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It destroys everything, and no matter how hard I try, I’m scared I’ll never be able to live a normal life. Other people, normal people, don’t have the same worries that I do. OCD will latch onto anything so you never run out of things to obsess about and fear over. I feel like I can’t get a break because the obsessions are constantly overlapping. I constantly think about the past and what a horrible person I was 24/7. Then, I’m busy with school, so I think I have something else to focus on, but since school is heavily immersed in the digital world, then I obsess over computer viruses and digital contamination. Then I run multiple antivirus scans that never ease this fear. I get home from school and I’m now upset that a roommate keeps leaving her stuff out and not cleaning her dishes, then because of moral scrupulosity, I feel like I am the worst and most evil person to exist because I got annoyed with someone (even without their knowledge) and then it ties back into real-event because then that means I haven’t changed as a person and that my past is who I’ll always be. I feel like I’m constantly in overdrive and that my brain will give up on me in the future. It never stops running. I wish the “I’m so OCD” people knew what it was truly like.

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I hope this message can help someone today, I never have posted on this site but have read and understand the torture carrying the weight and dealing with OCD and anxiety everyday. When you have OCD, and I am not talking about the “Organization” kind but the severeness that is only intrusive thoughts that feel like they take over your soul. The noise blocks out everything beautiful in this life because you are so focused every second of the day on how to make them go away. The scariest part that I now have almost fully accepted is that you can't stop it. You have to go through the pain and fire to slowly learn and come to terms with how you can at least make the voices not as loud. Now add on severe depression, Anxiety, and addiction on top of that. It is the definition of war with yourself. The feeling that you know at the end of the day you have to wake up and do it all again slowly drains any hope or light you once had. You lose the concept of reality. It is now you against your thoughts. And I will tell you the power they can have over you is not even close to a fair fight. OCD will completely strip you of everything. I will leave you with one of my favorite quotes that brings me hope when the OCD gets really bad...... "There is an old story about an eagle who can live for many decades. But around the middle of its life, something begins to happen. Its talons become weak. Its beak becomes bent and dull. Its feathers become heavy and worn. And the wings that once carried it effortlessly through the sky begin to make every flight harder. The eagle is faced with a choice: Die… or change. But change isn't easy. The eagle flies to the top of a mountain, finds a place among the rocks, and begins the most painful transformation of its life. First, it must break its own beak against the rock. Again. And again. Until the old beak finally breaks away. Then it waits. When the new beak grows back, it uses that beak to pull out its old, useless talons. And when new talons grow, it begins removing the feathers that have become heavy and damaged. For months, the eagle sits exposed on the mountain. Unable to fly. Unable to hunt. Unable to return to the life it once knew. It looks weak. It looks broken. It looks like it has lost everything. But something is happening beneath the suffering. It is becoming new. Eventually, the eagle's new feathers grow. Its new talons become strong. Its new beak becomes sharp. And one day, it spreads its wings. It takes off from the mountain. And the same eagle that once could barely survive rises into the sky stronger than it was before. The mountain didn't destroy the eagle. The mountain transformed it. And maybe that's what hardship does to us. Sometimes life strips away everything we thought we needed. Sometimes we lose people. Sometimes we lose ourselves. Sometimes we spend years trapped inside our own minds, fighting battles nobody else can see. And sometimes God allows us to reach a place where the person we used to be simply cannot continue. That's when the rebuilding begins. The breaking isn't always the end. Sometimes the broken pieces are the beginning of something new. The eagle doesn't become new by avoiding pain. It becomes new by surviving it."

Hey everyone, please forgive me for what is going to be a long post, but I feel the more detail the better in this case. To give some background, I am a 25-year old single man living with his family. A few months after high school graduation in 2019, I received a scholarship to a film school in SoCal, where I lived at the time. I planned to start my first semester in January 2020, but the world was sadly met with the pandemic. Due to living in California with extreme lockdowns, I kept putting off starting until things opened up. I didn't want to do classes that required in person technical work with cameras and lighting amidst so many restrictions. Cut to 2021, and I was ready to start classes, but I bailed. I was scared. I was so paranoid about the drive on the freeway, parking, and not fitting in. I eventually found a retail job that summer which I stayed employed at until my family moved to the Pacific Northwest in January 2023. It was a terribly rough adjustment, and in the fall I went back to Cali and lived with my grandmother for several months, starting film classes at a community college. I had fun, but had a tough time putting my voice out and collaborating. I felt foreign amidst people who shared my ultimate passion. I moved back to the PNW in early summer of 2024 and got a retail job where I was a supervisor. I worked here for a year and then got hired as assistant manager at a new store opening. I was having a terrible mental health crisis at the time, and I got demoted. I quit the job and have been unemployed for four months. I am 60-70 pounds overweight, depressed and sleeping until 10am. My best friends have careers they are passionate about. I have amazing parents who are supportive of my mental health journey, as this has been an ongoing struggle since I was in the 5th grade. I realize this is a very long post, but I don't know where I belong. I want to work and sustain myself, yet I don't even have an associates degree. I can barely communicate with strangers without feeling like I am on fire. I realize retail isn't for me and I am a very introverted person. Has anyone gone through something similar, but eventually found what works? I have debated a career counselor. I hesitate to find work because of my OCD and anxiety. I want a career that challenges me, but allows me space for my mental health. My mental health has caused crisis at many jobs. Anyhow, if you made it this far, thank you so much for reading. Just needed to get this off my chest. Love you all and stay strong. :)

🌷 FIRST DAY OF 10TH GRADE + MY OCD UPDATE 🌷 Today was officially my first day of 10th grade, and honestly… I have SO many mixed feelings about it. Going into school this morning, I was really anxious. There were so many people talking, shouting, moving around, and there was just SO much noise and stimulation everywhere. On top of that, I was scared about seeing the person who previously death threatened me and warned me about bullying. Thankfully, nothing happened today. We barely even looked at each other, but I was still on edge because of what happened before. I did something that made me feel a little safer, though. I told a few classmates I trust about the previous threat and asked them to keep an eye out for me just in case. I'm really glad I did that instead of keeping everything to myself. And then there was the OCD. My “I forgot/lost/left something somewhere” obsession was LOUD today. It kept telling me that I had forgotten something on a school bench, that I had left an object somewhere, or that something had fallen without me noticing. Normally, I would want to take photos or videos as proof that everything was still there. And even when I did take proof in the past, OCD would just move the goalpost and say, “What if you missed something?” or “What if something happened outside the frame?” But today I resisted. I left some of my classes without taking a single photo or video for reassurance. I felt the anxiety, I heard the thoughts, and I still walked away. That might sound small to someone who doesn't experience OCD, but for me, it was a BIG deal. I also had a really interesting moment where I looked outside the classroom window for a minute just to take in the atmosphere and realize, “Wow… I'm actually back at school.” My OCD tried to turn even that ordinary moment into another reason to worry about something being forgotten or dropped, but I didn't investigate it. I'm slowly learning that I don't have to document every moment just to convince my brain that nothing went wrong. And there were GOOD moments too! 🥹 My Romanian teacher complimented my bangs and told me they fit me well, which honestly made me so happy. I was already nervous about coming back to school and getting bullied, so hearing something kind like that meant a lot. AND WE GOT OUR NEW BOOKS!!! One of the subjects I'm especially excited about this year is Psychology. I genuinely can't wait to learn about it because it sounds so interesting and useful. + that’s my passion! I'm really excited to discover all the new subjects and everything 10th grade has to offer. Was today easy? Absolutely not. 😭 10th grade already has me feeling like I clocked into a 9-to-5 job. But I'm going to get through it. I'm strong. And I don't need OCD to disappear before I can have a good school year. Today reminded me that I can be anxious and still go to school. I can have intrusive thoughts and still learn. I can feel uncertainty and still leave the classroom without checking. I don't know what this school year will look like yet, and honestly, I don't need to know. I'm taking it one day at a time. Here's to 10th grade, new subjects, new memories, new challenges, and continuing to recover from OCD. 🌷📚 DAY ONE: COMPLETED. ❤️ I also wanna mention the fact that when I make those posts, I don’t seek for reassurance. I already know that feeds the cycle and stronger the loop. I make those updates because I’m lonely and I don’t have people to share my life with.

Hi all, looking for some help until I can get into treatment. My OCD has mainly been dormant for the last few years but I am in an acute episode, presumably brought on my a major life change that I’m in the middle of. I am triggered by simply being in my home (I’d rather not go into more detail). I wake up in the morning and immediately go right into a fight or flight state, and within seconds am deep in an obsessive spiral. It happens almost instantly, and I’m dealing with painful intrusive thoughts, rumination, and other Pure O hell the second I open my eyes. It causes extreme nausea and in some cases vomiting. Does anyone have any practical tips for me? I’m not even doing anything to “trigger” myself other than waking up in my own bed. This feels unbearable.

Been having a huge spiral lately over my relationship and if my partner is faithful or not. My relationship is absolutely incredible, and he gives me no reason to doubt him, and yet I still have doubts that one day he’ll cheat on me or that because of my issues he’ll grow tired of me. I tell him about my spirals more often than I’d like…the guilt is absolutely overwhelming whenever I have doubts or question what he’s doing on his phone, or look at who he follows. Then I tell him of my actions later to get that guilt off my chest, I have past trauma in regards to infidelity and cheating, and I think that’s one of the reasons as to why my brain latches onto this fear so strongly. It’s my biggest fear besides him dying…I just don’t know how to cope and deal with this anxiety on a daily basis. The guilt especially is eating me alive…the fear he’ll just leave because it seems I don’t trust him, and maybe I don’t…I don’t know anymore…he trusts me completely and that just makes me feel even worse. I feel like I trust him completely, yet I feed into these thoughts and try to seek reassurance constantly. Sorry for the long ramble…I just needed to vent this one out. I’m open to any advice! 💜

New here. I have suffered from relationship ocd in all of my relationships. I fixate very bad on if my boyfriend is cheating on me or has done something to me. This has lead me to go to the extremes to find “something out”. Has anyone else dealt with relationship ocd and concurred it? I really would like it to go away because it causes a lot of stress in my relationships!

I had so many things I wanted to do with this day off and I ended up doing none of them. Just felt paralyzed thinking about the future and where I’m at right now. Don’t even really know what I’m saying or asking just feeling lost right now.

I (17M) post on here a lot and it is about the same fear I have about s3m3n.Everything I think I am in a good place to move forward and start getting better and more clean I mess it up and have a private moment in my bedroom which sends me into a spiral because it gets in my pants and I have to go wash my hand usually in the morning after I wake up after the night so it is gross because I sleep in it and then I walk around to get stuff and possibly spread it because of my dirty clothes and the bathroom and this morning I had to use someone else’s body wash so now that is contaminated and the shower curtain that touched my unclean arm and the handle. And Idk if this is normal but my OCD is making me so much more filthy despite me wanting to be clean because I clean up enough just to get by and do not deep clean and then I tell myself it’s fine and this has lead to me not washing my bed protector for MONTHS because I keep telling myself it’s fine even though it’s stained and dirty and my uncle sleeps in that room and it is disrespectful and filthy and yet I feel like I have created this mountain of filth that I cannot ever possibly hope to clean because no one believes that I can be dirty and my room is filthy the walls, my mattress which I have needed to throw out for so long because ai use to lay in my bare mattress and have private moments underneath my bed my window my desk everything and it just weighs so heavily on me because I have family that comes over and it consists of kids and like it is bottom to have that type of filth around kids it just makes me feel so much guilt that I do not want I need to clean my room my dirty clothes are on my bed but nothing feels like it is enough and it is my fault and I just want this to stop and I hear stories about people finding s3m3n stains on their hotel beds and people saying that you can clean it enough that someone does not notice it but is is still there which frightens me what if I am not clean well enough what if I spread to a crevice or to an object I cannot clean it throw away it sounds like paranoia but it is a really thing that could have happened because I am a gross kid and that is not OCD telling me that it is true and that makes my OCD so much worse and idk what to do.

(3 images. Similar to a previous post but rewritten a bit to get my feelings across better.)

Has anyone ever experienced this where you had the urge to swallow after a intrusive sexual thought or you felt like your mouth was creating spit after the thought and then your freaking out for swallowing your spit after having a sexual thought and worried that means you where enjoying the thought but you can’t stop swallowing and your replaying the thought and swallowing to gage your emotions

About 5 years ago I had several massive panic attacks, and almost overnight developed severe DPDR and agoraphobia. The agoraphobia and derealization eventually improved, but my depersonalization has progressively gotten worse. I’m now almost completely emotionally numb and have a severely altered sense of familiarity, memory, and connection to people and places. I often feel like I’ve been living in a “dream” for years without my brain properly indexing the experience. My dreams are also extremely vivid and can stay with me throughout the entire day. I also have Pure O/existential OCD, and I increasingly realize how much of it revolves around doubt and internal checking: * How will I know when DPDR is getting better? * What will recovery feel like? * Am I really here? * Are my memories real? * Will I feel safe in a new apartment? * What does this feeling mean? My mind constantly monitors how I feel and tries to get certainty, which seems to create a self-reinforcing loop. I’ve tried IFS, Somatic Experiencing, EMDR, and ERP/NOCD, but recently became discouraged and stopped therapy. I’m considering trying specialized ERP again, specifically for the mental compulsions, rumination, and internal checking. Has anyone experienced severe DPDR alongside Pure O/existential OCD like this? Did targeting the mental compulsions actually help, even if the DPDR itself didn’t immediately disappear?

I keep having horrible thoughts of “oh, your friends aren’t hanging out with you, what if they forget about you and completely cut you out of their circle? What if your emotions and time spent with them is completely neglected and they stop caring about you? What if every single weekend your best friend chooses her boyfriend over you and then gets angry when you feel left out? What if your thoughts and feelings actually are less important than your friends? What if your friends don’t love you? What if they abandon you?” I’ve been feeling so triggered by something that happened in the winter of 2026, my friends didn’t understand my ocd at the time and they also didn’t realize they were neglecting personal time with just me and whenever I was invited it was “hey you can hang out for a little bit with us but then we need our alone time” (my two friends are also dating). It was so harmful for me emotionally and mentally with my ocd. I don’t think I have fully recovered from that whole experience. My friends are super understanding and supportive, I didn’t do a good job of communicating how they made me feel and what steps could be made to help. But in the moment it was just a combination of miscommunication, ocd, and poor time management. It’s hard not to blame them when it was just a bad situation really. I’m so scared that something like that will happen again and today is my friend’s 11 month anniversary so I’m feeling extra triggered today. It’s so hard and I don’t know what to do about it anymore. I just constantly feel so alone and fearful that something awful will happen. Does anyone have any advice?

I have a conversation with a male friend. We haven't talked in years ( we was cool peeps and always respectful ) I was in this state where I felt if I didn't tell people they matter while they're still here that I would feel horrible if they died and I didn't tell them. I lost my uncle and was feeling horrible that I didn't spend more time with them. It's was so intense that sometimes I would get emotional. I told my male friend that they always had a friend and hope they're doing well and I hope his family is in good health. And hope we can be friends. I always wanted to be respectfully to my husband and to his partner so I also said that i wasn't trying to be disrespectful or anything because I'm not the kind of person and if I caused any disrespect and if I did please forgive me. ( I always tried to be respectful and treat people how I want to be treated and respected boundaries) But for the past few months I thoughts about what if we dated and got married how would that be. Sometimes would just be in a daydream but also I would daydream all of us meeting up and hangout and being friends. My brain is always on and moving. Then I bomb went of in my mind. Full of what ifs and did i ruin my marriage and had emotional affair I never ran to my male friend and confined in him, I never called or told him I loved him or we should ran off or said anything like that. Or discuss any personal information about my relationship.Sometimes we wouldn't talk for days ,weeks , or months. Our Conversation was always uplifting and encouragement. And one time I said I was proud of him for finding God after dealing with intense grief and encouraging to pour that into something creative. And some funny memes I have went over our conversation looking if I said anything that might disrespect or gave the wrong impression. I didn't see anything but my brain 🧠 keeps looking He knows i'm in committed relationship And I would never respect his relationship or mines . Never !!! I would never hurt my husband in any way. My mind keep looping over and again bring up new things and I'm so tired and stressed over this. I tell myself it was just thoughts, it's was just thoughts everyone has them. I'm scared to tell my therapist about this , I'm afraid that I would be judged as a horrible person. I feel like maybe I shouldn't have male friends , in the past a male person I thought was a friend did come on to me and made me feeling extremely uncomfortable and kept trying to force me to be with him. It's was a horrible experience. I had to look him in the eye and tell him I don't want you and leave me alone. He finally got the hint and I never saw him again. This why my OCD was triggered??? Because of a past experience? Did I ruin my marriage? Should cut off this friendship ? *Me and husband are comfortable having friendship with the opposite sex.

I find that my OCD loops into my anxiety causing me to start thinking up things to worry about instead of being in the present moment. I’m always trying to work on it, but what are some things that could help?

This is my first post here. I've replied to a lot of messages but haven't sent any myself. I appreciate anyone who reads or responds to it. It's gonna be a bit long❤️ Well my theme is existential ocd. Before this theme, I did deal with things like health and safety themes but didn't even know that it was ocd because it was much milder. My fear is about a sort of eternal suffering. I feel soooo alone in it because I haven't seen anyone with a similar theme. Most people fear death and non existence. For me that would be the best outcome. Everything would end including the suffering and it also feels natural. My fear shows itself in two main ways: - quantum immortality (the quantum torment scenario) - death being an illusion and we keep being conscious of our body and feelings after death (this includes being burried alive and being there forever, feeling the decomposition of the body) And trust me I have researched enough. I couldn't make sure that it won't happen. But the problem is that it feels wrong to accept its possibility because EVERYONE sees death as THE certain thing. I feel alone because I haven't seen someone accepting this possibility and still living normally. Idk if it's possible or not. If we were in a society in which the fear of eternal suffering in the ways I described was as common as fear of death, I could deal with it much easier. Something interesting is that if someone said "don't worry we will all die for sure", it wouldn't give me any reassurance. It would actually trigger me because I'd feel unheard. That they don't even understand what my fear is and now I have to argue to prove that my worry might be a possibility and I'm not worried about a totally impossible thing.😅 Does anyone relate or has anyone gone through similar stuff? The thought is very scary by itself but I also feel isolated in having the thought itself and the dread that comes with it. It's like I've found a dark secret and it's my responsibility to solve it because others are too careless. (Probably not true. I'm just saying how it feels) Thank you for putting the time to read this❤️

I came off my birth control 8 weeks ago (after being on it for 13 years) and felt fine up until week 6 when I had a flare up. From that point on, I have been a mess. I got my first period post-pill on Saturday and my ocd has been awful. I am having a flare up over the fear of having pmdd, and my brain is telling me it’s true since there’s evidence of having up and down symptoms these last two weeks, including the massive spiral I’m in right now. I’m giving into compulsions and I’m feeling overwhelmed, scared, and depressed. Did anyone else go through this when stopping birth control? Does it sound like something I’ll be dealing with every menstrual cycle? Is the first period post-pill the worst of it all?

I actually felt my brain trying to begin a new theme ! I felt like I could lose my mind, go crazy. Get so panicked and anxious that I might explode. It felt dreadful, that amount of panic and dread. I was able to breath through it, tell my brain - i know what this is. I know whats happening here. And it passed. I fell asleep. But its hard to forget those moments when I do actually feel my brain trying to become terrorised by - thoughts. Thoughts that feel real. Thoughts that make you feel so scared and panicked its like your world is about to end. I honestly couldn't explain this to someone who doesn't have ocd. It took something ive been really caring about lately, and scared the living daylights outa me. What if......😱 It was a religious theme it was tapping into, because its something I've been caring about lately. So it took it, and put it beside something I would absolutely hate to happen, and it felt like it was sitting on top on my chest, thats how scared and panicked I got. I felt the weight of my fears. Whoa. Like I felt the fear in my body and mind. Im okay now. But these are like reminders how strong ocd can be, even after treatment. The only good thing ? I was able to recognise is, and, ride the wave ? Dont know what else to call it. A petrifying wave.

To anyone struggling with OCD right now, I really hope you know how much strength it takes to keep going when your own thoughts feel overwhelming. OCD can make you question things you never thought you would question. You can spend hours thinking about one thought, one feeling, one memory, or one possibility and still feel like you haven't gotten anywhere. You can wake up feeling okay and suddenly have one intrusive thought completely change the direction of your day. Then comes the questioning. Why did I think that? What does it mean that I thought it? Why did I react that way? What if I secretly wanted it? What if I don't actually know myself as well as I thought I did? What if I'm missing something? What if I never feel certain? You can know the answers logically and still feel the need to ask again. You can tell yourself you've already gone over it a hundred times and somehow your brain still finds another detail to examine. You might find yourself checking your feelings, replaying memories, searching for reassurance, analyzing your reactions, or trying to figure out exactly what a thought means about you. And when you finally get a moment where your mind feels quiet, OCD can make you question that too. “Why am I calm?” “Should I still be worried?” “Does feeling okay mean something?” It can be unbelievably exhausting. I know how easy it is to become frustrated with yourself. You might wonder why you can't just stop thinking about it. You might feel embarrassed about the things your brain comes up with. You might be scared to tell someone because you're worried they'll misunderstand you. Please be gentle with yourself. You did not choose your intrusive thoughts. You don't have to be ashamed of having them. A thought appearing in your mind does not define your character. Your brain can produce things that feel completely opposite to your values, and you don't have to figure out why every single time. You deserve to have moments where you aren't monitoring your own mind. You deserve to laugh, talk to people, watch your favorite shows, listen to music, go outside, do your hobbies, and enjoy your life without feeling like you need to solve every thought first. And if you're currently stuck in an OCD spiral, please remember that you don't have to figure everything out tonight. You can leave the question unanswered. You can let the uncomfortable feeling exist. You can continue with your day while your brain is still asking questions. You can remind yourself that uncertainty is uncomfortable, but you can handle being uncomfortable. Recovery can take time. There can be difficult days. There can be moments where you feel like you've made progress and then suddenly have another bad spiral. That does not erase everything you've worked for. Please keep going. There is so much more to your life than the thoughts OCD gives you. There are places you haven’t seen, people you haven’t met, experiences you’ve yet to experience, foods you haven’t eaten, etc. You are still here. You are still trying. I hope one day you look back and realize that you spent so much time being afraid of your thoughts when you deserved to be living your life. Until then, take it one moment at a time!! You’ve. Got. This.