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How has OCD affected your friendships? Because I’m starting to notice my friends are getting very frustrated with me when it comes to my intrusive thoughts and me always wanting reassurance.

I was raised very religious so whenever I hook up with a guy (not even intercourse) my body responds HORRIBLY. It doesn’t happen often but when it does I LITERALLy feel like I am dying. Chest pains, vomiting, guilt, headache. Honestly to the point of what feels like no return. Does anyone else experience this?

So this morning I wake up depressed in trouble really my thoughts are worried embarrassed ashamed I think mostly worried and troubled that I had a trigger about my kid in which his genitals were involved. I am ashamed that I was embarrassed and didn’t know where to look and I am scared about the fact that I got triggered and that I don’t know what’s wrong with me I know that I have OCD but POCD it is a relatively new thing and I haven’t talked to the doctor that much about it I didn’t have much fear about the actual balls is about where I should look which I guess is similar or the same thing now that I have been set free from the anxiety of the moment I am now feeling the after effects which is wanting to be reassured so I’m back in the cycle and I’m wanting to be reassured that I’m a good person that what happened was definitely POCD and that I can have a normal relationship with my son I feel that going to his room to hang out with him was compensating and may have felt strange because I never go and hang out there I was trying to create an exposure but it may have been some sort of compulsion I am altogether just embarrassed by the whole thing I am embarrassed by going in to hang out with him I feel it may have definitely been compensating to create a exposure but it ended up really feeling like a compulsion in any event I just feel that I am exposing myself to him with my OCD with that behavior going to hang out in his room made me feel like I was just sort of trsnspsrent. I feel so embarrassed and I wish that somebody were here to help me understand this illness better and I wish that I could feel a little bit better about what happened it certainly wasn’t my fault but it affects my kid (what I mean is my own exoerience if my kid, not my kid; it affects ME, not him; I continue givinf my all and being appropriate etc)…and I feel embarrassed when I have this experience and it’s about him because he didn’t ask for it and I didn’t ask for it and when I saw his balls if anything I wanted to look at them because I thought if I look at them the anxiety would go away, and also because well that’s really the only reason. I feel like I need to repent that’s exactly how I feel I feel like I need to repent like there’s something I did that I need to make recompense for because I because the attention I put on the moment of the trigger and how it has to do with his genitals makes me feel (anxious, not knowing where to look); goes against my values I suppose although those aren’t my values i am a humanist so I’m a little confused like how are used to feel when I was little and I would masturbate (we were religious) like I should be ashamed of the anxiety (i know diesnt make sense. and be corrected about that that like it has to do with my own deficiency and grossness but I have to remind myself I was afraid of them really; and I was afraid of what they might mean about me but they don’t mean anything about me I’m just his mom and there is genitals and I’ve seen in 1 million time is it in there’s nothing wrong with me I just have OCD right now I need to remember this. Need to remember that OCD does not have any meaning and even though I may want to give it meaning because of how I’ve lived my whole life OCD is not involve to give me meaning is a pedophile or someone who is deficient morally deficient or who should feel ashamed OCD is there to make me feel scared and that’s about it. Ocd exist to make me feel scared in this as I interpret it bad about myself but OCD is just there to make me feel scared like touching a hot stove it’s my interpretation of it that makes me feel bad about myself so I need to change my interpretation I had an experience where my son came into my room for whatever reason OCD has attached alarm to these things so I get alarmed by these things and being alarmed by those things makes me feel that I could be wrong with me because the fear of it pulls my attention and pulling my attention makes me feel that there is a reason for me to pull my attention and that reason must be that I am morally deficient but the fact is my attention is just being polled because I’m afraid and I am afraid because OCD is latched onto that and is pulling my attention to make me afraid and I’ve got this from reading several different articles so I’m gonna have to assume that this is true

Ok so, I have an ex best friend who I used to be very close to, 3 years ago in 2019, I smoked some weed with her and I freaked out so bad to the point where it caused me so much anxiety and panic attacks for weeks that it unleashed my OCD and I had to go to a facility. We were still friends later that year, but we had a big falling out in late 2019, then in 2020 became friends again, then pandemic happened and we had one last falling out and never really spoke again. In 2021 she tried to come back in my life by texting but I just didn’t respond. Now, for some reason she has actually been a topic of my OCD for almost 2 years, she’s almost like my “go-to” topic because I think of her constantly, and I have an intense fear of her and that one day she may be out to get me, or get someone to come and k*ll me, or do something to harm me, and the reason I say that as well is because she hangs with such crazy looking young guys who have literal military weapons and drugs and things in their profile pictures and they look like they are big trouble, they look like people who would commit a terrible crime. I feel like she would get these people out to get me and hurt me. I hate HATE the fact that I have let her have this much power over me for the past 2 years, it makes me feel like I’m a weirdo and that I have more than just OCD and that makes me feel sick to my stomach to think about. The reason also why this is happening so suddenly where I’m thinking of her often is because I am moving into the same apartment complex that she is in, and I signed a 15 month lease, and I didn’t know she lived there at all, so I’m freaking out a bit. I just want to not let her have this much power over me anymore, I try to avoid her SO much but I can’t stop thinking about her and it scares me, I want to be able to live in this world with her not having this much power over me anymore, it’s making me sick!

Very tmi topics but I really need help. I feel really scared and alone right now A couple years ago my family and I went to Florida and visited my step sister while we were there and she let her children run around without any clothes on in the front yard and when we pulled up to their house I immediately got a panic attack and my mom had to have a talk with me in the car to calm me down because she knew about the intrusive thoughts and ocd and all of that. I kept getting mental images from the traumatic moment and what I saw especially when I was really having a hard time with the POCD theme. Anyways later on before we were going home in the hotel I kept getting the mental images and they wouldn’t go away to the point I had false feelings like groinal response, my body would get tense and I would have so much anxiety because I kept having thoughts that I liked it and I knew I didn’t. I was terrified. A few weeks later I then struggled with masturbation because I kept getting the mental images and false feelings and I was so scared but I tried so hard to just get through it and not let it bother me and when I did I felt so much guilt because it felt like I was acting on the thoughts of something that I actually did witness in real life, not an intrusive thought made up in my head from ocd. It felt so real and still does and im so scared that im a terrible person because a real life thing that kept popping in my head when I definitely didn’t want it to during the self time like I mentioned and would that make me a monster. Is it even ocd at that point. And then it scares me because of real event ocd and some other intrusive thoughts I struggle with to this day. Im a woman and im on my period too and when I am my anxiety goes through the roof and im reminded of all the things I’ve been through and it makes me feel so disgusted and sad.

Hello! I’m struggling with ROCD since april 2020. At that time, I was in a very abusive relationship ( he cheated twice, was always looking into my phone even without my permission, and he was physically/verbally violent when drunk or angry). I started questioning this relationship because it would put me throughout so much good & bad emotions, but also I was used to it ( I grew up with parents that were very toxic for each other’s). I broke up with this guy 8 months after. After our break up, I met someone else but turned out he was the same king of men ( always gaslighting me, liar, no empathy) But 7 months ago, I told myself I would never be abused again by my future partner. I set my standards high and I was rejecting all guys that were not meeting them. But then I met a guy in april 2022, and he is such a beautiful person. At the time, he didn’t want a relationship and me neither ( i was so scared of it). We were just enjoying some time together and we wanted to get to know each other better before anything else (he’s also very scared of relationship and commitment). But more and more, I started to get attach to him, and then I was completely in love. He met all of my standards, I loved his personality and everything about him. We officially started dating in July and it was a dream, but I was always worried : what if he cheats on me? What if he just pretend he likes me? What if he meets someone else? I couldn’t let my guard down. He reassured me so much that after a few weeks, I was more and more calm and relaxed. But a week ago, my ROCD started to ruin things again and I started to question things again : if I’m calm and relaxed about him going to a night club, does it mean i don’t love him anymore? Is this relationship gonna end bad like others? I also have flashbacks of my abusive ex’s, this is so hard to contain. I feel guilty because I feel like a burden for him, he’s so kind and patient with me, I know i really love him and I want to stay with him. We’re having so much fun together, he is the best human on earth. But I can’t stop asking myself questions and it’s horrible. i wan’t to feel good again and to stop worrying. I still have hope that someday I will get used of pure love, the one without any toxicity.

Has anyone ever looked up their birth/natal chart? I did today and started researching and now I worry about things I didn’t worry about before. I feel like I opened up a new phobia.

My therapist thinks that I’m scared of admitting I’m gay. I had a panic attack

It's so hard to get better when your triggers live with you. I'm 19 and live with my parents and my mom just came into my room, said goodnight to me and we had an arguement for 40mins about weight, looks, and relationships. I have BDD (Bofy Dysmorphic Disorder) and one of things she said was something like you know, boyfriends may like you (not me directly but in general) at first but then after a while they might not if you don't take care of how you look (in this case we were talking about size, "fatness") and just the whole time I felt my anxiety slowly progress as the minutes passed. So much so I just stayed quiet in the end and went on this app amd started typing this post until she finished what she had to say (about a min long) and left to go back to her room. She's a licensed therapist and an LCSW but she doesn't have her own practice and she says "never offends people" and I just kept saying, "you don't?!" about 2 or 3 times after she would reply, "no" back and just had a look of shock because it's so crazy how she doesn't even see the things she says. I told her, "the way you talk to us is not the way you would if you had patients for therapy" (something like that). Then I told her, "if the way you talked wasn't a problem then, Dad, Bam-Bam (my brother), and me wouldn't have to tell you about the things you say". Anyway there's a lot more that can be said but I can feel my brain already starting to forget (which I was told is called "avoidance" whis is my "brain's way of using it as a defense mechanism "). I'm still feeling a bit anxious (it's been 15mins since she left and I've been typing). I'm gonna continue watching my NETFLIX show, that I was watching yesterday afternoon, to distract my mind and hopefully will relax me (b/c I can still my heart pounding). Hope everyone is doing well🤗💚.

I saw one post on Twitter by a creator I value a lot make a point about there's p*s that act on it and ones that don't and are disgusted by their thoughts. I know the point she was making but it triggered me and all logic went out the window as I dived into probably an hour+ long search on her profile to see if she built on this idea more, then I went back and checked all the websites I know that talk about POCD, went through all that information, and then went to reddit subreddits to research. I knew deep inside it was me ruminating and just going along with the obessesion but this time my brain was like NO THIS IS THE PROOF YOU'RE TRULY EVIL, and so I got stuck both trying to prove my brain is wrong and right. I decided to watch an Ali Greymond video since they're short and maybe it might help me find a way to calm down and I did get some peace from that but WOW! That was a miserable spiral.

I accidentally discovered the free will debate when I was in a bad place mentally, and I cannot stop obsessing over it. It’s been making me physically ill. I’ve also just felt 100% insane. Like, if there’s no free will, how do I even begin to fight back over the obsession? How do I take control? And when I try to believe in free will to escape, that loops me back into the obsessive cycle. I’m just so lost. I hate this so much.

i feel like im giving up in my relationship and i dont want that🥺🥺🥺🥺

I am recovering from a spike that went a few weeks and have learned some things along the way that I wanted to share: 1. How to deal with anger and frustration. I tend to try to avoid being angry. I often see it as an unhelpful and selfish emotion, and what’s more, I have had certain religious beliefs about the nature of anger and its sinfulness. But what is considered sinful anger is that which is oriented towards injury, physical or personal. Often the big “explosion” that my anger feels like it is boiling towards is just… sharing that I hurt. Not insults, not threats, not guilt tactics. So I have been sharing more of my daily frustrations lately, and also just allowing anger to be there, without stoking the fire of course. And I have found some freedom in this. 2. Self-affirmations to help with low self-worth are actually best addressed to self-worth itself and not the apparent cause of the dip in self-worth (such as a mistake or a bodily feature), which sometimes can be an obsession. So, when for instance, I feel bad about a moral mistake I made in the past, I say something like, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God and have inestimable worth” with no reference whatsoever to the particular struggle. If I name any particular good qualities of mine, I make sure they are not related to the cause of low self esteem, and I remind myself that they do not earn my worth but merely point to it. The purpose of this approach is threefold: (1) the real struggle for me often really is about self-worth underneath everything and it “attaches” to smaller things, often insignificant, sometimes significant, (2) to avoid reassurance compulsions, (3) because self-worth should be unflappable and not dependent on contingent qualities. I may make serious moral mistakes in the future, or may lose some of the good qualities I have. Life happens. What I need then, is the agency to be better, which requires a sense that the agent (me) is worth redeeming. Christianity offers a very poignant way of explaining that. 3. The sorts of thoughts that have historically been intrusive thoughts for me can also be compulsions, based in obsessions around obsessions. So I may have some intrusive thought or sense that intrusive thoughts are *about* to appear, and the compulsion would be to think those sorts of thoughts on purpose. I combat this by using my ERP messages against the intrusive thought that I may have intrusive thoughts. I say “maybe I will and maybe I won’t.” When I figured this out, a lot of things feel into place— I had been honing these psychological tools in my exposures, but yet hadn’t yet applied them to this situation. Once I identified that “spidey sense” as OCD, those skills began to pay off. 4. The difference between judgement and rejudgement. To judge is to decide one’s valence towards something once and for all. A judge feels no need to walk back into the courtroom every 10 seconds to reannounce the judgement they already made. The judge does not think that anytime they are not in the courtroom doing so, they are announcing a contrary judgement to that which they already declared. Similarly, judgement is something which normal human beings do, but they normally do it once, and then if they are to change or reaffirm their judgement, it is only after a period of rational doubt. But as OCD sufferers, we often feel the need to “re-judge” in real time. We say “murder is wrong” in response to harm obsessions. But didn’t we already know this? What was the purpose of judging murder again? The answer is that it is a compulsion in response to an obsession. The reminder is meant to keep you from murdering or to suppress the thoughts. And this is an important difference between healthy judgements and compulsive rejudgements. When we have intrusive thoughts, likely, we already know what we think and feel about them, in terms of our set positions on things. Hope these help!

Idk if this makes sense but I feel like there’s a mental barrier that prevents me from feeling attraction. Like every time I see someone attractive my mind rejects it and is like “no you don’t” 🤡

So I had dealt with soocd about 3 years ago, and it went away and I never had any issues with it since. But about 2 months ago it got triggered again and it is absolutely ruining my life. The whole time during that 3 years, all I dated was guys, and I never had thoughts. I’m in an amazing relationship of about a year and a half, and the soocd thoughts are killing me. And it soon turned into rocd. My life is a living nightmare. I just want to be with my boyfriend and not have the “what if’ I’m gay” or “was i attracted to her” or “what if the whole time I’ve been with him I was really gay” or “what if I’m just now realizing I’m gay” I constantly check myself when I kiss him and often look at pictures to see if I’m still turned on. I’ve lost my sex drive too. And the fact that my soocd symptoms aren’t as bad because vibe dealt with it before also scares me. Before all of this I loved life and had no doubt that I was going to marry this guy. Will I ever get to live without these thoughts in my head 24/7?

I felt like I was kind of getting over this harm subtype and I was doing fine for a couple of weeks. I felt so relieved and yes I would get triggered at times but I was able to let a lot of these thoughts pass. But of course something has to happen in my city and now I am absolutely In a wreck. For some background, I had known that this had been going in within town for a while and honestly it made me a bit paranoid for my own safety. Now that they have arrested this person and I know the details of what his mental state was like I feel myself panicking. I can’t help but worry that my headspace could ever get like that. It’s absolutely triggered the schizophrenic ocd and I feel so anxious and so worried. I just want to cry because I don’t ever want to be like that. And it gets to me a bit more at the moment because I’ve been having a rough couple of days. My school is in the middle of my city and I hear sirens all of the time and lately I’ve been fixated on them because I want to make sure that I’m actually hearing them. So a few days ago I heard the sirens and I was like okay yeah something is going on. And sirens typically only last a few seconds just because the police car is speeding by. But then I found myself walking for the next 10 minutes and hearing the sound in my head all over again. And I knew it was just in my head because obviously I know what a siren sounds like when you are nearby. But the amount of anxiety I was feeling because this was replaying in my head was terrible. It was to a point where I was like “Maybe that siren was real” or “Um that one sounded kind of real, I think” I wanted to burst out crying. I was telling myself that I was going crazy and that I was literally schizophrenic and that I needed to tell my therapist ASAP so that I could get put on medication. I saw a few people on here who could relate to the same thing and it made me feel a bit better. I just don’t know how to overcome this part of ocd. It has gotten to a point where I just replay the sounds of sirens in my head and i do it on purpose so that I could remind myself that they are not real. Which realistically isn’t helping me because I am just causing myself more distress. I told my boyfriend that I couldn’t stop hearing sirens replaying over in my head and it was the most embarrassing thing. I felt so defeated. He told me that I needed to stop fixating on these things and that this wasn’t me. I’ve came to that conclusion as well that being so anxious and so worried about every little thing in the world is not me. Before ocd really hit me, I used to just live my life and go about my day not worried about any of this. Now I am always making sure that for one, I am not hearing things. Two, I won’t hurt the people that I care so deeply about that are literally my life. And three, why the world is the way it is and why we have just been okay with living in space. lol that last one I can laugh about at the moment because it’s just funny that ocd has convinced me that I have to worry about that. I just want to over come this. This is probably the scariest thing I’ve had to deal with ever. Especially the sirens. Ocd has ruined my perspective on life. I could never wish ocd on anyone. I just want to be okay and I just want to live my life in the way that I want to, not the way Ocd wants me to. I’m sending my love to everyone dealing with this monster. As im even just writing this ocd is telling me that it is bad for me to write about, but who cares what you think ocd.

May I just say, having harm OCD and intrusive thoughts about “what if I want to/going to hurt someone” is probably the closest thing to hell I can think of. Especially when you know you can’t tell anyone at all because they would freak out. Then it makes you feel even more isolated, disgusting, and alone. My therapist tells me it’s just my ocd and nothing is wrong with me so I just wish my brain would stop having the thoughts. If I become numb to them like they they say to do, that terrifies me even more? I don’t have compulsions other than ruminating and obsessing about why they are happening in the first place. I am not asking for reassurance I just want to know I am not alone out there. It’s hard not to want to give up sometimes. If you are somewhere out there, I’m in this with you and I support you. I know you aren’t crazy. I know it’s just your overactive frontal lobe playing tricks on you. This isn’t who we really are at all. It’s weird to say you love strangers on an app but I do love any person struggling with this illness because my heart feels everything yours feels too. Stay strong and keep pushing forward even when your brain is lying to you!

Are there any Latinos here ? How did you guys open up to your parents about ocd ? My mom is somewhat more understanding of it and supportive .

I’ve made SOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH PROGRESSION, I would say that I’m able to manage all of my ocd symptoms effectively by God’s Grace. Understand that OCD is not just going to dissapear, learn to ignore and keep going about your day. I was extremely suicidal when this all started on June 30th, 2022. For about 6 weeks consecutively I truly believed I wasn’t going to be here and that I would rather be dead than live with these disgusting Intrusive thoughts at the severity they we’re at. I even went to a bridge to jump but Jesus showed up. The only reassurance you should seek is reading the Bible, praying, and going to church. Once I realized some of the greatest pastors dealt with this also, it got a lot better. The thoughts have dropped in frequency massively and they don’t stop me from getting up and moving, I laugh at a lot of them now because they are so blasphemous and ridiculous. Ignoring and not engaging has been most effective for me, I constantly attack my exposures also. I haven’t been on here in about a month. Today has been a phenomenal day. Don’t give up, do ERP!! Rely on God!! I feel progress everyday. Renew your mind with Godly thoughts. I truly believe OCD is a Tactic from Satan to destroy people, especially those who Love God!!! Blessings to all of you in Jesus name, I can’t imagine how far I’ll be in 6 months after how much progress I’ve made in 3 months. Don’t quit, Jesus Is here for you!!

how do you guys not feel extremely guilty for your intrusive thoughts? i’ve been struggling with the guilt over having these thoughts in the first place. any tips would help so much!!