No matter what I do, or say, or try - My OCD IS TAKING MY LIFE FROM ME. Still chronic nightmares leaving me vacant most mornings. Will put on music, hop out of bed, down a red bill, turn on a comedy, call a friend, cry - nothing helps. I know my triggers. I know my OCD so well, I worked through my truant, in AA, in Outpatient - NOTHING IS WORKING.

I feel awful that I keep coming on here whenever I’m down bad but oh my gosh OCD is the most painful shit that I have EVER experienced in my life and I have a physical chronic illness…. I hate to say it but I hate living right now it’s too painful… im crying as I type to the point where my stomach is hurting, I have pretty severe ocd I do have generalized anxiety and idk if that is connected with ocd but because of that I have most of the subtypes REAL EVENT OCD,POCD,ZOCD,ROCD,SOCD HARM OCD, you name it and I got it!!! a lot of also why I have have those theme is trauma growing up and involving those things^ as of right now i’m 25 and a women with the most loving boyfriend in the entire world before my ocd hit me I NEVER questioned my love and care and attraction with the love of my life I always knew I was going to marry and be with this person the rest of my life! Now with ocd it confuses me soooo much and now I think I’m gay and didn’t realize or indenial and listen I get it “don’t look for reassurance!” “It’s not the thing ocd is attacking that is the problem ocd is the actual problem!” Here’s the thing with that if I’m in a relationship and I’m gay that would mean I would have to leave that said relationship and to say that “oh yeah that stuff happens and you’ll move on” is absolutely devastating to me this is THE LOVE OF MY LIFE and your telling me that iv been lying to myself this whole time or that I didn’t realize?!?!? And that sexuality can change (even though some say it can’t google says otherwise and some people have said it can’t idek anymore) and all this other BULLSHIT I can’t take it WHY?!?! why does this have to happen why can’t I just be with my love the rest of my life?!? and yes before anyone says anything I have been attracted to girls more so when I was younger watching lesbian porn liking the body’s and fantazing them sexually it stopped when I got older but I still don’t get disgusted with women who are pretty it just makes me uncomfortable because I’m with the love of my life and before I remember talking to my partner and discussing certain childhood things I experienced and we discussed that we both could be a little bi and for certain I’m (demi sexual so I don’t even really care about looks) and I truly didn’t care!! NOW I do care even with being bi because again I don’t like thinking about anyone else but my partner but I do also know my parents are homophobic and I do think about if I am gay they wouldn’t be okay with that and I also dont want to deal with that so now I sound like in indenial right?!???? I didn’t even care about labels before my ocd it just didn’t matter but now it’s effected my sex life and it’s hard for me to enjoy sex with being so confused I’m so confused I googled everything can you still have sexual fantasies with same gender but still be straight? Can you fantasize about same gender or imagine marrying them all of it !!! And non of that disgusts me it just makes me uncomfortable AGIAN only bc I just love the partner I’m with right now!!! I’m so fucking confused do I have to leave my partner and accept that I’m gay is that going to happen in the future if I get better with ocd and find out it’s been true all along?!???

Looking back, I realize I’ve had OCD since I was 7. though I wasn’t diagnosed until I was 30. As a kid, I was consumed by fears I couldn’t explain: "What if God isn’t real? What happens when we die? How do I know I’m real?" These existential thoughts terrified me, and while everyone has them from time to time, I felt like they were consuming my life. By 12, I was having daily panic attacks about death and war, feeling untethered from reality as depersonalization and derealization set in. At 15, I turned to drinking, spending the next 15 years drunk, trying to escape my mind. I hated myself, struggled with my body, and my intrusive thoughts. Sobriety forced me to face it all head-on. In May 2022, I finally learned I had OCD. I remember the exact date: May 10th. Reading about it, I thought, "Oh my God, this is it. This explains everything." My main themes were existential OCD and self-harm intrusive thoughts. The self-harm fears were the hardest: "What if I kill myself? What if I lose control?" These thoughts terrified me because I didn’t want to die. ERP changed everything. At first, I thought, "You want me to confront my worst fears? Are you kidding me?" But ERP is gradual and done at your pace. My therapist taught me to lean into uncertainty instead of fighting it. She’d say, "Maybe you’ll kill yourself—who knows?" At first, it felt scary, but for OCD, it was freeing. Slowly, I realized my thoughts were just thoughts. ERP gave me my life back. I’m working again, I’m sober, and for the first time, I can imagine a future. If you’re scared to try ERP, I get it. But if you’re already living in fear, why not try a set of tools that can give you hope?

Each night I go to bed determined to stop compulsions and start beating this disorder. Then I wake up and it smacks me in the face first thing and I’m doing a compulsion before I know it. I told my therapist that I would try to handle it like we do in session, but I’ve already failed. It seems like I can’t bring ERP into my “real” life.