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Do y’all think lexapro (10mg) can help with this , especially with some therapy? , I’m still worried though , what if i’m just bluffing and not worried about what I really am..

Dunno if it's boredom, depression, or just not being in the mood but I just don't find video games that fun anymore. They most of the time upset me more than actually make me feel like I'm having fun. I don't know what else to do with my time. Anyone else get this?

I have severe acid reflux and I haven’t been eating recently due to pseudo-dysphasia. But I had crazy chest pain and burning today at work that radiated to my back. I don’t know what’s a real sensation anymore or something created in my head. I have been is so much pain today that I broke and gave into the compulsion of going to the ER. Well shocker it didn’t make me feel better. Have had hundreds of tears done on my body and to see how my heart is and they say my heart is really healthy. Why can’t I just live and not convince myself that I’m having a heart attack .

Whenever my mom thinks I’m trying to argue on purpose, that makes me think “what if I am?” “What if I’m just a baby who can’t take what she said”. I feel scared. I just disagreed with her when she told me not to wash my clothes with my work clothes because they’ll smell bad and I disagreed because she’s never said a word about this for years but two years before she told me not to wash them separately because that’s wasting electricity. So, her shutting me down by saying “don’t argue with me” makes no sense to me but at the same I feel like “does this make sense though? What if I’m just an asshole to her?” Then before she got irritated with me when I was about to throw away expired lemonade but she was the one who yelled at me by saying “if you’re not having it just throw it away!” Like I honestly don’t know what she wants me to do anymore!!!!! Sometimes when changes their mind or something, I keep feeling like “what if I’m schizophrenic and I just thought that had happened” or “what if I’m crazy” or “why am I upset by this? What if they didn’t change their mind and I’m just thinking something else” My parents getting irritated with me makes me feel like I’ve done so much wrong and I end up losing my motivation but that makes me feel even more gross because I’m not bothering to wash the dishes now..

so my intruisve thoughts have been more quieter, and not rumiating and do far less compulsions and far less time of doing compulsions. However the false attraction and the thoughts are still there and feel very real and impactful. Like my mind likes to call me gay and it feels very real but i feel zero distress or anxiety and when it calls me gay or something like that, it feels like the truth and ive become ok with it, but i dont want to be gay, according to what im typing. I tried to respond to it as,"this too shall pass," or,"just intrusive thoughts" but it feels like im lying to myself when im saying that now im doubting my own intrusive thoughts. And false attraction still feels real like im numb to it.

I don’t know what happened but I feel like my OCD is back and I’m crying because I’ve been doing so good and now I feel like all of a sudden it’s back and I don’t want to go down this path again because it was really dark time for me and I was doing good like and I’m getting my medicine switched and I started a new one tomorrow but I don’t know I feel like there’s a spell on me. I can’t go through this again and I am crying I just I can’t go through this hell hole again and I really need help in advice to say strong during this because I can’t do this like I can’t do this again I can’t I hate how my brain is like so mad and just yells at me like I have to think about this in order for her to go away like no I don’t want to think about it but if I don’t think about whatever it wants me to think about, it’s like gets louder and louder in my head, and like the more urgent, feeling of having to think about it, in order to go away, I know it’s OCD I know it’s OCD and then like what if it’s not OCD like no if I don’t wanna think about something obviously it’s OCD it’s OCD it’s always OCD whatever my brain wants me to think about and it gets louder and louder. It’s just it’s OCD bro it’s OCD, I think I am going on a spiral and I just really need help like I’m tired of my OCD wanting to think about things and then saying it’s not OCD when it’s literally OCD

If theres a catholic out there I would appreciate an answer: Are we allowed to criticize saints? What do I mean? When I was younger I was in my opinion very naive and I didnt really know that I had ocd. Now where I am a grown up and I know that my issue has a name namely ocd I started to think things through differently. When I look at saints like St.Padre Pio I always find things in their lives which seemed kinda unhealthy in a spiritual way. I was always amazed by Padre Pio but he seemed very strict and I think growing up with scrupulosity and reading a lot of the saints lives it didnt really help me to get a healthy understanding of religion. I always think that Padre Pio was angry with me when he knew what I think about him that I think a bit critically now and try to distance myself from strict religious views etc. For me that is one example I could tell a lot of others where I dont agree anymore and I feel bad for it.

Okay.. let me start by saying I’m in a VERY committed relationship of 11 years.. and I’m Absolutely not interested in another person. But at a my job, I sell some rocks that I paint.. and this guy expressed interest in buying a custom item I make and asked if we could get coffee discussing what he wants.. eagerly, I said yes, wanting to sell my art, with it going right over my head that this man is asking me out, so I gave him my number eagerly wanting to sell my art, but as I did, I realized that I shouldn’t be and immediately regretted it.. couple days later he texted me, and I informed him that I’m in a very committed relationship ship and wouldn’t be interested in anything romantic, he said that he wasnt either and is only interested In a friendship… great, I thought… not great.. he’s been texting me relentlessly, and showing up to my job almost everyday, and it’s making me very uncomfortable.. I don’t know what to do. I’m so afraid that I was wrong to my boyfriend, or just scared that im leading this man on, even though I made it clear I wasn’t Interested, or afraid he’s going to attack me in someway.. If I would have just had the freaking balls to say no to giving him my number, I wouldn’t be in this situation. I’m so afraid, I want to change my number and quit my job.. how should I handle this??

After trauma I developed harm ocd with the worst kind of thoughts and I am in an existential crisis, its been 1.5 half years like hell for the first year, now I can read books and do sport but the thought doesn’t leave me and I can’t find the strength to just accept it because it’s awful. It’s hard for me to meet friends and act nonchalantly. When I am not reading I feel just depressed and that I don’t want to live anymore. It’s a hard daily fight what can I do more?

I am so embarrassed because I have a substance abuse disorder that no one knows about. This time last year, I was going through a breakup. I started hanging out with new people. They smoked weed. I started smoking. A bowl a night. It was the first time in my life I ever felt real peace, real contentment. I guess it wasn’t ‘real’ but I mean that my mind was bearable and I was happy. I felt more able to engage with people. I started smoking before seeing people or with people every time we hung out. I always wanted to be high. I started smoking before class. My grades suffered. I suffered. My anxiety and depression and self shame grew, it feels now the worst it’s ever been. I want to quit but at the same time I’m terrified of getting through this. I don’t know how. There were several times this semester I got high or drunk at random times a day just to feel a sense of ‘joy’. i also have a vaping addiction. this isn’t who i want to be. but i feel like it’s all that i am im so lonely but i don’t get real with my friends anymore because my thoughts scare me and i don’t trust my thoughts or see them as valid because the reason for my breakup was how much i suffered with sexual orientation OCD. I really thought I was questioning my sexuality. I loved him so much. I was so scared there would be a reason I couldn’t be with him. Growing up, I was religious so I was taught homosexuality was a sin. I was not attracted to girls (and didn’t understand why that would be a sin) Nonetheless. I had a best friend who came out to me as gay and in love with me. I started worrying about it, little thoughts, around this time. At first the diagnosis was encouraging It meant there were explanations for this But now I just don’t feel like I can trust myself at all Because it derailed my life before I just know two years ago/every other version of me would be so sad to see where we are now. I have very little hope for myself.

I always thought I would never go for a big muscular gym guy who is into economics/stocks and have actually rejected a person in the past for having similar interests and not feeling like I clicked. But my bf has those interests and I mostly have gotten over it but sometimes I’m still afraid it makes him a certain type of person even tho he doesn’t fit the stereotype. But like I find his job super boring tbh and I am into art and don’t really care about economics and stocks. I feel like this is more of a normal relationship issue but just wondering if anyone relates with that. I think it’s probably not that big of a deal but sometimes it still gets to me

Hey everyone! I’m new here and thought that it might help to get my OCD story off my chest. My intrusive thoughts are so bad that I never want to talk about them to anyone so maybe that’s why I’m here. When I was 13 my grandma was in the hospital. She was my best friend in the whole world. I imagined so much life with her. I remember pulling into the hospital one day with my Dad and immediately knocking on “wood” (the car door) to help put me at ease about my grandmas health before going in. I knocked on wood because everyone knows that’s what you do when you don’t want something to happen. I didn’t want anything bad to happen to her so bad that all I could think about in that moment was something bad happening. So I knocked on wood. It made me feel better so I kept doing it whenever I had bad thoughts. But then it going confusing. If this was helping ease these thoughts, why was I starting to have these thoughts more frequently? 13 year old me didn’t understand what I was doing or why these bad thoughts started. It had got so bad that I was knocking on wood every second of the day, every surface I came across that felt right, and if I didn’t I would force myself to turn around and touch that surface. I would have to knock on wood 8 times every single time but the 7 would have two knocks because the word 7 have two syllables. But then the 8 times wouldn’t be enough, I still wouldn’t feel satisfied so I would do it again and again and again until my entire day was overpowered by intrusive thoughts or knocking on wood. My family and friends started to notice, asking why I do it. I would always avoid the question or make a joke out of it because I couldn’t tell them these terrible thoughts I was having. I was so deeply afraid of something bad happening to the people I love the most or myself that it was debilitating. A couple years later I noticed how bad it had gotten and wanted a change. So I forced myself to stop knocking. I would tell myself angrily that nothing bad would happen if I don’t knock. It took me a lot of convincing and small steps to realize this, but it worked. I got better. I went to the doctors office at about 15 and told them everything. How I did this but how I solved this. They told me it takes great mental strength to be able to fight something in your brain like that. I have always been so mentally strong but hearing them say that made me feel so much better. And I was better. For years. Yea I went through times when it was bad again but it was so much better. The past couple years it has gotten worse again. I noticed that it gets worse when my anxiety about things is higher. New changes, new people, new things. Now, at 21 I won’t let myself get back to the point I was when I was 13, but recently I can’t seem to keep the intrusive thoughts out. I am so terrified of myself or someone else getting hurt of getting older that I put the whole toll on myself. I am so so so happy with my life right now that I don’t want anything to change. That is why it’s been so bad recently. Life is amazing which is why I only want it to get better and I’m so scared something might get in the way of that. I realized after talking to my friends that I never want to say my intrusive thoughts out-loud because I believe strongly in speaking things into existence so I only speak good things out loud. That’s how I’ve always been. But when I talked with my friend she said she’s the opposite, she says the bad things out loud because then you jinx them and they won’t happen. Her saying that gave me a little peace because it made me realize that it’s okay to get these things off my chest and that saying these things out loud isn’t so serious, it’s not life or death like I thought it was. Honestly, the weight of getting my story off my chest has already helped me feel a little lighter of a load on myself.

Well the title explains it. It’s so hard to have religious OCD, with other subtypes in general. I’m a devout Catholic, and I pray to God, Jesus, Virgin Mary and other saints. There have been times where I’ve prayed and gotten signs from them that have made me feel happy and at peace. However with this demonic disease, I would often look back and say God told me this about my future and it would cause a great deal of anxiety. I would often cry and complain to myself saying why is God doing this to me. I’ve explained it to all of my family members and they all say it’s not God, and that it’s just me. I would feel and get fleeces that God is saying this will happen or this won’t happen in the future and it’s very stressful and straining. I even got a vision from my guardian angel once, and even that gets questioned. I don’t know what to do anymore. I would constantly get mental images that makes me think it’s God and it’s gives me stress. It’s so awful

So for the past month I’ve been throwing up after eating. As time has gone on I’ve done it more regularly. I’m scared though that I’m just doing it for attention and there’s nothing actually wrong with me. I don’t necessarily binge it’s more so I eat and if I feel any bit full I force myself to be sick. It’s been happening almost every single day. When I feel full I feel like I’m getting fat and I get terrified of gaining weight. My OCD is making me feel like an attention whore. I’ve told my mom and my boyfriend. And my mom is very upset and doing her best to help. Same with my bf. I keep thinking my poor mom I’m just doing this to get extra attention. But I’ve done it for a while and only just recently told her. It’s almost like I feel accomplished when I’m hungry. And I feel good about it. It started last November. I had been excessively working out before a group cruise to be in shape. After the cruise I lost motivation but didn’t want to gain weight so whenever I felt full I would make myself be sick.

i'm trying the maybe maybe not method but i keep getting hit back with anxiety and the what ifs 😣 what else can i do 😢

I guess I’m really wondering if anyone else is experiencing this or has gone through something similar. I hate feeling high or drunk. I highly dislike the feeling of being out of control of my body. I am constantly scared of eating at my mom’s house because both her and my brothers living there partake in marijuana usage (which is perfectly fine!). But I am scared it somehow gets in my food. That’s how it started around 2 years ago. Since then, this has progressed to concerns with food spoilage or cross contamination. I am a trained food safety expert for over 10 years. I worry I didn’t wash my hands good enough after handling raw chicken and I’m going to give myself food poisoning. I actually rarely handle or eat fresh meat because of this fear. When I do it’s a complete anxiety attack for a good 24 hours. I worry and throughly inspect all fresh produce for signs of mold. Then cook it and wonder if I somehow missed it. So I started taking pictures of it to reassure myself. Also I worry someone will poison me if I get food at a fast food restaurant, either by accidentally drugging me or intentionally. This has progressed to now being scared in public restrooms to set specifically my phone down on the toilet paper holder because maybe somebody put their drugs there. It will get on my phone and I’ll touch it then eat and become high. I wash my hands probably 15 times a day on the low end, they are cracked and bleed frequently. I don’t even know what to do. I’m so sick of living with these irrational fears. Just wish I could live normally.

I have been off my main cuts of help for a little over 1-2 months now and I've gone bonkers in my relationship ocd problems. One is I ran to my partner's house confessing all my thoughts all my little actions about it. They seemed angry but still I knew a part of them understood i didn't cheat. But my brain is in such pain. It just keeps playing scenarios with random people like romantic ones with anyone and just keeps saying "you could have so much fun being single" "you could date anyone" and it makes me feel guilty I don't know what I want anymore I just am so confused. I love my partner. I want to be with him. So why is my brain sending me this? It also just keeps replaying all my old thoughts and everything within it just all my intrusive thoughts from years ago and making me feel bad. I feel like I'm on trial idk what to do. I feel hopeless, it's caused me to feel s**cid** and I don't wanna be a burden on my family and him. Side note, I just got back on Zoloft after going cold turkey for 2 months.

I want to know if this is something not right. Is there something wrong with me. My mind wants to think about our existence all the time. Almost like depersonalization or derealization. And it makes me feel like I just don’t want to be here. I am seeing a psychiatrist. And on medication. But he’s not specialized in OCD. Is this something I’m not alone with?

Is it normal for someone to end up questioning their wants when they have vivid harm thoughts?

My changes all the time, or I’ll get loads at once at the moment it’s death and the feeling and thought of I’m going to die soon and it’s so scary and feels real I hate it it’s giving me panic and anxiety where it feels like I’m being choked I can barely sleep I can’t eat it’s awful, anybody had this and is there any tips to get out of it?