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Is it necessary to go back and heal childhood trauma issues in order to fully heal from anxiety and depression? My therapist (not thru nocd) always wants to go back and address this stuff and idk

Dear all, as real chat here is not possible and a fluent conversation would make me feel more connected and part of a group, I'd like to ask, if anyone is interested in an online support group via chat? If yes, I'd try to find a platform for it. I know on here are minors who suffer from OCD, but as I suffer from POCD and want to be able to freely discuss it (and of course, as discussing that topic with minors triggers my POCD, as I found out on here), I would like to start an online support group only for people who are 18 years of age, or older. Anyone who is interested, please let me know.

this felt like a intrusive thought/image and i don’t know if i intentionally thought of it or just felt really real, and i’m scared right now, i just need someone to talk too

So I wanted to come onto here to share this story of mine to keep people aware. So about 5 months ago my guy friend Introduced me and my friends to a friend of his, we shall call him apple. When I met apple he seems familiar. Turns out I used to be friends with him like 4 years ago when I moved to this area. In December he became good friends with my friend, let’s call her carrot. He ended up liking carrot and asked her out but she had a bf so she said no. He then said something to carrot that she didn’t like and carrot decided not to be friends with him. Me and apple still talked because we were family friends and we had no bad blood. Everything was acquaintances and very mutual. Then in about mid February he told me he liked me. I didn’t like him and I told him that I didn’t have feeling for him and wasn’t ok going out with him after he liked my friend. He would not let up about dating but I didn’t mind and got over it after a while. He then became very suffocating and I told him he needed to give me a little space. He said that he respected that. I take the bus home and when doing so I started to notice a van near my stop all the time. I never saw who was in it because I was always so focused on something else l, but I live in a good neighbourhood so I never thought much about it, I figured someone had a family or friend over because it was parked in front of a house. I never knew that apple drove a white van until I saw him leave the parking lot in that exact white van. Then in my head it clicked that it was the same van that has been there for AT LEAST 8 days. So when I was on the bus I decided to see who was in the drivers spot when I got off the bus. He parked outside of the entrance to my street which was also where my stop was. When I came around the corner I saw the van. It was turned off. I got off the bus and the van wasn’t there, instead it was closer and almost behind the bus. It was apple. I was shocked. He slowly encroached down the road as I stood there watching him in shock. I started to shake and ran home to figure this out. I called him and played dumb and called and acted like I didn’t know anything. We talked, he straight up lied to me and I was pissed. He said the reason why he was watching me outside my stop was because he “missed me”. (Btw my stop was like right by my house. Like only 2-3 houses separated my stop from my house)So I dropped all contact and went to school the next day. He hasn’t showed up to the class we have with each other in 2 days. I’m 16. Like I never thought something like that would happen to me, and I’m like astonished.

I've been doing pretty well with ignoring my body's sensations and and ignoring Google when it comes to symptoms that my anxiety has manifested but I've been dealing with weird neck tension and jaw tension on the left side for a while now. Couple weeks off and on and while I know I've been down that road before I can't help but think it is something terrible like throat or oral cancer. I've never smoked in my life and my doctor has told me I am healthy and good to go but the thought of something I'm possibly ignoring or something that had been overlooked overwhelms my mind at times. Anxiety has a Bible list of symptoms and they can happen even when your not anxious or stressed. Any words of wisdom or similar experiences to gain perspective.l?

i have a crush on this guy and we’re getting closer and it’s amazing. it makes me super happy and i’m very attracted to him physically. i think he’s amazing! but when i think about us having sex, i don’t enjoy it. i find it perverted and weird. something happened to me once that i don’t really want to get into but essentially it’s probably a safety thing that’s turning me off. like sex has become this source of fear now and i find it gross… yet i’m also one to think A LOT about sexual stuff. i fantasise all the time about it. so it’s really confusing! i spoke to my therapist about it and it made a lot of sense that this is rooted in fear over what happened to me and all of that. but when i think of me having sex with a girl, i don’t feel as put off. logically i think it’s because i feel safe with women so it’s less scary. the thing that happened to me was done by a man and not a woman. but then part of me is nervous i’m simply not sexually attracted to men and i’m in denial. i’ve never had a romantic crush on a woman, and any sexual attraction i’ve felt has been purely anatomical (like very sexualised women in porn etc). i think i just feel a bit deflated because i honestly really really like this guy and now i’m questioning it all. i want to feel sexually attracted to him, and if i’m not, i don’t want the reason to be because i’m not sexually attracted to men! any insight would be appreciated :)

I suffer from OCD for over 2/3 of my life. When POCD start at age 21, my life took a turn for the worse. I hated and disgusted myself, my life became smaller and smaller as I avoided triggers more and more. As my life became smaller, so did my circle of friends. After a total break down in 2012, that left me unable to work and overwhelmed by OCD for 1.5 years, I had lost two close friends. Others stuck around, but as they realized I probably won't ever be pre-break down me again, they cut me out, too. I met a guy after this 1.5 year lasting period, we fell in love and he helped me back on to my feet, he fought along side me for 2 years, then for 4 years he slowly withdrew from me, our relationship ended in early 2020. I suspected OCD had been the reason for him to withdraw, but I only got his confirmation a few weeks ago and it left me deeply hurt. I don't feel like ever dating again, my ex partner of 6 years hadn't been the first to leave me due to my OCD and I feel like just I can't take it anymore. Getting dumped, because someone doesn't love you for you anymore is painful. Getting dumped, because you are not worth the trouble, because you don't function properly, because of an illness you yourself want to get rid off, is so much worse. And the same goes for friendships. And my family is not a real help either, for many years my friends had been my family. I feel utterly alone and even though I don't want to die and actually want to again properly live, I sometimes wonder, for whom I am actually putting a fight up every single day? (I'm not suicidal) Have others had similar experiences? If you are completely, or nearly completely alone, how do you deal with it?

i'm sorry in advance for how long this post is and if it's to much information. i'm undiagnosed but have been struggling with compulsions and intrusive thoughts since i was 7 or 8. My worst intrusive thoughts theme has been about p*d*phil*s. I've been dealing with it since my freshman and sophomore year but these thoughts didn't become debilitating until June of last year. I had a panic attack and confessed to my parents about these intrusive thoughts. They were obviously shocked and share. I felt so ashamed and like a monster. After talking with my dad he said we would see a therapist about it. Sadly we never did the first appointment we were late and missed are spot and the second appointment i sprained my ankle the night before so instead i was in the hospital. After that i closed myself off i tried dealing with them on my own using sources like NOCD and stuff. I did try to bring up going to therapy to my parents. Every time they would ask me if the intrusive thoughts were back and I would lie saying "no i just would like to go to therapy" I was so scared they'd be afraid of me and stop loving me, especially my mom. Eventually after awhile my parents forgot about it and I tried ignoring these intrusive thoughts because I was so focused and stressed from school. I decided I could just wait till I turn 18 and schedule myself into therapy. recently though my intrusive thoughts have gotten worse. I recently had a convo with one of my friends who has intrusive thoughts as well and she's encouraging me to talk to my parents. I'm asking y'all what should I do. As much as I'm scared I want to get help because I'm sick of living and feeling like i'm day away from acting on my intrusive thoughts.

I live alone for over 1.5 years now and doing ERP against POCD seems too much to handle on my own. The urge to ruminate a lot after ERP sessions against POCD had always been overwhelmingly strong and hard to not give in, as I felt I owe it to others to make sure I didn't harm someone. I feel like being stuck in a vicious circle. My ex made it clear, that OCD killed our relationship. We barely did something together outside of our apartment, if we did, triggers (or the mare thought triggers could be there) would constantly make me tense and after a while it made him tense, too, which made me even more tense. The impact OCD had on my life and ultimately on his, to him had been a price not worth paying. It is hard for me to cope on my own as it is, given that I also started to suffer from depression and other forms of anxiety. It seems like, I won't be able to have a relationship again, if I don't get POCD under control, but to be able to even try that I'd need a partner. Some have family and friends to support them, but 17 years of POCD stripped me bare of real friends I can rely on. Does anyone have made similar experiences? Does anyone have managed to go through ERP against POCD without any support apart from their therapist?

I was trying really hard not to like google incessantly and go on Reddit and stuff but I caved and I went down this rabbit hole of watching tik toks of women coming out and like comparing/contrasting my experiences with them. How do you stop yourself from doing these things? Especially when it feels like you have to watch the videos in order to like, “figure it out” and whatever. SO-OCD is SO HARD especially when sexuality is so fluid anyway. It’s so frustrating!!

Has anyone ever done ERP during pregnancy? If so did it help? I just know that even though it helps in the long run, it can make the short term anxiety a lot worse, which I’m afraid to experience while pregnant.

i think if I had to put a label on my OCD id call it "sexual scrupulosity"--im obsessed with searching for "evidence" that im a sexual predator, or that i coerced consent out of someone, or that i groomed someone into consenting to sexual conversations even if explicit consent was given and maintained, etc etc. I know exactly where these thoughts and obsessions came from and which traumas caused them to be so prominent, but no amount of logical thinking helps them be less distressing it's especially difficult when it combines with real event ocd--"did this person lie about their age? were they actually a legal adult? were they able to consent? was the consent fully informed and uncoerced?" what this means is that consent and respecting consent is extremely important to me, but i can't escape this bizarre alternate reality my OCD has formed where I'm a predator or pervert waiting for people to "find out" about my degeneracy. it feels almost like im hiding a double life help??

All these different themes are like me living In my worst nightmare, I don’t want any of these thoughts and I accept the uncertainty behind them, but I just want to be back to me. I’m looking for any advice

So, i had a fight over nothing with my mother and now my anxiety got triggered which in turn made my ocd worse. During Summer we are going to go to a wedding and i wanted to get a specific dress to wear but my mom disagreed with my choice and kept on trying to make me buy something else. I told her I don't agree but she kept on saying i know nothing about fashion and that i should listen to her. I didn't and she started getting aggressive which in turn made me angry and i told her that she shouldn't try to force her opinion on others. She kept on yelling that she won't stand others making fun of her daughter (all because of the dress i chose🙂) and i told her i don't care about the opinion of others over what i wear and she replied "okay but don't be next to me when we go".Then she started saying that i'm always the only one that "cancels" her as a person (in her book if you express any different opinion over hers it means you're against her for some reason) and that i should never ever ask her for anything again and that i should stay with my "ignorance". And then she kept on gaslighting and reversing my words. Apparently I'm not allowed to even choose what i want to wear.

I got diagnosed with OCD, when I as 12, but had been deemed "odd" by my mother, since I was a toddler. Through out my childhood, I was anxious about a lot of different things. Before OCD "broke out", I controlled the swing in the garden ever night for 5 minutes, then one night, I felt the need to control the lamp in the dining room and needed to make sure it didn't swing. My Magical Thoughts OCD had been born. Soon it spread from the swing in the garden and that one lamp to everything that was hanging, Contamination OCD made a brief appearance, but for me my Magical Thoughts had been my form of OCD and I had been sure, I was stuck with it for life. When a new intrusive thought popped up in my head, I didn't recognize it for what it was. I thought touching the leg of the 14 year boy, I tutored as a side job, with my leg, while sitting close to each other in order to read the same book, might have aroused me meant something was wrong with me. I felt the need to investigate, to think it trough, rehash and make 100% sure, I had not been aroused by my student. Me having very lively imagination skills came in handy there, unfortunately not for me, but for my OCD. I tried to imagine how a pedophile would feel, when they liked a child. I tried to create the emotional and physical feelings, I think a pedophile would feel, and compare them to how I had felt. I did this to gain certainty, but after months I realized I had trained a new OCD form on to myself. The thoughts would come and I would go through the motions, trying to feel what a pedophile would feel, compare it to how I had felt and then finally, after sometimes hours, be able to ensure myself, that I didn't feel that way. The thoughts became more and more, not only children and teenagers I encountered would trigger me, also seeing them on TV, or thinking of them sent me down the rabbit hole. Pretty quickly it also extended to my cat, then to animals (even insects!). 17 years later POCD rules my life, it is always there, it turned more in to a constant feeling of tension and guilt, like a predator sitting on a wall, waiting to attack. Every sexual arousal needs to be checked, I can only engage in anything sexual, sex, or masturbation, when I can feel sure, it had nothing to do with a thought about a child, or animal. When I don't assure myself properly, check and think, or just try to let it pass and say to myself - Yeah, don't worry - I feel guilty after. What I find weird is, that everything seems to arouse me now. Anything slightly sexual, that years ago wouldn't have aroused me, does now. It's is kind of like having gotten hyper sensitive around the topic sex. And that triggers my POCD even more, as it got hard for me to not be aroused. I also feel like masturbating often, as I feel constant tension in my groinal area, but that runs the risk of OCD getting worse during, or more often after. On the website of NOCD I today read about groinal rousal to POCD thoughts and that any sexual thought can trigger it without one being attracted to children. I felt better after reading it, but that wore off quickly. Like always OCD got it's power back, it feels, that when I get a bit of freedom and piece of mind through therapy, or stepping back and telling me - This is OCD, you are not a monster! - OCD had a go at me to gain its territory back. Only 2020 I found helpful articles about POCD, for years I only searched in my mother tongue and found one article, that didn't describe POCD as good and detailed as the articles on the website of NOCD do and above that, the author (a psychologist or psychiatrist) stated that only men are able to suffer from POCD. I had been crushed, I thought, if only men are able to suffer from it, what am I experiencing then? At the end of 2020, I thought to myself - Why not search in English? - and finding great articles written by psychologist/psychiatrists with such insight, that I thought, the articles must have been written by someone who suffers from POCD, really blew my mind and helped me a lot, till, yes, you guessed correctly, OCD came at me with full force again. Before I read some of the posts in here, I felt pretty much alone with suffering from POCD, that's why reading your posts really made me feel less alone. I would love to meet POCD sufferers and talk to them, if there is a chat option for that on here. Thanks for reading, Zoë

I went almost 24 hours without sleep yesterday and worked a 10 hour shift so when I got home I went to sleep because I was so exhausted and also sad because my mind was driving me crazy I couldn’t even concentrate so I went to sleep and I remember being half asleep last night when my mom came home she was literally screaming at me and I remember screaming back saying that I wasn’t going to talk to her if she was going to speak to me that way and she was being so mean to me last night and I really don’t even want anything to do with her. I’m 23 and can’t afford to move out. I even cleaned the house yesterday for her like she asked me to and she came home literally screaming and yelling at me for no good reason all because I was asleep at 7 or 8 at night because I had gotten no sleep since 7 or 8 the night before. Why would she just scream at me? I don’t understand why she treats me the way she does. Maybe I deserve it? I don’t know

I think I have meta OCD. And I just did my first active erp exposure. Afterwards I doubted if I did it right, if I got the “right amount” of anxiety, if this is going to help me. Does anyone else experience this? I feel like it’s hard to get better with this type of doubt.

How do I know if these thoughts about leaving my partner are real or not? I have been feeling these things for a while, and they are agitated by problems/fears of physical intimacy and desires of my partner to have kids in the future. Is it possible to love someone but want something else? I am tired of feeling this way and it has taken a toll on my mental health. My husband is wonderful but I feel so much cognitive dissonance on the inside, like what if this isnt what I really want, this future? But I cant bear making a decision because I dont want to hurt him. But I am suffering greatly with these feelings. How does one know if these feelings are OCD?

Self harm ⚠️⚠️tw I used to self harm when I was younger however I stopped and recently I’ve been going through a lot and I started cutting myself again on my thigh. I’m usually truthful with my therapist and I have an appointment tomorrow. I hear people going around telling people not to tell them the truth or they will send you to the psych ward so now I’m terrified to be open to my therapist tomorrow

At this point I’m pretty sure I’m psychotic. I have intrusive thoughts all day long of me doing a bunch of things that I never and will never do. Images of me poking out my own eyes in all sorts of other horrific things that will have to do with self mutilation. These images have been haunting me for two years with the persisting fear that I will act out on these things one day despite me never wanting to do so. Now on top of these thoughts I am dealing with something else. I keep thinking about the fact that there’s no escape from life other than death and it makes me feel scared and trapped. I can’t stop thinking about this that there’s no escape. It’s scaring me. I want to live I have no desire to die but once I get the intrusive thought about not being able to escape this life is scaring me. I believe I’m going through depersonalization because nothing feels right my surroundings feel unfamiliar I feel unfamiliar. I feel like an alien in a place that seems unknown to me. This all started after I had a panic attack in the shower three weeks ago over my intrusive harm thoughts and in the moment I actually thought that my life was over and that I was about to act out on it but of course I didn’t because it’s just a thought and an obsessive fear. Something I would never do but it felt so real in that momentI almost passed out from the fear. The day after that I felt like nothing was real and I’m still in depersonalization and having panic attacks on the regular but today I got that thought about not being able to escape life and how we’re basically all trapped here. I can’t stop thinking it and it’s making me feel sick. Maybe if I Felt more connected to myself and my surroundings stuff like this wouldn’t bother me but that panic attack destroyed me. Does this sound like OCD or something else?I was completely normal and fine three weeks ago yes I had my intrusive thoughts but they weren’t scaring me or controlling me like they are now.