Kickstart your recovery journey with a caring community of others
working to conquer OCD
I’ve been so stress that it makes me nauseous. And sometimes these intrusive thoughts are so disgusting and time consuming and overwhelming that I have no appetite I’ve been eating a meal and a half a day…I’ve lost a lot of weight it’s so noticeable my family members can tell… Is anybody dealing with this too?
I had a dramatically “bad” thought (about my 12 yr son) this morning as I was rising from bed. It is now 4pm and the thought is still with me: NR, ACT each more than once; natural distraction with phone call and a long walk in the drizzling rain. Thoughts are just thoughts, etc. I have been told these thoughts just take time to leave the mind. What do you know? And will you pls share it with me? Thx!
How have you guys explained ROCD to your partner? I feel like I’m in an urge to break up again. I know it will pass. I love my partner so much - he is honestly so wonderful. I feel like I can’t talk to him about ROCD because I’m afraid he will leave. Me leaving him is the easy way out, and one I know I’ll regret. Has anyone explained this to their partner? How?
Like I have said earlier here I haven’t left my room in more than a month. So I eat in my room, when I eat at all. But because I feel my room is contaminated and myself I also think that the bags with food and the containers get contaminated once they enter my room. So it becomes a problem how to get the containers and bags out of my room. I had a bag in my room with food since Saturday and I took it out yesterday. To my surprise I wake up to find my room full of flies. I have counted at least more than 10. I decided to let the door close so then don’t go out and contaminated the rest of the house. I don’t know what else to do. My room was already a dumpster without the flies to begin with. I guess I should not eat or drink anything in a couple of days.
I can’t bear myself anymore, I can’t seem to know if it’s ROCD or if I’m falling out of love!! I love her. But that triggered something. Do i really love her as I said ? Isn’t this a lie ? Why don’t I feel anything ? And why did I feel more fear and anxiety trying to imagine myself saying it to her in real life ? My brain keeps sending solutions to me, or directing me to other problems I might have (depression, which could explain why i don’t feel excited for anything ; trauma and new healthy relationship, i don’t know how to act…) But it feels like an urge. I need to find out if I truly love her of if i don’t, it’s respect. I don’t want her to believe everything’s fine if in reality i don’t truly love her, BUT I DO CARE AND LOVE HER. It’s all nonsense but I don’t wanna quit. We’re in a long distance relationship, maybe that could play its role too.
People who say I have OCD because I am so organized!! They have no fucking idea what we go through! "Oooou I have OCD" Stfu!! Lol you could not last a day in our shoes! To be here today means we are strong and fucking amazing!
Anyone else here struggling with the decision to take anti depressants . I really don’t want to be on them for many reasons . But I don’t know how I can calm down my nervous system . I have been trying so many things and failing
I hate to be so negative but I do. My health anxiety/health concern OCD has been terrible. I’m struggling to do basic functions terrified something bad is going to happen or it’ll trigger an illness. I’m watching all my age mates and colleagues excel and I’m struggling to even function. I can’t do things I would’ve done with ease a couple years ago. I’m struggling to see the point to persevere… I just want to sleep all the time and that’s when I’m not jolting awake in my sleep. Waking up to check something I’m worried about.
Hey guys! How long did it take for you to see positive results with ERP? I suffer from existential / spiritual OCD, obsessing over my own ego and spiritual enlightenment… I’ve been doing ERP for 2 months now and have not been seeing a big improvement.
First I started having violent intrusive thoughts, which while I understand do not reflect my beliefs or action, are still discomforting. Then those were interrupted by hallucinations of bugs landing on me. Ugh. I have too many papers due and past due. I have too few strong theses formed. I barely even have time for my OCD to ruin things for me because my migraines and other things are already eating the little time I have. Then again, I guess my OCD is confounded by what to do next because one of my professors hasn’t responded to me in weeks as I’ve tried to make a plan to muster through without the need for perfection. I feel like I can handle being imperfect, but to accept that while also not having answers to questions we were encouraged to ask about assignment progressions just leaves me so lost. I’m really trying to be a more balanced student this go-around. I just feel so darn overwhelmed. So often it feels like drowning, and it’s just so sustained too.
Did you ever believed you knew you didn’t love your partner anymore? ☹️ Were you convinced you didn’t? 🥺 😞 did you believe you were lying during that time? I believe I know I don’t love him but why would I post here still? 😞 How can I get what I had back with my partner and still change while working on things together…. I know I shouldn’t post but I can’t help it. I am feeling numbed out or maybe something else… I think about how close I was with him and just get that back again… I don’t wanna constantly believe I am lying… 😢
Any good moments you want to share? Big or small it doesn’t matter. I’ll start! Yesterday I was able to go to the grocery store, cook myself dinner, and made pumpkin pie from scratch as well as watch a horror movie with my partner! It was a nice time. Therapy and medicine seems to be working as well(small increments). This not to brag but I find people with mental health struggles have a hard time just getting the most basic stuff done, so we should be celebrating those small steps and victories. Whatcha got for me?
Anyone else really struggle with identity? I have soocd and ROCD and probably others. I think maybe I’ve had the soocd since I was a teenager but I didn’t know it was a thing so I guess I just thought it was a weird part of myself I always buried that I was maybe I was in denial a lesbian even though I always wanted husband and kids anyways….I’ve been with my partner for 6 years we have a baby and we’ve just got engaged and this is when I lost my mind …all the feelings came back up but worse than ever ….I used to enjoy dressing girly and doing my makeup (maybe I felt the tiniest but of imposter syndrome like I needed to lose a bit more weight or whatever) but this time I really lost! I know I’m a mum but I don’t know who I am….I really struggle to look in the mirror and when I think about losing a few pounds, looking good putting on makeup….we’ll I can’t even think about it it scares me ….I don’t understand it! I put makeup on like I normally do but I’m so lost that I don’t know who I am….like I feel like I can’t do the stuff I used to do with ease and comfort :/ I can’t really explain it very well but when I think of the person I want to be that I always tried to live up to I don’t know what that is and it’s scary ….it was always the blond, attractive person now maybe an aspiring milf haha maybe if that doesn’t sound too shallow! But also with a good job but now all I can think about it being with my baby and eating food 😔 I’m so lost in who I am 🤦🏼♀️
Okay so I’m just really confused/lost/nervous/etc about the way i am feeling. I am still struggling with harm intrusive thoughts but i feel like they are not as bad. I still have the commands,what ifs, and images but i feel like they aren’t as bad. I am not in therapy and i know some people said it’s nearly impossible to recover without therapy. So how am i possibly getting better? The only thing i can think of is that I’m a cook everyday so i am always holding a knife. And it’s not like i can just not go to work so i just go because it’s what i normally do. And I’m not isolating from my family because i don’t want it to be noticeable that I’m struggling. So i was just wondering if natural exposures such as knife holding and doing things normally help with the intrusive thought? Because I’m just so scared that I’m getting better without therapy and that secretly means that I’m a bad person.
Now that I'm recovering from ocd I just realized that I haven't allowed myself to be on autopilot at any moment anymore. Like before developing pocd, I used to do things on autopilot like chores and what not. Just now I'm allowing myself to be in the moment again instead of thinking of what I'm about to do which has allowed me to be more functional with my tasks. And I realize that's something I'm just regaining and how sad that is that every waking moment has been spent on thinking I could do something horrible at any moment so I have to be extra aware and think a lot to make sure that doesnt happen when that's not the case. It's the overthinking and the fear that's getting in the way of me letting all of this go. And it's my problem with this fear that is causing all my problems.
I have no friends in college, my OCD has real events behind it, and so many external factors are present and ruining my life… I hate it all so much… if I cease to exist, people won’t care… people won’t ever care that I don’t exist… if I just “disappeared”, and if people found out about the OCD involving real events, people would laugh and be glad I was gone… 😞😞😞
I’ve had distressing ROCD for a year now. Been going through ERP & CBT as well as on medication. Recently for a bachelorette party, we went to a tarot reader for fun. The only other time I’ve done tarot was when my friend read for me & it ended up coming true. Now, this time, I went in very anxious about my relationship due to my OCD. The tarot reader asked a bunch of nonsense at first, asking if I was looking to buy a house (no), asking if I had gone through a break up (no), tried to tell me an older lady was coming through and wanting to talk to me (no older lady in my family has passed). He then started to say if I marry my fiancé, that I will feel stuck and that he was getting major “warning” signs. It’s very much triggered my ROCD this week… wondering if anyone has similar experiences ignoring tarot or using this as an exposure. Thank you! ❤️
I feel like my partner is my mirror. We're definitely different people, but my relationship is showing me where I need to do work within myself. Some of the things I worry about with my partner are also things I worry about with myself. Some of the struggles I am having when it comes to how I relate to my partner reflects struggles I have in how I relate to myself. For example, I notice that I am having thoughts that I cannot accept parts of my partner's personality and preferences. I also notice that I have a really hard time accepting parts of my personality and preferences. I often feel as though I am not good enough--that parts of myself must change in order for me to feel some sense of being okay. I guess, in other words, that some parts of myself must change in order for me to accept myself. I don't really know where I'm going with this. I just find it really interesting that I not only have obsessions regarding faults and perceived problems about my partner and relationship but also about myself. It makes me wonder whether increasing my self-acceptance can increase my ability to tolerate when my partner is different from me or from the way I wish he could be. In other words, could accepting myself help me accept others? Can I learn that having faults does not have to mean that something is wrong?
If you are in crisis, please use these emergency resources to find immediate help.
OCD doesn't have to
rule your life
