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So I’ve been having OCD therapy for 7 weeks now and the exposures have not made me anxious whatsoever therefore it’s not really working. I think I entered my therapy when my OCD was kind of in the back of my mind but still there and I found myself pretending it was still bad like it used to be because I was worried she wouldn’t understand me otherwise. I was so sure it was OCD, not any sort of gender identity dysphoria, but now I cannot even be sure. The thoughts aren’t so loud but they’re still there and they come with feelings. Everything “female” feels really against my own personality now and I genuinely feel as if I am in denial. I feel like this is how typically all trans people feel. I still kind of obsessively stalk trans men online but with no objective in mind, I just consume their content.. I was sure that I DONT want to be trans bc my thoughts about gender started really really suddenly and I was so anxious that I barely ate or slept and I couldn’t think about anything else. But now that I’ve had this theme for so long I feel like I have enough proof to prove that I am actually trans. I was quite happy before this and had a strong sense of identity. But I can’t feel at home anywhere now and I’m just so confused. I don’t even have the same anxiety anymore but I get uneasy feelings. I’ve even started to compare myself to other trans men, convinced I am like them, and sometimes ways I could “come out” pop into my brain and I think about it. I can’t tell if those are intrusive thoughts or actually me planning it. I don’t know what to wear anymore because I’m not a feminine girl but wearing my extravagant androgynous clothes makes me feel really uneasy. Ever since this OCD has started I’ve been forcing myself to think of myself as a woman in excessive ways. I never really gendered myself before this but now in conversation I’ll refer to myself in a feminine way more than before because I’m afraid everyone else thinks I’m trans and in denial or something and I want to prove to them that I am a girl. All the thoughts and even actual FEELINGS I have about gender I push straight out of my brain and ignore them in a way that a trans person in denial would. I’ve stopped caring about my body and even touching my female parts is mentally painful and I try not to look at myself much. I have never ever actively desired a penis or a deep voice in my life, but I have desired to look more androgynous and to have a more “boyish” intonation when I speak (like some girls have a cool tomboyish voice that has more masculine intonations and way of speaking).. and I’m worried those things were the BEGINNING of me wanting to be a man, like I progress from there in wanting more and more masculine qualities. I always compare myself to one of my girl friends who was an androgynous girl like me but she suddenly started being hyper feminine. We are very similar but I find myself kind of forcing femininity on myself when I’m around her. I feel like a man compared to my girl friends, and something that worries me is that I’ve ALWAYS felt tall around them even though I’m shorter than most of them and the same height as the shortest. I think this was my mind subconsciously perceiving me as manlier as them or something. I just feel so empty and I don’t know who tf I am. I can’t even be sure that I don’t wanna be trans, like yeah it makes me uncomfortable but being cis is making me uncomfortable too. I feel like I’m denying the obvious but I could never ever bring myself to accept myself as trans, I don’t even know how people do that because I could NEVER. I feel like I have internalised transphobia. I kind of know I had OCD bc of the nature of the thoughts and my compulsions and the fact it started so suddenly and I have always had OCD, but I feel like despite my fear of being trans I turned out that way anyway.

can false attractions be triggered by specific people only? this might come off as reassurance-seeking (and to an extent, it might be) but i’m getting so worried that this might not be SOOCD and i’m genuinely attracted to these specific people.

struggling really bad with real event ocd. can anyone share advice

So I've been struggling deeply with uncomfortable intrusive sexual thoughts and it makes me feel so awful and like I'm a bad person even though I never ever want to do these things. I was doing really well recently but then at my school some stranger walked up to me and started being really creepy and making sexual comments and trying to touch me inappropriately and he was just being like really agreesive towards me. It really freaked me out and I've been feeling so dirty and gross. Apparently I found out it happened to another girl as well and now I'm worried about seeing him again or something. I guess I just feel terrible because my OCD is saying that im going to be like him or that I deserved what happened to me and it's been really difficult... I reported it and everything I just need advice on how to deal with this

I’ve been dealing with intrusive thoughts and groinals for over a year and a half now, and the problem has only grown worse and worse. It began with just passing thoughts, and then I started developing groinals a few months in. It is genuinely with everything I love- mostly my family, but also my dogs, the toddler I babysit- and I am suffering so so so much. Eventually, it got to the point where the thoughts didn’t just pass- they would turn into a MINDSET for me and cloud my judgement for seconds to minutes. I feel like I’m in the backseat of my mind, and whatever disgusting irrational monster exists in their is taking the wheel. This still sometimes happens to me, and after it passes I look back on it and genuinely don’t want to live because of how horrible and disgusting I feel. I’m writing this because I just had a really bad moment having to do with my sibling (although things like that happen almost every day to me). No normal human is built for this, and I genuinely can’t do this anymore. I’m not expecting anyone to do anything, as I’m already getting help, but I just needed to get this out. Also, I’m not sure if this happens to anyone else, but I’ll have the WORST and most awful intrusive moments, and then after a bit of time passes I can barely remember how I felt in that moment. It is so hard to feel okay with myself. If anyone even sees this, know that I am wishing for all your happiness and recovery.

I posted earlier, this week has been one of the hardest days since when I was 15. I feel isolated and alone and feel like all the ERP and finding comfort in my diagnoses almost four years ago has crumbled. I tried doing ERP alone but was too triggering. I don’t have insurance at the moment and don’t want to ask the community for reassurance. Are there any tools or words of affirmation or comfort you’ve used in your dark OCD days?

do you hear your thoughts? are your intrusive thoughts words? it feels like I talk to myself all day fighting with my brain in my head and i’m worried.

I know that ocd becomes worse if a girl is having her period but is it normal if my ocd gets worse when I’m ovulating? Also, how can I stop rumminating? I find these videos in yt but I guess it became more a compulsion than other thing and doesn’t reaaly help me that much :/

Lately my OCD has been latching onto the fear of sleepwalking. As far as I know, I've never slept walk in my life. But it's been popping up a lot as a new fear...it's particularly distressing if I happen to have a weird or disturbing dream. I know how to handle it, accept uncertainty and all that. I'm just venting here. I hate OCD so much lol. I feel guilt today with this episode following a dream. Even though I was awoken by the dream in my bed and firmly under the covers. It seems evident it was a dream since I woke up immediately...but my brain goes "what if you actually woke up long after the dream but it just seems like you woke up immediately" I hate this disorder lol.

I had the fleeting thought of what it would be like to be a woman, and now I'm overthinking about being possibly transgender.

Is anyone else scared to recover because that could mean that it isn’t OCD? 🙃🙂🙃🙂

some of the many issues with OCD i have is having a whole routine before bed, but this routine isn't just making your bed comfy or making sure to shut the window though these two are also important, it's brushing my teeth for at least 10 minutes or i don't feel clean, making sure i've checked my wardrobe properly, make sure the draws in my bathroom are shut and i cannot physically go to sleep if i haven't slammed my door open at least 5 times. i need to do everything in patterns of five or my mind won't be comfortable. i'm very young still in school and i've told my parents about these reoccurring thoughts constantly but they don't really think it's a big deal, but it takes over my whole life and i swear by it and i just wanted to know if there is any way at all just to make the thoughts a little less overwhelming for me and not as constant, i just feel hopeless at the moment like i will never be able to stop these thoughts. thank you.

Unable to sleep, my area was making me anxious so I started cleaning at 7AM randomly. I don’t have a problem with cleaning, convincing myself I’ll have a long deserved shower to wash away germs. However, my cleaning process contains an entire system of what needs to be done first to prevent cross-contamination, going from least dirty to dirty. However, my dad did something that made me visibly angry, placing a pack of unused sponges I had used for the process, was right next to the bottle of face cleanser I use daily, right after I finished cleaning everything spotlessly. Distressed that my daily cleanser was next to something where germs could be roaming around, even though they had been completely new sponges. I wasn’t sure what to react in that moment besides obvious frustration spurring in my head. But I thought a little too much about how I should feel, and then I told myself, “Should I be angry? Well, yeah! After all this work I put in?” I’m an 18 year old, but I felt like a child had just came out and groaned into a tantrum. A child-like tantrum unlocked inside of me. I gave my mom an earful about my dad’s actions. I wasn’t actually mad at either of them but angry at what happened. Through my own lengths to avoid it, I poured the contents of my cleanser into a new container and discarded the old contaminated bottle. Because of this, this is the big reason I keep most of my own products in my room, nothing out of greediness and pettiness, but the possibility of contamination. Overall, I felt a lot better after a deserved shower, but I never knew how my temperament could spout the frustrations of that of a child. I feel a kinda bad for reintroducing my 4-year old self to my parents at ten o clock in the morning so I’m going to treat them to a salad lol.

I hope this is okay to put here, I feel awful. I also feel like it doesn't belong here. I just need to get it out somewhere. So there's a huge social problem with what's called a fetishisation of mlm (gay people and relationships). It's basically where predominantly females engage in for example fiction with gay relationships. This is not necessarily bad on its own, it's when these people view the people as just objects in the relationship and it changes their view (negatively) on real mlm people. Also when women read it just for their own enjoyment of reading two men being together. So the thing is, I read lots of fiction and in fact 100% (pretty sure) is mlm. For obvious reasons this made me panic because I don't want to be that person. I don't want to be that gross person and the thing is I do understand. It makes sense to me why it makes people uncomfortable. Some people say it's bad under all circumstances and that they will block you if you're like this. Again, I understand. Others say it's fine as long as you treat gay people with respect in real life. Which I like to think that I do. I have noticed that I tend to think female characters have less depth and are less interesting than male ones and I feel bad that I think this and hopefully I am able to change that. Hopefully it is only due to the fact I've always only read things with mlm in. I just wanted to watch my favourite show's new season again but then I started thinking what if I'm just fetishising mlm again. I don't want it to get views from something bad I've done so I started reading up on Tumblr and I think it is what I'm doing, I hate it with my whole heart and I so understand why people find it gross and terrible and I hate that I might be part of it, I just want to enjoy the show and I love the characters but I don't want to now. I just feel so guilty I don't know why I'm like this I just want to be good and respect everyone why can't I just enjoy it why did it have to make me bad? All I want to do is enjoy it. This show, it's my safe space. My happy place. And I can't live with myself. I love it so much and I don't know what to do. It's my favourite thing ever. I'm just so angry that I've turned out like this. Thank you if you made it this far. I just don't know what to do.

As an adult i’ve always made sure that the people i’m around are also adults, especially in regard to dating and relationships. (as i should, there is nothing wrong with this) Very recently i had an epiphany; there are tons of calendars in use around the world, and there are multiple ways of calculating ages across cultures. This has led me to freak out Should I just assume that everyone uses the same calendar and age calculation system as me? that seems irresponsible, because there is possibility of that not being the case. If i meet someone online and he says he’s “20” then what does that mean? Do i assume he’s referring to the age standard I use? Or do i have to do intense research regarding all of the age calculation systems and calendars across the world? This has been causing me a lot of distress and would really like some advice.

Is it just an excuse for people who rightfully feel guilty for wrongdoing? My therapists and loved ones have assured me that nothing I did was abusive or traumatic to anyone, but it's hard to listen. Is it time to forgive ourselves if we've received this type of assurance? I know reassurance seeking is bad in OCD, but you have to have at least some idea of how others view you I think if you're going to move on.

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.