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Therapists make reassurance seem like the most horrible thing ever. When in reality for me...that’s the only thing that makes the thoughts stop for a very long time. Like months or sometimes even years, in a way ocd helps me get rid of it. Certain compulsions make me feel okay and safe, that’s why I do them . So I feel calm

i just want to cry. i literally had a meltdown in my room earlier today and another one in the car and i still just want to cry. everything is getting to be so much. everything around me feels so big and i’m just so tiny and helpless. my parents don’t know that i’m going through this and that’s making everything so much worse. they keep asking me why i’m so quiet and why i’m so down today and i just say that i’m fine and that it’s just a weird off day. it hurts me so bad to do this by myself, lie to them about why i’m sad, and cry by myself in my room because they don’t know about anything. i practically tear up every time they ask me why i seem so down. i’m just so sad. i don’t think i’m depressed or anything because this is the first time in a while that i’ve had a slump like this. i just think it’s an off day.

PLEASE HELP. I’ve feeling so low. Last night when this guy was hitting on me as I worked in the bar I had thoughts about being single etc. Afterwards I felt so guilty and horrible because I LOVE my boyfriend. He is amazing to me and an incredible person! But during the time the guy was flirting with me the thoughts didn’t ‘feel’ intrusive. So now I’m thinking if that happens again and I get those intrusive thoughts (if they are intrusive thoughts?!) I’ll do something to ruin my relationship and life! I should say before as well that before working my shift I do compulsions so that I don’t betray my boyfriend. As I have that massive fear that the OCD circles around. So I was scare to act the way I did, and during it I ‘felt’ like I didn’t bother etc and then afterwards I go back to feeling guilty and absolutely horrible. I know I’ve ranted but I really need some rationale. I don’t know what to do

OCD is draining me. Everything thought I get feels more and more real ?

(tw: pocd) ive spent the whole morning obsessing about accidentally becoming okay with the content of my intrusions that now ive stopped feeling anything when i think about my obsession. it's like. i know pedophilia is wrong. there's literally no reason it's not wrong. i also know know that im not a pedophile (i can't explain how...i just feel certain.) but now ive like,, accidentally condoned the content of my intrusive thoughts? like some part of my head has gone all philosophical and is going "yeah you aren't attracted to kids, but you used to masturbate when you were a child, and studies prove that everyone has, so why is the idea of kids being sexual bad?" (but obviously it is!! i know that!!!) is that also an intrusive thought? it's not something i personally want to believe, although i almost don't feel enough anxiety to convince myself i don't. so now im like intellectually freaking out, almost like this is my ocds last ditch attempt to throw me back into it

Why does it feel so real??

Lately I’ve had a pretty weird coping mechanism, whenever I feel overwhelmed by the anxiety my intrusive thoughts bring me, I’m imagining myself in therapy with my psychologist. She’s not even speaking or anything, I’m the only one having a monologue on how I feel about those thoughts. Is this a compulsion? Or I am just compensating for something, or even just a very imaginative person tbh?

(tw: pocd) i read on an ocd support blog that it's possible for people to become pedophiles after having pocd if the map community gets hold of them, and it's been a really big trigger for my ocd. not looking for reassurance, just to vent :/

❗️❗️❗️❗️Today I found out about compulsory heterosexuality and I think this is the biggest trigger I‘ve ever had for my HOCD. I read this: „Here are some examples of how compulsory sexuality may manifest itself and look for girls who feel unwanted and ungenuine attraction towards men: * I‘m too young/busy to have a boyfriend * I just have high standards, that’s why I don’t have a boyfriend * Everyone must feel attraction to girls or think that girls are hot, the way I feel towards other girls is normal for straight girls ... and so on...“ There were so much more that sounded horrible for my HOCD. These three sentences are exactly what I sometimes say, but I really mean it so, but now this „compulsory heterosexuality“ destroys all of my believes, now I believe I‘m lesbian and I‘ve lied to myself all my life long... I just want to cry and this to end Some even wrote on twitter „If you feel confused now write be, I will be happy If some found themselves in it and understand that their lesbian“ Who am I? Why cant this just stop

It’s so confusing when I hear lesbians say how they used to force themselves into having crushes on guys. What does that even mean?

how do people suffering with HOCD go in public? i get so nervous bc if i notice a woman is pretty i just use it as evidence to prove i’m gay even tho i would never ever want to actually be with them. i just had a mental break down at a farmers market and idk where to turn any more this just feels so real and i want it to end.

Hey everyone. I’ve been doing okay today. But I’ve been on twitter today and I don’t know if anyone has seen this but there’s a lot of people that speculate Shawn Mendes suffers from SOOCD. So I started reading about it and there’s a lot of people just laughing about it or saying he’s homophobic or closeted and it’s really stressing me out. I know I’ve said it a million times but it feels too real to be a ‘mental disorder’. How on earth can this be OCD and not just a sexual identity crisis?

TW!! If you have Pure O, for your own good, please don’t read my post. Just searched up "intrusive thoughts/images" on french websites and they said that they’re all connected to hidden desires. We’re back at square one lol I don’t know if I can live with myself if it is true and seeing my psychologist scares me even more.

I have been in a relationship for 3 years, almost 4 now, and I hate my intrusive thoughts. I have always had them since the relationship began, and now we have been making decisions like signing leases and planning vacations since we moved for college. I hate having the intrusive thoughts, I constantly worry that we will break up. Every time there’s a small argument I shut down because I’m just waiting for him to tell me it’s over. I don’t know why I get these thoughts, we are in such a good relationship, and he is the closest person I have ever had to me, we are best friends. Every time I think of the future he is always in it no matter what, our families love both of us, and we never even have big arguments. I will shut down though and blame it on him and then get depressed, and he feels guilty so he will try to make me happy and I ignore it just because I want to see how far he’ll go. It sucks, I hate being like that, I hate having constant thoughts that he doesn’t love me when he has never proven otherwise. When we sign leases I make up excuses so that we only sign the shortest lease possible because I’m scared we will break up in the time being. I don’t ever want to plan vacations because I’m scared we will break up before that time comes. I constantly think about how if he breaks up with me what all I will take (money, car, etc.) and how I can do it the fastest so I can be gone in seconds. I love him so much though, and the thought of even being without him kills me. But i’m so scared of the future, and the thoughts make it where we don’t have that many happy times anymore and we can’t enjoy things because I just get so moody from the thoughts and have these accusations in my head that aren’t even real. I do the same thing with my religious views, I constantly try to question God and whether he’s real, and I get so angry at myself. That’s how I’ve come to realize lately that my thoughts don’t need to control my life, because I believe in God with all my heart and still have thoughts like that. I try to not believe my thought, but it’s so hard to push the thoughts out, and I go spiraling. It doesn’t help that I’ve also been diagnosed with ADHD so I will push them out finally and 10 minutes I will be spiraling again and I forget that I was trying to push them out until I’ve already upset myself.

Hey! I’m a POCD sufferer and I was wondering if anyone who is doing ERP has any good suggestions for exposure heirarchies that I could take inspiration from? I’m starting CBT soon but I can only get it in a group and I don’t feel super comfortable talking about the details of POCD yet cos it feels really embarrassing. So far I’ve thought of going to the pool/park, or writing down my thoughts and looking at them, but my OCD really goes wild if I try to masturbate or if I feel aroused at all...at the moment I’m avoiding anything like that because it’s so distressing, but is that something I should do exposures for in the future?

Hey guys— I’m new to this. I’m not exactly diagnosed with OCD , but i do have severe anxiety. I first started counting my steps obsessively when I was young, very young actually. Then I began picking at scabs on my head and obsessing over dandruff flakes. My heart is racing just thinking about these...I did that as my anxiety worsened as I grew into my teen years. I picked at scabs on my body and then began to hate the scarring so was somehow able to stop. The picking was so bad my mom always told me , “Hands on your knees!” but then we laughed as we realized there’s stuff for me to pick at on my knees and legs as well. I just recently began to pick at my head again. My solution to that? acrylic nails!!! but then I began using tweezers and finding other ways to pick at them. I can no longer afford nor bring myself to get a refill every two weeks and i hate the glue on ones you get at a drug store. About three years ago I began plucking. OBSESSIVELY. When i feel a slight hair on my leg, my immediate urge is to pluck. I cant fight the urge. I have nasty scars and several ingrown hairs and it sucks because i’m very insecure about them...but i can not bring myself to stop. There’s been times where i’ve had to flip my room inside out just to find my tweezers and if i couldn’t, id freak out. I’d knock on my dads door and ask for his tweezers. Oh that’s right , i borrowed yours and don’t know where they went. Go to my grandmothers room, ugh these don’t get the grip i want. Oh well, i’ll go to cvs or walmart and get a new pair. but. it. HAS. to. be. now. NOW. otherwise I freak out. I recently downloaded this app and i’ve been doing good when i’m in public, i set the timer, do my thing, keep up with my anxiety level, but i often find that when i’m plucking , picking, or popping, i realize in my head ugh let me do the app but i can’t bring myself to do it! I just can’t guys. I feel disgusted with myself, I honestly didn’t even start bringing this up to anyone unless it was close friends until the last week. It’s been hard. It’s obsessive, it’s taken up my life for the past 3 years. I have calluses on my fingers from the tweezers and i’ve done it for hours and hours at a time, arched over, my phone plugged in and the flash light shining. I cant stop guys. i need some serious help that doesn’t require cold turkey. just thinking and typing about all of this is killing me. my heart is racing , my feet are rubbing together , and ughhh!!!! any advice???Does anyone else have a similar issue?!!?

So I posted before about feeling great and now I don’t again. Ironic. I’ve had this thought a million times but I can’t stop thinking why would I think and worry about this everyday for nearly 5 years if it wasn’t true? Sometimes I am shocked at the amount of time wasted because it doesn’t feel like 5 years but they’ve went by almost without me noticing. Probably not in for a good night

Please help I am a teenage girl diagnosed with OCD (pure O-HOCD) but recently I’ve been experiencing unrelenting doubt that it may not be HOCD and I may actually be a lesbian/bisexual. I am writing to get an opinion off of fellow sufferers to see if this sounds like OCD to you or just plain denial. Until these thoughts started I don’t remember doubting my sexuality or even thinking about it I always just assumed I was straight. I have had 5 major crushes on boys throughout my teenage years and that is all I have paid attention to. I was obsessed with them and would cry all the time because they either didn’t like me back or broke my heart. I was obsessed with Big Time Rush and One Direction when I was like 8-12 years old. I used to have hundreds of posters of Kendall and Harry and would imagine marrying them and having kids. This is all I wanted. However when it came to normal real life boys I didn’t see the craze. When I was 12 me and my friends would go to discos and all they wanted to do was to kiss boys. I didn’t see why to me it seemed disgusting I just wanted to go home and watch One Direction videos. One night when I was 12 years old during summer time (July) I was lying awake in bed and suddenly this thought just popped into my head “what if you don’t want to kiss boys because you’re gay?” I got this horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach I was terrified. I had never had a problem with lesbians I just didn’t share there values and didn’t think of myself as the same as them. This thought stayed in my head for about two months before going away because my anxiety started focusing on health OCD (I began having obsessions I had lung cancer and was going to die. ) Another reason the thoughts went away in 2014 was because I developed a huge crush on this guy on my road. He was 3 years older than me but I thought he was so cute and he dressed so alternative like me and I loved it. Over the years the thoughts came and went but I never really focused on them. I kissed 3 boys but never anyone I knew/really fancied so it kind of meant nothing to me. I had short relationships with boys. One boy asked me to be his girlfriend and I said yes. I thought I fancied him but immediately when I got home I got a disgusting panicky feeling in my stomach that I didn’t really like him and I had the urge to break up with him. I was in a 2 month not very serious relationship with the only boy I think I’ve ever loved last year. He broke my heart badly and it took my ages to recover. However the thoughts returned last summer and since then I’ve had them non-stop for the last year and they’ve been so much worse since I had them in 2014 when I was 12. I started thinking back to my childhood for signs. When I was 11 or 12 I used to be fascinated with looking at sports illustrated covers or girls in lingerie on Instagram. I remember getting some sort of arousal because I felt like what I was doing was forbidden and sexual. However I have no recollection of looking at the girls faces or wanting to kiss them, be with them, take care of them etc. Is this how lesbians feel? During my younger years I was also always that friend who was very possessive of my best friend. I admired girls in my school a lot and really wanted to be there friend if they were super pretty or popular. If they gave me attention or wanted to be my friend I would get this warm fuzzy feeling in my stomach however I never once wanted to kiss them, be with them, etc. This still sometimes happens today. When my intrusive thoughts came back I looked into my childhood memories and started thinking this was actually attraction and how could I be so stupid for not noticing. However it terrified me and made me cry. I didn’t want to be attracted to girls but I felt like I always was and being a lesbian for me was inevitable. I went to therapy last year and have been admitted to hospital. I have been attending weekly sessions in hospital for the past year and have been diagnosed with OCD and intrusive thoughts. However OCD is the doubting disease and I feel like the doctors have messed up and I might in fact be gay :( I am always testing my attraction. I kiss random boys at concerts and don’t feel aroused so I panic. I get turned on when girls finger themselves in movies or do anything sexual. I don’t want to but I can’t help it. The male body doesn’t turn me on as much as the female. I don’t want to be in a lesbian relationship though and I fear I will be unhappy forever if I decide to live this way. I have lost all feelings and attraction for boys I once fancied, celebrities I loved, or boys I felt in love with. I have never been obsessed with female celebrities the way I have with male. All my friends are having sex, giving blow jobs, etc and it all feels scary and kind of gross to me. Help I just want these thoughts to go away!!! I would love honest opinions in the comments if you think I’m gay or is this HOCD because honestly I feel I need to move on in my life this has been going on a year non stop. What do you think??????

I know this may look like I'm seeling for reassurance but I've been getting intrusive thoughts since May after my ex bf broke up with me but over time, I've not been feeling anxious over the intrusive thoughts anymore like I'm almost comfortable with the thoughts... Is this normal? These thoughts are completely out of my character.

I don’t want this to sound like reassurance, I’m just not sure. I’m pretty new to this and not officially diagnosed yet. But please can I ask- I am constantly thinking about this everyday, from the minute I wake up until I go to sleep. It used to ease off but not so much anymore. It’s not so much the original rOCD thoughts anymore (although they’re still there, I’m struggling to find them, I’m just feeling more lost and sad) but I’m constantly questioning is this OCD, or ‘I don’t have that symptom so it can’t be’ or ‘these therapists just want your money, there is no such this as rOCD’. I’m feeling sort of sad really- and my brain is telling me it’s my relationship but there’s nothing wrong with my relationship. Is it normal to be thinking like this, all day every day- is that obsessing? (I know this sounds like a silly question but my brain is playing all sorts of games with me at the moment!)