Anyone else listen to the ocd stories podcast? It has been super helpful...the interviews with mark freeman and Jon Hershfield are inspirational and give a lot of hope but I was listening to the one with Aaron Harvey on intrusive thoughts and I found it incredibly triggering and brought me to tears at how incredibly graphic it was. I’m doing everything I can to not seek reassurance cause I know it’s a compulsion but I stopped listening after 20 minutes of out fear that he’s just going to say he still has the thoughts and no treatment has taken them away.

I sometimes see posts on here of people saying their OCD fears becoming true and it’s so so triggering for me. It makes me question if I ever had OCD and if I’m just faking it. I’ve tried to accept that my fear was real. Okay? Before I knew this was OCD, I really TRIED to accept it as a part of myself because I figured if I was even having those thoughts, it must be true. But in reality it just made me feel worse in the end. It wasn’t until several hours/few days after accepting the thoughts as true did I realize they were not and how uncomfortable it made me identifying with them that way, so eventually I went back into the rumination cycle. And I’ve done this multiple times. No matter how much I’ve accepted it as real, I never come to a conclusion in the end and I just get 10x more miserable. And I am still so scared of my fear coming true as those peoples did. But I know that’s what we all fear, otherwise we wouldn’t be here. And with a new fear I just developed, (all in the realm of the same theme) I’ve also tried to accept it as real when I felt SUPER convinced and even though it felt excruciatingly real, there was a part of me that couldn’t fully believe it, because I just know viscerally that it’s not. But the feeling of it being real is just too powerful and it overmastered any ounce of insight I had left. It wasn’t until my OCD spike calmed down when I was able to see through the viel. I hate this. I have no desire to do anything that my thoughts tell me. I know what I want to be, want to do, and it’s the opposite of those OCD thoughts. But these triggering posts won’t leave. (Not really the publishers fault, it’s my ritual that I engage in). They make me come all back to square one (if I wasn’t there already) and question if I’m using this as an excuse. I don’t want to do what my OCD tells me to do, but my brain just spits, “you’re just convincing yourself you don’t want this!” as it so often now does. I’m so tired. Please give me my old self back. Please give me 100% certainty that none of this is real and my fears are not at all based in reality. My brain cannot accept uncertainty and will not leave me alone. My brain is raged and powerless without knowing why, and spiels that anger back on me to get a reaction, and when it gets what it wants, the cycle continues. And goes way longer than I had bargained for :(

I read about ERP and have seen information about it on here. One of the goals is to say, "maybe I am this or that...ect." That terrified me. The thoughts and images that go in my head are disturbing and upsetting. I don't want to even think about saying, "maybe this or that." It's devasting to have these thoughts and question why you're having these thoughts. Doesn't the "maybe" make it worse? The one thing that helps me is that is to remind myself that these are just thoughts and I know I'm not a monster, even if I feel like one. Is ERP not for everyone? Has anyone else had a problem with the techniques used in this kind of therapy? I had cognitive therapy for years with an OCD specialist and that seemed to help a lot. Writing out the worst case scenarios would make me suicidal. Im having a difficult time not obsessing over the "maybe" after intrusive thoughts now. It doesn't make it better.

I'm going to preface this with: I just wanna vent a bit. Maybe show you a piece of my and many others' experiences. I just need feedback, not even reassurance. This is what some of if not most of my days look like. I keep asking if it's just OCD. I've been stuck researching and ruminating, anxious, trying to figure out whether I'm having OCD or going into the territory of sexual deviation. My thoughts involve multiple taboos and also fears of sexual abuse. I just can't tell sometimes, and I'm scared. I keep asking myself whether OCD hasn't changed my morals, why I'm desensitized to the unthinkable, and I feel like I am beyond repair. I've read about everything from arousal nonconcordance, to groinals, to even false attraction - and I'm not sure if it isn't just all cope to deny a real problem. Did I get desensitized when it came to Harm OCD too? Sure. Was I panicking? You bet I was. But it once again feels like OCD has gathered enough evidence to make me anxious again. It all feels too real, like too much. I've been anxious for the past few hours just stuck. Pure O is a living hell - if it still is Pure O. I keep looking into my past, asking myself "Does this increase the risk of me being a pervert?" "I've heard childhood trauma can lead to paraphilia - what if that's happening?" "I was exposed to NSFW at a young age - oh my god, what if I end up being a r*pist?". I question every decision I've made, my reactions and behavior, I look for symptoms to confirm or deny whether I am a sociopathic deviant. I avoid certain situations because I fear getting the intrusive thoughts, experiencing attraction or straight up finding out I'm someone I don't want to be (even though all of that sounds absolutely insane and irrational). Whenever I see a trigger, I immediately start checking if I'm feeling something. I can't even look in the general direction of it because I'm afraid I will feel something. I tend to physically avoid triggers. Sometimes I feel like people around me can sense my OCD and look at me because of it, then stay away from me from sheer disgust. Sometimes I'm afraid of even my own imagination - it's very vivid and detailed which would be a great thing.. if I didn't have OCD to use it against me by giving me mental images of the most disgusting and abhorrent scenes imaginable. I'm afraid of doing art because I feel like I'll lose control and draw something deeply disturbing, or somehow uncover some hidden truth about me in the process. It really sucks. I can't be the only one in this, right?? I can't be the first person on planet earth to have gone through this exact torment? You guys, I just need advice / support. Please, to anyone who's gone through something similar, feel free to share your experiences. I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy, seriously.