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I feel like I have asked a variation of this question before but still don’t quite know how to deal effectively. What is the suggested pathway for someone dealing with a trauma (sexual) when OCD is latching on and making it worse? I feel like this is something I genuinely need to seek help or counseling for because it is affecting my relationship, but OCD is so loud and trying to make itself the center of attention. I feel like I am suppressing healing just so I don’t engage with my OCD.

This is my first post on here and not sure if this is a form of ocd but thought I’d see if anyone else feels similar and knows how to cope or ignore these thoughts. I have constant thoughts to do with eating and exercising and constantly fear what it’s going to do to me or how it will effect me if I may be eating the wrong thing or made the wrong choice of food or if I haven’t done a certain amount of steps or burned enough calories (checking the app to see) Feel like the little voice in my head is just constantly there watching everything I do making sure it doesn’t effect me Trying not to make this too long but I’ve tried to explain most things briefly

I fear that my ocd will cause psychosis or that it already has..

I don't know what is more difficult, when you have strong anxiety and fear or when you don't feel anxiety. I met a girl and I've been talking to her for a month, we've gone out a couple of times and we've already kissed, I feel like things could go really well between us, I like her and she likes me, I've imagined living together, but I have a lot of anxiety and fear about it happening in bed. I feel that this is going to come soon and every time the opportunity arises, I spend the whole day with thoughts of failure and that I am going to fail and it is going to ruin everything. I have thought about stopping talking to him, telling him about the anxiety I have or something like that as an avoidance, with strong anxiety it is very likely that it will not work as I want, and I can clearly see that the fear is due to the thought of failure, because I have failed sexually in the past and I feel that my libido is low , I think because of all this anxiety. But I really don't want to stop seeing her or stop talking to her, I don't want her to leave, I don't want to miss another opportunity, I don't want to give up on women, I don't want to have this f**k anxiety, I didn't have it before, right now it's uncontrollable, I don't deserve this, nothing makes sense, I'm sad.

I am in a bad flare up of harm OCD, Scrupulosity OCD and meta OCD. When I am in a flare up, I want to just leave my house, whether it's with friends or family or even going to visit my family up in Canada. Is this avoiding or just want to live life?

I really can’t deal with this anymore I question everything about myself every second of everyday. The I intrusive thoughts never stop and they make me feel like such a terrible person. I really don’t know what to do I’m scared to talk to a therapist or anyone because I feel like people will think I’m crazy. Is there any medicine I can take that may make me feel normal again that really all I want is to be happy and feel normal again

Not even for a minute. This Is exhausting. I'm trying to say ok maybe you are or you are not, Who knows, but I Just can't stop thinking and trying to solve this.

hi everyone, really need some advice if possible!! me and my boyfriend have been going through a rough patch. we’ve both realized that we really are complete opposites. he’s an extrovert, i’m an introvert, he has an avoidant attachment style and i have the anxious attachment style. scary, right!! anyways we’ve both been talking through how we’re going to work through it these past two weeks because we both genuinely feel we can make this work. i’ve been in therapy and he’s going to start therapy and we’ve honestly just made progress. and i was FINALLY feeling a relief of anxiety through this and he told me yesterday how he’s scared i won’t be able to adjust or enjoy his extroverted activities. i reassured him im willing to try but just him having anxiety and small doubts gives me the worst anxiety!! i feel confident we will make this work and find middle grounds to everything like we have before but i don’t really do too much of his interest and he’s scared i won’t like them or he’ll find difficulty being okay with my adjustments right away. he said he’s also confident in us but he also has anxiety about this whole thing. we’ve been dating for two years now and i really want this relationship to work but my rocd keeps telling me to leave now and not try out this new lifestyle. that this is too scary to even go through. that he’ll leave me because i’m not “perfect” or “enough” for him even though he’s reassured me. i keep wanting to budge and keep asking for reassurance even though i’ve asked a bjillion times. any advice on how to get through this scary times? we’re both scared of change and we both know we’re capable of it but i’m scared this won’t work out so my ocd is telling me to leave now so i can be stress free. to leave now because it’s never going to work ever and why try but i don’t want that. i don’t want my thoughts to control actions that i don’t even know are true since i haven’t even tried this new change in our relationship

So I went on a date today with a girl and it was my first time seeing her and I didn’t really find her attractive but I did before like a week ago when I was her but was under the influence. But now my ocd is telling me that I’m gay cuz I don’t find her attractive. Because this is the 2nd time this has happened where I reject girl based on her face but I’ve also been with girls that I find attractive and I get aroused with too. Am I picky because I’m Gay ?

I am having a really hard time with what I think is a form of memory hoarding that started about 3 years ago. I have seen multiple therapists and explained my symptoms, but they are not aware of what memory hoarding is and have a hard time understanding what I am experiencing prompting them to try to address a possible underlying issue. While it may be beneficial to address the underlying issue, it is still not helping me get through the episodes of panic and severe anxiety that has thrown me into a cycle of depression. I am now taking Wellbutrin and Fluxomine, but they are only slightly helping me. I am constantly trying to remember what I am thinking about, talking about, listening to or doing and often times things will "slip my mind" (almost like a feeling of amnesia) and I cannot move forward until I either remember or convince myself that I remember. Sometimes this will take days to get out of the cycle of trying to remember and I am so stuck I cannot think about or focus on anything else. These are not important things which is the hardest thing to explain. This is causing major issues in my life, family, work, personal to the point where I could not get out of bed, had suicidal thoughts and thought I would need to quit my job. I used to be able to forget things and be able to laugh it off and think, if it was important it will come back to me, otherwise who cares! Has anyone else experienced anything like this? I have seen a lot of posts on reddit, but never spoke to anyone that has the same or similar issue.

Hello, does anyone have aby advice for how to handle disagreements and arguments with partner, when you have ROCD? I have rocd under control most of the time. But I don't handle conflict very well... Even when it is about something silly, my brain goes: see, you shouldn't be with him. You need someone, who gets you more. And when we argue about something that is not silly, something actually important, I get a lot of anxiety. And I start again thinking about wanting to leave him, questioning if we are compatible... Compabilty is a big theme for me right now. And I don't even know what compability actually means... I hate it. I am sometimes so frustrated with my partner and seriously question if I should leave the relationship. I compare our relationship a lot. Note: we never raise voices when we argue, we both apologize, we try our best to communicate, no one uses nasty words

Does suicial ocd every go away? Will I ever feel like myself again or will I have to keep actively fighting to remain “neutral” because sometimes its really hard and I get so tired and these are the scary moments, because its like you’re “giving up”. I DONT EVEN KNOW WHY IM HAVING THESE THOUGHTS im dont understand! Its like whenever Im bored they come and go like “ yea life’s boring whats the point?” Likeee wtfff Can anyone relate?

I made a big mistake trusting someone in my past and it’s made me obsessive over it. To the point where everyone distrust me and I’m creating obsessions in my mind. It affects my work, relationships with family and friends I thought I had.

i’m having a really hard week. my intrusive thoughts have been super bad and i’ve been compulsing the entire time. on top of that i feel like im not sleeping enough. i might just be over exaggerating but im having a lot of nights where i wake up, check the clock, and then it feels like a minute later i check the clock and its been 3 hours (is that normal??). or i wake up and really cant fall back asleep and am aware of it (today i was up at 4:30). i think im only averaging 5 hours at night im really scared that like im going into a psychosis or something. please someone help

Yesterday I had an ending session with a therapist I had been seeing for almost 2 years. This is because she doesn’t specialise in OCD and actually when I spoke to her about my diagnosis it was quite triggering for me as she didn’t think I had OCD (she thinks it’s only excessive cleanliness etc). She’s a humanistic therapist and I have worked with her through so much that i’ve formed a really strong attachment. I’m so nervous to start doing ERP/ CBT work and i’m really frightened that it won’t work for me. My old therapist has said i can always come back whenever, but I feel alone and scared and like my safety blanket has completely gone. I realise this is probably because she provided me with so much reassurance. Does anyone have any advice or can give me any words of wisdom if they’ve gone through similar things? I can’t stop crying and feel very depressed.

Has anyone experienced OCD regarding a particular individual? This person is absolutely meaningless to you, yet your brain has been giving them a sort of “god complex.” This all started a few years ago for me with a classmate from college when Covid began and this individual made me feel bad about something, although they didn’t know they did. This particular thing really bothered me and I was never sure why. They did nothing wrong, my brain did by latching onto that trivial thing and feeding the obsession. I still struggle with it and sometimes it feels like it’s constantly in the background and it causes severe anxiety at times. Anyways was just wondering if I could get anyone else’s input or thoughts on this particular issue.

Hey everyone! Here is my story and I would love to see if anyone relates or if the same thing may have happened to them. Back in August of 2022, I tested positive for COVID for the third time (yippie🙃). I have to say that this was my worst bout of COVID yet and I had massive brain-fog, migraines(previous diagnosed w/ chronic migraines), all the fun stuff. A week after I got over this round of COVID, I tested positive for strep and found out I had a sinus infection that had been untreated for about a month. Needless to say, my immune system was shot. After all of this occurred, I started having severe panic attacks constantly.. every morning I woke up and was already panicking, I would feel like I wasn’t in my own body, my brain was a foggy mess, and I absolutely hated the life I was living. This went on for three months before I finally decided to see my health care provider about it. In November of that same year, I started taking Sertraline and have been moving up in my dose ever since. In June of this past year, I started having extremely distressing thoughts about my boyfriend, who I have been with since January of 2022. These thoughts were ones that I was able to push away at first, but as time went on they became more and more anxiety provoking. Thoughts such as, “do I love him enough?”, “do I even love him and if I do, why don’t I feel it?”, “you should break up with him”, “are you attracted to him?”. Deep down, I know I love him VERY much, he is my best friend and I feel so safe with him, and he is the first healthy relationship I have had in my life. It’s comfortable and he feels like home. These thoughts come and go for WEEKS on end, and then the anxiety calms down and the thoughts get quiet for awhile.. and then they come back full force and cripple me with anxiety and sadness all over. I’m currently having a flair up on these feelings (I have not been diagnosed, but I find myself relating to a lot of what other people have felt or are feeling + have talked to my doctor and they believe I could benefit from therapy with these symptoms). I find that when I am extremely stressed or anxious, these thoughts appear. The first time I had ever had these thoughts or feelings was in my 20s and it is something I have never experienced before my immune system gave up on me for awhile. Long story short, I wanted to see if anyone else may be dealing with this or if long-term COVID has messed with others’ psyche. Thanks for reading!!

Jayne's back lol. Took a break from here for a few days to be at my best friend's house. So I have a phobia of stinkbugs. I absolutely hate them and most of the time seeing one dead or alive makes my heart pound and my body tremble. Every time I walk into a room upstairs in my house, I look at the curtains before actually walking in just to make sure there isn't one around (because it is a common occurrence to be greeted with one when I come home). I'm afraid of finding them in the toilet (this has happened MORE THAN ONCE), being in the same room as one, hearing them fly, the smell, etc. They freak me out. This has been going on for at least 10-12 years I absolutely refuse to kill/capture them even when they're dead, and don't even THINK I'll sleep in the same room as one (what if it crawls in my ear?? or my mouth?? I know that's ridiculous but I've always been afraid of this). I make my sister/father/friend get them, and I'm often teased/patronized about this. Sometimes my sister flat out refuses to get one just because she wants to spite me. One time she knew there was a bug in my room and didn't tell me, and the next day she told me "you slept with a stinkbug in the room and you were perfectly fine." This of course made me very upset and I got very mad at her for breaching my trust. How could you knowingly do that to someone who is terrified of those things?! When she refuses to kill the bugs, it makes me very upset and worried because then I have to sleep somewhere else in the house (uncomfortable and stressful). Her anger at me for being like this makes me cry because I feel like a pathetic f^cking child, and my family doesn't believe I actually have a phobia. They just think i'm being stubborn and pathetic. I can't help it. I've been doing better with being in the same room when I find a stinkbug, but most of the time I still just flee. I'm so hyper-vigilant of when I see one/might see one that people are often like "how did you know there was one there?" It's because over the years I KNOW what they look like when ANYWHERE— including how they look when they blend in/are partially hidden. Even in my sleep if I hear one, I instinctively throw myself out of bed before i'm even fully awake. I'm ALWAYS sure when I hear one, and I am never wrong in identifying that sound. About a month ago one was on my arm and it freaked me out so bad I got dizzy. Ever since then, if I feel my arm or leg hair move, my mind immediately goes "stinkbug". If I see one at work I feel the need to keep checking to make sure it's not getting any closer. It's like I'm a radar. If i think i smell one (no one else but me seems to smell them when they're crushed?? how can you NOT??) I get paranoid. Anyway I feel so ashamed and pathetic and useless because yes I'll leave the country for the first time completely alone but don't expect me to kill a stinkbug I will cry✌️

I’ve only recently discovered that I have developed Health Concern OCD, Existential OCD and Somatic OCD. There’s a lot going on in my head all the time. In the past year, specifically the last few months, I’ve had the same recurring thoughts: -How were humans created to breathe? It’s crazy how our bodies can breathe on its own while we sleep. It’s not something anyone should ever think about yet I always think about the way I breathe, if I’m breathing enough, what if I randomly stop breathing or forget how to breathe? -I feel there is always something wrong with me. I have random sharp shooting pains in my chest, I experience heart palpitations frequently, I feel off balance almost every day. What if there’s something seriously wrong with me DESPITE all of the doctor’s visits, blood tests, EKGs and heart ultrasounds I’ve done in 2023 that all confirm I’m “healthy” and there is nothing wrong. What if I wake up and something is seriously wrong with me throughout the day and I come to find out I have a terminal illness? -Why do our bodies turn on us and make us sick? Why does illness strike unexpectedly? Why was I put on this earth? Where do we go and what happens when we die? What happens to our souls? Our soul is what makes us and our soul is a small little voice in our head and that voice is trusting the house (our bodies) it lives in to keep it safe and out of danger and to provide a long and healthy life/home for our soul. It’s exhausting having all of these thoughts on repeat every day. How do I make these thoughts stop!?

When I was in school I kept having unwanted thoughts of cheating..makes me think I just like the idea which I don't!!! I don't want to cheat on my boyfriend at all. Then when I saw some of the male students introducing thereselfs. My brain just automatically say that they are attractive or say like "cheating sounds fun" NO NO NO NOOOO. :< It didn't stop with one particular boy in my class which made me panic because it would make me think I had crush feelings and it didn't go away even when I was no many times. I was saying that my boyfriend is way more attractive and I have crush feelings for my boyfriend not this person and I don't care about this person. But it doesn't believe it would blame me because of my cheating thoughts THAT I DON'T EVEN WANNA DO. After awhile I was sitting in a different class and then I just looked around the room and just noticed him there. My thoughts would keep making him this woah pretty boy and the unwanted feelings did not go away at all. I would say I do not like cheating I never did I love my boyfriend he is better and way attractive. Then the boy came to my table and wanted to ask me like a question for one of the assignments. BUT MY STUPID THOUGHTS KEPT MAKING ME THINK I'M SHY OR I LIKE HIM. I stood still and felt uncomfortable. He sounded nice but THAT DOESN'T MEAN I'M GONNA JUST THROW MY BOYFRIEND :<. After he left one thought came in and said "if he said your boyfriend doesn't have to know would you cheat?" I said no no no no no but it kept making me feel different and I was trying my best not to scream or freak out. I WOULD NOT DO ANYTHING AND I MEAN ANYTHING TO LEAVE OR HURT MY BOYFRIEND. I DON'T LIKE THIS RANDOM BOY I NEVER DID. now it's making me think I'm a cheater because I didn't panic or did something to disagree more to the thoughts....it felt like I liked the thoughts but I didn't I love my boyfriend why would I think that. It's making me think I'm this toxic cheating planning 15 year old bad influence on my boyfriend but I didn't want to have thoughts of this random boy in my class or have cheating thoughts. I FUCKING CAN'T I HATE THIS I DON'T WANT TO THINK ANY STUPID FUCKING BOY IS ATTRACTIVE OR HAVE THOUGHTS THAT I HAVE A "CRUSH" ON A BOY WHO JUST HAS GOOD FEATURES. MY BOYFRIEND HAS GOOD FEATURES, I HAVE A CRUSH ON MY BOYFRIEND, I'M NOT GONNA CHEAT I WILL LITERALLY MURDER THEM IF THEY EVER SAID MY BOYFRIEND DOESN'T HAVE TO KNOW. I DON'T GET IT I DON'T FUCKING GET IT I NEVER WANTED TO THINO OF OTHER STUPID FUCKING BOYS. GOD DAMNIT. I'M NOT DOING THIS JUST TO LOOK GOOD I'M NOT DOING THIS JUST TO KEEP MY BOYFRIEND. I DON'T EVER WANT TO THINK OF THIS BOY IN MY CLASS I DON'T FUCKING GEY IT.