Hello, my name is Reef. I need help. I have a problem with toenail grooming since April 2017. I consulted a psychiatrist and was prescribed Ativan and Zoloft. The diagnosis was anxiety and OCD. Prior to April 2017, I was alright and normal. I would cut and file my toenails and move on to another task. I stopped the medication because of the side effects that made me sick. I am tormented by images of my toes and toenails non-stop which make me bend over to check them. It is exhausting and I cannot sleep well due to the non-stop nagging images. I consulted four podiatric surgeons to remove all my toenails so I did not have to cut and file them. I believe removal of my toenails would have resolved the problem. The podiatric surgeons declined my request. This condition is debilitating and affects my daily routine. I am existing, not living.

My ocd has been at an extreme all time high the past 2 weeks and I am in dire need of some relief. I’m not sleeping right anymore. for context: I live in the south and found a springtail on my sheets about 2 weeks ago. This was like 2 days before our bug guy came and sprayed (it’s a normal maintenance thing here) so it’s a common bug down here and I’ve found them all over different areas of the house before. Finding it in my bed sent me on a bit of a spiral bc I started to doubt if it even was a springtail and that i was wrong and that it was a bed bug, not trusting my brain. It was a bad, sleepless night and carried over continuing feelings. Typical ocd stuff. Well two days later, I’m a nurse and I had a patient that actually had bed bugs. This wasn’t the first day they were here and I did not see any myself but it still freaked me out. There had one 2 founds after visitors came the day before. Of course I wore PPE in the room (coveralls shoe covers and hair net) going in and took everything off before exiting the room. When I came home I stripped in my garage and bagged everything down to my shoes. Threw everything in the wash and did multiple cycles. There were no other steps I could take but I still had a terrible night. Hours of ruminating and going back and forth about tracing my tracks, thinking of new ways I could’ve taken one home with me. Just checking everything. I was already on a spiral from the springtail. Having two such back to back triggering events for me so closely related has made me deteriorate significantly. I was already doing bad with my normal OCD and starting therapy here. I obsess over the thought of having bedbugs constantly and haven’t been able to sleep. I am constantly checking my bed while in it and can’t settle down. My bed is heavy too and I keep hurting myself lifting my mattress to check. But I need to check. I’ve become obsessed. I check everything and go down Reddit rabbit holes looking for new things. And of course, I talk myself into it every time. I can’t take it anymore, it’s bleeding off into other parts of my life like friendship and marriage because I am so high anxiety right now. I need relief so bad. I’ve never felt this unstable to be honest. I feel like even someone without ocd would be really struggling with this topic, nevermind me, with ocd to a point where I just started treatment. These aren’t even my normal intrusive thoughts and compulsive acts. It’s just taken on a life in the last week and I can’t find any sign that it’s going to slow down. when I think rationally I know I did everything right to prevent but I can’t shake it. 💔

(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.

Hello last year I had gone thru a very rough time In my life where I needed to be put on Zoloft 50mg around march 2024. I was diagnosed with anxiety, depression and OCD. Ive been suffering from OCD since I was like 11 and depression since I was 19, but I never sought help until last year Im 27 because I knew I needed it to help me get thru life. I was on 3 months on Zoloft and I went to a trip to Miami which honestly helped me so much, I honestly attribute that trip to Miami in healing me more than the Zoloft it self. I met my current girlfriend there. After coming back I felt like a new person. I still kept taking the Zoloft 50mg until late April (2025) this year when I decided to tapper down to 25mg by my self without a doc recommendation, I didn’t feel anything during the month of may this year until like may 30th when I woke up in a panic and I felt like I was back at square 1 before I started Zoloft. Mind you ive been thru some life changes, I recently graduated RN school and my gf moved in with me. Ever since the end of may I’ve been very anxious, my OCD is on high gear and my depression too. I went back up to 50mg I’m seeing a new doc, my questions is has anyone gone thru a similar situation? If so what helped you and how long did it take you to stabilize ?