How do you get past the trauma of your first big OCD episode? Mines happened three months ago at home. I vividly remember that day. Everything was going normal until the afternoon when an old video triggered the intrusive thought about “what if I harm my mom.” I remember the tremendous fear that I felt in that moment. Even writing about this now is hard I feel my chest tightening. That month was really hard for the first time in my life I felt like my life had no purpose. I had no idea how I was going to get through the day let alone the week and the rest of my life. That was the moment I hit rock bottom. Now that I am in therapy I have had my fair share of wins and defeats. Most of the times I let this fear of returning to the place I was a couple months ago consume me pulling my back into episodes of depression. I hate always feeling scared and having these intrusive thoughts and feeling out of my body and not recognizing myself in the mirror. It’s hard because I feel disgust about myself. Like I’m my own worst enemy. With the holidays around the corner I’m scared to go back home. I feel sadness because my roommates cannot stop expressing their excitement about going back home yet I’m sitting here in anxiety reminiscing on the fact that I’m might hit rock bottom again. I want to feel Ike myself and be excited about seeing my parent instead of being scared of not only getting these thoughts but the strong emotions that I felt. One of the current themes that I have is the idea of being or going crazy and suicidal OCD. My suicidal OCD makes me feel like it will be to hard to handle and I might do something to harm myself although I don’t want to. I just want advice because I miss my parent but scared cause, I don’t trust myself to be physically and emotionally ready to because I miss myself I grief who I was as a friend, sister, and daughter. I want to stop feeling out of my body and overall terrified .

Hoping to find solidarity - I’m coming out of a major OCD episode and my self-esteem definitely took a hit. I talked with my therapist about it, and she was really helpful, and it definitely seems like it could be depression, especially as it was a really rough winter where I live and it’s really only just starting to ease up. Plus it’s also late at night as I’m writing this and as they say, never trust how you feel about your life after 9PM lol - but I’m just wondering if anyone else is dealing with this. I can sit with the uncertainty and the anxiety, but my self-esteem definitely takes a hit with every intrusive thought, and it makes me feel like no one could ever love me, or like I’d be lying/faking being a good person. Just curious to hear others’ thoughts about this - if this is pretty much to be expected after a major OCD episode, if this is depression, etc. And like, for context, it was a really bad OCD episode - fears I thought I’d dealt with already came up, a lot of new fears, every day for months was really high anxiety where I was watching TV just to get through the day, and it felt like I was just holding on until my next therapy session. And all centered around one of the darker OCD themes, and I’m only just coming out of it. Like this is the second or third week where I’ve been able to sit with things that come up and let the anxiety pass, so I feel like this is probably to be expected, that now that it’s passing, there’s things I have to address, like the self-esteem and the areas of my life that got neglected while I was in survival mode. I just hope it gets better soon - I want to go back to how I was feeling last spring and summer, when OCD wasn’t bothering me as much, or it was a less-dark theme to deal with, and i felt so much better about myself 😣 Maybe it’s just a matter of getting out of the house and out of my own head, and doing things that align with my values, especially after months of feeling like a terrible person? Will this pass eventually and I’ll feel like myself again? It’s just hard to actually really think about myself and what kind of person I am - I get anxious thinking about if I’m a good person or a bad person, and I almost kind of try to avoid thinking much about myself at all. And it feels like I’m faking being a good person - like if people only knew half the thoughts and fears that came up, they wouldn’t like me anymore. And it feels like if I move on and forget about these fears that came up, I’m lying to people and to myself, but I just wish I could move on from all of this, and be who I used to be, when these thoughts and fears weren’t on my mind. If you read this far, thank you 🤗❤️ i hope things get easier for you soon and that many good things come your way. Stay safe and take care of yourself

I had to cancel my therapy because it was no longer available with my insurance. And I just kind of feel hopeless with OCD. Even when I was doing therapy, I think my OCD started getting too complicated for my therapist and she didn’t even know what to do. My fears are so complex it’s crazy. So my big fear is my OCD being bad and being super depressed again like I was a few months ago in high school. I attended a public highschool for a semester and started the worst flare up I’ve ever had. I was harshly bullied for no reason whatsoever, and not accepted by anyone. I am an athletic kid who usually keeps to himself so I didn’t understand why people targeted me, especially when I wanted nothing to do with them. From August to now ( March) I CANNOT grasp hold of my OCD. I am very hard on myself about it. Going into dangers anytime I see one so I can expose myself. But constantly obsessing about if I’m doing enough for my OCD. And comparing myself to how I use to be, before the flare ups. From the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep I’m obsessing about my OCD and if it’s bad and comparing. Another HUGE fear of mine is being treated differently because I have OCD. So being bullied for so long I always assumed it was because I was shy and didn’t want to stand up for myself - due to my OCD- so I blamed myself for everything that continued to happen, . from people bullying me in the past . The people at that highschool were downright crazy. Even the teachers and coaches had major issues and I’m so glad to be out of there, but I still obsess the same everyday and hold so much resentment for that school and when I try to let it go, I just feel more passive pain and obsess even more about it weather my ocd is okay or not. I feel mentally sick. Please someone give me some advice for my fears, because I feel like I’m doing everything in my power to expose myself to everything but nothings working.

Hi again :c I’ve been having terrible thoughts of hurting my loved ones I’ve stopped watching horror movies which is my favorite genre and can’t even watch or read anything related to violence even if it’s just a video or movie talking about it, I get triggered so fast I really miss feeling that relief with my mom I miss my mom so much and I just don’t know what to do anymore I almost committed last weekend from how scared I was and Ik your thinking will you try again? idk I’m not sure, one day I might say “no” next I’ll plan it out, but truth be told I don’t want to die I want to live a normal life, I want to stay with my mom and my family, I love my family and my grandma and my older brother..I’m so sick of feeling this feeling, I’m tired of arguing with my brain, I want to be with my mom and spend time with her like I used to, but I can’t stand that thought of hurting them it makes me shake and I feel this pain in my chest, my OCD has been trying to convince me all those crime docs and stuff I’m into turned me this way but that’s impossible since I’ve never thought like this before I’m just tired that’s all Idek know what I’m looking for saying this..prolly just to vent or to know if this will ever go away..