Is anyone dealing with responsibility OCD? I don’t see it talked about much, but it’s one of the subtypes I struggle with the most. I just feel like everything I do is in order to “protect” my family and friends. That means everything from magical thinking, to repeatedly calling people to make sure they’re ok, to bargaining with god to keep them safe (even though i’m not religious at all). I spend A LOT of my time worrying about other people and trying to control what they do. For example, I’ll try to talk someone out of taking a trip because I feel like something bad will happen, or I’ll stalk someone’s Instagram to make sure they’re posting regularly, because that means they’re ok. Logically I know I have no control over other people, but OCD tells me there’s always at least SOMETHING I can be doing to keep them from getting hurt or sick. And obviously the pandemic has made this 1000x worse. Can anyone relate?

Sometimes i think everyone on the right is evil. I ask myself “how can i love people with values different than mine?” I struggle accepting the fact my parents political beliefs are different than mine. I love them so much but it baffles me. We have talked and they say its fine to have different opinions but i can’t help but wonder if i’m doing something wrong by having my beliefs. And then with all the economic chaos today in the US, I can’t help but think that I was right about everything and I just feel like it is my fault that the world is in turmoil. Idk. I think i wish i could stop thinking about it but ever since the election cycle began around a year ago it has been dominating my life. I question myself, i question others, i appear very extremist and rigid and i don’t like it. I want my OCD to go away. Its apparently OCD but it feels so real right now. Can anyone relate? What are yalls thoughts on this subtype?

I have a lot of compulsions that seem hoarding-esque but I can’t figure out which subtype of OCD they fall under. The two major drivers of this for me seem to be a fear that I will forget about them or the memories attached to them or that the things and their significance will be lost to time, and that I might need or want them in the future. I compulsively make lists of things (ex. things I like, things I don’t like, who I am, the contents of my ideal fridge - very plain with lots of fruit) just in case. I heart nearly every song I hear on Spotify (except the ones I actively strongly dislike, of which there are not many) just in case I will forget about them later on (and because I feel guilty about not hearting the song and supporting the artist if I have no valid reason not to but that’s a whole other can of worms). I have a couple containers of “good” boxes of all shapes and sizes that I’ve collected that, as it turns out, I never actually look at or use. When I was very little, before my family and I knew I had OCD, I had a “sticker book” in which I would put every sticker I ever got - because I didn’t like the idea of putting them on anything that I might lose access to. I even found my mother’s stamps and obsessively put one of each kind in my sticker book (there were soo many, it took me hours). I have trouble letting go of things, especially if I have any sort of memory attached to it whatsoever. Because, my mind says, what if I forget? My camera roll consists, in large part, of an enormous amount of screenshots of far too many little things that I encounter, and it is extremely rare that I actually look back at them. But the other data I was looking for something I thought I took a screenshot of and I couldn’t find it, so this compulsion is back and much worse. On my computer I can’t open the photos app without it crashing and the number of screenshots I have on there is shown in eight digits. I also have tens of thousands of tabs open in my browser at any given moment (I can’t close them, what if I forget?). I really wish I were exaggerating. I also take an excessive amount of photos of many things throughout my day (I counted once and I took 46 pictures of the same tree when I went on a walk). These are just some little examples of how this obsession manifests in me and my life. Does anyone else experience something similar? I’d love to hear about it.

I'm really struggling to figure out where my OCD ends and where I begin. I’m scared of most things—not in a panicky way, but in a deep, cautious, worst-case-scenario kind of way. Example: I haaaaaaaaate my spectacles. I’d love to do Lasik, or even just wear contacts, but the idea terrifies me. I’ve heard about the tiniest risk of blindness or infection, and once that thought is in my head, it takes over. I picture the worst, and then I don’t act. TRIGGER Also Lasik involves cutting TRIGGER which petrifies me. I’m stuck between wanting change and being too afraid to make it. The same goes with wanting to travel but being scared I'll be trafficked or someone will plant something in my bag & I'll get arrested overseas. No amount of praying will fix it. Does anyone else feel like their OCD makes them freeze in everyday decisions? Like you can’t tell if you're just being practical or if it's the OCD gripping the steering wheel again? Maybe it's just me. Maybe it's not OCD but my personality, that's what I'm trying to figure out.