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I'm sick of feeling like I need to get this off my chest and confide in someone, but when I do nobody seems to get it and they just end up hurting me and making me feel more alone

I managed to control my real event ocd for about a few months and suddenly it came back I feel horrible

Disclaimer, I am diagnosed with OCD, GAD, PTSD, ADHD, Panic Disorder and hypochondria. I’ve been in the midst of what I hope and pray is just an extremely debilitating health ocd theme for about 4 months now, where I’ve basically convinced myself I am in the midst of psychosis or developing schizophrenia or a related disorder. I obsess over it day and night to the point where I can’t even function hardly. Constantly researching symptoms and seeking reassurance. Ive been having this weird symptom where my ear canal will randomly feel this pressure/ticklish sensation and I start to become hyperaware of the hole in my ear, and I get this weird tense feeling almost like I’m expecting someone to stick their finger in my ear or expecting something to go inside of it, this weird sensation almost makes me want to cover my ear but I never do. But when I get this weird ear feeling I get absolutely ridiculous crazy thoughts like “what if a demon is trying to get inside your ear” and I’m like WTF why would I even think of that, I don’t even believe in demons or religious stuff like that to begin with. I recognize that the thought is nonsense and FAR out of the realm of reality and makes zero sense.The fact that I would even have a thought like that to begin with scares the f**k out of me! I have never ever had thoughts like this before. YET now whenever I get that weird sensation in my ear I still get intense anxiety, why? Why do I still get such crippling fear from this ear sensation even if I don’t believe the thoughts? Why would my brain even come up with a thought like that in the first place? I’m so terrified of schizophrenia and psychosis, I don’t want to lose my mind ): I have a wife and so many dreams. I’m so scared of losing it. Has someone ever experienced anything remotely similar to this? I know this is very far fetched. I’m so afraid of losing insight, I’m so afraid of actually believing these delusional thoughts. The physical sensation is so disturbing to me and I don’t know why.

For 3 months I've been sadder more than ever I just feel so unhappy with my life and I feel like Don't want to live anymore when I go to school I feel like I don't have any friends and everyone's mean to me but I try to act nice and act like it doesn't bother me but it does I've been abused in the past but my family and bullied very severely at school for all my life I'm so sad I have a therapist at school she's trying to help me but I don't know if I should tell the truth because I'm afraid what she'll say on Thursday when I went to school I felt so sick and sad I didn't want to be there because I didn't feel safe I felt like I wanted to hurt myself and other people I know I never do that I want to hurt myself because I think it'll make me feel better but I managed to let it pass what should I do please give me some advice

Show them some love!

There’s always that sense of relief after moments of passive aggression in an abusive, toxic “relationship”.. Where you get into your spat and there’s no order. You become silent and avoidant but then you make it over that hump; making the rest of the day easier. It’s easy for me to breathe until the intrusive thoughts happen: “He’s only doing this because he wants to have sex with you. He’s not a good father. He doesn’t care about you or your daughter. This is manipulation.. the kids cleaning, the candy…ALL OF IT. You have to run or he’ll kill you one day all because you won’t interact with him. He’s going to hurt me again. It’s just a matter of time before he bullies me and taunts me and makes the house unlivable.”

Hi guys! I see a lot of you think being recovered from ocd means you no longer get intrusive thoughts, this is incorrect. EVERYONE (even people without ocd) get intrusive thoughts, being recovered from ocd means that you no longer allow thoughts of ANY kind (regardless of their content) impact your life. I hope this clears up some confusion about what life post recovery looks like; trust me I get a tonnnnnn of intrusive thoughts I just learned how to respond to them and live by my values as opposed to anything that pops up in my head. My mantra is remember: feelings aren’t facts and a thought is just a thought (don’t use these as compulsions though😘) Have a great night 😘💗🤭

So I have my own story. Kind of. Basically one of the characters (NOT mine, this character is from a book/show but I've changed them so much it's barely the character now), has a disability. I'm not sure why I made this so in the first place, but I did. It's been this way for a while, and I guess I classed this as angst, as I wrote loads, as well as maybe part of their character/depth. I guess this is sort of okay, because it is fiction. However.. 1) I feel like this has led me to romanticise these types of things. I understand why this might have happened though. 2) I feel like maybe I see it in the same way as I see like, I don't know, a part of their character almost like idk their clothing sense. I shouldn't. I don't want to romanticise, or even fetishise, this kind of thing. I get that you get angst and stuff in writing and that's fine but I'm not liking who I'm becoming about this. Does anyone have any tips? I feel like I should distance myself from the story and stuff but it means loads to me and I love writing it. I just don't want to romanticise and get desensitised to things that are serious. If anyone is going through the same thing or knows any tips I would appreciate it.

I just started therapy a couple of weeks ago and my therapist is a complete gem. I feel comfortable with her and think she's a great fit. As I'm sure many (all?) of you have done, she tasked me with filling out the fear and response list. I started on a good note but soon, the perfectionistic, "just-right" OCD side of me came to play. I have a total of 26 fears and responses in this list so far and have written, rewritten, categorized, uncategorized, combined, split apart, and done everything you could ever dream of over and over and over again (I want to add more but have been forcing myself to not even look at it). Thinking through my obsessions and triggers has made me unbearably anxious and is leading to a depressive spiral (and unhealthy coping mechanisms). My therapist said I could stop adding them, that I put enough info, but my brain is going 10 million miles an hour trying to think of how to make these things make more sense, wondering if I put in enough context/info, if I should add examples, etc. If I can't bear going through this first task, it feels like this whole process is going to be hopeless for me. Any words of advice?

Does anyone else obsessively check their email, especially when waiting for something 😭 I struggle SO much with this because I know that I don’t need to check it this much and I know that people are busy and things take time but when I’m waiting for something I can’t stop waiting and it’s just so frustrating. On a regular day, I check my email frequently throughout the day because the notifications bother me but also because I get overwhelmed if I get too many/if I feel inundated by the volume of messages. I remember once I was out with a friend and had been checking my emails at the table and then again at the bathroom and she even brought it up to our server and was like “can you believe this girl checking her emails at the bar” (she is a sweet loving bean, I don’t want this to make her sound insensitive, she was trying to be funny)…but on days where I’m waiting on something it becomes so. much. worse. For example, I recently interviewed for a program in India and they told me it’ll likely take about a week for them to get back to me, however I’ve been obsessively checking my email since immediately after the interview (the interview was yesterday). I can’t get it out of my head and I try to remind myself that today is a holiday, tomorrow is the weekend, and they still have to reach out to my references before I hear back, but it doesn’t stop me from checking. It’s so frustrating because it’s sort of paralyzing in a way. Like I literally will sit on my bed and scroll on my phone so I can check my email every five minutes when I know I should be and WANT to be doing something productive but I just feel like I’m stuck in waiting mode and I don’t know how to get out of it. It’s concerning because it interferes with my daily functioning and focus and quite honestly it poses safety risks too because I even obsessively check while driving. I don’t know what to do or how to work through this issue, it is something that brings me SO much distress and I just really needed to vent about it. Please please please share if you have any experiences of this what has worked for you in decreasing the feelings of paralysis and the need to obsessively check even when you know nothing will have changed. I greatly appreciate anyone who took the time to read this. Thank you 🤎

If anyone just wants to talk, and hang out, I’m here! Come on share some hobbies, make some friends, and hang out!

There's someone I previously had a relationship with, we were only 15 so not a very mature/deep one and it only lasted a few months. I broke up with them and they were very hurt by it, and later shared posts online about how upset they were and then blocked me. I feel really guilty for hurting them and for not being honest about why I ended it, because essentially at the same time as being with them I was building feelings for my current boyfriend and we got together only a month or so after I broke up with this other person. I feel awful and like I was cheating on the other person, and I've been searching for them on social media and eventually found one of their accounts. It's private but I feel like I really need to apologise, but I'm worried if I request to follow they'll remember me and get upset again. I'm pretty sure my urge to apologise is a compulsion, but I just hate thinking that they don't like me and hate knowing that I hurt them.

Hello everyone! Recently I’ve felt and have proven to be conquering OCD, but in my last therapy session my therapist stated that if I want to be who I want to be I will have to address my childhood SA trauma. She says I have OCD and it’s influenced by the trauma. In that therapy session I learned that for me everything is connected. But it makes me so sad, I thought if I can get these thoughts under control everything will be fine and my anxiety will subside. After that therapy session I haven’t done ERP practice. And I felt like I’m forgetting my responses to thoughts. Im leaning into compulsions more like all my progress has been “deleted”. I just want a path like a step by step process. The thought that I have is “if I do these steps and instruction then I’ll get to a place of peace.” I thought I had one but now I feel I can’t see one anymore. Has anyone had to maneuver through both OCD & trauma? If so any tips?

i’ve been struggling with overthinking and overwhelming thoughts for a minute now , about a year and a few months ago i was doing decent in my relationship with God still struggling in indulging in things I wasn’t supposed to but I eventually started to get closer. Ever since I professed my belief i’ve always had that thought “ i need to do this “ and of course as believers we have responsibility but this was something that would eat me up. Say I missed a day with reading my bible it’s like i would go crazy. I’m a senior in Highschool but I really began overthinking bad in the summer of sophomore year I was so scared I wasn’t saved so I would be stressed out , saying different prayers , professing my faith in God over and over but it wasn’t for that beneficial reason… I was scared. So at the beginning of my junior year I had a thought to spread the gospel on my campus but the campus im on has college students so I was at a university. This is where everything went down for me I had just finished a different work ( from which I think was God ) then this one appears in my mind. I was truly scared , growing up I had a fear of man so this wasn’t in my comfort zone but I still wanted to accomplish it. When the time came to do it I would back out every time and get more and more discouraged literally and my faith was there most times , most times i trusted in myself and sometimes I just couldn’t do it. I texted many brothers and sisters in Christ about this but i feel like there was more to be done , one gave me an idea but i asked for some tasks to get to the point of that task which was evangelizing or preaching on campus but the task weren’t so small to me. So the more I didn’t do this other thing more things would come into my mind and then came more fear , anxiety , overthinking etc. Talking about it right now still confuses me because I always get works ( works or responsibilities of believers) but it’s like God is throwing them all at me. I sadly had a classmate pass in March and it upset me but it’s like I couldn’t even mourn the first thing that popped into my mind was “ do this “ and my thing is a lot of the things i’m being told to do sounds like God or something he would tell one to do and that summarizes it really idk if i’m just disobedient in general or if i’m misunderstanding everything I didn’t even read as much once all this began I don’t feel as if I have that true relationship with God anymore but like I said Maybe my obedience put me here. Please respond with any advice or if you relate.

Disclaimer, I am diagnosed with OCD, GAD, PTSD, ADHD, Panic Disorder and hypochondria. I’ve been in the midst of what I hope and pray is just an extremely debilitating health ocd theme for about 4 months now, where I’ve basically convinced myself I am in the midst of psychosis or developing schizophrenia or a related disorder. I obsess over it day and night to the point where I can’t even function hardly. Constantly researching symptoms and seeking reassurance. Ive been having this weird symptom where my ear canal will randomly feel this pressure/ticklish sensation and I start to become hyperaware of the hole in my ear, and I get this weird tense feeling almost like I’m expecting someone to stick their finger in my ear or expecting something to go inside of it, this weird sensation almost makes me want to cover my ear but I never do. But when I get this weird ear feeling I get absolutely ridiculous crazy thoughts like “what if a demon is trying to get inside your ear” and I’m like WTF why would I even think of that, I don’t even believe in demons or religious stuff like that to begin with. I recognize that the thought is nonsense and FAR out of the realm of reality and makes zero sense.The fact that I would even have a thought like that to begin with scares the f**k out of me! I have never ever had thoughts like this before. YET now whenever I get that weird sensation in my ear I still get intense anxiety, why? Why do I still get such crippling fear from this ear sensation even if I don’t believe the thoughts? Why would my brain even come up with a thought like that in the first place? I’m so terrified of schizophrenia and psychosis, I don’t want to lose my mind ): I have a wife and so many dreams. I’m so scared of losing it. Has someone ever experienced anything remotely similar to this? I know this is very far fetched. I’m so afraid of losing insight, I’m so afraid of actually believing these delusional thoughts. The physical sensation is so disturbing to me and I don’t know why.

Today I completed one of the hardest exposures I’ve had to do in a long time! I still had a ton of thoughts and since this was a planned exposure I had a bit of anxiety beforehand (the medication helped a ton) but I got through it and leaned in! I want to remind everyone that ocd isn’t only intrusive thoughts, it can also be intrusive images, sensations, feelings etc., and as scary as they are you can conquer them with uncertainty! I understand it feels so scary accepting the fear but remember you’re not AGREEING or CONDONING it, all you’re saying is that thought is ok and you can continue on with your life. I’m also writing this as a reminder for myself. To keep going even when it feels like ocd is winning, it’s not, it just wants to make me feel that way. Have a good night everyone !! 💗🙌

I’m at my new job for almost a month and BOOM! This spiral I’m in is paralyzing and I can BARELY function. I want to run. I want to hide. I want to scream. I want to cry. All I can think of “I need to call my Psych and get on some meds. I can’t do this. I don’t know why this is happening. I need meds!” This job, great hours, pay, location, people, everything. I’ve been dealing with this since beginning but in drabs, sporadic panic and I’ve managed it. Today, FULL BLOWN PANIC. Tunnel vision, I’ve forgotten what I’ve learned, I cant even speak, everything is slowing down in my mind and cognitive functions. Over 40 years this has been happening. OCD specialized tells me I’m not OCD. I’m soooooooo confused. I’m just sick to my stomach. Thanks I must go back and face 26 people to check them in face to face. I am so burnt in this ANXIETY. Sorry for rant. It’s all I can do

I genuinely concerned. I have relationship ocd and see all these posts more so of partner focused, it being attracted to other people. I don’t have this at all. All my ocd is relationship focused and I’m starting to think it’s not ocd anymore!! Every single second I feel like I want to or should break up with him. I don’t feel that spark or infatuation and haven’t since the beginning. What if we just aren’t a good match? Even though he thinks we are. He’s my first healthy relationship. I feel sick. I feel like I’m prolonging the breakup because I just don’t wanna be alone or hurt him 😢

I have OCD around believing everything I do in life is a show for other people. It’s as of I lost the ability to remember if I decorate my house so beautifully because I like and want others to like it to, or if I decorate my house because I want others to like, and maybe even feel a jealous of me (weird I know.) ots not just decorating my house. Its the car I drive, the way I dress, & putting makeup on. I am known for throwing beautiful thanksgiving and christmas dinners. My table looks like it came right out of better homes and gardens. It really is beautiful. The food is exceptional and the display is always beautiful. I am afraid that I do it all for the attention and praise and that none of it is for me. It scares me so badly. Im dreading the holidays for the first time ever because Im so afraid of this thought. Can anyone else relate to this type of ocd? Thanks!

I am having a terrible time sleeping. I was up constantly and the moment I open my eyes I get an anxious belly, racing thoughts and adrenaline rushes. Sometimes I’ll have diarrhea (sorry for the tmi, but thats how upset my body gets.) It’s terrifying. I have to talk out loud to myself saying things like, “it’s ok, you’re ok, theres nothing you need to do, nothing you need to figure out, you are safe, etc.” Often times Im up for the day anywhere from 3 - 4 a.m. because my mind wont shut off for me to sleep and my body wont calm down for me to sleep. It is so discouraging, & so defeating to start every single day like this. It feels hopeless. Im terrified Im not going to get better and the thought of having this continue on is unbearable. Does anyone have experience with this? Did it get better? I just started taking clonazepam at bedtime for anxiety and i was hoping it would help me sleep through the night but it doesn’t. I also started lexapro (5mg) on Tuesday. Also, did anyone have success with 5mg lexapro? Thank you!