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Hello! I'm really struggling with treatment right now and I was wondering if anyone (you don't have to have the OCD conqueror label of course) can share their stories of overcoming OCD. I am pretty sure it is possible to defeat OCD maybe but it would really help (if you are comfortable sharing) to hear from real people who ACTUALLY have been through the thick of OCD and has made it out the other side.

I want to cryyyyyy. I am in agony for no good reason. I went on a wonderful date the other day were we spent some very quality time together and then texted back and forth a bit and she started throwing out some ideas to hang out again. I’m working on not jumping the gun and reaching for certainty prematurely when it comes to intimacy so from my lens I have been very honest but intentional with how I’ve chosen to engage. She hasn’t responded to my message in over 48 hours and now I’m really struggling with how much this simple, probably mundane, situation is eating at me. I feel like I’m holding my breath trying to survive through this discomfort. I keep checking my phone over and over again and contending with these thoughts about what if I did something or what if she never responds and what I did to cause this. Im so tired. The issue isn’t her communication style. It’s how my brain is filling in voids. It’s so taxing and even if this is just a normal hiatus from texting (something we spoke about being okay), it’s too early in the connection to communicate what I’ve been going through and request a clarification or heads up text about not communicating for a bit. This is what she did before and I absolutely loved the way she did that. I really don’t want to text all the time back and forth that’s exhausting but the ocd is weaponizing my fear of abandonment against me. I’m working so hard to face my demons head on by putting myself in this situation and sitting with all this experience kicks up in me. Just because I have struggles, traumas, and quirks does not mean I do not deserve to love and to be loved. I’m trying to be gentle with myself throughout this but it’s really hard. It’s crazy how something so mundane can bring me to my knees. I’m so tired. So so tired. I just want a chance to practice love and mature in how I hold it. This is so much more difficult than what they sell you on in the movies and in music. There’s no perfect girl coming to nurse my woes away. No one that I can sweep off their feet high enough that it encapsulates my entire sense of self worth. That’s a trap. A sticky one. But still a trap. This is the work. Not a masochistic, white knuckling pseudo-exposure. A genuine pursuit of connection in all its imperfect glory. I post on here from time to time mostly to vent and am not really looking for a response, but I’m struggling. I don’t want reassurance I just was hoping to get some words of support from a community that understands this agony not just as a person pursuing connection but also someone the has to put effort into loosening the vice grip ocd likes to put on these circumstances. Thank you guys and happy ocd awareness week!

I started taking Zepbound back in April and now I am wondering if the current level of my OCD flare is due to this. My anxiety is off the charts. I am on a low dose 5mg. When I first started it on 2.5mg I was constantly checking my hair for hair loss excessively. (I have had hair thinning on medication as a child, so this is always a fear/concern of mine). My OCD was taking it to extreme levels (relentlessly googling how much hair is normal to lose a day, counting hairs in my brush, asking my husband about the shower drain, researching hair growth products, but then being afraid to use them in case they make things worse, researching wigs and hair transplants for worst case scenario, checking my scalp in the mirror and texting pictures of my scalp to Chat GPT, Running my fingers through to monitor shedding, researching vitamins and blocking hair loss ads, reading threads online) Constantly having scary thoughts about hair loss. Then I upped my dose to 5mg in June and this was still ongoing until July when it switched to the theme I am currently dealing with, which I hate. I am wondering could there be a correlation? I have had OCD for a while now but it has not felt this unbearable since back in 2019. Now I want to get off the medication because I am suspecting this may be why it’s this bad right now.

hi guys, I am 14M and am new to this app. I was diagnosed with ocd a few months ago, and I have been suffering with existential ocd for a while. All in all, am really scared of it not being nothingness after death. I apologize for how long this is, so feel free to skim through it. My newest fear is that once you die, you go into the next available life over and over and over forever (this is something called generic subjective continuity, or GSC) and my brain keeps making horrible fears on how horrible the next lives can be, and because the universe is most likley infinite, there’s infinite copies of me and infinite variations (some where I’m being tortured in gruesome and horrible ways), and after infinity if general subjevtive continuity is real, I’ll have to experience all of those horrible versions of my life, alongside horrible versions of other lives as other organisms, animals, people, etc. Google keeps saying GSC is likelier than oblivion for my POV, so all of my fears feel like certainties. I feel like fiction/horror is ruined since I’ll subjectively experience every horror movie in GSC too. My brain keeps generating horrible, really gruesome and disturbing scenarios knowing GSC is liklier than oblivion and I’ll have to subjectively experience it possibly. Like fishing (something I loved before all of this), and just killing bugs seems impossible because “what if the next available life is in a parallel universe as the bug that I killed”? It imagines how horrible the next lives will be, and how horrible the variations will be, since it’s eternal. I know this probably sounds really dumb, but I’ve googled for 4+ hours a day. I’m really wondering if anyone else has similar fears, or fears regarding infinity/a multiverse. It feels 100% real unless I disprove it 100%. I spiral on “likelihood/probabilities” on my fears and desperately try to prove my fears as less likely than oblivion. GSC on its own makes the egg theory (living as everything and everyone, ever in every possible variation.) real indirectly, which is another huge fear. Before my ocd flared up, I’ve never (not once) thought about stuff like this. If you asked me this a year ago, I would laugh it off as not real. It feels so real now. I’m just looking for people who have something similar/a similar experience.

{First post! I hope my tags are okay, I'm still getting used to using my health apps for the correct thing, instead of being a forgetful lurker.} — Sort of like title is asking. So, for a bit of background, my mother is one of those "nothing is wrong with my children" parents, and denies very obvious symptoms within all of my siblings, self included. She's slowly getting better about that, and I've gotten more comfortable sharing my symptoms and problems with her. However, it's important to note that, due to the way I was brought up by her, I tend to intellectualize and compartmentalize myself a LOT. By that, I mean I tend not to be emotionally or mentally "in-tune" with myself or my thoughts. Recently, I called my mother, just to chat. Somewhere in the conversation, the topic of me and OCD came up. In her own words, my mother said she absolutely knew my brain was wired differently. According to her, one of my lifelong compulsions is "an element of chaos." I can clean a room top to bottom, but then I can't sit in it for an extended period because it feels too "sterile," and unlived in. She told me she'd had to explain to my other siblings in the past that I wasn't "dirty," I was just different. It's not even something I've noticed! My partner also noticed this, and whenever we have this sort of conversation, they tend to point out other compulsions I have; but this is the first time the "chaos" compulsion's been brought up. I was in utter disbelief about it, and after finishing the conversation with my mother, my partner and I got to talking. I went into a full spiral, going on and on about how I can't "possibly" have OCD because I have several other health and mental conditions, so having OCD felt like "too much," and that I didn't feel as though my compulsions were obsessive or based on irrational thoughts. My partner tried to remind me about some recent compulsions I'd had only a few days prior, as well as my long history of compulsions and moments where it inhibited daily function. I argued that they "didn't count," because the fear was rational due to history (personal or general) with that particular trigger. I argued I wasn't "afraid," I was careful. They reasoned that it was only further proof, because I'd never personally experienced the outcome of that fear. According to them, it was a very clear fear of contamination and illness that had resulted in the need to react with a particular behavior. Either way, the argument devolved into me constantly denying many of my conditions, and them getting frustrated because they know that denying symptoms and conditions will only hurt more down the line. They think some of it has to do with how the internet treats people with any atypical conditions, because I argue points such as "but what if I don't actually have OCD and it was wrong, and I'm secretly stealing resources from others?" They said that me thinking that way was clearly a sign of the intrusive and anxious thinking that resulted in my compulsive behaviors to begin with, and I said it was a reasonable thought. Every compulsion was met with "well my brain isn't being irrational, it's just how I am." The chaos compulsion became less about the idea of me being uneasy about a seemingly sterile and orderly environment, and more that it just felt "off." My brain doesn't say "it's wrong because x," and sometimes it BARELY comes out as "it's wrong." Most of the time, I can't hear the thought behind the compulsion, I just act on it subconsciously without processing. My partner says this is due to my near-constant dissociation, and the fact that I grew up the way I did. I never thought to look in and check-in with myself to see how I was doing, too busy making sure no one else got upset around me. Somewhere in this, the thought that of my denial being a compulsion came to mind. I brought it up, and they think it very well could be a compulsive behavior in response to a fear of being "broken," or "wrong" in some way. I grew up the middle child of a dysfunctional home, and the threat of a hospitalization being on my "permanent record" kept me from getting the help I needed as a child. I was the kid that good grades, and was ignored unless my grades slipped to anything lower than A's and B's. My partner believes this caused me to develop many of my conditions and complexes, including a fear of not being "good enough." So, is it possible that me being in denial of my OCD (and other conditions) is a compulsive behavior?

Anyone else have this? Recently discovered I’ve had this on & off since I was a child but haven’t heard of many others with this issue. It’s not a subtype, so I’m curious!

I was almost two months free of all of this and was doing very well and had something so silly like my blood pressure slightly starting to creep up after we trialed getting off of it trigger a massive panic attack that it’s now bringing on a trickle effect of panic and anxiety attacks. I haven’t even slept all night and I just jerk awake when I try to sleep today.. I feel so defeated and so sad, I just want to scream and cry. Why me. Why again. I’m also back to the stupid compulsions of constantly checking my blood pressure all day long every day since.. googling symptoms.. waiting for the next panic/anxiety attack.. I didn’t want to go back to these compulsions.. I’m trying to hold onto my faith so much. I could use encouragement or prayers or helpful tips please.

Hi everyone, I wanted to ask for your opinions on something that happened during an argument with my partner. We were trying to talk about the things that bother us about each other and the things we’re unhappy with in our relationship. At first, I listened to what he had to say, but he was also angry, and I got the impression that he didn’t really want to have this conversation. At some point, he said, “Yeah, let’s sit down and talk, because your list is probably going to be much longer anyway.” He didn’t mean this in a nice or joking way. It was more like he was annoyed because he was expecting to have to listen to a whole bunch of complaints from me again. Personally, I found that comment really inappropriate and unfair, even during an argument. It honestly made me not want to talk to him about the things that have been making me unhappy in our relationship anymore. To me, a comment like that doesn’t exactly make you feel like the other person is willing or interested in listening to your feelings and concerns. On top of that, I was crying during the conversation, and he asked me why I was crying, saying that I should be able to handle criticism and that he doesn’t cry when someone criticizes him either. He later explained that he meant it as a genuine question rather than an accusation, but I still found that comment completely inappropriate and hurtful. How would you feel if your partner said something like that? Am I overreacting? I know these things were said in the heat of an argument, and when I brought up the comment about my list again later, he did apologize. But I still feel like comments like these are really not okay, especially when you’re supposed to be having an honest conversation about your relationship. I’d really appreciate some outside perspectives. Do you think I’m overreacting, or would you feel the same way?

I can’t stop waking up to this aching feeling in my chest, and all these thoughts in my head. I don’t know what to do. My chest hurts, and I’m so tired. No matter what I think or try to do, this aching feeling in my chest doesn’t go away. It’s every night. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I don’t even know if it’s a mental or physical problem. How do I get it to stop?

I really dont know if this needs a trigger warning but I’d rather be safe than sorry. I’ve been really struggling with what I am extremely confident is OCD for a very long time. I’ve been documenting my symptoms and common mental compulsions and all the signs point to OCD. I get so close to getting help and talking to a professional but then I back out at the last second because my brain tells me i’m lying and faking all my symptoms or no one’s going to believe me and I’m making everything up. is this a common thing people struggle with? I feel so lost and the intrusive thoughts and mental compulsions have caused my anxiety to start effecting my health. I feel like a horrible person all the time for thinking the things I do and I have to scream at myself in my head to get them to stop. I feel so alone

Im trying so hard to be better... but I'm struggling... I just hope someone finds the time to respond... I genuinely feel so lost right now... and someone on here blocked me which makes me feel worse... UPDATE: My ex and I broke up nearly 6 months ago... so... the girlfriend thing is outdated... and I'm so exhausted... plus I got assaulted at my job as a caretaker in march... nearly assaulted by a drunk man in September... i haven't had a proper break since last winter... and my intrusive thoughts of real events is haunting me... With my harm ocd hitting full swing... i find myself triggered by my pocd again... and i feel like a horrible person... i tried not to post... i tried to do what people told me... but right now i feel absolutely horrible... I genuinely feel so guilty... I cant handle the anxiety... Im doing horribly right now because I feel so so guilty about this... Youtubers are constantly getting accused of doing p3dophilic activity and inappropriately abusing and inappropriately messaging women and minors and abusing others and its making me think my real events are as bad or as worse as them... and that I'll be cancelled and arrested later in life because of all of this... I have genuinely never felt more alone in my life than this particular moment right here... Ive vented a lot to a lot of people in the PM's about my OCD... some of them younger (minors)... because I wanted reassurance from everyone and anyone... but this situation triggers me the most because I was venting about my 18+ HOCD situations... (the 18+ HOCD situations were about 18+ graphic HOCD situations that triggered me immensely...) When I was 19, in an HOCD support group I was in, I vented to 2 minors in the PM's about my 18+ HOCD situations... The leader of the support group (that i vented to) was 17... I was 19 at the time... the other minor i vented to was younger (14-15)... the younger one told me she was uncomfortable when i vented to her in the PM's twice... The 14-15 year old said she was uncomfortable the first time and i tried to stop venting to her... after she said i was a bad person because of politics... I vented to her a second time because her saying i was a bad person triggered me... she said she was uncomfortable for the second time and then i blocked her... i kept asking the leader of the support group for reassurance for my 18+ HOCD situations for months because she kept giving me reassurance... i thought she was cute but didnt pursue her because of my age... i dont ever want to ever be a P or a MAP or a groomer in any way... I'm so genuinely triggered... I don't want to be a P or a MAP or a groomer or a bad person... I wanna be a good person who does good things for other people... I dont want to be arrested for any crimes... I just want to be a good person who helps people in the medical field... I only want to help others... the last thing I want is to commit any form of harm towards kids or teens in any way... 😭😭😭 And I keep getting intrusive thoughts of calling the 14-15 year old "cute" with her saying "thanks" on text... I genuinely find this so awful and disgusting...

Im trying so hard to be better... but I'm struggling... I just hope someone finds the time to respond... I genuinely feel so lost right now... and someone on here blocked me which makes me feel worse... UPDATE: My ex and I broke up nearly 6 months ago... so... the girlfriend thing is outdated... and I'm so exhausted... plus I got assaulted at my job as a caretaker in march... nearly assaulted by a drunk man in September... i haven't had a proper break since last winter... and my intrusive thoughts of real events is haunting me... With my harm ocd hitting full swing... i find myself triggered by my pocd again... and i feel like a horrible person... i tried not to post... i tried to do what people told me... but right now i feel absolutely horrible... I genuinely feel so guilty... I cant handle the anxiety... Im doing horribly right now because I feel so so guilty about this... Youtubers are constantly getting accused of doing p3dophilic activity and inappropriately abusing and inappropriately messaging women and minors and abusing others and its making me think my real events are as bad or as worse as them... and that I'll be cancelled and arrested later in life because of all of this... I have genuinely never felt more alone in my life than this particular moment right here... Ive vented a lot to a lot of people in the PM's about my OCD... some of them younger (minors)... because I wanted reassurance from everyone and anyone... but this situation triggers me the most because I was venting about my 18+ HOCD situations... (the 18+ HOCD situations were about 18+ graphic HOCD situations that triggered me immensely...) When I was 19, in an HOCD support group I was in, I vented to 2 minors in the PM's about my 18+ HOCD situations... The leader of the support group (that i vented to) was 17... I was 19 at the time... the other minor i vented to was younger (14-15)... the younger one told me she was uncomfortable when i vented to her in the PM's twice... The 14-15 year old said she was uncomfortable the first time and i tried to stop venting to her... after she said i was a bad person because of politics... I vented to her a second time because her saying i was a bad person triggered me... she said she was uncomfortable for the second time and then i blocked her... i kept asking the leader of the support group for reassurance for my 18+ HOCD situations for months because she kept giving me reassurance... i thought she was cute but didnt pursue her because of my age... i dont ever want to ever be a P or a MAP or a groomer in any way... I'm so genuinely triggered... I don't want to be a P or a MAP or a groomer or a bad person... I wanna be a good person who does good things for other people... I dont want to be arrested for any crimes... I just want to be a good person who helps people in the medical field... I only want to help others... the last thing I want is to commit any form of harm towards kids or teens in any way... 😭😭😭 And I keep getting intrusive thoughts of calling the 14-15 year old "cute" with her saying "thanks" on text... I genuinely find this so awful and disgusting...

Im new here 🥰. I'm excited to get started on this journey again. I was in therapy for 3 years until my therapist decided to take a break from practicing. I must say it has been rough. I was triggered by some telling me this weekend " you look skinny". Someone I havent seen in a out a year. As soon as he said that. Here comes the crazy thoughts. I looked cool on the outside. But on the inside I was panicking because my brain wanted to go everywhere and create every scenario. When nothing at all is wrong with me. When I get super stressed I know I don't eat like I should. But, this isn't the first time I've lost a few pounds (only 5). And I honestly wanted to lose a few anyway. But the fact that he said that out loud in front of other people sent me on a wave that I'm still riding today. So instead of things getting worse, I'd rather start not before I diagnosis myself with everything in the book. Wish me luck.

Hey everyone, hope your Monday is going well! My husband and I are having a little bit of a rough time recently. My main theme is ROCD, and that can be really hurtful to him sometimes. About 2 weeks ago I was experiencing my worst flare up since starting NOCD. About 2 or 3 days in, I was honestly so exhausted that the intrusive thoughts weren’t even about our relationship, but really about feeling like I’d be broken forever. I tried really hard not to confess or seek reassurance from him, but he could really tell I was struggling. Anyhow, I think he thinks the whole things was purely ROCD, and it really took a toll on him like any form of OCD can for partners. We’ve really been in a funk, which my ROCD is also loving to say is a sign. I’m curious if there are any partners of folks with OCD on here and if you could just share from your experience what you struggle with most. Do you experience burn out from OCD spirals that your partner faces? I think we just need some time to repair some of the wounds, but he’s saying he just feels like the foundation of knowing we have each other isn’t there. It breaks my heart, but also I know that doesn’t mean the foundation is gone, just recovering from an earthquake.

so… i’m in kind of a weird situation. i need to call adult protective services on somebody. i discovered a few days ago that my neighbor is living in kind of a hazardous situation, and while i’ve already posted about and am still processing the contamination aspect of that… clearly somebody has to do something to help her. if i did not live so close by, if she did not know where i live, etc, i would’ve done so as soon as possible because anonymity would be less of an issue… but because im just the other unit down, and i doubt anybody else has been in her home lately, if services suddenly show up then it’s pretty obvious i was the one that called them, yeah? so i just don’t know, and i keep getting caught in this horrible feedback loop thinking about it, and thinking if her actual next door neighbors know (we’re in a series of condos, so everyone shares at least one wall…) and so on. it’s just such a bizarre position to be in that i have no idea what to do—or when to do it, rather.

Hi guys, I’ve had my second therapy session now and I’m wondering if anyone else has had this experience. I feel like my therapist is just going down a line of questions with me, and sometimes I do answer them really in depth and open up, but then it feels like we immediately move on to the next question. This was especially hard when she was asking me about trauma and I opened up about one area and then she said “that sounds hard” and then immediately proceeded to ask about 10 more questions (have you been in this situation, etc) that I kept answering no to. I feel embarrassed/weird for opening up because I wasn’t really ready to talk about that area but did because it was one of the specific questions. I’m not sure if I’m not fitting with my therapist or if this is the procedure they have to follow, but I left my session wanting to cry and haven’t even started the ERP part yet. Any advice would be appreciated, I’m not sure if I should change therapists or just keep trying.

Does OCD cause intrusive thoughts and doubts and is that how they are related to OCD?

So I’ve been single for three years after an abusive marriage of 10 years. I finally feel good and healed. Went on a date and he texts a lot. I’m just feeling overwhelmed and need to run away. Cuz otherwise I can feel the OCD spiral coming. I am always balancing the idea that we should talk about OCD and mental health openly, but I also don’t feel like revealing that about myself after one date is like… healthy I guess? How do you all deal with it?

18+ So me and my bf have been trying to attempt sex. For context, we are both virgins and I have never done anything or inserted anything in me. The first time we attempt he wasn’t turned on and it just didn’t work so we took a break for a few weeks trying other things so the next time is more relaxed especially because it was a huge thing for me to want to do it because it’s my first time and very special for me but I realized how much I really want to have that experience with him. Well yesterday we tried again and it couldn’t go in and it was SOO painful and of course I googled and talked to ChatGPT and it kept saying “it’s not supposed to hurt” which of course disappointed me a lot and then triggered my ocd. Then I’ve seen many suggestions on making a gynecologist appointment but I’ve like never done anything like this before so it’s all so new and scary and kinda embarrassing for me and I’m also soo afraid that if it is a diagnosis is there something wrong with me? Why can I enjoy and have sex like normal people? And then I spiral into thinking my bf deserves someone who doesn’t have all these problems and honestly I’m experiencing soo much anxiety and I don’t know what to do and on top of that it was soo embarrassing ☹️

TL;DR: my partner is amazingly patient and I'm starting to trust and believe in myself and my ability to cope. So my partner has helped me put this all into perspective; my chances of getting rabies from a domestic dog lick on minor cuts is effectively 1 in tens of millions or infinitesimally low (in my situation). So my "crucial next step" - as my new archnemesis AI loves to say (which is a whole other post) - is...... to accept it. I know, I know, crazy! I have to accept that there is the teeny tiniest chance that I might have gotten rabies and that is so hard to do. It (my OCD) is trying so darn hard to take back control of the wheel to remind me of things I "forgot" or "misremembered" to "protect" myself. But I need to trust myself and my memory. The false memories and created plot points are endemic in my mind, I know what happened yet I don't believe it. But I have never once failed myself to the point of putting myself in harms way (e.g., I think I would be able to feel the difference between a bat literally landing on me and biting vs a small pinprick probably from leg hairs getting caught in my pants). I kept repeating to my self during this last week that I can't cope. I can't cope with that infinitesimally small chance of getting rabies because I KNOW I'll be that person that gets it. I'll be that insanely unlikely statistic. And you know what, my partner has helped me see that although the chance is so small it's negligible, I might. I might be the most unlucky person in the world (probably in human existence with these figures tbh) and I might get it, but I did everything (and more, he would argue and I would disagree) a rational, reasonable person would do in the same situation. I spent all day pleading and convincing him to let me call a doctor (something he was not physically stopping me from doing, I'm a grown adult, I literally could've done it anytime) even though I'd already spoken to a nurse. But deep down I knew it wouldn't help and that I didn't really need it. When he finally relented, I didn't feel relief, I felt wrong. I didn't jump at the chance, in fact, I didn't have the same urge to call one as before but my fear was that I would go back home to my country without seeing a doctor (who I was convinced would examine my barely injured hands and rush me to the hospital) and I would lose the opportunity to get the post rabies shots and I would die. I even started blaming him: "I'm mad at YOU because YOU didn't let me wash my hands afterwards (again, I'm a grown adult...)" and "YOU told me I shouldn't ask what the vaccination status of the dog was" and, my personal favourite, "if I die, I'm blaming you for convincing me not to do everything I possibly can to confirm I don't have rabies" (although more jokingly but with a tinge of panic in the moment). OCD fights and fights and tells you that even with all these ridiculous odds, you are 100% going to have or do whatever it is you are terrified of. I just need to start rationalising and living with that risk. That's what a part of life is, accepting risks. We can never be certain of anything (except that all dogs are amazing and I've spent the last few weeks being absolutely, devastatingly terrified of them...) and we can never prevent all risks. So I choose to live. I choose to live with the risks (you know in a normal, generally safe manner) and stop letting fear dictate my life. It's no life to be afraid of everything. And as my previous psychologist once told me (creative license used to make it more dramatic, of course): "Think back on your life: when have you genuinely ever not been able to cope with something? You have always come through it". So what makes me think I can't do it again? n.b. even writing this post, my brain was firing what if's at me regarding my own actions (e.g. not washing my hands for 15 minutes as recommended) but it doesn't remove the ridiculously low likelihood of the adorable doggo having rabies in the first place.