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I’m having a rough go of getting to sleep. My thoughts have been very active tonight.

recently In the place I live in there is a man who rapped his own child on the lose. Cops looking for him everywhere ofc! But, since this pig lived soo near me.. I feel scared.. idk if it’s OCD or if I’m naturally freaked out but.. I just feel like he gon pop up in my home In need to hide or to kill me bc they say he’s armed like I don’t even want to walk to my bus stop bc he could be near. I keep remembering how there was a massacre in Texas elementary school not so long ago & im scared that’s gon happen to me when I start school. I am completely scared. Then also too, two youn girls were kidnapped & killed not over a month ago & I keep asking myself what happens after death & the question constantly feels scary to think about. I keep imagining how it would be if I was dead, I keep questioning what were those girls going through what did they feel, will that happen to me? I keep imagining myself going through some sort of suffering then dying. :/ I’m panicked, I feel a pain in my chest.

Hi NOCD community, I hope your brains are feeling as safe and stable as they can be today <3 I’m seeking some validation, or where validation isn’t due, clarity. I met up with an ex last week not to rekindle any sort of relationship with her, but to talk over some things she did that really hurt me that I never got to express. Being distanced from the situation, I forgot that her behaviors could still pose a potential threat to me now. At one point she hit me in the face with a bag full of stuff I was carrying for her, joking, “do you ever just..” followed by the movement. It hurt my face and I just looked at her plainly and said “no, I never just do that.” She said “ah, okay, it happens to me all of the time.” Only she is what happened, the behavior did not happen to her. It was not accidental and she was not gentle. Normally, I would brush this off as a careless mistake but it is things like this that were the exact reason I wanted to meet up with her again. During our relationship, I would convey to her that physical things she did would hurt me and she would become very upset with me, making me feel like I was accusing her of something simply because I was expressing that I was uncomfortable. I felt unsafe to let her know when things she did caused me pain and so I let this happen to me for a while, being young and inexperienced. That night, whatever I came into it hoping to say I only said half of. Looking in her eyes, I still felt afraid of the reactions I remembered receiving after communicating to her in the past. It felt like a step backwards, and now I feel less strong than I did before. I’ve been isolating and my ocd has become so much worse, as my mind is trying to find one thousand ways to avoid that this hurt and this night was difficult. What’s harder is I feel like I can’t talk about it with most of the people close to me, because they pleaded me not to see her. I didn’t listen out of hopes that she’d be different now, that somehow I’d receive closure. I was wrong. Please, any advice or suggestions on how to heal from these experiences? It feels good just to know I am being listened to. Thank you for this space to share our feelings openly and freely.

Just had a really bad episode of picking at my legs. They look red and terrible and I feel immense guilt. Every day I want to stop so badly, BUT I CANT! Idk what to do anymore. I put stress fidget toys where I pick, and I should grab them but I just dont because nothing seems to give me the sensation I get from skin picking. I feel disgusted with myself for harming my body. I just dont know how its possible to stop. Someone help 😖

I developed a crush for this girl and it feels great. But ya know, OCD did its thing and makes me feel like I don't really like her and that I like guys. It drives me absolutely mad. I even went to the gym today (which I have been avoiding) and one of the front desk guys was id say good looking and my OCD ran with that and told me I like guys and all the what if questions came roaring in. It feels really provocative to think persons of the same sex are good looking. It feels like anytime I look at a guy, my OCD tells me"oh look! you noticed him, how come you're not noticing the women?, you're gay." I get so many intrusive thoughts about any guy I look at and It feels so real. I feel defeated today. If anybody can relate, I'd like to hear.

Hocd pocd and real events ocd is affecting me badly… and other external bad things are happening to me… i swear… im alone…

I have a pretty extreme case of OCD. I’ve been on medication for 15+ years. It started when I was in my early 20’s & slept with someone for the first time. I became obsessed with HIV. I was convinced I had it. Even after the 3 month, 6 month, 9 month year, I wasn’t convinced. I would continue to have HIV tests that my doctor told me were not needed. I wouldn’t be intimate with my partner because I was convinced I would give it to him. Every time I had a new boyfriend and we went past certain steps, I would obsess about HIV. Nothing else. Not all the small stuff, just HIV. It was a very hard thing to live through. Years later, when I was pregnant with my son, I had convinced myself that my unborn baby was not my husbands. Even though I had not slept with anyone else in 8+ years since we had been together. I could justify it. There was one night that I went out with friends right before I found out that I was pregnant, and although I remembered everything about the evening, I convinced myself that maybe I drank too much and I had been raped in the parking lot, or bathroom. My husband knew this was irrational but I couldn’t get over it. My pregnancy was not fun for me. OCD stole it from me. When my daughter was younger, I would have triggering thoughts whenever a plastic bag was in the room. Or a big knife. The Casey Anthony story wrecked me. It was happening at that time. I would only spend time with her with my family around, or I would find an excuse to have my parents have her. I tried to avoid my own daughter because I thought it was in her best interest. More to come… have to go into the store with my family.

I also have pocd and real events OCD regarding explicit anime/explicit cartoon content too… i didnt regard characters age and appearance at the time (i was 17-18) and i didnt know what the content was or what it represented and some of the creators said the characters that were underage in canon, were 18+ in the content, so I thought they were safe to watch… I don’t ever want to ever be a P or a chomo in any way shape or form… The explicit anime characters looked and were really young… and i avoided most of the content… but i thought some of the content wasnt Pediphilic because they were on public explicit sites and had millions of views… I didnt know how horrible the content was or what it represented… I assumed that some of the content was safe to look at because it was on public sites and had millions of views… i didnt know that this content was or what it represented… but doing my research made me gag and puke… i dont ever want to ever be a P or a chomo in any way shape or form… they were anime characters that looked extremely young… i didnt know how horrible the content was or what it represented… I… I looked at homosexual explicit anime content a couple times when i was 14… I had no idea what sexuality was at the time… and my hocd has triggered me with it… I had no idea what sexuality was at the time and i was also addicted to explicit content at the time… i dont ever want to be homosexual or bisexual at all… in any way… and this is POCD related too because this was a very wide known explicit anime that involved very young characters… i dont ever want to ever be a P or a chomo at all in any way… I remember when i pleasured myself to explicit content involving a man and a woman when i was 12-13… and i finished at the same time the dude did… my hocd is saying im in denial for this… I had no idea what sexuality was or anything like that… my first ever crush was a woman and i always want it to be women… i dont ever want to be attracted to men in any way shape or form… It was an educational video, so it was showing his privates finishing inside of the woman... i dont ever want to ever be homosexual or bisexual at all… Its making me feel like im not anxious of triggering thoughts when i try to check my reaction too… i dont ever want to ever be homosexual or bisexual at all… When i think about beautiful attractive women, i feel happy and relaxed… actually comfortable… when i see guys, get intrusive thoughts about guys, or intrusive feelings, it makes me feel so anxious and uncomfortable… Its making me think i wanted to finish at the same time as the guy in the video… i dont think i was attracted to him because when he moaned in the video i remember feeling turned off by it… i dont ever want to ever be homosexual or bisexual at all… I remember finishing when the guy did… his privates were shown when he was finishing… i dont ever want to ever be attracted to guys in any way shape or form in my lifetime… I also remember that i wasnt attracted to the guy at all… I just wanted to finish when he did because I wanted to keep up the same pace… I dont ever want to ever be homosexual or bisexual at all…

This is really random but help would be appreciated. So I love the idea of having a baby when I'm older (not actually carrying it bc the idea of having it inside me makes me feel odd) but not a child. Babies are just so adorable and cute. Children though idk. I looked it up online bc I thought maybe this is normal. I found a thing saying how people who just like babies like having something that has to depend on them and how it's a thing about having power and how it's sick and narcissistic. I'm panicking because I didn't think of it like this and I just don't want to be an awful person. Of course I don't think I would ever have a child, baby or not, but I like to read stories with families with babies and get bored when the child grows up, maybe it IS bc the baby has to depend on the parents and it is almost helpless . I feel so disappointed in myself. I didn't realise.

witnessing the horrors of humanity and feeling bothered and afraid that I might not feel disgusted enough, or hatred against those who perpetrated those crimes; it feels like I just want to avoid coming across these revolting things, stay away from them as far as possible, as the saying goes "ignorance is bliss". Instead of feeling anger I think I only feel uneasiness and my conscience feels dirty, stained. Do I even feel disgust? I know my mood gets significantly ruined as I internalise the bad and start feeling like a monster, but I'm afraid i don't feel enough hate and disgust for those who commit those heinous crimes against innocent defenseless little beings. I don't feel "clear" about that, not "clear" disgust and hatred, not proper and not enough as I should. Why is that? There is hesitance and I don't know why, a blank space, and that terrifies me a lot. I know witnessing this triggering stuff causes me immense distress but i have these questions like "are you disgusted by these things?" and i don't know how to answer. I SHOULD and MUST be disgusted but for some reason the only reply in my mind is nothing, it's just blank, even though it causes me a lot of discomfort and make me feel almost suicid*al. The lack of a proper answer to this question destroys me. I don't have this certain answer that I want to have that is "Yes, you are disgusted. You feel disgust over this stuff. You hate those who do that stuff. You feel disgust for those who do that" instead all I get is "nothing". Foggy, unlear. No answer. It makes me afraid that my moral compass is broken and that I feel just apathetic. That if it weren't for the fact that I have pocd and so I immediately feel discomfort I wouldn't even know if it is right or wrong. Maybe I have these thoughts that I don't know if they are intrusive like "why is it bad though?" when I shouldn't have them in the first place, because i should feel the obvious and human reaction of disgust when you something that is not right; and it terrifies me that it is in such a large and dangerous scale on the moral compass. The only immediate reaction i have whenever i come across triggering stuff that triggers my pocd is to avoid those triggering topics at all cost, as they make me feel miserable and stained. But I don't know if I feel disgust. I feel apathy. But not really though. It makes me want to cry because I feel like I saw and discovered something i shouldn't and that shouldn't exist at all. Something that is abnormal. And that is maybe why it shocks me so much that I get thrown into a "seeminglessly" apathetic and blank state. I feel uncertain, unresolved and vague. I'm afraid that my moral positions are just vague, and that they are not innate and part of my own identity.

I started ERP therapy yesterday and had my second session today. During my session of trying to do an exposure, I started crying, and became very anxious. I know that this type of therapy is hard, but how do you know this is just some thing that you can’t do? I have been anxious all day and my exposure has been the only thing I’ve been able to think of. I want to get better but I don’t know if I’m able to push myself this much.

Hi so long story but would really appreciate some insight. So i babysit a 1 year old boy who i love and adore. awhile ago i had a false memory. i was at the house i babysit for and i straddled the couch and it felt good to me. with my false memory i convinced myself the baby gave me this sensation by sitting on my lap which wasn’t even true. i went into a panic and was using stuffed animals to test if it felt good by putting it on my lap. i know it sounds crazy but i was terrified. when i saw the baby next i tried to play with him like normal. i do this thing where i sit on the couch and he is facing me and his legs are wrapped around me. i then pretend to drop him and he thinks it’s funny. so when i was doing that i had a thought came to mind what if you are doing this to see if it feels good. ever since then i’ve worried about this event and wondered did i do it just to see if it felt good down there? but the thing is i wasn’t sure if he was even touching down there when i did this thing. so i panicked today and did the thing where i pretend to drop him just to see if his body touched my private area which it didn’t. but i wanted to test to see if i did and now i feel i did something wrong by checking. i would never do anything inappropriate to him i’m just worried that i’m doing things wrong.

sometimes I feel so hopeless like why do all these thoughts still keep coming up and after like 14 years of therapy (only like 4 months on this platform) i'm like still so annoyed by my thoughts and dont 100 percent know how to handle them. I still google things because I feel like knowledge is power and sometimes it makes it worse occasionally it makes it better. I just want like your thoughts on is it possible to maybbbbbbe live a free life someday?

hi, this isnt necessarily ocd related, but ive been having panic attacks lately and they feel so scary and i dont know what to do. can anyone help me? they usually start because i worry so much about physical symptoms and as i think they get worse and i keep imagining situations and bad future scenarios but i cant stop thinkning and i dont know what to do, i am terrified

Hello, I am a part of another OCD community, where I frequently interact with others, provide information that I know of about the condition, including its treatment and recovery, and, hopefully, help them resume living, and even enjoying, the life they want. My condition, at its worst, was, according to the interpretation of my Y-BOCS score, "extreme", and that was, in fact, an accurate representation of how my life was at the time the scale was administered to me, being affected by the condition. Having gone through several unsuccessful treatments, before eventually progressing with the condition, and even sustaining that progress, I know just how helpless and hopeless the experience can be, and how that could all change, as long as the proper help can be secured, or, at the very least, the condition can be understood. One intention of mine is to help others achieve what I achieved, by helping them understand the condition, no matter how limited my knowledge is, because that understanding, along with its application, proved (to me) that it could help secure that sustainable progress (that I mentioned), along with any other necessary help, including those of a clinical nature. OCD is a very treatable condition. The common belief that "OCD and its obsessions are just something that you have to deal with for the rest of your life" is something that I know, now that my condition is subclinical, not to be exactly true. Nobody wants to be affected by OCD for life, and nobody should have to. If society and community, be it scientific, healthcare, general, or otherwise, can achieve a greater understanding of OCD, the necessary help that sufferers sorely need can definitely reach those very same sufferers at a more efficient pace, and I see the propagation of important and helpful information regarding its inner workings and treatment as an important first step. That is why I thought it might be worth joining this community, and if the community at large, or even just one person, ends up benefitting, then any time and effort incurred would have been well-spent. There is definitely hope, for those who are feeling hopeless with the condition. I urge you not to give up. Keep faith, and keep persisting.

Still got loss of attraction. Kind of bored now, but still scared at the same time ? Maybe uts because im desperate to become attracted again. Not sure. Anyone relate? X

Hello Im looking for some support/maybe people who have had similar experiences, but anyway, leading up to this fear/new set of symptoms, I was having panic attacks daily over another health anxiety theme, I feltlike I was going to have anaphylaxis from anything that late (despite me not having any confirmed food allergies), it got so bad that I would sometimes eat my lunch in the parking lot of the emergency room. Then I started developing agoraphobia, I started getting lightheaded in public and a general sense or being unwell even unrelated to food fears. Then suddenly I became easily overstimulated /getting sensory overload and when I looked up my symptoms and I saw that this can be one of the first symptoms of schizophrenia prodrome. It's been ALL downhill from there. I now feel spaced out (dp/dr) 24/7. I feel like l'm afraid of everything sometimes, I'm almost too afraid to watch tv because I'm afraid I will believe their talking to me or something. I'm constantly monitoring my own thoughts/listening out for voices. I feel like I'm not thinking the same anymore, I feel different, I feel like my thinking is slower, I feel like I'm constantly focusing on trivia nonsensica shit rather than the task at hand.sometimes I get extreme racing thoughts, yet at the same time sometimes I feel mentally slow. Im having really bad disorganized thoughts all the time, I have random phrases, words, songs that don’t make sense pop into my head all the time now, almost like the kind of random thoughts you get just before you fall asleep. I'm over analyzing every single thing. Any background noise that I immediately do not know the origin of triggers me until I know what it is and can confirm I'm not hallucinating. I just don't feel like myself at all, I feel a giant cloud in my head and feel heavy headed. I'm sometimes completely unable to think concentrate. Sounds stupid but I feel like I can't even play video games normally anymore, ill catch myself just running around aimlessly doing stupid shit, focusing on trivial nonsensical shit like I've never played a game before, I get distracted by random details now in a game l've played forever. Point is I feel like I'm not thinking normal anymore. I'm having EXTREMELY severe panic attacks multiple times a day now revolving around thoughts like "this is the lead up and im going to lose my mind", have to live in a psych ward, lose my wife, never be myself ever again, not be able to function anymore. I can barely leave the house at all, I feel almost afraid to be around people while I feel like this, I ALMOST can't even go to work anymore, but I HAVE TO because I get my health/mental health insurance through my employer, it's the only way I can see a therapist and psychiatrist and if I lost my job my insurance would be gone. Everytime I have a panic attack now I think "this is it!! I'm about to have the psychotic break!" Hoping this is just a result of extreme stress/just another health anxiety OCD theme. I was prescribed .25 daily klonopin to get me out of this episode but it doesn't really work, it takes away the panic but the brain fog/slow thinking/nonsensical thinking and inability to think clearly feeling still remains, and the worrying/obsessing about it still. Really need some support/kindness. I've been in tears over this. Extremely stressful and debilitating.

I just realised that the faith i had in God was i fairy tale to make myself feel good. I doesnt say God deasnt exist, i still think He does, but i dont feel so safe now... I believed that if im with God, if i serve Him, if i believe in Him, he will give me a good life(not an easy but a good life) and he will save me from horrible things... but i was wrong. I learned that God lets bad things happen cause He gave us free will. If something bad happens it doesnt means that he made that but he allowed it cause people do what they want. So i realized i can get harmed, killed, tortured by people cause God doesnt interferes with that...He doesnt enjoys it, he hates it, He suffers with me but He doesnt do anything cause of free will. So the "i have faith in God that i will be safe" is losing its value...We just went to the beach, the trip was 7 hours and i was so afraid that we will get into an accident. I said i trust in God that we will be there safe... but then i thought God cant interfere on free will so if someone will run into us then He just let it to be... So this fear doesnt go away, before it helped to say trust God and i will be safe, but now i know its not the case... i can get killed or die anytime, God will not interfere with it... I still believe in God bit now nothing can make this fear go away cause not even God can give me full safety... And no "the heaven will be better" and "maybe dying isnt as bad as we think" doesnt helps... my suicidal ocd just turns on... I understand the logic, why He doesnt interferes, but no mather how strong christian you are, you cant say anything back to "what if i die" cause God just lets it happen one day...

Like everything out there is so vicious it has yo be sexual, controversial, insane and every media out there wants to push that into our minds by force. I can't watch a movie or a show without to having sexual stuff in it, lgbtq, murder, etc which are things that trigger me so much and make me confused of what it makes me feel. I think that it can somehow change people's minds by repeateadly watching it they start wiring neural pathways to react to those things in certain ways or in the long run becoming desensitized by it thus scaling to more shocking stuff to be able to feel joy or pleasure out of what they're watching. Sometimes I don't even know what is the thing that arouses me in some sexual stuff that I stumble upon by mistake on media it sucks so much.

feel like if i stopped watching porn i’d feel like 50 percent better already. it makes me feel so guilty and i get so many intrusive thoughts. last night i couldn’t sleep at all bcuz i saw this video and it didn’t say the age of the girl or anything but i was aroused by it and she looked young. i hate myself sm. i’ve told everyone i’m gonna try and stop but after a day or two i just watch it bcuz it makes me feel less anxiety about certain themes but makes sexual intrusive thoughts so much worse. i used to be scared of porn because i thought i would go to hell if i watched it and now i feel like for the past year i’ve watched way too much. anyone have any tips on how to stop?