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why does calling intrusive thoughts “unwanted desires” make me feel better?? i think it’s cause sometimes the thoughts feel wanted even tho i still get distress and know they don’t feel like who i am

Oh, life would be so much easier if I had someone I really felt comfortable talking to, someone who really understood and listened to me. I'm feeling pretty desperate about it, but alas, here I am, I don't feel understood.

( I can’t tell if this is triggering or not so just in case I will be mentioning antidepressants) Recently Camhs have decided it was best for me to go off of sertraline and I was on maximum dose to switch to a different medication as sertraline was not helping. I recently however decided that I didn’t really want to live on medication for the rest of my life and didn’t want to have to deal w all the side effects again. Now I’m medication free (well I will 100% be in a few days I’m on my last dose before being completely taken off) but my anxiety is through the roof, my ocd has taken an awful turn, and my brain is so immensely foggy not to mention I’ve been suffering from derealisation. Has anyone been taken off of sertraline before? I really just wanna know how long will these symptoms last because it’s really very tiring I’ve been on sertraline for two years so it was expected but damn this is quite scary!!

Does anyone feel like anything you do just causes you to have a panic attack….. and have a full on breakdown🥲✌🏼 (currently crying, screaming, sliding down the wall)

I’ve been to the hospital a few times due to harm ocd, I don’t know how to control it and I’m just worried about my safety, but I don’t wanna go back to the hospital.. How do you guys think I can handle this..?

I have hocd and i dont want to be attracted to my same sex (women) , I was reading here an article about a lesbian that beat her so ocd and she was scared of loving the opposite sex , then suddenly i got a thought with a fear” what if im straight” 😭 then in the afternoon i was watching a cooking tv show and there was a girl i feel attracted to ( because i feel false attractions to every girl i see ) then i said this time i shouldnt avoid, i should keep seeing her and feel the feeling and attraction and to do this as form of an erp then i keep seeing her then a thought occurred in my mind “what if you accepted being bi and you genuinely attracted to that girl in the tv show then you couldnt date her, you will suffer” and i feel as if i was afraid of being unable to date her 😭 i hate how ocd messes up with me 💔 my feelings feel very bery very real

I feel so alone like no one understands me at the moment Ive prayed to God and i believe im doing a decent job in maintaining a relationship with him but i feel so hopeless, and alone. The heart ache i feel is immeasurable .

Does anyone else obsess over whether they need to be hospitalized for mental health? It’s a common theme I have. It stems from having harm ocd thoughts and then spirals into what if I am a danger? What if I need to be hospitalized? And it just keeps going. It makes me so anxious and comes up multiple times a week. I’m not sure if it’s a sign I should be hospitalized or just an obsession 😭

Hey All - was just wondering if anyone here has ever said something by accident? And what they said is related to one of their fears? And if so - does that still relate to OCD, because it's an action rather than a thought?

I was able to sleep better but being calm takes me down to a spiral. I’m scared, what if I’m bisexual or a lesbian and I’m just lying to myself? What if I like the exposures, what if the exposures become my moment of truth? I feel like my attraction to men is there but it has disappeared. My mind keeps screaming I am lying about being straight and my attraction to men. It makes me feel like I like the idea of being with a woman now. My face smiles, it feels like it’s playing cruel games. I don’t see myself growing old with a woman. I know it’s OCD, but it just feels so real. I have friends and family who would accept me if I were bisexual or a lesbian. But I don’t want to. I feel like I have fed this monster even more fuel with doing mental reviews and googling. It’s like I don’t even know who I am anymore. I’ve struggled with SO-OCD in the past and was able to not think about my sexuality. But this time it just feels so real. I started sertraline yesterday. I know ERP is going to be hard work, but I’m just scared what if I’ve been in denial? I don’t want to lose another part of myself. My heart goes out to the bisexual community and how challenging it may be for them loving two or multiple genders. But I just don’t want to be with a woman. But my mind is telling me I have internalized biphobia. I just don’t want to. I hate this so much.

I am getting my Ph.D., and am wondering if I should tell my dissertation chair about my OCD?? He probably thinks I’m just annoyingly anxious but I feel like he should know, given he’s my chair and we will work together for the next three years (have already for a year). Yeah?

I always post then delete my posts on heee but I’m going to try not to this time. Does the holidays cause your OCD to flare? My OCD has been so bad can’t rememebr the last time it was this bad. It started with digestive issues like constipation, which I went to the doctor for three days in a row (probably a compulsion) and been on a healthy gut kick since which has been slowly improving my symptoms. I thought once the constipation went away I would stop obsessing. But now, any little sensation or symptom in my body causes me to freak out and start crying paranoid that I’m dy*ng. I woke up this morning with a stomachache and got paranoid about that and had the desire to go to the Dr. But I’d be embarrassed to go to the doctors four days in a row. This is also the first Xmas without my grandma, and the seventh year without my dad. Anyone relate?

I should start by saying, I have Pure- O OCD that for years was just centered on religious and harm themes. I went to a therapist who told me to remember that I am not my thoughts. So once I realized that, I felt much better. I told myself, these thoughts have no meaning. I moved on with life, if I had a thought that seemed illogical to me I'd just say, it's not worth worrying about. Or if I felt a great amount of stress I'd just try to think of the things that are important to me and make me happy i.e. nostalgic memories, my family etc. And almost always, this helped me a great deal. To thr point where the past 2 years these have been my coping mechanisms and I've made it to the Dean's list at college, I've been almost always happy and relatively low stress. But since I tried to focus on what made me happy when I had an intrusive thought, is that not technically a compulsion? And what about the reassurance things. For example if I thought absurdly negative thoughts I'd tell myself "I have my family who loves me and I know they would help me get by" and then the thoughts wouldn't really bother me. If they came back I'd just say to myself "Oh, that's illogical to worry about" and move on. But I've read that when you have OCD, ANY attempt to relieve anxiety is a compulsion and compulsions are negative reinforcement. So now my mind will tell me whenever I watch a youtuber I always liked that I can't feel happy because that's a compulsion etc. Whenever I feel comforted or at peace it tells me that that's a compulsion. Before, I would say "What that's absurd" and then not care about the thought anymore. But yeah, if I do these so called mental compulsions then my life is great truly, as I explained before, for years it was great. But once I stop then it's been literal misery and constant anxiety because my ocd will barely let me feel positive emotions then. And it's getting harder to go back to before since now I have doubts about it since I read that article. The only time when I can ignore that stuff basically completely and do my so called compulsions is at night, I know how important sleep is so I just listen to my favorite youtuber, don't care about the other thoughts and get sleepy and almost always sleep a good 7-8 hours. I'm just wondering if what I've been doing for years is bad, or if there's some good to it? What advice would you guys give/what should I change? Thank you and have a great day!

Just curious I’ve been doing so good with my ERP and I’m like 80% better but POCD seems to have a huge grip on me still. And while I’m not so afraid anymore my mind still loves to obsess about it and give me feelings (my ocd is very very feelings based) and wants me to think about the obsession.it’s mostly just annoying and tiring. I have an appointment with a psychiatrist to just have a convo about meds that could help with depression and OCD. Has anyone gone through this? And what does the medication for you? (I know everyone is different) does it stop your brain from obsessing so much? 🖤

Lately, I've been trying to pinpoint exactly what is causing me to feel down on myself all the time. I also have been having a hard time making and maintaining relationships or connections with others. I'm not sure if it's me, what I'm going through, or just the people I'm dealing with. I feel bad blaming it on others. Anyway, for the past 6 or 7 seven years I've been dealing with a bit of depression and anxiety. It started when I was about 13 years old. I felt like nobody wanted me around, everything I did was wrong, I hurt everyone around me, and everyone would be better off if I would just pass away. However, about two years later I started high school. I was in honors, doing well in my classes, and had made a few friends. I was really happy. Then covid hit and I began to feel depressed, nervous in public situations, and alone. During all of this I was also questioning my sexuality and because I went to a private school and my family was very religious, I was absolutely terrified of being gay. My junior year of high school I was feeling even worse and more alone. I began cutting myself. Then, a couple months into the school year I made a few new friends and met a girl that I liked. I began feeling a bit better about myself and was happy to have people around that shared similar experiences with mental health and sexuality. Later on, things began to go down hill. The girl I was talking to soon hated me because I didn't properly communicate my feelings. She started saying hateful things which in turn made me upset with her because I had apologized multiple times and tried to make up with her. I was also extremely upset with her because I had found out that she had really upset my younger sister and made her uncomfortable. About a month or two later one of my other friends told me I was a horrible person for sticking up for a girl I considered to be my best friend at the time. I noticed after these events and interactions I became a lot more insecure with myself and began feeling like everything was my fault. I overthink every interaction and everything I say when around a girl I like. I get scared that I'm bothering them, being annoying, or I'm making them uncomfortable. However, I also feel that most don't want me around, see me as embarrassing or childish, see me as too emotional or high maintenance, or just don't care about me at all. I then obsess over what I should do or what I may have done wrong. I sometimes also make impulsive decisions. Whenever I have feelings for someone and I start acting like this, they tend to get upset because neither one of us can understand what's going on or why I'm doing the things I'm doing and I feel like I've lost a few good people because of it. On top of all of this, I feel bad for not having my priorities in line. For some reason I worry more about friends than I do about family issues. It's also embarrassing because others deal with much more than I ever have and probably ever will. At this point I'm scared that nothing will change and I will always be in this position. Sometimes I feel like the only way out is suicide or self harm to atone for everything I've done wrong. If anyone has any suggestions on types of therapy, what I may be dealing with, or just simply how to go about getting better I'd love to hear your ideas. I would really like to get better so that I continue to help my family, help those around me, and enjoy my hobbies or things I love.

One thing that I’ve noticed about my OCD is that it makes me feel very regretful and embarrassed at the end of every day. I reflect on every interaction and every conversation and any thought that I’ve had throughout the day. As a result, I feel more and more ashamed of the way that I act, even though it is probably normal for some of my age to act and see the things that I say. Earlier today I flirted with a guy and then as soon as it ended I had so much religious and moral guilt about it. Does anyone have any advice on how to not feel so ashamed after doing the typical activities that people in their 20s do? I feel like these thoughts are making me want to isolate from everyone else so that I’m not put in the position to do and say these things. I feel comfortable with myself when I don’t talk to anybody but I’m noticing that that can’t be normal . I don’t want to lose friendships and potential relationships out of fear that I’m going to say something wrong. I don’t know what to do.

That hotel owner is blatantly gay. I mean I don’t mind and I’m literally chuckling away to myself as I write this. What I mean is I’m confident enough to say no lol. I’m going to buy him a box of Indian sweets from a nice restaurant to say thank you for taking me out to the city. In other news I bought some dank garms in the city today and I look fre f fre f f f fresh! 😂😂The situations I get into lol.

So its been almost a day and I just feel a little bit better but i still feel like this is not ocd, and i cant move on and forget the thing i was thinking about yesterday. I feel shame to move on and scared cause i feel like if i dont do something about this, this will come back in the future. I will hear people talk about their struggle with suicidal ideation and i will see myself in that. I started to read about Socd, i wanted to see others if they have the same feelings as me cause its annoying that people with socd feel just afraid. What i felt is so similar what people with suicidal ideation go through. Mine its not just what if thoughts. Its hard to see if i want it or not, cause right now i can say no i dont want but when it feels real, i cant decide cause i have that feeling that i dont want to live my life like this, suffering. I get really angry when things still feel bad and dont change, and because of anger i vent it out like i let this feeling of i dont want to live like this be fully there, but because of anger it feels so real, and i cant find anyone who relates to this and it sounds similar to ideation and thats why i dont feel good. I dont want to accept that its real suicidal ideation, that im thinking about suicide. I dont want to accept that. Yet i dont find anyone relating to me and experiencing it this bad. I really try to see the pattern and see what it is but when i feel like its ideation i just lose control and get emtional. I said before, i dont want to die. But in that moment when its really hard, i dont like something or i feel dissapointed and angry i feel like this is not how i want to live. And the thoughts gets real, the anger and sadness gets stronger, i feel sandess and that this is unfair and when it gets too much i vent out like yeah this is what i want. Then i feel bad and guilt, shame and im worrying that im suicidal. This is whats happening now. I think this is the best way i can describe it. If you want to help me with the "please contact a doctor or keep yourself safe, have a safety plan" dont write it cause i view these as compulsions. I talked with many doctors. I understand if its ocd this is another compulsion seeking post, but when you cant relate to anyones ocd cycle its okay to ask if others can relate to you. Cause if noone can then maybe its not ocd. And now i see it like noone actually relates with me.

Hi everyone, I am writing this firstly to get it off my chest as I don't have anyone else to talk to. Secondly, if anyone has any advice, it is most welcome. Anyways, here I go... Been battling OCD for quite a while now. Its worse was during the pandemic of COVID-19. I somehow got through it, then the war in Ukraine started. And now Israeli-Hamas war. I am absolutely drained and tired from it all as I live in a country which is at risk of war itself. And before anyone says anything, I am very thankful for what I have and I'm lucky not te be a part of the aforementioned conflicts. However, anxiety can't be helped and it skyrockets every single day. During this time I managed to get kicked out of Uni, my gf left me as I was "beyond repair", lost my job (thankful that I found another) and other minor inconveniences. Where I am right now? Doing my Masters but not very successfully, barely making ends meet. And I am, honestly scared to say it but I see no point in living like this. I'm scared that there is no hope, that I have no future and that my life is in the most basic of terms, at its end. I don't know what to do to be frank.

This is how hard OCD is, ROCD, sexual intrusive thoughts, have brought me to my knees to the point I’ve lost 2 jobs within 3 months due to being unable to function, unable to eat, sleep, exercise, I cannot describe my pain to anyone, I feel no one understands this. I need this community as it helps me understand I am not alone. Please help