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This hurts. So. Bad. I’ve been sobbing the entire day. I’m so done. I have an exam tomorrow that I need to study for but I can’t focus on anything else rn. Heartbreak + OCD is one of the worst feelings ever.

I've struggled with watching pornography for several years. It's been going on since I was a young teenager and I've exposed myself to a lot of things that I look back on with regret and shame. There have been instance where I looked at pornographic content featuring fictional characters that were around my age at the time and I didn't see a problem with that when I was younger. Now I feel really horrible about it. Absolutely disgusted. Nowadays when I relapse and look for porn, I only want to find pornography featuring fictional women that look like adults or whoever my go to characters are. Even then, sometimes I see disturbing things as I scroll through playlists or search results that have nothing to do with what I'm looking for. I hate it. I absolutely hate when I see a character being put in a scenario like that when I don't want to see it by any means but it shows up anyway. I feel like I'm a true p sometimes because of this. There's always been several occasions where I've doubted the person's age in a video whether real or fake. That drives me crazy. Especially when there's character's whose age aren't officially stated but can be hinted to be a young adult. I know I'm not attracted to children nor would I ever want to be but the thoughts about it don't go away. I also don't like how I've escalated to different videos when I was badly addicted. It always felt like I needed to go the extra mile to get the same dopamine as I did before. I don't feel like I need to escalate now but I do a lot of surfing with content to find the best one that truly fits. It was so much worse when I was a teenager. It was like I didn't seem to have limits when it came to what I watched at times. I'm glad I don't do that anymore but I'm still really upset that I've fallen this far into my addiction and to this day it's still hard not to watch pornography. I don't know what to think of myself. I just feel bad about myself because of this along with a lot of things in the past.

I really hope this doesn't invalidate anyone with depression as I have no idea what it is like. I have not obtained an official diagnosis for OCD, I am pretty confident that I am somewhere on the spectrum though, especially with contamination OCD. When my thoughts about contaminations and hand washing got more severe, my relationship with my brother had worsened. I can't engage in physical interactions with him like hugging or even sitting next to him without feeling contaminated to the point i have to change my clothes. It sucks because I think it affects him aswell, like I am invalidating his experience with depression.

I love my partner and I can tell she's not a hateful human being. It seems clear to me though that she has mainly interacted with white people in her life and I think she's got white fragility. The other day she was telling me something that her friend was saying about me and prefaced it with, "Please don't think this is racist", but I was offended by what her friend said. I take a lot of issue with the phrase "please don't think this is racist" from a white person, even if it is my partner. As a person of color I feel like I have the right to decide if smthing said about me in the lack of my presence is racist or not. I get fired up and angry thinking about it, but I wish I could let it go. Ive just felt so invisible as an Asian American for much of my life. I've never been good at spending time with people I don't agree with. I just can't stop thinking about it over and over. I'm not sure what to do.

I struggle in many ways. My best friend is a licensed counselor and they have been diagnosed with OCD themselves. Life circumstances found me living with my bff and their fiancee, and it was pointed out that I may want to take the Y-BOCS. I scored 12 in obsessions, 12 in compulsions, for a total of 24 which puts me in the severe symptoms class. I honestly don't know where to go from here but I'm putting myself out there.

TW - This post is directed to the men. Also, this is going to be TMI I'm a guy and I've been having a rough time talking to people now. A lot of times I get groinal responses even during talking to people -- really anyone, including family members and other dudes. I'm not really sure what the reason is. But it is difficult having that happen because as a guy, it is of course more obvious to the outside world when it happens, and I have to hide it. Anyway, I was at college just a few hours ago and ran into someone I knew from one of my clubs and they talked to me and I got a groinal response and I had to cut the conversation short because I obviously wanted to get out of that situation and I didn't want anyone to notice and think I was some kind of pervert. Of course, I wasn't even thinking that way. And what makes it worse is that it also just so happened to be a lady. But it's just really hard to get a grasp on those thoughts because of OCD. Man, it stinks... Anyway, sorry for the TMI

My older sister (in her mid twenties) has a habit of “clearing her throat.” She will do it as loud as possible so it echoes in the entire house and everyone can hear it no matter where you are, and she will slowly increase the intensity to make the noise as nasty as possible. She’s been doing it for months now, and there’s an odd pattern to it. Well, if there’s a guest or if she’s in public, she doesn’t do it. If she’s alone in the house, she doesn’t do it. HOWEVER, if someone is within earshot at home, she will do it. She also only started doing this a few months ago. Yet, when questioned, she insists she’s clearing her throat and cannot help it if her throat gets clogged. Yet she will often do it at the end of sentences, after talking a ton. It does read as obnoxious at times. I am wondering at this point that she does it deliberately because she enjoys making a gross noise. Even if she is clearing her throat, the magnitude in which she does it is so intense and loud it harasses the ears…Yes. It is that loud. As if she wants to be heard? If you cannot tell, my OCD (or some form of misophobia) fixates on it and I cannot get the noise out of my mind. 😅 It makes me feel a little ill. If anyone is curious, to my knowledge, my older sister is not neurodivergent (although she used to love to talk about her “OCD” which makes her “super neat”🤦‍♀️). She could have anxiety, though. And technically I have no way of knowing, not my place to say. Ultimately, I have no idea why she does this and I begin to wonder if it’s to deliberately annoy us. I asked my bf about it, and he told me his sister does a similar thing where she makes gross noises for fun. Is this a common occurrence? 😅 Does anyone know what’s going on here? Is there a way I can approach this kindly? Although I am clearly very frustrated, I don’t want to be accusatory or mean about it…She is my sister, and I care about her deeply. But my brain cannot understand what’s going on here. 😅

Hey everyone, my mum gifted me a birth chart reading as a birthday present. I don’t necessarily believe in astrology but its fun to hear, yk? So today I went and got my birth chart analyzed and and she said something that really triggered me. Most of the things she said were true, some things even were realllyyy specific and true. So in the last 10 Minutes she wanted to explain what Lilith meant in my chart. She listet a few things and one of them was „accept your homosexuality/transsexualitiy“ and now I am very scared. I’ve been dealing with soocd and Rocd for the last 3 1/2 years and lately Ive been doing quite good. But that phrase shook something in me :,) Does anyone have an idea on how I can deal with this feeling. I know astrology does not necessarily need to be true or 100% true and she also said things that didn’t apply to me but I am so scared. How can I deal rn..?

OCD can turn even the smallest choices into towering dilemmas, leaving you trapped in a cycle of second-guessing. Everything feels much bigger than it is which can lead to indecision and confusuon! How has this shown up for you?

Struggling with ROCD lately and it’s really getting to me. I know I love my partner deeply, but these intrusive thoughts just won’t let up. It’s like this constant battle between my heart and my mind, and it’s exhausting. Does anyone else experience this? Feeling like you need to do something to ease the uneasiness, even though you know deep down you’re with the right person? It’s like walking on a tightrope of happiness and doubt.

Hey everyone, yesterday i went to my counseling appointment,what was supposed to be my last session. But as me and my counselors spoke they gave me two options. We can continue counseling with the idea that i have OCD but not be diagnosed. Or, that i can have my diagnoses and we can begin therapy with goals in mind, exercises and many other things that sound appealing to help me with my issues because as my counselor said, that it seems that im struggling to get through the day and i agree. I want to go through with the official diagnosis because i feel like it can help me so much! But im afraid, mostly of what my parents would think. I hate lying and keeping secrets when it comes to me i feel dirty and sad when i dont tell them everything now a days. I still live with them and my family, im 18 years old so i really don’t have to tell them anything about this dissuasion i might make but-i keep going to what if they some how find out? what if i get in trouble? my counselor told me that even if they came marching to my door they don’t have to tell them anything which is nice but-how long can i keep this a “secret”. Ik im illegally an adult but im still just a teenager what do i know? Im making the right choice by doing this? If i were to tell them how do i bring this up? How i tell them? I just need advice thank you for reading:(

My false memory is of me assaulting another human and to make it worse it has a real detail being a towel radiator. I tried to guess what I would’ve been leaning on if I was standing in a specific place in a room I went in yearsss ago and I kinda just guessed a towel radiator and to my shock looking back at the old pictures I got it right…I don’t remember assaulting anyone though? It’s scaring me as yes the towel radiator was there but I do not recall harming another human it’s sooo against my nature even drunk. So now my ocd is using that towel radiator against me saying my whole false memory must be real as it has a real detail? I know it’s probably laughable to some people but my whole life is being ruined right now by a radiator. I’ve spoken to a therapist who kept saying she didn’t really understand what it’s got to do with the false memory. My family and partner keep assuring me I would never do that and to just move on. So why can’t I move on?! Anyone dealt with anything remotely similar?

I know everyone’s case is different, but I feel worse at the fact that most people on here Know they’re not lesbian or gay, but are struggling with SOOCD. I truly don’t know if I am or not at this point, so I don’t even know what my values are anymore :(

So I’m a woman and I’m with my boyfriend for 1,5 years. I realise that every time I see a woman (whoever she is) I imagine subconsciously her kissing. This happens a lot and I a knowledge it then but then I ignore it totally. Now I realised this is happening. How to know if it’s an obsession? Now I ruminate in order “not to be a lesbian”. Also when I see a man and a woman I will firstly check woman’s characteristics. I know that I would like one day to experience something with a woman but not something deep and only as a fantasy. Help…

I get pretty intense feelings of hopelessness because I crave peace. But obv it feels unattainable with OCD when the theme’s always change. I started ERP, and to think about doing this forever has me mentally tired. How do I combat this negative feeling? All I want is to feel peace, and not like I’ll never feel ok

so i have like INTENSE fear of being a psyhopath it has been here for 4 months and i have started googling everything about me like for example when im rude to a person my mind goes omg i was rude does that mean im a psyhopath does that mean i dont have empathy and i go to google and search is it normal to be this is it normal to be this i google everything i do EVERYHING i think of LIKE EVERYTHING all i need is some reassurance how do i know i have empathy and if im rude sometimes and judgmental does that mean im a psyhopath i know reassurance is not good but here i need it plesse

Ok so I’m a girl and actually I always only had crushes on guys. Usually I also only have fantasies with guys. But for a couple of months in 2021 I called myself bisexual thinking I was into women too. At some point I changed that back to straight again and also got rid of other things that I did back then like thinking I didn’t want to be a girl. I still sometimes have trouble with the „what if I’m still not comfortable in being a girl?“ but that’s not the problem rn. I just went through episode and I wanted to go through the categories. I saw Lgbtq and remembered one of my friends who always reads Lgbtq books. I decided to click on the category and looked through the different stories they had. I didn’t click on any books tho I just scrolled through it. But I suddenly got the feeling „what if I’m attracted to women?“ and then my brain started telling me to read one of the stories and just let into my feelings for women. I also had a tiny feeling down there but it was already there before I had seen the Lgbtq category. And my brain kept telling me to „just let into my feelings and read one so that I will finally realise I’m into women“. And I then decided to quickly leave the Lgbtq category again. But now I’m doubting it. What if I’m actually into women? Bc I honestly don’t want to be I feel so ashamed even though it’s legal in my country and I don’t see any big problem with Lgbtq, I just don’t really want myself to be this way bc I actually think men are really attractive and I wanna be with men. I feel as if being into women would close a lot of doors for me. I just feel so ashamed now, am I into women bc of those thoughts? I often have thoughts going like „what if I’m into my online best friend?“ and like, she’s female and bisexual so my brain keeps being like „what if you both like each other and will end up with each other and you won’t just stay friends like you’ve been for the past years?“ and I know it’s really mean with the assumption that just bc sb is bisexual they’re in love with u bc you’re the same gender as them and I’m not thinking that but sometimes I just have these sudden doubts. It feels as if, if my best friend would ever like me, sth would change and that I would just accept those feelings and would end up liking her too. She actually sometimes tells me abt some girl at her school that she said she has a crush on and that’s perfectly fine in my opinion. But then I sometimes have these doubts like „what if I’m actually into her and am jealous of her friend?“ and like, I really like that girl too even tho I don’t know her. She seems really nice to her. I saw a picture of her on Instagram and though she kinda looks like a pig to me, it’s none of my business. Whatever my friend is comfortable with. But what if I’m into women? I feel so ashamed rn :/ I feel forced to keep reading wattpad stories with men because of this but sometimes these stories are just so boring bc of the constant enemies to lovers trope but then my brain will suddenly be like „well why don’t you read a lesbian story?“ and like, I don’t want to read a lesbian story bc that’s not what I identify with and I don’t want to imagine anything with a woman :( I didn’t have this problem at all up until a month ago..

hi. relationships are really hard for me. the intrusive thoughts while we are just hugging and like showing affection r bad. it almost ruins the entire feeling for me. i started to have doubts while we were cuddling and think abt what if im not in love with him and im using him. i love him very much and id never wanna do anything to hurt him. hes very sweet to me and i try my best to show that i love him too but my thoughts keep telling me im not in love with him i need to leave because im gonna end up cheating on him or telling me that i already did and telling me im leading him on and playing him when none of this is happening or true. i actually cried a little bit while cuddling with him because of this. i dont want to ruin the relationship its fr interfering and i hate it :(

For anyone else into spirituality, astrology, signs etc. Do you find this can make your OCD worse at times? For example… seeing “signs” that your intrusive thoughts are true or will come true? I’m having a horrible bout of SO-OCD right now and even just saying that I feel shame because I have nothing against the LGBTQ community. But for some reason it’s debilitating at the moment and I keep convincing myself that I’m seeing “signs” that are telling me I’m actually gay, even though I know deep down I’m not. Any advice with this? Why does it feel so incredibly distressing? Then I start to convince myself I must just be in denial. It’s never ending

How am I supposed to know if my thoughts and feelings are real and I should take them as a serious sign that I’m losing feelings? I’m so lost and confused and I’m trying to hang on to this relationship but what if I’m lying to myself and blinding myself to the truth I don’t want to hear. I’m so confused by all these overly critical and negative thoughts about my partner. I wish they would all go away, but there are also some things that genuinely bug me and I don’t know what to do about that. It’s nothing inherently bad, I think he’s just weird sometimes in different ways and I don’t want that to get to stop me from making this work. I’m so just mentally exhausted and I feel defeated.