I hate those thoughts.😭 They ruined my life.

[Monster2024-1]

My OCD obsession: I have estrogen and androgen in my body. That’s why I grow body hairs. So I am female and male in one body and I am not 100% female. 😭And many many other related thoughts. Before that I never doubted like this and I was happy. Now those thoughts make me sad. It will be sad to think likes this in my whole life. I can’t live a life likes this.

I also feel all human are male and female in one body and there is no 100% male, no 100% female. That’s sad to realize it.

Don’t know if they are just my OCD or my real reasonable thoughts. But I know now I have a compulsion to tell it, that’s OCD. Please don’t give me any explanation. Reassurance makes OCD worse!

[Natureloverpeace]

I’m glad you’re posting this again. As requested, no reassurance giving. I will give an explanation though. You are not alone in this and it’s a very common OCD theme called Sexual Orientation OCD. That being said. it’s not a sexual orientation issue, it’s an OCD issue. It’s having doubts about something you deeply value and looking for certainty to clear up your doubts. I think you said before that deep down you know who you are. Go with that.

[deValentin]

If you don't mind, I will have to disagree with you on one point: reassurance makes OCD worse. If you had said "excessive reassurance seeking and receiving makes OCD worse", I would have agreed with you 100%.

Humans need a certain degree of reassurance in order to function well in life. For instance, I need a yearly medical checkup to be sure I'm healthy. I need to know they won't be a dangerous snowstorm when I take to the road wintertime. I'm reasonably sure my family and friends love me by the way they behave towards me on a regular basis, and so on.

However, if you rely on absolute certainty, systematic completeness, perfect order, proof beyond unreasonable doubts, a risk-free environment, constant evidence that your trust is justified, etc. in order to feel okay, then there is a problem because it only serves to nurture a lack of self-confidence. And, as a lot of us know, it's tempting but incorrect to think that one can get rid of OCD or a lack of assurance by feeding it.

And you're right about the other issue: estrogen is a sex hormone found in both males and females, and all genders make androgens. The relative percentage of one hormone in relation to the other will determine our gender. One needs to stop dwelling on that issue in order to believe that dwelling on it doesn't serve any purpose except making us unhappy. I wish you could eventually reconcile yourself with that issue.

[Sallyskins]

I don't know if this is what you want to hear, or if it's helpful, but try to accept your body as it is. Don't think of the hormones as 'male' or 'female' - they're just hormones, and endocrinologists have given them labels. They're still just hormones. They have physical effects on the body and mind, but we all have both oestrogen and testosterone in our bodies. They don't determine what sex you are. Chromosomes do.

This is just the OCD playing up. Accept that you have both hormones in your body (as all of us do) and many others beside! They are needed in your body.

Body hair is natural and we all have it over our entire bodies apart from the palms of our hands and the soles of our feet. If you feel yours is excessive then by all means wax or shave or use a cream to get rid of it. Lots of women have this problem.

Try to accept yourself for what you are. And that's 100% human. And remember that OCD is the doubting disease - it makes you doubt yourself and what you really are. It tells lies.

[Sallyskins]

Another few observations. Having OCD can make us doubt ourselves, as I said - and sometime it can make us doubt who we actually are.

Try not to delve deep into this - on the whole, it's best to let our identity take care of itself.

Our identity is made up of lots of different things - some things we can't alter, like our DNA (including our sex and ethnicity) and our parents and immediate family. Lots of other things go to making up the unique person that is you, such as where you grew up and with whom, your interests and choices, your friendships and relationships, your work, your personality.

To concentrate on one bit of who you are, albeit a very important one, is to ignore all the other things that go into being you.

Don't push the thoughts away - just let them in and then ignore them. Tell them they don't alter who you are - and that you won't let them torment you.

The more we question who we are, and let it matter to us, the more discontented we can become. Just let yourself be yourself, and focus outwards!