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Hi, I am chloe and I have had OCD since I was 10 years and younger. I am 18 years old now and 2019 has been the worst year of my life, my OCD has reached new levels which have given me extreme anxiety and depression this year. I have every OCD theme you can think of and i am on a lot of medication to help me get through the day. When I was in high school I got bullied and this affected my OCD a lot, it’s made me anxious in social situations and I can’t trust a lot of people. I have basically no friends because of how badly bullied I was and I am now at college studying animal care and wish to talk to people on this app to get a better understanding of OCD and I want to hear other people’s stories too. I haven’t got CBT yet but I am getting the help I need soon. I have got a loving boyfriend that I couldn’t live without and has gone through the worst of my OCD with me. Please comment below and tell me about your OCD and where you are from! ❤️

I’m petrified. I keep thinking that I’m all alone. That nobody else is real, including my family, friends, all of you guys, my therapist etc. It’s just me. I can’t love anything and nothing can love me back. It’s just me. I want to cry. I can’t live if it’s just me and everyone else is fake in this ‘simulation’. I simply can’t.

I’m due a smear test tomorrow. I’m also getting std testing because my relationship anxiety makes me constantly paranoid i had a std I didn’t know about (despite always having clean results) which would result in him thinking I cheated when I didn’t, and leave me. I’m more worried about the std result than the smear. Basically my man leaving is scarier to me than cancer

Any tips or advice? I’ve reached a mental hurdle I can’t get past. I’m struggling to see a way past this, and whether this is OCD but it’s the first thing I think about when I wake up, I’m constantly searching for something to make me feel better. The latest obsession has become OCD itself. The waitlists for therapy here are quite long (I’m on them) or I could pay a lot to see someone privately. I’m taking medication too. I’ve watched all the videos and read loads-but I guess I’m looking for advice as to where to go from here? How can I get some relief? I want to feel normal again!! (Just as an FYI-if you haven’t already guessed lol- I’m particularly suffering from rOCD but any tips would be great)

So i’m new, i’ve had OCD my whole life, but i’m experiencing a new subset that i’ve only really encountered a few times before. I’ve become very fixated on the world ending, even though it won’t happen for another 5 billion years or so. My fear of dying is definitely part of that, even though I will obviously be dead by that point. My main problem is thinking that at some point, the sun will explode and literally destroy everything that i have known. Every atom in my body will be detached from one another and relocated. My world will not exist in the mind of anyone, because there will be no one. It will be quiet. And not only those thoughts, but others regarding how small we are. The universe is apparently infinite and every effort i make to understand it triggers me until i have a complete meltdown. My life does not matter in reference to anything outside of our world. Im having a lot of trouble with pushing these intrusive thoughts away. My stomach drops whenever they come and makes me physically sick and extremely depressed and anxious. I’m in treatment and on medication but I have yet to discuss them with my therapist and psychiatrist because of time issues, though I do have an appointment. Has anyone experienced this too? How can I deal with intrusive thoughts?

Is anyone experiencing existential OCD as well?

i shared all of my symptoms with my therapist and she has diagnosed me with HOCD. however, i keep having this doubt and keep saying to myself that i lied to her when i know in my heart i didn’t. idk what to do rn im so sad i feel like im living a lie but when this all started i knew that i had HOCD but now i’m so del in it i don’t even know what is real anymore.

Anyone have any good tips for resisting the urge to ruminate? My compulsions are mainly reassurance seeking and ruminating and while I can resist the compulsion to check something on my phone, it’s really hard to resist ruminating, because ultimately, the ruminating is just thinking thoughts, which we all know we can’t control.

I hate thinking my past will always come to haunt me or that I need to confess things to my mom to get relief rather than just using my own judgment. The what if’s really kill me. 3 years ago I used to fool around with a guy from my old job and we would do it in the car sometimes behind a shopping center. My parents now have my car because they had to sell one (I take the train anyway to work now). Rational thinking me says it was 3 years ago and if you were to get caught you would’ve already. OCD me is saying no there are cameras everywhere and I will be called by the cops. Or some disease or germs is left over in my car and now my parents will catch it because they are using my car. Not something i want to confess so I’m keeping it inside but it’s making my ocd and anxiety run wild. At the time I was fine but years later I think of things! The guy I fooled around with jokingly made a murder suicide threat when I was annoying him once and I went to HR for it because my ocd got so bad from that comment. I also obsess he taped us or will expose me to my parents for revenge even though I haven’t heard from him in 3 years. Haven’t even thought about this for so long idk why I randomly remember things and get frightened. It’s like I have some intense guilt amplified from my stress (moving back home, breakup, starting new job)

Hello there. I haven't been on here for a while as I have been free from my ocd. However the last few weeks I have had it creeping back. A person who I thought was a friend turned out to be absolutely vile and has preyed on my ocd to try and make me ill again. She has told friends about my ocd who never knew about it....fortunately these friends have looked it up and completely understand. My ocd wont however let me stop thinking about what she said to my friend and I am obsessing about this horrible vile person and what she has said to others who dknt know me that well. It is bringing my 'p' ocd to the forefront of my mind again. I know it is my thought processes but throughout my life I have always worried what others think about me and this person knew that. She has lied and lied and has said I am this terrible person with a black heart. I know I am certainly not but I still cant stop worrying what she has said to someone who hardly knows me. I know this shouldn't bother me but it does. Is this my ocd working overtime? She said that people laugh at me and call me loopy louise which I know they dont but I really dont caring they do because I laugh at it to. But because I had the very disturbing paedophile thoughts she said to someone that I think I am a peado. This friend told me straight away and has since fallen out with this awful person. But I cant stop thinking about this constantly and what others might think who dont really know. This person I have since found out after 25 years of knowing of her has actually been a terrible person to her children when they were growing up and stole thousands of pounds off of vulnerable people. I dont know why this is bothering me as all of my friends who care about me know about my ocd and understand. I just cant seem to get this horrible person out of my mind. It didnt bother me until she tried to bully me and then sent all of the texts I sent her years ago when I divorced my husband. He told me he knew she was nuts but it bothered me when he said she said some disgusting and vile things about me. This has so upset me. Just wondered if anyone can give me any advice . Btw my ex lived with my ocd for years! Thanks for listening. Just need some support from others with this horrible disorder. Xx

Sorry in advance for long this post is going to be but I need to get it out because I can’t stop crying and I don’t know if it’s triggering or not but I’m gonna put the warning just incase. I already know today is going to be the worst. I woke up multiple times in the night last night and even half-asleep my head was just constantly racing. I wasn’t even anxious I was just lying there wishing it would shut up. But the worst part of it is the lack of anxiety. It sounds so paradoxical but I WANT the anxiety and the panic because then I know something is wrong. At least if I’m anxious, I can do something to make me feel okay again. Anything is better than this weird, empty hollow feeling I have because no compulsion is going to help me. There’s no anxiety there to relieve it’s just complete nothingness. And I know I’ve said this before and everyone says it but that whole problem makes me think this can’t be OCD, there’s absolutely no way. As for the sexuality thoughts, I feel pretty much done. I am sick to death of thinking about sex and attraction all the time. I’m sick of it. I don’t want to see another man or another woman ever again right now. Saying this scares me because I read other SOOCD posts and nobody ever seems to say it but I’m going to say it now even though I’m at risk of someone telling me it’s not OCD - I have no interest in the opposite sex anymore. I just don’t. In fact the idea of boys petrifies me now and I don’t want to think about it anymore. I know I used to fantasise and have celebrity crushes (even though I literally can’t remember what it felt like anymore) but it doesn’t happen anymore. Even though literally yesterday I walked past a man who smelt nice and smiled to myself because I remembered how attractive a nice smell is for a man. I literally want to be alone for the rest of my life because of this. I want to be by myself forever now. I’m 20 years old and I literally feel broken beyond repair. Sorry to go on for so long but the last thing I feel is that I literally don’t know who I am. I don’t know if this is derealisation or depersonalisation, I don’t know but I don’t feel connected to my body, I feel like my voice isn’t mine, the person in the mirror isn’t me. I absolutely sob when I think of the fact that other people have their own perceptions of me. Because of this I cut myself off from everyone except my closest friends, removed all pictures from social media, unfollowed 90% of people and removed them from following me and I hate going outside simply for the fact that other people will see me and may think things about me. The way I see things now is that my home is my only safe place. I kind of want to delete all this because I feel so stupid and selfish and like everyone’s gonna roll their eyes but I’m just scared and just wanted to talk I suppose.

- Extremely low risk sexual encounter 7 years ago that was SO unlikely to transmit HIV. - The person was my boyfriend, we were 16-17, even more unlikely to have HIV. - 7 years with no symptoms. - 2 BioSURE HIV tests with negative results. - BioSURE has a 99.7% accuracy rate. - Negative results are 99.99% accurate and considered conclusive at 12 week post possible exposure. Yet here I am still terrified I have HIV. What the fuck?

people who have taken xanax/benzos/etc help!! maybe, just maybe for now, i’ll be getting a little while’s worth of anxiety medication (something that calms me down immediately) to get me started in school without a shit ton of panic attacks. now, the base of a lot of my fears and anxiety in this case is vomiting. im afraid of doinh it, feeling nauseated, and im also afraid that it’ll happen somewhere inconvenient (which is about anywhwre away from home at this point) now, i started erp exercises for this yesterday, and i wondered if erp exercises help and has lasting effects if you did it WHILE on anti anxiety medication like xanax, or if it just comes back to slap you in the face when you wean off the pills. anybody tried it? pls tell me how it worked out for you!

Does anyone else struggle to fully believe it’s OCD? I’ve read everything (blogs/websites/articles), watched the videos etc and everything pin points to this being OCD. (Everything sounds like me- almost textbook) But still my brain says ‘no, it’s not that, you’re just trying to convince yourself it is’ or ‘there’s nothing wrong with you, you’re just done with your relationship’. Suckkksss!

I'm so hopeless. I have no one to talk about this, so I come here to vent about everything that has been on my mind, haunting me daily. Since I was a little girl, I've dreamt about my prince charming. I grew up with this in mind, but I never got in a relationship, as I've kept my heart shut, as I've dealt with melancholy and social anxiety. People scared me, and I wanted to make things right (on the way I saw fit for myself). Things got better, I grew up, made some friends. And then, on January, hocd came and changed everything. The fact that I watch same sex porn, and that I have never been in a relationship messed me up so bad. And amongst many thoughts, many what ifs, so much uncertainty, one thing is rock solid. I don't see myself with a woman, it doesn't feel right. Even the idea of being bisexual feels foreign for me. I have nothing against people who are LGBT, but that's not who I've always seen myself. And suddenly, that's all I can think of. Nothing else matters, I feel uncaring and cold. I feel like I'll never find a guy that I love, that im just now finding out that I'm LGBT even if I don't want that. I feel awful, and everyday I think about dying. If this thought crossed my mind before, I'd be so appalled by it, but today I'm pretty serious about it. Hocd is killing me little by little, and I'm crying as I write this. My mind tells me I'm in denial, that I'm just afraid of people's reactions, and that once I accept it, I'll be alright. But I don't want that, I simply don't. My mind doesn't work properly, I can't remember how I used to think before all this, but I remember having dreams, imagining scenarios of my "prince charming", of a future that made me cozy and happy. All that's in my mind now is torturous doubt, that feels so real.

I’ve tried to tell my grandma how bad I feel, that I’m scared that I am a bad person and she tried to reassure me by telling me "as long as you don’t have thoughts about harming people then it’s okay" but I do have very bad intrusive graphic thoughts/images and since then I’ve been feeling even worse. I don’t know what to do, all I’ve been doing since our call is thinking even more about it, reading every pure o article ever written and feeling very anxious when I don’t have the same symptoms as a diagnosed person. I feel hopeless, my brain is literally trying to kill me. I know I’m not supposed to be reassured but I just needed to get that out because I can’t say anything to my family and friends, and it’s driving me insane. I’m so scared of my own mind.

So before I begin, I want to start by saying that I have never been formally diagnosed with OCD. I’ve had plenty other mental disorders, such as depression, anxiety, and ADHD. But I want to know if anyone has experienced something like this. So my problem is this, I’ll become very enthralled with something in my head that i find very rewarding and satisfying, a thought or a feeling, and I’ll fantasize about it, not be conscious about it for awhile, and everything’s good. Until, after some time has past I become incredibly aware of the fact I think these thoughts a lot, and the doubt starts to set in. For me, it’s usually like, “what if these positive feelings and thoughts go away” or “what if they arent all that great to begin with.” This realization triggers a drastic emotional response, one that can take days or weeks to get over, and I begin obsessing over the thoughts and feelings, trying to turn them into something positive again and feel them the way they were. At this point I’m extremely anxious and I respond to this be trying to completely my thoughts, emotions, actions, and words. I become obsessed and try to control my thoughts and feelings, trying to force every thought and feeling and not giving it a break. Each thought or feeling must meet the standard of the original positive thoughts when I wasn’t completely obsessed with them, and this can’t happen because they’re forced, and the forced thoughts harbor all the negative emotion associated with them obsession. So those are my current things I’m dealing with. Thank you for sähe

I started reflecting on everything I’ve been through and accomplished in the last 2 1/2 years. I felt stress since life is up and down but also really good in this moment and realized wow i don’t even remember the last time i had intrusive thoughts, anxiety or uncomfortable gut reactions. Of course the next few days i could feel it creeping back into my mind and body and i’m fixating on “what if i would be happier with someone else?” “I should leave”, “maybe i will leave.” Then come the images of me splitting with my husband to be with some other guy i’m friends with and whom has a girlfriend and i’m married. I have gotten to the point where i have excepted my OCD it runs in the fanily and ive had it since i was very young and belive it was induced by my childhood tramas. I am feeling guilty now, i know love is a choice my husbnad abd i are going on 3 years at the end of the month and we have our highs and lows but never anything bad. I am just feeling gross inside and know i need to go to counseling but i just had a counselor steal money from me and i’m dreading finding a new one. I am okay but these feelings of what if with another person are frightening me sometimes when i’m around this person i have thoughts like “I think he likes me” and then i get nervous. I honestly think he may like me in some way we have a lot in common and he likes to talk to me but the whole ROCD, magical thinking, or maybe this is really happening is really bothering me. I’m not looking for reassurance or help I just needed to vent, but if anyone else is in the same boat or have experienced anything like this feel free to share. Thanks.

I want to cry. I want to die so bad, this isn't worth it at all. I have hocd, but I don't even know at this point. Maybe I am bi or lesbian. Maybe that's what my mind has been trying to make me accept for the past 8 months. Maybe I'll simply never be happy, because that's not who I want to be. It never was. Maybe this is just denial, and internalized homophobia. I'm just so, so tired of this.

Hey everyone, I’ve already asked this previously but no one answered so I’m giving this another shot! I think I may suffer from ocd but I’m scared to reach out for help for various reasons. This is a question for people suffering from pure O, do you have to tell your therapist what your intrusive thoughts/images are? I am really scared of my intrusive thoughts and I can’t say anything for now but I really need help.