- Date posted
- 3y ago
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 3y ago
Of course it’s targeting that first kiss… ocd loves to find “proof” of anything. Kids do weird things and are also curious. You cannot take this as anything about you. OCD will of course use this though. Never fails. Ocd is a bully. Sayyy thanks brain but I have no problem to solve here and disengage.
- Date posted
- 3y ago
I just wish I didnt do it. I've actually never been in a relationship and I'm already dealing with this. It's not like when I practiced kissing it meant anything I was a curious kid doing curious thing and now I'm suffering because of it.
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 3y ago
@Sizmix Be kind to yourself. You were just a kid. Try being in the “now”. Easier said than done but give yourself some grace. You can do this and remember that you have OCD.
- Date posted
- 3y ago
@OCD33 I try to be in the now but as you may know OCD isnt a now-friendly disorder, especially the real event subtype. But I try to live in the now but it just stacks more reason I am in the wrong, just like it doesn't help that the person I practiced with is a close family member I still socialise with daily-weekly. Why cant I just discard of old stupid memories like other people without OCD can. It's also not just about the "first kiss" thing. It's about the fact that I kissed someone different, even if it was years ago its saying any future girl would hate me for it or even not like me because of it.
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 3y ago
@Sizmix I did some weird shit with my cousins and it used to eat me alive. You said it best- we have ocd - any other person without ocd could let it go. You just care so so deeply. Any future girl I’m sure did some weird shit as a kid. Something to keep in mind- you were a kid. People with ocd feel this need to confess stuff they did as kids. The person you are meant to be with won’t judge or think it’s weird, she will say well you were a kid!! Kids are weird.
- Date posted
- 3y ago
@OCD33 There's this girl I like and I wanted her to be my first kiss (corny I know) then this hit. I actually used to have real event over this but I got over it I guess this is its strike back. And yeah I know alot of people say what I did is normal and I know it was normal (with my age at the time) but it's not me who needs convincing its OCD which won't happen. But it's really calling it a weird experience it's just saying that "wow you kissed someone before you kissed her" Its almost like its saying I cheated on her without even being with her.
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 3y ago
@Sizmix OCD is wild isn’t it! ERP!!! Lean into the discomfort and the uncertainty!! Are you in therapy? Medication?
- Date posted
- 3y ago
@OCD33 No therapy and no medication
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 3y ago
@Sizmix Is it worth a shot? You are in distress about this so it couldn’t hurt. Whatever you ocd is telling you not to do because of anxiety/ doubt… do it! The more you face this fear the better you will feel.
- Date posted
- 3y ago
@OCD33 I was in therapy for a bit which helped some but it had a limit to how much it could help. I was also on 4 different medications for anxiety, 2 was accessed to me for both anxiety and ocd but I was taken off of them as they weren't really helping and was just making me drowsy.
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 3y ago
@Sizmix Did you do ERP though? Unfortunately with medication it also takes a few different tries to see what one works best for you. I am on my third medication.
- Date posted
- 3y ago
@OCD33 I'm still not familiar how to erp in certain subtype situations. And as we speak real event OCD just came back
- Date posted
- 3y ago
Sizmix, pl get in touch with an ERP specialist. I have had this sub type theme.
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 3y ago
The thing that most people forget when dealing with OCD, is that you can fight the disease by being resistant to the feelings and thoughts that come with it. You can’t do erp effectively; if there’s a part of you that’s saying, “I wish I never had this thought.” You have to start learning to not judge the thought and not identify with it. You have to practice and remind yourself the fact that your discomfort doesn’t have to do with the thought itself, but the anxiety associated with it. So extract the feeling from everything else like a surgeon, and laser focus on that feeling. Let it sit with you. Observe it. DO NOT judge it. Let it be there. Every time The thought comes right now, you immediately go into resistance mode. This is giving it more power and value. But I’m asking you to stop giving it value or meaning. Focus on the sensation and just allow it to come and go as it pleases. This takes practice, but this is the way forward. If you want to get better, truly better, follow this even if it’s uncomfortable. It will set you free.
- Date posted
- 3y ago
This is great advice! Its simple, but definitely not easy.
- User type
- OCD Conqueror
- Date posted
- 3y ago
You can’t fight the disease*
- User type
- Staff
- Date posted
- 3y ago
The subtypes actually don't matter as much as people think they do - it is definitely helpful in that it provides some sense of solidarity when it comes to the person being able to relate to others, and it provides the therapist with some basic information about what might be going on - but when it comes down to what to do with it, we approach all subtypes exactly the same - try to identify triggers, rituals, and exposures - do the exposures, approach the fears, do your best to reduce avoidance and resist rituals/compulsions. I would encourage you to ask yourself what your triggers are, what your rituals are, and how you can start to resist/reduce/postpone some of those compulsions.
Related posts
- Date posted
- 20w ago
I’m so tired of my OCD changing “themes.” And no matter what it changes to, it’s always directed towards a specific person - my mom. My mom and I are very close. I consider her my best friend and we live together. I can share anything with her and she’s very supportive. I’m 32 now, but harm ocd started when I was 15 and she was the main target back then as well. I had a bad flare up this year and the harm thoughts came back, but about a week ago they turned into sexual thoughts. Graphic thoughts and images about incest. These thoughts typically make me feel panic and dread, and just an overall depressed feeling. It has made me uncomfortable to be around my mom, since I can’t even look at her without a sexual thought or image popping up. Even watching a romantic scene in a show, listening a romantic song, etc. My brain wants to put an image of her in my head. Even me fantasizing about a man that I’m attracted to will replace the man with my mom. They just keep popping up. So this of course makes me think I actually want these things, and are actually fantasies. I have started to wonder if I’m in actual denial or that these are my true feelings. I have never been a relationship before due to not having much interest in it plus my mental health issues started as a teen, but someday I would like to get married. But now I’m thinking maybe I’ve never pursued a relationship with someone else because I’m actually in love with my mom and want to be with her, but I can’t so I’m just suppressing my feelings. And I do love my mom, but I question myself is this just platonic or familial love? Also questioning our relationship in general now - is it unhealthy or too dependent? It makes me feel doubt, since I have never really been in love before with someone else so I have nothing to compare it to. Always just crushes or finding a man attractive, and I identify as straight. But I also have not thought of my mom in a sexual way before, so I’m hoping this is just my OCD acting up. Even thinking about a future relationship with a man is making me feel nervous, since I think if I have feelings for my mom, will I ever be able to be in a serious relationship someday? If I’m with someone will I actually just picture her? It makes me feel hopeless, like I can’t help how I feel and what if these things are true? Would I act on them? My brain even made me think, “you want to ask your mom to be in a sexual relationship with you and/or want her to ask you.” I feel like such a pervert for writing that, like a truly disgusting person. I know I don’t want these things to be true, but what if they are and I can’t help how I feel? Again just feel doubt and uncertainty, that I’m in denial, and not to mention just feeling like a very sick individual.
- Date posted
- 8w ago
Trying not to seek reassurance, but rather connect the dots on my OCD and possible reasons as to why I am the way I am. I have severe OCD (or at least I hope I do) mainly surrounding POCD. I've had symptoms of OCD the majority of my life but this theme has come up more recently. When I was a kid, and i'm talking 6-7, I was first exposed to some really gross adult content online. It was introduced to me by a friend of mine around the same age of me. I saw some really disgusting things that a 6-7 year old should definitely not see. This was not a one time occurrence, as I had been exposed to taboo topics online years to come after that, such as the same friend introducing me to Omegle... And i'm sure you can imagine how that went, theres a lot of genuinely disgusting human beings on there. Coming back to the reason for making this post; is it possible to early exposure to this content could be one of the reasons I struggle with POCD? It genuinely scares me to death because you hear that real p*dos dealt with simular situations when they were kids, so thats kind of making me feel that this could be more than OCD, and I could be a genuinely bad person. My POCD feels so real, that at times i'm fully convinced its not OCD. Sometimes I can't even distinguish the feelings of attraction between a younger person and an older person, except for the feeling of anxiety and fear. Its really hard to explain without going into detail, but it just feels so real. Some feedback on this would be great, thank you all.
- Young adults with OCD
- Students with OCD
- False Memory OCD
- Mid-life adults with OCD
- "Pure" OCD
- POCD
- LGBTQ+ with OCD
- Date posted
- 7w ago
Hi, I’m new here!! I’m praying I don’t get judged for this. But, back in late May of 2022 ( literally right before I graduated high school), I added this one random girl from my school on Snapchat. She posted something about a graduation party , so I swiped up on her story basically saying how I can’t believe we’re almost graduated. She replied and we had a really short and simple conversation. The next day ( i believe) , we started talking a lot , and I just so happened to see her at the highschool when we were grabbing our graduation outfits and doing the rehearsal. When I saw her irl, I kinda got turned off ( I heard she was kinda crazy) , and on top of that , she was a little ugly irl. I remember seeing her Snapchat bio , and she was close friends with my female cousin ( a year younger than me) , who I happened to experiment sexually with when I was 10-11 years old. I remember going to work later that day and having sort of a lightbulb flick thought ( it wasn’t a good thought though) , what if my cousin told her about what happened when we were younger? So I started to kind of panic and immediately distanced myself from that girl. I also experimented sexually with one of my female friends when I was 10-11 , and from that day onwards, I’ve been pretty much living in paranoia and a little bit of guilt about someone finding out and my life being ruined . On top of that, It’s gotten worse to now sometimes I wonder if a girl I added off of quick add ( Snapchat) is underage even if they told me they were 18+ or had 18 and above in their bio, and I get so much guilt and anxiety about that. I even had a quick thought last February on what if I did something inappropriate with my younger cousin when I was 15-16 but I just can’t exactly remember when it happened , and it still eats me alive when I think about it, because I don’t know if it happened or not. I’m sorry for the long vent, I just wish I felt normal again. No matter how much I try to do things that old me used to do, life always feels “ off”. I always kept the top part about when I was younger a secret up until early (ish ) 2024, then I vented to one of my best friends and he told me that that’s a normal thing to do at a young age. Since then, I have told multiple friends and they all say they did similar stuff, but my brain just can’t accept that. Please help me, I quite literally overthink everything nowadays. 2021 was the last full year that I felt normal ( coincidentally, the best year of my life so far) . It’s not just about sexual related things either, sometimes I’ll wonder if I messed up something at work or hit a car while driving/hit someone and drove off. I just wanna live my life how I was supposed to live it after highschool ( carefree and happy) before whatever it is ( I think it’s ocd) hit me unexpectedly. Thanks to anyone who read this , I just needed to pour it out regardless of how negative I felt typing this, I hope someone can relate , because I feel so alone in my head at times.
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