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How deep are you into this theme? What does it feel like for you?

I’m very upset, I think I have schizophrenia. I have always had a fear of it. It doesn’t run in my family at all but I’m a very anxious person and I tend to worry about marry different mental illnesses. I had a massive panic attack that led me to spiral about different themes of ocd and mental illnesses, before that I was fine. I have been having auditory hallucinations as I’m falling asleep of babbling or random conversations, my family have had this before but since I’ve been anxious it’s been happening more common, when I open my eyes it’s stops. I have had this a couple years back and it freaked me out but my mum said it’s just what happens when ur close to sleep. A couple years ago I saw spiders all of my grandmas bed when I woke up once and their eyes were glowing I was freaking out and I put my hand out and felt nothing, I thought nothing of it after cause I thought it was just idk something that happens when u wake up sometimes and then 2 years ago I saw a woman shadow at the side of my grandmas bed, once again I freaked out and woke my grandma up and turned back and it was gone. After that I experienced nothing else I wasn’t even worried and then recently tik tok had been coming up with multiple mental disorders like schizophrenia and someone said if u see shadows or daydream that’s a symptom of schizophrenia and while in my stressed state this sent me to spiral and now I’m hearing talking as I sleep and I’m scared. I just want to live a normal life I’m sick of being stressed I want to be happy. I thought it was my anxiety before but now I think it’s not. I’ll also add when I first was anxious I was looking around the room and noticed the walls weren’t completely clear and were a bit shadowy but not In the shape of a person and my mum said that, that’s normal and everyone sees that and then the anxiousness went away and I wasn’t worried anymore and then I got triggered again by seeing another thing about it. Do you think this is anxiety or should I be worried.

me and my bf both agreed to stop looking at our exs, or past peoples social media accounts bc it bothers one another, so we stopped. but it got brought up in conversation now my brain is like, what if u viewed someone’s story after u guys talked about it?” ive been on a deep search through all my instagrams, downloaded my data, and “confessed” this worry to him. constant worry if i did smthng bad and forgot. then my brain takes REAL memories and puts them at a different point in time… for example I viewed my exs story before we talked abt it, but now my brain is saying it was after? I can’t catch a break. I feel guilt and anxiety and actual worry as if I did do smthng and just forgot about it

I had a friend share with me that they have felt like I was ahead of them (I guess in terms of life & success) and while I know it was probably vulnerable of them to share this…I started to worry and overthink and now obsessively think the following: -what if I share what I want to pursue in my life and my friend starts to compare themself to me? Or what if I start to compare myself to them because we might have similar careers? -what if they try to compete with me or I compete with them? -what if they become jealous of me? Or am I jealous of them? My friend has also shared with me that they weren’t sure how I was going to respond to their news of pursuing a new career because others weren’t as supportive. And I was very supportive and happy for my friend. But it bothered me that they doubted how I would respond as they know I am supportive of others pursuing their goals. My friend has shared they tend to struggle with comparison. Prior to all of this, I myself didn’t find myself struggling with comparison but I feel like since they have shared these things with me, I feel like it contaminated me mentally and I start to question if I’m comparing myself to others? And I don’t like it. I spend a-lot of time googling ROCD friendships, going over messages my friend has sent me to analyze how I’ve supported them and to analyze if they truly support me, it feels like I want to avoid their social media posts so I’ve muted them but now I deactivated my social media accounts for a break because I’ve been struggling. I can see how black and white my thinking is and often find people with OCD struggle with this. I can see how it’s normal to experience possible competition, comparison, jealousy etc in friendships but part of me doesn’t want to accept it because I was never like this before. & as I mentioned before I just wonder if my friend never had shared with me what they were feeling, I would not be going thru this. Side note: I’ve always valued empowerment and supporting others but since this has happened I start to doubt this of myself now. And I can see how OCD is attacking this value of mine but i am feeling like I’m the only one with these kinds of thoughts and wondering if anyone has experienced anything similar or if this is even OCD?

I've been at it for a long time now. The past 4 years, I've had many themes pop up. But some of them cycle more regularly than others. Today I started off feeling at peace when an old theme returned a little. I'm managing it well, doing what I know I need to do. But the brief moments I start to follow the thought I feel that familiar "this is feels real" feeling...I've had this theme many times in the past so I know that it's just OCD. But once again, it feels real when I follow it. If you're new, I want you to know it's always gonna feel real. If it didn't, you wouldn't be obsessing over it. Breathe. Don't follow the thought. Tag it as OCD and continue on with your day...feel the anxiety, but don't give into compulsions if you can help it!

I recently made a huge breakthrough with my mental health, and to give you an idea of what I was dealing with; I'm talking 8 hour showers every day, every time I had to use the bathroom or touched something that set me off. Picture the more severe case you possibly can, that was me. About a week ago I finally transcended my old self, and now I'm able to do things like touch and lay on the floor which would have been impossible for me otherwise. My showers are down to a couple of minutes now, my intrusive thoughts no longer rule and control me. I did all this on my own without professional help by shifting my mentality and opening up my perspective. I'm 32 now and I thought maybe my experiences can help some of you in your own struggles. So if anyone has any pointed questions or wants any advice without any bullshit, I'm open to helping out any way I can.

I can’t stop crying, I feel so miserable, the sun is shining and I feel so down. It’s be raining for so long and I do get affected by the weather and it’s finally sunny and I’m not even able to feel happy because it’s sunny I jsut feel so miserable and at the same time as if I’m faking being sad, I’m crying but feel like I’m faking being sad. I’m worrying because when i imagine the thoughts it feels like I like I know how it feels to smother someone and that I like the feeling of doing that and that it feels ‘good’ to do that. Im so down I feel so crap, it feels so real like extremely real im believing it. Even though im crying as soon as I remember how it ‘feels’ or that feeling that makes me think I ‘like the feeling’ of suffocating someone it feels like im faking crying and would definitely do that. My brother went out the house and it’s jsut me and my mum at home and my Brain was suddenly telling me it was a problem and thag I would be evil because it feels like I like the feeling of doing that and then I started crying because I don’t want to do that but it feels like I like the feeling of doing that and that it could happen and I don’t know what to do, why do I have to go through this I definitely think im evil now and im worried all it will take is to imagine how it feels to do that and get that feeling that makes me feel like ‘I like the feeling’ and then it would actually happen 😞😞😞 I feel down. I don’t even feel guilty about the thoughts or like I’m a ‘bad’ person I just feel down and I don’t know why maybe I am jsut evil and want to do that but I have a conscience? Maybe now I like the feeling of doing that smothering thing but I have a conscience?? Help please

I just feel awful, everyday is horrible. I’m actually believing now that I’m evil and want to be evil and that I can’t be trusted. The thoughts I’m worrying about are about smothering and for some reason although I get anxiety over the thoughts and feel tense there’s an element to the thoughts that make it feel like I like the feeling of doing that smothering thing when I imagine it. I feel so exhausted, I’m obsessed with imagining the thought on purpose as well, and even when it feels like I don’t like it or that I get anxiety over the thought I still keep imagining it because I’m looking for that feeling that makes me feel like I ‘like the feeling of doing that’ because I don’t believe that I hate it or that the anxiety is proof enough that I hate it. I don’t get it. The other day I was in a room alone with my cat and my cat was sleeping and I started deliberately imagining smothering my cat to ‘test’ myself and check if it would actually do that or if I ‘like the feeling’ and when I imagined it, I had no anxiety in that moment and it just felt like ‘I like the feeling of doing that’ like I know how it feels to do that like squash my cat face with the pillow, stopping them from breathing and I just don’t know what to do, and now that’s the incident that makes me feel like I can’t be trusted because in that moment I had no anxiety and it just felt like I liked the feeling of doing that and after I walked away I didn’t even know why it didn’t happen, like I’m so confused to the point I don’t believe myself anymore and it felt like it actually could have happened and tbh ate what scares me especially since it feels like ‘I like the feeling’ now I’m just really worried and scared that I get a ‘good’ feeling from doing that and it’s awful. Yesterday I imagini ed the same thought about my mum and it felt like I ‘liked the feeling’ and that it would ‘feel good to do that’ and after I was thinking ‘oh my god, how can I even feel that way?’ ‘That’s not normal, to be feeling like you could get a ‘good’ feeling from doing that. I just don’t know what to do because now I’ve got it in my head that I like the feeling and It feels extremely true and as if that would definitely happen because I would want to feel how it feels to do that since I now ‘like the feeling’ I feel really worried about that ‘liking the feeling’ thing like it’s making me feel so miserable and I feel like I shouldn’t even be feeling miserable since I’m evil and like it 😞 I’m obsessed with imagining it and feel like I don’t have a reason to stop imagining it because it feels so true, like before I use to be able to eventually decide not to ruminate on it and to forget about it but now it feels like I can’t because I’m believing it and I’m obsessed with imagining how it feels to do that smothering thing to see if it’s true and even when I get anxiety over it i still don’t believe I don’t like it and that fact I’m believing I get a good feeling from smothering someone is really horrible I don’t know how to counter this I don’t know how to deal with this

Right now I just don’t want to live anymore and even thinking about a future where I’m better I’ll still never be normal again I don’t know if I can handle that I would rather be dead than never be normal again even if I get better even if OCD doesn’t affect me everyday anymore I don’t think that will be enough for me I don’t want to live if I can’t live normally I’ll never be able to relate to another person I know again and even worse no one’s suppose to reassure me I could be on the verge of death and I can’t be reassured I hate this I hate worrying about everything having to always check if its a compulsion I just want my mom to hold me and tell me everything’s gonna be ok but she can’t she’s not suppose to I just want to be normal again If anyone sees this who has recovered will I ever feel normal again or will I always feel like this freak and monster

I believe this question started coming up during middle school when my mother told my dad I liked my best friend. I got punished hard for even expressing such feelings so early. I was looked down upon by my siblings when they heard what I "did". Ever since that day whenever I showed the slightest happy expression about possibly liking anyone (guys mostly at the time) my older sister would end up telling my mother and they would talk about me behind my back about how disgusting it was for me to like others so fast and would list names of the guys I was friends with. But I am just a tomboy and felt comfortable and free around guys, even if i did like some of them. Women still to this day, this evening, they are hard for me to talk too with my mother never understanding me, my older sister who I thought would understand me the most, would always look the other way or just kept quiet. Later on in middle school around mid way through 8th grade, I found out I wasnt straight and bummed ideas about being bi/pan. Which didnt make things any better because I felt like I shouldnt be having those thoughts. So I just bottled everything up and didnt tell anyone in my family anything about my feelings throughout the rest of middle school through highschool. Throughout lots of stressful night thoughts and self convincing I realized I was pan and poly. Before starting college I came out to my parents about being Pan. My dad made a silly joke and my mom took it as a phase. I try not to think to much about how she feels but I cant help but always hear her voice in my head when I talk to women. Like today, my whole rant of typing this. I meet two openly poly transwomen who are dating, both women are very gorgerous and hardcore punks. Id been friends with them since last semester and one offered to mess around with her and her girlfriend if I wanted. My boyfriend and I talked and he said it was cool and to have fun. To my knowledge there was no labels, we were just having fun. Late last week I was talking to one of my friends about them saying how it was werid for I missed them just as much as I did my boyfriend and how it made me happy. But my thoughts of "why dont you miss him more then them?" So I talked to my boyfriend and he jokely said "Because youre a Lesbian" and I freaked, saying "No, im not. Im dating you, I've never dating a woman before." Now Friday comes and I wait for my lovely friend outside of her club building to walk with her to her dorm since I missed her. And then what my boyfriend said popped into my head and I just ended up talking about it to her, about questioning myself again and saying that "I dont date women" expressing how I have not had the chance too. Today she texts me and brings up what I said for she misunderstood me and took it as a negative. I didnt even get to explain myself before she said she and her girlfriend were cutting ties with me and left. I want to explain myself so badly to them, but they wont listen. I hate that I cant stop thinking about them and how they told me "I'll always hear you out." But they didnt they just assumed I was being rude and dismissive. I didnt even realize they wanted to date me. For we never talked about it going any farther then "Just messing around with pretty gays." I hate that I am always questioning myself, my relationships and just being in general. I just want to explain myself, for I really like them. I want to explain that Im constantly in doubt where I am clouding myself from what I have till its to late. But I feel if I do that. Ill just push them farther way and look more like a bad person, as insenstive, a screwup.

struggling with this theme currently. i am worried that i am secretly a lesbian and i am just leading my boyfriend on because i like his attention. i don't think this is actually true as i do truly love my boyfriend, but i'm worried anyways. my ocd is making me question if my love for him is romantic or just platonic.

It hurts so bad and is so discouraging every time I have a good day and then OCD hits me like a wave of bricks because it doesn’t want me to be happy. Being happy and feeling relief the little I do is so magical and I ask myself could I really have this life? And then my OCD takes over and ruins it all for me. I am sitting here in massive anxiety being terrified of thoughts. How can a thought scare you so bad? Why does it have to take over my life. I am terrified I will act on these thoughts and that I want to do them. I also am struggling so bad with false memory OCD. Can’t figure out if I did something bad. I feel like I need to know and that I need to turn myself in for something I don’t even know if I even did. Does anybody else struggle with this? I am having a really hard time right now. 😔

I am a Christian and we are raising our children to be as well. I def have faith in Jesus, but I think because I have ocd and am always searching for certainty, I struggle with this one question.. out of all the religions in the world, what makes mine the correct one? Then I will spin on what if Jesus is just a story told over the centuries to a certain group of people. It’s almost like I feel like a fraud because I have doubt? Sometimes when I’m talking to my kids about it I think, what if your lying to them about this. Can anyone else relate to this or offer insight?

I'm 15 years old and a sophmore in high-school, but ever since I was in elementary I felt like something was off. I felt that I was different, and the way I think wasn't normal. And I hated myself because of it. I had never spoken to anyone about it because of how crazy I would sound if I said anything about what goes on in my head, but recently it's gotten worse. I downloaded this app because of a tiktok someone posted with a similar thought I've obsessed over before, and it was supported by this apps tik tok account, so I feel that by explaining the problem or telling the truth about my thoughts just this one time, I will feel better or be understood by at least one person, since I thought I was the only person in the world with thoughts like mine. I constantly have thoughts about r*pe. And I can't help it and I hate my self for it. I think about it happening to me, and these thought come about with great detail and imagery, almost as if I'm being forced to watch a movie. Then I think " well why are you thinking about it? You must like it. You must want to do it to other people" and I don't. I swear on my life I dont. But then I'm forced to think about r*peing other people. And I'm so sorry. I break down crying and just wish it would stop. It's the same thought cycle, usually with the reoccurring topics of being attracted to children, my dog, or family members. Another side of this is my obsessiveness. I get these obsessions with people that I can't shake, and it doesn't even have to be a person I'm in a relationship with. It could be a friend, or a guy who held open the door for me. And I start daydreaming about them. I make up scenarios, specific scenarios that I go on to think about for 8 hours, and all that person did was say hi to me. I question my existence to an uncomfortable extent. Sometimes during school it gets hard for me to breathe because i start thinking about how im not real and nothing matters. Usually looking at clouds in the sky does this to me. Another thing is the need to touch things evenly. It was worse when I was a little kid. I always laugh when thinking about how I used to explain it to people when I was 6 or 7, but eventually stopped due to the weird looks i would get. " Dont you guys feel that. Like something telling u to touch it again. It wants me too. I dont know i just know its not ...it's not like even. It itches." That what i would say when my mother asked me why i was rubbing the tip of my finger on the window a certain way or why i was making wierd noices with my throat a certain amount of times. I didnt understand then but i do now. It scratched my brain just right. And theres no other way to explain it. When i bump my arm into something and 10 seconds later i have to go back to the wall or chair and bump my arm against it a couple more times until it feels right. Until the itch was scratched. And i seen somewhere on Google, on one of my "whats wrong with me i have to find all the answers to why i act like this on google' episodes, that a symptom of Ocd is hypersexuality. And I think I have that, which I also can't help. It's absolutely horrible having intrusive sexual thoughts every second of the day but i can stop thinking about. The first thing i think about in the morning is sex and i hate that. There's a lot more I would like to explain in depth but I've written a alot. I don't think my mom will get me therapist on this app, because I already have one on another, but it's hard for me to explain to her in depth what goes on for fear of being judged. And I think to myself everyday, will it get better? Am I going to be tortured by my own thought for the rest of my life, or is this just a teenager thing caused by hormones and anxiety or whatever. Please help me, because sometimes I feel like dying when going through one of my 'I'm a horrible person' episodes.

Any tips on how to deal with false memory ocd?

Does anyone with OCD abstain from alcohol or anything that alters your present state for fear their thoughts will manifest? Anyone avoid being vulnerable for that reason as well

There was a sexual YouTuber I saw on YouTube that demonstrates sexual content that I've seen in the past and watched yesterday but I got iffy about her age. I looked her up again to try and see if I could find anything, once person said she was removed because she was 17 but another debunked that saying she's actually 23. She currently has her YouTube channel again but I'm still worried about it It's hard for me to tell the age of young adults and it did look and sound like a young adult to me which is why I stuck around. But then I worried about it and saw that which spiked my worries.

I dont know if this is the right place to post this so please let me know its not so I can delete it :) I've had this problem since what feels like forever- I can't remember a time where I haven't. Recently, it's gotten so much worse- my hairbands that I can't take off my wrist, the fact I can't walk through a door without having to go back and walk through again because I got 'caught', turn on a light without doing it again with my other hand, walk past a chair without walking back past the same way, put a book down on the table and if the corners don't go down evenly I have to do it again till it feels right, leave a person without counting otherwise something bad will happen to them, throw something away even as stupid as a piece of paper without having to count to 8 twice or do it again or do it for a certain number of times or until it feels right. I have to tap my candle every morning and every night otherwise something bad will happen. I have to put all my makeup back in my box the same places it came out of otherwise something bad will happen. I have a set routine of how I have to put away Lottie at night and get her out in the morning. I can't lose the anklets that I wear. I have to lie flat on my back to go to sleep because otherwise it's uneven and my duvet has to be evenly across me otherwise I'm wonky. I have to chew my food a certain number of times and it gets to the point where it's just easier to not eat. I can't walk on any of the cracks in the pavement and I have to have two steps in each square, one with each foot. If I hit my leg on a door I have to hit the other leg in exactly the same place. If I apply concealer on a spot on the left hand side of my face I have to apply it to the same place on the other side of my face even if I don't have a spot there. I have to tap my fingers evenly and switch my lamp on and off an even amount of times. I get emotionally attached to inanimate objects then I can't throw them away e.g. the carpet in my old room, the wallpaper in the study, mum's old desk chair I snuck out at 3am to the car just so I could cut two pieces of the fabric off to keep in my box upstairs. I can't have the volume on my laptop or the TV at any number that isn't even and even then it can't be on certain numbers because they are wrong. I can't walk on the little squares on my carpet in the lounge or up the stairs. It's just so draining because it's constantly me vs my thoughts and my thoughts always win and I'm always in the wrong and I always have to count twice to 8 if I do it wrong.

Why do I feel anxious even though I’m on meds. I’m on Zoloft 25mg and steel feel anxiety about my hocd. Also I’m in therapy every Monday.

Hello everyone. If you don't know me, my name is Sarahtonen and I used to be active on here in the fall of 2021 and winter 2022. Most people I use to see on my feed are probably gone but I thought I make this post since people are joining this app every single day. I come from a family that has mental illnesses such as OCD, depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia so its no surprise that I found out I had OCD. I joined this community and it was a life safer because reddit was doing me no good. This is how I found out more about my themes and details about ERP. I recovered from my theme which was SO-OCD almost a year ago. I get questions all the time about recovery which is fine with me. You can probably find it in the search bar if you type "my acute hocd recovery story" and "life after hocd." Before joining I was a mess analyzing my feelings, thoughts, etc. It was a horrible time for me and I hated it but thanks to this app I gotten better and no longer have so-ocd. Now, I'm struggling with a new theme and at this point I am getting annoyed on why I keep having these thoughts for almost 4 months. Every time I see something on social media or videos I freaked out and perform my rituals. I was confused on how I made recovery before and not now. I was the same before with my first theme - awful thoughts, questioning, spiraling, depression, etc. why the heck was going on this time?? People would consider my SO-OCD theme a difficult ERP recovery because people, regardless of sexual orientation, will think SO-OCD is a challenging theme. I read all of my old posts on here and something clicked. Before joining this community, I cried and was so anxious I was shaking. Finding this app was my saver because I thought I was going crazy or lying to myself. I didn't know OCD had all of these themes. It was a breathe of fresh air for me but even scrolling though here I was still dealing with my triggers and anxiety - even during my erp recovery I was still having negative thoughts but I realize persisting in my recovery and letting these thoughts sit there outside of ERP is what really helped me. Releasing emotions is important during recovery. You are going to feel anxious and scared at first but over time you will realize how false those thoughts, feelings, etc. are. The anxiety will calm down because you are basically getting rid of them to the point where you do not care about them anymore. In my recovery story, I talked about riding a bike or going to the gym. This is what I said word to word: "At first, it was scary and it sucked but I told myself its okay to feel uncomfortable it will get better over time. (Like riding a bike or going to the gym - you're not going to see instant results - recovery will take time)." THIS IS WHERE IT CLICKED. I was so rushed to get better, I didn't release any emotions outside of my ERP and the time it will take. I wanted to get better and get better NOW but you must be gentle with yourself during recovery. Back to the gym, since this is a real life example, my goal for 2023 is to get healthier and lose some weight. At first, I dreaded working out and wanted my results in a heartbeat - getting it done and over with. Overtime, I realize how much I liked working out and feeling better about myself. I'm 6 weeks into my fitness journey and I feel much better such as making better food choices, enjoying workout videos, etc. Why does this relate to ERP? For me, I didn't want to do ERP because I was scared to the point I was dreading it. I didn't want to do it AT ALL. Almost 2 months later, I was pretty much better. Since my theme was SOOCD I avoided lgbtq+ topics but now I'm listening to the girl in red and watching lgbtq+ films ENJOYING THEM like how I am enjoying work out videos once I started to put the work in. Hopefully that makes so much sense. Your brain is like a muscle. You are basically training it to go back to "normal" before you had your theme. Before you had your theme, those thoughts didn't bother you before, huh? they were passing by for years until your ocd decided to mess up your thinking. ERP is basically training your brain to go back to normal. Most of those thoughts in regards to your OCD are false. It's okay to feel negative, anxious, etc. outside your ERP recovery. Basically those thoughts are fighting back or leaving your brain. ERP is basically there to tell them "Hey I know you are here but I don't care" making them less and less. Trust me, ERP is scary but in 6 weeks you could be a different person. I realize what I was doing wrong and going to do it like I did it before. I believe in all of you on here and on other OCD websites that are similar to NOCD. I plan on being more active here because I know I'll have questions of my own and helping those here.