I think I'm obsessively afraid of confrontation. Struggling now with rumination. Anxiety mostly starts after I've said or posted anything, and quite often I either think about it for ages, or delete it just to save the hastle of ruminating and feeling sick with unpleasant emotions. Posting this is hard... It's escalating. It's not just confrontation though, more like obsessive fear of people thinking I'm bad, or mean when I'm not trying to be. This is not my personality, I never used to be literally scared of confrontation (though I do value kindness most of the time). I have strong, polarising opinions, and I'm not ashamed of them, but I just feel sick at the thought of being challenged, even if I feel like I could easily defend my position. My core fear is that I'm somehow a bad person. This isn't QUITE that. The fears are related, but not identical. And I KNOW -- if I know I'm doing my best, other people's opinions don't matter, and I'm not responsible for what other people think of me, and even a debate or an insult or a troll aren't the end of the world. But this is OCD we're talking about, reason doesn't matter to how I feel. A while back, NOCD made an Instagram post about a theme where you're afraid of offending someone, and I related SO MUCH to that post, except the core fear for me is SLIGHTLY different. I think. It's all so fuzzy, like any OCD thought. Anyway, just venting.

Hello, I’m new to this app. I’ve always had an anxious brain, and I’ve had coping mechanisms for as long as I can remember. When I was a kid, from as early as I could spell, until I was probably early teens, I would constantly write words in my head along to the beat of music. It’s such a vivid memory because I never stopped doing it. The word had to perfectly match up to the lyric and I loved that it kept my brain busy. I grew out of that, but felt like good context. My anxiety increased drastically around ages 17-19, and I began therapy. I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety and panic disorder, due to having a panic attack nearly every day at that time. I overcame that as well, and now the panic attacks are every now and then, but the anxiety is constant, and some recent symptoms have led me to believe I might have some form of OCD. Maybe not. I’m trying to understand myself and get better so I joined this app to make sense of things. Lately I’ve been having really intense intrusive thoughts. I’m really embarassed and they make me feel like a bad person. Thoughts pop in my head seemingly out of nowhere. It will be an image of me harming myself or someone else in a really bad way. (Trigger warning) for example the other day I couldn’t shake the image of me putting a knife through my own forehead, although it’s not something I want to do. Or I’ll imagine someone killing me. I imagine my loved ones dying often. The thoughts feel so out of my control it’s insane. I hate them. Another persistent issue that isn’t as new is replaying social scenarios. I’m a hairstylist so this one is difficult since I meet a bunch of new people every day. I obsess over how I act and if people like me. I will impulsively say things all the time and they will haunt me for weeks. I question even my closest friends and family who show their love. I find myself so angry and numb and like I have so much built up emotion and a busy mind always. While doing my job I spiral really badly if any little thing goes wrong and it’s embarassing. I know there’s more but I can’t think of it now. I just want to feel better and like I’m not constantly battling my mind.

I am (or was)! Yesterday, I started to get really anxious for unknown reasons, and then (just my luck) I got triggered by something online 😭 It's always so... humbling. I'm trying to sit with the intrusive thoughts at this moment, but I'm just feeling really icky and a bit down. With OCD, it's bound to happen at some point, I guess. Even without OCD, you're going to have good and bad days. It's just how life is 🥲 I'm just afraid of being slingshot back to how I felt a few months ago, which I know realistically WON'T happen, but my brain doesn't want me to think logically lol. I'm also afraid that the repetitive nature of OCD intrusive thoughts will somehow alter who I am as a person, making my fears a reality? It's weird. Classic OCD, but it still makes me anxious! I have been doing better not engaging with these thoughts, but occasionally, I'll accidentally argue back. It doesn't help because then my brain says, "You're just in denial, and you're actually a bad person!" And whenever I say anything in opposition of something against my morals, it feels performative or fake for some reason 🫠 I'm just venting at this point, I'm sorry! Anyway, if anyone reads this, I hope you're doing okay, and if not, I hope things look up soon. Take care of yourselves, stay hydrated, and rest well!

Hi! It’s pretty difficult for me to get the courage to post this but I’m really struggling to figure out if what I’m experiencing is OCD or Anxiety or neither. I think I have the “pure O” type of OCD where most of my compulsions take the form of ruminating and trying to figure out something all in my head. When I hear this talked about in forums or online the intrusive thoughts don’t really match mine- I worry often about things that seem more “grounded” if that makes sense. A common one for me is my own identity- i will spend long amounts of time stuck in my head trying to figure out my feelings (often sadness or other real emotions I have and patterns I have) and why I feel that way and what in my life caused that and how it’s impacting other things in my life. I also think often about which parts of my personality are the real me and which aren’t. Sometimes this takes the form of strictly ruminating and sometimes I have fake conversations with people I know. It’s intense and I feel I have to figure it out but with no specific intrusive thought that says something like “you have to figure this out or all of your loved ones will die” but it’s very intense. I think also often of all of the decisions I need to make in the future and how they’re going to affect those I love and care about as well as how much I’ll regret them. I imagine all of the ways I think my actions will emotionally hurt others and how to make the least harmful decision, but to me this feels like a valid concern but go over and over and never come to a conclusion. I often just get scared and never make any move because I don’t see an option that doesn’t hurt someone somehow. But again I’m having a hard time identifying the intrusive thought behind it. But I also don’t choose to think about these things most of the time. This is almost all decisions but especially big life decisions. It’s such a struggle because they are things I eventually do have to make decisions about. There is so much more to it that would take too long to explain but in general a lot of my fears revolve around pleasing others/ understanding others emotions to ensure they’re okay, my own identity and personality, and work/school performance. Someone mentioned OCD to me because in my head it feels like I have to solve these things and will go over and over them but I seriously can’t figure out if it’s anxiety, OCD, or none of the above. It’s all very disruptive to my life. I am never not thinking or not trying to figure something out and I feel as if I have no control over it Anyone have any insight?