I have this old friend I became friends with online at like 15-16 years old and they are a bit younger than me. I’m 18 and having a younger friend just triggers the pocd I have and I kind of don’t want to be friends with him anymore unless he’s 17. I don’t know if I should talk to him about this because I don’t want to ghost him as a friend cause I been through that shit. I don’t know what to do. We been friends for a long time.
It sounds like the OCD bully is trying to get you to leave your friend, but I would be hesitant to do that, as that is a compulsion. I would recommend ERP and talking to your ERP therapist about how to build exposures around this topic/friendship, so you don't lose your friendship!
@Barbara Windeknecht Can I PLEASE PLEASE get some advice?
@Anony1314 - I can't provide therapy in this format but I can do my best to give you some guidance. What is your question?
@Barbara Windeknecht I did speak with my therapist last week during our session about this. She said it's all OCD, but I have a hard time trusting that. I'm a Christian mom who feels like I've ruined my life. All I've ever wanted to be was a good mom since the day my daughter was born, and now I feel as if I have ruined everything. My daughter was laying across me and every time I breathed a certain way I was getting a groinal sensation. I kept breathing like that anyways (ugh idk why), and then my mind told me I had hurt her that I might as well do something else because what's more. So idk why or what overcame me other than the thought of doing it and causing another feeling but it came across my mind to elbow her, and I elbowed her crotch or side area. Which caused another groinal sensation. Then I began FREAKING smooth out. Then I've been stressing since. I feel like as a mom I don't deserve to be hers anymore. Idk what overcame me but my therapist says it's all OCD. PLEASE tell me if I am a monster. Did I do anything wrong here? I was doing SO well! Is this OCD? Why did I give into my thoughts? Why didn't I ignore it?
@Barbara Windeknecht I'm sorry
@Barbara Windeknecht Hello
@Barbara Windeknecht I'm sorry again. Are you still there
@Anony1314 - I am really sorry to hear you are experiencing so much distress. As your therapist said, the OCD Bully will often fight back really hard when we start to make progress, so it is normal to see an influx in symptoms. What you are describing is very common for POCD. Please keep taking this back to therapy, as reassurance seeking is not going to be helpful to defeat that OCD Bully. Keep up with your ERP exercises!
@Anony1314 - I can't provide you any reassurance, so just reflect back to what your therapist said!
sounds like a completely normal age gap, especially for friends, i think your brain is giving way to much weight to this
@xyzwqr I figured out he’s the same age as me so we good 🙏🏻
@1000anonymous1000 lol, good
Hey, so I wanted to ask about something that is trying to bother me right now. I just thought to come on here before letting my mind ruminate over and over and over. So a year ago when I was 22, I did not have many people to talk to aside from my roommates who were either not home during the summer or just to themselves so I decided to try out Omegle. I talked to a few different people on there, but there’s two people in particular that kind of made me worried. There is this one girl I was talking to from Canada and she told me the story about her and her friends smoking weed, and I told her about how my female roommate used to sleep in my bed. But the way I told her that was by asking for her Instagram so I could DM her that rather than say it out loud because my roommate was in the next room. At some point during our conversation, she told me that she was 16, and I’m not even sure how we came about that but she told me. Before I continue, we were not flirting at all. We were just sharing stories, that was it. My intention was to not flirt at all with anyone because of age and the fact that they probably nowhere near me. Also, I just kind of thought it would be weird too. But now I can’t remember if she told me her age before I told her about my roommate or after I told her about my roommate, but I feel like it was before because I kind of felt like I should’ve unfollowed her after. And what made it worse is that somehow my roommate saw her Instagram handle and followed her as well. Another instance was when this girl was being very goofy and playing the character and I was joking back and I ended up being invited into their Instagram group chat, where I found out they were also 16 so without saying anything, I left the group chat. So my worries if this was inappropriate or was it just a conversation that I probably should’ve cut short. I’m not sure but it’s starting to worry me. And just for context, I have no idea that girl or anybody else since that day and it NEVER went sexual at all. So yeah, that’s the story
when I was 15 soon to turn 16, I met this girl in a IG group chat made by our mutual friends. We started talking and eventually we started flirting and talking sexual towards each other, though eventually we stopped talking because she was being really weird. A couple months later In July of 2024 my friend found out that she was actually 13 and that she lied to me about her age. It's been 10 months since l've found out and I still feel so disgusted in myself. I had my suspicions at the time but I let them go since she said she was 16 turning 17. I was completely oblivious trusting someone I only knew online especially since i've never seen their face either. i'm struggling on what to do since i've been suffering with POCD since I was 15. Till this day I still feel weird and disgusted in myself because of that. But it feels ironic since i'm sexualizing someone that's 2 years younger than me and I waited to confirm she was around my age range to sexualize her. I feel so weird and guilty about it idk what to do
Long story short he’s one of many subjects of my ROCD intrusive thoughts (i’m in a committed relationship) but we were once decent friends in college. We’re mutuals online bc we’re both artists. I recently ran into him while visiting campus, tried to reach out to catch up and got ghosted after expressing that I can sense he doesn’t care for the friendship (he kept flaking and I’m worth more than that lol). Told my bf, he seems indifferent . But he also doesn’t know how bad my ROCD can get. Should I just cut the dude off? I feel that’d provide a quick temporary relief from the ROCD problems, but I also am sad for the friendship. He helped and supported my bf and I’s relationship when no one else did. Plus he’s not the source of the ROCD, my brain is. Cutting out every trigger won’t fix it.
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