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Hi there! I really wonder.. is anyone out there that ever worked on ERP dealing with existential OCD and managed to get through this situation? If so, any ideas? Any tips?

Question, it might not be because of rocd or idk but I’ve noticed how whenever I have a somewhat bad argument with my partner I say then let’s just break up, when in reality I don’t want that, but I always seem to think thats a solution.

Does anyone else suffer from body dysmorphia in addition to OCD?

I haven’t been around much because I’ve been really busy but I have some free time! What are your questions about OCD? I’ll do my best to answer them.

My son is 13 and he has his first appt tomorrow. This is his mom. He doesn’t want to share his thoughts with a stranger, which I get. What is the first appointment like? Could I just ask general questions? Or what would you have wanted to tell your younger self about going to your first ERP appt? Anything I can share with him? I’m not wanting to pressure him. Yet I want him to know what to do to relieve the thoughts, as I know they bother him. I’m not sure how to help him. Thank you.

I'm just trying to practice self forgiveness. It's hard. I've been very sad and exhausted from ruminating about a past experience that has happened. I feel awful and disgusted about it. I've cried about it yesterday and I've teared up about it today. I just want to be able to let this go and move on with my life despite messing up. I have other mistakes in my past that I have messed up with. But I just want to be able to love myself again. To be happy with myself again. I just want to be me again. Have compassion and positive thoughts even if I managed to mess up in the past. Deep in the past, during high school, I was not a good person. I would talk negatively to people, and disrupt class. I was loud, I was mean-spirited, and I didn't quite take my academics seriously. I think that was also the first time I faced depression. My own good friend of many years now has told me that I made fun of his appearance every day all those years ago. I myself don't remember that but I don't have trouble believing it. I objectified women in the past as well. I only used them for their bodies and did very impulsive things online. I'm not proud of these things that I've done and I don't do them now. I also got caught up watching a lot of adult content at a young age. This made things worse for me and I feel it may have added onto my bitterness. During high school, I just wasn't a good person based on who I am now. That was 8 years ago, and I still can't seem to give myself compassion for how I used to act to people and how I acted to myself. How it made me feel. I can't seem to fully move on from this without it coming up in the future. Currently, I'm going through another event that happened months ago. I constantly ruminate on this event and it's been causing me great distress and emotional pain. This event involved me zipping up my backpack while getting ready to leave school. A woman was behind me trying to pass by and I acknowledged that. My elbow wasn't tucked all the way to let her pass. Something awful happened. My elbow came in contact with her behind. I didn't say sorry, I didn't tuck my elbow, and I don't think I felt bad about it in the moment. I can't fully remember due to how much I've been ruminating about this for the past week. Repeatedly I've been getting thoughts that I've hurt this woman, that I did something very horrible, that I may have committed a crime. The next day I made sure not to repeat this mistake again and tucked my arm in completely to let her and others pass by without any contact whatsoever. I don't know who this lady is and I have never seen her again after the semester has ended. She's probably forgotten about this entire incident as opposed to me, who hasn't. I can't move on from this. I feel like I'm awful. All I can remember is the terror, worry, scared, and awful feelings that I've felt and rush of thoughts that I got when walking up the stairs on my way out. I couldn't take my mind off of it. I couldn't settle on the fact that I may have done this on purpose and people don't realize that. I can't get my head out of this. Thinking about this every day of the week has made me extremely depressed and horrible. My efforts of self care have been weakening so much after this. I can't change the past, and I can't change what has happened. I just want to somehow find a way around this. I don't want to ruminate about this anymore. I just want to somehow give myself compassion for this and previous events that I have immense guilt and shame over. I just don't know how to do this so I thought confessing everything in this post would help. Nothing like this has ever happened afterwards and I wouldn't want it to. It's terrible. I just can't get on with my life because of this. It's been so hard to love myself because I feel like I'm evil. Like I've done irreparable damage.

Hi everyone, I just wanted to share something really quick that I believe relates to Relationship ocd. For a while now, I’ve liked this guy and at some point, I felt that he probably feels the same way or had at some point. Not sure how he truly feels because he has never admitted how he feels and I haven’t either, but just from picking up the signs he’s giving me and how he acts around me, that’s how I’ve been able to determine how he feels, which has been a bit confusing, but recently, he has been trying to get closer to me by opening up to me about some personal experiences from his past and trying to develop a closer connection. Noticing this, it has made me only want to shut myself away from him bc I’m afraid to get closer for many reasons and a part of it involves ROCD I believe. I’m afraid to get close to people in general whether it’s in romantic or platonic relationships bc I feel as though I always have negative energy from my ocd that I don’t want others to be affected by or even know about. I’m afraid to open up to people about my personal experiences with ocd, especially a guy that I like that I can see myself having a relationship with. I’m afraid I’ll only scare him off or bring him down with me and he won’t be able to understand me or accept this aspect of myself and view me in the worst ways and at some point leave me if we were to ever become something. I fear this with any potential partner I may encounter in my future. I feel as though I may never find love bc who would want to be with someone that has ocd? So this causes me to not reciprocate the same energy back to him. I close myself off from him or barely say anything bc I don’t want to reveal too much about myself that involves my ocd or anything I’m ashamed of from my past. Then this thought will start to go to other thought process and insecurities I have that make me feel like I could never be loved by someone or specifically he would never like me bc I don’t feel like I am a good person or will be good enough for him and that he could find better bc of my struggles with ocd and i just feel there’s other women that are above me in many ways that he would rather be interested in and give him the happiness he’s seeking. I feel as though I lack so much as a human being and that I’m not interesting enough or beautiful in any way. Because I struggle with self love and have a fear of getting close to people bc of my ocd, I prevent anything good that could possibly happen, such as becoming vulnerable with this guy and possibly getting closer to him. All I ever feel is not like myself and I feel crippled, disabled, and lost everyday from my ocd. I don’t feel I deserve love or happiness bc of how negatively I view myself and how unforgiving I am for my past experiences where I’ve screwed up or could’ve done better with something. I’m so hard on myself and the ocd experiences I have with my thoughts only make me feel I am a bad person in many different ways based on any ocd subtype I’m experiencing with my thoughts that are scary to think about or that make you hate yourself and feel shame and distress towards. I also even doubt how he feels about me even when he’s giving me clear signs that he most likely feels the same way bc I doubt that I’m that great of a person for someone to like or even love. I don’t feel I have the potential for people to love, whether that’s in a romantic way or platonically. Maybe it’s best if I continue to close myself off from him so I won’t bring any negativity into his life bc of me. All I ever feel is that I’ll only bring negativity into peoples lives. I just don’t want to feel like this anymore and ruin opportunities for myself that could become something worthwhile. If you guys could give me your honest opinion about this, I would really appreciate it. Btw, I’ve noticed myself become like this in the past too when I’ve liked someone or been in a relationship with someone, but back then, I didn’t know I was dealing with ocd or I wasn’t experiencing so many different subtypes of ocd.

Idk if this is OCD and I still dont consider myself that I have OCD without professional diagnose but still its just a "idk" to me So actually do you guys ever find it hard to understand things ? Like for example if someone ask me to do some things that person has to explain to me like 5 times to do that task and I still end up doubting what to do in the process, same goes for focusing on understanding people that I talk to its like I do my best but I still dont know what to talk to them or what they are saying to me and it all ends up of me saying like "oh really" or nodding my head and stare to them directly without understanding a thing, and sometimes this leads me to think that Im a complete idiot but still the question here is why do I find it so hard to focus or understand simple things? I feel like I do more mistakes than any other guy

Can you develop PTSD after having a severe OCD episode? I had a really traumatic episode a couple of years ago that I am still trying to work out and I have a lot of smells/songs/tv shows that trigger me because it was all at the time I was really ill and struggling. Is this a thing? Can you get help for it?

Does anyone else become nervous and upset the moment they wake up in the morning? It’s like part of me wishes I didn’t wake up or could just stay asleep. It’s scary and I’m not sure what to do in the morning when I feel like I’m trapped in bed.

I struggle with insomnia. To me, falling asleep is like dying, because I do not know anythjng that is going on around me while Im asleep. To me that is like being dead. When Im falling asleep, to me it feels like I'm going unconcious. I feel like Im leaving this world when I go to sleep, even though I'm still in the world, just asleep. To me being asleep is me checking out mentally. My brain is not dead, but its not active like when I'm awake, so to me, I feel like me being asleep is like I'm brain dead, even though I'm not. I am so sleepy right now! I'm fighting sleep so hard, but I'm on a new medication for my bipolar disorder and it is helping the mania, but tonight my anxiety is stronger than the medication that makes me sleepy several hours after i take it. I took the medicine at 10:30pm. I should already be asleep by now. I've been sleepy for hours. I just feel like crying because I am so sleepy. I just want to go to sleep, but I'm too afraid of not being alert and awake to give up the fight and just close my eyes. But I think I am going to have to go to bed and close my eyes, because it is painful for me to try to keep my eyes open any longer. I may just cry myself asleep and i may leave the radio on low to help me stay alert until the very last second before I fall asleep. If only I could close my eyes and be asleep without feeling myself fall asleep. I hate the feeling of falling asleep. My medicine is fighting the mania, and my anxiety is fighting the medicine. I'm caught in the middle, of the battle my anxiety is having with my medicine, and me, well, I'm just tired of fighting. I'm tired of fighting, the mania, depression, ptsd, anxiety and ocd, but I'm not giving up, because i start therapy at nocd 03-29-2023. i hope this post makes sense, I'm so sleepy it's hard to think, see clearly and type. I just wonder if anyone reading this, has fought sleep like me? And what helps stop the fear of going to sleep? or what helps you go to sleep? How do I make falling asleep, not feel awful and scarey?Falling asleep physically feels bad to me.

Hi all, It’s been nearly over 3 months since I had a nasty argument with my brother. I overreacted and snapped at some criticism he gave me. To summarize, he was giving me advice on how I should get out of my comfort zone and pursue more challenging exposures, even if it meant breaking the law sometimes. I tried my best to remain calm in the face of this advice, but my OCD kicked in and I simply replied with a “I’m not ready yet”, and “my self-esteem is very low right now”. He didn’t like that and tried to give me a pep talk as to how I needed to improve my self-esteem through hard work. The conversation was in the car, and he started to passive-aggressively speed up, almost causing a car crash. I had no idea he was going to react like that. Next day, he wants to go to our grandparents’ house to celebrate New Year’s Eve. I said that I wanted to come along. But, he asked “are you sure?” I’m like “What do you mean?”. He said “that conversation in the car, are you sure you are ok to come with me?” I honestly thought that conversation was behind us and that it was resolved. I didn’t like how he kept bringing it up, almost in a devaluing, invalidating way. I then snapped at him, and said something like “How dare you bring this up? Why are you questioning me like this?” He walked out, slamming the door hard on me. Next day, he started throwing all the gifts I gave him out in the kitchen, among other things. He also broke some of my belongings that were left out of my room. He’s also gone no-contact with me. What’s more, he keeps slamming the door every time I go out of my room to eat or drink something, scaring me so I go back to my room. He’s also engaged in a smear campaign against me, talking trash about me to my parents. He accuses me of being narcissistic, that I’m a loser, and that I’m a fraud and an asshole. He also complains of receiving unfair treatment from my parents, and that I’m a “golden child” and that he’s the scapegoat. To be fair, I agree with the golden child comment, as I was given a giant weight on my shoulders to be the first in the family to hold a PhD. But now, even that achievement is worthless, and that I should shove up my PhD up my ass-as all PhDs are stuck up and vindictive… I’ve also gone no contact with him, and tried to apologize twice. I truly regret snapping at him like that, but it only made matters worse. I’m sure I posted about this already, but the situation keeps getting worse. This is a full declaration of war against me. How to deal with these tactics? Especially the no contact and passive-aggressiveness, as I’m now led to believe that I’m indeed a narcissist and that I’m the scum of the earth apparently. It just keeps triggering my OCD.

So I listened to the ocd stories podcast and know that this Sundays topic is mildly controversial, but for some reason this is really really freaking me out. So firstly with my question— Obviously this post is likely biased from my perspective and is more of a vent of stuff that scared me, but if people know his approaches outside of this post, what are your thoughts on this model for OCD? Is psychoanalysis something to be worried or cautious about? Or is it totally fine with ocd treatment, like act? As for what I gathered, it isn’t necessarily something that replaces erp but works beside it, but he (correct me if I’m wrong) seemed to think that everyone’s ocd symptoms comes from parenting issues, that they’re subconscious reactions from not getting certain needs met as a child, and it seemed like getting to know the root cause of your ocd themes was really helpful/important. This idea is REALLY freaking me out because I’m scared by the idea that people may think my ocd was caused by my parents (who were great parents btw, but in the podcast he also said that if you think you had the best/a great childhood that that’s a sign in and of itself that there was a problem, so I’m just confused), and I don’t want them to hear about this theory and feel guilty thinking that they caused this. I really don’t like the idea of, outside of my values, needing to find the core reason as to why I’m struggling with certain thoughts/themes when there’s a root suppressed feeling/aggression that’s supposed to be valid, which also stems from mistakes me parents may have made. I’m struggling to find peer-reviewed studies evaluating the role of psychoanalysis within OCD treatment so idk if I fully trust the guy, but also maybe I’m not trusting him simply because I don’t like what he says even though he might be right? And if the theme of my obsessions is due to a subconscious attachment issue, I feel like I should really figure that out if I want to not have ocd but I have no clue what it could be and don’t want to connect it all to my parents who may not have actually caused this problem, and also other experts have said that knowing why you have a theme isn’t as important, so I’m just overall super confused. It’s like I’m so confused what I can trust anymore— my understanding of ocd, my childhood, my understanding or memories about my childhood, my opinion about/appreciation for my parents, how to treat my thoughts, what thing in my subconscious that I’m unaware of that’s causing all of this, if certain emotions or thoughts are causing me to struggle with ocd, if I’m doing these “things” my parents did to my other relationships, etc.. This thing just spooked me so I wanted to hear other people’s thoughts on the topic, whether they agree, disagree, or think this model is something different than I am afraid it is ofc

I can't stand the words that come out of my mouth and the way I act. I find myself so annoying/irritating. It's so hard to live with myself. My thoughts make sense and then my words come out wrong. I just sound annoying and I can't get past it. I cringe from my own sentences so often. I don't know how to get past this. Anyone have any advice?

I have really bad anxiety over my health. My biggest fear is throwing up. I have contamination OCD, too. Germs terrify me. But I’m also very terrified of medications. I barely want to take Advil for a headache, even though feeling bad makes my OCD and anxiety worse. This is especially hard because I got prescribed anxiety medication in 2021 and never took it because I am too terrified of the side effects and how it would make me feel. I’m tired of having severe OCD and anxiety as well as tics and knowing I will probably never be medicated for it. My family doesn’t make it any better, my parents made me cry because they said I am over dramatic and scared of everything.

Does anyone else find their ocd is easily triggered by reddit? One example (of many) there's a plumbing sub that often shows on my feed. People post pics of plumbing nightmares and the comments are always dramatic and catastrophic. It gives my ocd so much fuel. Part of me feels like deleting reddit would be avoidance. Another part of me feels like reddit is not necessary (or even healthy) so maybe it doesnt count as avoidance and is simply cutting a toxic source of anxiety/ocd fuel out of my life.

27 yo with no friends and no boyfriend….am I the only one? Who else finds it so challenging to make an keep friends. It’s so hard to even find someone. I want to get married I want to have a family. I keep obsessing over these ideas and expectations that I then spiral because I come to realize that I am no where near those goals. Is this normal?

I’m sharing my story in hopes to find others who have gone through similar experiences or understand this, because I feel very alone with my ocd. I’ve had ocd for as long as I can remember, first memories of it was from when I was like 2 or 3 years old, and it just got worse as I grew up. I had “pure ocd” so I almost never showed outward signs of compulsions, nothing that wasn’t normal for my age group. No one knew I was struggling with this disorder, and I had no clue what ocd was, so I thought I must be just a terrible person. Around 6 years old, intrusive thoughts that I would end up k*lling my parents started, mainly from the normal childhood fear of being without them. This consumed me for every second of every day, I couldn’t get away from it. After two years of trying to prove to myself that this wouldn’t happen, which I never was able to prove, I saw my sister watching “cyber bully” movie, and I saw the $uicide attempt scene. This planted the idea in my head, that the only way I wouldn’t do all the terrible things my ocd was telling me, was to commit $uicide. I thought about walking into a hospital and telling them I was going to k*ll my parents so they could lock me away and prevent me from doing that. I developed a plan, once wrote a note and then got scared and threw it away, and one night I decided to try. I won’t get into details but I wasn’t hurt, I didn’t have the strength to do what I was trying to do. I would go to sleep crying almost every night because I was so terrified of myself. I was 100% convinced that I would become a serial k*ller, even though I didn’t want to. I started to think that I didn’t have control over my actions and my movements, and that even if I don’t want to, it will still happen, which only fueled my $uicidal ideations. Eventually I got over it all, aka I used every compulsion possible to push it out of my head, swore to myself I would never ever tell anyone that I had those thoughts. And those thoughts weren’t even the only intrusive thoughts I had, there were many more but this was one of the most distressing. I got through a very traumatizing middle school experience, which masked my ocd, and presenting with the other newest developed disorder, ptsd. I went through years of treatment and partial hospitalizations for depression and ptsd, and the first time I heard about ocd was when the intake lady said “this kind of sounds like obsessive compulsive $uicidal ideation” because attempting $uicide was the only thing I could think about, even though I didn’t really want to die. Though I did end up having multiple attempts, because the thoughts wouldn’t stop and all I wanted was a break from my own mind. I was addicted to self harm to cope with the constant swirl of obsessions. I did my own research, and finally, years later, at the age of 17, I was diagnosed with ocd after constantly asking if I had it. I started intensive outpatient treatment at a clinic that specializes in ocd. I could never have predicted how hard ERP is. I would get out of a session, and just ruminate about the next session and having so much anxiety just waiting. Between school and my lack of knowledge about ocd and my own ocd, I stopped intensive outpatient treatment, to be able to pass my classes. I start back again in later May, and honestly I’m terrified. One of the most scary parts is that I can’t tell if I’m doing it right, or if I’m making the progress they expect me to make, or if I’m going too fast, just somehow not doing it right. I end up ruminating about if I have ocd, or if I’m anxious enough, or if I’m not anxious, or if I’m faking ocd somehow, or if I’m not making progress even though I know I have considering I’m able to drive again, after being terrified for months. I don’t know how to comfort myself because seemingly every comfort I have is a compulsion. Everyone keeps telling me that it will get better but it doesn’t feel that way. It kinda feels like you’re drowning, and instead of pulling you out of the water everyone is just pushing you deeper, telling you that somehow this is how you’ll be able to breathe. How do I live a life without ocd, what is that even like? Will I ever even recover from this? I’m so lost in it all, and usually I’m considered a “know it all” but I could not know less about my own illness which is stressful in itself. I have left out many details but if I wrote it all, this would be a 100 page essay. If anyone has any advice, or encouragement, or just really anything, please share.

Hello! Wondering if any ladies can speak to hormones and OCD/anxiety? New mom here and I’m noticing OCD symptoms and anxiety being odd the charts when my hormones are funky. Also… I know the lack of sleep and overall lack of self care doesn’t help. Lol. Taking baby steps over here 🤣

It's like ever since I read like 3 points from comphet, it's ruined my life. I didn't even mean to read it, I was reading a post and before I know it I've read three points from it. I don't even feel like it's a reliable source, but no matter what it's like it's taken its affect on me and I'm convinced my past attractions were fake or something. Like they're are rules on how to be attracted. I never questioned anything I did or how I felt attracted before I read that.