Hello everyone, this is my first post on here. I hope you are all well. I’m currently experiencing what I call ‘anticipated regret’ and the only way I can describe it is having thoughts such as: “If you don’t do X thing then you will regret it later in life and not feel fully fulfilled.” It’s giving me quite a bit of anxiety as I just want a peaceful life without worrying about experiences I haven’t had. I hope this makes sense!
Congrats on your first post! :) Glad to have you in the community I would say go with your values- do what you normally would and what you feel in your heart is right to do. Any doubts about it is usually OCD just babbling in your ear and it shouldn’t be paid attention to. Passively agreeing with the feared thought is what tends to shut down OCD’s arguments faster. I would briefly say “yeah OCD I will do this thing and I will regret it later. You’re sooo right, OCD!” And then instead of ruminating on that, I would use mindfulness and a healthy distraction instead- to shift my focus elsewhere
@OneDayAtATimee Thank you so much. I’m definitely trying to brush the thought off but it’s so hard haha!! My main thought sort of stems from not feeling ‘bisexual’ enough because I haven’t been with many women before
@emilycore Oh 100% it’s definitely veryyyy difficult to do 😅 The urge to compulse is so incredibly strong. The good news is that it does get easier over time and you will feel relief and less of an urge to compulse the more you practice that :) I’m confident in your abilities. I encourage you to try out ERP, if you are able to
@OneDayAtATimee Thank you so much! One last question 😅 Do you know any sort of ERP I could do in response to the aforementioned thought of not feeling ‘bisexual’ enough?
@emilycore - Yeah no problem! :) Yeah I know of a few ideas. Just keep in mind to resist compulsions during all of these exposures: I remember seeing online cancel culture drama about celebs (such as Cardi B & Billie Eilish) "queer baiting" and that could be really triggering for you. So watching videos about that could be good ERP. You can write down this one sentence on a piece of paper "I will never live up to the expectations of being bisexual enough" and read it until your distress goes down by half. ^When that exposure becomes easier, you can then write a worst case scenario script about what would happen if you're "not bisexual enough." Write the worst possible things you could think of.
@OneDayAtATimee Thank you so much you’re such a gem. I will try this and hopefully I can come back with good news!!
@emilycore You’re so welcome thank you as well! 😇🫶 Yes feel free to let me know how things turns out after a few days 👍 I’m interested in hearing
Don't worry!! We r all with you... 🤗I sometimes feel like this but they don't bother me much... But other people who can relate sure can help you in this platform
It makes perfect sense and you’re in a good place to get that going for yourself. Have you met up with a therapist yet? You can speak with one and discuss what you’d like to accomplish free of charge for the first session. It helps you to know if you’re in the right place for yourself and get to know the people here. I am one of those as well, that wishes they would’ve done something sooner in life, but i didn’t. We can’t live what we didn’t accomplish, we can only strive to accomplish what we still have the opportunity to. If you’re breathing and willing, you’re off to an awesome start to do just that🙂. I’m glad you’re here and i hope you find it is something that helps you see your worth. I promise you it’s immeasurable, go and see for yourself.
@Someonemaybe This is such a lovely reply thank you so much. I am with a therapist outside of NOCD and she’s lovely. I decided to come on here to find a sense of community :)
@emilycore Oh wow, thank you so much as well. I’m so glad i could share some positivity. That’s awesome that you have a good therapist indeed! It makes all the difference. I have found this to be such a wonderful and positive community. Seems people truly want to help people be better and that’s what it’s all about. Welcome and i hope you find this place to be one of your anchors when needed. It has been for me so far. Awesome to have you here 🙂.
ughhh i’ve been in this exact situation for the last few weeks. worrying so much over something that hasn’t even happened yet and thinking about how it will affect me. it’s driving me crazy :(
@curefan6 That sounds so rough :( I’m sure you have got the loveliest heart and I hope we can both find some clarity in the chaos
@emilycore thank you :) you as well
My last and almost life long theme/sub-theme largely subsided recently and my ocd felt like it wasn’t even an issue. Then I went on winter break from uni and being alone made my mind come up with a whole new topic to obsess over. TLDR on my fears, my advisor wouldn’t email me back for a while about signing up for classes so my mind started to worry “what if he doesn’t in time and you can’t enroll this semester and you lose this whole life you just built and all these new friends” So when that issue was resolved my mind found other scarier ways I could be uprooted from my current life and friends that I’ve grown so attached to. Then my mind remembered back when I was struggling with false memories and scrupulosity and I essentially made a post on a forum 2 and a half years ago saying I did something or was convinced I did something that I never actually did. Now I’ve been spiraling about someone finding it reporting me and I either get seen as a horrible person or arrested or something over something I never actually did but “admitted” to out of fear of going to hell. My mind won’t let it go and keeps finding new reasons for it to be “valid” “logical” or even inevitable. I feel like it’s just hanging over my head and I can never rest easy. Especially when I try to focus on my daily tasks or plan for the future I get this horrible flair up of “why plan for the future when this could come back in that future and you get uprooted from all of it” my mind won’t rest without certainty being uprooted won’t happen but certainty doesn’t exist, at least not with ocd. This sucks and I miss being care free.
Everyday I wake up, all my mind makes me think of is the stuff I’ve done in the past, like all day I’m in a constant cycle of judging who I used to be and it hurts so so much. I wish I never thought to do those things, I wish I had been more mature than how I was before, it’s really lowering my self worth and I don’t think I’ve ever felt this miserable before, like last summer was the worst because I was dealing with this shit, I about almost ended my life over it, and I thought it would get better, which it did, but it didn’t last but for a while. As soon as it became 2025 I was going through it again, having constant cycles of “I’m a good person” to “I’m the worst person imaginable” and I’m so sick of it because I just want to feel like the good person l like to imagine myself to be, but I can’t because of shit I did in the past that I obsess over. I’ve cried and screamed so much over it and it seems like it will never leave me.
I look back at various past events in my life where I said or did things that I feel really guilty, disgusted, and ashamed about. I replay them in my head for hours. I feel anxious about crossing paths with people that I've hurt or upset in the past or who perceive me badly, to the point that I will avoid going out in public as much as possible. I go out for work, errands, appointments, and occasionally to eat (even though those all give me a lot of anxiety), but I avoid community events where people might recognize me and I tend to isolate myself. The only people I see regularly are my boyfriend, my parents, and my coworkers. I live in a small community and I'm worried about people confronting me publicly and proving what a bad person I must be.
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