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Can anyone else feel when they are trying to suppress an intrusive thought? Or am I a true weirdo and maybe actually thinking these things?! 😭😭

Why do some thoughts that are potentially obsessive i.e., that can become an obsession are ignored by our minds at first glance, but later on become an obsession? I'm struggling with the idea of having Fatal Insomnia. I havent slept last night, and I think I'll never sleep again. The thing is, this thought has popped up in my mind several other times, but never got my attention. Why did this happen now?

Recently got back from University and I've been staying with my parents. I'm not sure why but my OCD and anxiety seems worse than it was during spring quarter. I'm wondering if anyone else who is currently in college has had a similar experience? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated 💜

I need a bit of advice. I have been making some progress with my religious ocd. I am looking to expand my social circle and meet other Christians. The only issue is the last time that I did this, I met Christians who tore me down and told me i had no faith simply bc I had anxiety. They even made the implication that I had demons because I struggle with fatigue and OCD. Needless to say that this did not help me in my struggle with OCD. I have since broken all contact with these toxic people who call themselves Christians. My concern is that I may meet people like these again and I don't know what the appropriate response would be to such behavior. I have thought that it might help if I get to know people first before I try and have this kind of deeper fellowship with them. I just can't understand why some are under the delusion that being a Christian means that we should never have struggles or that we have it all together all the time. Just thinking about it gives me this heavy feeling of pressure and panic

Not to reassure everyone, but it is ocd. Trust that. Nothing within yourself is coming to take the thing you value/know about you. You know yourself the best. If something doesn’t feel right, makes you depressed, then it probably isn’t what you want. When you have the thoughts, accepting them is great, but remember that you have control over your actions. It’s all about trusting yourself. I’m finding it super helpful to do self affirmations. Loving the skin and body I’m in so that I don’t continue to look at myself and think oh I look like a boy or I look like a lesbian. Accept yourself, don’t be mad at yourself. If you’re scared that accepting yourself means you will turn out to be something you don’t want to be, guess what, it’s ocd. You have control of your actions. You will find something meant for you when it feels right. You don’t have to dig deeper to find your answers. Your answers aren’t coming for you, they aren’t deep inside you, they come from within when you are in a place of self love and self acceptance. You’ve got this. You can do it. Life really isn’t that scary and living, exposing yourself to your triggers, and socializing are going to help you. Do things you enjoy that actually bring you joy and not more questions.

We can do this, we will fight this and get better! ❤️ I know it is scary, I know it freaks you out, I am scared and in my head almost all the time, but know this: YOU ARE NOT YOUR THOUGHTS! YOU KNOW WHAT AND WHO YOU WANT TO BE WITH! Believe in this: 1. Sexuality doesn't ever change. You've never questioned your sexuality before, right? You felt good with your partners before these all questions popped in, right? Then fight for that. 2. Love is a choice. You choose who you want to love. And you need to develop that relationship, because it's like a flower. If you don't tend to it, it will wither. 3. Don't question, just enjoy. If you question the sex or kiss or hug, you will feel just scared and miserable. Let the thoughts be and they will disappear. If you enjoyed it before, then that's a fact and no OCD will take it from you. 4. There's nothing like 'big denial' that ERP could unravel. Gays don't question, they don't feel the way we do. Those in denial just try to act as straight, but they still don't feel this way. I talked to my therapist and he agreed with me on these. I hope this helps. Also regarding the late coming outs, I believe this: 1. Denial as wrote before. They know they are gay, but try hard to not accept it. 2. Choice. They decided for some reason to try same-gender relationship and never felt the urge to return to hetero relationship. It's them, not you. You know who you want and I believe by what I read that you don't find the idea of trying same-sex relationship satisfying, no matter the thoughts or false feelings. You can decide which thoughts are interesting to you and which not. The tips from my therapist on how to reprogramme the brain: 1. Say STOP, when it comes and try doing some activity that will keep you focused. 2. Have a time limit where you will pull the thoughts in for 10 mins daily and let them be until you are bored. (Too scary, so he suggested I start with the first one) 3. Medication to help cope with the thoughts 4. Exploring the thoughts further. He guarantees that they will not uncover some deep homosexuality, but I am still scared of that. 5. Rephrase your "What does this thought mean?" question to something that will help you better and stops exploring the thought further as a spider web. F.e. he asked me what would be a fitting question to replace this, wo I don't get in the loop again. And I thought really hard about that, but came up with only one that would make me say no instead of maybe. "Do you want this?" NO! I want to be interested only in boys! The brain is too deep in the thoughts already, so it will be hard, but we beed to keep trying. I tried googling methods how to change negative thinking and overthinking, how to forget some thoughts forever, but never actually practiced that for long. Good luck, everyone. ✌️😁

I pointed out to my mom how she can help by not giving reassurance. She was resistant to this idea and said," I am trying to straighten out and live MY life and I cannot get involved in that pathology you have going there and doctors don't know what the heck they are doing" I understand why she feels this way, but i completely disagree and also find it mildly annoying. What really irked me though was that she then started giving me advice about how to feel better by "embracing my inner child". She said she's had a ton of trauma in her life so she is qualified to speak on this. What does your inner child want? What made you happy from your childhood? At that moment i just wanted her to stop proselytizing about what works for her, but doesn't necessarily work for me right now. So i said I love you mom, but i need to walk away from this conversation right now and go to bed because it's upsetting me. I am an independent adult so my mom is not legally obligated to do anything to help me. I also don't live with her so this is not (fortunately) a daily experience. Don't get me wrong, my mom is amazing in so many ways (and i DO believe that leaning into ones inner child can be liberating), but i find this really saddening that we are so much on different pages when it comes to medicine and doctors.

I really need help. Read my last post if you can. Please. I want to give up and I can’t do that. Everything hurts so much all the time. The thoughts going wild in my head telling me so many scary things that I pray to God aren’t true. What do I do? What can I do? 💔🙏🏻😭

I’m currently at an ocd inpatient facility and it is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, I’m homesick, and just being in a new environment is an exposure for me, I can barely keep up with the schedule. I’m sorry I just had to write this somewhere anonymously, the first time I came down here and left the next day because I just couldn’t handle it, even one night. I just wasn’t built to handle life man. I’m not mentally strong plain and simple, although I would not say that to someone else in my situation. Now after months of work to get back I’m so drained and exhausted after being here just one week and a day, but this time my parents, understandably, want to see me “stick this out” and I get where they’re coming from but after hearing how long some of the other residents have been here (months) I can’t even imagine staying here more then three weeks. A large part of me does not believe I can ever get better and that part of me is cemented in my head, at the same time I also don’t feel I warrant inpatient treatment. Essentially if you have ever been to an inpatient place or are at one now, know that your not alone.

I wanna cry but I feel numb but at the same time i don’t wanna accept what’s going on yet my mind is like you’re smiling so this must mean you have no pain and you’ve accepted fate, at the same time the thought of being bi or gay really hasn’t bought me any happiness, when i look at men and get any groinal response it still fucks with me, or my mind goes you want this, this is you and has always been you, completely disregarding any feelings or anything I’ve had for women ever since i was like in the 5th grade, it all feels like a lie, going on dates feels like a cover up, idk how long i can go like this, i keep telling myself hey Jai relax , this shall pass but it won’t pass, i have 0 libido, no attraction, idk what to do , being gay feels like a reality and mostly makes me sad if not all the time, i get triggered tbh i don’t even get anxiety sometimes and ite fucking with me My thoughts are saying porn influenced my sexuality and Ik it’s bs but it seems so real I have people around me yet i feel so empty and alone, it’s like a void, like something is missing and it keeps bringing me back to when i went soft, i cant get it out my head, i can’t even get it up for a woman anymore before i could do that in a snap, or i can’t keep it up, i get turned off so quick , i feel like it’s real and i don’t like that i don’t want that, I’m doing erp but why do i feel even worse? I’m sorry if that was tmi

Finally, after 2 months,after a long tak with my therapist this morning, I identified my true demon. I was hitting the scarecrow all along. Now I need help identifying the compulsions in ERP. I'm that dude you probably have seen around here complaining about sleep. I am constantly afraid I wont get to sleep at night. Now, I didnt really understand why I have that fear. I mean, I'd be totally fine If a doctor said ''ok, you should stay awake for 3 days for an experiment. The real problem for me is the uncertainty about my sleep, in which I never know if I'll be able to sleep or not. I thought it was just sleep anxiety. However, I used to work night shift a couple of years ago, and sometimes I would skip a day of sleep on purpose, to have more free time to enjoy ( I used to sleep from 6 am to 3 pm). I never felt scared at all. Even when I would try to sleep and failed, I would feel frustrated, but not terrified as I find myself nowadays when I have a sleepless night. So I started questioning: What happened lately that made me so concerned about that? Why do I have to be 100% sure I will get to sleep every single night, and why do I get terrified when I don't? So I remembered that last year I was reading about Familiar Fatal Insomnia. I learned that there is a very rare similar disease in which a person may develop Sporadic Fatal Insomnia, without the need to have a genetic link to FFI. It is extremely rare - only 24 cases registered so far. Now I dont know whether I really believe I have it, or may develop it. I'm more afraid of having this fear at night and fail to sleep, thus ''confirming'' my diagnosis. That's why I feel so terrified when I don't sleep. The thing is, never changed. The fear is the same as I had all these weeks: Failing to sleep the next night. Regardless of what condition is causing it.Anxiety, OCD, or fatal insomnia.. This fear of Fatal Insomnia had already popped up other times through these weeks, but never got my attention for too long. Somehow I realized this is a never ending cycle, in which I'll never know how my next night will be. I don't know how to practice ERP here. What should I expose myself to? How can I practice ERP with a fear that can kind of come true ? (Not necessarily developing such condition, but failing to sleep and thus believing so). I'm sorry for the long post, but I really dont know what to do:(

On quora i read stories of women and felt like i related to it all pls help me this woman’s article where she knew she was straight and then in her 20’s became wanting to look like a particular women and then exploring and wanting to be with and is the happiest being a in a relationship with a women . What if my relationship with guys don’t work out because of this what if it never was supposed to be guys.. which is why u have never dated or stopped feeling any attraction or never had at all?!? Also one as much as whats written here is true that is well what do i believe and what is the truth a lesbian and i have read differently here if its so easy then what guarantees do i have haven’t done anything with a guy in a long time what if I actually end up feeling nothing and all this is true?! How people say over its very easy to become a bi and all that?! Like looking at girls more than normal what do i do? I am panicking cause i know panic states ocd and i know even while i am writing this so how is it ocd and not denial pls pls help me the fact that I haven’t been with a guy in so long what do i know what happens people realise so late and also the fact and option of exploration what about that and people go and do that what do i tell myself want to watch unzip what?!? And added this what with exclamations cause i want people to tell me its ocd. On an insta page a straight women when at the age of 23 she decides to explore and then suddenly on dating apps matches with girls and comes in a relationship with one cause back in the day she used to notice girls more than guys and all the other girls told her she is lesbian and then on the app her all kinds of questions fly away when she matches with a girl and they get married its so humane and possible and with all the thoughts i have had in the past and her also mentioning she noticed women more and men less it feels so possible. And everything seemed like true and what’s happening to me i am so confused idk what to do.. I haven’t been diagnosed yet cause I can’t take therapy atm for various reasons and i fear what if the day i go they tell me its been denial always and i just was faking it and its not ocd and i end up accepting it and then there’s no going back. All of this is so scary. I think i am on the verge if giving in and losing it all there is no place back up from here. Its a ditch and i will keep falling into it never be the same again. Never like a guy again and all that back was fake. Cause on quora and even here all stories are like we explored cause before that they were all straight and then they ended up becoming something else. Feels like i am sliding into depression and denial how do i still tell myself its ocd when it starting to feel so real and they say sit with your thoughts and i do and they feel okay normal and what i want. The only thing i now think is what if all this and liking guys was fake and thats why it never worked cause it never was supposed to be guys and all of it was fake like in the stories of these women otherwise why would i relate to it and be like yeah it possible and yeah it okay cause its so similar to mine and i am not panicking about it i sit with the thoughts and if I accept it then what? All the past was a lie today is a lie everything i have told myself and others is a lie. Who am i ? What should i hold on to cause now there’s nothing everything i have read has told me its denial and not ocd and its way to convincing to not believe. I am so lost. Idk who i am or who i ever was. All i can think is i have had heath anxiety ocd which is a sub theme which makes me believe this could also be a theme otherwise all points in the different direction. And its so hard with this theme cause its so idk convincing feels real?!? Am i alone here.. ?

Lately I've been obsessed with researching and reading everything about OCD as I can. I've been fixated on finding physical books, printing out studies, taking the Y-BOCS, anything I can find or get my hands on. Could researching be an obsession or something? I don't know if I'm feeding into it or if this is completely different.

I have been plagued with obsessions that have cause me intense anxiety and forced me to feel the need to complete compulsions to ‘fix’ the feeling my entire life. So that is a negative thing that I am only just now realising is probably some form of ocd. But on a more positive note I have also always been one to have what I call ‘positive’ obsessions over things like certain films, characters, books etc and more specifically an obsession with the details of these things but it brings me joy not anxiety. Like for example I was obsessed with tin tin comics when I was so little that I couldn’t even read them yet but I would spend hours flicking through the pages and picking up on the tiniest minute details in the drawings (if you can picture the drawing style of tin tin you’ll know what I mean). I thought it was so fun. Is that just a personality thing or is this in some way linked to the ocd? Or is it even that being prone to very detail oriented behaviour you are at more risk of developing ocd?

I wonder, if therapy will help me get rid of the guilt I feel... I'm not even sure, if what I did is only bad due to my OCD moral standards, or if normal people would freak out and feel guilty, too... I want to not feel guilty anymore... I again feel, that I committed the ultimate moral crime and have no right to live anymore, or not be/become happy anymore... And no, I'm not suicidal, I will not harm myself, I just feel horrible at the moment. 😔

I’ve been pushing through and accepting / disregarding my intrusive thoughts for a little over a week, and the first few days were so bad I didn’t even think it was worth tracking. June 16th was also bad, but I thought I’d just begin, to see how it goes, and here I am. When I started I thought I’d never use the colour green. This is to say — it may look like you’re not making any progress, but if you do what you’re told, live your life accepting the thoughts, exposing yourself to your fears, it’ll all pay off. I couldn’t believe how fast it hit me. I don’t wake up thinking of my thoughts anymore. It’s not the most important part of my day anymore. It truly feels like I’m healing, because I’m forgetting that I ever was sick. I know there will be setbacks, and I’m ready for them, I’ll welcome them as part of life. Right now, I’m just enjoying this life.

I don’t know if I’m being rational anymore. I don’t know if what I’m feeling is real. I don’t know if my thoughts are true about my past (I certainly hope not and I pray to God my thoughts aren’t true.) and I keep making myself go crazy with all the guilt and regret. I want to be free. I want to be ok and live the life God gave me to live. I want to have certainly so badly and I don’t think I ever will because no matter how many people I talk to about it whether it was my dad before he passed away, my mom or even my therapist I’ve explained everything every little detail and they’ve all told me the same thing. To let it go. To stop punishing myself. To stop being so hard on myself. To move forward and forgive myself. To live myself. To be happy. And I don’t know if I’m worthy of these things. I have so much fear in my mind and heart. I know deep down that I am a very loving good hearted person. I’m not my past and it doesn’t define me. But I can’t accept the thoughts saying really scary things that I am something I would never want to be or did something absolutely unforgivable but again I don’t know if I’m being rational or not. You’d think I would be able to believe my own mom since she told me that I’m loved and that I need to forgive and move on. But I can’t. OCD won’t let me. And by no means am I making excuses. I am the type of person who will take all responsibility and I’m bluntly honest. I have no bad bone in my body and I never did. I was a dumb teenager who wasn’t thinking about my actions. Growing up I dealt with grief of my brother, developed depression and anxiety, lost many more family members including my dad who was my biggest supporter and was always there for me in times like this where I would get so scared and stuck and he was understanding. My mom in the other hand not so much at times. I think she’s tired of me talking about it because I would talk about it non stop confessing and seeking reassurance every single day. To the point I didn’t think I could go on anymore. But here I am still fighting with my head trying to make sense of everything I don’t understand or should understand. One day I hope I can forgive myself. One day I hope I can be ok again. That I can breathe again. That I can give myself the same compassion and understanding that I give so freely to others. I’m going back to college in the fall and I’m really hoping by then I can work on my OCD head on and that way I can focus on my studies. I want to do things right. I want to make a life for myself. But that voice in the back of my mind keeps telling me that I don’t deserve to do so 💔

Just wanted to share where I am at. I have been in a relationship for almost a year now and the last month and a half have been extremely hard. I have tons of anxiety around my relationship constantly thinking my girlfriend is not the right one for me and maybe there is someone better for me. I love her so much and she is so caring and patient with me through all of this. She was never my normal type, but we have so much in common and bonded over that. I just want these constant negative thoughts to subside so I can enjoy the relationship again and not have her worry about me so much.

Has anyone gone on disability for mental health? wondering what thats like.

I’m having a horrible time today. A few years ago as a teenager I made mistakes or bad decisions BUT I didn’t know at the time I was making a mistake or a pattern of mistakes and it never crossed my mind at the time that what I was doing was wrong. I’m trying to accept that it’s in the past but it’s so hard when I keep having scary thoughts that I’m a horrible human being who needs to be taken care of or I should give up. I never had any bad intentions or never had a bad bone in my body. I’ve never hurt anyone and never will but unfortunately got into a weird and embarrassing tickling fetish when I was a teenager and I know I’m being vulnerable talking about this but maybe someone can relate or I could help someone I guess I don’t know but I feel so much guilt. I absolutely hate myself for not knowing at the time. If I would of known then what I know now it would of NEVER happened. I was young and people say your mind isn’t fully developed yet but at the time I would look up memes, gifs, or whatever on ifunny at the time that had to do with the fetish and it was never sexual but because it was a fetish the guilt has to do with masturbation at the time every time because to me it was never ever about the people or whoever I came across maybe the reactions I guess I don’t know (it was not porn at all again it was not sexual) I don’t know if I’m overthinking this. I’ve talked to my mom and therapist and they both told me to let it go and move forward. I have so much guilt and anxiety because of this and I’m desperate at this point. I’m at a point where I feel like i don’t deserve love or happiness or joy, but that I deserve to die. I don’t want to be a monster I never did 💔