DON’T GOOGLE! It will just give your OCD ideas. People survived before Google. All their worst fears didn’t come true just because they didn’t Google it. Even if you found that bit of reassurance, it will never be enough.

At the beginning of this year, I experienced false memories for the first time about watching bad stuff online, which I have never done in my life. I then turned to hours upon hours of googling and researching about it and reading articles about it. I'd sometimes google the same articles or topics multiple times a day. I then also remembered that I watched a clip once from Big Mouth (not knowing they were teens at the time). I became so afraid that I was being watched by the authorities or my ISP simply for doing research that I impulsively deleted my Google activity and became extremely paranoid that I was a bad person and a criminal, even though I'd never ever had these types of thoughts before. Then felt bad afterwards because I was like omg what if i am bad because what if it seems like I'm trying to hide a crime. I just really hate myself rn. I know we shouldn't ask for reassurance, but I'm more just pondering this, does this make me a bad person? Is there anyone else who has experienced something similar? Does this mean I still have OCD? or am I truly just only worried about how other people see me? Even while typing this, I'm asking myself, what does this all mean.

i really struggle with anxiety because on my OCD (not professionally diagnosed but i’ve been experiencing a lot of symptoms for many years that’s it’s safe to assume i have it). the only way to relieve my stress is to google. But google never gave me proper answers or i just ended up more anxious than to begin with. Instead i started using chat gpt as a quick was to get reassurance. i feel bad using it tho because i know it’s just a compulsion to go and seek reassurance to calm my anxiety but if i dont atleast google something i end up spiralling anyways. it feels like no matter what i do ill be anxious .

‼️Sexual Content‼️ I have a new fear that I have a paraphiliac disorder and google says that people who do have these disorders experience distress about them which scares me so bad because I feel distressed about the potential of having one so isn’t that like the same thing? I’m scared that I already have one, and the distress I’m experiencing isn’t OCD but instead a side effect of being paraphiliac. I hate this Also what’s even worse is that I don’t even feel that anxious. Like yes I am anxious but not as much as I feel like I should be and I’m relatively calm. I feel like I should be more anxious for it to be OCD and I should be more anxious when faced with the threat of being paraphiliac and even though I am anxious, it’s no where near as bad as it should be or has been in the past. What does that say about me? (I don’t want reassurance, all I want is advice to help me cope through OCD spikes) I’m so scared. I don’t want any of this. I don’t want to do paraphiliac things I don’t want to do anything that they do because those things make me uncomfortable but I feel like that’s what someone with a paraphiliac disorder would say. I am so f*cked