Feel like I'm stuck In a trap with my harm OCD, I've just moved in with a friend and now the thoughts are centered on him. Im looking for a new job but I don't know how I'm going to do it as I'm just constantly anxious and bombarded by intrusive thoughts. I don't even know who I am anymore

It is not the thoughts or urges that scare me anymore. It is the way I feel like I’ve absorbed the compulsions into my identity :( I am doing them so automatically that it feels like I am choosing them freely and they’re me. and because of that, it feels like I AM the OCD now, not just someone with OCD. I think I’m just deeply trapped in a loop. I was trying to survive unbearable fear so I started scanning. Then I started pre-scanning. Then checking if I pre-scanned. Then I check how I feel during all that. I run to beat my OCD to the “punchline” (intrusive thought, urge, sensation) because I’m so scared all the time. So scared that I don’t even feel it anymore. I feel numb and all that’s left is this jittery residue and numbness. Now it’s all tangled together in a huge knot. I feel so extremely lost. I think this may just be meta OCD, but I’ve never ever felt so gone before :( I’m really scared.

Hello, I’m new to this app. I’ve always had an anxious brain, and I’ve had coping mechanisms for as long as I can remember. When I was a kid, from as early as I could spell, until I was probably early teens, I would constantly write words in my head along to the beat of music. It’s such a vivid memory because I never stopped doing it. The word had to perfectly match up to the lyric and I loved that it kept my brain busy. I grew out of that, but felt like good context. My anxiety increased drastically around ages 17-19, and I began therapy. I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety and panic disorder, due to having a panic attack nearly every day at that time. I overcame that as well, and now the panic attacks are every now and then, but the anxiety is constant, and some recent symptoms have led me to believe I might have some form of OCD. Maybe not. I’m trying to understand myself and get better so I joined this app to make sense of things. Lately I’ve been having really intense intrusive thoughts. I’m really embarassed and they make me feel like a bad person. Thoughts pop in my head seemingly out of nowhere. It will be an image of me harming myself or someone else in a really bad way. (Trigger warning) for example the other day I couldn’t shake the image of me putting a knife through my own forehead, although it’s not something I want to do. Or I’ll imagine someone killing me. I imagine my loved ones dying often. The thoughts feel so out of my control it’s insane. I hate them. Another persistent issue that isn’t as new is replaying social scenarios. I’m a hairstylist so this one is difficult since I meet a bunch of new people every day. I obsess over how I act and if people like me. I will impulsively say things all the time and they will haunt me for weeks. I question even my closest friends and family who show their love. I find myself so angry and numb and like I have so much built up emotion and a busy mind always. While doing my job I spiral really badly if any little thing goes wrong and it’s embarassing. I know there’s more but I can’t think of it now. I just want to feel better and like I’m not constantly battling my mind.

Hi my names Abby and i’m 16 years old. (I am undiagnosed) Everything that’s lead me and my therapist to potentially believe I have ocd has been the worst experience of my life so far. For my childhood and my teenage years up until I was 15, we’re really difficult. I was bullied a lot growing up and I had a lot of family dynamics that were really hard. (I have 2 siblings that were my half siblings, whom I have no relationship with anymore due to them being much older than me and them disliking my parents for many reasons) but I always felt super alone growing up. I was always told growing up to “stop” or to “shut up” from them and sometimes “stop” from my parents because I was very energetic and excited all the time. So I learned to stay quiet a lot. I was exposed to a lot of gore/pornographic material around age 7-8, which I realize now lead me to have sexual experiences at a young age with females the same gender as me when I was very young. I started masturbating when I was super young. I find that I have forgotten most of my childhood, but sometimes random memories come up in my mind and I remember, or I dream about them. I have very weird dreams that disturb me heavily. I am an INFP personality, and have always loved to help others and care. I love music/ art and guitar so heavily, and love writing poetry. My dream is to become a psychologist and help others whom struggle the same as me. I am very sensitive. I love reading. But recently the past 2 months I haven’t been writing or reading a lot, and when I do it feels inauthentic. The same with playing guitar. I don’t know what triggered this major change in my life, but it all started a few days after my boyfriend left on a trip with his family from the U.S (where we are) to travel across Europe for 3 weeks. He’s been back for about 2 months now but the whatever triggered is still the same. I’ve been dissociating heavily and my memory is terrible. Time passes by so quickly, and I don’t know why but I am now struggling every second of the day with these horrible harmful thoughts (mostly triggered by seeing weapons or example: say my eye is hurting really bad I imagine my eye popping out of my head) these horrible images, whether this be hurting my family or other people. When I first started having these thoughts I panicked and cried and had major panic attacks for weeks, but i’ve been dealing with them for so long now I become really numb and try to avoid going to places that have items of harm. I feel like i’ve lost my identity completely, and I don’t know who I am anymore, I just want to go back to who I was. I really need help. I’ve been worrying i’m a psychopath and that what if I actually desire to do those bad things? Even though I know i’d never ever do them. Please help me.