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 ?

POCD has been the worst thing I've ever been through. I feel like I have always sort of experienced it but not to the degree I do now. I used to plan being a mother to a beautiful family. Now I don't know if I'll ever have children at the risk of having a girl. I used to have intrusive thoughts that would make me feel weird but I could just move on from them. That was until I had to babysit my niece and change her diaper. I want to throw up thinking about it. I got a horribly strong groinal response and I didn't know what to do. I didn't understand why it was happening. It bothered me all day that day and later on I did the disgusting deed of testing myself. I regret it everyday. It's a horrible compulsion and it haunts me. I tested if I was getting off to the thought of her. And of course there was stimulation because of the groinal response. But I hated doing it. I just felt like I had to be sure. After that and since then I haven't wanted to be around her. I stopped planning being a mother, I stopped watching cute baby videos like I used to enjoy because they trigger disgusting intrusive thoughts. After a while I stopped being intimate with my boyfriend and haven't done anything with for months because the thoughts take over and make me feel like I may enjoy the deed more if I was thinking of children. I worry that maybe I do enjoy these thoughts and I'm just denying it. I wish I could be sure. I feel so disgusting and ugly, I've never hated myself this much. It takes over most of my days. I wish I had never changed her diaper. Some times in moments of clarity I am so sure that I'm not a predator, but when I am vulnerable OCD sneaks back in and tells me I enjoy my thoughts and that I should think them. Sometimes it gets so overwhelming that I have to test. I wish I could stop. It ruins my entire week. I feel like a monster. I want to love my life again. I miss life before this. I feel so hopeless most of the time and I can't imagine a way out. I'm scared to start therapy because what if I found out I am a monster? I can't live like that. I won't. I want to cry and scream. Am I alone in this?

Every day my ocd makes sure there’s a new reason for me to stay trapped in my mind rather than being the mom I want to be that my kids need. Instead i’m stuck in my head depressed and pushing them away. The other day I was braiding my daughter’s hair like I always do and her hair is really long so when I get to the end of the braid I can see her butt in my peripheral vision and I looked down and I immediately got upset asking myself why did I look down?(the ocd has made me question everything I do now). I know it’s just because I was at the end of the braid and I just looked because I was already looking in that direction. A normal person wouldn’t even think twice about it. There was no inappropriate reason behind it at all but of course my ocd latched onto the situation and said I looked down because I wanted to look at her butt. I was so upset and said to myself “I don’t understand how the ocd started an intrusive thought because she was wearing baggy pants. I could understand if she had on tight pants and her butt was more noticeable” and the only reason I said that is because usually the only time my ocd starts intrusive thoughts telling me i’m looking at my daughter in a wrong way is when she has on leggings or a crop top or bathing suit ect. Now my ocd twisted what I said to mean that I like looking at her in tight pants. Nooo! That’s not what I meant but now the ocd won’t stop trying to make me believe that. I don’t ever look at my children in any inappropriate way. I hate this. I hate ocd and I can’t live like this anymore.

This might be asking for reassurance but I’m at a point I’m not sure if this is ocd and who better to ask than you guys. Also want to mention I have been to a psychologist who diagnosed me with ocd and I’ve tried to seek therapy through NOCD but had a bad experience so I’m just looking for an opinion I’ll take with a grain of salt. I’ve been through bouts of pocd that I got through but now it’s morphed into something that feels so different. It’s like harm ocd and pocd together and it revolves around my daughter. Before this happened I was a loving mother who valued my kid more than anything. Now this is happening and it feels so sinister. I’m getting urges to do something bad and I get these feelings like I want to do that and it’s like my brain gets foggy and my values slip away and I feel like I could do it. But then I get a moment of clarity and I’m like wait a minute I’ve never hurt anyone in my life nor have I ever thought about it and this is my child what is happening. But then I get that foggy brain again and it’s like I can’t see her as my child. I try to sit with it and it’s like I get this adrenaline rush and feel like I have to do it. But I know I don’t want to do that, but then it’s like trying to make me want to want to. I’m not sure if I’m just lacking insight and clarity because I’m overwhelmed with the groinals, urges, thoughts and feelings but I just keep obsessing over the fact that death is my only way out. I don’t understand what happened to me. It feels like this demonic oppression and I don’t know how to get through this one or if this is still something I can get through because it might not be ocd. I try to go with the thoughts and feelings and say yeah maybe, maybe not, or yeah I’m going to do that but it seems to fuel the feelings. I feel like I’m teetering between the person I was and this evil awful person who has no regard for others. I don’t want to be around my daughter and I’m just angry all the time. The fear and anxiety used to be something I relied on and I feel none of that now. I used to be able to say “well no matter what I feel or think I can control my actions” and now it feels like I cannot control my actions but I’ve never hurt anyone before. Someone please give it to me straight and tell me if you think this might not be ocd.