- Date posted
- 3y
- Date posted
- 3y
I am a massive people pleaser to the point of worrying that making someone angry means they will hurt me physically or mentally. I’m not sure what category the people pleaser OCD falls into but I completely know where you’re coming from
- Date posted
- 3y
It’s so hard 😭
- Date posted
- 3y
@Confused OCD It really is. I have been diagnosed with ocd for 4 years now and it is the most difficult type I’ve struggled with
- Date posted
- 3y
@berinthoughts How do you cope?
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- 3y
@Confused OCD I see my therapist twice a month and we are working on strategies to have effective communication and boundaries with people
- Date posted
- 3y
As someone who has mostly overcome there people pleasing, but never had it as OCD, I have some thoughts for you. Firstly and most importantly you need to start changing the way you talk about and look at yourself. You need to start telling yourself that you are the most important person for you to care for. Try imagining yourself as a person and you can 'show up' for yourself when things are tough. Treat yourself as someone you care for and would usually try to please. Try some daily affirmations in the morning like 'I put myself first, then I can help others' or 'I am here for me' or 'I am the most important person'. This can feel horribly difficult but stick with it. Watch how you speak about yourself with a non judgemental mind. Look out for times when you put yourself down and say negative things. Just keep and eye on it and eventually you can counter those negative thoughts with positive ones like I can do this. As a side note if there is anything here that is bad for ocd, check with a therapist. But I don't think so. Start doing some activities that you love and carve out more time for yourself. Take a bath rather than a quick shower and show yourself that you care. Tell your mind that you're important and worthy or your time. Try to add more you time into your routine. Next is how you look at other people. People pleasing is all in the mind. Although it seems like you really need to take care and micro manage a situation, recognise that people are adults and the worst that can happen is someone's feeling are slightly hurt. No one is going to die because of something you say or don't say. Try sitting with the feeling of saying something you think may make someone feel uncomfortable. Something I had was I wouldn't press the road crossing button because I didn't want people to have to stop their cars for me to cross, sounds crazy right. People can deal with a little hurt it's fine and expected in life. Try to be confident that what your have to say is important. It can be extra had sometimes if people see you as a soft person that will always agree with them or never has anything contentious to say. Some people will naturally push back if you do speak your mind as they will perceive it as a change to the norm. But this is normal and just do your best to speak your mind even in small ways, and then sit with that feeling an understand it's just a feeling and it can't hurt you. People pleasing is a horrible metal issue and is really worth the road to recovery. It's worse than most people realise and makes you put on a kind front but behind is how you really feel and your desires the resentment will build and things will get ugly. Try in small ways first to put your mind across and live with the consequences. It's not about disagreeing or being mean to anyone, it's about saying how you really feel and finding that balance between being a genuinely good person and getting what you really want in life. The more you practice, the easier and more natural it will become. Good luck, you can do it 👍
- Date posted
- 3y
Wow. Thank you so much for this detailed response. I’m screenshotting it and saving it. It’s fantastic. Thank you!
- Date posted
- 3y
@Confused OCD No worries, it's nice to share info.
- Date posted
- 3y
Actually another thing that has really helped me is using the voice recorder on my phone. It's kinda cringe at first but I would record myself memos to listen to in the morning as like a booster to start the day. I would talk to myself like a friend and say all the things I need to hear to like put yourself first today. Hearing your own voice like this is really powerful. Again it's kinda cringe bur if you can get over that it works well
- Date posted
- 3y
That’s very smart, I’m going to try it. Thanks Alex!
- Date posted
- 3y
Yep
Related posts
- Date posted
- 23w
hi! i often fear im going to lose my job because i made a “mistake” (not really) that my manager caught and is waiting to tell me about or i fear im going to be kicked off the roster of a team im on for small mistakes that everyone makes. this often compels me to ask those people if i did good or not and gauge their reactions to see if theyre going to remove me and i fall into a cycle of asking and asking. how do you guys deal with these feelings / compulsions? when im flaring i often just spend as much time around these people as possible to gather “evidence” of their opinion on me, but then i get nervous that they hate me for being clingy. i also abandon other duties / tasks so i can spend time with these people to make sure they like me. what do you guys do? anyone else experience the sentiment?
- Date posted
- 18w
Hi, I'm writing this hopefully to get some advice and to see if anyone else relates to this. Recently my OCD has revolved around how well I speak and explain things to others and myself. So every time I speak, whether I'm explaining something or responding to someone or something, I'm always editing in my head immediately after. For example, my Roomate missed an appointment and I said to her "oh no, are you still able to get another one while you're here?" and in my head right after I was like, "Oh my gosh that was so wordy, people don't even talk like that, you should have just said 'can you still get one." I feel like there's a grammerly or chatgpt bot in my head always being like "oh, well you could have said it like this and phrased that part in the end rather than in the beggining, yada yada yada. I don't even remember how I used to talk and what a normal way of saying things even is anymore. I feel so dumb and scared to explain anything or even just speak but I also sometimes freeze and avoid questions in my head that I don't feel smart enough to explain even if I think I have an idea. I also edit other people in my head too which is so annoying, because I'm always mentally correcting them, when they really don't need to be corrected. I've always loved giving advice to people too but now I've become so bad at it and I don't even know what I'm saying half the time. I also have to answer every question that pops into my head perfectly and if I don't then I won't be prepared for when/if someone asks me. There’s never a right or perfect answer and I feel like with any decision I make in regards, I’m doing a compulsion either way. If I don’t answer them, then I’m avoiding it and if I do then I’m checking and seeking reassurance.
- Perfectionism OCD
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- Older adults with OCD
- Young adults with OCD
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- Mid-life adults with OCD
- Date posted
- 11w
Hey, so idk if I have ocd, I would like to think I’m a very self aware person but I don’t wanna self diagnose at all, lmk what you guys think. So pretty much my whole life since I was young I remember having irrational fears im sure it was all trauma induced but when I was a kid I thought my father was poisoning me until I asked him, he started crying and was so shocked that I could ever even think that, my parents broke up when I was legit fresh out the womb, mom worked two jobs and disciplined me, dad let me do whatever on the weekends and got me snacks so I was obsessed with him so obsessed that it was mandatory for me to kiss his picture 20x everyday before school. Growing up I always felt followed by cameras or like someone out there was recording me waiting for me to do something embarrassing to expose me in front of the whole world and my life was over 🤣🤣 I thought my abusive ex bf was stalking me through my I phone camera after we broke up and it would truly stress me out, it made me believe that it was the reason he never reached out again bc I probably looked ugly in the camera he was stalking me through. If I fall out with a friend Ill over analyze everything to see if I did anything wrong and god forbid while I’m self reflecting I realize I did something wrong I feel like an evil person, verbatim the people I fall out with is bc they’ve done me wrong in some way and it has to b something hurtful or repeated mistakes for me to really stay away for good, so I’ll beat myself up for making mistakes with another person who’s made the same amount of mistakes if not more and in most cases I always fall short, and this when I question if it’s ocd or I’m just to self aware and see the ugly in me bc I’m not perfect and it’s just makes me feel so unsettled but again that’s a normal feeling and the next step is to forgive yourself and do better moving forward, not obsess over it like your trying to convince yourself you’re a good person. I’m also hot tempered and will say hurtful things when I’m mad I’m definitely a crash out in the way, you push my bottoms way too many times and I will shred you, and I’ll say things ik will hurt you and that’s just so low, then the anger goes away and I have to face the guilt, which makes my “ocd” 100x worse, it almost feels like I have to do everything right to not trigger it yet again I don’t have the self control to do it all right, I actually have a lot bpd tendencies again not diagnosing but I’m just trying to understand my brain. I worry about dying, getting a terminal illness. uti turning into kidney infection then into cancer kind of thing, knowing that life in general can b tragic is so scary to me, like what will be my story? What will be my life experience?. I believe that people see right through me and discuss it amongst each other, I always tell myself I am not that important but I can’t seem to shake it off sometimes. When I would break up with my ex I would have pre written paragraphs ready to b send if he ever decided to reach back and I would do this to make sure I didn’t forget a single thought, that every point i felt I need to prove was there, and that bothers me bc do I want win an argument or fix the issue. All of these feelings make me feel so pathetic and embarrassed people move on with their lives and I’m still stuck on something that happened 3 yrs ago. Then I’ll get manic get a tattoo, change my hair, go out clubbing do what I can to b the sexy young girl that I am and it helps in the moment but it worsens my mental after the euphoria is gone. I’m currently staying home, not going out, have only 1 friend so I feel like ocd progressively got worse now, I don’t remember it getting this bad in a while. lmk what you guys think don’t judge or think I’m embarrassing I’m actually so cool and if have to convince you I’m cool I will LMFAOO no but fr help
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