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I hate how I have to avoid everything or I can't even think or enjoy using my imagination to create stuff in my head ranging from characters, stories, ideas or playing stories or movies in my head to play around with my characters and stuff like that or things like that and I really hate how I have to avoid doing that because of the OCD and it's frustrating not being able to enjoy the stuff that I want to enjoy cuz it feels like I have to avoid everything that I want to think about or enjoy. And I recently discovered for myself after watching one of the NOCD videos on their YouTube channel that I have pure o OCD and also explains how I have a hard time thinking that makes it even harder wanting to enjoy the stuff. I want to think I want to play with my imagination and working on my characters and things like that I'm avoiding having any more of what I have left being tainted by the OCD and the fact that I don't want people I no longer associate with in of having the OCD tainting the creations I want to create in my head with my imagination and what not. It's getting really annoying and frustrating with how much I have to avoid everything that I want to think about and enjoy in my head it feels like the pent up feeling is becoming more and more and more stress ing the more I have to avoid stuff just to protect what I have left from the OCD and I don't know how to deal with this and it doesn't help. I'm trying to save watching YouTube videos and stuff like that for later when I finally get my own place when when I'm free from everything I'm trying to get away from so I can enjoy everything I've been wanting to enjoy if I've been holding out on from videos, animations and things like that to make what it is. I want to enjoy more precious and meaningful and don't want have bad experiences with everything I'm dealing with right now in life ruining those experiences

Let me start by prefacing that I developed ocd as postpartum ocd after having my first child. I had harm and pocd. I had it on and off for years and then it just eventually went away completely for many years until recently after a stressful life event. Now that it’s back it again targets my children but now my grandchildren also. It’s been horrible and makes me pull away from them. Last night my 6 year old granddaughter threw up in the car when my daughter was about to take her home so my daughter brought her back in the house and asked me to clean her up while she cleaned her car. I had some anxiety about it because of my ocd but I couldn’t say no to helping so I opened the bathroom door and my granddaughter was standing in her underwear waiting for me to clean and dress her. Everything was fine and normal but then for some reason, I have no idea why, I looked down at her chest area. I immediately got so upset and didn’t know why I looked there and now my ocd is saying it’s because i’m a monster. I tried to tell myself it’s just normal human behavior when someone is standing there naked that you look where you shouldn’t simply because it’s just there in front of you but I feel horrible. I don’t feel any inappropriate way about her or any child but my ocd is saying it was inappropriate. Has anyone else been through this?

I want to move on and accept my past mistakes, but I feel like truly forgiving myself isn’t acceptable. My therapist says not to judge my past self but seek to understand. But if what I’ve done has gone against my moral values, how exactly do I do this? I’ve learned my lesson, and I just want to move on. But that feels like letting myself off the hook. Any tips or advice??

What did you do today to work on managing your OCD? All wins/accomplishments are welcome to be posted! :-)

Im at work and work is where my ocd is triggered most. I plugged in the solar panels and remembered my friend whos an electrician. Than i had intrusive thoughts of his daughter and sexual intrusive thoughts. I felt so anxious and am having a hard time breathing. I said a prayer and kept working. Then ocd said was i praying for something inappropriate but thats absurd and not true. Then the intrusivr thought was of female erogenous areas. It was just a thought of a female provate lart. It was like the thought of my friends face then his daughters face then the female erogenous part. So ocd says was the intrusive thought of a adult female erogenous part or a minors. Then ocd says i like adult women so did i like the thought of the female private part. Idk what the thought was it was just a female erogneous part that popped in my head. I know im not a pedophile. I know i dont want ocd thoughts. I know the thoughts made me anxious. Then ocd says if it was a intrusive thought of a small female erogenous part its a pocd intrusive thoughts. If it was a thought of a big female erogenous part it is an adults part. Idk what the thought was tbh now my memorys blurred. I just recall having their faces pop in my head then a thought of a female private part and i remember being super anxious panicking and having a hard time breathing from the anxiety. I know this is indication its ocd and anxiety. I dont like these thoughts and dont want them. Im not a pedophile. Im terrified by the thoughts and i know my anxious reaction disproves the ocd intrusive thoughts and doubts. I know who i am. Im a faithful husband and not a pedophile. I dont want these thoughts it’s distracting me from work as im ruminating and writing this. I feel like crying. I dont want sexual intrusive thoughts. I dont want pocd thoughts. Help!

Hi everyone, I’m a 30-year-old woman, and I’ve been in a relationship with my boyfriend for 5 years. I’ve always felt emotionally close to him — he’s caring, supportive, and we planned a future together, including having a family. I don’t want to leave him. He means so much to me. But for a while now, I’ve been obsessing over the fact that I don’t feel much sexual attraction to him anymore. It’s not like I never felt anything — when we first met, there were butterflies, excitement, emotional connection… something real. He was never “just a friend” to me. But the physical side of the relationship feels like it’s slowly faded, and I’m panicking about what that means. I keep thinking things like: – “Maybe I chose the wrong person.” – “You can’t be in love without sexual desire.” – “If I was truly in love, I would still want him.” – “What if I’ve been lying to myself this whole time?” Sometimes my body reacts — I can feel physical closeness or even arousal — but my mind shuts down and says: “no, this isn’t right.” Other times, I feel tension, resistance, or even disgust during intimacy, and I can’t tell if that’s anxiety or if something is fundamentally wrong. What makes this even more confusing is that I truly believe that real love includes sexual attraction. For me, it’s all part of one feeling — not separate. So if the attraction is gone, does that mean the love is too? Is it possible that this is still OCD — that my mind is obsessing and disconnecting me from my real feelings? Has anyone experienced something similar? Any support would mean so much. I feel so stuck between my mind and my heart.

My mom will sit and listen to me for quite a while, but she interrupts a lot and gets angry/upset. While I appreciate her passion, it's often stressful. Every time I come to her, if I even *mention* OCD, she gets frustrated and says, "Everyone deals with these issues, you know. It doesn't mean it's OCD." And I repeat, "I'm not saying my issues are unique — I'm saying the way I respond to them is a problem." But she just shakes her head and says, "Okay, I need to get back to my day." Full context, I'm an adult, and I live with my boyfriend, but I'm staying at my mom's for the next month. After living away from home for years, I went back to living with her during the pandemic, and I only recently left to live with him. Honestly, I think living with her for so long in my adulthood really messed with me and made me feel like a teenager all over again. I feel like my mental growth is stunted, and that's part of why my OCD is so bad lately. Not blaming, just noticing. She doesn't seem to understand how relieving the OCD diagnosis has been for me, because it explains so so so many things I've struggled with for years, and it's exciting to have more resources that can help me. But I think she sees it as me finding an excuse to *not* work on myself, which is just untrue. I'm not going to let OCD hold me back or use it as an excuse, but I'm also not going to pretend it's not a problem when I know it is — I was even diagnosed through NOCD. The whole point being to fix it, not use it as a crutch. When I have an issue, it's unbearable. Any issue, big or small, feels just the same. I feel a sinking feeling, my mind races, my heart beats out of my chest. I end up running to my support systems, crying, ruminating for days on end. Then, months later, the same exact issue can feel like nothing anymore, because it's no longer an obsession. I'm sure everyone deals with issues in a similar way, but I *know* there is something specific and debilitating going on with me. This is reassurance seeking, but in the face of being told I'm making a big deal out of nothing, can someone diagnosed with OCD tell me if they relate to the specific intensity of these feelings??

hey guys, i am really really struggling and i feel like crying. evry day i get this feeling of sexual attraction to the same gender, and i get those feelings even just thinking about it now. i hste them and want them to go away but they simply won’t and it has me thinking that this is just how my life is gonna be like. when i was fully healed or atleast thought i was healed from the false attraction and soocd, i still sometimes got that attraction feeling, and i would force my body not to feel it. i hated it and was scared of liking it so i would like stop breathing and make it stop. it was only ever occasional but this is making me concerned now too, because i still sometimes felt that feeling when i was healed. now currently my main trigger is masculine girls, but when my soocd first started i had no false attraction or attraction like this towards girls, and it was all just in my mind like saying, “don’t look at that girl or you’re gay.” there was one point in my soocd where i was worried about being attracted to my friends, but i am greatful in the sense of i know that that is not true and my main issue is the false attraction watching videos and i have experienced it once in real life too and i hated it. please lmk what i should do or even if you can relate. i am sick of feeling th is way, and i am a christian too so this makes it harder. i’ve tried everything like accepting it, or trying to even say to myself yes u do like it but it always just leads to me being scared.

Every therapist I’ve tried for OCD has felt dehumanizing and judgy, as if I’m the threat not my OCD. I’m still looking for a good therapist. Have you ever had a bad therapy experience?

Not sure what to say. Just that I am so tired of dealing with OCD - I’ve had it for most of my life and as a 40 something woman, I’m exhausted. I’m tired of being misunderstood and mistreated. I’m tired of seeing relationships that I have dwindle bc my friends and family are overwhelmed with my ruminations and reassurance. I’m embarrassed bc I overwhelm my friends and family with whom I’ve trusted my personal thoughts with and I keep thinking that they can help me through stuff only to be let down. I’ve yet to meet another mind like mines who is complicated but trying to survive because I have children and want to see them grow. I’m tired of feeling defeated because someone took advantage of me and my thoughts. It’s so exhausting but I’m ready to try this because I know I need help. Not sure if this is triggering I’m just ranting bc I’m so lost.

So I’m 16 years old, currently going through my sophomore year of highschool. I’ve recently quit nicotine and weed after chronic use for about 4 years (has affected my development extremely). I quit because I wanted a better life for myself because I knew that I was using nicotine and weed for short term happiness and long term made me very depressed about this life. I was also experiencing trouble concentrating on simple tasks and what I wanted to do currently in my life. Which was learning about life and having more knowledge about life in general so i could feel more comfortable and happy in the future. So I quit nicotine I thought I was going to be able to overcome it and be more comfortable with myself knowing that I’m not in a constant loop of short term happiness, long term making me less happy overall. Although I have quit nicotine and haven’t touched it in about 3 weeks I expected to have some major withdrawals because I’m still in adolescence and used nicotine about everyday for 4 years. Sorry I’m rambling about this but through those years of always suppressing my anxiety with nicotine when anything came up that triggered it. I started noticing that on vacation in very stressful moments like at the airport and there were people around me when using the bathroom I felt as though it was nearly impossible to go but after sometime I eventually went and shrugged it off. Now that I’ve quit though I’m my 4th week it’s almost like my brain really latched onto that fear of not being able to go around people publicly (paruresis shy bladder syndrome) and that’s also what addiction does to you I’ve acknowledged. But when I started coming home from school I started thinking about not being able to pee more and more to the point i haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since which now every time i feel a slight trigger of having to use the bathroom i start obsessing over it like everything I would try and do that i usually do my brain would draw me away from it and go back to the fear of not being able to go which created a lot of anxiety and thoughts like “would if im not able to stop going” which made me think about it more and more I would just wake up with that thought in my head each day to the point where i was really thinking about killing my self because I thought i would have such a better life without nicotine and weed but ultimately made me feel like i was going crazy and I really wanted to go back to vaping and weed but i knew that this was the cycle of addiction and that i may have a more underlying problem here i need to overcome somatic ocd. I haven’t been diagnosed with it yet and I know a lot of people go through a cycle of self diagnosing. But as I’ve slowly started to mentally figure out ways to get through this obsession over peeing and fight it, it’s like my brain is now trying to look for a new bodily sensation to obsess over. My breathing. I noticed this as well while using that sometimes I would think about my breathing a little bit to much for example saying to myself am I breathing right should I breath this certain way would if I can’t stop thinking about it. But as I was thinking about that I just hit my vape talked to my brother about it and just slept it off. Now that I don’t have a vape I’ve had to go through these expierences but with it feeling more real and not really having something to run to, to suppress like my vape. I’m writing this today as I feel better to myself talking about it and opening up about it as I’m trying to not respond to this fear with anxiety and go throughout my days ignoring these obsessive thoughts leading to extreme anxiety that I don’t have anything to suppress it with anymore besides my own mental. Maybe someone here will have some more knowledge about it than I do and can give me some advice to try to keep me more motivated to deal with this ocd I feel as though I’m having so I don’t end up in a dark place. Thank you.

Can ocd make you question the existence of god???

For those who have had success with medication for OCD/anxiety, how is your life different now compared to before starting medication?

I don’t know if it’s SOOCD. I no longer feel anxious in the moment when I think about women, and it’s like my imagination wants me to think about it and get aroused. I don’t want to be gay, but maybe I am after all. In my life I haven’t been so sexually driven before (when I was living with a man, or when being single) but now all I can think about is having sex with a woman. I don’t want to, but somehow my body does and it feels like my mind have changed to accept it to.. feel so sad This all started around 4 weeks ago..

I really dont know if it is ocd anymore I dont want certain sexual things with my bf anymore that i used to like When i envision it with a girl it is so easy to envision and it feels like i want that , that will give me the satisfaction This feeling is making me really question if i am still into men , desire men sexually Is this still ocd , i really dont know anymore , as it is a feeling it is too real

just crying cause i feel like im never going to recover and just have to be lesbian, even tho i love my boyfriend so much. thoughts don’t even give me anxiety anymore idk what to do, im just so done, feel like it’s all real and that i want it(when i dont). any tips or anything, idk how to keep going

I saw a quote about “the more you taste Jesus…”, I’m not sure what exactly it said afterward but my brain sexualized the tasting him part. And I imagine Jesus before me and how he cares for me, but how he also technically would have had a taste. I think I’m able to “like” the thought because of a dominant caring man in a sexual way, but I obviously hate the fact it involved Jesus. Is this blasphemy? Is he going to be mad or dislike me for this thought?

TW- POCD people only please. Am I a criminal hiding behind a diagnosis? I woke up in the middle of the night breathing and I was having groinals because she laying across me. My mind told me I had already hurt her so might as well do something else. I then was like well I have nothing to lose and I had to think of what to do. The only thing I could think to do was move my elbow towards her groin area to cause a feeling. Well I did that and my elbow touched her groin and caused an unwanted feeling. I then immediately asked my child to move. After that, I went back to sleep but I believe in a state of shock as to what happened. I woke up panicking completely thinking I have done ruined my life. I was going to prison and would lose my child. Since then, I haven't stopped ruminating. I have had days where I feel okay, but then there are days where I can't stop crying. Thinking I don't deserve my child, and I deserve to be in the ground. I was on a new medication that was causing me to spiral and giving me insomnia during this time. I wasn't getting much sleep at all. Since then, I've slept on the floor, and I eventually got my child to sleep in their own bed to avoid this happening again. I got off the medication and feel so much better with my thoughts and sleeping so much better. My daughter tells me how wonderful I am often, but I don't feel that I even deserve to celebrate Mother's Day this year. I'm not a good mom. I was four months ago before I spiraled. What's wrong with me? (edited)

Hopefully ppl aren’t offended by this, I put a trigger warning so religious ppl don’t feel attacked hopefully. Religion seems so healing to people, but I just don’t believe in god and can’t force myself to. I can’t force a belief, and it sucks because (no shade to religious people) religious people seem so carefree and mindless to me. No religion is nice in my head, they’re all just fake. I believe in science and reality. I wish I could believe in god so I could stop thinking about the science.

Ugh i was making salah and has groinals. And worried i heard my childs voice. I struggke with pocd. I moved my legs because it hit the bed and i heard my kids voice then i felt groinals as i was bowing in ruku. My compulsion is saying stop and no and adjusting. And my ocd also causes involuntary intrusivr movements. Like sudden twitches or hip thrusts or bodily movements. I just remember adjusting while in ruku and saying no and stop to the thoughts. I also remember feeling thr groinals and just being in third person and observing jt. I also froze up and felt stuck. This happened twice. Then ocd says i was arousing myself over my kids voice during salah which i know is absurd its ego dystonic its ocd. I hate having pocd and groinals. I know i was just adjusting because ei hit the bed. Then i felt groinals and heard my kids voice and felt triggered by pocd. Then i felt my body twitching in ruku and me adjusting and also freezing up and getting stuck. Ocd tries ti make me thing i did something sexually inappropriate during prayer. I know thats not who i am. I dont do sexual inappropriate acts and especially not during prayer. I’ve already been very anxious for days so i know its just a continuation of ocd attacking me. I just hate that ofd makes me think by me adjusting and by bodily movements anxiously intrusively incoluntary moving and me getting stuck that i did something bad thats what ocd tells me. I know its not true. Why does ocd make us think or feel we did something bad