Hey all. I've been dealing with my OCD for about 2 1/2 years and treatment had been going well. Lots of ups and downs, but I had things under control. Well yesterday I had the worst relapse of my life. It feels like I'm back to square one and my obession switched. I called my therapist but she doesn't have office hours during the weekend. Soonest I'll hear anything is Monday. I'm really scared and lost right now.

I’ve recently been struggling a lot with OCD. I have had OCD for a long time I just didn’t realize it until more recently. About seven months ago I developed panic attacks one day randomly at work. I thought I was having a heart attack and went to the hospital where they told me it was just a panic attack and I assumed I would snap out and be better within a few days. However it didn’t. Here’s where it gets scary, I was staying at my then boyfriends house while dealing with blurry vision, anxiety attacks everyday, and more (unsure of what was going on). But at some point I saw my bfs (pew pew 🔫) on his table and it sent me into an anxiety attack after sudden thoughts that I was going to hurt myself with it. I begged him to put it away when I’m not looking so I didn’t know where he put it. He did. These thoughts lasted for about four days but began to go away. (I thought that was it and I would be back to normal). Unfortunately though I ended up moving back in with my family when we couldn’t get my panic attacks under control in time for me to get back to work and pay bills. However, coming home brought up a lot of trauma from when I was kid. My anxiety got worse but I didn’t have those thoughts again. About two and half months ago though, I got sick and went to the hospital where they gave me steroid pills and a steroid shot but sent me into some kind of psychiatric event. Ever since then though, I have been suffering from harm OCD, I have had moments of intense anger that I usually have to completely walk away and go on my own because of how intense they are, and it feels like it’s getting worse. Today I felt fine until about and hour and half ago where I started to dwell on the fact that my suicidal thought was influenced by my OCD and at the moment my OCD is at the worst it’s been. This caused me to get suddenly really depressed and I started crying thinking about how I can’t handle this. I then saw a post talking about how suicide rates are high for people with this form of OCD and it made me question if I am mentally strong enough to pull through this. I fear that at times I’m getting worse. I have good days but I have a lot of bad days. Unfortunately this sent me into such a bad panic attack I went over to my nanas crying about how I can’t deal with this. I took a 0.25 mg Xanax which helped calm down the panic attack portion of it but my brain is still uncomfortably active. I guess I just need hope. I’m so saddened by this. It’s like my life took a total 360 in 10 months and got even worse since the steroid shot. Idk what to do about it. I can’t stop the spiral. I talk to two different therapist weekly and start more next week, making it 5 times a week. I feel no improvements…

My ocd has been at an extreme all time high the past 2 weeks and I am in dire need of some relief. I’m not sleeping right anymore. for context: I live in the south and found a springtail on my sheets about 2 weeks ago. This was like 2 days before our bug guy came and sprayed (it’s a normal maintenance thing here) so it’s a common bug down here and I’ve found them all over different areas of the house before. Finding it in my bed sent me on a bit of a spiral bc I started to doubt if it even was a springtail and that i was wrong and that it was a bed bug, not trusting my brain. It was a bad, sleepless night and carried over continuing feelings. Typical ocd stuff. Well two days later, I’m a nurse and I had a patient that actually had bed bugs. This wasn’t the first day they were here and I did not see any myself but it still freaked me out. There had one 2 founds after visitors came the day before. Of course I wore PPE in the room (coveralls shoe covers and hair net) going in and took everything off before exiting the room. When I came home I stripped in my garage and bagged everything down to my shoes. Threw everything in the wash and did multiple cycles. There were no other steps I could take but I still had a terrible night. Hours of ruminating and going back and forth about tracing my tracks, thinking of new ways I could’ve taken one home with me. Just checking everything. I was already on a spiral from the springtail. Having two such back to back triggering events for me so closely related has made me deteriorate significantly. I was already doing bad with my normal OCD and starting therapy here. I obsess over the thought of having bedbugs constantly and haven’t been able to sleep. I am constantly checking my bed while in it and can’t settle down. My bed is heavy too and I keep hurting myself lifting my mattress to check. But I need to check. I’ve become obsessed. I check everything and go down Reddit rabbit holes looking for new things. And of course, I talk myself into it every time. I can’t take it anymore, it’s bleeding off into other parts of my life like friendship and marriage because I am so high anxiety right now. I need relief so bad. I’ve never felt this unstable to be honest. I feel like even someone without ocd would be really struggling with this topic, nevermind me, with ocd to a point where I just started treatment. These aren’t even my normal intrusive thoughts and compulsive acts. It’s just taken on a life in the last week and I can’t find any sign that it’s going to slow down. when I think rationally I know I did everything right to prevent but I can’t shake it. 💔

Please help. I have felt so off/wrong all day. I constantly worry that the “bad guy” is going to get me. I have awful thoughts and I constantly want God to know that I don’t mean these thoughts. I am at a point in my therapy where I need to choose to use my ERP but it feels too scary. I then do compulsions, which makes the OCD worse, which makes me want to use ERP less. And the cycle goes on. I am currently sitting in my car crying because I feel so lost and exhausted. I’m not supposed to figure out my thoughts, but today I just went into a spiral of sadness and depression, thinking that I will always feel like this. When my thoughts got really bad at the end of the day, I tried to use ERP even though I was shaking and not believing my responses and I ended up feeling like I missed something and that I gave into the “bad guy.” I have no one to talk when I’m not doing therapy twice a week. I am alone and have no one to talk to when I am like this… please help