How to deal with anxiety over future? I wanna stay in present but Idk how. I keep worrying about not having a job or not making money and this stops me from living in the present and trying to do something. I am scared and hopeless. I have posted this many times, sorry for bothering.

Rumination has always been complicated for me. I struggle greatly with real event OCD and I think about the good and the bad of my past a lot. Most of it has to do with the things I did at a really young age. Most of it is connected to porn and masturbating. I endlessly worry about these two things, and I try to tell myself that I'm didn't know and I'm grown up and my past self is in the past. Then when I try to leave it on that note, my number one fear comes up which is going to jail. I've been trying to sit with the uncertainty until it went away but it hasn't gone away. The ruminating hasn't stopped, and the worrying hasn't either. I haven't done my usual compulsion to make me feel better or at the very least get me away from these emotions in the moment though.

@BigGip09 Good on you for not doing a compulsion! ERP is like an exercise. You won’t always feel great immediately, but it does work over time. Rumination is a compulsion by the way, so stop that as soon as you can because response prevention is key and compulsions make it worse. Agree with the fear for OCD’s sake (not yours). “Yep, I’m going to jail for this”. Feel everything OCD screams at you and do the opposite of what it tells you to do. Don’t use it as your barometer for morality or sexuality or what will happen in life because OCD is the most unreliable source in the world. Doing the opposite of what it says is the quickest way to recover. Punch OCD’s in the face! Openly defy it! And what if it’s not OCD? Sit with that uncertainty too! :)

@BigGip09 I feel like biggip, I am very similar, with some extras like having sexual mistakes at young age with my sister. This are some of the things that hold me back, mostly because I spoke about it in public and I am ashamed of putting my face to public again

@Hoping for the best ERP still applies. I’m so sorry you’re feeling ashamed, but know that childhood things like that are very common.

@Madison For me when I was 15 back in 2016, I was insanely addicted to two things: Masturbating and my kink. I put that together and I did a lot of things I regret doing and I don't think I would do now. I remember some of the videos I've watched and looking back on it, they were really bad videos. I even uploaded porn to YouTube once. I have so many triggers and my sex drive is really high, so trying not to masturbate is really difficult for me. That's my worst compulsion and I ruminate still.