Hello, everyone! I’m looking for some advice. I was recently diagnosed with OCD, which cleared up a lot of questions I had about myself over the years, and I was wondering if anyone had experienced my particular dilemma. (Content warning: discussions of unwanted skin peeling/mild self-harm) In the past, I was really addicted to self-harm, ie. cutting. I’m currently 1,180 days clean (Woohoo!) from it, which is super cool. On the other hand, I’ve been engaging in skin peeling behaviors for as long as I can remember. I never did it in the way that I cut because I got no real joy out of it. It felt like an itch I simply had to scratch, even if it left my feet bloody and in pain. I would spend hours just sitting and peeling with tweezers because my brain told me I had to. If I felt a single piece of dry skin, I wouldn’t be able to think of anything else because my foot had to feel “smooth.” I have tried a bunch of methods to stop like wearing socks and having my friends hide my tweezers, but that doesn’t stop me from getting massive amounts of anxiety when I feel a flake on my foot. If I don’t peel, I can hardly breathe. This was a pretty big catalyst for my OCD diagnosis, as my therapist recognized the behavior as compulsive and not a form of intentional self-harm. I don’t get joy out of it; it feels like I have to or everything is bad. It’s been impacting my relationship recently. My boyfriend loves me and doesn’t want me to hurt myself, but sometimes the feeling is so strong that I simply can’t stop. When he tells me to stop, I get aggravated because I feel like a) it’s not a big deal (even though it really is), and b) it feels like he “doesn’t understand.” Please do note that he is extremely patient with me and we do love each other a lot; he just doesn’t want me to hurt myself, and when I’m in that locked mindset, I feel like I have to. Do y’all have any experiences with this? Are there any tips for countering your compulsions and quieting the thoughts? How has your OCD impacted your relationships, and do you have ideas for good open communication? Any and all input is helpful; I appreciate it more than you know.

I have just recently realized that I had SO OCD. This began whenever I was watching porn and had an intrusive thought about the guy in the porn. It was more minor at first, it was a majority of what I was thinking about throughout the day but it didn’t feel as distressing at first. If I had downtime to think about it, it would affect me but if I was just going about my day I wouldn’t notice it. I began going through the compulsions of checking myself. This lasted for a while until another obsession occurred. Then it seemed as if my SO OCD took a step back. I would have flare ups but they would seem to pass. Recently, I had a very bad night of constant compulsions and looking at pictures and imagining things to check myself. After that night it was very distressing, it affected me to the point where people around me began to notice and ask me if I was okay. One of the big reasons I was so upset was my girlfriend, we have been together for over 3 years and I want to spend the rest of my life with her. I was thinking “Oh my god, if I am gay I can never be with her.” I would sit and cry about it thinking I would lose her and that might life would change because I was gay. I finally had enough and talked to her and my parents. We did some research and I was so shocked to find out that I had a form of OCD, it was like a weight being lifted off my shoulders just knowing that other people have been where I am and that I’m not gay. However, I may have naively expected the compulsions and obsessive thoughts to go away now that I knew I had an actual problem. But I found that the compulsions and thoughts were still there and I was going to put some effort into getting better. I have researched and now know what to do when experiencing intrusive thoughts, yet I still have been performing the compulsions which is just feeding into the OCD. I find myself having intrusive thoughts and then start performing compulsions to see if they are true. What really bothers me is when I have an intrusive thought that tells me that I do like something. But when I think about it I have no desire to pursue those thoughts. However when I feed into the compulsions they just seem to feed into each other. It is like my OCD ignores all the things that I know I like and goes straight to panic mode. I am also trying to do ERP and am going to start doing my best to get better. Does anyone have any tips for not performing the compulsions no matter how anxious you are feeling and no matter how real the intrusive thoughts seem to feel?

I’m a good man and I know that. My OCD revolves around relationships. While dating someone a truly enjoy, I find myself needing to compulse everything on my mind or else I feel like I’m being a liar or keeping secrets. I also am pretty confident I suffer from false memory ocd. I don’t like to put a label on things but I’m 99.9% sure I do. My compulsions a lot of times come from things I’m not even sure are real. The more thought I put into them, the more I start to believe they are real. One of the worst compulsions I had in my relationship was I had a thought “what if I find my ex more attractive” and “what if I thought the sex with them was better”. I ended up compulsing these things to my gf. After lots of time to think and get a ahold of myself I was able to remind myself that these things weren’t true and I was just in a downward spiral. There was a 2-3 month period where every time I was relieved of something then I would instantly think of something else. These compulsions have caused insecurity in my gf and I feel like a terrible person. Never meant to hurt her at all and was just trying to find a sense of relief. While I know it is not true, I can’t fix things with words and I feel terrible. I would love to hear from people with tricks and strategies that can help. I love my gf and want to fix things and understand this is not a relationship fixer app but I would like to know what are some ways you are able to deal with these kind of things.

Hey guys! My boyfriend has said recently that he doesn't know if he's strong enough to continue with our relationship because of my OCD. He wants to see me overcome my symptoms and learn to live a healthy life with OCD, but my anxieties and obsessions are starting to really affect his life. I understand his reasoning, it's hard to see someone you care about struggle with OCD, especially when it starts to affect you too. I'm asking for tips to deal with my compulsions in the relationship. I HAVE to know the answer to things and sometimes that leads into arguments because even with apologies and discussions I can't let things go, even if they genuinely don't matter or are miniscule issues we have. It's a healthy relationship otherwise but I feel horrible because it's impacting him so negatively, that's the absolute last thing I want to happen. I care for him deeply and he cares for me too, so I don't want my OCD to be a reason we break up but I fear it's headed in that direction. I'm starting therapy soon, but until then what are some things I can do to stop my ROCD from impacting him? I know sitting in the guilt and anxiety of not completing my obsessions will help, but I'm wondering if there are other things I can do to maybe remedy some of the damage already done.