I'm having a really rough day. I've only met with my therapist twice so far so this is all new to me. I have realationshp ocd and mental contamination ocd. So today I was supposed to work. Last night I just found myself wide awake. I don't know if I had too much caffeine at dinner in my Pepsi and decaf coffee I had that evening but I could not fall asleep and each hour that passed was one hour closer to my alarm going off at 430am. By 4am I was crying and had myself so worked up. I was thinking I finally have gone crazy. I was going to try to make it through my day without any sleep but the thought of being with my thoughts for over 24hrs on a tired mind made me cry. Sleep is the only break I get from my thinking. So I called off work and felt extreme guilt because about a week ago I had to call off to stay with my child, then couldn't come in this past Thursday when they actually called me in because I was actually sick from the covid shot. I was crying because this isn't like me. I'm panicking I'll lose my job, lose my mind, my house, my relationships, sleep. I took some NyQuil and melatonin around 5am and am just now waking up at 2pm feeling panicky and not even sure how to handle the feeling and all these thoughts. Scared I've messed up my sleep forever. How do I go about handling this? I know I can't have a fear of not falling asleep now so how do I get a grip on this today when all I feel is fear and like crying?

Often times I find myself spiraling out in the morning about all sorts of things. When I try and catch myself and figure out what I am obsessing over it’s like it goes away. I haven’t moved. I have been sitting frozen on the floor because I can’t go to work because I am behind on work and I hate being late and I hate being messy but I am frequently late and my room is cluttered and full of stuff. I want to be good and move and go to work but I don’t know what is coming today and I hate my job so I know I will get bored and when I have nothing to keep me busy and engaged I like start thinking and taking an inventory of what is going on and then I will feel a sensation and what is the sensation? How did it happen? And I know that I will pick up the bad emotions in the office and get contaminated, I was really worried about things like this as a kid too I cried because I had to touch dirt in kindergarten. I know I am this way and I have been this way for a while but at the same time I think I might just be normal and like I don’t know why I get stuck in thinking like this. Then I begin to doubt that OCD is real because everyone has a brain with wiring and everyone gets stuck in thought sometimes. I feel disabled from whatever this is because I am stuck. I literally cannot move because I don’t know what’s wrong and I know I have to go to work even though I feel like every moment I spend there is making everything worse because other people are so stressed and I get it from them. And I don’t feel ready because I just feel off and something is wrong and I just don’t know what to do because if it’s OCD or not OCD everything anyone knows about me is coming from me and I worry that I am often masking all the thinking I’m doing because thinking all the time is rude and inconsiderate and inconvenient for those around me, but I can’t stop. I just don’t feel right, right now - and I want to know WHY?? Why is everything off all the time? How do I even know that I am not making up the experience of OCD in my head to cover up something really wrong with me and now I am taking on the symptoms of OCD like an actress, because this could be something that I can latch onto as a final hope for explaining why I am stuck. So stuck so deeply and terribly stuck sitting on my floor next to my bed just scrolling to avoid thinking because any time I start thinking I am left with no answers or help or anything just this swirly feeling. I know I am trying, maybe not my best, but as much as I possibly can. I want to be a Special Education Teacher but I have so much so so so much doubt and uncertainty about every decision I make and everything I know that I can’t get there right now. I can’t do anything right now until it feels ok and then I will. It never feels ok. I know I have to be ok not feeling ok about it. I can be unsure and still be ok. I know it’s just my thinking and my body but I just can’t get past this feeling. And then I know that because I can calm myself and be ok even though I spent 2 hours of my life today already feeling stuck and spinning around and around and around in my head - I don’t feel sure about my OCD and I think it’s a bit of a scam made up by people to cultivate pathology around deep human thought because one day I might figure it out and we all think a lot.

Please help me. I need support. I just need someone to be up front with me. Tell me the truth. I want to get past it all. I'm struggling STRUGGLING today. My mind is telling me I'm the only one who is dealing with something like this. Idk why I did my biggest fear. I was put on a new medication when this happened which caused me to spiral, my thoughts to be more often, and have insomnia. I have been diagnosed with POCD as well. I woke up in the middle of the night when my child was laying completely cross my chest. I was breathing and having groinal sensations. My mind told me that I assaulted her by this, and I was going to prison for it. My thoughts started going like this, "you're already bad might as well do something else", "no sense in stopping now" "you can finally do what you've always wanted", "what would you do if you could do anything to cause harm" So I had to think of what to do in the moment. The only thing I could think to do was move my elbow towards my child's groin. In the moment it felt like I really wanted to do this. I proceeded to do so, and my elbow touched her groin. I immediately told my child to move off me. I then went back to sleep. When I woke up, I began panicking, confessing to a family member what happened, and crying immensely. I feel like I failed as a mother. I'm in such distress since I started sleeping on the floor to avoid it from happening again, and I got off the medication. I'm so much better OCD wise since I got off the meds. I was the BEST mom months ago before this happened. The thoughts have always bothered me, and I was always scared I would give in and act on them. I'm living my worst nightmare. I feel alone. Felt so wanted in the moment and SO real. Ugh. Could someone just give me some support? (edited)

My ocd has been at an extreme all time high the past 2 weeks and I am in dire need of some relief. I’m not sleeping right anymore. for context: I live in the south and found a springtail on my sheets about 2 weeks ago. This was like 2 days before our bug guy came and sprayed (it’s a normal maintenance thing here) so it’s a common bug down here and I’ve found them all over different areas of the house before. Finding it in my bed sent me on a bit of a spiral bc I started to doubt if it even was a springtail and that i was wrong and that it was a bed bug, not trusting my brain. It was a bad, sleepless night and carried over continuing feelings. Typical ocd stuff. Well two days later, I’m a nurse and I had a patient that actually had bed bugs. This wasn’t the first day they were here and I did not see any myself but it still freaked me out. There had one 2 founds after visitors came the day before. Of course I wore PPE in the room (coveralls shoe covers and hair net) going in and took everything off before exiting the room. When I came home I stripped in my garage and bagged everything down to my shoes. Threw everything in the wash and did multiple cycles. There were no other steps I could take but I still had a terrible night. Hours of ruminating and going back and forth about tracing my tracks, thinking of new ways I could’ve taken one home with me. Just checking everything. I was already on a spiral from the springtail. Having two such back to back triggering events for me so closely related has made me deteriorate significantly. I was already doing bad with my normal OCD and starting therapy here. I obsess over the thought of having bedbugs constantly and haven’t been able to sleep. I am constantly checking my bed while in it and can’t settle down. My bed is heavy too and I keep hurting myself lifting my mattress to check. But I need to check. I’ve become obsessed. I check everything and go down Reddit rabbit holes looking for new things. And of course, I talk myself into it every time. I can’t take it anymore, it’s bleeding off into other parts of my life like friendship and marriage because I am so high anxiety right now. I need relief so bad. I’ve never felt this unstable to be honest. I feel like even someone without ocd would be really struggling with this topic, nevermind me, with ocd to a point where I just started treatment. These aren’t even my normal intrusive thoughts and compulsive acts. It’s just taken on a life in the last week and I can’t find any sign that it’s going to slow down. when I think rationally I know I did everything right to prevent but I can’t shake it. 💔