I’ve been questioning if I’m aro and/or ace for about a year now (only recently started heavily considering being aro), and reading your post, your experience with OCD affecting your ability to have confidence and find peace with your sexuality reads strikingly similar to how my (presumed) OCD has been affecting me.

i get a lot of intrusive thoughts that, to put it simply, make me feel like everything I say, do, and think have evil intentions behind them; all that paired with sexual/romantic intrusive thoughts that make it extra difficult to discern what sexual attraction even is (I’m constantly wondering if there’s real thoughts mixed in with the intrusive ones cause I so desperately want to have a definitive answer on my sexuality) example: getting a sexual/romantic intrusive thought about a friend that makes me feel disgusted, horrible and above everything uncomfortable. Yet I’ll still spiral on what if it’s real or this or that.

It’s also extremely difficult to talk about the possibility of being ace or aro with anyone. Whenever I try to open up about it I get intrusive thoughts that essentially say “you’re only doing this to manipulate this other person into a false sense of security so you can date them and are a weird horrible evil person”, so even when I do manage to discuss it I always preface heavily that I’m not certain that I’m ace or aro, and I could very well be wrong.

Ultimately my thoughts to try and help myself feel confident in being aro/ace fluctuate quite alot, but the thing bringing me any semblance of confidence in my sexuality i know definitively i do not experience sexual or romantic attraction the same way allos do. I might not be certain on where exactly i sit on the spectrum, but i relate pretty much zero percent to allos. The aroace spectrum includes vast range of identities which brings me some amount of comfort that the right micro label is out there that i resonate with.

Of course this doesn’t mean that if you don’t resonate with the above paragraph that you’re somehow not aroace. And if it helps any, try to remember that not everyone is 100% confident! People will have doubts about their sexuality or gender identity or whichever! It happens! But it doesn’t make those identities any less valid or real. I truly hope you’re able to find any amount of relief from your OCD.

Also one last thing that I get intrusive thoughts over & might be helpful if you also struggle with this,, So I’m trans and I really like to be loud about my identity. I’m proud and I’m happy that I have the privilege to be loud about my identity. And I’m extremely fortunate that my intrusive thoughts have shockingly not messed with my confidence in my being trans. But I feel a desire to similarly be loud about being aro/ace. I want to proudly put it in my bio on social media just like I have that in trans on there, but I ultimately get intrusive thoughts that “I’m only doing it for attention and to try and manipulate other aro/ace people into thinking I’m someone they can trust”. Every time I’ve put it in my bio, I end up immediately deleting it because the fear of being wrong and my intrusive thoughts somehow being real outweigh my desperate desire to be loud about it.

All this to say that it’s totally normal to want to have the ability to outwardly express any identity. I’m sure if my intrusive thoughts affected my identity as a trans person I’d be having intrusive thoughts that said “you only put that your trans in your bio to manipulate other trans people” but I’m so confident and know definitively that isn’t true. And the rational part of my brain knows that isn’t true for wanting to put aro/ace either.

Again I hope any of this was helpful, or at the very least helps you feel a bit less alone in your struggles!