I need some advice on this, I was diagnosed with OCD a few years ago and I managed to be free for a few years by don’t giving attention to the thoughts and by giving my full attention to the outside life and not was going on inside my head. After stressful event OCD is back and again I feel that is something else. I am currently for the first time on CBT therapy but I am still on the early stages. My therapist told me that changing my attention to something else when the OCD is at its full blown is good technique but eventually I will need to face the thoughts and try to challenge them. The problem is that the moment I turn inside it’s like I have a train of thoughts that self doubt everything. When I am on this state I cannot challenge anything on the opposite I doubt that I have OCD and I try to understand if my symptoms suggest that I have something else and the fear and anxiety gets worse. I fear that I have something else and that I am a bad person. My big problem is when I am working. I work in an office and I need to sit in front of pc for 7-8 hours. The moment I start working these thoughts kick in and I feel that I cannot find any escape. I cannot do something else to turn my attention somewhere else and find my self doubting and searching was going on with me. And slowly slowly I get so scared that I come to face where I pass something like an anxiety attack. Is there any technique that it can help me to avoid what is happening to me, do no reach the levels of anxiety attack. I try to hear loud music, to concentrate on the pc but it didn’t work. I feel like I am trap somewhere that I need to sit still and just suffer with the thoughts until I reach the level of the full blown anxiety attack. Thank you for listening, any advice is well appreciated.

I’m really struggling with something related to me ocd, and I would appreciate kind and supportive advice. If you can’t relate or don’t think anything you have to say would be helpful, I kindly ask pls refrain from commenting this is a really sensitive topic for me. Recently, I’ve noticed a pattern that feels something extremely new and distressing. The first time it happened I remember telling myself before self pleasuring that I am in control no matter what thought comes into my mind because I wanted to prove to myself that these thoughts are just from OCD and I know who I am and an intrusive that came out of no where, and i suddenly felt an intense fear that I was acting on it. In the moment I genuinely felt like I did. And afterword, I panicked and started questioning myself. This SAME FEELING has happened three times in a row each time, the intrusive thought was unwanted and random, and completely against my morals most recently it involved pocd and it feels even worse because it generally felt like I acted on it the thought in the moment while I was self pleasuring the panic doesn’t hit until afterwards when I stop :/ I start thinking that maybe I generally made a mistake and I’m now just realizing that it’s wrong because it generally feels like that :( but when I actually think about it again goes against my morals and values doesn’t make sense it feels incredibly real, and I can’t seem to shake this feeling off that I may have acted on it I’m terrified because I never wanted these thoughts in the first place. And I definitely didn’t choose them. If I had known, I would’ve had these intrusive thoughts I wouldn’t have self pleasured in the first place but it’s extremely hard to convince myself that this may be OCD because I feel like I have no other reason to believe that I didn’t act on it :/

Hello! I am really looking for some advice. I have been struggling with OCD for a few years now and it drastically affects my daily life. I am going to give a quick run through of my OCD, and then the current situation I am in now. So for almost 2 years now my most prominent themes of OCD have been getting sick with the stomach bug (emetaphobia) and watching someone die/ having to see large amount of blood or do CPR on someone (I just graduated nursing school). Last year I stopped eating out, wouldn’t touch any of my food with my hands, would wash my hands until they bleed every day, bleached everything I touched when I was in public etc… I would have these major panic attacks all the time and the thought of getting sick hasn’t left my head 24/7 for 2 years. I was unable to complete my nursing school clinicals due to panic attacks each time I was at the hospital afraid someone would die and get these terrible images in my head. I didn’t sleep ever, barely graduated. I did ERP after school and was able to make up the clinical days I missed. Got to a point where I was eating again, felt like I was able to get my hands clean just by washing them. I have been doing exposures every day, and have accepted that getting sick will probably happen at one point and I am okay with it as long as I am at home when it happens. So locking myself in my apartment for 48hr every time after I could have been exposed to the stomach bug is major progress for me and I have been overall doing much better. Fast forward to now: It’s time for me to start my new job on a med/surg floor in a hospital. This week I have made it through a few days of orientation with panic attacks day and night but I am doing it even though I am petrified. I don’t feel ready for this big of a step, being exposed to both of my biggest fears constantly. Today at orientation the girl sitting next to me told me she had been vomiting all day, and continued to run out of the room a vomit the rest of the day. I now am 90% sure I am going to get sick and feel as if I would rather die than continue this amount of stress and anxiety I have felt from just a few days of being on the job. This is my BIGGEST fear and it’s coming true and I don’t know if it’s worth putting myself through this every day at work to just be having constant panic attacks and be miserable. I know with OCD you have to face your fears but I have been pushing myself and trying so hard and I don’t feel like it’s worth it to work this job. I would also feel incredibly guilty for quitting on the first week, but there are a million other nursing jobs that are not in a hospital. I think this is too big of a step for me right now but I wanted to see what others think. Any advice at all is so appreciated!

Does anyone have any advice on how to deal with intrusive thoughts&images. At first i had intrusive thoughts around my partner, now it’s centred around me & I can’t be around window ledges or medication due to a story I read online(it’s too triggering for me) . Sometimes I feel like I can’t leave my bed due to the thoughts being so overwhelming I just break down and want to sleep. I aren’t taking any medication or therapy yet. I worry that if I don’t give my thoughts a reaction that my thoughts are true and not OCD. I’ve had these thoughts 24/7 for 2 months.