Hello! I want to introduce myself, I am Pamela. I am currently pregnant 28 weeks. I have developed Harm OCD with myself and others. and I feel as if I have Pure OCD as well. I felt as though I was getting better but the thoughts have came back and they seem a lot more scarier. I feel like I can’t do this pregnancy thing and the whole family thing. I just recently quit my job because I can’t get adequate sleep at night anymore and My anxiety is soooo bad all the time, especially at work. I am also struggling with being afraid of developing what mental illness my mother had. I have been afraid of being possessed by a demon because I KNOW this isn’t me. I have always been scared of those kinds of things anyway, I had watched something with Jeffery Duhmer and a few other things and now I have been worried what if I’m like him , I used to think how could someone do those kinds of things and now I’m thinking what if I want to do those things?? what if I have no emotion? I haven’t been able to cry lately, i feel sort of numb and that also scares me because normally I would cry over a movie, or something silly. I want to cry, I want to be genuinely happy and I want to feel the way I did before I developed this terrible illness. I feel crazy to be even talking about my thoughts, and I feel stupid . I have started Zoloft maybe a month and a half ago and I am also worried that the medicine isn’t working properly and is making me worse. I haven’t stopped taking it but I definitely have thought about it. But I’m also worried that if I do stop taking it my anxiety and depression will get worse. Here lately I have been feeling like I will never get better and I just want to die, I have been wanting to birth this baby and just give her to my boyfriend and then go away , I don’t know where I’d go but I feel as though I don’t deserve to be here anymore. Im so tired , like exhausted but I keep pushing like I’m not. I keep pretending that I am happy. I don’t know what to do or where to start. Please someone help me in what I need to do to begin my journey, even though I’m completely and utterly terrified to do just about anything because I’m scared of triggering these thoughts , or even new ones .. Please I am really not looking for reassurance, I just wanted to share what I personally have been going threw, and I want options on what I should begin with to get better ?

Hi everyone I’m new here. I’ve been to hell and back in the last 5 months with my OCD which has affected me with various themes in various ways for since childhood but I’ve only this year discovered I have OCD. I have been suicidal 3 times and very close to ending it all. I have a question for all the parents out there/mums to be suffering with OCD…… I already have a 9 yr old boy and 8 yr old girl and have just found out I’m pregnant again…… I really want to be happy about it but my OCD is determined to make me terrified of having another baby and I am living in fear and dread of changing nappies etc as I know it will start affecting me with POCD type thoughts. I didn’t have OCD anything like as bad as it has been this year when I had my two eldest so never had any issues when they were babies. But I don’t even know how to feel except I am terrified now and very seriously considering abortion just to not go through what the OCD may do to me mentally! Though it would devastate my partner. I have had minimal therapy so far since August but no ERP therapy, I’ve lost faith in therapists as I’m yet to meet one that actually knows what OCD is like for those of us living with it. Is anyone else currently facing this situation with being pregnant or been through/currently going through it? How are you coping? Please don’t give too many details as I am scared of being triggered

Hi, I have just found this support page. I am always researching and looking for people that understand what I go though. I am 38years old, I have never been diagnosed with Harm OCD as I don’t think many therapists understand it. I was diagnosed with PND when my twins were 6 months old this was nearly 16 years ago and I was only 23. This started when I was visiting my mum. I was watching a movie and a lady got her throat slit the next night I felt really weird, couldn’t eat my dinner and just hid in my bedroom I felt absolutely terrified that the images I had seen I was going to do to my babies I had no idea what was going on! I was worried that I was going crazy and that I was going to harm my children ( I also had a 3 yr old at the time) I could not go near them, I could not go into the kitchen where there was knives. I just wanted to be but to sleep until they figured out what was wrong with me so I didn’t feel all these horrible feelings! My mum took me to a doctor the next day they did a heap of test and started me on Effexor, they gave me Valium as well but my mum had to administer that to me. I saw a Therapist as well at the time and i basically just lived in the 4 walls of my mums spare room for 4 weeks because I was that scared I was going to do something so horrible to my babies. My mum looked after my babies until I felt ok to be around them. I then moved back home 2 hours away from mums with my partner who was supportive. I kept seeing a psychologist for awhile after that but some how I became able to cope again. I went on living my life it was so long ago I can’t remember that well but my partner was killed in a car accident the next year as it was a really hard time for me my anxiety did not return. 6 years later I had 2 more children with my partner at the time. I was worried that my PND would come back but the doctor said I could stay on my medication and so I did. I was totally fine I would have thoughts but that’s all they were, they didn’t consume me. 6 years after that I wanted to try a different medication and my doctor was ok with it. So I begun the process, about 2 weeks after I was changing medication I felt it all coming back to me I rang a friends a couple of days after as my anxiety was getting to much for me to cope with and asked her to take me to hospital. She did and they gave me a diazepam to calm me down I did not want to go home as I was worried once again that I was going to do something so horribly unthinkable to my children . I stayed in hospital that night , I did a Skype call with a psychologist where they asked for my partners information so they could call him and ask if he had any concerns or if I had ever been violent toward the kids. My doctor came to see me as well and told me I’m the sanest person he’s ever met but I wasn’t convinced. I called my mum to come and stay with me, she did but when it came time for her to go home I begged her to stay like sobbing uncontrollably! In the end I ended up packing myself and my kids up and I went to stay at mums and my sisters looked after my kids for me . I got into see a psychiatrist straight away, I was so relieved that I was getting help but it wasn’t an instant relief from all the crippling anxiety I was feeling. The psychiatrist ended up changing me back to the old medication I was on before I had decided to chance. I told the psychiatrist everything! It felt like I had a devil inside me telling me I was going to do all these horrible things! I was worried that I was in a psychosis, I was worried I was going mad and that I would end up locked in a mental institution for the rest of my life but at the time I was ok with that as long as it wasn’t jail because I had harmed my children. It broke my heart to leave my children but at the time I felt it was the safest option. After 2 weeks my medication had started working again and I had built up the courage to go home. I struggled so much! I was scared every day. My partner at the time was not supportive at all so I ended up packing up my kids and moving back home closer to my family where I have support. I was still in contact with my psychiatrist and I was making progress, the move home helped me a lot. Although I was a single parent now of 5 children I was determined to get better and face my fears. Now 4 years on I still struggle with my thoughts some days are easier than others I avoid caffeine, alcohol and anything else that might make me feel like I’m going to have an anxiety attack. I still regularly take diazepam and don’t usually leave the house without it. I came off my sleeping tablets and now only take melatonin at night to help me sleep. I basically face my fears every day and it’s tiring. Every day is a struggle but every day I hope that I get a little bit better. I am not as well as I would like to be and this is the reason why I am sharing my story for hope that there is anyone else out there that can help me. I have 5 beautiful amazing children that I am so very proud of every day. I work part time as a disability support worker and I love all my children unconditionally they are my whole world. Any suggestions or support would be greatly appreciative. Thank you xx

I’m almost 3 months post partum. My baby was in the nicu for about 3 1/2 weeks after birth so we had a rough start. A couple nights after I brought her home I woke up for one of her middle of the night feeds. I made her bottle as usual and started feeding her. I was just looking at her and was all of a sudden bombarded by all of these terrifying thoughts like “what if I stab her.” I was so panicked and nauseated to the point of throwing up. I just knew those intrusive thoughts were the beginning of post partum psychosis and I was going to do something terrible to myself or my baby while in the psychosis. I couldn’t go back to sleep and just cried and cried the next day. I saw my obgyn and was prescribed 25mg of Zoloft and 5mg of buspar. Each day that passed after that I started to feel a letter better. Then I got my first post partum period. After my period I started having panick attacks and terrible chest pains. I thought I was having a heart attack so I saw a doctor who ran some tests. Everything came back completely normal and was told I’m just having severe anxiety and am under a lot of stress. So I saw my obgyn again and she upped my Zoloft to 50mg and my buspar to 15mg. The first few days were terrible. I thought I was having a bad reaction to the medication my anxiety was through the roof and I felt absolutely hopeless. My harm ocd was so bad. I thought I was going to take my own life. Not because I wanted to but because I just felt so hopeless. I moved back in with my parents so that there was eyes on me at all times. I was still scared I was going to go into a psychosis and hurt my baby. I felt better after a few days and the medication had started working again. I felt completely normal up until my 2nd post partum period. I’m ten days off of my period and now I’m back at square one. My harm ocd has spiraled. I’m having terrible intrusive thoughts about hurting my baby. I know now I’m not going to go into a psychosis because if I was going to I would have already. When I’m having these thoughts and they don’t make me nauseous I start to obsess over whether or not I’m a dangerous person or capable of being violent. Now I’m stuck on that. The fact that I’m not dwelling on the intrusive thoughts the way I used to has made me question if post partum has turned me into a psychopath or sociopath. I question all of my emotions and wonder if I’m actually feeling the way I think I do or wondering if they’re generic emotions. I’m ferried. Please help.