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Are there any goals or dreams that you guys have had that have been kind of I guess ruined because of OCD?

Im little calmer now then yesterday so i can think about what i write. So i read about ocd and people say ocd can make you feel like you want the thought to happen, my question is in my situation having Suicidal Ocd, how i can decide if ocd makes me feel like i want to do that/why i could do that, or its the real suicidal thoughts/ideations? This is what i thinked now, if ocd makes you think like you want that thought, then it can make you think why you could do that why is okay and makes you feel like its okay, then after that you realize what you thought and you feel guilty. Am I right or no?

I hate taking naps cause sometimes they mess me up and I guess this time it did. Had a dream where I was remembering something my dad "did" to me and my uncle "did" to me. Its so weird. Its like I'm forgetting something that happened to me and I'm finally remembering it and that feeling of yeah I remembered something that happened to me is there. I know for sure my dad has not done those things to me lmao and I don't think my uncle has done anything to me either. Before this OCD theme I can tell you that I always remember something thats pretty traumatic to me lmao I usually don't forget major events like those, I'm constantly always remembering the bad in the past and what could happen. Its somethint I always questioned too like so many people don't remember their traumatic or bad memories, but for me I do remember it. Idk this feeling is so weird and I hate it attached to something like that rather than me doing it this time. Maybe I'll forget who knows. Hope everyone had a great day. Tell me, what did you guys do today and what show have you been watching and why I should give it a try ?

Does anyone also have issues or fears of abandonment in their relationships? If so- what do you tell yourself when you start to think your partner is gonna just decide to leave you. I don’t think that thought is grounded in reality for me- but it’s convincing. It’s really hard to not ask and make sure everything is ok - or not hyperanalyze text messages/conversations.

okay so i’ve had anxiety since i was atleast 8 and ocd since i could remember. and i’ve always done this thing where i’m like omg what if this is a sign and it stresses me out so much.. lately i’ve been having harm ocd thoughts worrying about hurting my partner and then yesterday i came across a tik tok video of a girl doing a reading and in the video she said whatever you’re thinking just do it and make that change and then in my head i’m like " what if this is trying to give me a sign about my harm ocd thoughts, what if it’s telling me to do it" but the thing is i would never hurt anyone nor even want to think about doing it.. these thoughts make me so anxious is this overthinking and does this count as intrusive thoughts as well? i’m always worried and think that what if one day i start to listen to my thoughts about thinking it’s a sign and it makes me SO ANXIOUS. is this normal for ocd/anxiety and how do i get rid of it?

Before everything: I learned about bod through tiktok I think IT was 2020 in summer when I heard about this disorder for the first time and ever since then I have been obsessing over it. My diagnosis are: ocd, gad and pmdd(we think so) I have always been quite sensitive to rejection and people critiquing me but this time I really do not know what it it. On Sunday, 4.9.2022, me and my lovely boyfriend of eight months have been on one short getaway to spa center. I was on last day of my period which was longer and more stressful since taking plan b and I had random ROCD flare up( I really think so)- so I started getting random intrusive thoughts about our relationship - does he like someone else, is he texting someone else, will he leave me etc… I know he doesn’t text anyone and I personally do not care I respect his privacy and I really do not want to feed into my compulsions and give them a chance to ruin my relationship. And I was so stressed out thinking about this that I really started to fear having bpd - I read all the symptoms and now I feel like I am forcing them- as I stated previously I am kinda sensitive but my reactions were not fitting into the diagnosis of how people with bpd would react- until now. Now that I know how typically people with bpd react- I obsess on how I feel when I hear certain things so much I would not normally react to such stuff like I did internally. That day after coming home from getaway I was very tired and went early to sleep and I had little argument with my parents about something and whilst lying in bed I heard my father saying that I got on his nerves and that sent me into spiral of intrusive thoughts about literally everything about me and then I started ruminating whether I have trauma from my childhood that is causing me these troublesome thoughts but I was ruminating and anxious all day.So I was so anxious and sad and hated what happened and now I am afraid of doing anything bad so I won’t feel like that ever again. I was not sensitive about words people have told me I am but now I literally expect reaction out of me for every word I hear. I hate this feeling like I know this is not me but why am I so emotional do I force this sadness almost feeling of sewecidal like I know this is not me at all and I hate having these thoughts because I was never like this before. I just wish this is my ocd playing games with me and if some of you guys had similar experience and it was ocd at the end.

Hi everyone! I have severe contamination OCD, and the worst of it involves fears of my beloved 12 year old dog getting cancer later in my life due to my actions. I was recently exposed to secondhand and thirdhand smoke and as a result, I have avoided seeing my dog for over a week now. I have been struggling with this disease for a very long time and it has only gotten worse over time. I also have other contamination fears such as just being a gross human due contact with bodily fluids or not cleaning my body adequately. I feel that some fears are more anxiety provoking and worse than others. For example, I regularly take 2 hours showers. But with my fear of bodily fluids and being gross, I feel strong enough to begin ERP therapy. Because the worst case consequence is just me being gross and embarrassing myself, but nothing more severe. With my fear of my dog getting cancer due to direct or indirect exposure to harmful household products, situations, or environmental toxins, I have not been able to convince myself to start ERP therapy. This is because I know that it involves accepting uncertainty or the small possibility that my dog might indeed get cancer due to my actions, and I just can't bring myself to accept that without performing the compulsions that I think will help reduce the risk (e.g. cleaning my clothes, car, avoiding him, etc.). If someone truly loves their loved ones or pets, I don't understand how they are able to just put this fear and the very real risk of it happening aside. Even after doing ERP therapy and accepting potential exposure to harmful toxins/situations, it is not as though I will see that nothing bad has happened to him and find relief, because my fear of him getting cancer is a long-term consequence, something that will happen near the end of his life. I desperately need help but I feel that ERP therapy goes against my values, who I am as a person, and would mean that I'm intentionally ignoring the signs that my dog is in harm's way. It almost feels neglectful to me. I feel that I am bound to keep suffering the way I am. And therefore I feel stuck and paralyzed. Any help or advice that could frame the situation a different way or show me a different perspective would be much appreciated! I keep reading that for ERP therapy to be successful, one must believe in better outcomes as a result of it, but I am just not convinced. Thank you for reading! Much love to all of my fellow sufferers <3

Hi all, I'm not really sure how to explain this in a way that really makes it sound exactly as I'm experiencing it. For quite a while now, when I have been getting periods of OCD issues, the way it operates is different from how it was the last couple of years. Let me explain; In the past with OCD, I had a certain obsession and would be scared of having done something or doing something regarding the OCD theme. I would do CBT, exposure or just trying to give it the least amount of attention as possible and eventually it would fade. As of the last 1 - 2 years, something else has been starting to get a part of these OCD 'cycles'. As in that whatever the OCD theme is there is a sort of 'overall supernatural truth or omni truth attached to it' I don't hear voices or see things there are not, it presents itself more as just the absolute truth which will be present forever! The issue with this sense of truth that cannot be changed or doubted is that it seems to make all efforts of CBT / ERP etc. Meaningless. In the past, CBT / ERP etc. would help because you somehow deep down knew things were not the way OCD makes them seem like they are. But that small gap of 'knowing it deep down' has actually disappeared, or at least that's how it feels, I don't know anymore deep down. Because honestly there is no-one on this planet that can know anything for a 100% certainty. Maybe 99.9999% but now a complete full 100% My last terrible OCD theme was existential OCD, and feel that specific theme has propelled this feeling of 'absolute truth'. I don't know anymore actually, maybe it's OCD that has formed itself in another way to get to me? maybe it has decided to hijack this one thing I used against it to somehow be able to do therapy etc. I do remember that my OCD is weird in a way because I remember that when I used my children as a motivation to stop my compulsions and ruminating, the OCD attacked my children by stating; Your children will go to hell or burn in eternity if you don't comply. I'm scared that I'm falling into some kind of schizophrenic disorder, and because of that ill possibly be getting voices, commands that I should kill my children. I dont know anymore if this is just OCD?

I was a very very damaged child and I did a lot of weird inappropriate things and I was all kinds of messed up. Uneducated, and lazy and all these things my family and friends and teachers told me. I was a troubled kid. And idk why. I really don’t. My parents did suck with the whole emotional support and I really needed a lot of it I guess. So I kept looking other places for that support. Eventually I got it from myself NOW. But still I feel so embarrassed and sad for that young me. Anyway, I feel like despite all the fucked up shit I did as a kid, I grew into such an amazing person. I’ve had my flaws and made mistakes 100% but I’ve loved and cared for others so genuinely. I think I’m a good person I really do, I make bad choices at times but I am human. But all in all, I’m GOOD. And it’s been proven so much from ppl who tell me and who hurt me and come back apologizing. I don’t mind admitting I was wrong etc. but I can’t help but feel like I’m this creep weirdo kid still? Why can’t I have peace with that 7 year old isn’t me anymore and she also just needed love. I can not forgive myself honestly & my ocd makes it 100000x worse cuz it involved real events.

I feel guilty for thinking a guy friend looks better with his hair cut, I feel like I found him attractice (I am not *attracted* tho) but i dont even want that bc i feel its cheating. My boyfriend doesn't like this guy because he said something rude to me once and he thinks he likes me. He's currently mad that I agreed after saying no a bunch of times when this friend asked for a ride home in the future despite me knowing my bf doesn't like the dude and wouldn't like me giving him a ride to home. I honestly don't want to be anybodys ride home, but we live in the same small town so it wouldn't be out of my way and I said I'd only do it if it worked with my hours since we would leave from the same place. I don't want to find this guy attractive but the combination of this mixed with the ride home just makes me feel shitty. I feel like I was checking this guy out (because i did look at him but I didnt mean it like that idk if that makes sense like no such intent) and I think I did I guess but that makes me even more anxious. I do not like this guy, do not want to like him, do not want to be with him, nor want to find him as a good looking guy. Most of all i don't want to disrespect my bf and when we were talking about it I felt like I was getting defensive and it made me feel anxious bc I've already had intrusive thoughts abt cheating on this matter. My bf is now mad at me.

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.