Hi all, I’m new to the app. I have OCD and anxiety. I am pretty new to my diagnosis- just 3-4 months- but knowing that there’s a label to how I feel is relieving. I also have dermatillomania (skin picking) which is one of my compulsions. I got put on medication- Zoloft- almost immediately after my diagnosis (I’m up to 200mg/day now). Something that has been coming up more frequently is my obsession that something bad is happening to my family. I won’t get into the details but I vividly imagine my parents, siblings, or friends being injured or dying. Can anyone who has experience in these areas give some tips? I feel pretty alone right now I’m how I feel and sometimes I feel like there’s something wrong with me.

hi everyone, i just joined and this is my first time really seeking help for my mental health. i’ve always thought i could handle the thoughts on my own but it’s getting harder every day and starting to becoming debilitating in some aspects of my life. i’m not educated enough on a lot of forms of OCD and i’ve never spoken to a professional (i plan to soon) but i think i may have some form of harm OCD? reading the descriptions of it and learning about others stories, i feel i can safely say i have experienced harm OCD, however the bulk of my thoughts don’t revolve around me hurting someone, instead i have very graphic and intrusive thoughts/ visions of my loved ones dying in all kinds of ways. I obsessively watch my boyfriends location as he drives because i need to be sure he is alive and moving. when he leaves i have to say the same prayer (i am not religious) like a mantra three times. if i see a loved one a “dangerous” situation, say standing at the top of stairs, stepping on rocks at the beach, leaning on a balcony, etc. i will have INCREDIBLY real and vivid images flash in my head of them dying. the images are so graphic and make me have a visceral physical reaction. some images have stuck with me for years and they will “flash” in my head all day, every day. almost every time i shower, walk by a curb, i have a split second image of me or a loved one tripping and hitting my head. i will be sitting on the couch and see the corner of a table and my whole body will shiver hard because i imagined slipping and hitting my head. sometimes this makes me stay up all night because i can’t control or stop the thoughts and i will have a panic attack. I also have always really bad thoughts revolving driving. i drive a LOT and luckily it hasn’t interfered with my ability to do so, but since i started driving almost ten years ago i have had the same little mantra that i repeat three times EVERY time i put the car in drive. i have several items in my car that can not leave or i am convinced something horrible will happen. this year i got a new car and i had horrible panic attacks and anxiety leading up, to the point where i almost considered backing out. i sobbed when i tried to Not transfer my “safety items” from my last car to my new one. i am proud to say that there were a couple items that i was able to throw out, not including a dead, petrified beetle (gross i know) that i have kept 3 different cars (for OCD reasons, im not gross) last thing for this post- for as long as i can remember, i do this thing where i poke my fingernails into my palms very hard until i feel pain so i can assure that im alive. kind of like a “pinch me im dreaming thing”. i will not cut my nails short because when i do, the poking doesn’t “hurt enough” so i cant reassure myself that im alive. i do it every time death is mentioned, i do it every. single. time. a semi truck is driving past me. i do it every time i have an intrusive thought, every time i see a motorcyclist, every time i feel “jinxed”, every time someone is driving too fast, etc. etc. etc. i did not expect to write so much in this first post, it just all kind of came out so if anyone has actually read this, thank you. i think i just want to know what this is and if anyone else has experienced something similar. thank you ❤️

Hello, I’m new to this app. I’ve always had an anxious brain, and I’ve had coping mechanisms for as long as I can remember. When I was a kid, from as early as I could spell, until I was probably early teens, I would constantly write words in my head along to the beat of music. It’s such a vivid memory because I never stopped doing it. The word had to perfectly match up to the lyric and I loved that it kept my brain busy. I grew out of that, but felt like good context. My anxiety increased drastically around ages 17-19, and I began therapy. I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety and panic disorder, due to having a panic attack nearly every day at that time. I overcame that as well, and now the panic attacks are every now and then, but the anxiety is constant, and some recent symptoms have led me to believe I might have some form of OCD. Maybe not. I’m trying to understand myself and get better so I joined this app to make sense of things. Lately I’ve been having really intense intrusive thoughts. I’m really embarassed and they make me feel like a bad person. Thoughts pop in my head seemingly out of nowhere. It will be an image of me harming myself or someone else in a really bad way. (Trigger warning) for example the other day I couldn’t shake the image of me putting a knife through my own forehead, although it’s not something I want to do. Or I’ll imagine someone killing me. I imagine my loved ones dying often. The thoughts feel so out of my control it’s insane. I hate them. Another persistent issue that isn’t as new is replaying social scenarios. I’m a hairstylist so this one is difficult since I meet a bunch of new people every day. I obsess over how I act and if people like me. I will impulsively say things all the time and they will haunt me for weeks. I question even my closest friends and family who show their love. I find myself so angry and numb and like I have so much built up emotion and a busy mind always. While doing my job I spiral really badly if any little thing goes wrong and it’s embarassing. I know there’s more but I can’t think of it now. I just want to feel better and like I’m not constantly battling my mind.

I'm new to NOCD and have been dealing with harm/suicidal, and Pure OCD for some time now. It started off being healthy related anxiety that led to compulsion where I would research information on an uncommon illness or something I thought I had. Now it has snowballed into intrusive thoughts and images of me killing myself in various ways or my wife. The former is what has been the most debilitating and hardest to shake. Recently I seem to find triggers almost every where I look. "What if I killed myself this way" if I see a kitchen knife or a bottle of pills. A friend talked about going to a gun range a while back and an image popped up of me being there and turning a gun to myself which is something I dont want to do. I love life and its so painful to go through thoughts that try to tell me otherwise. That particular image/thought has really stuck with me. I know about ERP and my therapist said I could rip the bandaid off and go to a gun range but it terrifies me. I don't own any weapons but I often think, "what if I buy one and im actually suicidal?" Just typing it makes me anxious. I'm wanting to start a low dose of Prozac which opens up another can of worms about worried my "overdose thought" will come true, on top of potential side effects. This is long winded but im looking for any advice to get through this. I know others are worse off than me but considering I've never been like this and it only started 6 months ago, I'm really struggling. Thanks everyone.