me in bed etc". Then "why, why why". Then "but you know you could to men, you've done it before" This reoccurence of the very thing I'd hated so much really affected me. I needed stronger and stronger stuff to get off to. I chose to tell myself I was worrying too much, after all, my feelings for women never subsided, and when I let go I always just had my underlying feelings for women, this time plus this uneasy feeling of losing my mojo. Sometimes my brain would say "you're going to need to just accept you'd rather be gay", which I chose to ignore (see 2 sentences back for why).

As late as early December, I shared a double hotel room with a man on a big work trip and didn't have a single intrusive thought or urge, just the usual worry about being gay once a day (and just going, no that's not me, it's only worry), getting it up to women in real life and feeling this horrible sense of increaed arousal when thinking about penis related porn that I'd watched. At this point my porn taste was all BJs and imagining how women could pleasure me (therefore penis focused) and not normal sex or pleasuring the woman as well, which I used to love.

There was a couple good weeks before Christmas in which I was trying to improve myself. At ease, watching no porn or flashing porn scenarios in my head, walking a lot, no stress and starting to actually write out some good and realistic sexual scenarios where we both got off. I know it sounds stupid but it started to work, I started to feel more normal and happy again and my sexual and romantic desire felt like it was improving. I started to feel more balanced sexually, thinking about making her happy as well as just my pleasure. This wasn't fleeting either, and I was so happy!

It all crashed down one day, ultra tired and feeling sick. The whole day I was regressing back the other way for no apparent reason to a level I couldn't explain and trying to fight these thoughts with my ones from before, and so the extreme checking started. Every man, forcing scenarios etc. In a last ditch effort to salvage my thoughts and feelings, I started porn again and stumbled across an FPOV which sent a state of arousal/worry to the girls I was watching before into a spike of anxiety, dread, and worst of all, erection. This was the point where I could ignore it no longer.

I heard exposure is effective for any kind of scare, after all it's how I cured my social anxiety. I started forcing myself to look at bulges, redownloaded social media deleted all women and delibarately followed lots of men and thrist traps geared towards gay men/straight women since it might desensitise me. It didn't help. The responses have been worsening and I continued to watch them and check.

I watched gay porn all the time to prove that I didn't like it, and switched back and forth between women and men to try and gain some sense. This began successful and I gained some clarity, I didn't like the gay stuff I was watching and became turned off, disgusted, laughed, and loved the straight/lesbian. I felt so happy at first "it's all in your head". But continuing this has meant I gain ZERO clarity at all when I do it now.

When I watch these sexual things about men now my groin throbs, not erection, but constant waves of groinal responses and a massive state of anxiety that feels like I am holding back being turned on, this has substantially worsened although subsided in my good recovery attempt. When watching women, I feel more emotionally turned on, like I like it, a slight erection, but the lack of anxiety and heart rate is making me feel like it's turning me off, which worries me and turns me off. When I am aware of what I am reading/watching as I scroll, I am ok, but I zone out, and I get that sudden response to things I shouldn't/haven't in the past, the cycle starts again.

I perform physical actions which have got really bad, and worst of all, these past 2 or 3 weeks, I have this feeling that I no longer like woman's genitals and that I'd rather a mans. When I am worried about it, the former makes me feeling like a tightening in my throat, a sickening, and the latter, nothing, although this subsides when I am not actively worried/feeling sick. This is so upsetting and jarring and honestly a whole new level of wanting to not wake up anymore. I feel exhausted and sometimes that the thought of being with a woman feels like something I no longer want to do, which spikes my anxiety again further.

For one week, I managed to let go, not masturbate or watch porn or look up stories online. After this week, I felt revitalised, back, more balanced, like I want to be with a woman again. All it took was a week of resisting actions, thoughts about sex all the time and comparisons. I made the mistake of using porn again to check and haven't managed to replicate this recovery.

After this glimmer of hope I keep attempting to do the same again and it's all got worse every time I try. I assign meaning to anything, memories of things that I once believed mean nothing keep being used against me as evidence in my mind, i formulate new things every 10 minuest based on things for 10 years ago for example. The gay thoughts are strong, girls no longer appear to work, gay porn stuff I would have felt totally disgusted by just weeks ago give me groin responses like I am being turned on and honestly the genuine, amazing happy thoughts I felt about women just 3 months ago seem a million million miles away.

I don't feel I'd let myself be with a man, and I know I couldn't be happy with a man. I can't do it, won't do it, it's so against everything I know, but I am scared I'll lose control and just do it willingly, then I'd never regain control. The things I did when I was younger that I have tried so hard to get away from are all coming back to haunt me and honestly I feel violated. All these things I looked forward to with women are fading away, every gay thing I see, joke people make, reference they make is no longer laugh-off able. If I actually turned out gay I'm not sure I could ever face it, it would be the end. Nothing anyone can say can convince me that it wouldn't be the end of me. I am so unhappy. I no longer look forward to the weekendb or any downtime, I feel I am being attacked by these thoughts while in bed and I can't even drive without them attacking me. Worst part is that I HAVE LET THEM IN. 3 months ago, they were a what-if, and they had less effect, but now they're strong, and I HAVE STRENGTHENED them. Worrying has simply made them come true, and it's ruined me. Accepting them brings on more and more dread and honestly being gay is not wrong , but IT IS FOR ME.

Like the jumping off a cliff thoughts I used to have as a teen during my depressed teenager year, all it would take is for me is to let go of my underlying self from the past 20 years telling me "this is not you" and I'd be fully convinced to let go and give in. I wish so despatately for my 2023 and before self to return, the genuine attraction and turn on for women, and turn-off for men.

I drive far too fast, I push my car hard when I drive back at night, I run so hard I can't even think, watch scary things and actually keep myself extremely bursting so that I no longer feel the groinal responses or thoughts about men. Sometimes I have maybe an hour where I feel like I have let go, women are re-appealing, only for it to disapear, and I yearn for this feeling that was once persistent to come back again fully.

What have I done to deserve my mind fighting me like this? how can I even begin to help it again, and is there any hope to have the happy relationship with a woman I was so nearly on track to have back ever again? And if my fears are confirmed, what's my options for ending everything or becoming asexual.