I had a whole nice night with my husband after my first OCD therapy session. No intrusive thoughts about lil ripe people, just love. My therapist is GOD SENT. Thank you so much Lord, I need to fight for my life back.

I am FINALLY starting to (somewhat) recover from this last existential spiral, which admittedly, was probably the cruelest my OCD has ever been to me. Only thanks to you all. You were all able to provide me with kindness, understanding and support… without the kind of reassurance that feeds OCD, of course. When I downloaded this app, I was genuinely terrified. I was so scared that I was permanently doomed to the endless whirlpool that is the thoughts produced by my own brain and that life as I knew it was over, that I would never be happy again. For anyone who might be feeling that way right now, your OCD is LYING to you! Whatever you may be going through, it CAN get better. As hard as it may be right now, HAVE FAITH! Get up and do that thing you want to do in spite of the fear and discomfort. Take the fear with you like a whiny, unwilling toddler and do it anyway. Watch the movie, read the book, order that takeout you’ve been craving, bake the cake, wash the dishes… Please do it anyway! It will be hard at first, I won’t lie. But the OCD part of your brain, like a toxic partner, WANTS to win. It wants you to give up on those things that you love, all those things that make you happy so that there’s no space for anything but itself. Don’t let it win. The more you push yourself, the more you rewire your brain to realize that as much as it may feel like, the obsession doesn’t matter! Thanks to you all, even without therapy (YET - I’m starting that journey on Tuesday because there’s still a lot to unpack, and I know that OCD won’t just magically go away), I was able to get a basic understanding of ERP and learning to sit with discomfort and how to live life in spite of it, rather than letting it take over my very being. So for that, I thank this community. I think I would be in a very different place right now if it weren’t for the people I’ve met here who truly understood my experiences. I hope you have a wonderful day. Please don’t give up. You deserve to be happy, no matter what your brain is telling you ❤️

Warning!! This will have some 18+ stuff. I know I shouldn’t be ruminating about this but this whole off and on 6 year SOOCD thing started because I thought a kpop idol (who was masculine presenting/androgynous) was attractive. It made me very uncomfortable finding out that she was indeed a woman. In some pictures and angles she looked like another male kpop idol, but in some she looked like a woman and the attraction just went away. But my brain went to full panic mode because I was worried that it meant something about me. Logically I know this doesn’t mean anything and that I can just move on. I’ve even had friends (they are straight) in high school tell me they would sometimes mistake a super masculine lesbian/androgynous woman as men, find them attractive, realize they’re women, and then just move on. I’ve even had masculine lesbian friends, teammates, and coaches, and I never thought anything about it or felt attraction to any of them (even if they were conventionally attractive). But my brain brings in past stuff like how I was attracted to a manly cartoon character, bc again THEY LOOKED LIKE MEN. I literally did not care or get triggered until SOOCD started. Idc ab childhood exploration or ab the fact that TMIIIIII!!! I am aroused by anything remotely sexual (sorry), I completely forgot about it until a couple months ago and It has never changed the fact that I’ve only ever wanted to be with men and have been attracted to men all my life 😭. It just makes the false attractions and groinal responses harder to pass by bc my brain automatically tells me “UR LYING YOU LIKE THIS! UR YEARS OF NUMBNESS, LOSS OF ATTRACTION, AND LIBIDO IS BC UR GAY!” But when ocd wasn’t at my throat, and I was entering a happier headspace, I was noticing the attraction coming back, and for the first time in years I developed a crush on someone (my now boyfriend). I’ve always found him cute and had a crush on him but ocd likes to tell me that never happened and i’m lying but whatever. Anyways, I developed a real crush again, I wanted him to kiss me, I wanted to touch him (not super freaky touching😭 just like caressing his hair and face), I wanted to talk to him and be around him, I couldn’t wait to wake up in the morning and talk to him bc I just felt so giddy and like a normal person again, I had all the crush feelings for him. Before the SOOCD flare up I was just so happy and excited. I was worried about the numbness, which i’m pretty sure is from years of not doing ERP and off and on struggle with really bad depression. Highschool was pure hell for me, I got a tiny bit better after graduating, and then I had to drop out of school for a bit bc the depression became unbearable again. Although I am better now, my new therapist now even told me I do have signs of moderate depression. Best way I can describe the way I feel is like a rock. I feel like all my emotions are muted. I don’t have any hobbies, wants, goals, I feel like a rock with a bunch of feet walking over and around me. I liked reading and going on walks but even that is too much energy again. For the past 4 years I’ve spent my days rotting away just laying down. Also, TMI!!!! I literally have no libido or sex drive, I don’t even do the self stuff (ykwim) bc I have 0 desire to do it. My man was slowlllyyy waking up all the emotions but this ocd spiral has sent me back to my rock like state. TMI!! Me and my bf have been slightly intimate but Im ALWAYS in my head majority of the time and checking feelings and arousal (esp since i have no libido) which ruins it. But when I was in the moment laying on him and we were just kissing here and there, I felt sooooooo amazing. Idk the right word but it felt so peaceful, loving, calming, and just right 😭. Even yesterday I was starting to spiral again bc OCD started to make fake memories, he called me and I was starting to tune out the OCD, and I felt the peace again. I felt the happiness just talking to him again. I’m at a point where idc what ocd says anymore, Im really tired and done debating with this evil disorder. I just want to enjoy my relationship again bc I KNOW that was the real me. It felt so freeing to have a small taste of recovery 😭. Ik I did compulsions (basically habits now bc I haven’t had proper treatment for so long) and things did trigger me, but when I was IN THE MOMENT everything was just so nice and sweet and just really amazing 😭. I hope I can feel all that again soon.

I see a lot of posts about this subtype and first want to say, it SUCKS. I've circled through a few subtypes and nothing deterred my life and ruined every day as much as R-OCD, so my heart goes out to anyone working through theirs. I hope you fight through ERP for your chance to heal <3 It's hard, but you're worth it! Beyond that, I want to share something that I feel often goes unstated but made a huge difference in my own recovery. Real quick, my story is: I was at 10 years in my relationship, 1.5 years engaged, 1 year away from a wedding, waking up feeling nauseous and disgusted every morning at the sight of my partner. I felt convinced that I faked the past 10 years of love and affection and that I wasted over a decade of my life and would never be happy whether I stayed or left, at this point. ^ That was before NOCD. This year, I’m 3 years past my last therapy session, 3 years married, and enjoy my husband and 1 year old son each and every day. The thing that really flipped a switch for me was when I expressed to my therapist that I felt one of my “intrusive thoughts” was valid enough to have a discussion with my partner about, and he responded, "It’s up to you if you think it’s worth discussing with your partner, but the important thing is that it's YOUR choice to discuss it, not OCD's." This changed how I viewed every criticizing thought about my partner. It actually helped me let more thoughts go because I realized I didn’t really care about his morning hair, his t-shirt collection, or his breathing pattern. And on the flip side, it helped me acknowledge when a thought was something I did care about and wanted to address in my relationship—of course, this involved taming my anxiety surrounding such matters, being open to my partner’s response, willing to trust his answer, and not bringing something up a million times. At that point, being together for 10 years had scarred us from rough patches aside from OCD, baggage we’d built up together, and lots of intertwined parts of our lives and selves that weren’t always intertwined in the best ways (i.e. losing yourself to your partner’s hobbies and things like that). What I’m saying is we had things to actually work on in our relationship. But OCD had been blurring the lines for so long between what actually mattered and what was just a fear. It was like OCD tried to distract me with miniscule annoyances (“why does his cheek twitch like that?”) and potential problems (“what if we get a divorce in another 10 years and then I wasted 20 years?”) as a way to protect me from facing the real, often more manageable problems in front of me. For example, I couldn’t control the way my partner breathed, but I COULD discuss how I wanted to start setting aside time to get back into my own hobbies. I couldn’t force my partner to be more outgoing, but I COULD express that it was important to me that we see friends more and ask if he was willing to help us work toward that goal. In giving myself the power to identify what truly mattered to me in the relationship and in my life, I was able to address such things (in a healthy, non-reassurance seeking way) and work toward a life free of OCD, plus full of things that mattered to me. So, for all those still working on R-OCD, remember that OCD thrives on unrealistic relationship ideals and over-the-top expectations. Despite what it wants you to believe, NO RELATIONSHIP IS PERFECT, so don’t fight for that. But also don’t forget that you can care about your relationship. You can want to improve it and build a better one, just make sure the improvements you’re seeking are 1) realistic and 2) things that really matter to YOU. Sure, a big part of this work is learning to not act on intrusive thoughts, but another aspect (at least for me) was gaining back self-awareness. Who am I apart from OCD? I, myself, am a human being with often big feelings who cares immensely about the people I love. I like to be thoughtful and intentional with my words and actions. I like to create and converse and dance and sew. And none of that is OCD, it’s just me. I am a whole person, and yes, with that comes fears and worries, and yes, sometimes, because I have OCD, those fears and worries get the better of me. But that does not define me. I am NOT my OCD, and neither are you.