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This is so frustrating. I wish I was like most of the population who doesn’t have to deal with this torment. I hate it so much, I just wanna be normal. Why me? What did I do to deserve this?

My girlfriend has severe ocd. I didn't know to this extend when we met. I knew her prior to the war and wrote that I would do anything to help her and her son escape. I have given 200% to help her leave ukraine, lived in Europe, and sponsored her to come to the US. During this time we decided to try being a couple. During the past 7months I have tried to love and live with what I call ocd rules. It is impossible. My gf has contamination ocd. She doesn't believe she can ever be cured. I hold out hope but I've run out of time, money, etc. I had a house but we could not stay in it because it was triggering. I then rented air bnb places until I each one was considered dirty so we left, then I ran out of funds. I eventually moved us to the state park so that we could still shower and try to make a normal life. Then she said the tents were dirty. Then she said the stove, utensils, table was dirty. I had to buy things over and over again. Then we had to switch camping sites because we walked on the ground there. Then it was easier to live in car. She would clean it out with baby wipes daily and lots of crying etc. She said she need stability , she needed a house... The cops were called on me many times because it looks and feels so alarming. I worked 2nd and 3rd jobs to make extra for a deposit on a new house. She has a Diabetic son that is used to following all the rules but he is young and negatively affected by all of this. I finally got enough to move us into a new house. Then she said I could not bring any furniture from My house to the new house because it was triggering. I have spent all my savings and my boss doesn't even know I have been living like I'm homeless for 2 months this summer. She says she wishes we could have furniture but I can't bring anything here, I have to buy everything new. It's impossible to do this fast. Shes resistant to therapy because she tried this in Ukraine and had a lot of bad experience. She also had a mother who shamed her and tried to remover her son from her. I'm the only family she has here but I am about done. I can't see my own kids as a result of these ocd rules--bc I know I would never ask them to follow them. I am tired of worrying about what I touch in my own house, and I don't have any one who understands what this is. How do I get her to just read this stuff or try it ? She resists simply because I so desperately want her to do something that will work. I know she is not pro medicine and her faith in God is strong but it's not practical for daily living. I don't want to see our first water bill. I'm afraid of how bad the hour long showers will be. I'm sorry if I offend here, today she told me she can't stay in the house I just got for us. She feels too bad to take her son to register for school so he spends all day and night on his phone. The school doesn't know his mom had an issue but it just looks bad. We are struggling in every imaginable way. I can't even afford therapy at this point to be honest but I need something. She had an earache and we sat outside the hospital for 3 hours until she felt comfortable to go inside. I can't tell anyone she has ocd or she feels betrayed. She has said at times she doesn't want to live or wishes she could sleep and never wake up. I think she has so many challenges and I'm I love her deeply and she feels i am not trying hard enough to follow her rules. I'm asking how do I get the horse to read about where she can drink water ???

I don’t know if any of you have heard of Mary Kay but a neighbor of mine is a consultant and she offered to have me join her team as a consultant too. I was actually so excited to join and I thought it would be a great way to gain marketing experience and make new friends to try and get out of the mental hole I’m in. When I told my mom she belittled the idea and basically said that I wasn’t capable of doing it and it really hurt because I was actually really excited to do it. I’m majoring in art in college not cosmetology but still I thought it was a great idea to help people and to bring me more out of my shell and comfort zone but in a good way. I told my neighbor that I rejected the offer of joining and now I just feel so upset because it seems like I don’t even have a mom, I have an enemy. Constantly putting me down and making me feel I’m less than. I already feel less than because of other things but being talked down to and put down constantly just puts me below where I should be and that’s to the point I just want to be done. I even told her I was going to look into getting an apartment but she pretty much talked down about that too. I’m stuck and I wish I could be free. I love my mom I really do. I try to respect her as much as I can but sometimes she does or says things that really hurt me and I don’t know how to deal with it. I’m 23 but I feel like I’m stuck.

I've gotten incredibly far with dealing with my OCD which is a good thing. Especially with my ROCD. But sometimes I still fear my ROCD and feelings. I sometimes get confused about whether I'm still in love like I once was with my bf and if I'm just faking it. But I still get my moments of clarity where I knew it's still my OCD and not actually me. I wish I could completely get out of this little hold it has on me. It's fear.

I would appreciate any advise or insight that people may have. At this point, I’m seriously doubting I have soocd anymore. I don’t have anxiety anymore about the thoughts and feelings. They give me a positive feeling and Im ok with that and sometimes I feel that i want that. I still feel that I don’t really have control over my thoughts and I still feel on edge. At this point, I wonder if just getting into a same sex relationship would just put an end to all of this. I kinda don’t want to because I want to have continuity with my old life, the life that I wish I could still have and I know getting into a same sex relationship would cut me off. So what now? Why did my theme turn out to be true? Why did all of a sudden my sexuality just change even thought I had nearly zero indication before that I had the capacity for it? I just need some encouragement I guess

I remember I always had OCD tendencies but not OCD itself until may of this year. My first compulsion was with a picture of me, i couldn’t stop staring at that picture until it felt “right” and i could spend hours staring at it, which was weird, but ended up with overwhelming anxiety, but in july it went away and changed theme. I’m a medical student, so i have to research about various illnesses on a daily basis. but then a very disturbing thought came to me “What if by reading these books i’m giving illnesses to me and to other people?” And i started freaking out and all the compulsions started. I could spend hours doing compulsions and it was painful, i could be hours in the bathroom organizing and if it felt “wrong” i had to do it all over again, i would end too tired to take a shower so i’d just go back to bed and sleep, avoiding contact with anything as i thought it’d make me anxious. I could spend from 2 pm to 12 am doing the same compulsion, then i’d go to sleep just to wake up at 3 am and sit in the same spot i was and do the compulsion all over again, i was tired, i was sick of it but couldn’t stop. I thought “Will I stay this way forever?” “Why did this happen to me?” Why can’t i stop?” I thought i’d suffer because of this forever. August was horrible, I wanted to die and all fell apart. But then my dad noticed all my behaviours, so did my mom too. And that’s when I told them and decided i had to get help, because the problem would get bigger and bigger, and I wanted to live, I wanted to be happy and wanted to be normal like I was before, by then i couldn’t use my right hand as i thought it was evil ( I am left handed) and had to do everything two times, and if i failed, then it became four, and then it became eight. Then I found out this was OCD, and i read about ERP and found NOCD, i found out i had magical thinking OCD, emotional contamination OCD and just right OCD. I started working on it, and it was hell at first, my mind was like “You will always have the urge to do x” “You won’t be able to think about something that isn’t x ” and I wasn’t able to sleep for days, but then it got better to the point the anxiety went away, and I realised that even if you feel that you are dying, even if you feel that the anxiety won’t go away, it does go away, but you have to be patient and understand that things get worse before they get better. ERP is a journey that has taught me so much things that i can’t describe, as i think these are things one must learn on one’s own I can’t describe them. Now i look back and I don’t have physical compulsions anymore, now I don’t do things more than just one time, I can use my right hand freely. I have obsessive thoughts from time to time, but I know they are not real, and engaging with them would just make things worse and they are a waste of time because OCD is never satisfied, you can’t satisfy OCD, but you can live a life full of joy, happiness and accepting uncertainty, accepting that you don’t have to do certain things, or to avoid others, you can be you. I am myself once again and it feels great.

When my soocd and rocd first hit hard, it really shattered my world and the kind of stability I had in life before the constant fear of losing the one I love. When I got my first job, I buried myself in the idea that I was too busy to deal with it anymore, it helped that I started school and got a pet hedgehog as well. But some nights it hits me that this hasn’t gone away at all, I don’t spend night after night or day after day stuck in the same thoughts anymore but I feel so cold inside like I’m not worth anything and like I don’t deserve the love and attraction I think I once felt for my sweet boyfriend. I feel like the fact that I can’t “feel” those feelings for him anymore that I’ve spent so long chasing means I don’t deserve him, I feel like even though the great anxiety has stopped I’m still trying to chase down that love feeling and how it “should” feel instead of just feeling it for what it is. I’m still terrified that if I let go of my walls that I’ll realize I don’t love him and lose him. It’s hurting me bad and making me resort to bad coping mechanisms. I’m starting to seek out validation again and craving that rush of infatuation when in reality the only one I want is my boyfriend. For almost a year and a half I obsessed about sexual attraction, it’s really affected my intimate life. I have self-esteem issues about my body, my “skills”, fear of not liking it enough and false expectations just all cause me to not feel much in my body and it makes me horribly sad. My boyfriend says I need to accept the possibility that the things I fear could be true and that I could be with someone else but it’s so hard because I really don’t want that but the longer I fight it the further away I feel from him. I didn’t think ocd could be this complex and cause such havoc on my life. I kind of miss when I felt extreme anxiety every day and had the same thoughts over and over because at least then it was easier to know it was my mind games at work. Now it just feels like I’m sabotaging myself daily by chasing the feelings of love I want. I don’t want to ruin this otherwise healthy relationship, my boyfriend is my best friend and I still want that. Can anyone relate to this? I feel like a lot of people just have the obsessiveness and I’m here trying to deal with the side effects of the after math and it makes me feel so alone

i'm tired of the fear of becoming something horrible. im tired of feeling like i'm an irredeemable monster. im tired of thinking about what happened every hour of my life. im tired of the fear of being a bad person. im tired of never feeling like i deserve anything. i'm tired of the ruminating, the anguish, the guilt, the regret, the pain, the anger at myself. i dont know what i want. it feels as if making my life better will be like excusing my actions. i feel like i deserve this pain. my genuine emotions feel like a facade. im so scared. i dont want to be a bad person. why did i think it was okay in the moment. why.

Hello all. I had a great therapy session today where we were talking about anxiety and fear and how the brain can link something benign with fear due to what happened in that moment. I am thinking whether this viewpoint may help others. I had often wondered whether the idea that the incident that I had where my major OCD started had affected me that way because it had shocked me, and from the discussion today I really think that may be the case. A few times in my teens, when I had already experienced mild OCD tendencies, I had had a boy at school spit at my skirt and another time hot chewed gum on my sweater. These had elicited the emotions anger and grossness, but not anxiety. They did not lead me to having contamination OCD. When I was 17, I went into the city with my mum, sister and my friend, and myself and the latter went off to run an errand for my Dad (pick up a book he had ordered). At some point I suddenly had who I think was a very dirty, scruffy, homeless man blow a raspberry in my ear. It have me a shock as well as me also feeling grossed out be ause I was sure my face and ear were covered in spittle. I also thought maybe my friend had some too. I went to where we were meeting my family for lunch and when I got there I went to the bathroom and washed my face. But it didn't stop there. I worried if there was any on my clothes which could have spread to the car on the way back. Did my friend also contaminate things with her clothes? I think she sat down in the house afterwards even though I had a shower and changed my clothes. From there it was a spiral and completely out of control as I traced every single possible cross-contamination, probably in the 10s of separation from the event. It eventually became a fear of more people, all elderly, homeless people etc. and pretty much everything due to the large number of degrees of separation from an initial 'dirty' person that worried me. Anyway, how it progressed is of no matter here, but the key is I had a shock and fear reaction when it happened. I really believe that thisnis why this particular event caused anxiety over grossness and taught my brain to connect the feeling of anxiety and fear with contamination of this type, rather than the 'normal' general feeling of grossness that is soon forgotten. My brain still has that connection many years later. It somehow makes a lot of sense to me and brings it home how to understand why other people don't have anxiety but rather just a passing gross reaction to situations. This has always been a stumbling block to my recovery. What is normal? How should I feel in certain situations? Why doesn't everyone feel anxiety over gross things? There IS a difference between feeling grossed out with anxiety and being grossed out without. Fear/Anxiety should be there only to protect us from real harm, not gross things! I just felt that understanding this fine line will help me, and maybe help othets too, even with different forms of OCD. If you are feeling anxiety from a truly non-threatening situation, however upsetting it is in itself, then the brain is sending false messages that it learned somewhere through a false connection of that situation to the feeling of danger. I hope that I am making sense. Now how to figure out anxiety from worry about other things like family's wellbeing. I have to think about that a bit more, because there must be a real connection and is likely due to our brains wanting to protect other humans, especially those closest to us, and the loss of, or pain of someone else is a genuine threat to our own wellbeing.

Something I often hear over the course of OCD treatment is: “I know my intrusive thoughts aren’t real. But why do they feel so real?” That’s because OCD makes our brains respond to intrusive thoughts the exact same way they respond to real threats. Our brains fill us with anxiety, telling us that we need to take action—that’s why we have such a strong urge to do compulsions. By resisting the urge to do compulsions when our intrusive thoughts arise, we can actually retrain our brains to recognize that we don’t have to respond to the anxiety that comes from them. Read more about why intrusive thoughts feel so real, and how exposure and response prevention (ERP) therapy works to retrain your brain.

If you’ve done research about your best treatment options for OCD, you’ve probably heard about exposure and response prevention (ERP) therapy. Hundreds of studies have demonstrated ERP’s efficacy, and it’s proven to be just as effective in a telehealth setting. Yet, despite ERP’s often transformative impact, many people with OCD often feel hesitant to start it. From witnessing thousands of conversations in the OCD community and my own personal experience, I’ve seen that misunderstandings about what ERP actually entails often keep people from getting the help they need. You see, people with OCD experience exposures—the “E” in ERP—in daily life, even if they’re not doing ERP therapy. What they’re missing is the “RP”: response prevention. With personalized guidance from a specialist, they can learn how to respond to these unplanned exposures without engaging in compulsions, allowing them to get better over time. Read more about why it’s so important to understand how ERP therapy works if you want to recover from OCD.

Tell me about them please I can’t stop.

I wanted to share some thoughts on my all time favorite tv show and the amazing novel by Gillian Flynn that I’m currently reading for the first time. Most people familiar with the story look at me like I have ten heads when I say what a comfort it has been for me in some of my darkest times. Hear me out. When the show first came out I flew through it and absolutely loved it. I recently came back to it a few years later while I am going through another bad bout of (Pure) OCD. Due to some problems with my thyroid this year, my anxiety/OCD has been ramping up and for the last 8 months I’ve really been suffering. In times like these I find it especially difficult to find a balance between engaging in media that I can really connect to in a healthy way and simply using that media as escapism/avoidance. While Sharp Objects focuses on super intense and triggering content, I find Camille’s character a great source of comfort and an outlet for me to enjoy media without using it as an escape from my suffering. While Camille has no exact diagnosis as far as I know, she seems to struggle with intrusive thoughts (completely understandable given what she has experienced and witnessed). What I find most relatable in terms of my struggles with OCD and depression, however, is how her self esteem affects her. For more context, I will link a video about Pure OCD and self esteem at the end of this post. Essentially, the video explains that Pure OCD and any doubts about morality stem from low self esteem or, as Camille’s mother says, “not [seeing oneself] in a good light.” Like many people with Pure OCD I have often worried that things I was exposed to, especially during my childhood, have ruined me. I seem to have developed this innate feeling that I am toxic, that I am a cancer in society and I must be isolated and destroyed. I feel that my OCD’s job has been to gather as much evidence to argue this case, and sometimes it feels like a losing battle. I know this is not true, despite how real it feels. It wouldn’t be so distressing if it didn’t feel real. So, when I watch this show or read this book and I see Camille struggling with this same self-doubt, I find that I can engage with my OCD without letting it control the narrative because I am reading/watching a remarkable story without using it as escapism. So, I will conclude this incredibly long post by saying that finding an incredibly compelling character that allows me to reflect on my own suffering and acknowledge its presence has demoted these thoughts from all-encompassing pain to simply part of who I am. This has been incredibly important for me and I encourage readers, tv lovers, and film buffs going through something similar to find something that allows them to do the same. I highly recommend Sharp Objects, the book and the show, if you can handle dark material and are interested in such a beautifully-written character. Link to the Pure OCD video: https://youtu.be/Q9yKaI0vLJs

Hi, I'm a man, 25, I had HOCD. Before getting to the heart of the matter some precisions: I have untreated sleep apnea which can cause erectile dysfunction so my erections are weaker than they were before. I always had a strong libido. I had HOCD until the end of 2021. My doubts were dissipated, I understood that I was not gay and that I would never become it, I always loved women, never men. I've been consuming quite a bit of trans-trans/trans-female porn this year. About ten days ago, on IRC, I started talking to a "sissy" (roughly speaking, a feminized man, unlike transvestism which is casual and where the man is a man in women's clothes, sissies want to live as a woman constantly and be treated as sex objects). I mostly saw her as a trans woman, never as a man. We mostly talked about sex and we had some of the same delusions, it was pretty exciting (I got a good quality erection quickly, even though it was pretty quick) and, we talked every day for five-six days in total I would say, I liked those moments. I was a little anxious in the middle of it all (or was it kind of love ? I hope it wasn't but this question loop in my head), but then I figured a girl's a girl, whether she's trans or not. I tell myself that I have to stop talking to her, for fear of falling back into the OCD analysis spirals and I don't really know how to tell her. Flashforward to yesterday, we talk again, I don't think about it anymore and then she tells me that she wants us to stop talking. It suits me but I feel bad, like I've been beaten up. I am anxious. Since last night I've been ruminating, wondering what it all means. Was I in love? I don't think so, I talked to her for a week, we never saw each other and we only talked about sex. But there's always a damn "what if my anxiety isn't anxiety but a sign of love (like when you have butterfly in stomach)?", "why did you feel bad?" running through my head. So I get anxious. I'm afraid that something has broken inside of me, that I'll never fall in love with women (and more specifically cis women) like I used to. I am aware that this is stupid. If anyone can help me see this more clearly, I would be grateful. Was it love ? Why such an intense reaction to such a random "relationship"?

Watch his YouTube videos on HOCD has brought me a lot more clarity / I am not here to reassure you but to tell you you must believe that HOCD isn’t you that’s the first step it’s your brain . If you like girls you like girls that won’t change you just need to rewire your brain which isn’t easy . You are not gay or bi etc because if you were it wouldn’t bring you so much distress . Learn that it’s our brain with HOCD not us or our real values

i’m sure it’s just the lack of sleep i’ve been having but for about 2-3 days i’ve just felt so different. like i can’t find feelings for him sometimes or find excitements and it’s a new feeling and i can’t remember when i felt anxious about something. i keep thinking what if there’s more when i know he’s who i want and i hate this so much. i think my ocd has just taken me out, like just drained me so much at this point

Yesterday I had an appointment with my physical therapist for my pelvic floor. I had an internal rectal exam, she said my sphincter was very close to the opening. I didn’t think anything of it. But when I got home I couldn’t stop obsessing and wondering what she meant by that. It kept me up all night wondering what she meant. I wanted to google this but I didn’t and I’m still trying to not fulfill this compulsion. However, I can’t stop thinking about what she said and now I’m freaking out and scared obsessing over this. I did email her to ask for clarification and if this finding was indeed normal. But I’m just really scared. How do I handle this with erp? What can I do?!

Im at the point where ive been ignoring compulsions for so long but it only gets worse for some reason. Today, i gave in to a compulsion and it led to one of the worst feelings i felt in this whole ocd theme era. It felt so real that i became horrified that the ocd actually turned me into my worst fear. I cant tell the difference anymore. Can ocd actually turn you into what you fear even if it's completely against your values because this is exactly what it feels like. Im tired of fighting against it when all it does is get worse. Just four months ago i was NEVER like this. Now, this feels like a horrible reality i must submit to. It feels real. I dont want to live like this horrible being ocd shaped me into. Im sorry if this is too much to put on a discussion post but i have nowhere else to vent and this is damn near my breaking point. I never thought i would break but im breaking very fast.

I keep struggling so much with studying and staying focused on my courses because I’m constantly ruminating. There hasn’t been a moment or second for over a year where I’m not ruminating and thinking about my real events or anything related to it. I get distracted easily and procrastinate a lot. It causes me to forget much of what I’m studying and I tend to put in minimal effort because of this. That’s not who I used to be, I don’t know what happened to me.

Has anyone ever felt like their mind was pulling them in a specific direction, and it’s super uncomfortable and hard to live with uncertainty. My mind is convinced I’ll find certainty with someone else, but I don’t want to believe it. But, at the same time I’m so exhausted of fighting- I just want this to go away. This has never happened in previous relationships, but this is also the healthiest relationship I’ve been in.