I'm so sorry. I don't know where else to go. My intrusive thoughts happened in March for first time. I worked hard to fight them through diet and excercise since I had to wait for my insurance to kick in during April. It got better with alot of work but then I went to friend house and had an anxiety attack. Since then I have breathing ocd. I've tried lexapro, zoloft, exxefor, seroquell, now luvox all with horrible side effects and no luck. I don't want to try anymore meds. This is the first time I try pharmacological agents. I don't know where to turn anymore. Im 48. This is not where I saw my life going. There has to be an answer for me. My God.

I went to talk to a psychiatrist based off my Nocd therapists recommendation. I had a very hard week beforehand where I had anxiety so bad I couldn't leave my bed. It seems like once I get my period my anxiety and everything dissipated some so I talked to the psychiatrist. Anyways, I was immediately put off by her because she told me she didn't have any information on me included in the referral for one reason or another. So I had to basically "fill her in" on my life story. I have anxiety disorder, panic disorder, OCD and PTSD. I told her these things and how hard the last week had been. She started asking questions like I had bipolar disorder, which I don't have. She then wanted me to take buspar and Zoloft TOGETHER daily. I know for a fact you never start two medications daily at once. You don't know which one is causing symptoms if you do. So I immediately didn't like that. I asked her about Zoloft specifically daily because it is an SSRI what I should do if it gave me thoughts of harm for myself. She told me "just go to the hospital".... Now, I don't wanna say that was the worst possible thing she could have said to me, but it was. Because now my OCD is spiraling that just my general harm OCD thoughts are enough to mean I need to go to the hospital. It had been 2 days and I cannot stop obsessing that maybe I'm depressed or suicidal because of this. I know I don't want anything to happen to me. I love my family and my friends. I am scared of death. But the thought is sticky and it's been so, so frustrating. My anxiety has been so frustrating. I feel so lost and like nothing I'm trying to fix my issues is working very well. NOCD therapy has been one of the only things to help in the long term, but I still get terrified of certain obsessions like suicide. I don't really know what to do, if anyone has any advice or any personal experience that may help, anything would be nice right now. I've felt so lost trying to figure it all out.

I’ve been through a lot of trauma the past few months and years and had an anxiety breakthrough where I can’t stop having panic and anxiety attacks. I used to be a horror movie addict and one night during an anxiety attack my brain went “Kill your sister” My sister is my whole world. It all went downhill from there. I can’t even be around her when were home alone anymore. Every single day since then my brain is trying to tell me a bunch of different ways to harm her. Its getting to a point where its involving others now. “Kill your sister.” “What if you finally go back to your boyfriends house and kill his family?” “What if you kill mom?” “Kill that lady walking down the aisle at work.” “What if you killed yourself?” “You’re a bad person for thinking all of this.” “You shouldn’t be allowed to sleep, eat or relax. Bad people don’t get to do those things.” “These thoughts are in your head 24/7 because you WANT to do these things!” Its causing me so much anxiety and racing thoughts and I don’t want to become anymore depressed. SSRIs dont work. My doctor wants me to go on antipsychotics but I’m afraid to and I feel like I don’t actually need them and it will cause more damage. My goal is to become the person I was before all of this. Not to change completely. I tried buspirone once and I stopped due to increased health anxiety and often found myself saying “remember when you wanted to kill your sister?” and then brushing it off. It helped in some sort of way. I was only on it for a week. My whole life has changed since then. I dont go to my boyfriends house anymore, I dont see my friends, I can’t play video games anymore. All I do is ruminate and I cant stop. I cant even hold a conversation anymore. The compulsions are horrible. I’m so scared that theres no coming back from this. Its all adding to the anxiety that I don’t want to become severe depression. I just want to be me again. I’m starting off ERP and if it doesn’t work I dont know what to do. Can someone please tell me they have been through similar and have gotten better. I just need to save my life. Its getting to a point where this is convincing me this is all real and its going to happen and that im gonna become a psychopath. Its been going on for 3 months. I used to be so bubbly and happy!! (I am not schizoaffective)

I’m new to treatment and only realized I have OCD a few months ago. I went through a tough and abusive marriage and ended up getting divorced. I had my first panic attack several years ago and ended up needing to go on Lexapro. This helped me significantly and allowed me to leave my partner. Several years later and I decided to stop Lexapro because I thought I was good to go. I’m in a very healthy relationship, have a great job, friends/family, go to the gym and have a wonderful life. It’s been about a year off the meds and I’ve had some panic, but I’ve been able to manage it. For some reason, the last three weeks has been really difficult for me. I have different spirals and different thought processes: what if I’m schizophrenic? What if I have a deeper mental disorder? What if I hurt someone? What if I need to leave my partner? What if I end up becoming so depressed that I end up hurting myself? My brain just goes from one what if to the next and once I conquer one, the next one pops up with even more intensity. I started taking NAC and inositol and I’m taking saffron during the day because I really don’t wanna go on back on medication but sometimes my thoughts scare me and I’m convinced that I’m not gonna get better and I know that’s just the OCD loop, but I’m wondering if this resonates with anyone else!