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I am in a very strange place where I don’t even get relief from my compulsions as I test for groinal responses it continues to feed the obsession I don’t even get temporary relief it’s 24 hours constant pain

I think I have a legit crush on my coworker. I even wonder if I have feelings that I’m holding back or afraid to accept and calling it ocd when in fact they are real. This is terrifying because I have a bf who I care a lot about. Anyone have the experience of being around someone so frequently that you begin to think you have feelings for them? Is there such thing as legit feelings and ones that are not true?

Hi all, I was looking for information about ‘magical thinking’ because I suffer from severe OCD and that’s my problem and I found this answer to someone who suffers ‘ magical thinking OCD’ from someone who knows exactly what living that hell means. It helped me lots. Source: https://www.ocdaction.org.uk/forum/obsessive-compulsive-disorder-ocd/please-help-me-4 It’s hard to answer the first question, especially to someone trapped in the grip of magical thinking. I think it's a realisation we really have to come to ourselves in the end and cannot be told. And that's perfectly do'able, it's not some unattainable holy grail. If I could do it the state I was in then I'm pretty sure you can. First of all, to even start discussing this we have to agree on an assumption that there's a mental disorder that is very widely recognised called OCD and that you have it. You have to accept this to be able to move forward OK? So if that is part of the problem here, then I'd strongly urge you to get reading about OCD and learning more about it and reminding yourself why you were drawn to believe that you had OCD in the first place. And be aware that OCD itself will try to question this and find loopholes, so be ready for that and treat it accordingly. Once you've accepted that you have OCD, then we know that you perform compulsions to prevent various doubts and fears coming true. We also know that these compulsions are driven by magical thinking, so the compulsion has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on whether the doubt/fear is true in the first place, and has no power to change it or stop it coming true. So regardless of whether you believe the doubt/fear has any basis in reality, the compulsion is and can only ever be a completely unnecessary waste of time that doesn't affect it at all and never ever will. And realising that can get you through some tough exposures that you might not otherwise be prepared to do. It has me anyway. Also magical thinking makes the false assumption that you can somehow control things with your mind. This is not true, no-one can. That's just the way it is. And if you have OCD it really feels like this is true and you can, but it's 100% misleading, believe me. A common flaw would be to wait for something bad to happen and say "ah but look a bad thing happened and I didn't do my compulsion!". That's not proof of anything, and the thing was going to happen anyway regardless of whether you did it or not. That's confirmation bias. It disregards all the times the thing didn't happen and focuses only on the one time it did. It's horribly flawed science. I think many of us with OCD fail to recognise what magical thinking really is. My interpretation of it is this: when a mind cannot deal with certain fears or difficult situations satisfactorily, and cannot live with not being able to deal with them, it takes extra-ordinary action, by creating imaginary connections between those things and certain thoughts or actions that can influence the outcome of the thing if done right or with the right feeling. If it works once, it does it again for similar difficult situations, and if we're not careful our mind becomes addicted to it and our whole way of thinking becomes poisoned with it. I think a large part of getting over OCD has to be recognising this phenomenon of magical thinking, accepting we very much have it, and defying it whenever we can at all costs. And every time we defy it those imagined connections become weaker and eventually break, and then it's easier to defy more and more, until hopefully we can change our whole way of thinking back to before. But of course we may then still have work to do on finding another more healthy way of dealing with the original fears that started us off down the magical thinking road. So there's some steps involved and it's not one quick solution at all. To answer the second question, I think you have to put some faith in all the psychologists who've studied CBT and exposure therapy, who all seem to agree that if you do enough exposures, the anxiety associated with that thing just has to decrease, so it shouldn't ever be the case that the fear will remain in your mind forever. And by the way I remember asking some similar questions to my therapist when I started therapy: "ah but it's different in my case... "I don't believe the therapy will work on my OCD..." "You really don't understand. The whole reason I'm driven to do exposures in the first place is because it really feels like the bad things will come true if I don't!?..." To all of this she said "yes and this is EXACTLY how OCD keeps you trapped.". I'm afraid it's a tricky business. It's almost like we have amnesia. We keep realising and forgetting again. Climbing then falling, So all we can do is keep reminding ourselves and keep getting up and trying again. All we can do is listen to the people with the best knowledge of it and follow their advice of what it is and what it isn't and follow the therapy they suggest. But if we think we know better, and keep making excuses as to why it won't work on us, or finding loopholes in the therapy or our personal circumstances, then I'm afraid we will remain very much trapped. That is guaranteed. And as usual, but particularly at the moment, I'm saying all of this as much to myself as to you Nid, as I've been having a rather difficult few weeks here with external events derailing my progress. So I too need a refresher! I hope you can make some improvement in due course Nid Good luck.

I’ve had ocd for a while, but I really don’t know if I should tell my friends. I’m worried they’ll hate me or act different or ignore me. They are the nicest most understanding people I’ve ever known so why do I feel this way? I end up feeling horrible because I don’t totally trust them. OCD has been like a never ending circle and I just don’t want it to affect yet another part of my life.

So my therapy session is in an hour and I’ve been thinking of how to approach my ocd to him . I don’t want him to look at me crazy or not believe me

Feels a little weird to talk about this here, but here goes. I'm 22 and I've never been in a relationship and I feel a lot of pressure to just get into one already, but i'm afraid to bc i don't think anyone would want me since i have ocd and the stigma against mental illness is so freaking terrible. I do catch feelings more often than I'd like to admit, but i usually let any oppurtunity to date someone slip by bc i feel like a nonentity and like they wouldn't /really/ be interested in me if they found out i have ocd.

Does anyone else have irrational fears? Every time I arrive somewhere after driving, I have a lot of anxiety thinking I may have hit someone with my car. Even though I know I would surely notice if I did, I can’t shake the feeling ?

Very worried right now that I’m a narcissist! I fear that I only do good things for self gain / because I feel like I HAVE to. And that I don’t actually care about anyone or anything other than myself. Ugh!

How do you tell if it’s real attraction or ocd ? I feel so confused about attraction and sexual attraction ever done I been getting incest ocd . Part of me knows it’s ocd and the other part is low key scared it’s not. I don’t want to have attraction toward my brother or any family members. I just want this to stop. I keep praying to god that I go back to the Naja I used to be and I don’t think he’s listening. Please help .

Has anyone seen any improvements taking Prozac for contamination OCD?

Anyone who has HOCD get intrusive thoughts during masturbation? And does it mean anything if before HOCD you get intrusive thoughts like that when doing so as well?

I think it would be awesome if we had some people who overcame certain types of OCD (HOCD, ROCD, POCD, Harm OCD) post on here what they did or how they got through them so others can see that there is hope and what the processes are to overcome these. Even if it’s those amongst our community right now.

I went to my therapist last monday and... wow I feel so good these last days. The more I talk with her about hocd, the best I feel. And the less Im thinking about this. I mean. Is still there, but it doesn't disturb me like before. I don't need to make a compulsion about it. And sometimes I have relapses and I'm going to have them in the future too because Im not perfect, but I really feel less anxiety than before. Im starting to feel like before, like who I am. Like the world is not ending and even if I am angry or frustrated sometimes because I have doubts or I don't know what is going to happen... you know, I'll be okay.

I tried having sex with a girl I had sex with four months ago but I couldn’t get in the mood. I couldn’t get even half an erection. All the time while having intrusive gay thoughts. Inside my mind I was like “see, your gay” “you are not enjoying this” Eventually I couldn’t handle this and stopped making out with her. Now I’m even more depressed. Idk what’s wrong, I can’t take this anymore. The thing is I see guys that are attractive and I get a groinal response and my mind goes into the doubt spiral again. The thing is I know I genuinely have no interest in relationships or anything sexual with guys so why does my mind is literally CONVINCING me that I do? I really can’t take this anymore. I’m having suicidal thoughts for the first time in years.

Anyone else that also has OCD exactly targeted at what you love the most? Like your innermost values, your favorite interests, the things you look forward to the most in life. Like I’ve pulled myself away from all the good in my life because that’s what the OCD latches onto. Like I used to love reading about psychology, now psychology is a freaking nightmare to my OCD, I used to be so happy, optimistic and cheerful and reflected a lot on all of life’s wonders but now I have intrusive suicidal thoughts and scary, existential/philosophical OCD making me avoid deep thoughts/subjects altogether. I used to be such a romantic and chased all the love expeiences I could have, now I push every damn guy away because my skin crawls at te thought of love and connections. I used to be very emotionally open and all, and now I scream at any feeling and try to suppress it. I used to be a social butterfly and now I can barely talk to people anymore. I used to be so excited to grow up to become a mom, a wife and work with people who need my help but now those are the most scary things I’ve ever heard of. I used to have such a strong self esteem and could be really cool and confident, and now I feel weak as hell and very insecure (and doubtful, duh, OCD) I used to pride myself in being a wonderful person with empathy and kindness, and now I always worry I’m a narcissist. I used to be very in tune with myself, knew myself very well and was always very grounded but now I’m depersonalized and whatever identity was there before certainly isn’t here right now. You feel me? And even more ironic is it that I’m beyond terrified of being depressed and committing suicide, but all in all having the joy quite literally stolen from your life is rather fucking draining and depressing.

I know OCD can be genetic. My grandmother has severe contamination OCD and I have pure O (as well as other ones that I have had in the past). But I’ve only read about how if you have family members in your immediate family with OCD, you have a higher chance of getting it. Is it possible that I have OCD from my grandma?

Has anyone ever felt the need to overshare/confess things to their partner that they didnt need to know?

I CANT TAKE IT ANYMORE I CANT IT ANYMORE THE GROINAL RESPONSES FEEL TOO REAL THEY FEEL JUST LIKE REAL AROUSAL. AN ALMOST FULL ERECTION. IM IN TEARS I HAVENT SLEPT FOR 24 HOURS MY LIFE IS RUINED PLEASE HELP ME IM FEELING VERY SAD

Anybody have nice recovery stories? Personally I don’t believe the whole “OCD is something you manage, not cure” thing as I think it’s just the medicinal companies looking to have you popping pills your entire life. Anyways, I KNOW that recovery is possible, and I know that it’s very inspiring and motivating to hear from people that has been in OCD hell that got out on the other side. So please, if you have any stories, share! I can give you a little story; my mom got herself some bad Harm OCD when she got her first child, my big sister, and intense amounts of anxiety from the OCD and agoraphobia too. In the last 20 years, she’s had two panic attacks. She’s over it! She’s out and about and haven’t known intrusive thoughts for ages

Hi I really need help. I really want to get better and want to work on recovery but I am too scared to look for a therapist. I had a very bad experience before, my family is not really supportive of the idea and I have very graphic sexual intrusive thoughts. I am convinced that it will be so embarrassing and humiliating to talk about this again. But I know that without proper guidance I am gonna have to deal with this forever.. has anybody advice?