Kickstart your recovery journey with a caring community of others
working to conquer OCD
What can I do when a rumination is based in facts, but there is nothing I can do about the situation? My 10y/o step daughter has confided in me (and only me) suicidal ideation and hopelessness for several years. I tell her parents and they don’t believe me, minimize or take her to one therapy session or give her a new rx. She is constantly in trouble at school, bullies others, lies steals and I see all of it as a cry for help. They tell her to “be good” and “you know how to act” and she’s punished by mom or coddled by dad, but never HELPED. Every time I’m in her presence I can see and feel her anxiety and pain. I told my husband that to me it’s so intense it’s as if she is covered in blood and screaming at me for help, but no one else gets it. He rolled his eyes and told me to “chill”. He won’t even talk to me about it anymore and won’t do anything to help either of us. I have tried everything imaginable under the sun to deal with this, and now I am not able to be in her presence because it’s excruciating for me to see and know I can’t do a thing for her. If I try to speak up for her needs I am told to butt out or it’s “just kids stuff”…. She told me she wants to be hit by a car so maybe someone will love her. That’s not just kids stuff!!
Sooo my psychiatrist either wrongly or correctly gave me a med, Lurasidone (Latuda) for schizophrenia (though there could be a chance she just didn't understand shit about ocd psychotic like symptoms and thought i had schizophrenia instead) And my family is almost begging me not to take it The pharmacist apparently gave them a really sour glare when she looked at the medication before giving it and the side effects are many, dangerous, and weird (apparently can't take grapefruit) i wanna get better butbat the same time Don't wanna get worse because of side effects, especially with the multiple and scary ones there were
I want to own up to r*pe, I feel as though I done it walking home very intoxicated been over a year and still struggling been diagnosed with depression and always had ocd as a kid but thought i got over it because Ive never had a OCD diagnosis
Hello I have been struggling with ocd since I was 19-20 years old. I am now 29. At first I thought I was mentally insane and it was the scariest time of my life. I never have opened up to anyone about this stuff. Just suffered in silence. I still haven’t shared any of this stuff to anyone in my life because I don’t want them to look at me like I’m a monster. There’s just no possible way for me to explain that without sounding absolutely insane. My ocd has come in waves over the past 9 years. It gets really good and I think it’s gone away but then when I’m having high stress in my life it returns and I feel crazy again. Lately my theme has been thinking I have schizophrenia & looking up all the signs because my ocd has made me feel so crazily insane that I question if it’s even ocd or something else. There’s someone that I work with that I found out has schizophrenia and it completely triggered me back into a nasty cycle of ocd and scared me so bad FOR NO REASON. can someone please relate? I’m also in a relationship and they know nothing about this. I tend to isolate when I feel this way. I have also went through different themes the past 9 years. When I get over one & feel okay about it, another one appears.
Hey guys I haven’t posted in a while since I joined a bible college. Lately my theme switched and I am confronted with religious ocd - what a surprise, since its the most important thing in my life and I am surrounded by christians 24/7 atm. Since almost 3 weeks now I am struggling a lot with doubt and feelings of unbelief and its been making me feel depressed and burned out. The intrusive thoughts just rush in and I get negative anxiety feelings in my chest. I am so sad and just hopeless right now because I feel like my relationship with Jesus decreased a lot and I feel like I don’t know him. Any help would be amazing since nobody really gets how bad it is when they don’t have ocd.
sometimes i think it’s just the truth because my intrusive thoughts are not always „what if..“ or „do you want this or that“ but also „you want girls to like you!“ „you want to date a girl!“ „i feel like i want this.“ and so on… do you also experience intrusive thoughts that are not questions?
Hello guys, I'm new and from the Philippines. I'm a straight man 26 years old and currently in a happy relationship with my girlfriend of almost 4 years. I dont know if you develop OCD but I noticed earlier this year, specifically around April 2023, I develop my HOCD. I decided to myself that I am now ready to propose to my long term girlfriend earlier this year, thats when I saw a clip of a tv show that a husband is divorcing his wife because he was actually gay. That when my HOCD was starting to develop. I started to think the "what if" questions in my mind. "WHAT IF IM ACTUALLY GAY? WILL MY FUTURE MARRIAGE WITH MY GIRLFRIEND BE OK? WILL WE SEPERATE IF I AM ACTUALLY GAY?" And everyday when i wake up, one of the first things that I think is "what if im actually gay?" I also have scenarios suddenly created in my mind that I dont like, I notice small things that can trigger my intrusive thoughts. I am hyper aware about other males around me and start to have intrusive sexual thoughts. I am scared, I have nothing about gay people its just that I dont want to be gay Those questions earlier were costantly appearing in my head, and slowly start to build over time. And earlier this day, November 18, 2023, i was fed up with my intrusive thoughts and actually thought about commiting suicide to stop my thoughts. Thats when I decided that I needed help. I love my girlfriend and I want to be with her forever. I want to be her husband, i want her to be my wife. I am just scared that when I marry her, in the long run what if im actually gay, then i have hurt her and lied to her about myself
So this is a long story (as you're reading this i'm just about to turn 24 years old, i hope you can understand what i suffered from and please keep this confidential from this app only, it's a serious story but i really hope that i can trust you), but what happened was every since the spring of 2022, i had dealt with ocd-symptoms related to numbers. This condition is known as arithmomania, and i must say, i absolutely hate it. It is the worst thing that has ever happened in my life, everyday i've had constantly telling myself i got over it but the numbers kept getting worse. First it began with relatable cases people had such as the amount of times people touched a mirror, wall, handle, bench etc. but none of those were as bad as one thing which if anything worsened over time (which i had to post this to see if anyone can help about this). There was a time in the year of 2016 where i wrote a dumb email (which caused me to have began interrogated and i denied everything at the time) to a school that i didn't like because some guy threatened me at the time so i wrote a list of people's names, it didn't bother for years but then in august of 2022 it popped into my mind because of the list of people which i thought was "12", and since my mind didn't like that number for some strange reason, it kept bothering for various months that it interfered with my everyday life so then in late december 2022 i wrote an email (not an illegal one) and then there was something that wasn't satisfying so then i wrote another and then another and then another, then in 2023 i wrote over 50+ emails to one teacher, then the same lack of certainty happened to another teacher 50+ emails and then i told myself to just write 16 emails to a 3rd teacher in the same month of january 2023, but i accidentally forgot something so then i wrote 50+, however the next day just when i thought it was all over, it wasn't, and that's because in those 50+ emails (to the 3rd teacher) there was a specific pattern i didn't like which made it feel like "12" (the emails with "lists of people", which all included at least 13 people because i couldn't accept 12) . And because of a "insecured" feeling i dealt with with even the littlest of specifics of ocd-symptoms, i ended up writing for example 3 months in a row for a day, i wrote a few months later and then in Summer of 2023 and then lately in fall. And the purpose wasn't to annoy the teachers obviously, the purpose was get rid of the symptoms i dealt with. However, today (November 18, 2023 before 1am as i wrote this) what happened specifically is last month i wrote 9 emails but it was the span of two days so then i wanted to have written 5 emails recently this november but then because of a "short type of email" that was written in january and october this year, i wanted to write a few quickly in november but then after i wrote those i didn't realize but there was one that overlapped the earliest morning of february 1st. So the pattern i've felt hours ago is "january-february, october-november" (which is 2-2 beginning of year, 2-2 close to end of year) and those are during age 23, so then because of that and that i ended up writting 9 emails today in november, i've felt so angry at myself and my mind feels that if i write 3 emails a row (with a short email included at the least) that it'll disappear the symptoms but my mind feels that it would want to write at some point a few months in a row next year but i don't want to write to any of those teachers in a row because at close to an age of any typical grown man and i don't want to put myself in trouble. I don't want my mind to think something ridiculous such as "Oh but Dan if you write they aren't going to be in the same year as the 50+/50+/50+ sets of emails you wrote" I've come to the point where i CANNOT stand this and it seems like everytime i've tried to fix something it has just gotten worse. I saw a doctor/psychiatrist, all they did was placed me on antidepressants but they made it worse and i've had to go get alternate medicine for possible mold poisoning (that's another story) since it could've gone to my brain which my brother (who knows from experience) says it could have caused the ocd-symptoms. I apologize about this type of story, i don't mean to make anyone feel triggered but this is just how i've felt inside and i couldn't keep this in silence. I want to live a healthy happy and productive life and i should be happy that my birthday is in less than 10 hours but this has taken a toll and i regret having written more than 5 emails on november 17th. If anyone knows any advice on what to do given this stuck-felt type of situation, i would really appreciate your help.
Hello I’m new to this app and hoping to become a part of a community that could be a positive part of my healing process. I have contamination OCD that has caused me enough distress to drop out of college for a while to get my life back on track. I tend to do a lot of handwashing and have to be clean to a certain standard to do things like laundry or sleeping in my own bed. I have read online and have talked with a counselor about ERP and the idea of it does not sound like it should work to me. If there are some people willing to share a bit about the ERP they went through for contamination OCD I would be very appreciative. I also wonder how long before ERP starts to be effective. Thank you in advance to anyone who responds to this message.
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.
‼️TW: rumination!‼️ Hi guys. I’m someone who is holding a leadership position and I hate that every time I make a mistake — maybe an event didn’t go to plan because I misjudged a factor, or I did something that I realized later was possibly dumb and makes me look irresponsible— I ruminate on what others think of me and assume the worst. I know for the most part, people are very understanding because they know I’m in a stressful position. However, I want to stop caring about what others think of me and just let go of this expectation to be the perfect leader. I’m trying my hardest and I feel like this month, I keep messing up or things just keep on not going according to plan. I feel like I’m stressing over and over again because things just keep happening, and whenever that occurs I just zoning out in my bed and just staring off into space. I have such high expectations for myself that messing up feels like the end of the world, even when it’s not. 🥲 I want to ask how you guys accept the discomfort of mistakes and grant yourselves compassion?
I think I have somatic ocd I'm not sure but it's 1:27 and I can't go to a doctor or make an appointment. I'm getting scared of choking. I forgot a week ago how to swallow and lost the instinct. I barely eat in the day, but I try to eat normal food as an exposure. I know I won't choke but my body doesn't. I had a panick attack after eating like 7 spoons of rice and meat. It was all good until I started feeling again my throat very thick and like if there's a grain of rice. It really annoys me and my breathing is accelerated, I started feeling derealization. I need someone to calm me down. I won't go to work tomorrow, I'm so sleepy but feel like I won't breathe because of my panick attack. I'm alone right now
I couldn’t think of a title that wouldn’t be triggering, because even the word itself can echo into intrusive thoughts quite quickly. I want to talk about a difficult subject: suicide. PLEASE NOTE: I don’t want to harm myself. I do, however, have mild-to-extreme intrusive thoughts about it (which my psych agrees I can distinguish from non-intrusive suicidality). But off and on, and especially lately, my disorders (OCD-PO, ADHD-C, KLS) have affected my daily and long-term life to the point that I have more thoughts pushing me to beg and pray not to live. To have something happen to me in the dangerous city I live in. Stuff like that. (I don’t know the rules here enough to provide examples.) I could say so much more, but I fear the context might be endless. I feel that the harder I’ve worked on myself, and on life, and on what I’ve learned and been taught from experts and practitioners, the further away I’ve become from being a functional human being. I am depressed sometimes - but it’s now been determined to be a symptom, not a root cause. In my early to mid 20s my treatment focused almost entirely on it - and so I have skills to keep it at bay. But I feel like it really doesn’t change the reality: that I have exhausted my options and resources and that I will most likely be homeless unless I can find (or magically afford) more specialized treatment. My sleep disorder rules my life, and that’s mixed with ADHD to form a straight up oxidizer for the fuel that pushes my OCD. I have gone past anger, past frustration, past anxiety. I am now just afraid.
I’m worried because I was walking by some teenage girls today and I was trying to get past them and as I was doing so I sort of leaned in their direction and I sort of moved my hand in their direction like I don’t know if I just barely touched them but I feel like I was almost trying to. And now I feel like I should go back and see if they call the cops on me or like tell someone. Sometimes when I’m in public and get too close to people I don’t know if it’s me like dissociating for a second or something but I sometimes get an urge like a magnetic pull to be close to people and my body just moves until I’m out of the situation and consciously back in my body and mind. Can anyone else relate to this?
For three months I had crippling anxiety over ear worms and “forever” type sensations that made me think it would never end . I would repeat words and sounds through mental rituals over and over. Now that I am aware of the automatic rumination and now in therapy , I seem to be getting better. All of the sudden I had this wave of fear last week that I was irritable and going to lose my impulse control and “ go nuts” ,harm, or kill someone close to me and end up in a mental hospital for life. I have been thought blocking and trying to compulsively suppress these thoughts that are paralyzing. I also fear schizophrenia and that I will be delusional or somehow not aware of reality . Ever since last week I have had this severe sense of pent up energy that I cannot release and I second guess what my intentions are and if I will “lose control”. It feels like trying to suppress a panic attack. Now I wish I just would go back to the earworms! I am extremely ashamed and fear that I will lose control . Any help would be appreciated .
I had a session with my therapist today and I’m feeling triggered. We used a good part of the session making a pros and cons list about my relationship. My pros were about double the cons, and my therapist pointed out that a lot of my cons related to the fact that my partner has an anxious attachment style. She suggested we go to couple’s therapy. In my relationship I feel like I have a lot more going on as far as hobbies and friendships. I called my mom today and told her about the session and I realized that I feel too much of the center of my partners world. I feel so terrified and sad. I don’t want to let go of my partner. But what if this is just the way they are? What if we go to couples therapy and they are still dependent on me? My mind is a mess. I feel like I should be more grateful that my partner is prioritizing me so much but I wish they had more in their schedule. I feel suffocated. Please help.
Hey everyone, I was wondering if there were any people here from Morocco. I was thinking of maybe joining an existing support group or creating one, even online (if it's allowed to do so through here). The ways to navigate OCD or any other mental illnesses depend a lot of the cultural and social context (family, friends, work, local ressources) and I would love to be able to exchange with people dealing with the same thing. Sending lots of strength to everyone
It’s crazy how OCD can latch onto anything we see or hear. When my episode started back in early August it was initially HarmOCD. Then i joined the OCD Reddit group and read about someone else’s experience and it triggered POCD. Now that this has been going on for months, yesterday I got curious as to how this individual was doing, if he’s gotten the help he did for his POCD. Managed to find his profile and in his post recent post history he admitted to doing inappropriate things to a child. It was downright disgusting and disturbing and scared me. OCD did the whole “well if he didn’t really have OCD then maybe you don’t either.” I know it sounds irrational but I think my mind is only making that assumption because it was initially his story that triggered my POCD from HarmOCD. So now instead of the regular intrusive thoughts I’m now fearing consistently if I really have OCD, despite me having nothing to confess because I’ve never done anything to anyone but still. Anyone else ever have a similar situation?
If you are in crisis, please use these emergency resources to find immediate help.
OCD doesn't have to
rule your life