I just don't know what's going on anymore. Or what to do in the present. I always think about the past because I was happier than I am now. I was always excited to wake up every single day to do what I love doing and never got tired of it. I loved the quality time I spent with my family and friends. I loved school. I loved going outside. Everything that I had in my life at the time was great. I always find my mind thinking of the past to either want to go back to it or wish I either did or didn't do things I did or encountered things I did at the time whether I wanted to or not. I was someone growing up with no worries at all. Everything's different now. I don't know what's going on as much. I don't have an much friends as I did before. I don't spend much time with my family compared to how I did before. High school wasn't fun for me. College is even worse. I'm stuck at home not able to do much. For most of my days, I want to try and visit all the things that make me happy as much as I can. Nothing ever feels long term even it comes to my happiness. I do laugh, smile, and have fun with the people I care about, but it never gives me a lasting feeling. All my mind does is wander all over the place. No matter how hard I seem to try with what I think about, it never fails to think of the bad things that have happened in my life, even while in the mixture of the good things. It completely censors the good things I've had in my life and only glorifies the bad. Every single day I wake up, I think nothing but bad thoughts, bad visions, mistakes that I've made, traumatic events I've encountered and blaming myself for those events on end, and always wanting to go back. Anytime I try my best to fight against the bad thoughts, bad feelings, bad visions, they only work for so long. Video games is one thing that I enjoy very much, and while playing all day today, I slowly kept getting more sad and sad. Until just minutes ago, I just broke out in tears. This has happened several times whenever I think deeply into my childhood. It just makes me very emotional and torn up. Why is this happening to me? Why do I keep thinking I'm going to go to jail? Why do I keep having intrusive thoughts? Why do I keep worrying about things even if things seem completely fine? Why does my mind find any bad thing it can and magnify the event too make it seem more important than it really is? Why can't I think of anything positive? I have plenty of positive things to think about that I could visit, but my mind never does it. Why do I always assume the worst in everything? Why do I always dwell on what I don't have? Why do I keep thinking everyone I care about and love will one day hate me and never forgive me or take me back? Why do I feel like my life is in danger? All of these questions I managed to think of, but none of them I can answer. What's going on? Why is this happening? What caused this? What did I do to deserve this? Whatever it was, I'm terribly sorry. I don't intend to hurt people, or bother anyone. I don't ever want to make it seem like anyone is deserving of pain. I just want to be happy again. I don't know who to talk to further about this. I don't know who can help me. Some days I'm happy, some days I'm not. I just want to stay on a consistent trail, and throw all my worries away. I just want my life back, really. Do I not deserve that?

How do I check your recent post? I've seen people mention that neuroplasticity is one of the ways to fix this kind of thinking.

@BigGip09 Also what is neuroplasticity?

@mnmarinaccio Neuroplasticity is something that works like magic for the human brain. It is basically the brain's mind to learn, adapt, and change depending on many things in your environment. An example would be an infant putting building blocks with letters on it together to spell a word. They would remember what those words are, thanks to early development and remember these things. The brain gets used to things that can help the body long term. But there are always manual ways to activate and change neuroplasticity, like resisting urges so you forgot an activity, tell yourself something while you may not believe but with enough time and consistency, you end up believing it, etc.

I suppose you're absolutely right. I've been feeling much better today, but it took a bad day in order to get this far. Of course recovering isn't linear, but I'm just glad that one way or another I'm getting there. And you are too. I seriously wish you nothing but the best!

@BigGip09 Great to hear! My OCD comes and goes in waves, as long as it’s improving little by little. Wish you the best of luck too!

Perfectionism along with Harm, Real Event all get to me. I'm always afraid that I might be hurting someone or myself. I'm afraid of going to jail because of the sexting I did as a minor with other minors even though people have told me it's nothing to worry about. I always worry I'm going to lose everything I have in my life because of traumatic events that have happened online whether it'd be when I was curious about the porn I would seek on the front page, or the horrible things I've seen on social media sites like YouTube, twitter, and Instagram, even though it may just sound like I had unfortunately things happen at unfortunate times. People always tell me that I haven't done anything terrible and I just have to stop ruminating. I wish it was just easy enough to believe them. I always doubt everything because of this fucking ruminating shit.

@BigGip09 Oh yes I forgot to mention I have harm ocd too especially when driving and real event as well. Everything you just said is relateable to my experiences in some way. I understand when people tell you to not worry about it because that’s what they say to me and it doesn’t help to hear that. But what I can say is the fact that you are worried about it means that you care and you have a conscience. I can tell you are not a terrible person and do not mean to do anything wrong. It’s hard to remember that when you think about the stuff all the time like you and I both do. My best advice, what is working best for me at the moment is to really try to focus on doing something productive and not think about anything else, like reading a book or exercising. It seems dumb to try at first but in my opinion not worrying about this stuff for at least an hour or two a day is better than nothing.

@mnmarinaccio No it's not dumb at all. For a while I've wanted to try reading comics. Excerise is probably the number 1 thing to do as a human being, but I haven't been doing much lately because I'm just not motivated most times. I feel like people telling me not to worry about it is truthful and maybe I shouldn't worry about it. I never do mean to cause harm on anyone. I wouldn't feel happy knowing that I wanted to harm someone and did that. I couldn't even imagine. I can assume that most people with OCD are the kindest of people, you included. I'm feeling kinda better after crying, but like most things I want to do, they don't prolong my happiness into long term instead of short term. I don't want to keep thinking about the things I do. A small part of me believes that OCD is glorifying my thoughts because when I've been through these things in the past, (mostly the sexting) I never spiraled out of control and thought about my intentions endlessly. Only through the middle of 2020 and now I have. I just can't figure it all out. Hopefully I won't have to..