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Anyone else struggle with this theme? I feel like I’m going crazy Anyone give me any advice?

I need some advice or maybe just some words of encouragement. I’ve been struggling which seems like I am all the time. But the “ocd” thoughts are breaking me down more and more each day. And it’s about to be September which means it’s almost been a whole year of struggling with the same thing. And I mean that literally. I’ve struggled with mental health my whole life but I’d have at least a good amount of time where I wasn’t necessarily struggling. You know I had somewhat of a break. But this hasn’t missed a day. I can never tell if I’m getting “better” or if I’m just putting on a happy face. I need to get a job soon and I’m extremely scared to. Scared of being triggered or making a horrible mistake (which i wouldn’t even consider a mistake knowing I had a choice). But I also know that I’m supposed to face my fears or nothing will change. But I have. I’ve faced my fears here and there. And never have they become less scary. So I end up staying at home where I’m more comfortable. Which isn’t necessarily true because I still feel the anxiety and the hopelessness even though nothing is really happening in the moment. So I’m stuck. Do I face my fears and potentially make it worse or do I play it safe and not hurt anyone and still potentially make it worse? Second option sounds better to me. But I never know the right answer to anything anymore. I’m going out of town tomorrow with a part of my family who isn’t extremely close to me but they know of my mental struggles somewhat. And I’m very scared and I have such a horrible anxiety in my chest. A person will be there who I’m scared of me hurting and I always try to stay away from them. I won’t have any escape if I go (as in I won’t be able to leave or go home if I’m feeling overwhelmed). Nobody but one person knows what my true fear is and I don’t plan an telling anyone else so it’s hard to explain myself to other people about what I’m going through. I just need some advice on what to do. Am I taking too big of a step by going or should I force myself to? I just feel like because it’s been a year of feeling this way I should force myself to or I won’t get better. I don’t know what to do. I’m in a constant state of panic in my mind and it’s getting exhausting living this way. I don’t feel like I’m living. I’m just simply surviving.

Anyone explain to me how the science or theory works for ocd/irrational thoughts to be so believable? Like, if they are irrational and so anti-who we are, why do they feel true? Why do we believe them? Is it because we lose our ability to prove them wrong? And so we assume there must be some truth? Be really keen to hear what others think? Or link me to someone that explains it?

I think I've been going through what is POCD for some time now, but an old event a few months ago made it worse. I was playing an online game and noticed someone in the chat said "I want to say I love you but I shouldn't". I hadn't paid much attention to the actual context and thus decided to message back "just tell the damn man you love him", thinking that this other person was simply having a problem with saying "I love you" being gay. The other person responded with "So I guess you think it's okay to tell 16 y/o's you love them??". I froze up, unclear of how to respond, and could only respond with "guess that joke didn't fly well" All I can think about is how my intrusive thoughts added up to the situation and how I seemingly acted upon them, and that it was shameful for me to only notice this months later. I shouldn't have said anything but yet I just had to. I then quit playing all multiplayer games, and rescinded my former game wiki administration roles. I can't really move on and I keep worrying about what others would think of me if they found out what I said. It certainly hasn't made my senior year of high school any easier and I feel great distress whenever I have to interact with someone younger than me. I fear that any interaction I have is inappropriate, even if it's as simple as making eye contact or shaking hands after a tennis match. I also find trouble with scrolling through social media. It also sucks that I'm gay as well. I feel like the internal voice of "hey, that guy is cute" only fuels my anxiety as I then wonder "hey, that's somebody younger". I'm only 17, but I feel like I'm just an evil, irredeemable person. I worry even more that this is only the start. I don't want to be this person and it feels like I've lost all my morals and my moral compass has gone haywire. Trying to blame it on OCD seems like a copout but I don't know what to do. I wish I could go back and stop myself from saying anything.

My thoughts and body sensations have become overwhelming today and my head hurts so much, please, why can't I just brush these thoughts off

How do y’all deal with the concept of sexual fluidity?

Hey so basically I’m struggling with having a desire to pursue in the healthcare department. I’m okay with doing other extracurriculars, it’s just that I’m upset that I can’t appreciate wanting to go to Harvard. Like, my mind wants to appreciate, but when I watch videos about it, I think my anxiety is kinda telling me that I don’t actually want to go to Harvard and my mind has also been thinking about other schools like wanting to get into Stanford or something. But when I think of Stanford, I get a little bit anxious and my mind is like “well what about Harvard?” I’ve been starting to not press my anxiety’s buttons because anytime I try and watch videos about harvard, it just kinda gets a hold of me and I see this anxiety as a boundary, even though I would feel better if I could appreciate wanting to go to harvard. I haven’t told anyone else this because I feel like everyone wouldn’t understand and they would just tell me to think of another school, but the thing is, I don’t WANT to think of another school. The same thing happened with choosing a major, I wanted to pursue in neuroscience and it’s like my mind flipped the switch one day and was like “hmmm I don’t want to” but I kept on pushing it because I want to settle and stuff, and later on I started to appreciate it again and it made me feel better and stuff. I’ve been trying to do ERP and it’s kinda hard cause I just think that the anxiety is some boundary and it pushes me away from doing ERP even more. I also feel bad about asking God to help me out because I think I’m being ungrateful and I kinda feel bad and stuff. But He knows how much I want to go to an Ivy League—especially Harvard. I at least don’t want to stop thinking of Harvard and such, and this is just making me not feel good about the future and I feel like it’s at a bad timing. I’m hoping that God can help me out because my mind is seriously set on going to a prestigious school, of course I’ll think of other schools, but I just want to get into a prestigious one. I’m also worried—yet again, that my therapist just won’t understand how I’m feeling (she’s a school therapist), however so far she hasn’t said anything that invalidated me or anything so I think it’s just my anxiety acting up. These past few days have been what I think is considered normal, and I’ve been feeling a lot better now that I’m doing more things, I just tend to avoid this subject because my anxiety acts up and pushes me away from this topic.

TW: OCD-hoarding We are likely moving in the next few months. We are in the process of buying a home, but this market is crazy, so we won’t believe it until we have the keys. We also don’t know when we’ll be moving because while our closing date has been listed as 8/31, we know the sellers do not plan on leaving till mid-September - late-October. Talk about embracing the unknown and dealing with change! I have so much to pare down. I’ve struggled with holding onto too much my whole life, but have been really working on it. My partner has even mentioned how much progress I have made. However, he just went through all the crates above the closets in our large living room alone. He just threw out or mistakenly recycled all of it. While there were a lot of things I was looking forward to tossing myself and thought would be motivational for me to discard, there was also all of our camping cookware. He claimed that just because there was dust on it that I hadn’t used it in 10 years. When I saw him cleaning all the empty crates, I asked him what he did with the camping gear. I didn’t even press him on getting rid of my tea or the things I wanted to discard for my own motivation. He claimed there wasn’t any camp gear. I finally got him to admit it was in the recycling bin. I had to go through the recycling bin because even if I just bought all new camp gear to replace things, I knew so much of what he put in there wasn’t recyclable. He then told me I was being a lunatic and a trash person. I tried to calmly explain that this felt like a big break in trust, and that that tends to make it harder for me to purge things and definitely harder to let him help. It then quickly escalated and I meanly yelled back too. So now I have two trash bags and a bunch of dirty camp-kitchen equipment with me inside a room where I have barred the door. I refuse to let this break in trust stop me from purging. I will still toss all that I meant to, and now I must also toss things that have been ruined by being out in trash bins in the rain. But I just don’t know how to make this all work with my partner. It’s like we make progress both in paring down and in being able to trust each other and work together, and then he boils over at “my stuff” and trashes things I actually use. He also keeps telling me he thinks I’m oblivious to the piles of stuff I need to pare down, despite how often I’ve confided that they eat away at me and more so knowing that they aggravate him. I don’t even mention anymore that he actually made many of these piles by taking my ADD-type of current project piles and tossing them and his things out of the way throughout the years as quick fixes for when company came over. I had already come to terms with the fact that I won’t know where everything for a while, maybe even until moving in because he’s been “helping me” by just boxing things. But these setbacks between how we work together are breaking me. I am already so stressed by many good things. Next week a new and very packed semester starts for me with 5 courses, the start of student teaching, and a quickly approaching deadline to complete work from an Incomplete last semester. I am having so much trouble moving on my schoolwork, and I know part of it is that I am so stressed, overwhelmed, and feel so guilty for all this STUFF. Thanks for letting me vent. And suggestions would be absolutely appreciated. I know there’s a way out of this hole, and I know I am strong and smart enough to get out, I just don’t know how, and I guess that’s ok. Peace, strength, and comfort to you all. ☮️💪🏼💜 Doggo snuggles to those who would like them. 🐶🧡

How do I know if I didn’t actually like a thought? Because I feel like I actually genuinely liked it, like no question or anxiety or anything in the moment.

Any tips on breaking mental compulsions? I’ve been in ERP since January. I have stomped out all my physical compulsions but I’ve really been paying attention and I’m hanging on to some mental compulsions.

Can OCD cause intrusive body reactions like let's say, you get an intrusive thought to press something you really don't wanna, and your finger feels like it wants to press it and it freaks out the individual. Is that possible?

So basically I decided to reach out to the girl over Instagram and apologize for the incident. It was just really eating at me so I thought it was the right thing to do. And she left me on seen 🥲🥲🥲. Now my anxiety has been peaking like “what if she’s now planning to ruin your life” or “what if she’s telling all of the people you mutually know and ruining your life over this incident.” As selfish as it sounds, but it’s what it I’m worried about. I’m trying to keep my cool but it’s already unfortunately been a sleep away the whole day kind of day for me.

I’m new here and to be quite frank I don’t have ocd as a diagnosis yet. I have a big problem a while back with anxiety and depression and already at a young age I had problems with obsessions and compulsion, the first ones were bacterial and washing my hands wiping after the toilet until it came blood because then I thought I was “clean”. Either way I also had a little of harming thoughts both about me and others. But I got help and that therapist help saved me, because I didn’t have severe thoughts for like a lot of years until recently when I started watching like crimes and I.e murder and killing series and movies. The thoughts started, like “would you kill someone” how and who. “Could you eat someone, would you like to” (i.e cannibalism and even the most disgusting one that really distressed me if I could have sex with a 💀person” which I would never EVER. And then a bit of pocd as well, “are you attracted to younger kids” “do that and that to a child/baby” it’s so crazy and disturbing for me. Im sounding like a complete psycho and believe me when I say I’ve done all the test online for it and it shows no indication what so ever. Also have a huge problem with sickness and diseases and washing my hands too much. Sometimes it’s so hard I get panic attacks and cry myself to sleep but sometimes it’s when the most gruesome thoughts come I’m “okey” with them and that really MAKES ME FEEL CONVINCED that these thoughts are desires and stuff like that. What do you guys think? I am in therapy process so already a step ahead but please tell me I’m not a serial killer or phedophile. I also made a pact that if these thought “were” true I’d rather kill myself then act on them. Thank you for reading!

Has anyone with ROCD managed staying in a relationship with their partner who cheated on them? He seems genuinely remorseful but I have previous trauma related to cheating with both my parents and previous relationships. Struggling with anxiety and rumination now.

Idk why but I am not feeling myself, I feel like I can't control this all anymore and wanna cry badly but can't cry. Everthing feels so heavy, (not trying to sound dramatic) but I really wanna hug someone tightly and brust into tears...

So I'm pretty much at the point where anything sexual is too triggering for my anxiefy one way or another. What sucks about this is that I have a lot of trouble stopping sexual acts. I believe I have a sex addiction and I can't seem to stop doing sexual activities even though I try to several times. I'm really worried that my neighbors heard me when I engaged with this behavior and I feel embarrassed or like a bad person even if it's such a normal human activity. Then I get a worry that someone younger may have had heard me and that's really messing with my pocd. In the past this happened and I was actually heard but I was too embarrassed and said it was something else but I wasn't this anxious about it before but now I am. Bad things always seem to happen when I do this but I can't seem to find success with stopping because I'm so used to it.

I don't know what to feel anymore. Loads of times I'm around my mum I feel what I'm going to call groinal responses, but they feel real. Whenever she makes any little noise it annoys me to no end, but also leads to these groinal responses which don't make sense. I don't know if they are them or they're real. I love my mum so much and would never want to do anything weird. I just don't know what's going on. I don't like it.

What are some highlights or wins against your OCD today?

Does anyone else really struggle to do their erps? When I do it with in the therapy session I can do it but when I’m doing it in my own I just can’t bring myself to do it The thought of doing it makes me feel sick Does anyone else get this?

I've got a horrible urge to search up CP and I don't know what to do. It feels like I really want to do it. I can't tell if I want to do it but it's telling me I want to and that I'll like it and I'll never enjoy anything again until I do it. How do I prevent myself from doing it, is this is a sign of ocd and how can I distract? I'm scared I'm a pedo but I'm perhaps more scared that this thought won't go unless I do it or that I'll do it because of ocd and then go to jail.