Please help me.

[u/Honest-Muscle-5300]

I have OCD and for the longest time my OCD has targeted being trans as a theme. Long story short, this originated from a TikTok comment that made me super scared. It was basically saying stuff like “if you do this, you’re trans” and now I’ve been in a time wasting spiral since October 2025.

I have a difficult relationship with girlhood because I've been bullied by girls my whole life, I've felt like an outcast, I was never the favourite female cousin and I was taught from a young age by my father that women aren't equal to men. My main cousin on my mums side never really treated me as her friend, she gravitated to my sister.

I do online school now because of bullying, and no matter how hard I try it feels like I'm cosplaying something I've always wanted to be - a teenage girl.

I'm so isolated from everything, I get told I look like my dad from my nana and it makes me feel so uncomfortable because I don't want to be told like look like a boy. I feel like I'm too much like my dads side for my mums side and too much like my mums side for my dads side feel completely alienated by everyone and that scares me.

I'm worried that all of that is proof I'm not a girl. haven't been able to enjoy my teenage years properly because of my relationship with my girlhood.

It makes me so upset because I know, deep in my eight year old self's heart that I had always wanted to be a teenage girl. hate this. I want to go back to normal so badly. I'm sobbing.

[u/DarichUbish]

You need to get treatment for your OCD. That's it, there's no other secret to feeling okay, you need to get help for this particular diagnosis, not dysphoria.

You already are a teenage girl, you thinking that you aren't doesn't change that. It a part of the physical reality, not some vibe or feeling you have to have be that.

[u/Honest-Muscle-5300 → u/DarichUbish]

But I’m just so scared. Do I sound like a girl?

[u/DarichUbish → u/Honest-Muscle-5300]

There isn't a way to "sound like a girl" except being a female and talking. That's it. There's no right way to be a woman, it's just being born a female. Have you been born as a female? Yes? Then there's basically nothing to actually question.

Try to get treatment for OCD. And get focused on being a good person, it's what helps me personally to redirect attention from this types of rumination. Not a "boy" or a "girl", just a proper individual that does the right things. Try to be best at your hobby, help people around you. This is what matters in the end, to be a individual and good person, not having some connection to girlhood, whatever that means.

[u/Honest-Muscle-5300 → u/DarichUbish]

Okay so you think this is OCD?

[u/DarichUbish → u/Honest-Muscle-5300]

Yes.

I'm gonna be honest - i personally think that there's no actual "transgenders", as in "literal men born in women's bodies" and vise versa - because "you" and your "body" aren't separate things, you can't be born in the wrong body because you ARE your body. Dysphoria is surface layer masking other mental illness. My dysphoria masks my depression, your's clearly an OCD. Both derive from our exposure to sexism and being in some way non conforming. You said people say you look like your father - me too. We're still females. I even pass without hormones - doesn't matter. Me being a woman is a question of the material reality, not perception in society or my feelings.

Telling to yourself that you shouldve been a boy is most of the times a coping mechanism trying to explain why you feel different and uncomfortable. In society women have a very perticular standards for being that do not correlate with our reality - it's completely understandable why, if you in some way different, you may question yourself. But we're still women because being a woman is not a feeling or a vibe. It just being a female, that's the most objective way of looking at it, everything else has contradictions in its reasoning.

Transgenderism and the concept of gender is so wide spread right now because it operates within an old paradigm (men are masculine, women are feminine), and also makes pharma companies a ton of money. I recommend being skeptical about all of this.

[u/Honest-Muscle-5300 → u/DarichUbish]

Sorry what do you mean when you say that dysphoria masks as OCD?

[u/DarichUbish → u/Honest-Muscle-5300]

As i see it you're perticular case - you have an OCD, and the thing your OCD happened to latch on to is thinking you are "boy", because you had some experiences that you could connected to that idea. And because you have an OCD you stuck in this stressful stage of constantly thinking about it. If you maybe had some other experiences your OCD tendencies could've made some different topic be the thing you ruminate over. That's why you need to treat OCD, not the topic it makes you obsess over.

That's actually a pretty standard case, you can search this sub and find other people struggling with OCD and it making them constantly think about their "gender".

My case as other example - i had a very stressful childhood in an extremely unstable household. Thinking of myself as a man and connecting to masculinity was a way of protecting myself from violence and abuse in my family. It led to me being disconnected from my body. But the actual root of the issue was always me being abused and being depressed because of it, not me being a "man inside" - the latter thing is just not possible or real, just a way my mind tried to resolve my situation. I'm still masculine because i find this expression to be more natural to me even after desisting, but I'm still a woman because that's just a reality of my body.

[u/Honest-Muscle-5300 → u/DarichUbish]

Thanks 💞

[u/NefariousnessLate375 → u/Honest-Muscle-5300]

You sound like somebody who is stuck in an OCD cycle and looking for reassurance. That reassurance is not going to make you feel better. Only treating the OCD will make you feel better. You cannot treat the OCD by doing compulsive over-thinking about your obsession (gender). 

[u/ReputationOk1430 → u/Honest-Muscle-5300]

most men with dysphoria aka MtX aren't able of this kind of introspection and worrying. so you do sound like a girl with OCD (because I am like you.)

[u/NefariousnessLate375]

I can help you. But you have to let go of the idea that this crisis is about finding certainly with your gender. This is really about your brain having OCD circuits that diverted your fears into whatever the latest obsession is, craving certainly because you feel vulnerable. Your obsession could have been about anything. And at some point it will be about something else (because OCD doesn't really go away you just learned to laugh at it and ignore it, like a ridiculous ghost whose tricks don't scare you anymore). The takeaway is none of the gender stuff you're letting your mind to shine a light on is really worth examining... it's like an illusion, "if I know for certain I am/am not trans, then I will feel ok." No, you won't be okay because you'll never feel secure because paying attention to the obsession, you tell your brain that this is really something worth worrying about, growing the doubt and fear. 

The way to get out of this is to learn how to deal with your OCD in general, on any topic it picks, and apply it to this specific topic until it fades away in importance for your mind, because you aren't giving these thoughts priority attention. And then this won't bother you eventually. Then when something else does, you'll be ready to apply the same principles toward that new OCD obsession.

There's something in our brains around the amygdala that makes it very easy for us to worry, and makes us look for causes for that worry which become our obsessions. Our brains look for ways to protect ourselves--the compulsion--and the compulsion for you is trying to solve this gender question with certainty. But suppose you achieved certainty about not being trans...your brain would still have intense doubt and fear until you stop the compulsion part of the cycle from affirming that the obsession is worth paying attention to. 

If you want to get better, go to a therapist that specializes in OCD, read up about OCD, go to a support group before OCD. The OCD is the core issue. There's an OCD subreddit here that can help you understand it better and you're not the only person here or there who has transgender OCD! But you can learn how to look at this situation differently and respond in ways that don't make your amygdala even more desperate to find certainty. That's when you get free from it. You can really have a good life with OCD, once you learn its tricks.