Hi everyone. I want to share my story here cause I think you might understand. I got triggered over something very stupid. I noticed that my brain is not focused and the thoughts are bothering it. I didn't give it much attention. the next day the same thoughts came to bother me.. this went on for a couple of days untill I had enough so I decided to push away the thoughts when they came. This led to a chaos in my head and It got to the point that I didn't know what to do. If I left my brain for itself It would bother me and would not let go and If I fought the thoughts It would just get worse. So I made a decision (which made sense to me at the time for some reason) to force myself to be focused all the time and not get distracted by the thoughts. This meant I was putting a lot of pressure on my self since I was afraid of leaving my brain for itself cause I was very afraid of it (I had a history of my brain locking on some things constantly for months and It was very though). I kept living this way for two months and at a certain point I had a breakdown cause I couldn't take it any more. I again fell into the loop of trying to remove the thoughts from my head (my mental ritual) to not have any annoying thoughts and stop the thoughts from making me lose my focus (due to this whole thing. I developed an obsession about not losing my focus!) . It got to the point that I was doing this mental ritual every second of every day and It became very automatic :(. From that point it took me two months to be able to stop doing the mental rituals, which I did by looking at the frame of my glasses each time I had the temptation to do the rituals. this stopped me from doing weird stuff in my head and I came out of my head. Unfortunately after I put an end to doing the rituals I noticed that I was extremely depressed and was experiencing depersonalization and derealization. I am depressed to this day (two months after stopping the rituals) and I feel like an alien on this planet. I feel like I'm not understood and I feel like I suffered so much for something that didn't need suffering. I'm afraid I might get to the point of blaming myself for not being able to not be strict on my brain and just let go. I'm Afraid of getting to the point of wanting to end myself. I know I did my best in that situation but that doesn't stop me from the fear. I would like to hear about your thoughts.

So, I know my capacity to get fixated on things. And it's normally something that's relatively remote but, my latest issue is really getting to me and I was wondering if people have any advice. I'm avoiding getting too into specifics, as I don't want this to get reassurance-y but, in essence.. I came to the realisation recently that people who I'd been "friends" (feels like the wrong term now) when I was younger were not very nice people, and normalized a lot of very unpleasant behaviour towards other members of the group. They really normalized it, sold themselves as figures of authority, as older and more responsible and grown-up than others, and looking back, they acted horribly. And coming to this realisation, that I'd been manipulated into just accepting their behaviour has just... broken me. My OCD has latched onto it and I can't stop feeling irreversibly tainted by it. I've talked to others about it, and they've reassured me, told me it's not a big deal and that I hold myself to too high a standard, but none of that sticks. I feel better for a bit, then think 'Maybe when you told them you were skewing it to make yourself look better' or 'Did you leave out a crucial detail'. I keep ruminating over and over, trying to remember exactly how everything played out, trying to figure out if I fed into the behaviour, if I did something bad myself (because y'know, I feel like I was accepting of it at the time, so what does it say about my own values?). I know I need to stop doing all this if I want to improve, but then some part of me keeps saying 'So, you're just going to let yourself off the hook then?' Normally, I can rationalize my own fears to some degree, assure myself something won't happen, but the realness of the situation, and the fact I only came to understand the reality of it because the thought had been bothering me means it feels so much more all-encompassing. I know confessing in itself is a compulsion, but I keep feeling that if I'm not I'm somehow concealing what I 'really am' from others around me, and any positive interactions are me deceiving them in some way. I feel like I can't enjoy anything in life right now, and a good part of me feels I should not enjoy it ever again. If anybody has any advice on it, I'm all ears. Or even hearing if you relate to these feelings, I might appreciate the solidarity at least.

Hey everyone, First time posting here! Wanted to share my story for some support but also to hopefully make others feel less alone. In short - my ROCD has made such a mess of my personal life. I was in a great relationship until spring of last year, at which point we separated mainly due to my ROCD. I struggled heavily with OCD about 10 years ago (harm based intrusive thoughts, sexual orientation ocd, etc). It took a lot of work but I was able to mostly overcome my struggles and truthfully, hadn’t given ocd much thought since then. I thought I was cured. And then 10 years later I am in a very fulfilling relationship with a girl I really love, but at about the year mark in my relationship things really changed. She wanted to have a conversation about next steps (moving in, marriage, kids, etc) and at that point my brain just went into panic mode and the ocd took over. From that point on, I was constantly scanning for red flags, felt very reserved when it came to any sort of statement or commitment and tended to avoid anything that would indicate I was committed to a long term future. It was not that I didn’t love it was just that my ocd was doing anything to keep me from making a big commitment. It eventually got a point where we had a big conversation about breaking up or staying together and my OCD convinced me that it was safer and that I would do less harm to her if we ended things, which was incredibly devastating to me. At the time I felt like my obsessing over small red flags were normal and that I needed to protect myself. I just had no clue it was ROCD. I spent the next 8 months missing her and kicking myself for my mistakes, and I eventually got the courage to reach out and see if she’d be willing to talk again, which she was. But the problem is, at this point I still didn’t know it was ocd. So when we talked again I was still plagued by ROCD as all the same thoughts and feelings came flooding back. We tried to talk through things but once again I was unable to make any sort of commitment to the future so it went nowhere. Once again, I am feeling very sad and angry at myself for not being able to handle ROCD. I feel like I let it control me twice and has robbed me of a lot of happiness and hurt someone I care very much about. I understand it’s probably not best to just look at ourselves with anger and guilt all the time but it’s hard not to when you feel like you just caused so much harm. Anyone feel like they can relate? Or if anyone is going through something similar I am happy to chat as ROCD can really be tricky. Thanks

Hi everyone, I haven’t posted in a while—about 6 months—but I’m really struggling and need some help or advice. I thought I had healed from all of this, or at least I was doing so much better. I have never felt this before but it feels like I’m slipping back into something I can’t control. Right now, it feels like I’m stuck in a bad reality. It’s like I’m trapped with my dad in one reality, and I’m trying to get back to the other where I’m with my family, but I can’t. It’s so hard to explain, but everything around me feels unreal, and my mind keeps telling me I’m stuck. It feels so real, and I don’t know how to get out of it. It’s like I’ve been transported to another world, and I can’t break free. nd now I’m scared I’ll never come back to the “good” reality I had before. and I genuinely believe this. I’ve been struggling with these thoughts about spiritual realms, the devil, and spiritual warfare. My dad has always talked about these things, and he’s gone through psychosis before. He’s also had a history of doing a lot of drugs, and now I’m terrified that I might end up like him. I fear that I’m somehow becoming like him, trapped in that same mental space he’s been in. He talks about spiritual stuff that scares me, and I can’t shake the thought that I might be losing myself the same way he did. I know this might sound weird, but I feel like I’m getting closer to that line, and I don’t know how to stop it. I keep feeling like I’ll never come back to the way things were, like I’ll always be stuck in this distorted reality. I’m afraid of losing myself, especially in my faith. I believe in God, but my thoughts and fears about all of this are making it hard to feel connected to Him. I feel so distant from God right now, and it’s hard to see how this can change. Has anyone else experienced something like this—feeling like you’re trapped between realities, afraid of becoming someone you don’t want to be, or struggling with fears like this? How did you cope? I just need some hope that I can get through this and come back to a better place. I’m scared, and I feel like I can’t escape this. Any advice would really mean a lot right now.