i’m taking hydrocodone for pain bc i got surgery yesterday, and i’ve been diligently keeping track of times i take them and how much. but i keep getting an ocd thought that i’ve taken several and “haven’t realized it,” or taken more in my sleep, leading to an overdose. i don’t usually count things but i counted the bottle twice already after taking one pill to make sure that’s all i took. i tried not to but i thought it’d help me, but i’m still obv anxious and still mistrust my counting/am convinced i’m taking more. what subset of ocd is this? anyone else experience something similar?

It started when I became an adult, and started receiving my mental health diagnosis. I hyper fixated on each and every action I did and how it could be related to my diagnosis’s. It then lead to fixation to my physical health — making appointments and seeing every specialist I can to rule out every possibility. I currently have been suffering with obstructive sleep. I woke up the past few days with severe pain from the lack of sleep whilst believing I was oversleeping. Luckily my fit watch tracks my sleep cycle and it turns out I am not receiving any sleep. I had an extreme panic attack — bursting into tears on the phone with my mom wondering what this case might be. She told me it could be sleep apnea and that a simple sleep study could figure this out. However, knowing my family history I made appointments to every specialist I can to make sure it is nothing serious. The unknown of health can be scary to me. Watching my mother suffer with her physical health chronically since I was a child lead me to be very conscious and aware of how my body is functioning. This morning was one of the worst moments of physical pain. I should just take one step at a time with the sleep doctor instead of taking measures to see every specialist that could pertain with this issue. However, that is very hard to me. I don’t want to ever wake up in the pain I was this morning. Does anyone else suffer with health-related OCD? And if so, how do you find a sense of ease during moments like I expressed?

Hello all, I’ve dealt with various OCD themes and compulsions for pretty much as long as I can remember. In some periods of my life the thoughts and compulsions have been particularly severe, but I’ve also had years where I’m able to keep it under control. This has made me worry I don’t actually have OCD, especially because I haven’t been doing consistent therapy and my therapists have gone back and forth on whether I have OCD. In the past few years, I’ve struggled immensely with false memory ocd, and right now I’m going through probably the most severe episode of my life. I love my boyfriend with all my heart. A few times that I’ve gone out drinking I’ve had the thought before “what if I lost control and cheated tonight” and it’s bothered me severely. Two times before, it’s gotten to the point of convincing myself that because I talked to a man that meant I had cheated on my boyfriend and just couldn’t remember. It has never turned out to be true. About a month ago, I went out with friends and had too much to drink. I was really ashamed of myself the next morning, particularly because I always try to drink cautiously now that I know it can trigger my anxiety. I am ashamed to admit I do not remember the very end of the night getting in my uber and going home. I woke up anxious and extremely worried and immediately started off by worrying if I could have tried to kiss my friend and not remembered. I called him and was immediately reassured nothing had happened, I simply drank too much and went home at the end of the night. I started feeling better, but then remembered a moment I had been in the bathroom. I remembered chatting with people in line about how long the line was, and then being in the bathroom on my phone. I then felt like I remembered people knocking and saying to myself “that wasn’t that long” and leaving. There is nothing concrete that I remember that in any way indicates I cheated, and in fact I have texts with my boyfriend from the whole night telling him I loved him. My friend told me that the only time I was ever apart from him was about 5 minutes and that when he came back I was in the same exact spot he left me in. However, when I remembered being in the bathroom, I thought to myself “what if you cheated on him in the bathroom”/ “oh my god did you cheat on him in the bathroom” and then a series of images of me performing sexual acts popped into my head. I’ve poured over my memory and truly do not remember meeting anyone, talking to anyone, or even finding anyone attractive that night, but the fact that I was drinking makes me worried I’m just forgetting and these images could be real. I’ve been constantly ruminating on these fears for the past month, to the point that the only relief I feel is when I’m able to fall asleep. I’m a law student and it’s becoming extremely difficult to keep up with my classes. I’ve been google searching, asked chat gpt for advice, confessed my fears to my boyfriend, asked for reassurance from pretty much everyone in my life, and even emailed the bar asking for security footage (which I know all sounds insane). I’m a naturally guilty person and feel bad about small things, so I really don’t think I would be capable of cheating and then nonchalantly texting my boyfriend, but these images feel so real that it’s terrifying. I’ve also seen a lot about how I would “just know” and that begins to scare me because then I think “you do just know, you did it” even though I really don’t think I did. I know these posts are not supposed to be for reassurance seeking, I’m just so exhausted and feeling really depressed. I’m wondering if anyone has experienced something similar and has any advice. I’m also wondering if images can feel more real the more you ruminate on them or if it’s a sign of memory. Thank you so much for listening.

I had blood work done for a test I was having a couple weeks ago. The phlebotomist hit my vein weird, my arm bled a lot, but eventually stopped. My arm is still sore several days later. The following week I had my bronchoscopy. The nurse used the same arm that was already sore to put in the IV for the meds. My arm started hurting, swelling and burning. I told her it hurt really bad but she ignored me; then I was out. It’s been a week and my arm still hurts, and my veins are tight and hard. Couple that with the white stuff all over my face, that nobody from the care team bothered to wipe off- which I didn’t know about until my husband asked me what it was, I got harm from my OCD! At first I chalked it up to the white stuff on my face was bad bedside manners. Now, I keep thinking that my doctors and everyone associated with the clinics are trying to harm me. This morning I had an incident with the fryer oven while toasting my bagel. I asked my husband about it and he says he didn’t notice anything. I was down to the last few bites of my bagel, and suddenly started feeling loopy. I spit it out and threw the rest away. After sitting awhile thinking of the doctors and phlebotomist etc… it dawned on me that it was my OCD telling me people were trying to harm me. I don’t know how to get over the fact that my arm hurts really bad and my doctor completely ignores my health concerns. I’ve been nauseous for the past two weeks or so - there is definitely something wrong! I think when they find out that you have OCD and/or Anxiety, they treat you differently, as if you’re making up the symptoms. I most certainly haven’t felt heard! My husband always says, what’s wrong now? It’s such a horrible feeling to hear him say that. Is this what you call Harm? Or is it associated with Harm? I’m not sure if this is triggering or not. I hope not.