Whenever I walk around in public, I feel like a total weirdo. My harm intrusive thoughts continue to scare me and they feel almost real and it’s scary. They fill me up with anxiety that lasts throughout the entire day, and they do not disappear. I’m 16 and I’m afraid of telling my mom because some of my intrusive thoughts are about her and she would probably think of me differently. My harm OCD thoughts at first were not that persistent, but they have worsened now to the point where I have them everywhere I go. I’m so tired of them.

(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.

Im 16 years old and female and up until very late last year and this year I’ve been having thought almost every day that I’m a pedophile or that I’m sexually attracted to or want a romantic relationship with child. I don’t know how to explain it and I don’t want judgment because I’m genuinely so scared and disgusted, but anytime I’m around children I feel my chest tighten, my body feels warm and it feels like I don’t know how to breathe. I sometimes get a groomer response but even then I don’t know if it’s a ground response or not. Also I tend to stare at children when I’m anywhere near them, I feel like if I don’t I’m a weirdo and if I don’t look at them it means I’m attracted to them which I guess could be POCD but I feel like I stare at them inappropriately. Not too long ago maybe three weeks ago I went to the park with my family and there were two girls in their swim suits and I was looking at their backsides and I felt really anxious and scared like I usually do but I felt so upset by looking at them that way and now I’m scared to go to pools or splash pads because every time I do I feel like I stare at them gross and I just feel so disgusted with myself. When I tell myself not to look I end up looking and then I stare. I feel better when I’m not around them but even then, I look back at what I saw earlier that day and I feel anxious again and then I look up what’s been happening and then I feel more worried it’s not OCD. My friends who have OCD say I might have it but I can’t get a therapist, I can’t talk to anyone I’m scared I’ll be put in jail and that I’m not a good person. I’ve never head thoughts like this until this year and near the end of last year and they come now? I don’t know what to do.

So my ocd has been doing better, in the sense that I am able to resist compulsions, but the thoughts are still there. And I get so upset because some days I’m just constantly stuck in my own head. Like I went out to today with my mom, and for a solid hour I was spiraling. And my OCD has been trying to make it seem like this flare up is different, and that because things aren’t working out the way I want them to be regarding my recovery, that it’s not OCD and I’m just a crazy person. It causes me to just shut down and want to just go home. I get so upset that I want to cry. I get intrusive thoughts that something bad is gonna happen, or that something doesn’t feel right, and so it feels like I do something, anything, to make me feel better about it. I also can’t sleep in my own bed. I’m so afraid that I won’t fall asleep in it, and if I don’t sleep, I will go crazy. My thoughts are just so scary rn, I don’t know what to do. I don’t want anything bad to happen to me :(