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My daughter is really struggling with intrusive thoughts. She is currently in therapy, but she seems to really struggle between sessions. It hurts to see her in so much pain. How can I help her with her thoughts in between sessions?

I believe I have had OCD almost 30 years but am new to my diagnosis and treatment. During this episode, one of my most self destructive compulsions is to ask my wife questions about her sexual past. My therapist has suggested I tell my wife to help me she has to stop answering my questions. I know she's right but I can't bring myself to give this instruction to my wife. I can't bear the thought of shutting myself off from ever getting answers to the questions that pervade my thoughts. I'm posting here because maybe peer support will help me find the courage. I so desperately need to get well. I need to be the husband I was for my wife before this episode started, this is absolutely killing her.

Boyfriend and I are going through a rough time. When I go out now, it feels like I'm genuinely attracted to people and I try my best to always ignore everyone that makes me feel that way. Sometimes, I feel like I play too much into when someone is attracted to me and that makes me feel guilty (never have acted on it, never would, what I mean by this is I feel like I enjoy it too much) that makes me feel guilty and uncomfortable. I would never betray my SO but I'm beginning to feel guilty for not feeling guilty or reacting against these thoughts and feelings because they feel like mine. I'm scared that they are because I don't want to lose my bf but now even in my head I say I don't care if he breaks up with me and don't react to it but I don't want that to be true. I don't want to be attracted to other people but it feels like I am. I don't really know much about intrusive feelings but these feel damn real and like they're mine. It's like I like them. I want this to make me anxious, I'm scared my "ROCD" is really just me in denial and this is just a whole lot of disrespect against my partner that I know would hurt him. I don't want him to think anyone else has my attention because no one else does but all these feelings and attractions are killing me.

Can you just hear me out and tell me what to do ?

Hello if anyone is out there with the same problem can someone help? I've been dealing with with intrusive thoughts about harming my self for a long time then they turned into having thoughts about hurting people around me and the people I love. I can't sleep can't eat can't really function. Also it's all I think about all day long and night when i spiral. I also go through periods where feel a little relief from the thoughts then they go right back to 24/7 because something triggers me? I'm really scared like really scared I'm desperate 😣

I was thinking about hosting a zoom call for people who suffer with these types of OCD (as they are the ones eating me alive at the moment). I was thinking it might be a good idea talking to people in the same boat! Please comment below and I can try and get numbers together. We can fight this together!

Just wondered whether anyone else on here can relate to OCD leading to drink and drug addiction? I’m in recovery now (am sober) but am struggling more with my OCD now that I have nothing to self medicate with. My exhaustion from the intrusive thoughts/compulsions feels just as bad as hangovers and come downs.

When you are trying to trick the ocd, the ocd tricks u back 4 folds .I ,think I wanted to force myself to like the thoughts so that the ocd disappears ......but I felt I really liked it & although I made this disgusting face,my own voice which I rely on(this voice judges was is true & wat is fake usually) said but u like the feeling inside.....after few seconds I became anxious .....now I don't know whether I said I liked it cuz the opposite feeling would come or cuz I really liked it ........is this erp or checking........

Dose anyone else feel guilty, like it’s unfair to bring an amazing child in this world when there’s a risk that they may also suffer from OCD anxiety and depression..

Hey! So last night I started taking 25mg of Zoloft. And today I feel better! (Thank Heavens) SO FAR, there has been no side effects. Is that normal? Should I brace myself? Is the worst yet to come? Is it just a placebo effect? I’ve had this medicine sitting in my cabinet for a month because I have been scared to take it. Some of the rare side effects is almost too much for my anxiety to handle. The uncertainty of it all is scary. For those who have taken SSRIs/Zoloft before, what was the first 2 weeks like?

Hello everyone! I deal with SO-OCD and relationship OCD. I see a lot of you looking for help or someone to reach out. So I figured I’d share my progress so far with erp and where I am at. I am a 25 year old straight male and OCD hit me out of no where a couple of years ago. I didn’t really know what it was at first so I tried to ignore it. That did not work. As my ocd got stronger I thought I was going crazy. I remember thinking I was bi polar or had schizophrenia because these were not my normal thoughts and they were becoming so intense I stopped interacting with my friends and family . I would go to work and as soon as I got home I’d lock myself in my basement. I remember it being so bad at one point I couldn’t watch tv or read a book because I was scared of having “gay thoughts” so I’d stare at the wall lol. I finally stumbled upon HOCD after a bunch of google searches trying to figure out what I had and if anyone else had this. Boom think god I was not the only one but that did not help me feel like I wasn’t the only one if that makes sense. Then I began to look for therapists. The first two I got both said I probably have schizophrenia which was very disheartening. Then I found a local OCD therapist and she was okay :/. And by okay I mean she talked about herself a lot and didn’t really let me speak and I wasn’t really feeling the vibe. So I went to look for a new therapist and got on better help which really didn’t help that much. The therapist I had was amazing but we weren’t doing erp so my thoughts weren’t really going anywhere. During that time I met a wonderful girl and we saw each other for about two months but my libido was all out of wack and I suffered ED pretty much every time we got intimate which honestly shot my confidence so far down it was hard to look myself in the mirror and not be ashamed. My anxiety really shot up then and it really got in the way of me being present while I was with her. So I ended things cause I was embarrassed and ashamed. And pretty much everyday after that I remember thinking well this is it, this is how it’s gonna be forever, for the rest of my life. Then finally after awhile I got tired of trying to manage my ocd and I honestly was not in a good place so I did some more research and that’s how I found NOCD and got matched with a good therapist who actually knows what they are doing which is great. I would say I’m about 12 to 14 weeks in into ERP and I’m finally seeing a bit of results. Now for the first 8 weeks I was still smoking weed on the regular which was not helping at all. I had been smoking for 8 years straight so it was tough to quit but I did and I can tell the ERP is working a lot better. Also in this time I didn’t start doing my erp on a regular basis like I was supposed too but I have been very consistent in the last 4 weeks. Now since I’ve been consistent I have noticed a decrease in anxiety and the SOOCD thoughts here and there. I would say I’m having more good days then bad. Hell I actually had a few days where I felt like myself, libido was back, no anxiety, and no thoughts. Hell even my golf score was lower two rounds in a row. Shit was dope. But then this last week I felt like a took a step back sadly. And even though it wasn’t a great week looking back I can still say I’m a lot better then I was 12 to 14 weeks ago. So these are a few things that have helped me that might help some of you or maybe they won’t. 1.) DO YOUR EXPOSURES. Doing your homework is key. Trust me i understand it sucks and it’s really hard to do them when your having a rough day/week/month but if you can become consistent it will help with those thoughts. It might take awhile for you to notice but get in a rhythm of doing them I promise it helps. For me it took about 6 maybe 7 weeks to notice a slight decrease in my anxiety. Also if it doesn’t feel like they are doing anything keep doing them and tell your therapist and they will offer other ideas on how to better do exposures. 2.) Be wary of drugs and alcohol they tend to make thoughts more intense either while doing them or within the next 24 hours at least in my case. I know if I drink heavy the next two to three days are gonna be rough and it’s gonna get me down in the dumps. 3.) Celebrate those wins! Hey when you notice your doing better. Take a moment and pat yourself on the back. Be easy on yourself. This OCD stuff sucks ass like major ass. I wouldn’t wish this on my enemy. So when you get a win take the time to do something you enjoy. 4.) Try not to reassure yourself. This is absolutely the hardest one. Honestly I still find myself slipping up pretty much every single day. But do your best to just sit with the thoughts and anxiety. Trust me I know it’s hard to raw dog anxiety but it will help in the long run. That’s it, that’s my story. I hope some of you can relate. I hope every single one of us on this app can conquer and recover from OCD. Maybe we will maybe we won’t. Either way it’s better to try.

Anyone else scared to be in another relationship again? I feel like I’ll end up hurting someone because of my so-ocd. I want to be with a man but my mind keeps telling me “what if you find out you’re gay later in the relationship” or “what if you’re not attracted to him”. All I tell myself is maybe, maybe not and that I can’t get a definitive answer on that. But still, it’s bothering me so much. I feel like I won’t be happy again, and all I have is the memories of my first/last relationship. I’m trying to be hopeful but I’m so broken.

The most helpful advice I’ve heard lately, I think it was from Mark Freeman, is “what do you want to do while you feel anxious?” (after resisting a compulsion). I guess it’s common sense, but we so often hear “sit with it” which to me, implies not doing anything but letting yourself feel the anxiety until it passes. “Sit with it” to me feels like I’m supposed to intentionally expose myself to all the bad feelings until I become desensitized (kind of like you would with a phobia). Just continuing with your current task or asking yourself what you want to do next and then doing it is passive. It’s acknowledging the scary feelings and letting them happen in the background but not letting them stop you from living your life. If I’m making breakfast for example, and feel like I need to wash my hands (but I know that I really don’t and it’s just OCD messing with me… this happens to me a lot in the kitchen 😅) I can say to myself “What do I want to do next?” and the answer might be “I want to drink coffee” so I’ll start to make coffee instead of being stopped in my tracks by feeling anxious and contaminated. It sort of tells the OCD that ultimately you’re in control and you’re not going to interrupt your life for it. I hope this helps someone else as much as it has helped me, because for some reason I had never thought of it “sitting with it” this way before 😊🥰❤️

Why is it scarier as a thought? Why do I know things I say when I get upset or triggered, panicked or mad I don’t mean after I calm down, or didn’t mean it the way it came out. But when it comes to my intrusive thoughts I get a horrible, guilty, sinking feeling in my stomach. A pit. Something that makes me feel like I’m lying to myself. I get hyper vigilant and anxious and can’t believe myself that they are just thoughts, that I don’t mean them and they aren’t what I want? Is it because no one else can hear it? So it feels like I’m hiding something? Is that the part that makes me feel gross? Do I worry more because it’s living in my head and not just put in front of me so to speak to where once I’ve said something out loud I can apologize and move on cause it feels more like it’s gone? If I can understand sometimes I say the wrong things why do I put so much importance on the thoughts I get and can’t accept sometimes people just think wrong things? That I have a disorder a chemical imbalance that makes/let’s more intrusive thoughts come through because my brain is wired to obsess over anything thought that may be “wrong” and it just goes on and on and on. I am about to become a mom. I just want to be better for my child, my husband. For me. Like I had a thought recently and I couldn’t stop myself. I was watching the call and the main girl that gets kidnapped was trying to crawl from the trunk through the backseat to escape. I’m looking around just watching and accidentally end up looking at her boobs. I started ruminating on it and of course made it worse and then when I told myself you don’t think that they look good, I had another thought that was like you know that’s not true. And I got that pit and I felt like I was lying to myself and I was oh god think it this way as in it’s there, cause she’s a human girl and don’t see any physical flaws so I don’t think anything is wrong with them like I don’t think they look necessarily bad but I don’t think they look good in a disgusting way or anything. They just look like boobs I mean and now I feel horrible because I’m like well what’s the difference between that and thinking they look good in a bad way and my brains like if you think that then you must think they look good in a bad way and I don’t but I can’t convince myself otherwise or what the difference is and it just all feels two real. I’ve been obsessing over this for two days and I just want to be able to let it go and not feel like a horrible person. I know there’s no way to convince myself and I don’t need to but I just don’t know what to do. I’m sorry if I’m asking for reassurance. I feel like all I deserve to do is lay in bed and not do anything but think about it cause I don’t deserve to not torture myself with it.

I've had this for a long time, where I think someone is watching me like, it's normally people I know or people from my past, I just kinda imagine they're somehow watching me sometimes? I know they're not but I still get like anxious thinking they might be. It's kinda like when you think someone can read your mind in public. It makes me worried that it's delusions or something quite serious. Or if it's just anxiety & paranoia, or because I'm alone quite abit. But Whenever I have it I start stressing out that it means I have schizophrenia or something :( does anyone else have this?? Very worried about it :(

I'm trying hard not to ask for reassurance here, but I'm in need of some advice. I know that I've been diagnosed with OCD, and I'm fairly confident that I've dealt with it consistently over my life. The theme has changed over time, and my current theme is being concerned that I may have narcissistic personality disorder. While I know that this obsession with NPD is a product of OCD, I also can't help but feel that I match so many of the symptom critera that it may be something worth looking into and working on. As you might expect though, this is kind of a huge conundrum, because searching for an actual diagnosis or talking to a psychotherapist might make my OCD about the topic even worse, or even if I get through ERP and then look for a diagnosis, it may cause me to relapse. I guess I'm just wondering what I should do about this. Should I just live with the doubt forever? If I do, would I be putting others at risk? What if there are actual things I need to work on, and by not seeking NPD specific treatment, I'll never get better? Should I work through ERP first and only then start thinking about this stuff? Or should I just not seek these answers out period? Again, trying not to ask for reassurance. I guess I'm wondering what y'all would do if you were in this situation.

So as the title says I have been practicing ERP on my own, I have only been practicing response prevention for the thoughts that comes but I don't really do volunteer exposures and when I come across a trigger or something I would practice response prevention so I wanna know about people who do erp on their own, do you guys do exposures on your own? If so how did you do it? Also the reason I can't do erp therapy is I'm still a student so I completely rely on my parents and so I have asked my parents and they are supportive but the things is as therapy is expensive I could only do like do once a month and I haven't gone to any rn so it would be wonderful to hear some stories that found sucess in doing erp on their own and tell me how you guys do it?

I hope this doesn’t come across as a reassurance I’m wondering if a trait of OCD can make you feel like something is “off” in your relationship, almost like something is not right and that’s why you have to leave. I feel like deep down (in my heart) that I love my partner but I can’t get over this ”off feeling”, I’m absolutely terrified that it means that I’m just suppressing the truth (lying to myself) and I don’t actually want to be with him. I’m so lost with what to do or how to think, or even feel.

Please can someome help me. I think I am possessed. In 2016 I developed very bad OCD after a traumatic event and started constantly worrying about the concept of evil. I was constantly preoccupied with intrusive blasphemois thoughts about God and the devil and evil I was in constant terror and in fear of the devil. I would try and avoid anything I saw as evil at all costs (people I saw as evil, numbers I saw as evil...) and I felt a terrible shame that I was evil and I could pass on the evil to others. I became terrifies of a boy in my school who was involved with the occult and so I stopped going to school out of fear of him cursing me. I was diagbosed as having OCD and started seeing an OCD therapist where I started to have exposure therapy which involved confronting and exposing myself to fears such as the boy in ny school, my blasphemous thoughts in order to reduce my constant fear. However this involved doing things such as verbalising my blasphemous thoughts (in order to desesitiise myself to them), exposing nyself to occult things which I hated doing. Howecer I slowly became less fearful of evil and started going to school again and living a more normal life. In 2020 there was a girl that I liked from Kurdistan. I was very fond of her and thinking of asking her out. My very religious friend one evening began talking to me about the occult and devil worshippers which immediatley scared me. I started reading to see if what he said was true and I came across something which talked about there being devil worshippers in Kurdistan. I became instantly scared and worried that God was sending me a sign to say that I shouldnt have abything to do with the girl that I liked. I was very sad and scared as I didnt want to leave the girl I liked a lot and so I remember asking God if I should I go aith the girl and to my shock I got the most decisive, strong and shocking answer that I shouldnt and that she was evil. There was this very odd evil feeling of evil suddenly, so evil anf demonic and alien that I knew it wasnt my thought. It was a force, a temptation a new reality. I coyld either listen to God and stop seeing the girl I liked or go with this evil. I coyldnt give up the girl as I liked her a lot but I felt this profound feeling that I was going against my soul and goving myself to evil. As time went on I felt I had to get rid of God and anything loving as it told me not to go with the girl and I went anyway. Soon it became that I didnt even like the girl anymore but this force urging me to surrender and et rid of anything godlike in my mind was still there. Bit by bit I felt myself surrendering to this evil and my love for life, my mental capacity, my will, my identity, my memories started to diminish every time I continued to accept the evil. At one point I decided that ebough was enougn and I prayed to God and I felt such pdace and truth and felt god telling me to follow him. I felt me again and felt I should tell everyone about God and evil and that I should live a sinless life. But I didnt feel ready to be so religious so quick and so I fell bacl into evil and the problem got much worse. The evil came and was constantly was telling me to surrender and do things I never did before like watch pornography, become reclusive etc and i did as it was the only thing that relieved the pressure. But then it became an addiction and I soon my mind was gone, I couldnt remember my past, think properly, I had to leave university, all I could do was evil. I decided I wanted God back but this was a barrier. I felt I was resisitng God and I had to really overpower this to get to god. I felt the only way was to punish myself to really submit to god and it worked. I had very long cold ahowers up to 5 hours etc to punish the evil side of me and get it to stop and for me to follow god. I also felt I had to tell every person I knew to become religious and start shouting on the street for people to become religious and confess to everyone i knew that i was evil. Even though i knew it was wrong i felt i had to do it. Soon it vecame to much and the cycle startes again.

Hi everyone, I’m new here and just wanted to see if there’s anyone out there who relates to me in any type of way so i don’t feel like a weirdo lol. I’ve had food anxiety my entire life, and it’s gotten progressively worse over the years. it started off with meat (chicken especially) now i’m scared of raw fruits and veggies (due to ecoli, salmonella, parasites, etc.) and now it’s even coming down to simple things like bread or milk. I throw food out all the time when it’s literally fresh but my mind tells me i’ll get sick from it. i stick to specific “safe foods” that i don’t think i’ll get sick from and 99% of the time it’s not healthy and it stresses me out that i’ll have problems later on when i’m older (i also have health anxiety) i even overthink about the way the grocery store workers stock food, thinking they’ve left it out for too long. it’s ridiculous. i love food, i’m just scared of throwing up and getting food poisoning. anything that involves throw up: i’m out. i even overthink about bleach and lysol somehow getting into my food if someone is cleaning near me. i hope there’s someone who understands in some type of way. i cant even enjoy eating out at a restaurant with friends or family. i hope after i talk to a therapist it could help. I’m happy i’m taking a step in the right direction :)