So my health/contamination OCD has been really bad lately, and I’ve realised that I’m not only afraid of physical illness (cancer, kidney stones, heart attacks, etc...) but I’m also afraid of getting other mental health disorders too, and I thought that I was the only one that done so but it turns out that I’m not? A lot of my health/contamination OCD comes from what I’ve seen other people go through in the past: I’m constantly checking for pains around my kidney area, whenever I get a chest pain I check for signs of a heart attack, and so on. But I’ve realised that my brain latches onto other people’s mental health disorders too and tries to convince me that I have them, or that I should have them. More specifically, because of thing I’ve seen others experience in the past (I won’t go into detail because it’s personal), I’m so afraid of schizophrenia. Not as a mental illness itself but the thought that I will get it/I will have it. I always hate saying this because I know it sounds incredibly selfish and absurd, but once I know a lot about an illness (physical or mental), my brain will just latch onto it and try to convince me that I have it, and when I tell myself that I don’t, my brain will THEN say that being “psychosomatic” is a thing and that if I think about it too much then I will get it. My brain will take all the symptoms of this one illness and analyse it, making everything I experience an entire clusterf*ck of “it could be x” or “what if it’s y?” or “what if you were experiencing z right now?” I think what I’d like to hear is other people’s experiences who relate to what I say, especially the “afraid of getting other mental health disorders” side of things, because I never really come across others who do the same thing. Thank you!!

Hi guys! I had really bad harm ocd about 2 years ago and I went through therapy and eventually got really good at handling it when it would pop up. The other day, I was scrolling on TikTok and came across a girl talking about a guy who was presenting a lot of schizophrenic symptoms but no one paid attention and got him help, he was having a lot of delusions, hallucinating, thinking everyone was out to get him, thought he was Jesus and his dad was the president and ended up doing horrific things. The day after that, I was dealing with some work drama and had the thought of “what if all my coworkers are against me and trying to get me fired”. That really stressed me out, cause I don’t normally think about them like that and I went down a rabbit hole of thinking that was the beginning of me developing schizophrenia, ended up googling stuff all night, taking tests, crying and seeking reassurance. I had a thought the other day “your dad is the president”, this one didn’t stress me out as bad as I knew it was just the video I had seen and it was an intrusive thought about it, and I also didn’t believe it. Today I was with some friends and I got a prize at a place we went and it said “lonely” on it. I do have my moments of feeling lonely and this week has been specifically trying so I had a thought like “oh someone’s out to get me cause I got this”. I know this isn’t logical and it wouldn’t make sense to just randomly get it if someone was truly after me and it was just a stupid prize at a random place, anyone could’ve gotten it. Im just struggling a lot with schizophrenic OCD and thinking I’m in the pre stages of it. In my good moments, I don’t think I am at all and it was all just sparked from the video I watched but in my bad moments, these thoughts feel real!! They really stress me out and make me feel like I’m going to lose my mind causing me to lose my job/ end up in a psych hospital/ never live a normal life/ end up alone, never see me my loved ones/ hurt my loved ones. I just want to feel normal and not like I’m about to lose my mind and everything I care about. Please help!!! Anyone else going through something similar and can help me get through this!

My current obsession is around mental health, specifically that I have undiagnosed Bipolar 2. Any changes in my mood are triggering and in my compulsive googling to make myself feel better (never works lol) I discovered that ocd and bipolar are linked in like 10-20% of cases?! So now I feel worse. Anyone else experience mental health fears?

Hello! I’m new here. Unfortunately I’m not able to afford a therapist but I’ve been doing a lot of research and I think a lot of my symptoms/thoughts align with OCD. I want to share some of what I experience and see if anyone else experiences the same and what resources helped you. I think I mostly experience contamination OCD. I’m constantly worried that something I do/touch is going to make me really sick and/or die. Especially with food, I’m constantly worried that I’ll accidentally have something on my hands when I eat, then I’ll touch the food and get that on the food, eat it and get sick. So I’ll wash my hands every time my hands touch any little tiny thing again and again before I eat, same with any forks/spoons, or I’ll even think I touched cleaner a few hours ago and I’ve washed my hands several times since then and I just washed them again but they still feel dirty so even if impractical I’ll use a fork and if my hands touch the part of the fork that touches the food then I can’t eat the food any longer or use that fork. Also at work I have these thoughts that I know are ridiculous but also give me very real anxiety. Like “if I don’t finish this order before that machine beeps its a sign I’m going to die” and then I have to rush to make sure I finish fast and then I’ll be like ok that’s so stressful I’m not going to think like that any more it’s ridiculous but then the thoughts keep coming back so I have to keep rushing. This is just a little tad bit of what I experience and I would love to hear from others as I haven’t met anyone else like me before. Thank you!