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It’s making me think that I’m more scared of telling people that “I’m a chomo” for my extremely horrible real events when I was 13 instead of me never wanting to be a chomo because it’s morally disgusting and evil…

Curious about a persons likes/dislikes. Lately I've been asking the same person random fact questions about themselves. And after I get an answer, my intrusive thoughts find more questions to ask about what they like. And if I don't ask them, I ruminate wondering what it is and that's what causes anxiety until I get an answer. I truly don't care not one bit about this persons likes or dislikes, but my ocd does for some weird reason. It makes me feel crazy. Anyone else deal with something like this? Or know someone who does?

Generally manage my recovery extremely well when I focus completely on my health but can't seem to balance my recovery with pursuing new hobbies or skills that I want to learn. Once I find something that I want to become good at, it consumes me and I devote most of my attention to the pursuit. Invaraibly, compulsions arise, despite my very best efforts, and I find myself having to abandon my ambitions and commit to my recovery again. I don't want to have to spend the rest of my life managing my OCD and never achieving my potential. I'm exhausted.

😮‍💨so i’ve been dealing with pocd for about five going on six years and i can definitely say this point in my life is the worst experience i’ve had living with it. before, it was an annoyance and i didn’t need much “reassurance”, from 17-21 i had been working with/teaching kids here and there. i’d feel very gross and anxious having groinal response but interacting with them kinda alleviated that anxiety because they can be very sweet and some can just be cruel. but whatever it took not to hurt them, i’d face it because no child should have to go through being perverted or sexualized. and now….i feel like that’s all i do whenever i see them. i recently graduated college, going for my goals in life, surrounded myself by creatives/artsy people, i thought i was going to just eventually get a grip. but i’ve had very triggering experiences. like nothing i’ve accomplished matters bc i’m inhumane and worthless.

It feels as if I don’t wanna be around my boyfriend anymore :( I don’t wanna feel that. I know tomorrow he wanted me to go to school with him but I don’t wanna go and it made me feel as in why? And I kept thinking does it mean I don’t wanna be with him? Or do I just not feel like going to school? I don’t wanna go to school that’s for sure I have no reason to other than be with him but I just don’t wanna be in school because I don’t need to be there. I just can’t stop and feel as if the reason I don’t wanna go is because I don’t wanna be with him :/ and that sucks I don’t wanna feel that way. I sometimes don’t feel like being around him but I don’t know why i don’t know if that’s bad it feels bad. We’ve been together for more than a year this semester we have over 4 classes together so I would say for like 4 hours and that’s all but sometimes after a while I wanna be alone or don’t wanna be with him but then I think I don’t wanna feel that way cause it’s just 4 hours and if I wanna be with him in the future I need to get used to being more with him. I know he says that when him and I are together for a long while he doesn’t wanna be with me anymore he wants to go with his friends.I love him to death I wouldn’t leave him it just feels terrible feeling this way and plus I’ve never had this feeling I only felt that way about being together to much because we once broke up and it was cause sometimes he just wanted to go with his friends and I wouldn’t really let him and he said we don’t always need to be together.

I think my ocd is making me have an urge to “just admit something”. Has anyone else had this feeling?

I have been with my SO going in 13 years now. We met in college and have been together ever since. We got married in 2021 and welcomed a baby girl in the world last year. I had a severe mental breakdown in 2013 that landed me in the hospital because I was contemplating suicide. That breakdown nearly destroyed our relationship. I had severe intrusive thoughts and felt the need to tell him all of them. I felt like if I didn’t tell him, I was lying. I destroyed his self esteem, telling him all of the mean thoughts I had about him. I would feel the need to tell him anytime I saw an attractive guy in public, I questioned our relationship and told him I wasn’t sure if I loved him anymore. It was bad and very dark. Fast forward to now and I feel like I’m letting him down in different ways. I don’t feel the need to tell him every thought I have now but since having my daughter my OCD and depression seem to be getting worse. I just feel like I’m no longer happy and my daughter should’ve had a mom that wasn’t damaged like me. Didn’t have the abusive childhood like me. Wasn’t broken like me. I feel so much guilt. It’s putting such a strain on our relationship and I feel like my husband deserves someone better. Someone whose happier.

I have been having obsessive thoughts on life and what the point there is to anything as we all die. It started as an anxiety attack from thinking about death and how quickly time goes then lead on to these thoughts about questioning absolutely everything. There isnt a minute in the day where I don’t think about this 😞 When I try to sit with that thought of things being pointless and meaningless and act normal it’s like my brain is saying that I’m putting on act, that I should be sad and depressed by this. I just think constantly why am I thinking these things or why am I always thinking about how I’m feeling or if I have become a different person. I’ve just started Sertraline and found my thoughts have just got more worse. Just looking for words of encouragement and support.

Does anyone here have harm OCD that tries to attack every single action and thought they do during the day? Mine is about killing my spouse. Now every time I hear something that entails the future or “doing what I gotta do” I am afraid if the thoughts showing up. And as I try to think “do therapy”, “find hobbies”, “get into yoga” the intrusive though appears and it’s “kill your wife” or “kill your wife and yourself afterwards”. It could attack a happy event to. Like you finally get that reimbursement you were waiting for on an online shopping return. And now you get it and you’re like : “Nice, thats done” and the the intrusive thought comes “cool, now you can kill your wife”. I’m under the impression I am becoming schizophrenic. I don’t hear a voice or see things though, and some days there are less occurrences than other days. It’s days where I don’t work and have a day out with the wife doing fun activities that the occurrences are less. But if I sit alone working in my office all they they appear all the time. This is very distressing and causes severe anxiety. Loosing appetite, head aches, becoming extremely irritable. This is the hardest thing I have ever go through.

does anybody get false memories of them cheating on their partner that feel real? but yk u never did it it just feels real? like a memory?

I know w ocd you need to accept the uncertainty but if I have the Intrusive thought: what If I kill myself- am I supposed to really accept that uncertainty ? Or is it accepting in general ?

Is it necessary to move away from your home if you still deal with verbal abuse? I hear this everywhere to move away, avoid your "abuser" but what if i dont want to move away? I like our house, i have friends here, this is where i grow up, i like my room, i dont want to leave here everything just because of one person. I like my mother, i like my brother, sometimes i like my father too but i feel anger towards him and i feel afraid when i have to talk back to him cause of the verbal abuses he did to us. But i dont want to move away, i want to be strong and not be dependent on him. I want to learn just to not care what he says, one day when i will have a family i will move but for now no. Did someone here learned to become stronger while they were still living with a negative person?

I got this question on my mind. I feel guilty when i have the suicidal thoughts, harm thoughts, how you decide that thats ocd guilt or other kinds of guilt, cause the difference is that with ocd guilt you dont have to think through things and you just have to move on, with other kinds of guilt you have to talk about it, deal with it, ask for help, treat it like a danger cause then thats real suicidal thoughts not ocd. Im again thinking if its real or not, i cant decide, i feel that im denying real problems, if i let me feel the suicidal thoughts with the feelings(cause i feel sad, it happenes when i get hurt) its just so much and i feel guilty and afraid cause i think its dangerous. I dont want to get lost on it and actually do it or again deal with all that feelings. Either if its ocd or real, this symptom of guilt and trying to avoid it is the same for both, so i cant decide if o have a real problem or its just ocd. The feeling of trying to avoid thinking about it to solve the problem makes me think im actually having real thoughts and im avoiding. But i did try to think about it in the past and made me lost,.believe it more that im in danger, my anxiety got worse, until something helped and then i was like "what, i was never suicidal, its just doesnt feel real that i was". So thats why im frustrated and i try to avoid thinking about if its real suicidal thoughts, whats my problem, if i find a problem i think "omg then im really suicidal" worry alot, feel guilty, and i feel like i dont ask for help, cause a part of me still thinks that this is ocd,.and i have to stop asking for help, its just a rummination. But alot of times i feel guilty again for 2 reasons, 1 because i think its a bad thing to think about offing yourself, 2 because i feel like im avoiding real problems cause i have these thoughts when i have problems. Also is it possible to have ocd suicidal thoughts while you have feelings of hopelessness or desperate/sadness, anger?

I kinda am really alone with this one. I got diagnosed 3 years ago and never went back to therapy. I don't really want help... I'm just here to kinda learn about other people. I've never met someone who has ocd like I do. You may think "they all say that" but I just never have. I got diagnosed when I told my therapist my obsession with gore/nercophilia. I can't believe I'm even talking about it right now. It makes me feel sick. I can't stand it. My mom has undiagnosed bpd. I may be wrong about this, I'm not a professional, but she has all the symptoms. Every single small thing about it too she has, and so do I. Having ocd along with it is even harder. I researched on having both and it's not common but also not impossible? If not, then if I don't have both, I would fit under the ocd title more than ocd. My point is, I feel alone. I just want someone to read this... I hate to admit it, but I want some sympathy. My partner has been really bad to me lately and I can't leave them cause I love them too much. So I don't beg him for comfort cause I know they might leave if I do. I feel like a burden. Please don't comment on that. Actually, are their even comments on this thing? Embarrassing if not..

Hey guys first real post about my OCD so anything helps. So yeah, I know my intrusive thoughts about an onlyfans influencer aren’t nearly as damaging as other people’s intrusive thoughts but I feel like I’m going crazy over something so so so dumb. Being obsessed over the appearance (and not personality) of some e-girl is just such an embarrassing thing to be obsessed with and I can’t tell any of my friends about it. It’s such a cringy thing to be OCD about, it makes me feel like one of those Reddit incels losers. Also fun fact, OCD and unfettered access to internet porn since the age of 12 do NOT go together. But to cap off the post, I’m just really scared that I’ll never be able to shake this. My brain can’t find someone more attractive than this person and I’m worried that I’ll never be able to be attracted to a future partner because of this. Idk I just can’t stop thinking about a pretty person who in reality I would not want to be in a relationship with. and I’m just kinda spiraling rn cause I don’t see how I can live like this forever. But I’m still only on my 3rd session, haven’t started ERP or meds, but I just wanted to get this off my chest with people who would understand. Thanks for reading of you made it this far.

I've been struggling with many themes for years. For the past two years it's been POCD in particular. I've been trying to use acceptance and keep moving forward. Every time I see someone on social media who I may think is attractive I get really scared and start doing compulsions such as searching for their age. Even if the person looks soooo much older than me I still feel the need to do that compulsion. I'm trying my best to reduce it though. Now I'm panicking about something that happened a little while ago. I've been trying not to confess but I can't do it anymore. Basically I saw a girl on social media and thought she was attractive. My OCD gives me false attention a lot of the time and it's really hard to tell the difference. Immediately I started to panic and got the urge to search for her age as I normally do when I find someone attractive. After sooo long I couldn't find her age and I knew the only way I was going to get relief was to ask for reassurance. So basically what I did was I told my friend group that I think she's attractive. I thought to myself that if they agree then I would get some relief. My friend agreed and I felt so much relief. I still felt the urge to figure out her age though. I wasn't looking as much as before but I still ended up finding it suddenly. This is when things got really bad for me and I started to panic even more. I'm 17 years old and I found out the girl was 14!!!! I started to freak out and I did so much rumination trying to figure out if I actually felt attracted to her or if it was just my OCD symptoms. Obviously the rumination made things worse. This was weeks ago and I kept trying my best to put off asking for more reassurance and confessing. I kept trying to say to myself "maybe, maybe not" and that I just need to accept what happened and move on. I just can't do this anymore. I needed to confess today. What's making me even more terrified is the fact that I confessed it to a friend group. I keep getting thoughts like "what if that conversation gets leaked and people think you're a bad person". I really don't know what to do. I feel so hopeless. I would have never said that if I had known her age before hand. I feel so guilty. Not only is she younger but I'm straight!!!! So I'm also panicking about the fact that she's a girl. Why on earth would I feel like this?! I kept trying to check myself and look at other photos and videos of the girl to see if I'd feel anything and thankfully I didn't. It was just that one video she was in. I don't understand why that happened! I'm trying to just say to myself that these things happen sometimes and I just need to move on but it's so difficult!! I can't believe people without ocd would not be over thinking this at all!!! I start therapy with NOCD in about two weeks so I'm really hoping that will help. Sorry for the long post. Thank you for reading. Please try not to give me reassurance in the comments but do share if you've been through something similar and what helped you stop ruminating and move on.

Hello there! I'm Greg, 23 years old. I come from Greece. The truth is I've been a pretty anxious and sensitive human being all my life. Whatever may have happened, small or big, would always make me feel sad, anxious and desperate. 5 years ago, in 2018, there came a disaster for me. Returning to my homeland due to Christmas holidays, I've found my dad laying on bed with severe leg paralysis. I've also found my grandpa hospitalised in a life or death situation. That's where the panic attacks came. For about 2 weeks straight I couldn't even see what's happening in front of me. And that's where the existential intrusive thoughts came. And the OCD burst out. I lost my grandpa and a month later my grandma, his wife. A year later, in 2019, my other grandpa died also. All this time I couldn't even realise this. "Is this really happening? Am I dead? Someone has to be joking. Am I real? Do I even exist? Do they exist? Can they see me?". Those are some of the questions I've been suffering about 5 years now. The last 2 years I've been working with a psychiatrist/psychotherapist. I'm on medication too. The truth is that 2022 has been better and better for me. Existential intrusive thoughts were silenced. Even if they were back, it seemed like they couldn't even stay. Unfortunately, in December, after reducing my pill dose (Enlift) for a long period (my psychiatrist suggested this) and not being able to see him and work on my problem.. my existential OCD came back hard. 2 months now I've been suffering again. I continue working with him, the medication was again increased. He says that the reason behind this comeback is a stressful period I was into. And that those thoughts and fears will again vanish in a period of time. But I really feel like they don't. It may became a bit easier compared to 2 months earlier but I really keep ruminating and believing my fearfull thoughts. Three weeks now I'm fighting not to believe that I'm alone and nobody is even existing. Like everyone isn't there and I'm the only one see them. There are times where I feel better and even worse. But I have been informed about ERP. I found this app by being really lucky. I'm seeing that many of you have been helped out. And I'm just seeking for ERP cause here in Greece.. ERP isn't even widely known. Is there anyone that can help me in this? Thank you in advance.

I don't know why i feel like this. Could it be because I'm going through things? Maybe depression. Could anyone help me out?

I'm a nonbinary lesbian working in education and the constant news stream against LGBT teachers and discussion of LGBT topics in classrooms causes me a lot of intrusive thoughts. I worry that talking to my students about my girlfriend, celebrity crushes, and LGBT media they're interested in is somehow wrong even though I know if I were straight this would not be an issue. I know at least one of my students has unaccepting parents because they misgender them and they asked me not to use their real name & pronouns with them. If they were to have an argument and me accepting their kid was brought up I'm worried they would submit a complaint or somehow get me put on Fox News. I do things that have already gotten educators put on Fox news like asking students for names & pronouns, not outing students to parents, openly being in a gay relationship, and celebrating pride days. My rational mind knows these things are not wrong but when conservative media is constantly calling me a p3do for existing as an LGBT educator and supporting at risk students it causes a lot of POCD thoughts. I will continue to support my students because it's very important to me but I'm not sure what type of ERP I should do to address my mental state. I have to be open with my students so I can talk to them about topics like interpersonal anti-LGBT bigotry and internet safety because no one else is doing it. We did a segment at the end of a session on how to block and report any content that makes them uncomfortable on a few different social media platforms because a student voiced a complaint and I'm sure Fox News would take issue with that as well for some reason.

Has anyone tried or looked into psilocybin treatment? I keep reading good things but the idea freaks me out. I tripped on acid once - long time ago and spent 12 hours in an OCD hellscape that took years to fully return from.