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I woke up feeling super off and now I just can't control ym thoughts and I'm spiraling and freaking out I think I need someone to talk to

Dr has prescribed me Lexapro for ocd until I can get in to see a psych eventually, I’m about to start therapy in January aswell…. Was just wondering if anyone has had positive experiences with Lexapro? I know everyone is different, so maybe I could just ask for anyone who has found a medication that works for them, I just wanted to know a thorough explanation of how it makes you feel & how it has helped with your intrusions/ocd… I am quite nervous to try it because of side affects and fear it’s just another trial error phase…. I have quit smoking pot and going to stick with taking it same time every day where as in the past with 2 previous meds I was still smoking and not having a routine with when I took the meds. So obviously it didn’t work properly… can someone just give me a bit of hope, please?

I’ve been in a relationship for 1 years with a smart, funny, amazing woman. There’s a two year age gap, I’m 28 and she’s 26. We met on tinder, so I knew her age and hobbies before we met. She could pass for 16 quite easily, although I could pass for 18 as well. The problem is, people give us looks and reject us at restaurants and bars all the time. Just yesterday we went for dinner, it was an “order at the bar” place so we waited at the bar and while everyone coming up was getting served, we were ignored. Finally the girl working there said “we can’t serve kids at the bar” and looked at my girlfriend. Another time someone asked us to fill in a questionnaire about our experience at a mini golf place. He asked how we were related, “Sisters??”. We said no. He asked ages and I said 27. He said “no way you’re over 20” then looks at my girlfriend and says “and this child?”. She even got ID’d at the cinema a few months ago for a rated 15. It makes me feel violently ill. I see her as her age, always have. My friends and family have never said anything about it other than we both have “baby faces”. I deal with intrusive thoughts about everyone and everything but the POCD ones are the ones that control me and lead me to hate myself the most. Has anyone had a similar experience with a partner? I’ve also found her own family speak to her like she’s a child and it creeps me out even more. They’re very controlling and aren’t happy she’s even dating at all. Only this year did they stop tracking her phone. In their house, there’s no locks, not even on the bathroom door. They message every hour or so asking what she’s doing. I feel for her the most, because I’m insecure about one of her insecurities. Isn’t that fucked up? This is a woman with a masters degree and a full time job.

I cant live with myself every day im riddled with guilt and shame My boyfriend and i were messing about and he was doing stuff to me and when i tried to reciprocate he said “not today” because he said “hes wearing jeans” and then he said “theres not enough space” but i was like no its fine we can go to the back and i was like “take your jeans off” then things escalated even more and i asked if he had a condom and he passed me one and we had sex BUT i felt like i was so pushy about him taking his jeans off so i messaged him in the evening and apologised incase i was and he replied with laughing faced and said “no youre fine 🤣” But i cant help thinking im a rapist and i couldn’t live with it- i would never want to hurt my boyfriend i love him so much Please someone give advice

I feel like I’ve gotten pretty good about not letting the intrusive thoughts take over during the day, because there are things to do. I can let it scream in the background while I go about my day. But at night when I go to bed…this obviously gets more challenging. How do you guys handle intrusive thoughts at night? Do you guys have an evening routine that helps relax you? Since ruminating is my primary compulsion, this can be difficult for me. Maybe I should start doing a nighttime meditation every night to help me fall to sleep?

hey so im currently suffering with what i think is pocd and false memory but i just feel like i haven’t heard of anyone else going through exactly what i have which makes me think is it actually false memories or have i done this awful thing before and my brains just trying to block it out ? i’ve recently had to leave my job because of this i was working in a school but was coming home on a night time and going back on my every footstep each day convincing myself i had done some awful things and i really couldn’t take it anymore, im so scared to be by myself incase i convince myself i have done something and when my brain tells me i have i cant help but believe it and the more i go over and over the situation the blurrier it gets which convinces me more something bad has happened and i must just be blocking it out even though deep down i know i have not i think it doesn’t help either that i dont have an ocd diagnosis so i constantly say to myself what if its not ocd and ur just trying to convince urself it is it all feels like a never ending cycle to me and i really cant see a way out right now, how am i ever going to know for definite i didnt do these horrible things ? i also think this all stems from my fear of being away from my family and prison and the fear of prison and being away from my family overtakes the fear of being a horrible person which is the main thing im struggling with today because i am constantly saying to myself what if you dont feel guilty about the thing you think you have done your just more worried about prison does this make sense to anyone has anyone been through something like this 😞

Has anyone intentionally gone without friends? My friends have decided to dump me without an explanation and I just don’t feel like going out of my way for people right now. On the one hand I do have some projects I can work on with the free time I’ll have but on the other hand I worry I’ll become cold, cynical and mean.

I often get images of disturbing things in my head rather than having a fear that I’d do something to someone else. Does anyone else experience that? Like I’ll have a flash of people’s privates and then it sends me into a panic and I have to move quickly 😞

So I’ve been trying to no longer desensitize myself from animal cruelty (That being said I understand this is privileged and some people only can afford/eat meat for whatever reason) BUT I grew up NEVER eating meat or fish or whatever I had dairy and eggs sometimes but my mom had ethical issues with eating dead animals and so she passed down those values to me Now that I know cheese and eggs come from the moms of those who are killed at slaughter houses I don’t know if I should be a full on vegan or not BUT mainly right now my OCD brain is telling me kill my own dogs since their food has meat in it and so for the greater good to save more animal lives I need to kill them And it also got worse for a second and said to hurt my mom as well since she feeds them I don’t want to hurt anyone I don’t want to contribute to the meat industry I WANT TO SLEEEEEEP any advice?

I have this special event this month in wich i wouldnt be near My boyfriend Thing is that today i was like joking with my boyfriend about a girl that told him to "smile more" in the last camp he had, after that another friend of us told me "imagine You have to sleep with her un this camp and she tells You to "smile more", the context of that, is because i was jealous because she gave My boyfriend a note that said "smile more" and her Instagram :(, i'm scared that might mean something and that it might come true.. like, what if what he says is like a prediction of the future..???

In the summer, my apartment became infested with fleas because of my neighbor. I will also admit that I had no idea I was supposed to give my cat monthly medicine for it so she got fleas too. The whole situation was awful and I ended up terminating my lease because of how poorly it was handled but I’m still struggling so bad with thinking everything is contaminated including my cat. I ended up moving in with my parents and they had fleas in the house for about 3 weeks since I had to bring my cat to their house. After moving in, I took my cat to the vet and was told she didn’t have fleas or any signs of fleas and I haven’t seen any in over 2 months. I’m still convinced they are there even though they aren’t. I’ve also just developed a phobia of any household pest that can infest. I don’t want to go to wooded areas or hotels in fear I’m going to get lice, fleas, or bed bugs. I check every black spec of dirt and I have eczema on my legs that inspect as if they were bites. I don’t know what to do because I’m in a constant cycle of being convinced the fleas are gone and then being convinced they’ll come back. It makes me so sick I throw up and I even lost weight because I couldn’t eat.

I feel like this one issue is making me crazy So I'm talking to someone as a potential date and some of our conversations have gotten a little lewd and suggestive. Without giving too many details I'm a support worker for vulnerable adults. I'd never respond to such messages around the people I support. But one day because of how the schedule went I had a break from the person I was supporting for a few minutes and responded something kind of lewd when they weren't around at all and I was walking back to my car. Idk if it's because I was technically still on the clock even though I wasn't with them for a bit but I can't shake the feeling that this was horribly wrong and completely inappropriate and it's driving me nuts going back and forth. For context there's also some things around relationships and sexuality where I'm also unsure of what's normal or appropriate because of an extremely sheltered upbringing and some trauma. So things like this that are probably no big deal to most people I'm so unsure about. Unfortunately my therapist isn't available this week but I'll definitely talk about it with her next time. But in the meantime I was hoping for some advice or thoughts.

Honestly I’m so scared. What if my special interest (a person) isn’t as great as I think she is? I’m so scared. I want to cry

I'm considering Prozac and Lexapro. I'm open to any and all thoughts on them, positive or negative. I honestly doubt they'll work because the things I'm sad about are super logical

Hey guys. I haven’t posted on here in a very long time, because honestly it’s been great. Does it mean my husband and I haven’t had our moments where we have fought or everything‘s been easy? No. but when it comes to really intense spikes, those haven’t really existed and it’s been great. But about a month ago, I had a very gentle spike, where a question came up related to ROCD And my husband and I were with our family for the holiday, so being that we were around people I couldn’t really talk to him about it, so I texted him. The spike was really random, and it really caught me off guard, and being, so since I hadn’t felt something like that, and it almost being a year, it scared me a little bit. So I texted him since we couldn’t actually talk, And I was expecting him to be a little offended and frustrated because he feels like he is being attacked when these things come up, but he wasn’t and he was really supportive and loving and it was really nice and it actually feels like it diffused the ROCD a little, which gave me a lot of sense of support and love from him. Fast forward to now, I was on my drive home from my job, and I had just gotten off the phone with him, and I was feeling great, and I had a long drive ahead of me, and I was actually missing him and ready to be home. And then I had another one of those random spur thoughts that kinda gave me , a little of an anxiety spike, and this one surrounded More around the thought of me, thinking back to a year and a year and a half ago when I had my last impulse of wanting to leave. The impulses really came from nothing serious they were just these really really strong pushes of emotions that made me feel like I had to do that, and I absolutely hated those feelings and hated when those moments happened and when it came up into my memory today, it gave me a lot of anxiety cause even thinking about them isn’t something I want to do. And so with that question came up along with the feelings that really bothered me and then I started to think, well would that happened again? What will I do? How will we get through it again? Will I have control to stand against the impulses? Just so many anxious questions. So on the drive, I chewed on them, try to be present and enjoy myself on the drive, even though these were in the back of my mind, along with that, I was trying to figure out if I needed to talk to my husband about it. And so when I got home, all I said was “ hey I don’t want to talk about this long because I don’t want to feed it but here is what was on my mind tonight and this is how I feel blah blah blah blah blah” and I was expecting him to be the compassionate supportive person that I received last month. But instead he was hurt and frustrated and irritated at the fact that I brought this up and honestly that just added to my anxiety that I was trying to diffuse, and now we’re in a fight because neither of us feel understood and it’s just really hard. What started with one focus of my ROCD anxious questions has now turned into More based on his reaction. Then, because of his reaction, it puts my mind into a place of focusing on all the negative things about him, which is also another RCD thing that really sucks . It’s been so long since I have been through this, and these tensions between my husband and I when it comes to this topic, so I would really like some responses and encouragement and help on how you guys have gotten through these moments with your spouse? I am also strong in my Christian faith so if anybody else is, that would be super helpful also. Thank you!

I had my third session today, and my therapist and I are filling out my fear and response list. For some reason I'm having a hard time filling out compulsions and even some of the fear responses. It's like everything is so connected it's hard to separate it in my head. I've never tried to do this before. Also maybe I can explain the compulsions in a longer sentence but it's hard to use just one word. And most of my triggers cause a pretty high number of distress, but I need to find something with less anxiety to start the exposure therapy. Does anyone have advice on how to make this process easier, or just an example of how they filled this form out? Thanks.

I am having really bad anxiety today and just want to take an anxiety pill to help me relax, but then I have ocd intrusive thoughts telling me something bad will happen if I take it or I will go crazy or something.

Does anyone have the worst OC in the morning? It feels like Groundhog’s Day when I Got You Babe starts every morning - awaking to the same old thing. I lay in bed trying to go back to sleep and run from my rumination, but it just builds up more and more. I finally force myself to get up and get moving, do some ERP- oh and I have no taste for anything that I used to like - coffee, bagels, etc. Any suggestions? Techniques? Please share.

I am doing great! I don’t know why I am doubting myself. But I just feel like I’m missing something? OCD is making me doubt if I am missing tools, I know I’m doing it right, acknowledging thoughts and continue doing what I am doing, not mentally checking my body or for thoughts, focusing on the present moment, sitting with anxiety, exposing myself to my triggers, even when OCD says NO, I still DO IT! but it feels like I am missing something, although I am better than where I was in September , MUCH BETTER, I’m scared that I will stay in this place because it seems so simple, even though sometimes it is SUPER hard to use the tools sometimes, I don’t know, I don’t want to be stuck in this same place I want to get even better if that’s makes sense? I’m scared if I stay in this same place I am, I will get discouraged and go back into depression where I was in September ? Anyone else done this?

Have others had the experience of having an ocd relapse? I have felt that my ocd was fairly under control for a few years but I have recently been struggling and would say I have fallen into a relapse. It is very disheartening not to mention I am so tired and a bit scared. I am triggered all day long by all kinds of different things. Things have felt like they are exponentially unraveling.