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I normally never post on boards, but I am just struggling with existential OCD so badly and I wanted to know if anyone had any advice. It’s just so hard when all my thoughts are about the fact that I/everyone will die someday. I then can’t figure out how we all live knowing this. I’m literally afraid to be alive. I’ve lost my appetite, my happiness, and my love of life. It is so hard to believe I ever was or could be normal again, even though I went through something similar twice before, both times lasting about three months. It’s been about a month of this now and it’s just pure hell, especially since I have a five month old baby that I just adore. Everything now just seems so hopeless and terrifying. I am doing ERP. I’m not taking meds because my therapist thought it would take such a high dose, and I don’t usually take anything at all so she was concerned with making that much of a jump... Basically I just need to know what worked if any of you have had this before. ANY suggestion is appreciated, I am struggling to figure out how I was ever happy!

I had an appointment with my psychologist today and it did not go well. I told her that I’ve had intrusive thoughts/images since my vacation started and how miserable I felt. What kept me through all this time was ocd forums and I also told her about it. That’s when things went downsouth, she said that ocd symptoms were things like overchecking if a door was closed for example and that the term was used in incorrect ways. She wasn’t disturbed by what I said (didn’t give any details though) but she said that I had violent thoughts because I have the tendency to keep things to myself and that I just needed to learn how to evacuate my emotions the correct way. I’ve been seeing her for two years and she knows me so I don’t know what to do? Should I see another psychologist? I don’t want to tell her she’s wrong, because she studied psychology and knows a lot more than I do but I feel like she doesn’t understand what ocd is.

Please help! I’m so scared right now. I have have HOCD for the last 7 years and I got so scared that I might be lesbian. And then when I started looking up pictures of girls I felt groinal urges and I listened to them and I liked it. I am scared that I am gay. But what terrifies me even more is that I acted on HOCD and I’m scared I might act on my harm OCD in the future. I’m terrified and I want to curl up in a ball and cry. Also I don’t want to be gay because I’m religious, but I’m worried I convinced myself I’m gay but idek.

❗️HUGE HOCD TRIGGER ❗️ I‘m having a panic attack right now. I saw a lesbian who said sometimes it can take a lifetime to figure out that you are homosexual and that the easiest way to figure out if you are gay is to see who you fall in love with. And then she said something that triggered my HOCD so, so much. She said „When I was a teenager the thought of having sex with a woman made me cringe, but whenever I kissed a man it was dull and when I kissed a woman it was really interesting.“ That’s the end for me. I‘m losing hope.

I have intense compulsions to pick at my skin when I feel anxious or sedentary or stimulated. I’ve heard that this compulsion is called “skin picking disorder” but the research on that topic has yielded no productive results. Often when I get the compulsion to cut myself, I can satiate it with picking. Does anyone else experience this?

Anyone use marijuana to cope with OCD? I would like to read your experience.

I hate my HOCD. I'm tired of my loss of aesthetic attraction to women. If I understood correctly what I was told here, it's because I want it to come back so much that it does not come back, but no matter how hard I try not to care, not to think about it anymore, but nothing comes back. Sometimes I just want to die tbh...

Hey everyone! Kind of just want some help. It sounds kind of stupid but I’ve had a really bad few months and been depressed to the point of not washing my face and not showering enough (weird and gross sorry). Tonight I just decided to get back into a skincare routine and I’m cleaning my room so I have a tidy environment because it’s a mess because I have been really bad. I struggle with HOCD and tonight I’m trying so so so so hard to tell myself ‘I don’t care, maybe I am gay, maybe I’m not’. I’m really resisting the urge to check scenarios in my mind and stuff. I’m finding myself having to do this several times every few minutes and I’m trying to keep up saying ‘maybe maybe not’ and keeping the uncertainty. Is this the right thing to do? I’m worried about it being too hard because it’s literally gonna be constant but I’m gonna try so hard. Also a thought keeps popping in ‘if you don’t think about it, that means you are your obsession’ and ‘if you don’t want to figure it out, it means you’ve accepted your sexuality’. As I’m typing this out I can literally SEE how ridiculous it is but when it happens I consider ruminating. I shouldn’t though because that’s definitely just another obsession isn’t it? I just really want to try and help myself properly and I’m unsure if I’m doing it the right way. Some guidance would really be appreciated! :) I’ve also deleted social media because I’ve found them to be really bad because of my checking and because I keep seeing relationships and keep checking my attraction to every single person, male or female, that I scroll past. Was this the right thing to do or could that be considered avoidance? I’m just sick of doing it to be honest, I’m literally tired of my own compulsion. I downloaded some brain games instead to keep myself distracted??. I’d appreciate anyone to help me tonight and I hope everybody is okay!!!

I’m having disruptive thoughts about my car alarm going off when I’m away. For background, I’m a college student that commutes to class. Lots are huge and I spend hours at a time away from my car. My biggest fear is that I’ll press the panic button on my car, and that it will go off until the battery dies, or be a nuisance to others. I’m sometimes late to class because I compulsively check every aspect of my car to make sure it is okay, as well as continuously going back to my car to check if I accidentally pressed the panic button.

How many of you have are seeking professional help for OCD ? Are there people too who have not been diagnosed by psychiatrist of having OCD but presume himself/herself that he/she has OCD??

So I am new to this. I’ve always been diagnosed with GAD, depression, panic disorder, and am in recovery from SUD for 5 years. But about 6 months ago I started having thoughts during rumination of being a horrible mom. During that time, I couldn’t stop the thoughts. Then I started thinking, “what if something horrible happens to her?” And from there it went “what if I do something horrible to her?” I was terrified by that thought and now anytime my panic picks up my mind goes back to that thought. I’ve done a lot of reading and even talked to my doctor about this. I started back on my SSRI medication & it is managed more now. But every now and then this thought comes back and scares me as much as it did the first time, and when it does I obsess over it. “Why do I think like this? I must be a horrible person, etc.”

i’ve been really scared of executing my intrusive thoughts during my sleep. i’m even more scared than usual because my cat always sleeps with me and i’d die if anything happens to her. it’s really hard not to do any compulsions (just asked my grandma if she ever saw me sleepwalking lol). does anyone else have this symptom? if so how do you deal with it?

How do you deal with a soul sucking, god awful job??? I scramble through life daily. I’m unbelievably stressed and hate it. My manager is awful and I can’t hit any targets and keep having my job held over me like I could lose it. I’m torn between “fuck it you’d be doing me a favour” and “omg I’d be homeless”

Ppl who recovered completely from HOCD plz tell how did it feel while recovering and when u finally completely recovered

Ppl with hocd do u feel like an extreme attraction loss for the opposite sex like I hate it I don’t get attracted to boys at al plz tell me if u feel like me

How’s everyone’s depression from OCD? I’ve been having up and down days... But sometimes, i’m so tired of dealing with my phobias I become extremely depressed, wanting a way out. I can’t sleep, can’t eat (fear of food poisoning), sometimes don’t even want to leave the house. Anyone else feel TIRED of this?...

Is anyone familiar with pushing people out of their lives because they became a negative and toxic prescence un it? I stopped talking to someone that I used to talk to a lot, but in the recent months I started seeing things in their character that just made me uncomfortable and just down right annoyed Most of the time. Now I feel like a terrible person for avoiding this person and not speaking to them, but I don't know What to do, any advice?

Sometimes I can handle my HOCD. I feel calm, safe and like nothing about HOCD can put me down. But then I fear that some day I might get to know a lesbian and I fall in love with her. I know what I want and falling in love with a woman is NOT what I want. I don‘t enjoy it and I can’t imagine more than a hug or a kiss, bur I just can’t imagine a relationship. It makes me just so sick. Believe me, my fear is so extreme, I think I watched thousands of lesbian marriages and youtubers just to look at how I react to it.

Okay so I have been struggling with HOCD for so fucking long. I never felt like I had crushes on boys growing up but I wasn’t attracted to girls either (this was through 5th grade). Until 6th grade hit. I remember it like it was yesterday. I had the thought walking up the stairs and it was “You’re lesbian.” And ever since that thought was there and I fought it I have been dealing with all types of OCD ever since (been going on for 7 years). And only this year I found it was OCD. But it’s hard because I don’t know if I’m actually gay or I convinced myself I’m gay because I gave up and gave in. Now whenever I see I pretty girl I feel tingling. And I wanted to prove to myself that I wasn’t a lesbian so I look up pretty pictures of girls with their boobs out and I loved it. And I wanna make out with a girl so intensely. But then at the same I don’t wanna be in a relationship with a girl and I wanna marry a guy and I just desperately wanted to be like by a guy. But I get so horny whenever girls are in bikinis and stuff. But I have OCD and I’m so confused.

<(H-OCD)> Hey everyone. This was hard to write but we’re trying to help each other overcome these horrible phobias. So I’ve always had bad relationship with my father growing up. Where he used to beating me up so many times. I hated my life afterwards. These marks on my body and those harsh nasty words he said were running through my mind that i still remember from time to time. So I learned from a young age not to trust anyone. Even my own father!. So things never ended there. at school i would always get bullied or picked on for being the ‘nice guy’. i hated my life. In 2013 I suffered a huge panic attacks & anxiety from everyone. Oh..!and depression was knocking on my door. my only comfort zone were video games & pro wrestling. I remember how much i was ‘FORCED’ to stay at home and just play them. and wrestling was kinda that thing that i bonded with my brother growing up pretending to be undertaker & triple h. At the age of 12-13 every young boy is starting to notice things!. checking people & exploring his body!. Unfortunately i grew up in an extremely religious house. where I couldn’t even date until i turn 18. so being ‘Forced’ to stay home with my mom & 3 sister, i was afraid of watching straight/lesbian porn. because.... what if i did this or got some feelings or had some bad intentions towards my family. At 13, That’s when i discovered (GAY PORN) something new i can curiously explore & try. without feeling i could hurt or threat my family. I thought that was okay. I never knew it was gonna change my life. and I’d always be straight!. fast forward 6 years later today. i’ve been masturbating from (gay pornography) maybe several times a day... I hated my life. I HATED MY LIFE. I’m currently at college & have 0 friends. I’m always alone. I always blamed myself for all of this. I always pointed the fingers towards me being the bad guy. Until some magic happened few days ago I started an <(H-OCD)> therapy using (betterhelp) app (not advertising btw). At first i was skeptical and confused. i even asked for a refund on the 1st day. But after yesterday. I will never leave that app ever again. there was someone i could talk to who cared. Someone cared about me..! someone i can trust and tell what i’ve been through. It was truly big relief off my shoulders to tell someone everything happened to me. it was regenerative to feel like that. rejuvenating?. so what <(H-OCD)> means?. It’s that you’re afraid of being GAY or you are straight being afraid of being GAY or the opposite. and all the other sexual orientation!!!. it’s through your experiences and moments in life where you felt vulnerable to homophobic experiences & situations but in reality you ‘HATE’ to have to deal with it. i never held any emotional attachments for any men. again i was masturbating on (GAY PORN) I never fantasized men. it was just something I did to get rid of my erection in the middle of the night. and again i never watched straight/lesbian porn because of being ‘FORCED’ to stay at home with 4 women. and my dad was abusive & hard on me. :( I remember how much this effected me in my daily life to this day.! To this day in 2019 they are still hunting me anytime, anyplace, anywhere. my first selfie i ever took was in 2017,i was scared to look at the front camera and say ‘i love my self’ ‘I’m beautiful’ i was 17 at the time. i still have no friends. never had any relationships. never kissed a girl in my life. I don’t post anything on my ig, twitter & even sc. I always speak sheepishly. It’s extremely scary to walk into a group of people who are all friends and being afraid of just saying (hello) back to anyone. but with all of what happened to me in life! I will always be strong, straight HAPPY. who had his reasons on why he did what he thought was not wrong at the time. i’ve also started a new challenge!. No fab challenge 1-no masturbation 2-no GAY pornography again EVER... 3-fantasizing women ‘MORE’ 4-acting normal & manly. ‘MORE’ 5-live happy life & dream big. Reason i said ‘MORE’ because if you felt like you’re forcing your self to fantasize women or act manly. That means your not into women. Don’t push yourself to something that will hurt you. I have a lot of things I want to do in life so many dreams & accomplishments I want in life but on the top that list!!! I want to get married and have (kids)! And I will do that one day. And i’m going to tell my kids one day.... ‘hey, don’t worry I am here with you I will always be here for you. don’t try to be something or someone you aren’t embrace what makes you different and be accepting of what makes others different. Because that’s how dreams become reality. Thank you guys....