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Anyone on here suffer with this. I think I am If you do can you tell me abit about how you cope

Last night, I was awake until 4am. Not because I wasn't tired, but because OCD & anxiety tried to keep me awake. This is what frustrates me most; when I'm tired, or I want to relax, I almost can't. I simmer in anxiety until I either 1) sleep or 2) find something stimulating enough to take my mind off of the cycle of OCD. I ended up researching the different subtypes of OCD, and I've found that I have 3 main types that I deal with every day. And I'm so thankful for NOCD, and this forum, because it's SO HARD to explain how the OCD mind works to people who don't have it. Rumination, intrusive thoughts, and reassurance, I think, are my 3 main battles. I've been clinically diagnosed, and was diagnosed at 13 or 14 years old. I'm in my 20s now. Does anyone else notice that, depending on the day, you worry or obsess over different things? Or EVERYTHING, all at once? For example, if I haven't eaten, or if I haven't slept well for a night or two, my worries are genuinely worse. Or, depending on my stress level, obsessions can be worse. I've figured out that when I think I'm disassociating, it's not actually TRUE disassociation; it's the fact that OCD causes me to be "in my head" 24/7. It isn't that I'm not aware of my surroundings. It's that my mind is ALWAYS preoccupied. I used to have really severe compulsions as a teenager. When I'd get an intrusive thought, I would physically flinch. Almost like my brain was an Etch-A-Sketch, and I had to move my body physically to fight off the thoughts. I can manage it fairly well without medication. I'm currently not taking anything, besides vitamin D & Omega 3 supplements. Those seem to do fine, for me, personally! I just pray for better days, usually. I try to do what I can to combat the disorder.

i’m seeing a psychiatrist this friday. is anyone here on anything- if so what, and what are some of the side effects you felt/still feel?

After battling HOCD for more than three years, now I struggle for more than a month with the fear of being bisexual. It all started after reading an article about a women who was not even straight in the first place, but made the narrative of her story look as if she was it and at the end discovered the opposite. The problem was that I grew in my confidence about my sexuality and everything seemed clear again. I was still compelled to do compulsions and one of them was to google the stories of people who recovered from it as this would not only calm me, but it would give me a motivational boost. Her story triggered me and the thought afterwards was even more horrifying. I wanted to suppress it but it spilled out like water put under pressure. The thought was: "Yes, her story is exactly like mine! Yes, it must be! I am bisexual!" I was so weary and the fact that I did not feel so much anxiety made me truly believe that I had an epiphany and that these thoughts were of my own. Everything that I knew about this disorder was washed away in mere seconds. I tried to combat this thought with a compulsion by showing that I know that this is not the case, as everything I felt in the past for the same-sex was false, only something created by anxiety. Suddenly, I had a strange feeling and it left me to believe that I actually enjoyed these attractions, although this was not the case. I was to weary to put high enough resistance Now I spiraled down so deep that I cannot discern reality from these thoughts anymore. Sometimes I even believe that I am in denial. No compulsion seems to help anymore or very little. Sometimes it even feels as if I would abhor heterosexuality and would love bisexuality, although I find no comfort in these thoughts. They disgust me and they are very disturbing. Such thoughts never appealed to me, but now they feel as if I would think them intentionally. What should I do? Everything seems so strange and out of place. I want to be only with the opposite sex, yet the doubts takes forms that make believe this is not truly my wish. It makes me believe that there is "room for more" and it scares me but I am too tired of fighting these thoughts and feelings, yet I still find some energy to combat them. I can barely look in the mirror anymore and hardly I can remember for what I truly fought in the past and who I truly was. The nights are spent restless. My therapy session starts in just a few weeks, but my fear seems so true. It seems so close. I knew I was straight and in this I found great fondness. Now it seems like a distant memory. What should I do in this severe case? Deep inside myself, my rational part still knows that it is OCD. It must be, or else I would not do compulsions as long as the day is. I would not go through this anguish. I am sorry for the lengthy post, but I try to stabilize myself again before I attend my first sessions.

It seems to me that the main and pretty much only way to stop ruminating is to try to do something. But even then, my anxiety is still in the back of my mind. Then there are times when I'm trying to sleep and I can't do something to try to distract myself as well as try to sleep at the same time, if that makes sense. Any other way to try to distract oneself, or to try to not ruminate?

It is time to choose your next Exposure & Response Prevention (ERP) therapist. —> It will be one of your favorite fictional characters! 1. Alexis Rose 2. Captain Holt 3. Cristina Yang 4. Ted Lasso 5. Jess 6. Ron Swanson Send along your vote in the comments and be sure to let us know why you choose them! In case ERP therapy is still new to you, the basis is challenging your fears and anxiety with clinical support and learning that you can tolerate the emotions that come with it! Whoever you choose will be cheering you on as you take on some of your toughest challenges. Choose wisely!

I'm not religious, but somehow I feel I'll never been absolved of the bad things I've done in my life. I feel everything I've ever done wrong will follow me forever, I worry my partner has done bad things that I don't know about, and me being with them makes me bad. I feel like I'm constantly disingenuous, people constantly tell me I'm a wonderful, kind person and how great I am, which only makes me feel worse and like I'm a liar because they don't know all the bad things I've ever done. I constantly ruminate about my mistakes and replay how I could've done them differently. It's suffocating. I feel like my life is just slipping me by, as I'm unable to engage in it without being worried I'll be "found out" as bad. It's such a struggle. This is just a ramble, but I wonder if others can relate?

Whenever I’m tipsy or under the influence I tend to text and message everyone. I also take wayyyyy too many selfies haha. But these things for some reason make me feel so cringe and gross the next morning that I begin to have intrusive thoughts about it…I think it’s because I text my crushes and in the morning realize nothing ever will happen mainly because they aren’t into me, which is rejection, which then makes me so embarrassed. For instance, I took my shot and went up to this guy at the bar yesterday only to be rejected! I was and still an embarrassed.

I can’t stop crying because of my thoughts and feelings. I can’t even sleep in peace. I need help but I really don’t feel comfortable telling anyone my thoughts even my therapist

i didnt know that being alone at home make my anxiety worse how to cope with that

My daughter is 8 and is diagnosed with OCD, poor insight and ADD. During the school year, she was taking both Prozac and Jornay PM(comparable to old school Ritalin but time released so you take at night). We had trouble filling it at beginning of summer, so we decided to take a break from the Jornay PM. We immediately noticed that she was a much happier child. Fast forward 3 weeks and we gave the Jornay to her before gymnastics camp 2 days in a row. Her compulsions increased tremendously and she was agitated, extremely intolerant to all noises, and I could go on. She needs to be on something for her ADD for school but I don’t want her to be miserable in the process. In my mind, the side effects are not worth the educational benefit at this point. Any advice on medications for ADD that have not exacerbated the OCD and do not cause extreme mood swings? TIA

I’m having a really hard time with people disregarding my legitimate concerns about COVID as me just being “unwell.” I know I take it to an extreme that most don’t. But the basis of my concerns, I am positive, is legitimate and objectively reasonable. I can tell pretty clearly when I’m responding too intensely due to my OCD, but for a number of reasons, my comfortable levels of risk are extremely low. I follow scientific journals and professionals in related fields— not some bunk conspiracy stuff! But people who know me seem to be brushing aside my concerns with wanting to avoid COVID as entirely OCD-derived, rather than that I go overboard with my preventatives. For quite a while, I was simply masking in public places and not going out to eat. But as people have eased their caution, I’ve been compensating by increasing mine, and now I’m masking in my own home as my housemate is no linger masking and actively socializing. I realize there will be overlap with OCD in this area, but I also know that this is a conclusion I’ve also reached otherwise, too. I am in several high risk categories and my health leaves plenty to be desired as it is, and seeing my friends and watching the news articles about healthier people my age and younger having a myriad of terrible health issues come up after their COVID infections, I don’t want to risk the initial illness or the potential chronic conditions it could bring. And frankly, I’m an incredibly depressed person, and one more thing that makes it harder for me to get out of bed in the morning may be the thing that makes me stop wanting to even wake up, literally. I don’t ask people to change what they do. I realize everyone has different standards and that I can’t expect them to align with mine, nor would I want to insist. So, as a result, I compensate for that lack of caution with myself. I haven’t seen a movie since 2019, I haven’t had a haircut in longer since I was already overdue for one before 2020. I have eaten in one restaurant, seated outdoors, and that was the same visit that someone I was with genuinely narrowly exposed our entire group to COVID. I’ve had OCD result in agoraphobia for other health issues before. I used to be scared I’d have a medical emergency if I went out for a walk, and could generally push myself through it, and as long as I kept momentum, I could keep going with it and relax. I just hit my mid-thirties and I truly can’t recall a time where I didn’t have OCD, so I’m pretty familiar with it at this point, and this is the hardest I’ve ever had with it because -the thing I’m afraid of is a potential outcome-. Hell, a pandemic illness is one of my greatest fears. It’s an absolute shitshow of it all converging into a miserable slog. But constantly, things I worry about come true. I don’t think it’s some cosmic force, I think I’m just good at noticing potential negative results. I’ve had medical issues in recent years that even doctors nearly persuaded me wasn’t a big deal or even happening, and when I finally saw a specialist, they confirmed that it really was going on and I was right to be concerned. I feel like I’m trying to protect my health and people are telling me I don’t need to, but if something happens to me, who’s going to help me? And will I hear that I should have been more careful (like I’ll be telling myself)? It’s also hard because while I can talk about OCD and explain it very clearly so that people understand I’m not delusional or dangerous or unable to be otherwise rationale, something about this and the fact that I am heavily sequestering myself into isolation as I try to establish a place that feels safe to me makes people look at me funny or respond to me like I’m nuts, even to reasonable things. I had a housemate who very possibly have COVID, so while I was isolating in my room and masking (before this became my norm), the housemate was hanging out in the main parts of the house constantly unmasked. And because I had shared a space with them unmasked, I was waiting to hear the result of their COVID test back. The concern was great enough that it stopped said housemate from going to work as a preventative, but after several days where the results should have been back and I wanted to know so I could potentially have stopped being so hyper-cautious, I finally started asking one every day or so if the results were in. I was treated like an annoyance. Eventually, enough time has passed that they wouldn’t be “contagious” anymore, and my own test (which came in sooner than theirs somehow) was proving I didn’t have COVID either. Which was great, but I still wanted to know what their result was in case we’d had asymptomatic cases since even those can still cause very quiet illnesses in the long run and because it meant I needed to be VERY sure I didn’t get it again. But people didn’t think it was important, so they treated me like I was nuts for wanting to know this. This is already exceedingly long, but I’m just exhausted of the whole thing. I don’t know when this is going to improve, I really will quit taking precautions when evidence shows they aren’t necessary, but we don’t know when that really will be, and in the meantime, the true effects of COVID will take some time to be seen. And what we’re already seeing isn’t great! I find my other OCD habits are intensifying, too, and that’s sure not fun! I aim to get into therapy again at some point, but now I need to find a therapist who, while not just patting me on the ass about my worries, at least believes that COVID should be avoided, even if their response to it to try to do that is different than mine. It all absolutely sucks and I’m sick of every last element of it. My mom even was diagnosed with cancer in 2020 and died in 2021, and while still mourning that and processing the trauma of that experience, it was all so much worse happening during COVID. Ugh.

Before my boyfriend and I had something he also said indirect that he finds my friend attractive. My boyfriend and I met on a dating platform so we texted a whole year before meeting. So in the beginning it wasn’t really serious from both sides and we didn’t think it would become a relationship. So when I send him a photo of me and my friend he sometimes said that she can come to etc. Just things that makes me know that he finds her pretty tho. But now when we have a relationship, almost a year. I’m still scared when he’s with me and my friend that he still finds her pretty or that she’s is nicer than me and will go to her. So when I don’t like it when he’s with my friendgroup. What can I do about this and should I be scared?

Its making the intrusive feelings feel so so real… its making it feel like im in denial when i dont ever want to ever be homosexual or bisexual in any way shape or form…

I’m freaking out over possibly having diabetes or being close to it. My health anxiety is going crazy. I know there are things I can do like eating better and exercising but my brain is like “what if that doesn’t help” or I know there is medication I can take but I don’t want to. I’m losing it, I’m so terrified

It has been over a year since I took off college to work on my OCD and I still am not really feeling ready to go back. I feel stuck

Sometimes I have so much going on in my head at one time - and I have layers of intrusive thoughts one on top of another - all together and sometimes I don't know or remember which one caused my anxiety but I have to go back and solve them or reproduce the feeling that came up so that I can "disregard" it properly. It gets so exhausting because I'm always chasing after random thoughts and feelings all about similar themes - that are constantly getting triggered - by silly things. The fear is - I won't know its ocd unless i go back and solve them. I think this might be a compulsion? Does sitting with the discomfort with this Also work?

Possible trigger warning if anyone else has an ED. I saw a post online that basically said if you cant have a restrictive eating disorder without being fatphobic. I have Anorexia, struggled with it for years. I truly believe in beauty at every size and eating what you want, I've never been the type of person to judge others for their bodies or what they eat. I would never look down on someone for their weight and I hate it when other people with my disorder shame people for being overweight or use it to 'encourage' themselves. I do have an unexplainable fear of gaining weight but that unfortunately just comes with the illness and i only ever apply these standards to myself. There's even been times I wished more people could think more like me so that I wouldn't be insecure about gaining weight. I genuienly dont equate weight to anyone's worth, to me it's just a number until I'm the one on the scale. My OCD is telling me now that by struggling an ED i hate fat people or am being offensive. That I should force myself to eat even though it makes me anxious and it's not something I can just force myself to do. I've been in this horrible limbo all day with my mind on whether or not just being sick makes me a terrible person. :') I hate OCD.

I don't know what to do anymore nothing I do to try and get over this real event ocd helps. My day goes like this - 4am, wake up in sudden panic attacks where it's near impossible to get back to sleep. - The I don't deserve thoughts start instantly eg I don't deserve to relax/sleep, I don't deserve to have thoughts, I don't deserve the sound of the birds outside, I don't deserve anything really. - Following this depression kicks off and because I feel down it makes the "I don't deserve thoughts totally believable. - I start to mentally punish myself - I try to break the cycle by doing this things anyway, but this takes so much energy. Something I have limited of in the first place due to lack of sleep. - The rest of the day continues with my moods going up and down like a roller coaster. - Later in the day I start to panic, as I know the anxiety attack that inevitably awaits the next morning. - I spiral into hopelessness wondering what is actually going to stop my head. I start looking for answers (do I contact the guy that I hurt?). - I try to be functional for my partner in life, but I fail and constantly break down crying. - I try to enjoy a bit of tv before bed before medicating and going to bed stressed knowing this is about to start again tomorrow. I'm not sure where to go from here people, I'm quickly running out of energy and will power to deal with this groundhog day effect, I need to see results!. My psychologist keeps trying to dig through my past and she doesn't understand ocd whatsoever. I'm tempted to go up the hospital, but they're just going to drug me up and send me home despite having no understanding of ocd as well... I'm literally cornered... I've got no options. I just wait around all day waiting for something to give and if I keep going down this path it's going to be my mind and body. Has anyone else been where I am and can offer some advice?

Hey everyone. Yesterday was difficult, today I feel slightly better. I’m really upset because I KNOW I shouldn’t be compulsively researching stuff on Google, but I read this thing that says there are women that are a 100% straight and don’t feel absolutely anything for any woman. So it just makes me wonder, what about aesthetic attraction?? Aesthetic attraction to me feels like something. Idk how to describe it. It’s like a feeling that you get when you look at someone that is attractive. I feel it in my chest so maybe it’s like anxiety mixed with pleasure? Idk why I feel some physical response but I don’t like it. That’s what made me get upset. I feel this, so am I not 100% straight?? I don’t wanna be bi or gay, even if I was I wouldn’t wanna act on it. Even though my brain and body feel like they want to but I DON’T. Bi or gay labels don’t resonate with me, so I will not act on it. Mix all this with the false attractions that don’t feel false, and the unwanted sexual responses your body has and it literally makes up enough “proof” that my worst fear is true. I wanna be with my bf forever, and marry him and have children. That’s been my dream ever since I was a little kid. I think my fear stems from there and also the fact that I would be terrified to be alone in life. I just want to be completely straight, soooo badly. I do not wanna be with a woman in any way. Just thinking about sex or romance with one makes me feel upset and wanna cry and literally kms because I hold my relationship so dear and it’s literally the most important thing in my life. Even my body has these disgust responses but it’s like my brain likes the thoughts and feelings. Ugh idk I really just needed to vent. Sorry if it’s too long. Hope y’all are having a good day.