just going to vent here. i’ve always had sexual themes of ocd probably due to my trauma. i’ve always suffered from POCD mainly but now i’m really struggling with other sexual themes like intrusive thoughts about sexual assault of people any age. it’s gotten so bad i don’t even leave my apartment except for going to class and when i need food. i finally signed up to do some volunteering at the animal shelter near me, and every sing time i walk pass someone no matter how far or how close to them my brain goes “you did something bad to them” and i know it doesn’t make sense but my brain is just so convincing. i’m also so so hyper focused on where my hands are at all times to the point i can’t even walk pass someone without my hands having to be together bunched up glued to my body. i have to go back to work soon when i come home from college and i just know my intrusive thoughts are going to be on fire and i’m going to be even more depressed than i already am. i deal so bad with these stupid false memories and intrusive thoughts. i really just don’t know how i can live a normal life like this. i was just getting over my POCD NEVER had problems with anything else until now. it’s like this stupid disorder want to ruin every single aspect of my life. i’ve always been a huge advocate for anti sexual assault and victims of it. it’s something i’m so passionate about and it’s a huge part of my morals. and now i just feel like a terrible person all . the . time and i’m so depressed and lonely all the time. they do say OCD attacks your morals, but that’s doesn’t make me feel any better.

I don’t even know where to start because there’s so much going on in my head and it feels like there’s so much evidence for every thought. Like my ocd feels like it doesn’t just have one specific theme it’s honestly every theme and it just switches throughout the day depending on the thoughts I have. This started all about a month ago, this whole ocd flare up. I’ve been diagnosed with ocd for about 3 years now and looking back on my childhood, I feel like I’ve had it for probably my entire life. My grandpa just recently died back in February and I feel like this whole ocd spiral is a result of dealing with grief especially because it didn’t even hit me for the whole month of April for some reason and things felt “normal”. But since this ocd flare up has started I’ve been constantly reviewing and revisiting my past, all my childhood memories and so many of them are terrifying which is weird because I never had a traumatic event hppen to me as a child. I feel like it’s always been “self-inflicted” trauma if that makes sense? My mind is telling me so many things related to so many topics like maybe I liked my family member as a kid and have just hid it to fit in with society? That my anxiety as a kid has caught up with me and I’m turning into a psychopath? That I’ve always been a creep and enjoyed looking at peoples privates or chests, etc but just ignored or allowed the thought this whole time. Also before this whole flare up I remember always feeling on autopilot and not really alive like everything I did I just felt numb about it. Which aids my ocd to tell me that these feelings are real and the thoughts are true and that I’m “waking up” or realizing or something. I haven’t felt such intense anxiety and distress since I was a kid and I didn’t even understand my own thoughts. It’s like I’m either hyper aware or totally unaware of what’s going on around me and it gets me thinking about my existence, personality, what my role in life is and like genuinely what I’m even doing in the moment like what’s the reason behind everything. I’m constantly questioning my intentions because I don’t know if they’re true or not and it’s like my ocd doesn’t even allow me to consider the thought it just jumps to conclusion. Like telling me I’m guilty before proven innocent. It honestly feels like so much at once to even simply call it ocd or anxiety because it feels like a crisis and any moment I could spiral and breakdown completely. Going to school everyday feeling like anytbing could trigger a panic attack at any moment makes me feel like I can’t be left alone with my thoughts. And like overall since I got down this rabbit hole, my first obsession was harm to myself, then it was harm to others specifically my family, then it was being a pervert or pedo, or being attracted or someone or something I shouldn’t be, which then makes me question my existence and who I am along with also being hyper aware of my facial movements like my eyebrows, nose, etc. Like why does ocd have to involve itself in every aspect of my life? It feels like there’s always something wrong that I need to fix.

(Long post warning) Hi, I’ve been struggling with severe OCD for six years now. it started in 2019 with my theme being getting sick/emetophobia. it devastated my life. I almost didn’t graduate high school from it. I remember washing my hands for three hours one day until they were nearly bloody while crying and asking why I could not stop doing it. I remember id have to write and rewrite sentences when I did my English homework and that’s why I nearly failed that class. I remember how I would spend up to thirty minutes to an hour pacing the halls of my apartment while my mom was asleep until I neutralized the thoughts about throwing up and I could finally go to bed. I don’t know when it happened, but my theme switched. Sometimes in late 2020 or early 2021, it switched to POCD. It started with a single thought, and I focused on it and it’s been my theme since then for four years. It has been absolutely destroying me. I feel so disgusted and lost and just tired. My compulsions are severe now. I thought they were bad before, but now they’re ten times worse. I can’t eat, drink, change my clothes, walk, or even do things on my phone normally. I’ve developed so many mental compulsions that it’s so intricate and complicated yet at the same time I’ve done them so much that they’ve become normal. An example I have is if im putting on a shirt and I have a “bad” thought, I have to take it off and put it back on two more times (that’ll make it 3 times I put the shirt back on - odd numbers are my safe number). I have to have a good thought on the third time otherwise I have to take it off and put it on two more times to make it five times I put on that shirt. If not that then I just put on a different shirt because the original is now tainted with my bad thought. I can’t open apps on my phone. It’s with the numbers again. If I open TikTok once while having a bad thought - I have to close it and open it two more times and so on. Sometimes I do it up to 30 times. So I just don’t do things usually. I don’t turn on the TV because I know I’ll redo it. I don’t open a book or grab it off my shelf because I’ll have to repeat the action. I can’t even lay in bed without getting up and redoing it even if im exhausted. I just feel so helpless. I don’t know what to do. I feel disgusting and even now my minds screaming at me that I am dirty and what I think is true. I just wish I was free of this, I wish I could just live my life. I’ve wasted hours and days because of my compulsions. I mask it so well around my friends. I don’t do them in front of anyone or I’ve learned to hide it well. But when im back home alone, it goes haywire. I just want to live again.

I’m just realizing I have OCD. I have been diagnosed with adhd, autism and CPTSD but OCD never occurred to me until recently. My OCD manifests internally (pure O) then I seek reassurance for whatever topic I’m fixating on so of course I chalked it up to anxiety but it’s so much more than that. And I’ve been like this for as long as I can remember. Now it’s really messing with my life. Lately, it’s been ROCD that’s been ruining me. I had a couple deep wounds created by my husband a few years ago and I’m constantly fixating on if he’s lying, really loves me, and or he wants to leave me. I’m constantly asking for reassurance and I think he’s getting tired of it. He’s an otherwise great partner but the OCD has really kicked in after I found out he was hiding a porn addiction, he hid it twice and it really ruined my self esteem and trust in him. Now I get triggered by every pretty girl I see, every social media post about relationships, I fixate on how unattractive he might find me or what’s wrong with me. I’m also aging in my thirties so I obsess over if he is getting less attracted as I age . I feel pathetic. Of course he always tells me I’m beautiful and he loves me but I’m always suspicious that he’s not being honest. I’ve always had OCD but this is the worst I’ve been with my relationship. I’m melting down and doubting us often and especially at night. It’s been a few years now and I feel like it’s gotten so hard. When I was younger it was health OCD, then it was existential, and I definitely fixate on if I’m “good” morally too. I’ll confess and overshare to people all my mistakes. And on top of the ROCD, I have pure OCD and get the worst images and intrusive thoughts at work/ random places and it’s horrible because I work with vulnerable people. My biggest nightmare and fear is pedophilia or assault, and I care deeply about my kids and vulnerable people so it’s like my mind hates me and these horrible images and thoughts fly at me l. I would never ever harm my kids or vulnerable people so this is especially disturbing and mortifying. I learned that OCD is ego dystonic and that’s helped but the images still make me feel awful. I also have been the scapegoat and black sheep in my narcissistic abusive family so I will my OCD will fixate on if I AM the narcissist! It’s exhausting. It got worse after I encountered my abuser in my family earlier this year and he brought up a lot of trauma. He is actually a narcissist but my brain will try to convince me that I am, and I will give in to the compulsion then do quizzes and tests and of course they tell me I’m not a narcissist, but then my OCD will make me think I am. I’m very empathetic and terrified of hurting people yet my brain tries to convince me I’m horrible, then the reassurance seeking and anxiety that manifests from my OCD and trauma makes me feel so self absorbed and sick of myself, convincing me I’m narcissistic for thinking of myself so much. I’m so exhausted by this. My brain tortures me. The overthinking is hard to combat. I really try hard to accept these thoughts as just thoughts but there’s always that voice creeping in that maybe the intrusive thoughts are right. Maybe I’m terrible and unlovable. I hate it.