Intrusive thoughts are hitting me hard these last few days. Normally I have been able to work through them but for some reason, they are causing me a lot of stress. I feel like I’m back at square one when I thought I have made it out of the really bad times. My intrusive thoughts have been about losing my mind. I’m constantly checking to make sure I’m not delusional and then my brain throws out random thoughts that make me think I’m delusional. I know those thoughts aren’t true but then my thoughts are like then why are you having them? Maybe you are beginning to lose it? Then I have a full on panic attack and picturing myself going nuts or in psychosis. I had this theme awhile ago and was able to conquer it or so I thought. Now it’s back and really distressing me. My intrusive thoughts switch back and forth between religion, harm, and now these mental health ones. Sometimes all at once and that’s the worse. Does anyone have advice on how to push through?

I been dealing with OCD my entire life but recently I been finding it really difficult to find the slightest relief. I know it’s not good to do but I been trying not to think of the thoughts but of course they come back even stronger. Does anyone know what I could do in the meanwhile ? Thank you

I’ve been stuck in this cycle for the last month or two and am not sure how to get out of it. Basically, I will work on ignoring the thoughts and not responding or engaging plus limiting/completely eliminating compulsions. After a week or two of constant work, the amount of intrusive thoughts in a day goes down. The anxiety each thought causes also goes down with some, but not all, thoughts passing without notice like they would for a normal person. The thoughts that do stick cause anxiety and make me want to ruminate or do other compulsions but I make sure to limit them. After a bit, I’m in a pretty good head space. This is usually when it goes down hill. I’ll start to question if I even have ocd because some of the thoughts (once again not all) pass without notice. The difficulty resisting compulsions goes down and so does the anxiety, only increasing the questioning. I spend a while questioning if I’ve ever had ocd in the first place and then something sets me off or the questioning itself becomes a trigger and I get stuck back into the same ocd cycle with constant rumination, anxiety, and other compulsions. This lasts for a week or two before I know I need to stop and try and work hard to get back to ignoring the thoughts. And the cycle just restarts over and over again. Does anyone have any tips to stop this from happening? It’s really harming my recovery as every few weeks I dive back into the same negative place I was.

Hi guys! I had really bad harm ocd about 2 years ago and I went through therapy and eventually got really good at handling it when it would pop up. The other day, I was scrolling on TikTok and came across a girl talking about a guy who was presenting a lot of schizophrenic symptoms but no one paid attention and got him help, he was having a lot of delusions, hallucinating, thinking everyone was out to get him, thought he was Jesus and his dad was the president and ended up doing horrific things. The day after that, I was dealing with some work drama and had the thought of “what if all my coworkers are against me and trying to get me fired”. That really stressed me out, cause I don’t normally think about them like that and I went down a rabbit hole of thinking that was the beginning of me developing schizophrenia, ended up googling stuff all night, taking tests, crying and seeking reassurance. I had a thought the other day “your dad is the president”, this one didn’t stress me out as bad as I knew it was just the video I had seen and it was an intrusive thought about it, and I also didn’t believe it. Today I was with some friends and I got a prize at a place we went and it said “lonely” on it. I do have my moments of feeling lonely and this week has been specifically trying so I had a thought like “oh someone’s out to get me cause I got this”. I know this isn’t logical and it wouldn’t make sense to just randomly get it if someone was truly after me and it was just a stupid prize at a random place, anyone could’ve gotten it. Im just struggling a lot with schizophrenic OCD and thinking I’m in the pre stages of it. In my good moments, I don’t think I am at all and it was all just sparked from the video I watched but in my bad moments, these thoughts feel real!! They really stress me out and make me feel like I’m going to lose my mind causing me to lose my job/ end up in a psych hospital/ never live a normal life/ end up alone, never see me my loved ones/ hurt my loved ones. I just want to feel normal and not like I’m about to lose my mind and everything I care about. Please help!!! Anyone else going through something similar and can help me get through this!