my history with hocd and now - vent

This is a vent. I'm tired. I'm just going to spill my history with this stupid preoccupation. My first episode with HOCD was when I was about 12 years old. I'm 24 now (female). I had already had at least two crushes on boys by that point. I know I was young but they felt real. A boy my age told me he liked me back and I remember feeling euphoric and I would always fantasize about us kissing and dating when we were older. Anyways, I was addicted to the sims game on my new iPod touch. And, upon this advent of the exciting world of boys, I would constantly make my sim kiss, flirt, sleep, etc. with male sim characters. I got a thrill from it. Then at one point, I had my sim speak to another female sim and I pressed the flirt button to see what would happen and that's when it hit me like a ton of bricks: "what if i'm gay?" I had only first heard of the concept a couple years prior and it felt foreign to me, but I was still so young and was growing up in a very catholic household so anti-gay rhetoric was very present. But when that moment happened, a very dark cloud came over me. I was in such despair, I wanted to die for about a month. I was so young and alone. My family knew I was depressed, my mom is a kind woman and would say she wished she could take the pain away and claim it as her own. She would say, "you can tell me anything and I would still love you." But I never told her why I was so distressed. I would only find solace in sleep and just telling myself, "well I never want to be with a woman, so I will just be celibate for the rest of my life." and that gave me some peace. I didn't know about HOCD at the time. This was over a decade ago and I don't know if reddit even spoke about it. I remember looking up "gay anxiety" one time and seeing someone on quora talk about how they were scared to be gay. Someone unfortunately commented, "If you question it even a little bit then you're gay." This petrified me to my core and I said I'd never go online again. This depression went on for about a month and a half. I became so exhausted I just forced myself to not think about it. I think I developed some sort of mindfulness from it. Like I would just tell myself, "those thoughts are there, but they are painful to explore, so think about something else." and the pain and anxiety slowly went away. Any time I saw something triggering, I'd have tinges of anxiety but I would force the thoughts away again because I was so scared of the pain. I got a bit older and had more crushes on boys. From what I can remember, they never felt forced, they just happened, but now OCD makes me second guess that. Anyways, this second wave hit when I turned 15. I was getting ready for school one morning and the cloud came back. For the life of me, I cannot remember what instigated it. But I just knew it was back and my previous defenses weren't working. I became depressed again, reanalyzing everything I felt about boys, seeing straight couples in my high school hallway and wishing I could just be happy like them. I had kind of just accepted that i will never be with a man and that was sad to me. My mom brought me to a therapist. I still see her to this day. In hindsight, I don't know if she was very familiar with this phenomenon at the time because she would tell me, "just ask yourself, am I a lesbian? If the answer is no, great. If yes, then that's fine too." Which was pretty harmful advice at the time. I suspect she looked more into it because she changed her approach a bit in a way that was more accepting of the uncertainty. I had gone to the internet and by then more and more forums were arising about HOCD. I remember reading an article on it and the comments of people's experiences and felt instant relief, like I could feel the sun on my skin again. Eventually that turned into a compulsion, but as time went on I started practicing mindfulness again and it got better. Later that same year I got my first boyfriend. I really fell in love with him, I loved kissing him, giving him blowjobs, getting oral from him. We never had sex because I still felt too young, but I felt very satisfied with it. Further into our relationship, I began questioning how much i liked him as a person, we disagreed on many topics and I began seeing personality traits that were unattractive to me. This sent me into a mini spiral asking myself, "am I just not attracted to him anymore because I actually like woman?" At one time, we were kissing and he felt me down there and I was not very wet and he joked, "are you not into men?" I laughed it off but that really harmed me. Eventually we broke up and the pain from the breakup made me forget about my questioning of my sexuality. I missed him so much I would have sex dreams about him. This is getting long now so I will speed it up. I only had one other boyfriend towards the end of high school. I had a crush on him for a long time and we got together at prom. He took my virginity and we would hook up all summer before college. We broke up about two months into college because of the distance and I felt very sad because I really loved him. I didn't have any hocd episodes throughout college, I was very dedicated to my studies and, while I would speak to guys on dating apps and hook up occasionally it never went beyond that. After graduating I moved to a city, and began dating guys. I would have real feelings for them and fantasize about them. I even remember have sex with a guy I was seeing who I really liked and thinking, "this feels so good I can't believe I ever thought I wouldn't like it." those relationships never worked out. Recently I began seeing a guy who I had good chemistry with at first but I've been coming to realize that he may not be the guy for me. Ever since having these intials doubts, my HOCD flaired up again. My brain is convincing me that I just dont like him, I don't like any men. It's telling me I'm experiencing comphet. I can't even enjoy sex anymore. I keep questioning my past experiences. I glanced over the masterdoc and that freaked me out, I resorted to finding critics of the doc, of which there are many because it really seems like it is applicable to even the straightest of women. What scares me the most is the fact that I've masturbated to lesbian porn before, many times. I would masturbate to straight porn too and the sound of men finishing and moaning made me orgasm every time. but the fact that i've watched and enjoyed lesbian porn really is upsetting to me. Further, I am scared that because I've never been in a long term relationship with a man is my subconscious saying that i don't want it even though it is something i've always wanted. Do you know what's interesting? The episodes I've mentioned previously and now this one have always occurred in January. I live in the northeast and there's something about the gloominesss of this season that fills me with despair. Also, I enjoy and initiate sex but I hardly ever orgasm from it. To be completely honest, I prefer aftercare more than the sex itself. I love cuddling up to him and kissing afterwards and having chats.

Sorry for the length of this, I'm just so exhausted by this. I want to be in a happy relationship with a man but this disorder and all of the coming out stories on tiktok are scaring me so much and making me question everything.

I'm so tired.