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Does anyone on here have bipolar? How did you find out you had it, or make you think you had it?

Hi! I've grown up a Christian, I've been baptized, confirmed, I'm the backup organist at my congregation, and I've been a Bible camp counselor. For the past few months, though, I've kind of distanced myself from God, and I've felt better than before. Last night, I went to a reunion at my Bible camp where I worked this summer, and I felt God again, for the first time in a while, probably since I've LEFT camp in August. And it felt good. Also, side note, I've always said I want an in-between christian? Like I go to church and do all the stuff, but I don't listen to Christian music, or read the Bible every day or whatever. My friends are either not christians at all, or VERY Christian. So I'm kinda the odd one out so like idk who to turn to. I want to restart my relationship with him, and I know he forgives me for what I've done when I've distanced myself from him. After all, we're saved by God's grace, not by our acts. The thing is, I don't think the normal relationship people have with God will work for me. What we do at camp works for me - fun songs, connections with people (my co-counsolers are the most amazing people in the world), fun worships, activities and Bible studies. Praying is normal and good for me. But I'm just not someone who can sit down and read the Bible, and I have no desire to. I don't feel like reading the Bible is nessecary for my faith - not all of it, at least. So yeah. So I guess my questions are 1. How can I restart my relationship with God and grow it? 2. Is it okay to make my relationship with God work for me, even if it doesn't include reading the Bible? 3. Am I a bad Christian for not reading the Bible? SO that was chaotic, but please help me out?

Hey everyone, new to this app because I’m just now realizing that my anxiety seems like it’s rooted in pure-o. Currently waiting on a therapist appointment to get some clarity. Something I’m struggling with right now is guilt over intrusive thoughts. Distressing/horrible intrusive thoughts are really really rare for me, and in my past I’ve had no problem dismissing them as a normal part of the human experience. For some reason recently - I’ve had a stressful month or so, this could be why - I’ve had a couple of intrusive thoughts come up, and I’ve had exhausting rumination over the guilt of having them at all. I have no worry/stress/rumination/concern over the possibility that I’d carry them out. I know who I am and have literally no fear that I would, I even understand that the thoughts are not me, and infrequent at that. For some reason I just cannot shake feeling such shame, and guilt along the lines of thinking that if the people I love knew I had thought that, they would not want to talk to me, or be horrified, etc. It’s causing me to feel guilty or ashamed when they are showing me love or kindness etc. What’s frustrating is I know random intrusive thoughts happen to everyone, they do not indicate my actual feelings, and ruminating about them only makes them worse. But I’d love some tips on how to let this feeling go! I have recently gotten back into yoga, mindfulness, and meditation. I have to imagine that getting better at this practice will help a lot. Any other tips and tools are appreciated!

I really want to get the COVID vaccine, but due to me giving into my ocd compulsions (not realizing it at the time) I researched and researched and read all scientific articles about myocarditis and side effects. They ended up indicating that about 1 or less than 1 in a million people who get a covid vaccine of any kind will die from myocarditis. You would think that odds like that would give me peace, but it’s the opposite. I keep thinking, I could be that one in a million, how can I risk my life getting this vaccine? I feel sick over it even though I really want to be protected against COVID. I want to go back to living my life without worrying about dying from the disease. I know those without OCD would look at those odds and not even think twice, but to me it feels like a 50/50 life or death decision. Does anyone have any tips on how to get through this? I have obviously stopped researching and Googling once I realized it was a compulsion.

Has anyone ever had a nervous breakdown or something similar? And if so how did you handle it... I'm really feeling down at the moment, crying etc I think OCD, anxiety and the depression part is heightened and of course mistakes have been made but I'm sure things seem so much worse than what they actually are.

The other night I made the drunken irrational mistake to sleep with a guy who was taken. I did know and once I was sober realised the severity to my actions. I owned up immediately, told him to tell her, apologised to her and tried my best to learn from my mistakes. My friends were all horrible to me, saying I was victimising myself, trying to get off Scott free because I was waiting for the right time to tell the girl, but they all said I was wrong and if I didn’t apologise then and there they would stop talking to me. So I did. I was always going to, but I listened to them. They have now stopped talking to me. Anyway, I was crying and my mum found me, she asked me what was wrong and was really yhere for me. I get scared to open up to my parents because they are very opinionated, this shows in a second. So 3 days went by I started to feel better and I wanted to start bettering myself. However about half an hour ago the girl messaged me back, turns out he never told her so now I had to. I had to explain everything, I did it with as little pain as possible for her didn’t go into detail just what she asked me. I apologise over and over again. My parents found out I’d done that and started screaming at me, saying I shouldn’t have messaged her, that I was stupid for doing it, just screaming making me feel worse about myself. It’s like I can’t do anything I want, I have to do what my friends want or what my parents what. Never what I think is right. I explained to them apologising tk her helped me feel less guilty, they just laughed and started saying I was an idiot. I cried my eyes out, mum started saying I’ve ruined Christmas even though they had zero idea on Christmas and I hid my feelings, tried to enjoy myself. I’m not sat in my dark room, crying my eyes out because they now hate me. They are continuing to argue with me and then wonder why I don’t tell them anything. I know what I did was bad, but mistakes happen in a persons life, this was a really bad one. But not a single perosn in my life rn, is making me feel any better. Half of me doesn’t think I’m coming back from this, the only way I can end this pain is to just disappear. Idk what to do, I’m trying so hard to fix it. But I’m scared I’m gonna get slutshamed by people in the town. The guy has had zero blame, yet me? I’ve had jt all. I was intoxicated and he was driving. Nobody talks about that! He says he was drunk but my level he wasn’t on. Idk what I’m gonna do now

Does anyone have their themes change on a daily basis? Since my most recent flair up of OCD in the past two months I have seen it change themes almost daily and things I was stifling with a week ago don't even seem to matter. Makes me fear it will never stop

Many people LOVE the idea of a fresh start and a new year. I do as well, but I don't like the pressure of vision boards and goals - if we have learned anything in the past few years, it's how little control we have over our external surroundings. So I decided this year to release the pressure of what my "big" goals are and will just focus on small, attainable things because I WANT to work on them. What's one thing you want to truly work towards that you will hold yourself accountable for?

Can you believe that 2022 is coming to an end? New Years always reminds me of new beginnings and new ways to improve. What is one goal that you have for ROCD in 2023? Personally, I want to improve on better implementing ERP. Sometimes I can forget to put ERP into practice and can find myself backsliding. I want to be better about being proactive! What about you? Let's make 2023 a great year for recovery!

my false memory of cheating feels so real and like it must’ve happened. the only thing keeping me a little bit sane is the reassurance that it didn’t from someone who was there

Good day, you awesome people! I struggle with spreading my own (bathroom/groinal) germs and "contaminating" others somehow. Logically I know it's not necessarily going to make anyone sick, but it's coming to the point where I have to wash my arm if it touches my behind at all while wiping (in case waste travels as it sometimes does)--and this morning I felt I had to wash my hands after touching the shell of my ear. It's clear that a lot of washing I am doing is to avoid guilt--I feel like I am "being sneaky/doing something terrible" if I don't do it. Some things are justifiable, yes, but the line has become so blurred I have changed many of my routines around this and I cannot tell what constitutes as "acceptable" or "normal" hygeine anymore because anything less than what I have started doing feels awful. I even wash my hands after drying off after a shower... though that I am trying to stop. I am wondering if anyone could help me out here with suggestions? Thank you so much for listening to my woes. I appreciate you all immensely.

Suffering from false memories a lot right now. But one recent thought i had was "what if I've thought of cheating" and my stomach dropped making me feel like its true because it felt like a familiar memory??? Idk if that makes sense and now i feel compelled to confess but even if i did have a bad thought like that I didn't act on anything so why am i feeling CONSUMED WITH GUILT i love my partner soso much the thought of hurting him kills me

I wanna break up with my partner… I can’t take this anymore… I constantly asking if I wanna break up testing, if I wanna break up, if I am not in love, or if I even love him anymore… I want to save the relationship so badly b it it doesn’t seem I want that… I don’t wanna break up… I don’t wanna say goodbye… I know I love my baby. 😢

Does any Christian experience the same? I am a Christian but when in public and a friend of mine starts speaking about faith or something related to it I feel embarrassed especially when someone else can listen. Then it freaks me out that I feel that way then the situation becomes stressful which as I think triggers my ocd because I always get blasphemous thoughts. Then I can not say if those thoughts were from me or from ocd then I feel bad I hate myself etc etc. Could I classify that as ocd?

Hi everyone, It’s been almost a year since my last post on here. But I am really struggling tonight with this and I don’t know where else to turn. I’m going to try and keep this very, very brief because otherwise this will be paragraphs long. Basically, I was with my ex-boyfriend for four years, and we broke up 1.5 years ago. Most of my anxiety is based around my fears that he is a terrible person. It caused me an unbelievable amount of anxiety when we were together, and has not let up even long after our break up. I constantly find myself still analyzing and agonizing over our past, his past, things he’s said and done, what kind of person he is, who he will be in the future, etc etc. it’s so exhausting. Anyway, tonight I’m really struggling with something specific. A friend of mine was complaining to me about how she was scared she would upset her husband and make him mad. This is not the first time she’s spoken about feeling scared of him in that way. I was silently taking comfort in the comparison that even with all my anxiety, I had never been scared of my boyfriend while we were together. He was always calm, RARELY ever angry, pretty rational. Then in a flash of anxiety and panic, I realized that wasn’t even true. There are two moments I can think of where I was scared of him. Once was one of the very few times (like, literally 3) he ever got visibly upset. He said something that scared me and I didn’t recognize him in that moment. The other time…I honestly couldn’t tell you if it was actually something scary or my anxiety just took hold and made it scary (it wasn’t anger related at all). I hope I’m making sense. Anyway, the realization that I couldn’t say I was never scared of him has me in a complete panic. Because I don’t think a healthy relationship with a good person would even need to ask this question. I don’t think you should ever be scared of a partner, not even once. But then to be fair, I know I acted in ways a few times where I probably scared him too….so is it normal? Or is it okay if it’s literally just once or twice in 4 years? Or never okay? I’m totally spiralling and my anxiety is wild. I hate that I cant tell myself I was never scared of him. I don’t know what to do. Thanks for reading

I got triggered today and spent a big chunk of the day trying to sit with the discomfort. I started to feel better but then I gave in to my compulsions. I think it was about an hour or so of doing it. I’m exhausted now. I feel like I’m going mental. Details below.. skip if you can’t be bothered to read.. I just fixate and struggle with every little thing I see on my son.. like are these white marks on his skin related to the condition I read about. Are these brown marks related? His black hair has browny red through it, so my thoughts were what if these patches turn white per symptoms of this conditions? What if this happens? What if that happens? While he slept I spent the hour combing through his hair trying to see where it was lightening to see how light it is in case it turns white. He has two strands of hair that did this. So my mind connected the dots incorrectly and is running wild thinking more of this will happen thus indicating he has this condition. Anxiety/ocd is about accepting uncertainty but I guess today is just a hard day for me, and this makes me feel hopeless and sad. Could use some advice especially from parents who’ve been through something similar

so i usually don’t get violent intrusive thoughts like stabbing or hurting people ect. my intrusive thoughts are more false memory/ real event based. like my intrusive thoughts will be like “what if this happened, what if im___” “did i do this” and then yeah. is this still ocd if i don’t have thoughts intrusive about stabbing or hurting people? my intrusive thoughts are more bad questions regarding the past.

hi! I really need someone to help out right now. I would appreciate it so much. Thanks:) I know this is kind of long, but please help me out and read it. please help confirm for me that the symptoms im experiencing are just extreme existential OCD, depersonalization, and anxiety. it would make me feel a lot better. 7-8 months ago a traumatic event led me to experience severe depersonalization. ive had OCD for as long as i can remember basically, but it’s become a lot worse from this. i am a very big overthinker, so i tend to over analyze a lot of the things going on around me, my perception of everything, my thoughts, etc. it’s gotten so bad because of the depersonalization that i at times really can’t function anymore. one day, all i’ll be able to think about is the irrational fear that i somehow am going to die and there’s something terribly wrong with my brain, like cancer or something. then the next, i’ll be freaking out, worrying that im gonna go crazy. like this is some kind of early onset schizophrenia. i start doing research and i start obsessing over each and every thought i have, everything i see, etc. then i’ll be paranoid about my family, worrying that none of them are real and they’re imposters or something. i know it’s irrational. i recognize that and don’t genuinely believe it. but the fact that this thought worries me concerns me even more because it leads me to believe im going crazy. i am having existential crises regularly. like, all the time. it’s actually ridiculous. i’ll be reading a book and i start contemplating the English language and how it came to be, and then language altogether, and then how humans were able to create and understand language, and then how they were able to sound it out, how sound exists altogether, and so on. lol. like what the hell? a few days ago i was looking out of my bedroom window, and all the sudden had the intrusive thought come into my head, “what if this is just a simulation and what you see outside of your window is merely a two dimensional image?” and then i almost had a full on panic attack. anyways, those are some examples. i’m so worried. i feel like i have no control over what freaks me out anymore. i feel like i have no control of my brain altogether. i don’t want to go crazy. i don’t want to feel like im stuck in a dream anymore. im so scared. somebody please help me. i live my life in fear, worrying about everything i perceive. im exhausted. i can’t tell anyone because i don’t want them to worry, or think that im going crazy. that’ll only reinforce my fears.

So, this isn’t something I’ve ever mentioned in therapy or my OCD support group in too much detail, but tonight it’s dawning on me how much of an impact it’s having on me and I’m interested in other people’s experiences. I’ve always had some weird issues with what I “allow” myself. For a while in college (in the 90’s) I set myself a $10 a week limit on groceries and pretty mischief lived on rice and beans and lost a bunch of weight. So, a year or so ago husband, teenage kids, some friends, and I were coming up with kinda hypothetical “would you rather” kinda questions. I asked something along the lines of “if you could only listen to music produced during a five year span which years would you choose?”. Seemed fun and fitting for the moment. Everyone answered with their off-the-cuff answers and I think that was the last that most of them thought of it. I agonized and came up with my years very carefully. I thought about it a lot initially, but didn’t think of it as a hard and fast rule. Well, somewhere along the way that changed. Now I haven’t played the beautiful piano that I love because Bach wasn’t composing from 1977-1982. And tonight I was reduced to tears because I listened to a song that I thought was by a “safe” performer” in my years but was from 1976 and I’m panicking and trying to make it right. Sorry, this is very long and it feels so dumb because this is an an artificial limit I’ve placed on myself but god damnit I feel like I don’t even know what to do with myself anymore. I’m fucking losing my mind.

Each new year brings new opportunities to grow, to experience new things, and to work toward our goals. For the OCD community, this means a fresh opportunity to live the life we want to live, rather than the one OCD says we have to live. What do you hope for in 2023? Let us know below.