How I Got Here: Trans OCD & Internet Addiction

Trans OCD and Internet Addiction

This was originally posted in June 2022.

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For this piece, I’d like to focus on two common themes:

1. Gender as an obsession (Trans OCD)

2. Internet Addiction.

The Internet is a major driver in propelling the obsession that someone is trans, this is true for me and is also true for many other detransitioners. It permits us to discount all our past hurts, whilst simultaneously allowing us to rewrite our history in the name of gender dysphoria. This in itself is an obsession for many, but not all. And it’s no accident that many of the big-name detransitioners talked about discovering online communities that fuelled the fixation on gender dysphoria.

You Wouldn’t Wish It On Your Worst Enemies

An obsessive brain ruminates, I once described my OCD to someone as a “round-about with no exit”, it’s frustrating to go around in circles expecting a different result each time. The logical side of you knows the thoughts are irrational and don’t make any coherent sense, but the anxious side of you; demands that you go through it again and again. It’s waterboarding for the brain.

Everyone will experience an intrusive thought at some point in their life and a person without OCD when experiencing such an intrusive thought may simply shudder, laugh or just ignore it and move on. A person with OCD does not have the ability to dispel the thought, they internalise it immediately; “Why am I thinking this!? How could I think this!?” and they play the thought back over to re-examine their reaction. But in doing so, it causes more distress, causing a vicious cycle. There is an immense aura of shame around OCD sufferers, and we often are reluctant to share any details, as we feel personally responsible for our difficulties.

I am medicated and will remain so for the rest of my life, I’m on a high dose of Sertraline and it balances me out quite well. Without it, I’m a mess, everything returns with a fiery vengeance and despite my vast toolkit of coping strategies to deal with anxiety attacks and intrusive thoughts, it’s simply not enough. But what does help is being more open about my OCD with friends and family, I don’t go into full details, but I do tell them about some of the more ridiculous OCD thoughts and this has helped me reclaim a sense of control, though this isn’t a battle that can be won with wisdom and the comfort of friends alone.

The root cause of OCD is said to be a lack of serotonin, which has been linked to early childhood stress. For many of us, when we think of the word trauma, we immediately think of the worst possible meaning - and whilst that may be a reality for some, for many it could also be something that they wouldn’t consider traumatic in retrospect. However, to a child things that may seem small to us as adults, are huge and can greatly impact a developing mind in extremely destructive ways, especially one who has the disposition to be anxious.

It would be fair to describe me as a highly sensitive person, and as a child, I just couldn’t mask my nature, and even though the culture I was brought up in demanded that I toughen up, I just didn’t want to. There was no real room for those who were seen as weak, soft, and sensitive and I most certainly caved into that pressure early on, and I became more reserved, restricted, and withdrawn as I grew older.

I had my first panic attack at four years old, which I have no reliable memory of - it wasn’t until I was applying for a job that required a full medical history in my early twenties, that I saw an old hospital admission form that noted the incident. Though my mother did recant it once or twice, I interpreted it as a breathing attack, but I never had asthma and there was no real further discussion on it.

From a young age, I also knew I was gay and it scared the living shit out of me. It wasn’t just family, it was mine and everyone else’s family seemed to be quite open about their distaste for gay people. My heart would race when members of my family would make openly homophobic remarks or untested statements. In school you would not dare show an ounce of gender nonconformity or same-sex attraction or that would be the end of you. This fear fuelled my OCD in a way that would become crippling. I couldn’t even walk up the stairs without an intrusive thought saying “touch the banister now otherwise it means you’re gay”.

In my teens, I began to explore my sexuality and I would find myself fantasizing about my male peers, only to be extremely horrified at the thought, which resulted in ruminations about sexuality. It wasn’t a polite “I wonder if” it was “Oh my god, I really don’t want to be gay, please God, don’t make me gay”. Before bedtime, I would collapse my hands and pray to God to make me normal. A genuine plea that soon became an obsessive ritual: I had a mantra that if I got it wrong, I would have to repeat it until I had satisfied whatever new rules and conditions I had imagined for myself, which often made it impossible to complete. Sometimes I would stand for hours, nearly crying in frustration if I couldn’t complete an OCD ritual. All I wanted to do was go to sleep.

By my early twenties, my OCD had reached its peak. It was constant, every waking second of every day I would be on the receiving end of often violent and extremely distressing thoughts/ideas that would pop in my head, uninvited. With this came irrational beliefs and the irrational hope that time alone would solve my mental health issues.

Untreated, OCD can be extremely destructive and often manifests itself physically, through seemingly senseless behaviours like lock checking not once, but thirty, forty times, pacing around as you battle unanswerable questions and intrusive thoughts, as well as constant restlessness, fidgeting, dissociation (sleeping, excessive gaming), and a weary soul.

I never seemed to get much respite either, even during sleep my OCD manifested itself in repetitive nightmares, that played on repeat but with slight variations, to ensure the experience was new and terrifying each time. In these ‘dreams,’ I was being chased, but could never see who it was that was chasing me.

Sometimes I would wake up before I could see who it was, but when they did catch up with me, I would try and throw a punch at them, only for my arm to slow down dramatically and my clenched fist would turn into ash. At that moment I would wake up, confused, panicked, and with a pulse so high I could feel it throbbing in my head. When I transitioned, I finally saw who the attacker was in my dream… it was me and the dreams came to an abrupt end, which I would also use as evidence that I had ‘found my true self’.

The real impact of OCD for many of us is the inability to feel rested. Whether it’s in our waking lives or our dreams, we are always on alert, anxious, and deeply afraid of our thoughts. This causes the basis of being unable to trust ourselves, and as our self-esteem becomes drained; we look to others for validation, reassurance, and confidence.

Surfing the Internet Highway To Hell

As a teenager, I felt weighed down by my OCD - or I felt as if I were running the race of life with shackled feet. To break away from this, I would distract myself with other obsessions, like games, and chatrooms, and I was well and truly addicted by age twelve.

In online games, I was an idealised version of myself. Confident, witty, and fiercely intelligent, at least I thought so at the time anyway. As I got older, I found myself running gaming communities and would happily play with my online friends until the sun came up. No one shared pictures, no one was interested, and we had a common goal: the game or the gaming community. I used to think I had wasted my youth on the internet, but honestly, I look back fondly at those gaming communities, they were a much welcome break away from my burdened mind.

But it wasn’t all roses, my online world was a double bind in itself. Whilst I had the welcome distraction of games and gaming communities, I was enthralled by the concept of online chatrooms. I would talk to strangers for hours, giving away intimate details and as I got to around the age of 13/14 - messenger applications like ICQ, MSN, and AOL allowed these strangers to be in constant contact with me. Like my parents, I also fell for the false security of being at home and the belief that nothing could happen to me whilst I was there.

In my internet travels, I would occasionally come by someone who was a few years older, and they would take me under their wing, listening to my troubles and giving rather kind and wise advice. These guys often had kids of their own and were the role models I needed. I’m grateful I had those interactions, actual caring men who helped a kid in distress…

…Then there were the others, those who listened for their own ill-intentions. They gained my trust quite easily over the course of months, I began to share pictures of myself, my face, and my body. They made me feel in control, even though I wasn’t. I occasionally have bite-size memories come back, where I would be sat nervously, unsure if I should switch my camera on, only for them to convince me to with little real effort. I remember turning on the camera and seeing a much older guy’s reaction, he sunk into his chair and let out an audible sigh. This behaviour followed me into my twenties, where through ‘admirer’ websites I would gladly post pictures once again, for the sake of validation and attention but this time with the purpose to affirm my trans identity. And just like when I was younger, men decades older would parade me with compliments, and offerings of gifts, almost as if I was repeating history. Though part of me felt empowered at the time, just like when I was younger, it left me feeling ashamed and empty afterward.

I knew that if I ever felt doubt about my appearance, I could also go on a trans forum, Reddit, or even my own Facebook and share a selfie and be paraded with compliments. For me at least, this was a way of outsourcing my self-esteem to others, through permission seeking and validation. Every trans person who posts in those spaces knows that no matter how you look you will receive positive attention because any negative commentary is seen as transphobic or hurtful. This is how masculine-looking trans women believe they are unmistakably female: their self-image is based on FaceApp and filters, as well as toxic validation online in these trans affirming spaces.

Trans OCD

Trans OCD is a known form of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, and it baffles me how I was able to enter the Gender Dysphoria Service with a diagnosis of severe OCD and this wasn’t only ignored, but used as a means to affirm my “dysphoria”, which would lead me to an unimaginable form of self-destruction.

By my late teens and early twenties, I was binge drinking and smoking cigarettes until I passed out. I was in a state of grief and constant emotional turmoil from so many things that were going on, I was circling the drain and I completely stopped caring for my own health and hygiene. Eating disorders have been a constant theme all my life, from uncontrollably eating and drastic weight gain, to restricting eating and experiencing drastic weight loss.

I had begun to seek help for this in around 2011/2012, and during therapy with a general psychologist, I was introduced to the concept of “Pure O,” which is a form of OCD that primarily manifests itself mentally, rather than physically. And though I had physical compulsions and ritualistic actions like lock checking, hand washing, and compulsive praying, it was the intrusive thoughts and torturous ruminations that were the most debilitating.

Literally, weeks after being told this, I came across Gender Dysphoria, and all of a sudden, all my past hurts, all my anxiety, depression, everything made sense or so I thought. I gave myself permission to discount everything and attribute it to a straightforward case of being dysphoric, when in fact it was actually a new, much more powerful obsession.

The definition of Gender Dysphoria is deeply appealing to someone in distress, it’s an invitation to abandon all your other obsessions and ruminations, in place of Gender, but the only difference between this and every other obsession I had, is this was being affirmed socially, legally and medically.

I remember looking at the wording, and although it’s extremely bland, unspecified, and purposely undefined, I felt as if I’d been given all the secrets to the universe at that moment. And what I previously attributed to my ‘eureka!’ moment was an invitation to a brand new obsession, one that would make all others look microscopic in comparison, I had become obsessed with Gender Dysphoria. I wouldn’t be the first nor the last to fall into the Gender Dysphoria Trap.

It allowed me to pin all my hurts, pains, and hard-earned life lessons on being trans. I would recall every life incident, every moment of anxiety, including that moment when I was 4, with a complete historical rewrite: I sold the idea to myself that everything was an open and shut case of gender dysphoria.

My same-sex attraction, my panic attacks, anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and even events unrelated to gender, were attributed unfairly to Gender Dysphoria. When I asked to be referred to the Gender clinic in 2013 my doctor captured my history quite well, down to the homophobia, anxiety, and depression. She didn’t miss a beat, but it seemed that didn’t make a difference, I was aggressively affirmed once I entered the service and it seemed like this was ignored. I just can’t figure out why….

However, by that time I was firmly sold on the idea of gender dysphoria and had bought into it through online forums that existed to discuss transition. These forums were run and used by mainly much older men, who dealing with decades of issues that had gone unaddressed and had also found themselves sold on the idea of transition. I shared with them my symptoms, my experiences, and I was given the community checkmark of “Yep, that’s a sure-fire case of Gender Dysphoria, get referred ASAP!” and “Do it whilst you’re young, I wish I did, I regret not doing it sooner.”

This compounded when I started sharing photos of myself presenting as female and is a way that the online grooming manifested itself offline. Being overly trusting, I met up with a few individuals from the forum, and whilst some were like me, some were intentionally targeting young vulnerable transitioners like myself, showering them with gifts and dining out and as someone who was on a very low income, I would gladly welcome a free meal.

One individual, who was 30 years older than me took me out for a meal on the premise of confidence-boosting, but as I found myself alone with him, he announced that ‘we’re on a date!’ and I completely shut down. Nothing sinister happened and I put it down to a misread situation, but that older man knew exactly what he was doing and how vulnerable I was at that time. After I didn’t respond, he moved on to others in my peer group. I did what I could to put a stop to it, yet none of the people who had this experience would dare say that it was an older trans person that did this to them.

There is an uneasy silencing of the shit behaviour within the trans community, and even trans on trans crimes are rarely given any traction. Incidents like this would pop up now and again, and it did nothing to challenge I truly was a trans person, and the fact this negative attention was occurring was further testament to the validity of my transition.

Retrospectively, every interaction, thought, memory, joy, and loss, were all unfairly attributed to gender dysphoria. Not being able to understand my peers, not being able to fit in, my same-sex attraction, depression, anxiety, sensory issues, OCD, and my desire to escape reality were all awarded unfairly to dysphoria and nothing else. This is the very essence of Trans OCD.

I’ve never had an obsession like this that was aided so aggressively by external forces, that it makes it impossible, even for seemingly intelligent people to see the forest for the trees.

But you tell me, what sounds more appealing? That my complex issues were a result of gender dysphoria or that I had complex intertwined co-morbidities that required time, attention, and effort to work through? Transition is not a hard choice, it’s the easy choice. It’s easier to say you were always someone else because that permits you to project what were deeply complex internalized issues onto others and the environment around you.

When unbridled feelings are given authority over logical reasoning, seemingly highly intelligent people can still fall into the trap of gender dysphoria. Telling someone who is traumatized that their feelings have authority over logic and reason is not empowering, it’s deeply destructive - least of all for the individual and those around them.

The Shelf Life of Obsessions

The problem with any obsession, that is fuelled by OCD is that there is no end game, there is always something more attainable and in the case of Trans OCD, there is always one more surgery, one more procedure that will be sure to cure all your stresses. It’s so easy to obsess over how the next treatment, procedure, or even an outfit will help cure your dysphoria, but it never seems to.

I think those who are like me and come to find Gender Dysphoria as a means to deal with complex trauma, self-esteem issues, same-sex attraction, and anxieties, find that after a certain period of time, the obsession loses its weight and power, and your mind is finally able to ask the question “maybe this isn’t for me?”

I suppose it’s too little too late. Like a sobering mind who made an arse out of themselves the night before, I’m realising now just how enthralled I was by the entire thing. And I did have good years, I made some lifelong friends and have good memories to look back on, but I seemed to have paid dearly to get to that point. With the right care and treatment, I likely would have never transitioned.

Many other detrans people feel the same, that they were obsessed with the idea of gender and that the internet helped fuel their obsession, but what’s more disconcerting is this obsession isn’t challenged when it’s brought offline: it’s affirmed, legally, medically and socially.

For people like me, that only makes it worse. We need to have a proper conversation about Trans OCD and Internet Addiction if we are to effectively help trans and detrans people who are impacted by it.

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Are you struggling with OCD?

Here are a few resources that have a great deal of information and links to organisations that can help with OCD.

• OCD UK - (UK)

• NHS - OCD Information - (UK)

• NHS - Find a Therapist. - (UK)

• Mind - (UK)

• OCDF - (international)

• Beyond OCD - (US, UK and Canada)