Been a rough one

In the last two days, I was deeply sad and unmotivated (If you read my posts, I think you noticed it). So, today, I woke up "better". It's just like I'm in a tiny moment of clarity. I'm so sick of this. It isn't true, but it won't leave me alone. I just feel mentally and emotionally exhausted. And when it comes back, it just feels so real. OCD screams that I'm just in denial, and it takes all my will to live, like it's taking my identity and ripping it to shreds. "What ifs" flood my mind. It puts a weight on my heart. It makes me believe I need to "come out". It takes my attention from other areas of my life. I am always in a bad mood. I mistreat my parents. I'm cold towards my colleagues. This lie is destroying my life, treatment is expensive, and I have no one to talk about this who would really understand. If it wasn't for this app, I'd be completely alone in this dreadful illness.

I’ve struggled for POCD for years, since I was 17 and I’m 22 now, about to be 23. I had other obsessions, HOCD being the second worst, but now even that doesn’t bother me anymore. When I developed POCD it was a very traumatizing day. I was just figuring out that I had OCD and researching pure O OCD and saw POCD listed underneath the types of obsessions. I was so freaked out by the possibility of that that I developed it. I ended up spiraling into a panic attack and watched videos on YouTube that had children in them in order to try and prove that I didn’t have POCD. But of course that just made it worse. I went to therapy and did ERT which made it a lot better, but even back then I was still uncomfortable talking about my groinal responses and false attraction responses so I don’t think I fully treated it. I was able to be fine for a long time, years, of me being able to be okay with dealing with POCD even when It popped up. It mainly only bothered me when I saw children in media for some reason but not in real life. Now it’s just both Oh and I’ve been a summer camp counselor since I was 15, so I’ve worked with kids every summer. I think POCD is especially difficult for me because I’ve always enjoyed working with kids and it deeply scared me.😭 It wasn’t until last summer that I started to notice it being more difficult to deal with again. Then I went through a rough patch in my life and since then it’s been way worse on and off again. I will go through the motions of feeling like “okay I’m just gonna think maybe, maybe not. I don’t care, I know myself so I’ll be fine. I’m a great person. I can handle this.” To something actually triggering me and me feeling this intense and gripping feeling of anxiety, like a sinking pit in my stomach and then it’s so hard to turn away from. I’ve tried doing ERT on my own but as soon as I stop I always feel like I move backwards. I just don’t know if I can ever move past this like I have with my other obsessions…it is so haunting and has traumatized me more than once. I’m working on seeing an OCD therapist, most likely through the NOCD app. So I am planning to do that as soon as I can, I just feel so frustrated right now…I’ve kept being triggered the past 2 weeks and I just want it to leave me alone. I don’t want to think about these things. I just want to focus on living my life. It’s so annoying and awful, and it makes me feel sick and so uncomfortable. It’s like telling someone to stop but they won’t; my brain just won’t stop even though I want it to. And my intrusive thoughts are paired with images, so it’s also like having something awful shoved in my face that I can’t turn away from because it’s in my mind. I just really felt the need to vent some of my feelings out…I’ve been going through a rough time again, had a lot of stress over college exams & projects, had a misunderstanding with my partner, got a random tooth pain, and also got screwed over on said project by my team members giving me awful scores for no reason. So yeah it’s just been rough 😔I will be going to the dentist soon. Ugh just so many bad things are happening and OCD just makes it feel worse. Sometimes I think what if the universe is punishing me for having POCD? Then I try to remember to be kind to myself instead. If you’re dealing with this you’re not alone ❤️

I’m so tired of constantly being in my own head. It’s so hard to explain to the people I love/ love me. I have pocd it started 2 years ago randomly when I was a live-in nanny. I literally got up and left one day. The person I worked for thought I was selfish for leaving but I couldn’t tell her I thought I was protecting her children. From then on I’ve had this parasite (aka ocd). I have hope that things will get better one day but it affects my everyday life and my relationships. I’m scared it’s going to be why me and my boyfriend break up. Which is terrifying because I love him. He knows about the pocd and still supports me. It’s hard to have intrusive sexual thoughts about kids. It gives me immense anxiety and depression. And now after 2 years of torture it’s starting to affect my relationship with my significant other. After 6 months of being with my boyfriend the thought “what if he reminds me of a young person and that’s why I like him?” popped up two days ago. Now I’ve been stressing ever since. I want to be free of this worry in my mind. I just want to feel free in general. I feel so awful everyday. Can anyone relate?