**tw; mentions of pocd and harm ocd** Sorry in advance for the long post. I feel as if I should address pocd, because talking about it to people who understand seems to help me a lot. I’ve always had OCD, however, I didn’t get this particular theme until I was 17 (I’m 19 now) and a senior in high school. Pedophilia was briefly mentioned in my psych course, and my brain went absolutely nuts telling me “what if I’m capable of being that.” Similar things have happened in my past; OCD tricked me into believing I was a murderer when I was around 7 because of crime segments on the news, and OCD later tricked me into thinking I could be a serial killer, but pocd arguably is the worst theme to have and all of you that have it are literally the strongest people alive. On top of that, I’ve only ever been attracted to older adults, yet this theme still persists. I just want to go back to the version of me that I was before I got this theme. If I had a do over in life I would have never taken that course, it straight up ruined my life. I will literally take any other theme over pocd at this point honestly. Thank you for reading if you’ve gotten this far, you’re a very patient person lmao bless.

(Long post warning) Hi, I’ve been struggling with severe OCD for six years now. it started in 2019 with my theme being getting sick/emetophobia. it devastated my life. I almost didn’t graduate high school from it. I remember washing my hands for three hours one day until they were nearly bloody while crying and asking why I could not stop doing it. I remember id have to write and rewrite sentences when I did my English homework and that’s why I nearly failed that class. I remember how I would spend up to thirty minutes to an hour pacing the halls of my apartment while my mom was asleep until I neutralized the thoughts about throwing up and I could finally go to bed. I don’t know when it happened, but my theme switched. Sometimes in late 2020 or early 2021, it switched to POCD. It started with a single thought, and I focused on it and it’s been my theme since then for four years. It has been absolutely destroying me. I feel so disgusted and lost and just tired. My compulsions are severe now. I thought they were bad before, but now they’re ten times worse. I can’t eat, drink, change my clothes, walk, or even do things on my phone normally. I’ve developed so many mental compulsions that it’s so intricate and complicated yet at the same time I’ve done them so much that they’ve become normal. An example I have is if im putting on a shirt and I have a “bad” thought, I have to take it off and put it back on two more times (that’ll make it 3 times I put the shirt back on - odd numbers are my safe number). I have to have a good thought on the third time otherwise I have to take it off and put it on two more times to make it five times I put on that shirt. If not that then I just put on a different shirt because the original is now tainted with my bad thought. I can’t open apps on my phone. It’s with the numbers again. If I open TikTok once while having a bad thought - I have to close it and open it two more times and so on. Sometimes I do it up to 30 times. So I just don’t do things usually. I don’t turn on the TV because I know I’ll redo it. I don’t open a book or grab it off my shelf because I’ll have to repeat the action. I can’t even lay in bed without getting up and redoing it even if im exhausted. I just feel so helpless. I don’t know what to do. I feel disgusting and even now my minds screaming at me that I am dirty and what I think is true. I just wish I was free of this, I wish I could just live my life. I’ve wasted hours and days because of my compulsions. I mask it so well around my friends. I don’t do them in front of anyone or I’ve learned to hide it well. But when im back home alone, it goes haywire. I just want to live again.

I've never shared anything on here before but I read a lot and I will say I am thankful for this community. I have had OCD my whole life. When I was a child I remember having thoughts in my head that made me uncomfortable, although I couldn't remember what they all were. I would neutralize them with a word. I would have nightly confessions to my mom. I do remember a very specific intrusive thought about God that made me panic and I remember exactly where I was. I would wash my hands until they bled to "prevent" something bad from happening. I developed sexual Instrusive thoughts of my brother being romantically interested in me and it scared me so much, I always fought with him for the imagined fear that played in my mind. I have a bit of harm OCD and my biggest nemesis is POCD. I am in ERP therapy but my mind WILL not let me do what I need to work on because I'm living in constant fear or what if this isn't just OCD. I cut out my compulsive prayer after a thought, but my big one is mental checking. I have to gauge the perfect reaction to a thought to figure out I don't feel any way about it. My mind puts myself or children in situations to check how I feel and it's constant. I can't even call that intrusive anymore, it's an automatic compulsion. One "compulsion" I find interesting and wanted some insights on is when I see an adult on tv talking, I imagine them as a child. Not even sexually. Just how they might have acted as a child that led them to their characters personality. I also have trained my mind to think sexual relationships with adults are "dangerous" because they used to be kids. My mind will not stop ruminating, will not stop trying to show me proof of my obsession. I have dreamed of finding life since I was 9, I identify as a straight female, always interested in adult men. I've struggled with this theme since my early 20s and it started out so little, with just random words and images that I dismissed away with my compulsions but now it has spread and over taken my mind with excessive doubt.

this is a long post, so just skip to the bottom if you only want to see my question pocd has been one of my themes for about 15 yrs now. i used to be so scared i would hurt a kid or that i was sexually attracted to kids which was reinforced by groinals. i'm at the point now where i know without a doubt that i'm not sexually attracted to kids and will never hurt a kid, and i very rarely get groinals anymore however since i overcame that part of pocd, now my ocd has latched hard onto worrying other ppl will think i'm a p*. for example, yesterday i was carrying my paddleboard to the boat launch, and a grandpa and his granddaughter were walking near me. i purposefully wasn't looking in their direction, but then the guy commented on my paddleboard. the girl started talking to me too about how she also had a paddleboard and was telling me all about it and i responded enthusiastically to her comments, like "heck yea," and "that's awesome." the guy was still included in the conversation and i replied to him enthusiastically as well. when we got to the boat launch, i told them to have a good day and the guy said "yea you too" and my ocd was immediately like "he thought that interaction was so weird, he probably thinks you're a p*" when i got in the water, i purposefully made sure i was rowing in the opposite direction of them (which conveniently was the direction i planned on going anyway). occasionally i would glance back to see where they were to make sure he didn't think i was following them and my ocd was like "he knows you're staring at her bc he thinks you're a predator." so i made a show of looking behind me in the other direction to make it seem like i was just looking around. i tried to ground myself and focus on the water and my breathing and used my erp skills and within a few minutes they were completely off my mind i'm wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience with overcoming the main obsession just to have the ocd double down on a different part of the theme? how did you handle it? i know i'll be able to overcome this just like i overcame my previous compulsions, but rn i'm frustrated that i worked so hard and my ocd pretty much laughed and gave me the finger lol