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Does the feeling of love comes back in? Does clarity and “certainty ( the certainty we all actually want during the rough days of suffering) ” comes eventually? Does it. ?

Surprisingly I went to sleep mostly well even after my slips from last night. Last night made me realize that I'm not ready for a relationship yet even though I like someone. I like this person, yet sexual content is still a problem for me. I caught myself slipping from time to time and I was about 170 days away from it all. My mental health was pretty bad. The worst that it was in a while because of so much stress and worrying. That was the only thing NOT making my feel like that and actually made my mind feel different. But I don't want to keep this up. It feels like such a huge burden on my body. I woke up today feeling rested but I instantly remembered what I had did last night. I've been struggling with this for years and I would prefer not to keep it up even if urges and temptations keep saying otherwise. I feel like a bad person for doing this because it feels wrong to still have this problem while I have a crush on someone. I don't know if it's OCD or not but it feels like I'm already not being faithful to this person even though we don't really know each other and we aren't exclusive. My body keeps shivering because of all this due to the fact that it's cold and that this came up.

Hi there, I am looking to get some support and advice, I recently started to suffer from SO-OCD due to tiktok. My feed started to have videos " if you did this or thought this you are gay" or videos of girls coming out later in life. I have never questioned my sexuality and have always been with men, I find it triggering as some of the things mentioned in the videos, I agree with but never thought it could mean I was gay. It had made me question everything and made me try to look back on the past to see if there were any evidence of this. I am nowhere near homophobic, but this is not the life I want for myself, so why is my mind so fixate on these thoughts if this is not who I identify nor want. I also struggle with ROCD Any advice or support would be greatly appreciated! xx

Why am I noticing alot more handsome men? Is it my insecurities? I've noticed I have no desire to have sex and I've asked my girlfriend what she thinks and she said it's normal because she finds her friends pretty and beautiful but even then finding another man handsome is extremely uncomfortable and makes me feel bisexual. it's causing me alot of anxiety and discomfort right now ):

It’s the beginning of the year and I’ve been feeling good for a couple of months but now that the years started I feel really bad. I’m scared my thoughts are going to last forever and I’ll always have these off and on mood changes. Idk how to explain these thoughts to my family or the people I love because Idk how to explain how I feel. Sometimes I start to have thoughts that I don’t deserve good things and I start to distance myself but I don’t want to. Do you guys have any recommendations for what I can do to not think of these thoughts or how I can go back to where these thoughts never existed?

Has anyone with soocd thought that they looked Lesbian and then just obsessed about it and then thought that must have meant that they were a lesbian and they all the times they though they were going to marry an man just all of a sudden though about it would be a women. It’s like a switch!!!!! It’s horrible and I don’t know what the truth is. I want a man and to have kids but now I’m question all of that and freaking out.

Does anyone look at the mirror and not recognize themselves? This could be derealization or disassociation not sure?

I have had OCD my entire life and my obsessions have changed one after the other. As a child I was afraid I was going to overdose on pills, stab family members, then being transgender and gay, leaving stove or iron on, and now my dominant obsession is getting the wrong degrees and going to wrong school. I’m 39 and it’s very debilitating. When the intrusive thought comes about my education I feel so bad and I feel like I’m being held hostage. It’s very intense and I wasn’t able to hold a job and I contemplated suicide many times. I feel a tremendous amount of guilt because the major and university didn’t align with my values or who I really am. I would seek relief by googling the university etc. but it never helped. My OCD has taken over my entire life. Whenever I think about my education I don’t like it and it doesn’t sit well with me and I don’t even like discussing it with anyone. I feel dead inside and I feel like I’m just surviving. I carry a lot of guilt and shame and I always feel like the worst.

Any tips on how to not constantly worry about getting sick during flu season? My contamination OCD has never been as bad for me as it has been this year and even after being in therapy, I’m not sure how to cope with the anxiety and paranoia. 🥲

How do I stop the thoughts of false attraction towards a family member like my dad it won’t stop and I feel like such a bad and manipulative person

I’m in a really bad panic at the moment re my ocd. I’m trying so hard to accept the thoughts/feelings and accept how real and true it all feels, despite the panic and anxiety. I read somewhere that you can clearly tell the difference between a thought about your sexuality being true vs an ocd thought. It said if the thoughts/feelings/narrative makes you feel panic, anxiety and dread, like you don’t want the thoughts, then it’s ocd. If they make you feel warm, content and normal, then they’re likely not ocd. Is that how people and psychologists differentiate? My situation is that I’m a 36 year old male that never questioned or had to question my sexuality until one day at 26, I had the question pop up “are you gay”. Since then, it’s like I don’t know who I am anymore. Questioning, checking, anxious 24/7, wanting to escape myself. Help :(

For the past 3 months, I’ve been dealing with a sort of forced exposure in my life that has involved two of my themes (relationship and moral scrupulosity) in a very real way. A mixture of real relationship struggles, world events and conflicts have forced me to really address the top of my fear hierarchy, ready or not. I’m not gonna lie. It has SUCKED and there have been MANY days when I could not function normally. I had lots of insomnia, trouble eating, not being able to be productive or feel enjoyment. My mind felt so dark and scary. It felt like hell, mentally and physically. But I’m slowly getting better at accepting uncertainty. (There’s a lot of it in my life right now!) I went on Luvox after being off of meds for a year and at the moment it seems to be helping! My intrusive thoughts are still there just…less intrusive. The problems triggering my anxiety aren’t gone. Things might resolve. They might get worse. My relationship could progress positively. It could end badly. These are all real possibilities and I would obviously be deeply upset by a negative outcome. But right now I’m choosing to just 🤷🏻‍♀️ and live in the moment. That’s a big deal for me because my whole life I’ve been so bad at that. I’m focusing on developing good habits and self-care. One of the best tools my therapist taught me was “Do I really need to know this to _____?” Do I need to know how this conflict is going to turn out in order to wake up, go to work, play my music or hang out with my friends? Nope! I’m just taking it moment by moment and task by task. The thoughts are still there and they still suck, but they sting less. I’ve been taking baby steps that might seem insignificant to some ERP pros, but I think it’s working! I could totally feel panicked tomorrow and start ruminating again. But right now I’m OK, and I’m OK with right now. This super long message is to say that even after what feels like hell, there can be hope and you CAN improve. Your baby steps—even just increased awareness—make a difference. It’s not gonna be linear but there will be moments of respite! Just keep going even if you feel like you can’t! Every tiny step is a huge victory and really makes a difference❤️✨

I went to a Nurse Practitioner psychiatrist today. I told her about all of my intrusive thought OCD. She said I don't have OCD but that its a form of bipolar and maybe some psychosis. She asked me 20 times if I hear voices it see things that are not there. She said OCD is just people who order things and must have it done. She made me feel horrible and asked if I had ever acted on any of this. When I said no she almost acted bewildered. Very frustrating. My Lexapro has reached its shelf life and I just wanted to try a new SSRI. She prescribed Lamitrigine. Anyone ever try this?

Hooray....obsession switch.... Five years ago i visited a restaurant while travelling abroad and had a meal. When i finished up, they gave me the reciept in a wooden box. I went up to pay for it and handed the box back to them, but they handed it back, so i left with it. Now im stuck obsessing over whether or not i accidentally stole a reciept box from this restaurant, or whether i really was meant to take it. Nobody stopped me when i left and i came back and dined there the following day and had the same thing happen but i left the box they gave me that day behind because i didn't really think I'd need two of them. I've stressed myself out further because i found a way to contact the restaurant and i asked them about this and offered to return it or pay them for it. But they haven't responded yet, so OCD is playing merry hell with my thoughts. Very frustrating

Ok, so I’m looking into past events…. So, I worked at a preschool and a little boy held onto my leg but I got a bad thought but still let my legs go apart to let him hug my leg. I feel awful cause I was thinking how his hands could’ve possibly hit my upper genital area…. I remember worrying about it back then and I’m still worrying about it to this day. Also, I remember thinking how this little girl may end up hitting my area if I don’t move. I didn’t move and felt awful cause I knew it would happen… it has bothered me ever since! I don’t know if that makes me an awful person. Was I taking away innocence of children by not moving?

I have had bits of OCD and anxiety as long as I can remember but never in this way. I am in a 3+ year relationship with my now fiance. About 8-9 months ago I started heavily doubting our relationship.. doubting his love for and intentions with me and that we'd inevitably split up. That turned into me questioning my love for him. Questioning if my amount of sexual desire was "normal", if it's "normal" to find other men attractive if youre with the "right" one and that would go in and on. Then came the SO-OCD. These worries, fears, and doubts made me questioning EVER bit of my sexuality and that being the reason why I've felt a lack of contentment in my very healthy, stable, consistent relationship. I feel as though this is my body going full on protector mode!! I've had my share of trauma growing up and in adult relationships that have left me with tons of relational wounds and then pile on a lifetime of fantasizing about what it would be like to find "the one" (thanks Hollywood and social media lol). All of this to wonder if anyone can relate to all of this and how you've been working through layered traumas and OCD

I have a exam in 9 days or so and for the last month I haven't been able to focus on revising for it cause my real memmory ocd keeps making me go over a incident that happened when I was 12 or 13 between me and my sister I keep shutting my family out and avoiding my sister like the plague cause I feel terrible I've always seen her as my own daughter because of our 11 year age gap and I just feel terrible.

When OCD strikes, and you turn to someone who knows you struggle and they say, Oh come on, you’ve been through this one before, and you always beat it. You know what to do. ^ This right here gives you some encouragement and makes you feel not so alone in battling the mind demon. And for the people who say yeah but that makes the OCD come back and you shouldn’t rely on others blah blah blah Well guess what? OCD comes back anyway. It always does, whether you tough it out or ask for some reassurance that you can, have, and will beat this thing Why not ask for support and comfort, when the struggle is real. It’s almost like not telling your problems to a therapist, and forcing yourself to suffer alone. Just my thoughts..

Finally OCD free after struggling with HOCD for a little while. Just posting this to show that freedom is possible if you keep doing ERP.

Note: Im typing this at 8am and have gotten no sleep so I apologize for all the spelling errors and grammar mistakes. A little over 3 years ago I started work at this new job and while working there I met a guy who was kind of goofy, really cute and funny and played all kinds of instruments. He was just my type. I often gave him rides home from work and during those rides we’d exchange banter over random things. I really liked him and he really liked me. He even offered me piano lessons but for some reason I declined. After a couple weeks my job offered me a position at a different location for a huge pay raise and I decided to take it. I have no idea why but I never thought to get his phone number or instagram or anything like that before I left(maybe I wanted him to make the first move?). He has since left that store and I have no way of reaching out to him. I can’t help but shake the feeling that he’s the one who got away. After about one year in my new position I started daydreaming about me and him. what I had (possibly) missed out on. Sometimes I would even confide in him as an imaginary friend. I’d even think about him laying by my side as I’d go to sleep. I’m aware of how pathetic this sounds now but for some reason I thought nothing of it back then. At first I would only think of him once a month but over time as my depression and anxiety got worse it became more and more. Ive now become deeply concerned with how often I think about him which I think has only made my obsession with him worse. Obviously the problem is my loneliness but I have no idea how to fix that. I have zero social skills and any bonds I do start building I put no effort into keeping them going(as exampled by me not getting this man’s personal information before I left the store) It stresses me out how often I think about him and I have no idea what to do. I just want to stop thinking about him. I’ve also become concerned with what I would do if I actually ran into him again. Would I go ballistic and lose my mind? Would I hurt him? Would I keep it cool? Would my obsessiveness cause me to do something stupid or dangerous? Does anybody have any experience with this type of feeling?