Does anyone else have a hard time deciphering what is your own desires and wants and what is compulsions? Does anyone have tips for that? (Trigger warning, talk about hair plucking compulsions and a small mention of hair loss. If that's troubling for you to think about due to any hair loss related cercumstances just keep in mind it's mentioned in here. It's not too bad it's just my experience with it.) The best and biggest example I can think of is my picking issues. I have Trichotillomania, which is a common issue for people with OCD. So trichotillomania is compulsive hair plucking. It can be obsessive as well. I had issues for a long time where I felt like I looked like I had been going through chemo but not because I had no eyebrows, no eyelashes, a lot of hair missing on certain patches of my legs and patches of hair missing on my scalp that were small but lots of breakage in my hair where you can see I've plucked it and it's grown back and it's shorter now. So in regards to the original question, I have noticed that my issue with picking sessions isn't that I don't notice them, which I thought might be what the case was until I was doing well enough thanks to medication that I was able to stop myself after a few minutes of picking without any pain from slouching or "defeat" or interruption. It was just me making the active choice to self discipline and say stop. It's not doing any good at all. It's not worth it. And I noticed I still can't do that easily. It's only after a few minutes of picking. So I thought that mean that I wasn't noticing it happening. Which sorta, like there are times I don't notice quite that I'm picking but I know I've plucked a hair... Idk how to explain that. But I noticed that in most cases, I know I've started picking and I'm justifying it. I'm making reasons to follow, I'm saying it's a desire not a compulsion so as long as I can stop it's fine but even then sometimes I can't stop unless there are people in a room to look at me and notice me because if that's the case I'm too shy to do it. My enemy is the bathroom. If I goto the bathroom I could get stuck picking for 20 minutes before I can make an active decision to stop. Because no one can see me, others might think I'm showering, or just busy 🤣 but if I'm in the living room I wont do it more than just a little in a way that doesn't look odd or concerning. Because I know I'll be stopped. It's.. so hard. But I guess, does this happen with other compulsions to others? Are you ever in a spot where you have to be the difference between a compulsion happening or not and you can't decide if it's free will or an ocd compulsion so it's like... Hard to tell yourself that you should stop in a way you'll listen? Especially because compulsions sometimes make me a bit irrational and it's hard to remember my therapy in those moments. Especially if it's a panic attack causing it.

Does anyone have any advice for how to know the difference between ocd and real feelings/thoughts? Sometimes an intrusive thought will come in and I immediately know it’s ridiculous and I can just leave it alone and it won’t bother me but other times I really really don’t know. It’s when ocd hijacks and twists my real feelings and thoughts and tries to manipulate me into believing they’re something they’re not or something that doesn’t align with my true morals or intentions. But since it’s twisting and mixing with real feelings I get so confused and scared. Everything gets jumbled and I feel like I can’t trust myself or my own mind. Yet other times and other topics I can laugh off and push away just fine. Make it make sense. And then I start to think well maybe I don’t have ocd at all and I’m just in denial because I don’t want to accept that these scary/concerning things are true about myself. Or maybe that’s just the ocd talking.

I have just recently realized that I had SO OCD. This began whenever I was watching porn and had an intrusive thought about the guy in the porn. It was more minor at first, it was a majority of what I was thinking about throughout the day but it didn’t feel as distressing at first. If I had downtime to think about it, it would affect me but if I was just going about my day I wouldn’t notice it. I began going through the compulsions of checking myself. This lasted for a while until another obsession occurred. Then it seemed as if my SO OCD took a step back. I would have flare ups but they would seem to pass. Recently, I had a very bad night of constant compulsions and looking at pictures and imagining things to check myself. After that night it was very distressing, it affected me to the point where people around me began to notice and ask me if I was okay. One of the big reasons I was so upset was my girlfriend, we have been together for over 3 years and I want to spend the rest of my life with her. I was thinking “Oh my god, if I am gay I can never be with her.” I would sit and cry about it thinking I would lose her and that might life would change because I was gay. I finally had enough and talked to her and my parents. We did some research and I was so shocked to find out that I had a form of OCD, it was like a weight being lifted off my shoulders just knowing that other people have been where I am and that I’m not gay. However, I may have naively expected the compulsions and obsessive thoughts to go away now that I knew I had an actual problem. But I found that the compulsions and thoughts were still there and I was going to put some effort into getting better. I have researched and now know what to do when experiencing intrusive thoughts, yet I still have been performing the compulsions which is just feeding into the OCD. I find myself having intrusive thoughts and then start performing compulsions to see if they are true. What really bothers me is when I have an intrusive thought that tells me that I do like something. But when I think about it I have no desire to pursue those thoughts. However when I feed into the compulsions they just seem to feed into each other. It is like my OCD ignores all the things that I know I like and goes straight to panic mode. I am also trying to do ERP and am going to start doing my best to get better. Does anyone have any tips for not performing the compulsions no matter how anxious you are feeling and no matter how real the intrusive thoughts seem to feel?

I'm really struggling to figure out where my OCD ends and where I begin. I’m scared of most things—not in a panicky way, but in a deep, cautious, worst-case-scenario kind of way. Example: I haaaaaaaaate my spectacles. I’d love to do Lasik, or even just wear contacts, but the idea terrifies me. I’ve heard about the tiniest risk of blindness or infection, and once that thought is in my head, it takes over. I picture the worst, and then I don’t act. TRIGGER Also Lasik involves cutting TRIGGER which petrifies me. I’m stuck between wanting change and being too afraid to make it. The same goes with wanting to travel but being scared I'll be trafficked or someone will plant something in my bag & I'll get arrested overseas. No amount of praying will fix it. Does anyone else feel like their OCD makes them freeze in everyday decisions? Like you can’t tell if you're just being practical or if it's the OCD gripping the steering wheel again? Maybe it's just me. Maybe it's not OCD but my personality, that's what I'm trying to figure out.