Kickstart your recovery journey with a caring community of others
working to conquer OCD
I'm writing this with fear and shame, i really love him. I do love him i don't know how to tell you how i really love him i just can't explain how but i really love him. Me and my partner are dating for almost 8th months, our 1st-5th months was very genuine, beautiful it just feels so perfect (not having this unwanted thoughts). Until we reach 6th months we started to have this nonsense arguments, he start to bring up my past, to the point that he will feel upset then i will feel sorry for dating them, this continue to happen for 3 weeks or 4. I give him the reassurance because he deserve that. I give everything so that he wouldn't feel insecure. He always tell me not to leave him. Not to cheat on him. And i undrestand bcs i know that his ex cheated to him, as much as i can i give him the reassurance. Then sunddenly i have this unwanted thoughts, about this 1 ex who is my classmate, who gave me a trauma. -What if i haven't moved on to him? -What if i'm cheating to my partner? - His feelings? my man's feeling he will get hurt - Why am i thingking this? am i really cheating? - This is emotional cheating Searching - How to know if you really love your partner - What is the meaning if you're thingking about your ex -How to know. if your partner is the one -Signs that you're missing your ex etc... This make me feel guilty, and ashame because i started to have unwated images also its like a tv then my ex will pop up then even music, movies, or even a book! i can't even rear or watch or hear a single song because it made me think that i relate to that song, i relate to that movie, i relate to that one line in that movie. Its crazy for example i'm watching tiktok, then boom the first who comes in my mind is that ex, anddd thisssss make meeee goo crazinggg i having this battle with my brain, i keep saying the name of my partner how i love him i just can't control it. Until i got my first key word by searching which is *Unwanted thoughts Then boom, Rocd So i search, youtube,fb,tiktok,google every information that i can have i watched awakening into love every rocd channel that i can find. I analyze every situation just to know where it started, how it started so that i can explain to my partner properly, until one day i finally have this courage to tell him he say sorry, and he feel sorry so we have this rule in rs now "we won't bring up past na" he stopped doing it na, i gave him information abt it then yeah he stop doing it na, but it still hunt me. Im sorry for my grammar, im not really good at english. I really did my best to explain this as much as i can. i just want an advice. :)❤
I decided to make a list of all the things I can do that I haven’t been able to do in so long. I’ve felt a bit defeated the last couple days, until I realized I’ve made so much progress and accomplished so much. - eat food with my fingers without worrying my fingers are contaminated. - drink water at a normal pace instead of chugging it without worrying it’s been tampered with - cry without worrying it means I’m suicidal - have a pain in my body without worrying it means death - feel sad without worrying it means depression - feel happy without worrying it means mania - see things out of the corner of my eye without worrying I’m hallucinating - get harm thoughts without worrying it means I’m going to harm someone - went to bed without peeing 3 times first - fell asleep before brushing my teeth and didn’t worry my teeth are going to fall out - I’ve tried new food without worrying I’d be anaphylactic to something in it - accidentally ate half a raw chicken sandwich because I didn’t dissect it and inspect it before eating it (I didn’t get sick, I was fine). I also didn’t Google the symptoms of salmonella or worry I was going to die - don’t feel the need to check my backseats when I get to work incase I forgot a kid in the back - I don’t need to rinse out every dish I use before using it - havent had a panic attack in a month - I can do dishes without background noise - I can sit in silence I still have a lot of work left to do. But these things I haven’t been able to do in so long. If you’re in the midst of ERP and you feel hopeless, you’ve got this. You can handle it. It sucks, it’s shitty, it’s hard. But it’s worth it!
Im afraid to take meds cause i dont want to take it for my whole life. I see alot of people who doesnt want to stop taking it, and it becomes like an addiction. And i dont want to be like that, i dont want to take medication my whole life... the other side is who stops taking meds but switches to another one do they still live with medication. Im not trying to talk badly about those people, if they want to take medication they can, but i dont want to live my life with them. Anyone could share succes story?
Good day everyone 🙂 Hope everyone is doing ok I am driving myself crazy with doubt that I have something else psychologically wrong with me aswell as OCD which I’m diagnosed with. I’m scared they didn’t tell me something 😭 Does anyone else get these fears?
Is anyone on Prozac what mg helped with your symptoms. I’m on 40 right now but I feel my intrusive thoughts are still really bad and I’m wondering if I’ll need to increase it Please let me know if anyone else is on Prozac and what dose helped with your Symptoms?
Does anyone else deal with unsettling thoughts like “What if Gods wants to me to go to another country as a missionary?” “If I don’t do x,y,z, then God won’t accept me?” When I get these thoughts I get very anxious, pain in my stomach, sometimes panic attacks.
I can’t think of anything innocent involving children without it being twisted. A child standing next to me, a child hugging me, a child on my lap (which became an obsession because I heard someone did it as an exposure once), etc. I keep getting these thoughts of, “you like the thought”, “you will be gratified”, etc. even though it doesn’t make any sense. I know I said it a million times, but I know I’m not attracted to children; I never found anything attractive about them in 22 years. And every time I try to tell this thing, “And? If you think that’s gonna prove I’m a monster, you’re wrong. You’re responding this way because it’s a sexual thought,” it comes back with “But you like (whatever),” “you want this”, etc. No matter how many times I tell myself this is just OCD messing with you, it’s like no part of it takes it seriously. I now feel like it’s trying every little thing to scare me, and that’s by turning normal things bad. I’m scared out of my fucking mind; why is this thing trying to convince me I am or want something that makes me break down into tears and sick to my stomach over?
Has anyone noticed how annoying OCD is when you’re not doing much, yet OCD wants to keep you from doing much. The more I’m at home just sitting around, my OCD is at its worst. But the thought of cleaning, leaving the house, getting certain things done, etc. kind of gives me anxiety. I feel so unmotivated too. It’s like a combination of OCD, anxiety, depression and it hinders my decision making and even makes it hard to know WHAT I should or shouldn’t do. Doing what I want to do anyway (or what I think I want to do LOL) and ignoring the background noise. Getting nails done tomorrow and visiting my grandmother after work, then going out with friends. Going to keep living as normally as possible without being hard on myself.
I have my first appointment with NOCD next week, but this past weekend up until now I have been wrecked witch SO-OCD and I am trying to let the thoughts pass by, but nothing is working. My brain is convinced that I'm a lesbian in denial. For context, I just got out of a relationship with my boyfriend of a little over a year in December. I had consistent ROCD feelings for a few months after we moved in together. We broke up because of reasons actually unrelated to ROCD, but have been emailing for the past week and are trying to figure out whether or not we are in a better place to make our relationship work. But out of no where a few weeks ago, I was with my best friend- who is bi- and I had the thought pop into my head that I'm actually in love with her. It made my OCD really difficult for a couple of days. We did talk about it and actually laughed at the idea of it because we're basically sisters and it would just be weird. Since then though, my SO-OCD has been acting up intermittently, with this weekend being the hardest triggering event. I remember having SO-OCD when I was pretty young, but it hasn't bothered me in so long. I've only ever been with men and find them attractive, and always imagined sharing a life with a man. I do find women attractive and have had fantasies, and watched w/w p*rn, but always said I couldn't see myself in a romantic partnership with one. I've thought about my sexuality as being mostly indefinable before without being bothered by it. But this week my brain is saying I just need to be with women, I'm gay, the reason I've had failed relationships with men and have had a hard time connecting with them is because I'm gay, and I can't get back with my partner because I would be lying to him and myself. I feel so anxious and this is all I can think about. I don't know how to differentiate between denial and OCD. Are there any signs? I think, because I'm so anxious, it must be OCD. And I keep wanting to Google questions and check reddit to see if other people feel the way I feel, which I know is me compulsing. I feel like I would be okay with being bi, but I hate how my brain is saying I'm strictly one thing. Or how it's warping every time I have looked at a women in a way that felt innocent, and is saying it was sexual. This was so long but I needed to get this out because I feel so weird, alone, and confused.
I have a tendency to keep a lot of what I’m dealing with to myself because as all of you know, talking about ocd is at times extremely uncomfortable. I’ve been working towards loving myself more and giving myself breaks, just venting here but I’d like to just say that I think the worst way OCD has effected me is by it’s ability to truly make me feel as though I have no idea who I am or what I want. I want to be known as someone who is extremely kind and loving. Someone who is go with the flow and forgiving, slow to anger and quick to love. I feel as though ocd has taken that away from Me. I’ve never been so quick to lose my temper in my whole life than I am now, I can be so mean to my boyfriend and to myself and those around me. I have never been more irritable and angry than I am now. And I truly don’t know how to not be this way. I feel like I’m going crazy sometimes, like genuinely crazy. It breaks my heart because my intentions are good but ocd is quick to tell me they are not. Quick to tell me I am a terrible person. And this is something for me that I will never understand; my ocd doesn’t straight up tell me “U ARE SUCHHH A BAD PERSON” no… it makes me feel like a bad person. Of course I have intrusive thought and images but the kicker that sometimes I don’t hear many people talk about is that it’s not that ocd is really saying to me like affirming these things about myself with words. A lot of the time it’s feeling, emotions, sensations. Something that just comes over me and I immediately know what it means. I feel this feeling = I’m a bad person This feeling= I’m lying This feeling = I want to be with another guy not my boyfriend And the lists goes on and on Now I have no idea of that is gonna make sense to anyone. But my point is that it’s not always words in your head but feelings that are immediately translated into something that’s just awful. And the feelings can last for so long. I will keep all of you struggling in my heart and pray that all of you are victory over ocd with a loving and beautiful transformation !
First of all I’m quite worried about this, I don’t wanna be psychotic but it’s strange, whenever I see something online about an old person being hurt or babies I get this weird sadistic feeling almost like I’m glad. I was a bad kid and did awful things that I would never do now. But I hate it. I don’t wanna feel like that. I feel crazy and idk what to do, but it’s like genuine. I’m worried
Hello everyone!🤍 I would like to ask whether you have this OCD symptom - recapitulation of past actions/events with the aim of making sure you’ve done everything right? E.g. I park a car and immediately recapitulate whether I’ve done everything correctly as I left the car, whether the windows are closed, whether it’s locked etc. Just one example of what I recapitulate. Thanks for your answers.
Part of my goal is to give back to others who have struggled like me so I would love to answer questions anyone has about OCD, Anxeity, or Depression! As a background around 2 years ago I fell into a really bad stint of depression, anxeity, and severe OCD. Through help with NOCD and lifestyle changes I was able to get my life back on track and create a wonderful life for myself! Drop any questions/ reach out if you just want to talk below!
Instead of focusing on what you think you “should” be doing. Focus on what you actually “want” in life. Never let society or even yourself, trick you into doing something you don’t want. Nothing in this world is more powerful than your ability to choose the life you want to live.
I completely understand the notion that it appears ERP will make our OCD "worse." In my experience, it's not the actual OCD getting worse, it just appears that way because you are allowing yourself to be triggered in order to learn how to properly respond to the OCD. Once you start doing this properly, as directed by your therapist who is a specialist in exactly this, the more consistent you become with your proper techniques through ERP. Over time, you will notice you become more desensitized to your intrusive thoughts. Would you be willing to do this work to get better, even though OCD will try it's hardest to fight back?
Hi y'all. I have posted a few times and shared a bit of my story. I have struggled with OCD for years without realizing, until harm OCD hit me a few months ago. It dropped me to my knees, as it is always focused on my hubby and daughters. I was diagnosed by a local therapist and he has been a huge help in walking me through my childhood traumas that are making the situation worse. But, he doesn't have a focus on ERP. So I am struggling with that. I found Nathan Peterson and have started his online course that goes through ERP. I have noticed as I started going through the course and completing the journals and have got to the point where we create a hierarchy and make exposures, my OCD has kicked into overdrive. I had a terrible night two nights ago and then spent all day yesterday kicking myself and trying to get out of my head. Then when I was feeling so down yesterday, my OCD reminded me that my middle daughter has some anxiety and possible OCD tendencies, so I should kill her so that she doesn't have to deal with this. I am so frustrated, because it caught me off guard and has me questioning whether it is me or OCD. I don't want to see my daughter suffer with this, but I am sick at the idea that OCD would tell me that I really think that is the solution. This has now made me even more nervous to do much exposure work. I would love to hear from anyone that has done ERP for harm OCD, especially relating to family. I am struggling.
If you are in crisis, please use these emergency resources to find immediate help.
OCD doesn't have to
rule your life