- Date posted
- 4y
- Date posted
- 4y
Sorry to hear you are suffering right now :( About googling compulsively, a good exposure would be to force yourself not to google while reminding you why are not giving in, aka giving priority to your life, goals and values (I am rephrasing what a NOCDAdvocate wrote just a few minutes ago about a similar question that was posted today, maybe you can check the thread out :) ). Could delay going to the hospital help you? I noticed that sometimes I pay a lot of attention to some symptoms and once I tell myself that I'll do something in a week if it's still going bad and let some days pass, sometimes I realize that anxiety was heightening my body sensations and that I was actually okay :) Hope you'll find a way to feel a little but better soon, take care ♡
- Date posted
- 4y
my biggest compulsion for both my suicidal and health ocd is googling so i completely understand where you’re coming from. i know it stems from avoidance but something i’ve been practicing is either waiting to google til a certain time or just placing a time blocker on my google so it double checks that i want to. i know it’s super hard but i promise we can get through this. mine is exasturbated by the fact i’ve been researching possible hypermobility conditions i could have with my doctor which is triggering me at the moment
- Date posted
- 4y
Thank you so much. I forgot to mention this in my post but I recently got engaged and ever since my health anxiety has gotten much worse. I’m at a point in my life where I’m really excited for my future and nothing scares me more than the idea of getting terminally ill...
- Date posted
- 4y
@bellabean well at least you understand why you’re so scared! that’s a big step! once you understand the fear you can ground yourself in that. we can do this ❤️
- Date posted
- 4y
@cwllms Thank you. Seriously this app is so helpful. It’s nice to be able to talk with others who understand the struggle.♥️
- Date posted
- 4y
@bellabean completely!
- Date posted
- 4y
Thank you so much!
Related posts
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 24w
Looking back, I realize I’ve had OCD since I was 7. though I wasn’t diagnosed until I was 30. As a kid, I was consumed by fears I couldn’t explain: "What if God isn’t real? What happens when we die? How do I know I’m real?" These existential thoughts terrified me, and while everyone has them from time to time, I felt like they were consuming my life. By 12, I was having daily panic attacks about death and war, feeling untethered from reality as depersonalization and derealization set in. At 15, I turned to drinking, spending the next 15 years drunk, trying to escape my mind. I hated myself, struggled with my body, and my intrusive thoughts. Sobriety forced me to face it all head-on. In May 2022, I finally learned I had OCD. I remember the exact date: May 10th. Reading about it, I thought, "Oh my God, this is it. This explains everything." My main themes were existential OCD and self-harm intrusive thoughts. The self-harm fears were the hardest: "What if I kill myself? What if I lose control?" These thoughts terrified me because I didn’t want to die. ERP changed everything. At first, I thought, "You want me to confront my worst fears? Are you kidding me?" But ERP is gradual and done at your pace. My therapist taught me to lean into uncertainty instead of fighting it. She’d say, "Maybe you’ll kill yourself—who knows?" At first, it felt scary, but for OCD, it was freeing. Slowly, I realized my thoughts were just thoughts. ERP gave me my life back. I’m working again, I’m sober, and for the first time, I can imagine a future. If you’re scared to try ERP, I get it. But if you’re already living in fear, why not try a set of tools that can give you hope?
- Date posted
- 23w
It started when I became an adult, and started receiving my mental health diagnosis. I hyper fixated on each and every action I did and how it could be related to my diagnosis’s. It then lead to fixation to my physical health — making appointments and seeing every specialist I can to rule out every possibility. I currently have been suffering with obstructive sleep. I woke up the past few days with severe pain from the lack of sleep whilst believing I was oversleeping. Luckily my fit watch tracks my sleep cycle and it turns out I am not receiving any sleep. I had an extreme panic attack — bursting into tears on the phone with my mom wondering what this case might be. She told me it could be sleep apnea and that a simple sleep study could figure this out. However, knowing my family history I made appointments to every specialist I can to make sure it is nothing serious. The unknown of health can be scary to me. Watching my mother suffer with her physical health chronically since I was a child lead me to be very conscious and aware of how my body is functioning. This morning was one of the worst moments of physical pain. I should just take one step at a time with the sleep doctor instead of taking measures to see every specialist that could pertain with this issue. However, that is very hard to me. I don’t want to ever wake up in the pain I was this morning. Does anyone else suffer with health-related OCD? And if so, how do you find a sense of ease during moments like I expressed?
- Date posted
- 22w
I started dealing with OCD when I became fixated on health issues, particularly the fear of contracting a life-threatening disease. If I experienced any kind of medical symptom, no matter how small, that even remotely hinted at something potentially fatal, it would drive me crazy, and I couldn’t stop obsessing over it. Then one day, I started having intrusive thoughts about accidentally hitting someone with my car, and I would end up driving in circles to check if I had. Eventually, I found myself overwhelmed by a flood of new obsessive thoughts and compulsions. One day, while I was at the park, a squirrel came near me, and for some reason, I felt like it attacked me. I Googled it and learned that squirrels could carry rabies, which spiraled me into a deep fear of rabies. I became consumed with the thought I received a bite from a squirrel, raccoon, or bat any time I’m in areas that trigger me. It started off only being inside then transferred to even being in my own home. This made me obsess over every physical sensation in my body, compulsively checking to make sure nothing was wrong. One compulsion that I hated the most would to be putting rubbing alcohol on me to make sure that I had no open wounds. Every day feels like I’m walking around in a fog of anxiety, constantly worrying that I won’t even make it to old age. Sometimes, it gets so overwhelming that I just want it all to end. It stresses me so bad at times to where my brain feels like I’ve been studying all day.
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