Stress

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 ❤️

Idk if other people can relate to this because I’m also terrible at explaining my thoughts and feelings sometimes, but basically in the span of a month a bunch of really awful things have happened; my dog of 10 years died, my dad who I have a really bad relationship with started having severe seizures and doctors can’t find the cause of them but they’ve left me on edge all the time wondering if he’s about to have one again, my panic attacks have come back and even though they’re probably caused by the stress, they also just add to it. Now my moms stressed because her jobs been angry she’s been missing so much work and she’s the one who brings in all the money for our family because my mental health since shortly before the pandemic has been bad and I haven’t been able to work and my dad also has mental health issues so he’s on disability which for fellow Canadians you might know that you’re barely given any money to survive especially when inflations so bad. I’ve just felt like the world is against me and I get this terrible existential anxiety like maybe this IS a simulation and I’m being tortured for somebody’s entertainment. I know that sounds insane but it’s just so exhausting and it’s one thing after the other. I’m scared that maybe I’m meant to just never have a happy peaceful life

Good morning just wanted to vent a little so the theme I struggled/ still struggling with? I don’t even know if am or if it’s just not as bad or what but the theme I struggle with is Schizophrenia OCD and I’ve just been noticing I’m hyper vigilant of random thoughts ? Like I’ll be reading something on fb or watching tv and a random thought or word will pop into my head that has nothing to do at all with what I’m doing at the moment and also just remembering random memories too that have nothing to do with what I’m currently doing. I noticed it happens way more often when I’m stressed out or anxious. I’m pretty sure yesterday morning I got triggered and that’s when the random thoughts and everything started again. It’s just annoying because now that I know I struggle with that theme so I’m not thinking as often “oh I probably have schizophrenia” but I’m still too focused on the random thoughts and words that pop up and it won’t be anything bad at all actually I’ll just be random words that I heard earlier from like a show or movie or video I was watching. It’s just really annoying and kind of stressful I was just wondering if anyone has gone through this and has any tips ??