My new OCD theme is hitting me harder than previous themes. I've been obsessing about hearing loss and losing a substantial amount of my hearing that I may go completely deaf in the far future. It is because of a hearing test that tells me that I have ears of a 32 year old and I'm 17 which means I degraded my ears so much that it advanced 15 years past my age. I'm getting fears that I might go deaf at my 30's. I started to obsess on measuring my surroundings and my earphones with decibel meters to make sure it is not "too loud" and I get severe anxiety attacks about it whenever I misheard what other people say because I might have hearing loss. I tested on an audiogram app and I got "normal hearing" but other websites tell me that I have mild hearing loss which makes me more uncertain and anxious. I can't even think straight anymore, I've been missing online classes because my tabs are always on searches about hearing loss, hearing frequencies, headphone settings, etc... I need to stop this before it gets even worse. I've been obsessing on my hearing whether I heard things well or not and if not means "you have hearing loss". I might get full-blown Somatic OCD if I don't get my " Fear of Hearing Loss" obsessions in-check.

(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.

I have an identity-related OCD problem and I also have autism. I’ve been frightened and frustrated all this week because of the concept of masking, and the idea that my OCD theme is true because of masking, meaning that something will happen to me that will ruin my life if I unmask. It’s been causing me severe distress, and I’m frightened that therapy will not help me heal. I’m scared of losing my family and close friends

I had experienced a few instances where I am about to fall asleep or waking up and I will hear something from a previous conversation no matter how long the time. For example, on time I heard in my head my daughter say mom or another time internally the laugh of my husband's friend, etc. It led me to research which was my biggest mistake because although I read that it could be hypnagogic hallucinations and could stem from anxiety or stress and disrupted sleeping patterns which I currently have all of those, As I continued reading I saw that it can be seen with patients that have schizophrenia as well and my mind went into full panic mode, now I am in crippling fear that I have it or psychosis and am worried I will start to hear things and hallucinate, etc. to the point where I now hear ringing in my ears and it has caused my anxiety to fully spike again. Anyone else experience something similar?