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I feel like I'm not gonna get through this.

I’m really struggling and need to vent. I met this guy, he seemed to be what I wanted. He told me from the first day, guys and girls can’t be friends - I have to stop talking to my guy friends. For example, I have had a guy friend for 5 years and we did kiss, but have been friends since then. He told me I can no longer speak with him. The issue is, this guy friend has been friends with my entire family for over 5 years (comes to bday parties, Christmas stuff, he works with my brother in law, is like an uncle to my niece, etc. i see him as a friend only, but this guy I met says that I can’t even say hi to him at a family party - he expects me to just walk away. This guy and I also are not dating, just been talking for a few weeks (3 weeks). He really cared less to make time to see me, I’ve only seen him twice in the past month. Granted he’s been busy working and traveling, but he doesn’t make set in stone plans - I just get “maybe I’ll want to hang out, maybe I won’t - I just don’t know” in my head, I’m like ok this guy doesn’t care. There are other things that have happened, but the point is. I ended up seeing my guy friend of five years, hanging out with groups of guy friends and girl friends, etc. and I lied to him about it. I ended up telling him and he FLIPPED out on me. Calling me disgusting, karma will get me, a hoe, etc. i did not hook up with anyone, I just hung out with people who were guys - one of them being a good guy friend for years. He ignored me for two days then finally answered me and told me to text my guy friends to never contact me again and to leave me alone. I tried to explain to him that he never made me feel as though he liked me, so I thought he wasn’t interested. He said my feelings don’t matter. I’m trying to work it out with him, but I feel so so guilty and like a shitty person for even lying. I’ve never lied like this before, I’ve always been honest and up front. I was so afraid of losing this guy I had just met, but also felt as though I couldn’t cut off my life the way he wanted me too. I feel awful, guilty. He told me to prove to him I am going to change and MAYBE we will have something. But, I feel as though the best thing to do it just let him go.

Does anyone with pocd have the fear/obsession of either willingly or accidentally viewing illegal content online and then possibly going to jail for it? It’s killing me

I hate when it’s constantly in the back of mind and I can’t put it to rest until I have answers to the “what if” thoughts in my mind telling I will never be happy or forgiven. I wish I could go back. I would do anything to go back. And the sad thing is I never had bad intentions ever. I was young and stupid and didn’t even realize what I was doing. So why am I being so hard on myself? Because of the what if thoughts saying they are true or because of OCD latching onto something that I can’t control. I feel so dark and depressed. I can’t enjoy my life or breathe. I feel like I deserve to give up. Not that I’m going to but that’s how I feel.

Idk what to do. I feel sick. I… feel stupid and hurt. My first love came back into my life after leaving. I thought he would only want a friendship but he was still interested this was all online in the span of a year. We had never seen eachother in video. It was always pictures and i had makeup/ filters etc. well i thought it was time to show him myself. So no makeup no bonnet. I sent a video. He said i looked different. First sayinf 50% now saying 30%. I feel pretty hideous rn. He said he was still attracted to me sexually but i feel like he was lying. We are usually extremely sexual with eachother and it just didn’t feel the same since yesterday. He has alot of females interested in him and today he was playing with his friends and one of those females who i think is interested in him, im not sure what he thinks. He makes lots of sexual jokes to both sexes but seeing him do it with her, (and after i showed myself whoch im super insecure about even had to do an exposure about this in therapy) kind of sucks. I feel like he doesn’t want me anymore and weve barely texted all day. I feel like hes forcing himself to want me and have been going crazy in my head. Im afraid im in denial and this reminds me of when my ocd got bad again. I feel like crying, like hitting myself on the head. Like i do love this guy and maybe I shouldn’t have lwt myself fall for him w/o him seeing me? Do women even wear bonnets when their guys around? Im just so fucked inwardly rn. I want a hug or to talk to someone about it but it’s embarrassing. The guy i like decides that he doesn’t want me after seeing me for the first time? His words say he doees but his actions feel of.

Does ocd ever really make you believe that deep deep down it’s all true and real? I hate that damn feeling. You just can’t trust your thinking.

Don't care what it says, always agree with it. And relief will follow ❤

My anxiety is deep my relationship is more than likely over and it hurts so much because I just now am realizing I’ve needed help for a long time and I let her see the worst of rocd I accused her of not loving me and cheating on me for 2 years and we were talking and now she says she needs time and we have a kid together the doubts are strong but I’m fighting so hard I’m doing everything I can to not call her because she asked me not to talk to her but to our daughter and I want her nothing more than to tell her how much I love her but she is confused from my actions and I know she needs space but my ocd wants to call her and confess but she also doesn’t want to seem understanding about this and said that it wasn’t an excuse and I no that it’s an excuse I needed help so long ago and I’m trying to now I’m filled with so much doubt and my chest wants to pop sitting here is so hard

Anyone else struggle with existenal OCD? I get really weird thoughts... like "what are thoughts" .. "how do I know that everything I read, hear and have been told about ocd is true" "how do I know that everyone is really helping me and not some kind of Trueman show character" "how do I know I'm not here alone and everyone I see or here is just a figament of my imagination" .... is this all really ocd or could it be more?? 😔... it really freaks me out... anyone else experience this?

HOCD: a recovery story. My HOCD began around 2 years ago. At the time, I didn’t know that I had OCD. I have a vivid memory of the moment it all started. I was scrolling through TikTok, and stumbled upon a video of a girl talking about how she’d been ‘straight’ her whole life until meeting this one woman, and then she realised that she had never been straight at all… Initially, I felt confused, and then I felt one of the most intense rushes of panic I’ve ever felt: ‘what if I’m gay and just don’t know it?’, and a million other trailing thoughts ensued. What followed was 2 years of endless questioning, anxiety, panic, confusion, sadness and grief. Looking back, it’s almost comical to me how I let someone else’s narrative and experience shatter my own identity; but I guess that’s just how OCD works. It was a couple of months into this theme that I stumbled upon ‘HOCD’. What I was experiencing felt so bizarre; I had no concrete evidence to suggest that I was into women, yet I was questioning my sexuality every day, for hours! Having a pretty stereotyped conception of OCD, I didn’t believe that I could possibly have it… and then a thread started to reveal itself; I’ve had obsessions in the past about my health - I always assumed it was hypochondria, but it had an obsessive-compulsive style; it was more than just ‘worry’. It then occurred to me that this obsession with my sexuality felt very similar… After a lot of research, learning about OCD (the ‘pure O’ kind) and hearing and reading the experiences of others, I decided that I should start implementing exposures into my day-to-day life, in the hopes that I could finally close that chapter of my mental life. For me, my predominant ‘compulsions’ were reassurance seeking and checking. This manifested as staring at ‘erotic’ images of women, monitoring my mental and bodily responses, doing the same with men, and comparing the two; playing scenarios in my head of myself both romantically and physically with women, monitoring my responses; going back over photos, videos and memories to see if I ever behaved in a ‘non-hetero’ way; and the embarrassing list goes on. I found that intentionally trying to ‘stop’ these things, just fuelled my desire to do them more - to find certainty. I decided that this method - for some reason - wasn’t working. My next choice (and the choice that basically ended my battle with OCD) was letting the thoughts be there, but changing my response. I realised that the crux of my suffering was my constant responding to the thoughts, and my constant rumination on them. I realised that it was taking away from my day-to-day life - I wasn’t doing as much as I could’ve/should’ve been, I was neglecting aspects of myself that I should’ve/could’ve been attending to. I started to focus on the things that gave me a sense of meaning and contentment: school, my friends and family, music, learning, my health, etc, all the while LETTING the thoughts be there. At first, the suffering felt the same, I was still thinking all the time, I still felt like I was on autopilot, but I was progressing. Before I knew it, this progression became exponential. Over the course of months, my shift in prioritisation yielded huge rewards. I was happy and thriving, and my HOCD just became a dull background noise that had virtually no relevance to me. For some, the only way to achieve this is though therapy; I didn’t have the means, and that likely made things harder, so I highly recommend professional help to those who have access to it!!! Nonetheless, I feel free from OCD. Yes, I still have thoughts about my sexuality, YES, I still engage in the odd compulsion, but I definitely don’t qualify as having OCD anymore. Nothing triggers me in that regard, which I’m unbelievably thankful for. For example, I couldn’t even hear a ‘coming out’ story without bursting into panic and sometimes tears!!Now, I could listen to one with intrigue and absolutely no anxiety, and that’s really saying something. If anyone can take anything from this, I hope it’s the knowledge that you’re not doomed to your obsession, there is, unequivocally, hope for you. If I can recover, in the state that I was in, then there’s no doubt that (regardless of the severity) you can too!!! In retrospect, I can see how cognitively distorted my thinking was, and that’s not something you have insight into until you’re on the other side. I’m writing this with joy. I’m sending my absolute best wishes to all, whatever obsession you’re dealing with. You are not trapped, you are not doomed, you are not incapable of recovery - make the choice of change now.

tics tw sometimes i read things about people’s tics or see them do them and i get the urge to do it too. i don’t know if it’s ocd or tourette’s! like i feel i have to do it in a sort of ‘just right’ way but a lot of people with tourette’s say the same.

18+ I’ve recently started getting more and more inc3st intrusive thoughts lately about my brothers that I feel disgusting about because I’ve never had these kind of thoughts before and while me and my boyfriend were having sex the whole time I kept getting images of them and my thoughts kept telling me I think they’re attractive and that I’m bored with my boyfriend because I’d rather be thinking about them. And I feel so gross saying all of this but I don’t want to tell my boyfriend even though he knows pretty much everything about my POCD. With all these sexual intrusive thoughts at once it just makes me feel like I’m a pervert and that I want all these thoughts especially when my ocd keeps bringing up my past porn addiction and mistakes I have made. I in no way shape or form want these thoughts but I just feel so guilty considering my past and how my intrusive thoughts seem so real. Ugh I just want to be normal again and have normal thoughts that normal people have.

Has anyone tried CBD oil for OCD? And if so, are you also on any other medications?

Right now I feel like God is disappointed in me because of one of my tattoos that has pagan history even though I did not know it had that history and I do not align with paganism and im afraid that im going to be punished because of it, even though im making efforts to getting it removed.

Does anyone have any input about the concept of extreme exposures? I understand why it’d be necessary for recovery but wouldn’t some of them be genuinely dangerous? Like especially for contamination?

A lot of people that I use to see post up here when I first joined in 2020 don’t post up here anymore it seems. Makes we think they’ve gotten better with their ocd than I have cause I still post even though it’s less frequent.

Hi everyone. Just want to find someone that shares what I have. Emetophobia/contamination OCD. I'm finding it difficult to understand what I should be treating, or how to treat both. Emetophobia is the cause of my OCD I feel. It's hard to find a therapist who treats Emetophobia and OCD together. If I just treat the contamination OCD am I dealing with the actual problem of Emetophobia? Any help appreciated.

Im super scared that i wont recover it's killing me rn

A little bit of erp goes a long way 🤗

Intrusive thoughts are hitting me hard these last few days. Normally I have been able to work through them but for some reason, they are causing me a lot of stress. I feel like I’m back at square one when I thought I have made it out of the really bad times. My intrusive thoughts have been about losing my mind. I’m constantly checking to make sure I’m not delusional and then my brain throws out random thoughts that make me think I’m delusional. I know those thoughts aren’t true but then my thoughts are like then why are you having them? Maybe you are beginning to lose it? Then I have a full on panic attack and picturing myself going nuts or in psychosis. I had this theme awhile ago and was able to conquer it or so I thought. Now it’s back and really distressing me. My intrusive thoughts switch back and forth between religion, harm, and now these mental health ones. Sometimes all at once and that’s the worse. Does anyone have advice on how to push through?