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Would love to hear how other mamas are doing with dealing with Postpartum OCD….Sometimes I feel like a danger to myself and my child or worse what if I acted on my intrusive thoughts! Looking for help/advice

I think something just hardcore triggered me and I really need help. What do I do? Do lean into this or try to ground myself? I feel like I'm going to pass out.

When I was 12 there was a girl in our school at first I was very excited to go with her... when our final exams were over I had cried a little becoz I will not be seeing her for few days... After few weeks we were again going school together.. But my excitement to go with her started fading away... Even when if I see her around I was not interested to talk.that's the story.... 10 years later I suddenly developed hocd.I am a straight women.. The same sex attraction I get now I know that's Becoz of hocd.. You know how it works.. But I am constantly worried about the event which happened 9 years ago... I am not sure how I felt for that girl.. All I remember was.. I was very excited to school with but that excitement faded away also.. My hocd constantly tells me that you were in love with that girl you are denying it.. What worries me even more that.. Why I didn't get anxiety back then.. I was pretty normal.. And that incident doesn't mattered to me at all before my hocd.. But after hocd that particular event of mine is a favourite thing of hocd to give me anxiety..

My brain always tells me I need to break up with my boyfriend in order to live out Gods will for my life. The thoughts in my head tell me that they are God talking and then I get confused between my thoughts and Gods voice. It is like I have to choose between God and my boyfriend. However that contradicts Gods word. God does not do ultimatums and He wants us to love like Jesus. I know I serve a good and loving God and He works for me, not against me. However, my brain seems to paint a picture of Him as ONLY a judge and if I don’t do what my thoughts say, ultimately He will just abandon me and I won’t live for His glory like I DESIRE to. Everything I try to do to get these thoughts to go away is only temporary and I don’t know how to make them stop or if they are God or my mind. Back story: I was recently saved in January of this year. I have become born again through Christ. Before that, I took Gods word on account some of the time but looked at it more like a suggestion rather than the way, the truth, and the life. I feel like I always need to be in control and not knowing exactly how my boyfriends heart with God is, is extremely uncomfortable for my OCD. I know I have to remember that I once was lost too, so I have no reason to think God won’t change his heart like He has changed mine. He is also a Christian but has had events go on in his life that has made him fall away. He still loves God and is a strong believer but not how he used to be. I see TikTok’s and instagram posts of Christians that say that a man of God won’t do this or that, or you will know if this man is sent by God. But how do I really know? However, I am not to judge. God is the only one that truly knows the hearts of His children but my OCD can’t seem to handle that. I experience many thoughts that I need to break up with him because he may not be on the same page as me quite yet. However, I can’t decipher whether that is my OCD or God because these thoughts repeat over and over in my mind until I feel like I can’t take it anymore. I get so confused and feel like the only way to stop them is just to listen and do what they say but then I feel I would be obeying my fear and not God. I do believe it is OCD but my thoughts continue to make me doubt the truth.

I just feel a bit nervous. (Picture of us camping up north last year for reference) So I know this is kind of random. And a weird trigger. But it’s coming up on a year since my ocd/ROCD began. I remember feeling anxious and having intrusive thoughts for weeks leading up to my panic attack that caused a downward spiral of depression. Every year me and my boyfriend go camping with his family in the top of Michigan on a property they’ve had for years and years. I remember sitting on the property and getting that deep anxious pit feeling that made me sick, intrusive thoughts swirling, etc. coming back from the trip is when everything got worse for me. I ended up very mentally depressed from the undiagnosed ocd symptoms for weeks. We are packing to go up for our yearly trip today, and going to be there tonight. I’m excited but I am also nervous, because of the ocd symptoms starting there, it’s kind of a trigger there for me if that makes sense? Which sucks, because I’ve always loved the place. But I’m gonna knuckle down, go up north for our yearly camping trip, and try to stay in the moment and focus on the now. I’m scared. But we will see how it goes. I’m just so scared of ocd getting bad again, as If it will magically just sky rocket all over again and then I’ll become extremely depressed. It’s all still so fresh in my brain even though I’ve come a long way since the diagnoses and when it felt like my brain completely broke. I’m just afraid. It doesn’t help that I’ve had the biggest back door spike in a LONG TIME the last three days (today being okay but still)

You ever feel confident about something, and you post it on social media. You then look away and see what people respond. They get to the core and even call you names and disagree with you to the max. It destroys your self esteem and confidence. Whatever you know and believe turns to shit. Then you start to question if you are right at all about anything. It makes you depressed and it makes sad and angry. Sometimes even thinking suicidal thoughts in extreme cases. Then you feel super sad and your confidence as at 0, whatever you knew and believed was completely shot down and you lose faith in your knowledge and beliefs. Then OCD proves you wrong instead of proving it wrong

Does anybody ever get an intrusive thought mid conversation that makes it very hard to focus on listening? I normally start focusing on making the thought go away which, of course, makes it worse. What is a better approach?

HELP! yesterday at work i accidentally bumped into my coworker, and after i grabbed her shoulder and we both laughed. but while i was touching her shoulder i felt her bra strap, and i rememeber keeping my hand there for too long, maybe because i liked feeling it or cause it turned me on or something…after this happened i had a panic attack and felt super guilty, like i cheated on my boyfriend. mind you, i am bisexual but i don’t find this coworker attractive and don’t want to be with her at all. I have had this fear of cheating and being immoral in the past, but i feel like i this time is different because i actually was touching someone else. but i would never go out of my way to touch someone else. i don’t know if i really messed up or if my mind is just tricking me again. has anyone experienced something similar?? please help

There's a lot of you on here today who don't seem to realize this, so I would like to educate you on what's kinda going on with that troubled mind of yours. I am not a scientist, so this will be a TLDR version to cover what actually matters in terms of your recovery. Those of you who are smarter than me, please correct me if I forget anything or make any mistakes. The reason you feel so bad as someone with OCD is because this disorder attacks what you value. The intense distress can come from thoughts that go against your values which OCD then uses as a "a-ha!" moment as proof that "you're a bad person" or whatever you're afraid of. These thoughts can have any origin. Since someone with OCD cannot turn off the part of their brain that warns them to danger you end up stuck with repetitive, intrusive thoughts. People without OCD also have these thoughts, they're just not repetitive. This is why OCD tends to inspire a "I think this, therefore I am this" mentality. OCD thoughts tend to be much more disturbing and higher priority than our regular thoughts, often taking up a large percentage of our time thinking. When living with OCD, we don't encourage checking, research, confessions, or any other type of compulsions related to obsessions as they do not resolve OCD thoughts. Compulsions do not tackle the issue of the thoughts recurring and, often, result in doubts that bring the anxiety back with greater intensity. A compulsion, to be clear, is any action which you feel needs to be done to resolve the disturbing thoughts, even if it is trying to endlessly resolve thoughts rationally (a process know as rumination). ERP (Exposure Response Prevention) is the "golden standard" of treatment which involves acceptance of the disturbing thoughts and repeated intentional exposures to them. Such treatments include reading scripts related to your OCD thoughts, repeating disturbing thoughts out loud, writing disturbing lines over and over. When treating OCD a good support system (a ERP specializing therapist, a psychiatrist, and/or family/friends), medication, diet, and exercise can all be part of the solution. This is not a complete guide and there are outliers when dealing with any mental disorder. I hope this information is more helpful than harmful and I pray each and every one of you is able to recover from this terrible disease. I am here for you as is the rest of this community to help you get better, just please avoid any behavior which will not assist with your recovery. Wishing you all health, happiness, and success in your healing journey!

Hello everyone, I apologise for how long this is. I’m not sure if this is the right place to make this post, but I just want to start by saying that I really hope I won’t cause any offence with this post, and I apologise if I do. I don’t want to seem like I’m self-diagnosing or being insensitive to the struggles of people who have diagnosed OCD and deal with it severely, but I’ve been wondering whether I might have OCD, or if I’m dealing with potential OCD symptoms. For a bit of context, I’m 20 and have struggled with my mental health for around eight years, with mostly depression/low mood, self harm (though I’m almost a year clean now), anxiety and struggles with food/exercise (but no diagnoses for anything). When I was still at school I saw a counsellor there regularly for three years, and since leaving school over the pandemic I had some CBT and last year saw a therapist for a couple of months. Within these, a few times they mentioned “magical thinking” in relation to some of my anxieties where I feel like if I do/don’t do or say a certain thing, it will prevent something from happening or make something happen. These have mostly applied to my relationship, which I’ve been in for five years now, with me thinking that doing/not doing or saying a certain thing will keep my boyfriend safe and healthy. Since the pandemic and being in lockdown unable to see him, I have a behaviour where whenever I close a door, I feel like I have to open and close it five times first while mentally saying the five letters of my boyfriend’s name. Last year we had a rough patch where my boyfriend wanted us to break up, but it ended up only lasting for a month or so. This was partly due to general issues we’d been having, somewhat caused by my behaviour due to my mental health, but also he’s got an old friend who used to like him and he used to like her, and their feelings came up again and he was questioning whether he wanted to be with me or her. Within the time that we were struggling, he was talking to her a lot and flirting and having deep chats, which made me really insecure and anxious, and then while we were broken up he spent a lot of time with her and they kissed. He didn’t tell me about this until six months after it happened, when we were already back together, but at that point said it had made him realise she wasn’t who he wanted to be with. It’s been a year since that time now and we’ve been a lot more communicative and dedicated more time to us and our relationship is much better than it was. Despite this, and despite the fact that there’s now no evidence of him liking her or even speaking to her anymore really, and him reassuring me every day that he wants to be with me, I feel like I obsessively think about what happened last year and what I did that contributed to it happening, and it feels like by thinking about it and going over it again and again I can prevent it happening again by being aware, because I’m so scared of it happening again because it was so awful. But this thinking over/ruminating just makes me feel the emotions again and feel awful and anxious. As well as this, the behaviour with opening and closing doors five times has become more intense, and I do lots of other random things in factors of five while mentally saying the five letters of my boyfriend’s name, feeling like it will keep him safe and keep him wanting to be with me and keep our relationship good. These behaviours don’t take up a lot of time in my day, but I do occasionally get stuck doing something five times until it feels “right” and the mental rumination over last year is very present throughout pretty much the entire day because I feel like I need to be on guard to stop the same things happening again. Thank you for reading all this if you’ve got this far. I’ve read online a lot about OCD and parts of these things I’m dealing with sort of fit within it, but other parts don’t. I’d basically just appreciate anyone’s thoughts on whether it seems like OCD or not, because I’m really feeling like it’s getting too much to deal with on my own but I’m not sure what kind of help to seek.

Hey guys… I’m so confused. I’ve had ocd and different themes of ocd through out my life. At 12 I had a random thought I was lesbian and it just happened outta nowhere and guess that was my first time with ocd. Went away and went fully to liking boys and it spiraled again back in college after seeing a super pretty girl on campus and I believed I was bisexual and spiraled. It went away and I lived my life for 4 years and knew I was straight. Now it’s back… and it’s been hell. I was boy crazy. All my crushes has been men and I always wanted a boyfriend, get married and have kids. I was excited to shoot my shot at this guy I saw at a wedding I saw. Now that my OCD has flared up, my mind has latched into the fact I’m bisexual again. It keeps latching on memories and to actresses I’ve had no issues seeing before or even my coworkers. First few weeks I had anxiety and discomfort now a month later I have no anxiety. I get extreme false attractions but I question… is it real? Why does it feel like I enjoy it? I try to let the thoughts sit ( fyi doing erp with NOCD) I feel numb. I have 0 anxiety which makes it seem like I’m actually bisexual no longer heterosexual like I’ve identified. My attraction to men and my crush I had for years is slowly fading. I’m trying to accept and acknowledge my thoughts and not trying to engage but I’m convinced I’ll never return to normal. I’m convinced I don’t wanna be straight anymore. I obsess over this everyday. Every girl I see I see I think I have a crush on them. If anyone is pretty and sweet that triggers me as well. When I see a super pretty actress or girl on TikTok, I’ll check the comments and girls who also call them hot or Pretty always has a pride flag on their bio. I don’t know what to do. I’m so confused what I’m attracted to and my real sexuality at 25. People also say you can’t choose your sexuality and I’m scared one day I’m gonna admit I’m bisexual and fall extremely hard for a woman. I really want to be straight. I no longer know my values and feel like I can never date and get married. Everything feels forced. Am I actually being indenial ? Why am I not disgusted :( please please help. My erp tools are not helping. I get so triggered when my sisters always tell me start dating, when I get married … why is that? Feeling alone. Kindly don’t ignore

Okay, brain. I need you to consider all the evidence before you jump to "house is contaminated now!!11!1" Here's the boeuf du jour: Went to the bathroom, a BM. When I know that's going to happen and I can do it, I remove clothes except undies, and redress after washing hands... then wash again. I've heard a few non-anxious people do this too. Quite sure I did it this time as well (doubt is about pants here). Cleaning up, got some... stuff on my thumb. It happens, and will again, it's out of one's control sometimes. I do recall cleaning it off with TP (worried at the time I'd somehow smeared it on my chest/belly) and then a baby wipe, because I remember thinking "ok you wiped off your dirty thumb with this then wiped your cheek, good job. Dp it again." Or something to that effect. So I finish up, wash my hands, redress after checking if there was any "stuff" on my belly/chest/thighs. And I do remember this because I spotted an odd reddish mark on my knee. I go back downstairs to resume my snooze on my couch and I remember remarking that I felt good! Then brain goes, "what if you smeared "stuff" on your waistband?" I try to reason with it, saying what I've said above, but by this time anxiety has kicked in and so has doubt. It's still there a bit now. So then it escalates to "couch/blanket/plushie are contaminated and so are you, if you sit on the couch and put away dishes/laundry/cook your "stuff" will be on everything and it'll get on your mother too." I kept laying there, trying to get back to sleep. My shirt was longer and covered up my waistband, but I attempted to classify that as "irrelevant". Got up for the washroom again, checked my (white!) undies... nothing. Ran my fingers around the waistband of my PJ pants... nothing that I could detect. Examined the gray couch with a flashlight... nothing. (Doubt is here again... piss off would ya?) I mean I realize that on all levels, fecal bacteria/matter is everywhere. On everything. It's just... the guilt of "being dirty"/"ignoring" a problem is my issue. Even though there's likely nothing wrong. Had a shower (for other reasons) and brain did the "did we leak pee?" thing again, but I'm telling myself firmly that this is now just a Thing brain is going to do (and has after every shower since the first time I thought this and I know I should look forward to it happening again... pesky jerk) so I am moving on. Wearing shorts and a T shirt so I'm not "covering up the pee/ germs" because they're probably not there. I will never truly know and I have to be OK with that. I hate that this anxiety junk has made such a mundane, banal part of life feel like a crime, like something to dread because it turns into a "fiasco" each time. Nobody else worries about this. I guess I have to resist the urge to lysol stuff (again!) and try not to envision my mother getting horribly ill because of me. Thanks for reading my little vent, and I hope, if you're experiencing similar, that you break out of it soon.

I’ve been having a real bad relapse the past two weeks after some triggering comments from friends. My latest struggle and what I’m currently stuck with, is if I am utilising ERP to avoid and defuse actual concerns. I am currently in a state where I don’t know in or out and I feel pressure in making decisions as I’m currently going through a lot of big life changes. It’s causing me so much anxiety and stress. I hate when OCD pops up more as statements and I get a sinking feeling thinking it’s real/true and that I’m in denial.

I’m currently working so hard not to google anything and everything relating to “do I really love him?” Reading other people’s posts and responses on here help me so much when I’m feeling this way… I currently just feel unable to really enjoy my relationship, I wish I could just let go and enjoy how amazing of a person my bf is and how much he loves me, but of course the same lines keep repeating in my head over and over… “you don’t really love him” “you’re just staying with him because he’s not a red flag” “you don’t want to hurt his feelings by breaking up so you just stay” I’m not even looking for reassurance because I know these thoughts are all ocd I’m just so annoyed and frustrated that I’m seemingly unable to enjoy my relationship when everything is actually going so well… it feels like these are thoughts I’ll never get rid of and I’m just feeling very discouraged.

Does anyone else ever feel like they are hyper aware and fixated on the passage of time? Like the fact that by the time you realize the present moment is happening it’s already the past and it makes everything seem meaningless. I’ve been obsessed over time and aging/the passage of time lately and can’t seem to shake it. I just want to feel/enjoy present again like I used too… Its super distressing/disassociating. First ever comment here. Thank you all!

Hi! I’m really new here but I’ve struggled with HOCD for almost a decade now. It started when I was a teen. As a child I had exposure to sexual media (due to my own curiosity, I actually wasn’t supposed to) and my female friends and I would sometimes role play things (though mostly just two of us since we had play dates most often anyway). We did this very often and I often had to play the role of the guy (I’m actually female by sex and gender) and I was sorta pressured by the friend to be true to the role and “feel” the role while I played. I eventually got used to it and started getting used to picturing women naked and sexualizing them- but I didn’t actually want to be with them. Now, to be fair, my child brain didn’t know that was possible back then. But even then, I wouldn’t wish to be in a relationship with a person. I would get a kick out of imagining things but I didn’t actually want it in real life. Then when I first discovered different sexual orientations, I PANICKED. I was worried that if anyone heard any of this, they would think I’m bisexual! Now ofc that’s perfectly fine to be bisexual and I’m certainly an ally for that community because maybe i wouldn’t be as scared if they didn’t experience some discrimination! but I personally don’t have a desire to be with women. That fear though really freaked me out and as a child with OCD tendencies (I had germ OCD years before that), this was really hard. And unfortunately, when I have free time, this HOCD comes back to haunt me. I felt like I’m forced to be something I don’t want to be, and I have no way out. Later on, I started testing my feelings with images and videos to see how I feel. It was fine at first but I always checked further “just in case” and eventually ended up feeling attracted (though in a shallow way, not like a crush). I suspect they are false attraction but I’ve questioned things so much and become aroused at some many things I’m left clueless. The thing is I don’t want to call myself anything other than straight because I don’t want to be with women in a romantic nor sexual relationship. Yet a part of me isn’t sure and keeps asking whether it’s the case. It’s further complicated when I see folks that are female by sex but dress in a boyish way and I get momentarily attracted. I don’t want to be with them but I will find them attractive as long as I think of them as a boy of sorts. But my anxiety spikes SO much with this afterwards and I HATE going out to feel this way! My brain wonders whether I’m just secretly bi and in denial the whole time- and every time I try to shut it out, it tells me I’m “running away from the truth”… oh and online forums are the worst! Everyone says that if you any gay fantasies then you must be straight. Though, to be honest, I’m not sure if I even have “fantasies” or intrusive thoughts or both. It’s so hard to discern between them. I don’t know who to listen to.. Interestingly though, when I have a crush on a guy, I somehow crush HOCD like a grape and it vanishes (I’d NEVER use this as a strategy by the way)! I don’t know if any of this story resonates with anyone but if anyone has tips, I’d appreciate it!

Can rocd make you feel disgust with your partner for no reason? Or like an uneasy feeling?

I (30 M) have always been a chronic people pleaser, but it’s only been till recently when I have let me shame go and talked openly about why. I have always had intrusive thoughts about being “cursed” probably since I was in 5th grade or so I have been terrified at the idea that someone has cursed me with bad luck and that the rest of my life will be full of misfortune. People used to tease me and d say they cursed me just to make me upset. I would be able to deal with the intrusive thoughts for awhile but whenever something in my life would go wrong I would start blaming it on being “cursed”. As I’ve grown older this has manifested in a particularly stressful way, people pleasing. I will have intense intrusive thoughts whenever I disappoint or upset someone that they are cursing me or causing me misfortune. Because of this I have had almost zero boundaries, being completely open to everyone because I just don’t want to upset anyone, and when I do pull away for my own peace, it seems like I’m being selfish, upsetting people and triggering those thoughts. I have come a long way with my OCD but this one is really really intense. My life is in a good place, I have a lot of peace, but these thoughts still derail a lot of my thinking and I stay very scared to upset anyone. I want to get past this, I know deep down that no one is cursing me, but it’s an intrusive thought I have not been able to shake and the distress has hurt personal and professional parts of my life before. Does anyone else ever feel this way?

Hi all, this is my first post on NOCD! It’s long, but Im seeking some guidance 😅 I’m writing this because I think I’m struggling with relationship OCD. I’ve questioned in the past if I fall under certain umbrellas of OCD, and have concluded more recently that I definitely do (not to self diagnose, but I find that putting a meaning behind my thoughts DO help me deal with them) Lately, after being with my boyfriend for a year and a half, and living together for a year, I’ve developed this intense anxiety around our relationship. Sometimes the anxiety lasts for a week and sometimes it lasts for a couple of days, and then it goes away for a few weeks. But the anxious thoughts overall have been going on for a couple of months. My boyfriend is…. Absolutely wonderful to say the least. Loves me exactly how I would want and need someone to love me, knows me so well, is caring, understanding, just a pure and beautiful soul. Faithful, loyal, etc. I love him with all of my heart and logically, can’t imagine my life without him. We’ve discussed marriage and kids and I know that those things are in the future for us (unless something happens that causes it to not) I feel confident that he’s my person. However, when the ROCD started, it came out of nowhere. Pretty much, I found someone else attractive 2 months ago and my brain has stuck on that and tricked me into believing that I can’t possibly be in love and happy in my relationship if i felt attracted to someone else. The attraction to said person hasn’t come in a month or so (tbh i think it was more of a “i like this validation”feeling than true attraction) but there were a couple times that i felt that way and INSTANTLY felt like the worst girlfriend ever after. The guilt, I think, triggered the ROCD. So now, every couple of weeks or so, i feel this feeling of “am i in love with this person, is he THE one, if I’m not obsessed with my partner am I even in love, if I’m not in the mood to be intimate right now am I attracted to him” etc. then I start hyperfocusing on flaws of his that otherwise wouldn’t bother me at all. Im not even sure what triggers the anxiety. We hardly fight, we’re open in communicating our feelings, and we don’t have any pressing issues to make him not a “right fit” for me. We have a solid relationship and I wouldn’t change anything about our dynamic. But sometimes my ROCD makes me question EVERYTHING. What I HAVE thought about and concluded are these things: I think the idea of marriage terrifies me because of the marriage my parents had. They weren’t in love, fought a lot, got married because they had kids, etc. So naturally, I think I have a fear of becoming “complacent” and “falling out of love” with someone i want to be with long term. So, logically, maybe those feelings of non-attraction is actually comfortability. Maybe I’m not obsessing over him because I’m SAFE with him and it’s SECURE, so I don’t have to do that anymore. Maybe if I’m not feeling intimate, it doesn’t make me a bad girlfriend, or that I’m not in love, maybe we’ve just been living together for a while and are comfortable. But when the anxiety starts; it’s hard to differentiate that. Sorry for the brain dump, but this has all been piling up. I don’t feel comfortable talking to anyone else about this because it brings me shame and guilt. I don’t talk about it to my boyfriend in fear that he’ll think I’m not happy with him and wanna leave me. It’s a mess in my brain right now because I’m isolating my emotions, guilt, fears, and not sharing them with anyone. Which is why, I’m asking you guys for advice, reassurance, exercises, or anything to make me feel a bit less anxious. Thanks for reading friends <3

i have been struggling recently with the feeling and thought that its all just hopeless, that i will forever be in this state. When i hear people saying things i have previously believed, i just dont believe it anymore, i feel like i know everything about the brain and how it all works, and i am tired of trying things that i do not believe in. i dont know, im just do freaking tired of feeling like i know how my own brain works its honestly so disgusting i dont like losing hope and just falling into this pit of darkness and hopelessness, i just want to believe in something and trust something, but ive just found that nothing seems like something i can believe or trust in, and thats just so freaking scary and again gives me less hope