UPDATED VERSION, MAYBE SAVE THIS TO RE READ. TRIGGER WARNING. This is a list of all the OCD'S I can think of. Please feel free to add to any in the comment section below. I don't go through each compulsion to get rid of the thoughts, but I go through most of the obsessions. I hope this one day helps at least one person, to know that they are not a weirdo. OCD is a recurring thought (obsession), that you try to prevent, or get rid of the anxiety about (compulsion), e.g, checking your mind to make sure you didn’t do a criminal act, or checking everyone is okay to make sure you didn’t kill, assault, offend, or hurt them, or checking they are okay with you so you know you didn’t cause them to doubt how lovely you deep down know you are, because of how strange you acted when certain things were brought up in conversation. Checking your body for any sexual feelings about intrusive thoughts you wish you didn’t have because you can’t get rid of them. All of these thoughts make you doubt who you are, you get urges to do things which you know you wouldn’t ever want to do because for one, it’s disgusting, and horrendous, and for two, it would fuck your life up. OCD latches onto anything that could fuck your life up. Making you doubt who you are and question how much prevention you need to take.Even the kindest, yes, one of the kindest OCD thoughts, like “If I don’t tap the candle someone in my family is going to die and it will be all my fault”, can make you question how much control you actually have. Pedophelia OCD - Worrying you are, will be, did something without knowing, convinced everyone/someone else is, or everyone thinks you are a pedophile, worrying everyone thinks you think they’re a pedophile. Can come with groinal response. Crime OCD- Worrying you will, have or want to, or someone else will or has, or wants to, worrying everyone else thinks you have, committed any type of crime, worrying everyone thinks you think they’ve done a crime, e.g. pedophelia, stealing, cannibalism, murder, fraud, an affair, vandalism, rape etc. Can come with groinal response. Animal OCD- worrying you will/have, want to, or worrying others will; have or wants to, worrying everyone thinks you have, killed, hurt or been sexual with an animal, worrying everyone thinks you think they’ve done something to an animal. Can come with groinal response. Groinal response OCD: This is a sexual response you get to an intrusive thought. You can get aroused from it, because you’re worried you will so you do, and also the fact that it is a sexual thought and your brain sometimes treats any sexual things as just that. This doesn’t mean anything about you as a person. You can get it any time your intrusive thought is triggered. Sexual feeling is different than desire. Harm OCD- Worried you will/have or want to or worried others will/have or want to, worrying others think you have, harmed someone else or yourself, worrying everyone thinks you think they’ve harmed someone. Suicide OCD- Worried you’ll kill yourself when you don’t want to, worried everyone thinks you want to kill yourself, worrying everyone thinks you think they want to kill themselves. Contamination OCD-Worried you will/have or want to, contaminate yourself or other people, worried others will/have or want to, contaminate themselves or other people, worried other people think you have contaminated yourself or other people, not just by things that could hold germs, but by things like poison, e.g worried you put bleach in foods unknowingly or have a false memory of it etc, worrying everyone thinks you think they’ve contaminated people. Paranoia OCD- Paranoid that cameras are watching you in your own home etc. Acting a certain way when you feel watched. Scared that aliens are coming to get you, worrying you're in a parallel universe and that everyone knows you've came from a parallel universe, but you. Feeling like you can't trust anyone. Fake OCD: Thinking you might not have OCD and you're just faking it. Hoarding OCD: Hoarding things in case you need it in the future, stuff can date back from donkey's years ago. Correct OCD: Feeling the need to make sure everything you say is correct. No mistakes. Also feeling the need to make sure what someone else says is correct. If someone swears on their life you tell them to take it back in case they aren't telling the truth because you don't want them to die. Religious OCD- Worrying you have/ will/ want to, do something against your religion, worrying others have/will/wants to, do something against their religion, worrying everyone thinks you’ve done something against your religion, worrying everyone thinks you think they’ve done something against their religion. Can come with groinal response. Possession OCD- Worried you will/have or want to, worried someone else will/has/wants to, get possessed, worried others think you’re possessed, worried others think you think they’re possessed. Can come with groinal response. Straight OCD- Worried you will/have or want to, worried others will/have or want to, turn straight, worried others think you’re straight,worrying everyone thinks you think they’re straight. Can come with groinal response. Trichotillomania OCD: Hair pulling OCD. Can involve counting the hairs you pull out. Feeling an intense compulsion to pull the hairs out and obsessively thinking about it. Eating disorder (I think it's an OCD): Believing if you eat certain foods you'll get fat, believing you're fat when you're not. Dieting to the extreme etc. Or believing you're too skinny when you're not, and eating excessively to gain weight. Appearance change OCD: Feeling the need to constantly change your appearance or be extremely focused on one imperfection etc. Thinking people will look at that one thing all the time etc. Homosexual OCD- Worried you will/have or want to, worried others will/have or want to, turn gay, worried others think you’re gay, worrying everyone thinks you think they’re gay. Can come with groinal response. Transgender OCD- Worried you will/have or want to, worried others will/have or want to, turn transgender, worried that others think you are transgender, worrying everyone thinks you think they’re transgender. Can come with groinal response. Inscest OCD: Worried you will/have/want to, worried others will/have/want to, do Inscest. Worried people think you've done Inscest, worried people think you think they've done Inscest. Can come with groinal response. Existential OCD- Worried you will/have/want/need to figure out the meaning of life, worried others will/have/want/need to figure out the meaning of life, worried people think you know the meaning of life, or you don’t know the meaning of life enough, worrying everyone thinks you think they know the meaning of life. Health OCD- Worried you have many different illnesses, worried other people have many different illnesses, worried you or they will get many different illnesses, worried they think you have many different illnesses, worrying everyone thinks you think they have many different illnesses. Social anxiety (I think it is OCD)- Worried you will go red, shake, faint, panic, etc, worried others will go red, shake, faint, panic, etc, worried that you or others will do anything inappropriate in a social setting, worried others think you’ve done something inappropriate in a social setting, worrying everyone thinks you think they’ve done something inappropriate in a social setting. Relationship OCD- Worried you or your partner will stop loving each other, worried you or your partner have stopped loving each other, worried your partner thinks you don’t love them anymore, worrying everyone thinks you think they don’t love you anymore. Can come with groinal response about someone else. Checking OCD- Worried you or other people, left,turned on,or endangered yourself and/or other people in some way, with machinery that are rarely but potentially hazardous, worried other people think you left,turned on,or endangered yourself and/or other people in some way, with machinery that are rarely but potentially hazardous on purpose, or you’ll be judged even if it was by accident, worried people think you think they left,turned on,or endangered yourself and/or other people in some way, with machinery that are rarely but potentially hazardous. Cheating OCD- Worrying you will/have or want to, worried your partner will/has.wants to, cheat, worried your partner thinks you’ve cheated, worried your partner thinks you think they’ve cheated. Can come with groinal response. Mind reading OCD- Worried everyone can/will/wants to, read your mind, worried you can/will/want to, read everyone’s mind, worrying everyone thinks you can read their mind, worrying everyone thinks you think they can read your mind or that you can read theirs. Body Image OCD: Worried your body image is disfigured/ugly/smelly/abnormal, worried other’s bodies are disfigured/ugly/smelly/abnormal, worried everyone thinks your body is disfigured/ugly/smelly/abnormal, worried everyone thinks you think their body is disfigured/ugly/smelly/abnormal. Worried that you walk funny, talk funny, worried you feel physically weird and out of this world, an OCD detachment from reality, worried something is wrong with you. Worried that other people walk funny, talk funny, worried there is something wrong with them. Worried other people think you walk funny, talk funny, worried they think you look physically weird and out of this world. Sleep OCD: Worried you don’t sleep enough or you sleep too much, worried you’ll never sleep again, worried other people sleep too much or not enough, worried they will never sleep again. Worried they worry you’ll never sleep again but they just aren’t telling you. Death OCD: Worried you are going to die because of things like loss of concentration, not remembering things, brain fog, becoming slower etc. Dead OCD: Worrying you are dead or other people are dead or everyone thinks you are dead, or everyone thinks you think they’re dead. Word OCD- Words triggering embarrassment in case everyone thinks you’ve done something wrong within the concept that they are talking about. Unconscious OCD- Worried you will act on your thoughts unconsciously or that someone else will act on their thoughts unconsciously. Worried everyone thinks you will act on your thoughts unconsciously, worrying everyone thinks you think they will act on their thoughts unconsciously. Magical OCD- Thinking words or phrases or actions or people or things, hold great power to prevent or induce terrible events, worrying everyone thinks your words or phrases or actions or people or things, hold great power to prevent or induce terrible events, worrying everyone thinks you think your words or phrases or actions or people or things, hold great power to prevent or induce terrible events. False memory OCD - Believing you remember you acting on one of your OCD’s listed above or down below, believing other people remember you acting on one of your OCD’s listed above or down below, worrying people think you’ve acted on one of your OCD’s listed above or down below, worried people think you think they’ve acted on one of the OCD’s listed above or down below, but you haven’t and somewhere in your brain you know that. Typing OCD - Worrying you will, did, everyone thinks you did, or someone else did or will type one of your OCD’s online or write it down etc, worrying everyone thinks you think they typed one of your OCD’s online or wrote it down etc. False confession OCD: Worried you’ll confess to something you haven’t done. Speaking OCD: Worried you’ll speak out your intrusive thoughts. Just right OCD - If I don’t do this, or others don’t do this, then something bad will happen, worried other people think you’ve made something bad happen, worried other people think you think they’ve made something bad happen. Worrying you make people uncomfortable with how odd you seem when things trigger your checking or anxiety OCD (a few others have this but there is no name to it): worrying people think you make people uncomfortable with how odd you seem when things trigger your checking or anxiety. THIS IS JUST SOME, OF THE ENDLESS OCD’S. There are so many more. Carry on us OCD lot, we’re so ill but hopefully there’ll be a cure soon. The worst possible things that could happen from doing some of these things (we won’t, I’m just saying this because the scarier the worst possible scenario, the more the intrusive thoughts keep popping up), is we would lose our family and friends and get sent to prison and the death penalty would come to England and we’d be put to death. But to be honest, actual prison is better than the prison that lives in our minds. And death is something that happens to us all eventually anyway. It's OCD guys, stay strong!

Hi everyone. 3 months have passed since I self-diagnosed with pure ocd. I'm currently in the best state I've ever been in ever since this whole ordeal started. The last time I was on this app I did a compulsion, it backfired on me and I was very suicidal. I was getting reported by people on here and I felt like utter garbage. I was convinced that this was never ocd and that I was a monster. Yet it still didn't make sense to me. At that time I tried accepting that I was a monster but it didn't make sense to me. It didn't click. There was a voice in my head telling me that I was over-reacting or that none of this made sense and that I was once a normal person. Nothing felt real, nothing felt genuine, nothing felt like it was the truth. I was miserable. I was ready to take my own life. I went to sleep and woke up SEVERELY ANXIOUS. I was noticing that I was still being disgusted by my intrusive thoughs and that none of this went away when I thought that I had accepted the truth and that accepting that I was just in denial would fix everything. I was very angry and frustrated. I just wanted this uncertainty to be gone. There was evidence to confirm that the worst case scenario is the real one but there was evidence that it wasn't. It's literally a feeling we are all aware of - it feels weird denying it but it feels weird accepting it. I started doing compulsions again. Found all sorts of stories on OCD forums of people with literally the same backfiring experiences as me. You all know the feeling when you do a compulsion and get reassurance. You feel amazing - like all your problems are gone and like you're back to your old self. Then time passes and you're the same miserable panicked mess. Compulsions were what got me through the day. When I couldn't eat, when I didn't wanna eat, when I wanted to die - I would read a boatload of OCD forum posts and I would tell myself all sorts of reassuring things. I would start feeling better and I would be able to eat again. Then I would wake up anxious with cold sweat. This went on for a while - obsessing, compulsions, relief period, obsessing, compulsions, relief period. I wasn't doing ANY ERP. AT ALL. I was just avoiding the problem. Then I met a woman who's had OCD ever since she was little. Talking to her became a compulsion - I was constantly talking to her in hopes that she'll reassure me that it's OCD, but she never did. Instead she gave me advice on what to do with my symptoms. There was only ONE time where she told me "It sounds like OCD, but I don't have the credentials to diagnose you" and that was the only time she gave me reassurance of any kind. She gave me advice that literally saved my life and that's why I came to this app again - I wanna share what helps me in hopes that it'll help all of you. I don't feel the need to be on this app anymore because I'm at the point where I literally feel like my normal self again, I barely have any symptoms and I know that I'm not and never was a monster. I don't claim to have OCD - it could be something else - I don't want reassurance either. And I don't want to read comments like "Oh it's been 3 months and you've basically overcame it? Sounds fishy." I don't know what happened for me to feel like my normal self again. Please don't invalidate my recovery as it will cause me to be extremely stressed out. I've read that normally Pure O takes 6 months to completely recover from if you're treating it. It could be shorter or longer depending on the people. I don't know why I feel better all of a sudden and I don't want to dwell on it. I feel great and I want everyone else to feel great and that's all that matters - OK? ANYWAYS. HERE ARE MY METHODS OF BEATING ANXIETY AND RECOVERING. 1. Exposure Response Prevention. I'm not all for self-directed ERP because that can go totally wrong but if you don't have the option to seek help from an OCD specialist like me - you don't really have a choice. You have to be mindful of ONE thing - you could easily get ERP and compulsive checking mixed up. Here's the difference between ERP and a compulsion - you do a compulsion in order to seek an answer - to seek certainty. You want to do a compulsion. ERP is doing something you don't want to - something that's distressing. ERP is putting yourself in a situation in which you are uncomfortable and resisting the need to do compulsions. For example - ERP for me is watching old cartoons and resisting doing any compulsions. When I watch old cartoons I'm scared that I might find out that I have a crush on one of these characters that I had a crush on as a kid and that I'll find out I'm a monster etc. etc. You get the point. It's a situation I want to avoid, but instead I sit there watching the cartoon and when I get anxious/ a groinal response. I acknowledge it's there and I don't question it. This is part of the advice my friend gave me that helped me a lot. The whole time stuck in a rut because every time I would try to do ERP, I would question, analyze, ruminate - basically do like 50 compulsions and that's why it felt like I wasn't getting anywhere. ERP stands for exposure RESPONSE PREVENTION. Meaning you're PREVENTING a response. The whole point of ERP is to sit with your fear and not respond to it. The first time I did ERP right, I was looking at an anime character I had a false attraction to and I was sitting there anxious with a weird heavy feeling in my groin. I didn't understand why I was feeling that way. I just felt really confused. So I accepted that I don't know what it means and that It could mean anything. IMMEDIATELY the anxiety and the groinal sensation vanished. I was shook. So every time I would have anxiety/ the groinal, I didn't dwell on it. I just acknowledged it and I let it be. Gradually I had less and less situations where I would get anxiety. I don't think I even get anxious or get the groinal response anymore. I hope this helps yall. 2. Accepting uncertainty This is dreaded amongst OCD sufferers. I know the feeling. "I CAN'T ACCEPT UNCERTAINTY, I'D RATHER DIE THAN BE THIS!" We've all said these words at one point. Here's the thing. We have a very ignorant reaction towards the idea of accepting uncertainty. We're anxious people - of course we're gonna have difficulty coping with uncertainty. Here's what you HAVE to acknowledge about uncertainty, though, so you can really learn to accept it because uncertainty has helped me A LOT: UNCERTAINTY ISN'T 50/50 All of us have thought this exact thing every time someone has told us to "live in uncertainty" - "Living with uncertainty means that I have to accept only 2 possibilities - It's either one or the other - either I'm a freak or it's OCD" and that's just not true. For me accepting uncertainty means accepting that it could be plenty of things - it could be OCD, it could be hormonal, it could be my weird way of maturing and learning to let go of my past, it could be trauma related, it could mean anything, it could mean nothing - and I put the worst case scenario as just that - a worst case scenario. The comfort you will find in uncertainty will come if you stop assuming the worst. Uncertainty really helps with the damage done by ruminating. Sometimes I catch myself ruminating for HOURS and not only have I not found an answer to anything but I've just raised more questions. Here comes anxiety. What do I do? I tell myself - "I can't find an answer to this. I don't know and at this point I don't want to know. I'm going to stop dwelling on it now." and of course there are gonna be secondary fears and thoughts being like "but what if you DO know? What if you're delusional?" and instead of getting hooked on these thoughts - I get annoyed, I roll my eyes and I attempt to move on. That's the bottom line. You have to find comfort in not knowing. The human brain is powerful - it works in mysterious ways that might not even be documented yet. And fear is an EXTREMELY powerful and controlling emotion. So stop searching for an answer. You're not gonna find it. Be mindful of the present and stop dwelling on past, future, what this means, what that meant. It is impossible for human beings to live with full certainty. We have things about us that we will probably never know about ourselves. You just have to learn to find happiness in not knowing. It's not your job to find out. If life wanted you to know something - it would've thrown it in right at your face with no hesitation. 3. Fight the compulsions, not the obsession. So you have an obsession. It haunts you constantly. You want it gone, but how? Stop engaging in compulsions. Easier said than done, I know, but the reason the obsession continues to remain there is because the compulsions are fueling it. I know avoiding compulsions is very difficult and it's TERRIFYING. But it helps SO much. It's a struggle worth going through. When I was managing my anxiety and my symptoms were barely there, my fear sinked it's fangs into the fact that I self-diagnosed and that I don't really know if I ever had OCD in the first place. So as you can imagine, I was desperately looking for ways to get a formal diagnosis. I thought that getting the diagnosis is gonna be the key needed to fully recover. I was desperate and anxious without it. My friend saw through me completely. She saw that I was desperately looking for an answer and she told me "It's great that you wanna get help but you seem to be only focused on the diagnosis. That's not really gonna help you." I was like YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND! I have to know this is ocd! It's going to be the only thing to prove to me that I'm not a monster. She replied "You don't need an OCD diagnosis to know you're not a monster." I hastily and loudly responded with I KNOW I DON'T BUT IF IT'S NOT OCD THEN WHAT WAS THIS HELL I WAS EXPERIENCING??? Her answer stumped me. "Maybe it meant nothing." I had no words. I was shocked. "What do you mean it meant nothing....". I couldn't believe it for a minute. But at the same time.....She had a point. What if it really didn't mean anything... I contacted Chrissie Hodges (Love her to death <3) asking if there was any way for me to get a formal diagnosis from someone abroad because I live in a country where there aren't ocd specialists. She saw right through me just as my friend did and she was basically like "I mean yeah you can go to this website and arrange a therapy session, but they're not gonna confirm nore deny that you have ocd. You getting a diagnosis won't help you - just stick to your ERPs and learn to accept uncertainty". I was noticing that it would be very costly and very complicated for me to get a proper diagnosis. So I asked my friend "should I just take the risk and live in uncertainty for the rest of my life." She replied with "Yeah, you can kinda." and she told me "There are some people that are afraid they're gonna get hit by a bus if they leave the house. Do they just sit and rot in their houses while dwelling on whether or not it's gonna happen? No, they gulp it down and they take the risk - they're not gonna let their whole life get dictated by some fear. Whatever happens is out of their control and they just have to accept it and move on." So I tried living with uncertainty. Living with uncertainty meant dropping a lot of compulsions. The first few days I was anxious out of my mind. It felt like I was going to get a heart attack if I didn't get reassurance. But I sat there - in agony - not doing anything - not thinking about anything - just trying my best to get through the day like normal. It was hell. But this is called HABITUATION and I encourage everyone to do it. With each day I tried habituation and resisted compulsions the anxiety gradually went away to the point where the fear was devalued and I no longer felt any anxiety. This resulted in a stange phenomena for me (I don't know if this will happen for anyone else resisting compulsions so please take all of this with a grain of salt). I was not anxious anymore, I was becoming a happier more optimistic person and I was just feeling my will to live come back and because of that - my brain felt like it was gonna burst. It was these strange pains at the sides of my brain and my frontal lobe. It felt like someone was strangling and stomping on my brain. Like someone was squeezing all the juice out of it. I got a little worried because I've always had health anxiety and I was scared that I might have like a brain tumor or something. I let the headaches stay and I was only going to go to a doctor if things got worse. With each day the headaches went away too. So there I was - standing there with no anxiety, no groinal, no headaches...What now? I noticed that I was still ruminating but with each day it was easier not to dwell on things. And there were still a few compulsions that I accidentally did, that I don't do anymore. Ruminating is by far the hardest compulsion to cut out because sometimes we don't even notice that we do it. For me I just say "Oh, I'm not gonna dwell on it." and I just refocus on something else. I don't feel the need to do any compulsions anymore. I devalued the fear by telling myself things like "Hey, you still have normal healthy attractions, you still have the potential to live a normal life regardless what's wrong with you." and that basically devalued the fear. This is something that a lot of people with HOCD and POCD need to hear - if you've always liked the opposite gender/adults, just continue liking those things. Don't let fear stop you. And I know it's hard because you get thoughts like "You don't deserve to be with who you want because you're gay/ a monster" but you really have to learn to punch back against those thoughts. Which brings me to my next point: 4. Practice self-love, learn to forgive yourself, don't dwell on the past, be mindful of the present, be the best person you can be every day and PUNCH BACK AS HARD AS YOU CAN when fighting off your fear. Stumbling into pride month after 3 months of having this ridiculous fear that I was a sexual deviant with the potential to hurt anyone made it a bit weird for me. June is my favorite month. Pride month, the month of my birthday - it's everything a gay person like me could ask for. But it was difficult for me to rekindle my joy for the month after 3 months of thinking I don't deserve to live. It still is difficult. I still get thoughts like "you don't belong to this community, they wouldn't accept you if they knew what you went through these past 3 months, pride month will never be the same for you" and I really just took it upon myself to disregard these thoughts completely. I'm a beautiful person with healthy desires, I love to make people happy, I love to be happy, I love to treat my friends, I love to draw my friends, I love to donate to crowdfunding campaigns in order to help other people - I am not a bad person. I never was and never will be a bad person. I was controlled by a ridiculous egodystonic fear that made me lose a lot of weight, made me overdye my hair to the point where I had to shave it, made me almost lose my life. And I know you can all relate. You're also all beautiful people. The reason you're scared is because you care too much. Because your hearts are just that big. I encourage everyone to practice self-love and I encourage everyone to forgive themselves for the things they've done in search of reassurance. You haven't hurt anyone but yourself, so why not forgive yourself. For me I had to forgive myself for some of the compulsions I did in order to get reassurance (picturing awful things to see if I liked them, checking constantly how my body reacted, becoming extremely dependant on my friends validation), because if I didn't forgive myself, I would just continue ruminating on it and I would get close to relapsing. Forgiving yourself is a very personal choice for everyone and I'm not gonna force anyone to do it if they're not comfortable, but I'll just say this - we all live with things we deem unforgivable. It just happens. I chose to forgive myself because even the worst things I've done in my life haven't ruined somebody elses. I haven't comitted any crimes, I haven't traumatized anyone, I've only done one-two things I can't forgive myself over and that are probably gonna stick with me till I hit the grave but those things never really hurt anyone except myself. But I'm going to try and move on regardless, because if I don't, then I can never recover. 5. One of the best weapons against OCD/Anxiety is ignoring it and not letting it control you. The less attention you give to it, the more powerful you become against it. OCD/Anxiety wants you to quit doing the things you normally do and just engage in compulsions ALL DAY. Do not let fear control you. Acknowledge that it's there and continue to fight your way towards getting through the day normally and getting work done. 6. Distractions. Save. LIVES! This is extremely important. LEARN HOW TO DISTRACT YOURSELF. Exercise. Go for a walk. Go for a jog. Call your friends. Grab a drink with said friends. Video games, movies, road-trips, art, music, singing, meditating, make yourself some tea, go to the store, DO SOMETHING! It is vital for someone with ocd to not have a lot of idle time. Keep yourself busy. Especially with other people - that helps even more. 7. Here are some things you definitely SHOULDN'T do (This is mainly for HOCD, POCD, but if you find something on this list that you do, feel free to try and avoid doing it): - Searching for an answer. Just stop. You're not gonna get one. - Checking/ becoming hyper body aware. Listen if you think your body is going to give you an answer - it won't. Arousal isn't black and white. I can get aroused thinking about myself having sex with a woman. Does that mean I'm bisexual? No, because I'm aroused due to certain aspects of the scenario that my brain is conditioned to aroused to. It's not the woman in my fantasy that arouses me. Everyone had different sensitivities to their sexual pedals or whatever it's called. Sometimes you can get aroused just because something is sexual in nature. Some people are aroused/orgasm while they're being assaulted, some women get aroused/orgasm while they're breastfeeding and then they blame themselves for feeling this way - There needs to be more awareness spread about how arousal is just an automatic body response and sometimes it literally means nothing. Your groinal responses don't define what you're into - YOU DO. - Picturing sexual scenarios to check how you feel. It's not gonna give you the answer to all your worries. The most you'll get is temporary reassurance. - Ruminating. This is the hardest one because it's so sneaky. If you catch yourself ruminating, stop yourself and refocus on something else. -Masturbation / Pornography If you're not at a late point in your recovery - definitely avoid these like the plague. You will be bombarded by intrusive thoughts because you're scared they're gonna happen and because of that - they will happen. Masturbating only serves to confuse you more. And please - DON'T TRY MASTURBATING TO YOUR INTRUSIVE THOUGHTS - THIS WILL EITHER WORK AND GIVE YOU TEMPORARY REASSURANCE OR IT CAN BACKFIRE COMPLETELY AND THROW YOU SO DEEP INTO THE LOOP THAT RECOVERY WILL BE A LOT MORE DIFFICULT THAN IT HAS TO. Masturbation can definitely become an answer/reassurance seeking compulsion and because anxiety can distort your perception arousal it can go terribly wrong. Just don't do it. Believe me. -This app and other OCD forums. I have nothing against using this app or visiting other OCD forums. It can be comforting knowing that you're not suffering alone and that people have very similar experiences to you. Just try to not reassure yourself too much using the information provided to you. If you notice yourself constantly using this app, browsing ocd forums - you're probably seeking reassurance. Meaning it's time for you to stop and try to use it less. I'm at the point where I don't even wanna visit an OCD forum anymore. I felt really alone when I was sharing my experiences on this app but then noticed that there were like a gajilion people with basically the same experiences as me. I don't use that to tell myself "Oh it's OCD because this person with OCD has lived through the same hell I have" I just see that OCD becomes a possible answer for what's going on and then I just stop assuming and dwelling on it and I move on. It can be comforting, but not in excess. - Repeating phrases to yourself. Stop repeating to yourself that you're not this or that. You're just gonna feel more anxious and you're gonna get more frustrated. Just stop. Your answer will find you when you recover, you won't find your answer by telling yourself things and analyzing how youre reacting to them/ repeating them to yourself so you can feel better in the moment. And that's all I have to write really. Currently I feel almost like my normal self again. I want this to be inspirational for all of you. You can go back to your older selves, you can overcome this, you are all good resilient people. I still struggle with intrusive thoughts. Just not as much. This is kinda graphic and I'm sorry if this grosses someone out but I'm at the point where I can masturbate regularly without getting intrusive thoughts. Or at most - get like one intrusive thoughts but they've become so easy to manage. Sometimes they catch me off guard. This morning for instance I was in that middle ground between dreaming and awake and I had a gross image pop up and it wasn't anything that bad, it definitely wasn't sexual in nature it was just a random thing that happened. I immediately got grossed out and started dwelling on it, but then quickly told myself - no don't dwell on it. It was just a thought. It meant nothing. I mean you were sleepy-headed, like come on. But yeah it feels great to feel like I'm going back to normal. I still get doubts and I still get anxious from time to time and I still don't know what a lot of the things that happened meant, but I'm choosing to not dwell on it and I'm coming to terms with the fact that I can't find an answer to those things. Who knows, it could be ocd, it could be anxiety, it could be hormonal, I could be crazy. I don't know and I don't want to know. I'm happy like this. And even still I get secondary fears like "what if forgiving yourself and moving on is you secretly accepting yourself as a monster, what if you never get rid of all of this, what if in the near future a catastrophe hits you" and I can't be bothered to respond to those fears. I don't care anymore. I'm sick of suffering. Living with uncertainty has only proved to me how ridiculous this self doubt of mine is and I'm just seeing that I'm a normal human being with normal healthy desires. I have things I know about myself and things I see happening that are enough for me to know that this was all fear controlling me. So I'm choosing to move on. I don't need reassurance anymore. All I need is the things that make me happy. I hope this will help y'all. You can all recover from this. Chin up and stay strong. ❤️?????

Mental Rituals are sneaky...do you recognize that you do any of these? I found this online, and thought it was a great summary of the mental rituals many of us engage in: Mental Review – A person examines past memories and events to determine if the feared obsession occurred or to make sure there isn’t any historical evidence that supports the OCD fear. For example, a man with HOCD may mentally review all of his positive, heterosexual experiences to feel more certain about being straight. A woman may lie in bed mentally reviewing all of the physical actions she took when placing her infant in the crib, to ensure she didn’t suffocate her baby with the pillow. “I remember placing the pillow on the rocking chair before bringing the baby to her room.” An individual may also review his past thoughts and events to gain certainty he is not in denial of the existence of his sinister inner core. An example of a mental review process may look something like this, “My niece was over the other day and she sat on my lap. Why did I let her do that? What if I wanted her to sit on my lap because I am sexually aroused by her? I think she may have initiated the contact though. Yes, she got up off the floor and approached me. Did I pick her up or did she climb up herself? I’m pretty sure she climbed up herself. Okay, well what if it doesn’t matter that she climbed up herself? What if it is still creepy that I allowed it or that I didn’t ask her to get down sooner? I am the adult after all. Okay well many people allow kids to sit on their laps. Was I aroused during this? I think I felt something. Well I did let her down when I felt the tingling sensation. She said goodbye to me and so she must not have been traumatized by what I did.” Mental Checking – Checking the brain is just a non-physical way to ensure an OCD fear is not realized, and serves the same purpose as door or stove checking. A mental checklist may be recited to be sure all bases are covered. The OCD sufferer may bring up OCD thoughts intentionally for the purpose of checking if the thoughts still bother them. They may fear that the presence of uncertainty and anxiety mean that the thought is therefore true. The intensity of OCD thoughts and feelings can fluctuate from day to day and moment to moment. Because of the good feeling sufferers get when intrusive thoughts don’t produce as much anxiety or uncertainty as usual, they may compulsively “check” their reactions to thoughts to hopefully replicate this experience. The problem is continued checking becomes the reinforcement for OCD thoughts and feelings. Mental Rehearsal – A person spends time mentally preparing or rehearsing a future situation to determine it is safe for themselves or others in this compulsion type, which is the exact opposite of mental review where the past is examined. Examples include rehearsing a future medical appointment to be sure the all right medical information will be provided and all the right questions are asked to guarantee health. A groom with ROCD fears may mentally rehearse the upcoming wedding vows to examine if he feels strongly enough about each point to marry his future wife. A teacher may fear she is not adequately understood when she speaks and never feels she can explain things perfectly enough. She may engage in a mental ritual where she rehearses her lesson plans mentally to ensure the children succeed. Mental rehearsal might look something like this for someone suffering from ‘hit and run’ OCD, “I know Main Street has a lot of mothers pushing strollers in the afternoon. I will have to take another street since I will be going out for lunch today. Second Street might be less congested. How will I know if it is safe for me to drive? I can ask my co-worker to ride along with me and he will be able to hear if I hit someone.” Self-Reassurance – Just like reassurance-seeking from others, the purpose of self-reassurance is to mentally provide certainty that the feared outcome won’t occur or that one is not as bad or evil as the OCD leads them to believe. A person may tell themselves positive affirmations about being a good person when their OCD produces thoughts about harm, pedophilia, etc. They commonly run through a mental list of reassurances they have received from family, friends or professionals. An example off the self-reassurance process may look something like this, “My priest said I did not sin when I accidentally took home the song book from mass. But wait, did he know that I was the one who put it the bag and not my child? Yes, he told me that it didn’t matter if I did it or my child did it. I returned it to the church the next day and it was an accident. I am a good person. I’ve never stolen anything in my life!” Thought neutralization – This occurs when a person mentally replaces unwanted, unpleasant thoughts or images with pleasant or more neutral ones. A woman tries to imagine her child sitting in a field of flowers after having a thought about him getting kidnapped from the playground at daycare. Another woman brings in an image of herself beside her neighbor, a woman still healthy and vibrant at age 83, to neutralize an intrusive thought about potentially getting cancer. A young man with HOCD may imagine a sexy girl in a short dress after noticing an attractive man walk by him on the street. Prayer, mantras, and special phrases – A person may repeat a prayer or phrase to neutralize an intrusive thought. Clients with intrusive thoughts may say a prayer, “God is good,” or a compulsively say a phrase, “Good conquers evil,” following any panic-inducing OCD thought. The phrase, “It’s not me, it’s my OCD” is a good way to recognize and categorize intrusive thoughts as OCD brain blips that don’t need attention. It is a helpful reminder to avoid responding to OCD thoughts compulsively. Any phrase can become compulsive, however, if it is used repeatedly and excessively with the motive of convincing oneself with certainty that a bad outcome will not occur, seeking comfort or attempting to rid oneself of thoughts. Have awareness of your motive for using any phrase, even the helpful ones provided by your OCD specialist. Normal religious prayer may also be repeated compulsively to neutralize fears about having done the prayer incorrectly or that they have sinned by having inappropriate thoughts while praying. Solving and wishing – Sometimes people become less concerned with the possibility of acting out their thoughts and more concerned that the thoughts will plague them forever and will cause of life of misery. This has been referred to as “Obsessing about Obsessing.” Individuals often spend time “wishing” for the thoughts to go away and comparing their life to a life they would have if they weren’t obsessing. An OCD sufferer’s compulsions may also be focused on “solving” their OCD puzzle by excessively thinking about what they need to do to fix their OCD. These compulsions send a message that the OCD is more important than it is, and as a result makes OCD more powerful. Self-punishment – A person who has fears of being a bad person which results in excessive amounts of guilt may engage in a mental ritual called self-punishment. The person will abuse themselves mentally in order to feel they are not getting away with a crime that has gone unpunished. The self-abuse temporarily relieves some guilt because they feel they haven’t gotten away with something they ‘should’ be punished for. It also leads to a sense that they are on the same side of the population as people who hate killing, pedophilia and incest, etc. Just letting these ideas sit around is not acceptable. Obviously, putting oneself through this process is uncomfortable and often very depressing, but letting oneself off the hook does not feel like an option. “I am a horrible person for having these thoughts. What kind of good person would think about sex with his sister? This is really sick. I am a demented and depraved individual and don’t deserve to live!”

HARM OCD MY LONG STORY. I wanted to post my story just incase someone else can relate to my intrusive thoughts. I’m am 16 years old and I suffer with anxiety but lately I’ve had intrusive thoughts to do with harming myself and others on and off for about a year now but they are really bad at the moment. I remember I had my first set of intrusive thoughts when I was around 11. I was on Instagram ( I know you are not supposed to have it till you’re 13 but all my friends had it at 11 so I felt like I had to haha ) I remember I read a post about someone commiting suicide and I quickly googled to check what that meant as I didn’t know and as an 11 year old that freaked me out as I had never thought about suicide before and I thought to myself “that’s awful what if that happened to me and I wanted to kill myself” I remember this thought scared me and I thought that just by thinking that maybe I did want to and I remember I kept getting thoughts that said “I wanna kill myself” in my head and they scared me so much so I told my mum and she told me these thoughts were just triggered by a scary post and I quickly forgot about them. It first started around a year ago when I was on summer break from school and when I was at my friends house and we was watching a documentary on YouTube about a serial killer as my friends and I found them quite interesting. I remember suddenly as I was watching it I got a random thought “what if I became crazy and wanted to kill everyone”. I remember my heart skipped a bit and this thought terrified me as I had never thought about anything like this before and I thought “Oh my god no you’d never want to do that” and I quickly forgot about it as I was with my friends and I got distracted. The next day I continued that documentary at home by myself as we didn’t completely finish it and they thought returned “what If I wanted to become a serial killer” and again I was completely terrified. I was terrified that this thought meant something and I kept asking myself why do you keep thinking about that and I couldn’t get it out my head. I then kept thinking about this thought for about a week and I kept wondering why I was so obsessed and kept thinking about it. I remember thinking to myself “what if you are thinking about it so much because deep down you actually want to do it?” I remember this made me burst into tears because I’ve have always been such a caring and kind person and I’d never want to hurt anyone I can’t even hurt a spider if it’s in my house I have to remove it careful lol! After obsessing over these thoughts for about a week I returned back to school where I got completely distracted and didn’t have these thoughts for about 4 months! I then remember getting a scary thought again 4 months later when I was watching the news with my mum, dad & brother and on the news was the story about I think terrorist attack in London where someone had stabbed a couple of people and I remember watching it thinking “oh my god this is awful, I can’t believe things like this happen” etc. I then remember a random thought popped into my head and it was “what if that happened to me and I went crazy I went round and stabbed people” I remember this thought made me cry and I had to leave the room and my family and I went up to my room and I started crying and I thought to myself “why the hell would you think of that” and I kept telling myself “it’s just a thought you know you’d never do that” and the thought actually passed and I didn’t think of it again. I then didn’t have any harm intrusive thoughts until now. I hadn’t had bad obsessive thoughts for about 5 months since now. About a month ago I watched a video called “reacting to the scariest 999 calls” and I really wish I hadn’t but it didn’t even enter my head that this could trigger my intrusive thoughts. One of the calls in the YouTube video was a serial killer who after every kill rang the police to tell them he couldn’t help it but he just kept killing people. This again absolutely terrified me and I straight away thought to myself “what if that happens to me and I can’t help myself and I just want to kill people” I straight away turnt off the video and my heart was beating so fast. I remember I straight away burst out crying and I just kept thinking to myself “what if that happened to me” and “what if I become a serial killer” and “what if I want to do that deep down but I don’t want to admit it”. That last thought was the one that triggered my anxiety the most because I believed that if I’m thinking this it just mean something and maybe I actually want to do it even though these are genuine fears and things i fear happening so much. The next day I woke up and straight away these thoughts popped into my head again and stayed through out the whole day and the whole next week. As the weeks past and I kept worrying and obsessing over these thoughts the worse and worse they got and I literally could not get them out of my head. After a week of worrying about becoming a serial killer my thoughts then moved on to another set of worries. As we are in a global pandemic and we are in quarantine I am quarantining with my mum, dad and brother I remember I got a thought “what if I just went downstairs and grabbed a knife and just stabbed all my family isn’t there stories of teenagers doing that? What if that happens to me and I do that” This thought made me feel so sick and I literally could not stop crying and again I started to obsess over it. I then started to feel weird when I picked up knives because I was having these horrible intrusive thoughts about stabbing family members that literally disgusted me. I also had thoughts about “what If I just took a knife out with me without even thinking and I stabbed random people when I was out.” I literally couldn’t touch knives for a week straight and if I didn’t I felt extreme anxiety because I had fear I was going to act out these thoughts and I just felt so so so scared I can’t explain. The more I worried and obsessed the worse they got and quickly. I remember I’d just be watching a video on YouTube of a random girl and I’d think “omg she is so pretty” and then out of nowhere my brain would go “I wanna kill her” and then I’d think “NO YOU DONT WHAT THE HELL AND WHY THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING THAT THATS HORRIBLE AND DISGUSTING”. I could also just be talking to my mum and having a normal conversation and my brain would go “I wanna kill her” out of nowhere which made me feel physically sick as I’d never want to do that and I love my mum and these thoughts honestly just made me cry straight away. I also had a fear I would just randomly snap and hurt someone so I worry that I’d argue with my mum and just out of nowhere lose control and hurt her. I argued with my mum over something and I got angry and I thought “what if I got angry and I hurt her” which made me so upset and then straight away again after that thought I got another random out of now where “I wanna hurt her” thought which just I don’t even know to explain but those are the intrusive thoughts that scare me the most. I then turnt to my dad as he is always so understanding and he knows I’ve always struggled with really bad anxiety. I opened up about these thoughts and worries and fears I was experiencing and he laughed at me. He said these thoughts were simply irritational and did not at all fit with who I am and my character. He reminded me that they were just triggered by the scary video I watched and that just because it happened to someone in a YouTube video does not mean it’ll happen to me. He said I also don’t have it in me to kill or hurt someone as I am caring and kind and that not to let these scary thoughts get to me. Opening up about seeking reassurance actually made these thoughts a lot worse and more obsessive. I thought by opening up about these thoughts I’d feel better and reassurance from my dad would help but it only helped for about 3 hours then the thoughts came straight back and they started to come back worse. I was out with my mum and there was police near by and I remember thinking “what I’m an awful person for having these thoughts and I need to go and confess them to the police so they lock me up.” and when I was out I remember thinking “what if I have a knife on me and I don’t know” and “what If I brought a knife out with me and I didnt realise and I just stabbed someone” and “what if I brought a knife out because I secretly want to do it” and I remember I started crying so much in public and I thought I needed to confess my scary and horrible thoughts to the police because I couldn’t be trusted and I’m an evil person. I then remember coming home and I just thought to myself “why do you keep thinking of such horrible things” and “do I actually want to do these things?” I also remember thinking “I must want to do these things if I’m even thinking about it” and I then got a rush of thoughts like “I wanna kill someone then I’m horrible person if I’m thinking this” and these thoughts kept telling me “I wanna kill someone” I then decided I couldn’t take any more so I contacted my therapist and told her all the thoughts I was having. She reminded me these thoughts were normal and it was just my brain getting all of my fears out. She said the more I think these thoughts mean something and that deep down they have a meaning or deep down I want to do them the worse and scarier they will get. She said to remind myself I can not control the first thing that pops into my head and when I get these scary thoughts I should write them down on a piece of paper then throw it away and just think these don’t meaning anything. She also said “Your wild imagination is normal its what enables us humans to be creative but sometimes this can be scary.” This calmed me down and I felt reassured as it was coming from my therapist. After talking to my therapist I started to feel better and everytime I had a thought I would just laugh write it down and bin it and remind myself they are normal and everyone gets them. But intrusive thoughts are like bullies so they came back worse and this time I could see myself doing these horrible thoughts in my head but I still tried to stay strong and reminded myself of what my therapist had told me. I then started googling these thoughts and it led me to intrusive thoughts and harm OCD which I literally relate to everything I have read online but of course I don’t want to self diagnose but I’ve already been diagnosed with anxiety and ocd comes under that. Dealing with these scary intrusive thoughts are so so hard. I will tell myself “I don’t want to do these things they just intrusive thoughts and my anxiety will make me worry that mean something but they don’t” but then my Anxiety and OCD will tell me “ maybe deep down I do want to do these things and I’m awful person” and “I want to kill someone these thoughts must mean something” I read online and my therapist has told that everyone has these thoughts but most people just don’t think they mean anything but no matter how hard I try I can’t help but think these thoughts mean something even though I’ve been told by my therapist my dad and online therapists that they don’t. I am so worried that deep down I want to act out these thoughts and that’s why I’m thinking about them. I’m so so worried that I’m a psychopath and a disgusting person and that I need to be locked up. As soon as I wake up I worry and it only goes away for a certain amount of time and these thoughts and worries come straight back. Please tell me there’s people out there that deal with this stuff too!! I’m here for you