It’s very hard for me to open up about my OCD but I think it’s time. At least just a little bit. I am 5 months postpartum and I’ve been dealing with postpartum OCD for 5 months now and it’s been the worst thing I’ve ever had to go through. I always considered myself to be this loving and caring person. I’ve always been an emotional person, too. I always try to be nice to everyone. I never judge anyone. I always try to help out and do my part. I can never NOT donate. I always try to be there for others and I have a hard time saying no. (Just to give you a little in-site of who I am) POSSIBLE TRIGGER WARNING I always had anxiety, at least for the last 10 years I would say. Turns out I had OCD for a long time but didn’t know. Growing up, I was terrified of death but I think that is something most people experience? Then I was terrified of my parents dying. Eventually, that went away though I catch myself in deep thought about it every now and then. In high school, I was terrified of cancer. I’m sorry if that’s triggering for anyone. I know it’s a serious illness and shouldn’t be thrown around lightly. I went through a phase where I was severely worried I had it to the point I believe I made myself sick. I was convinced I had it. I was constantly googling, wanting to go to the Doctor for every little thing, wanting to have blood work done more than regularly, asking my family for reassurance. In 2018, I experienced intrusive thoughts for the first time. Mean intrusive thoughts towards a loved one while away on vacation. Thoughts that began with “I wish” and “I hope” it was quite terrifying. As hard as it is for me to admit, it was regarding illness. I remember crying in the shower and wanting to sleep constantly just so I wouldn’t have the thoughts. I eventually just had to keep reminding myself that I didn’t want those bad things to happen and shortly after we got home those thoughts went away. Eventually that went away. I still had them here & there towards different loved ones but I could easily let them go. Also in 2018, I started to experience what I know now to be Hit & Run OCD. This started out of nowhere after hitting a curb. From that point on I was terrified of hitting a pedestrian and not knowing. Sounds silly right? It would take me 30 minutes to get to work when it should only take me 10. Driving at night time? Ha, forget it. I was told that I was just being paranoid. Same thing when I experienced Health Concern OCD back in high school. My Hit & Run OCD is not nearly as bad as it was prior to having my baby. I’m assuming it’s because I’m now experiencing postpartum OCD. I still turn around to check every so often, but not nearly as much as I used to. I was fine during my entire pregnancy. I didn’t have 1 intrusive thought. I was paranoid about certain things when it came to the health of my pregnancy and unborn baby but nothing out of the ordinary. I’m lucky to be able to say I had a great labor and delivery, even pregnancy. I always wanted to be a mom and to start a family. I always considered myself very grateful to be able to carry & grow a baby. I remember holding my little baby in the hospital and just crying while starting at her. My husband asked me what was wrong and I said “I just love her so much.” There were a few stressful days after being home due to breastfeeding. Baby was having a difficult time latching. I was upset of course because 1. I was determined to breastfeed & 2. I wanted my baby to eat. I remember crying at the pediatrician because I was genuinely worried about my baby. Little did I know I was about to get hit with something so life changing. A few days after we were home from the hospital I experienced my 1st intrusive thought out of the blue. It was while I was holding a piece of string and the thought scared the crap out of me. I tried to let it go. I couldn’t. The more I questioned and thought about it the more frequently the thoughts came. It was horrible. I remember taking my baby’s week old photos with this terrible pit in my stomach because I was so disturb by the intrusive thoughts. I thought to myself “I need to think about anything else other than these horrible images. Anything has to be better than this.” Well, next thing I knew I was having terrible intrusive thoughts that started with “I wish” towards my baby. My little baby. My baby that I always wanted and loved and cared about so much (still do of course). How can I look at my baby and think to myself “I hope” something bad. “I wish” something bad. Again, this is what happened to be back in 2018 but it didn’t hit me THIS hard. I don’t mean to have these thoughts and they’re the complete opposite of how I truly feel. But I feel like I’ve been obsessing over them for so long now (5 months to be exact) it’s all I think about. I get triggered so easily. It’s like my mind can grasp onto anything and turn it into an intrusive thought. It’s not only happening towards my daughter either, it can happen towards literally anybody and it scares me. It’s made me question who I am as a person. It’s made me feel like I wouldn’t care if something were to happen. It’s made me think I actually want these things to happen. It’s very debilitating. I can even have the thoughts towards myself. I just want to feel like my old self again. I feel like I don’t get upset over things anymore or happy about other things. I love my daughter and I love being her mom. I wouldn’t trade this for the world despite what I’m going through. She makes me so happy. I enjoy being with her. I want to and I’m determined to get better for her no matter how long it takes. I also am hopeful for more children. The hardest part is feeling alone. Feeling like I’m the only person on this planet who experiences the thoughts I experience everyday all day. The intrusive thoughts that have taken the most toll on me are the ones that are mean and start with “I wish” “I hope” “I want” and “I don’t care” that can be related to illness and/or something bad happening so if anyone experiences those or can relate to any of this please share. This has made me feel like a complete monster and so lonely and very hopeless at times. If you made it this far I appreciate you. This was hard to write and sadly I feel like there’s so much more I could say but I would be here for hours. Even if this post goes unnoticed it felt so good to vent a little and share part of my story. ❤️

Hi everyone, this is giving me so much anxiety even saying this out loud because my OcD is telling me that somehow someone will know who I am on here and report me this goes with what I’m about to say about my irrational stuff. Since my baby was born I’ve had a lot of majorrr anxiety about him getting sick. From there my postpartum ocd spiked. I had this irrational fear someone would falsely report me as a bad mom and I’d get my baby taken from me. I’ve NEVER had anyone tell me I’m a bad mom, as a matter of fact, almost every day I get praised for how good of a mom I am. My child is so loved and taken care of. So why did I have that fear? it CONSUMED ME. Obsessively cleaning my house in case a social worker came. Stopped posting myself having occasional girls nights out for dinner because I thought one of my followers would think I’m a bad mom for getting a break. Not being able to talk about ANYTHING or send pictures of my baby to family and friends to update them since we live out of state because somehow I thought I would say something wrong or do something that would make someone think I’m a bad mom. I was convinced my baby was gonna be taken for zero reason. I still sometimes catch myself over analyzing myself and what I say because I don’t want to say the wrong thing and someone think I’m not a fit mom. I would even replay every scenario I remember and then second guess myself if that really happened or if I said something or not and freak out and spiral from there. with driving, if I go over a speed bump I have to double check it wasn’t magically a person. Then I panic even though I know for a fact it was a speed bump. I hate living like this. I feel crazy. I don’t open up because I feel like I’m the only person in the world. The one time I opened up about driving it was used against me. I feel like I’m drowning and I’m failing as a mom. I don’t even open up to a therapist about my irrational fear about baby being taken bc I don’t want them to think I’m a bad mom. It just doesn’t stop.

This is my first post on this app, though I made this account back in late September of 2021. I grew up in a toxic environment, and was mentally abused by my parents, included being taken advantage of because of my autism. I’ve been suffering from OCD as long as I can remember. Ever since I was a child, I’ve sometimes had thoughts that scared me, and I’d often try to find ways to calm myself down. I’ve had thoughts over the smallest and silliest of things, but as time went on, these thoughts suddenly became more violent, like wanting to step in front of moving car while waiting for the bus, or grabbing a knife on the dinner table and using it to stab a family member. Even thoughts of death and what happens afterwards scared me. Aside from being afraid of a kids horror show for a while, OCD did bother me at points in my life, but they never severely crippled me… until my teenage years. Throughout my teen hood, I would very occasionally suddenly imagine fictional child characters being SA’d. I would also sometimes imagine children getting injured while noticing them sometimes. I didn’t know why those thoughts popped up into my head and they would weird me out, but I would be able to usually push them aside and not think about them too much… but it got worse after I was dropped out of high school without my consent by my parents. In March of 2017, I was at a gas station when I saw a child and imagined doing a disgusting action with them. It freaked me out immensely and sent me into a panic attack. I was able to calm down from it shortly after, but I think it planted a seed into my brain, and it would launch a horrific attack on me the very next month. Me and my family were driving around a town for a special occasion when I had the worst OCD attack I’ve ever had. Every child I saw, I imagined doing something disgusting to them. I was having a full blown panic attack and it honestly felt like my mind itself was being sexually assaulted by this horrifying thoughts. This incident scarred me mentally, and to this day, I’m still afraid of being around anyone younger than me. I tried researching what these thoughts could mean, and I found out about these being symptoms of OCD. After talking with a psychiatrist a month later, I was diagnosed with OCD. For a while, I thought I’d be okay from that point. I thought I could conquer this on my own… but by early 2018, I was still struggling. I eventually came out to my older sibling and parents about what I was dealing with. They thankfully didn’t ridicule me, and did help me with getting a therapist. The first visit with my therapist went alright, but I was an emotional mess after finishing the session. The next time I went in however, I was seen by someone else because my therapist was out. The man I saw honestly felt condescending, and he basically made go to a group therapy session. The group therapy didn’t help in the slightest, and with more toxicity developing in my family afterwards, I stopped going after the group therapy. I did see my therapist at least once I think, but that was it. Ever since 2018, I was silent about my OCD. I was just hoping that someday I’d be free of my shackles both from my mental illness and my toxic environment. Two years later though, a friend (now partner) of mine heard about my family’s living situation and wanted to help get me out of there. I first visited them in 2021, and thankfully I stay with them for the most part. That being said, I was still worried about opening up to them about my OCD. I did talk with them about general OCD from time to time, but never got into P OCD… until last year finally. I opened up them fully about it, and both they and their mother told me that they weren’t upset, and that they understood where I was coming from. I think that genuinely helped me out, and I don’t feel as anxious as I did before. Just yesterday, I finally talked about my OCD to my older sibling (they’re super supportive and understand our parents toxicity). I was genuinely nervous about telling them for a while out of fear of them either abandoning me or ratting me out… but they understood. They were accepting and didn’t ridicule me at all. It was like a weight was lifted off my shoulders… and honestly, I think I might have the courage to speak up on this app finally and hopefully find a therapist who can help me. I’ve been suffering with P OCD for over 8 years now ever since I was 18. I just recently turned 27 a few days ago. I’ve been suffering in silence for so long due to trauma, fear, and PTSD. But now, I think I want to take a step forward and get onto the road to recovery. It most likely won’t be easy and it won’t happen overnight, but I feel relieved knowing I have people who love and support me, now that I’m in a better environment.

Life has been so tough for me lately. I’ve been stuck in an OCD spiral since last December. Most of my fears come from incidentally causing harm to my family or others. I feel like every action is a moral conflict, or that any time I make a bad decision, act out of frustration, or self indulge in anything, I’m debating about whether I’m an awful person who doesn’t care about my kids, my wife, or other people. I’m a stay at home parent currently, and all three of my kids are neurodivergent, with my youngest being on the spectrum. My youngest is nonverbal, so my OCD loves to manipulate that, making it hard to know if my son is happy, sad, upset, etc. Always feeling like I’m worried I’ll make too many mistakes as a parent. That any time I lose my cool, it means I’m just this awful person and parent. I’m burnt out from the stress currently, so I always feel on edge, which makes it harder to have the mental power to resist compulsions. I am in OCD therapy, which has helped. But every time I feel like I’m taking steps in the right direction I get sucked back in. Every time I resist compulsions, I’m triggered almost immediately after. Because I’m a stay at home parent, and a lot of my triggers and themes involve harm to others, particularly my family, it’s just trigger after trigger after trigger. My wife is exhausted from my mental health, which just adds to the guilt I already feel. I hate that my mental health is affecting everyone, and it only reinforces the idea that I’m causing harm or suffering to those around me. I just need a break. I cannot keep living my life this way. This is the worst my OCD has been, and I feel so traumatized from all the days and hours I’ve spent feeling like I’m at my limit. Thanks for reading. Feel free to respond if you can relate. Just needed to vent.