Tips for dealing with morality/decisions? I recently found something out about a friend from another friend. It distresses me, but I don’t know where to go from here. My OCD is making it hard to make a choice because it’s saying “this should be an easy, black and white choice. You are bad for not instantly getting rid of this person”. I need help figuring out how *I* feel, not how the OCD feels. Does anyone have advice? I feel like utter trash, I won’t lie.

I’ve posted this under a comment before, but if anyone has the time to read it and maybe share their experience or tips with me, I would really appreciate it. This is just kind of the reason why Idk if I only have OCD or if I should get checked for BPD aswell as emotional dependency is (as far as I know) not a common symptom of OCD and neither are excessive changes in emotions/moods. I think the worst part my situation is that one of my biggest and most damaging if not destructive obsessions I developed earlier this year was this constant fear that my friend would lie to me about meeting up with a boy she liked (we are both girls and queer, she didn’t know that about me until recently, but I’ve known that she is and we both sort of crushed on each other). Not just lie, but do it behind my back, keep it a secret, and then maybe even end our friendship without saying anything. And the thing is... that basically happened. Two weeks ago she started acting strange one day out of nowhere, and then I found out (through another friend) that he was coming over to her place. We had already talked about this before, I had cried in front of her and confessed how much it hurt me. I know doing that probably wasn’t the healthiest thing, but my emotions completely overwhelmed me in that moment. And even though nothing physical happened between them, it still felt like a betrayal. I’m not saying it was cheating, obviously not, we’re not in a relationship and it is unfair of me to try and tell her who or not to date, but it still hurts. Especially as weeks ago, we already had a detailed conversation about this. She told me she didn’t actually like him that much, and that if they were going to meet again, she’d be honest with me about it. But instead of being honest that day, she said nothing. Worse, she suddenly stopped talking to me, which made me think I had done something wrong so I completely lost my mind. She knows I’m emotionally dependent on her to some extent, so when she goes cold or distant, I spiral. And that day, I saw them talking and going quiet as I walked by, and then she literally turned to walk into a different direction. I don’t know why but it just crushed me. I thought she was mad at me, and I just felt like I was being shut out and lied to. And as I’ve mentioned, later that day, after eight hours of crying, another friend told me what really happened. She even drove me to her place so we could talk. We did talk, but since then, we haven’t had any contact. And it’s driving me absolutely insane. She told me it would be “people-pleasing” if she didn’t try to date him. And I know she’s kind of right, but she still lied to me. She didn’t care if that meant that she would throw away our friendship, or at least she treated it like it was worth less than a potential (!) relationship with a guy who, as far as I know, didn’t even respond when she told him she had feelings for him. It’s honestly devastating. I feel betrayed, discarded, and totally lost and I know I can’t even logically be mad at her as the reason she didn’t tell me is obvious and as a good friend I should just be happy for her, but my emotional side is so much stronger than my logic.

I’ve been gone for about a month, mostly because I kept seeing messages on here that felt super anxiety-inducing and not understanding of OCD at all. Honestly, it got to the point where I started getting nervous to even open the app. Lately, I’ve been stuck in this OCD loop that I think might be moral scrupulosity or something like that. I’ve been dealing with this thing where I feel like I have to “challenge” stuff mentally or verbally, like if I don’t say something out loud, it feels super uncomfortable. And the thoughts are about heavy stuff, like assault or deportation or just really morally loaded topics. My brain starts picking everything apart. It’s like I have to look at things fairly, and then I get trapped in all these little technicalities. For example, if someone gets assaulted, my brain fixates on stuff like “what was she wearing”even though I know how harmful that line of thinking is. That is exactly the kind of thing my mind zooms in on. It happens with a bunch of topics too, not just that. I feel like I have to give the benefit of the doubt to the aggressor or see “both sides,” and then I end up doubting the victim. And the worst part is, it feels like I truly believe these devil’s advocate thoughts. It feels so real. It’s like I become convinced that the victim might be lying or that there’s some justification for the harm, and I don’t like it. This even happens with my boyfriend and especially his family. I’ll catch my brain flipping narratives or making me question people I trust. this has been a “habit”for as long as I can remember but now it’s happening so much more. I cannot stop doubting. It feels like I’m siding with people who I should have no doubts to be against. I don’t know what to do or what kind of ERP would work for this. I don’t know how to change this. It’s been apart of me so long, it simply feels like me.

(18 and over please) I find that sometimes it's hard for me to tell whether something is an OCD fear or a genuine fear, mostly because OCD deals in taboos and I've never heard the morality of some things even being discussed. I've been stuck for about a month now because I realized that when I was younger, there was a period of time when I had thoughts (they were sexual in nature) that I now know were unethical about a book series I really enjoy. I didn't think that these thoughts were wrong at the time, as I was only an adolescent, but I certainly do now, and I can't help but feel that my interest in this series has been contaminated or tainted in a way I can't recover from. As such, I've been worried that I have to give up the series and everything associated with it (including the music and shows that I found through it) because I can't separate my normal enjoyment of it from the past. It scares me because a huge part of who I am and enjoy came directly from this series, so not only would it suck to give it up, but I'd also have to find all new interests that haven't been tainted. I've never heard of anything like this so there's not really anything to orient the morality of it. I'm pretty sure that this is just rumination and it's okay to move on from something that I did as a kid that I can't change, but every time I try to enjoy it again I can't help but think that it's unethical to continue to enjoy when I had so-and-so thoughts about so-and-so character. I get especially worried about sharing in my interest with friends or family, because how would they react if they found out, for example, that this song I'm showing them is related to this series that I had these terrible thoughts about? Even worse, what if I continue to enjoy it, recommend it to someone, and they start to enjoy it too? Now their lives have been impacted by this book series through me, who used to have these thoughts about it. At the same time, of course, it's hard for me to shun such a large part of myself. The music I love has helped me through so much, including a really rough period with OCD a few years ago. The interests that I've accumulated through the series are things that I'm really passionate about and was considering possibly going into a field for someday. Most of all, the series meant so much to me and basically defined my childhood. I hope that this isn't too similar to reassurance seeking, which I don't recommend or condone, but I just genuinely don't know what's moral for me to do. Has anyone gone through something similar?