I have had harm intrusive thoughts for over 45 years. Though I fell better I still have bad weeks or months. Retired law enforcement, I saw alot of bad things that triggered my OCD. My faith in God has got me through, but I also believe God puts people in your path to help so you in return can help others. Thank you for everyone involved that have the courage to share there story. Thanks, Jeff

Oh my god, where do I start? Trauma related OCD is the worst crap I've ever experienced in my life, hands down. It develops in some people after a traumatic experience. You can have both trauma related OCD and PTSD together or develop it after PTSD. Mine was like a transitionary phase and developed it after PTSD. I had every symptom of PTSD prior to this from witnessing a traumatic event which I will not go into detail about. But I will tell you how I went from PTSD to OCD and what I've experienced with all of this as some guy in their late 20s.  So, right after the traumatic event I developed poor concentration, reoccuring nightmares, fear, insomnia, restlessness, irritation, reoccurring thoughts about the event, forgetfulness and a faulty fight or flight response triggered by the thoughts. The freaking insomnia killed me for a year straight. Imagine going to sleep at 3 am and getting up at 7 am with a faulty fight or flight response kicking in right away for that whole entire day now. It felt like my body was boiling and radiating with the hottest energy you can imagine from my legs all the way up to my head. And I also felt weak, drunk and terribly lightheaded every single day. Rinse and repeat all of that for 1 year straight. Thank god that's over now. It was a damn nightmare of nightmares.  Most of those PTSD symptoms eventually disappeared but not all of them. I just found the will and mental strength in myself to let most of that PTSD crap go. But you know what happened pretty damn soon after that? It was all eventually replaced with trauma related OCD. It's like the PTSD evolved and didn't want me getting away so easily. For me, it's a mix of handwashing OCD and really bad somatic or sensorimotor OCD but that's not all. I also have distorted senses, bad forgetfulness, terrible concentration abilities, tension headaches and irritation every single day.  Here are some examples of what I go through; I'll turn the lights off, but my brain imagines the lights are on still. I'll stand there trying to process that the lights are off while fighting the distorted sense perception from my brain. So, I keep 'checking' to make sure the lights are indeed off. Not a good situation to be in. I have pretty much every somatic OCD symptom of breathing, swallowing, blinking, eye movements and most bodily functions. My brain's like telling me if you don't do it the 'right way' then I have to keep doing it until I feel like I did it the 'right way.' It's a 'feeling' issue, a really bad one I should say. All of this crap causes my fight or flight response to kick in, gives me some loss of sleep, irritation and mental agony. Also, if I 'feel' like I forgot to do something even though deep down I already know I did said thing, I feel compelled to do it again until that feeling subsides. It's like this, "I know I just did that but my brain wants me to feel like I didn't do it. Therefore, let's do it again." The handwashing is bad too. But I normally do it to 'feel good' about something in my head. Hence, the obsessive handwashing. The dfference between this OCD stuff and PTSD is that PTSD has you focused solely on the traumatic event while this OCD has me focused on many, many different compulsions which is much worse. One thing vs many compulsions? The latter is by far worse, trust me. Focusing on the compulsions screws up my ability to focus and think about what I'm doing at hand. If I ignore them, just imagine a tension headache with a really irritated hot spot forming in your head somewhere and coming in hard and fast. Now, I've successfully ignored many urges but... new ones just keep coming and forming. It's a constant battle. Every freaking day is a terrible battle with this stuff. If I slip up and let something become a compulsion and get out of hand, I fight it like fighting to the death and it then takes a while for me to climb back up out the hole I fell into. Once I'm out of the hole, the incessant battle of resisting continues. ​Here's some more weird things I do for example; basically, if I'm desperate to keep a compulsion away, I have to do other unrelated things a certain way or else I get the urge to go right back to doing said compulsion. And sometimes weird sensations, strain or pain I might feel while doing something throughout the day will alone trigger me to do an earlier compulsion. I also have to get a good night sleep after a battle with a compulsion. If I don't, that compulsion comes right back and I have to fight it the next day. It's a vicious cycle. I know, it's very screwed up. You don't have to tell me. I sometimes repeat myself over and over again out loud to make my brain "click" with what I'm saying. Now, this one started with the PTSD and I'm not sure if it's a cognitive and concentration issue or an OCD issue but it did actually get better over time thankfully. I hated that anyway. ​This is a glimpse of what I go through on a daily basis. And yeah, I do ERT all the time and it's not like a magic wand you can wave in the air and then everything's gone and back to normal. In my experience, it has worked for some things but other things, not so much. I've taken saffron, NAC, valerian root, passion flower, other supplements and other stuff to see if it would all help in some way. Saffron is touted as an SSRI equivalent but it did nothing for my OCD surprisingly except make me tired. I took it for a couple months and just hated the tired and drowsy feeling I got from it. The thing that actually worked somewhat for me is NAC. I took it for several months straight at a high dose and it actually altered my OCD behavior a little bit. I did 2600 MG of it everyday for several months. I stopped after a while because it really got my libido going. Yeah, won't go into that part. ​Anyway, I felt like I should share my story. As someone who's had the unfortunate pleasure of experiencing both PTSD and trauma related OCD, people truly do underestimate the terrible suffering that OCD can inflict on its victims. I don't believe an SSRI or any cognitive supplement will "fix" your OCD but I believe one can be liberated from it if they do resist the compulsions long enough to where their brain sort of very slowly recalibrates itself to be less OCD about things in the future. But it will take a lot of mental strength, will power and most of all, time. Distracting yourself and focusing on what makes you happy is very beneficial too and is honestly what helped me the most out of anything. Everyone's OCD is unique to themselves. What works for me might not work for you. What you are experiencing may not necessarily be the same as what I'm experiencing. For example, some people have terrible harm OCD where they are afraid of acting out on their thoughts. I cannot relate to that. But if any of you can relate to some degree with what I have, feel free to share. I'll give you some tips that I learned from my experience with all of this that helped me. But just remember, what works for me might not necessarily work for you. - Try to adopt an 'I don't care mentality' for your ocd rituals: Try to treat it as something that you refuse to have define you as a person and as if it's just nonsense that means nothing in the end. - Stop it in the initial stages: If you feel a compulsion coming on, I've found that ignoring it right then and there works the best. Even if you act on the compulsion once when it just starts, you have enough time to stop it right then and there still by ignoring it. My brain thinks that the compulsion was therefore not a compulsion and moves on to find sonething else to focus in on. Just rinse and repeat at that point then. - Distract yourself immediately: This is probably one of the best things I ever did to get control of my OCD. If your brain starts up right then and there about something OCD related, just immediately focus on something you like to do. - My 'leave it behind' method: Move away from the area where the compulsions are occurring and go to a different room. It helped me sort of refresh my mind and brain by going to a different area and I found that a lot of my compulsions no longer 'follow me' to that different room. I can then later return to the same room where it started and be fine again. - Go work out: Another great thing to boost your mental health and possibly rid your mind of OCD is working out whether that be hiking, the gym, jogging or simply taking a walk. It's really great for overall mental well being. It helped me a lot. I never was one to give up. I've been through hell for a while now. My conscience use to be stuck in this blackest of blackness, sort of like nothingness. But eventually it started becoming more clear and I was able to start seeing through and beyond this blackness. It's like pulling a large black curtain away which was obstructing your field of vision completely and seeing something on the other side. That's where I'm at right now. I see something but it's faint. I'm just glad that it's something though. I'm thankful for that. Peace.

Hi friends. I recently had a relapse with OCD and I haven’t felt that real intense pain/fear/panic since I was first diagnosed 3 years ago. It was awful. I’ve been on medication and going to therapy for some time, and I am happy to report I have grown a lot. Long story short, it’s just become a burden for me recently trying to understand why this had to happen to me (and all of you). When I first started following Jesus, it was such a spiritual high. I had so much peace and joy, and I think within that first year with Him I became obsessed with the Bible and learning as much as I could. I think it was a sweet time, but suddenly a switch flipped. I became concerned that all my head knowledge, though I took to heart, became all I cared about. Then all the intrusive thoughts started, and you know the rest. I was relieved when I got my diagnosis, to know that scrupulosity is even a thing. But today, I sit and realize my OCD has taken on other forms (existential/fear of going insane) and then of course I started asking God “why me?”. And then… of course.. I feel bad for asking that. And then it triggered that same old feeling that I’m not in right standing with God. It’s so meta I can’t take it. Does anyone wonder why this had to be? I know the typical answers “we live in a broken world” and “God will use this for His glory” but is anyone just able to sit in that frustration, and work it out? I want to keep fighting, try understanding, like there’s this itch in me that I need to “figure out” something. But I know God isn’t the voice that’s speaking that to me. But gosh, it’s so brutal and hard. I believe God is carrying me through this. 2 Corinthians 12 has been a blessing for this. I just feel so weak. I get upset this is happening, start doubting God, and then feel guilty. It’s a stupid cycle and I see it. I have a very intellectual mind, and I find that most people with this kind of OCD share this trait. But it’s like, the logic doesn’t help. I just want God to sit in my bedroom and tell me it’s real, my faith is intact, and to keep trusting. I don’t know why He won’t do that for me, and I feel guilty for even feeling that way. Anyways, I don’t know what I’m seeking here, but for anyone feeling this way, know you’re not alone. I deeply love you all, even though we are all strangers. 1 Peter 5:9… right?

I don’t think much of this has to do with OCD and the subtypes that I struggle with: Harm OCD and religious OCD and Guilt OCD. Yesterday, I felt like a failure. I’ve been volunteering at my church to help families affected by some wild fires and I’ve been managing a lot of the logistics associated with it. I love this type of work and the people I work with. I consistently struggle with not giving my heart away so easily to the various interns or full time staff there. My affections were all over the place yesterday and thinking about how I looked or appeared toward one person in particular. I tried on four different occasions to remind myself and to refocus that she was an just like an older sister in my faith and to try and think of her as a literal sister as well, but it didn't really change how I was feeling. It was really cool at some points I felt very comfortable to talk briefly about my story. Told her about my wife and my son (we are currently separated and living in different states) and the battle I’ve had with OCD. Yet I could see that I was jealous for her attention. It was pretty much just us there yesterday. There was a guy named Jim and I felt like I was just irritated that he was there, because he was taking the attention from me. It wasn't all bad, we were able to help a lot of families, I made my son and awesome video, there were moments of relief when I recalled her as my sister and got to hear more about her testimony, in a way deeper conversations helped me see her more than just a crush or temptation. Idk. I've asked for forgiveness to the Lord and I know even though I feel guilty and upset at myself, that He is rooting me on. My wife and I have been going through an uncontested divorce, a lot of it has to do with OCD and this new diagnosis, but as you can see by what I’m struggling with there are other problems as well within me as I’m trying to be a faithful husband, a strong father, and a just good friend to the people in my life. For so long I went to relationships and the hope of one as a source of life, but when I got married I kept trying to find life in “what if I was with this person?” I’ve caused real hurt to my wife and struggling to stop the way I feel so easily when I’m around different people and love everyone how I am supposed to.