Kickstart your recovery journey with a caring community of others
working to conquer OCD
What I have noticed is that when I try to use positive thinking and challenge my thoughts I feel better but then I end up avoiding intense bad thoughts. Those thoughts bubble up and then I cannot calm down unless I use ERP. Then I feel sad because thats all I can think about. How can I balance this?
Hi everyone. I’m alana and I’m 21 years old. I have been in a relationship with a great guy for almost 3 years now. My past with relationships were very crappy and I have a bad past with men period because of my dad not being a father figure for me. In this relationship I am constantly overthinking and doubting everything. Now right now my mind is calm. But when it’s not it’s like a whole thing of destruction going on up there that no one can stop. I see a counselor, I am on medicine for severe depression and anxiety and am on a mood stabilizer as well. I was never diagnosed with OCD though but I know it lingers somewhere. My doubts are always towards my boyfriend. But my depression knocks me down with the thoughts and I don’t even get out of bed. I literally talked to a psychic and she said I have nothing to worry about and so did my counselor. Any advice on how to handle it all?
So my HOCD has been pretty rough the last couple weeks. Have others that suffer from this type of OCD ever see an attractive person of the same sex and look internally for “feelings” of attraction? I’m beyond the “groinal response phase” now, and now its look for feelings of attraction. My mind is going back and forth between “this is a real feeling you are denying” or “this is just OCD creating false feelings”. Would love to hear if others have experienced it and if so, how they’ve coped with it.
Has anyone got any tips on how to stop feeling depersonalized?? And to just ground yourself a bit within
I’m really scared I have / I’m experiencing psychosis. The symptoms link heavily with my solipsism related thoughts. But then I think ‘no, psychosis is just made up and fake, like everything else’ which distresses me too. I don’t even know if you guys are real. Please help!
Why women who look like men (especially with short hair)/androgynous and tomboy women trigger my HOCD so much?? ? I always get so anxious and nervous about them and my HOCD labels it automatically as attraction even I don‘t feel comfortable with it. The last time, I really felt so uncomfortable around such women ? it’s not their fault, my HOCD is just hell
Am i reassuring myself ? When i get intrusive thoughts about tocd (trans ocd) im always like - you dont want to appear as a man outside so youre not trans.
I've been in an on and off (mostly on) relationship for a little over 4 years. During this time my ocd and anxiety have been pretty consistent until the last year-ish. During the last year it's slowly gotten better and I have made great strides. I'm doing better than ever with minor flare ups, but nothing compared to before when ocd and anxiety ruled my mind. I was in counseling for a while last year (my counselor had to drop his clients for another job, I'll probably be back in counseling eventually but im not in a rush because I'm doing a lot better than when I started therapy) and that helped. Research about ocd has helped me. Most of all a strong will to get better has helped me most. One thing that I struggle with is that my girlfriend is my main trigger now. I don't have rocd and I don't obsess on her. Her carelessness (in reference to how careful I am in daily life), her kind of lack of common sense, her over emotional tendencies (I know females are naturally more emotional), the fact that she's so mean on her period that there's really no excuse, she treats me like a crush she's known for 2 weeks instead of her boyfriend of years, and she has a bit of a temper although she never crosses the line into abuse. All these things give me anxiety and bring back my intrusive thoughts. When she's gone they go back to a manageable place. When she's around or about to come around it is like a time bomb of ocd and anxiety. Most women I've dated (pretty much all casual except the woman I'm with now) have brought similar feelings out in me. I like living my daily life alone. I'm not sure if it's my girlfriend or just the fact that I'm in a relationship with another person regardless of who that person is triggers my ocd and anxiety. I'm a high twenties male dating a female that's my age. Sometimes I feel like I have no right to want to be treated differently since my ocd and anxiety are not easy to deal with, so dealing with other people's issues is just a fair trade? Idk. I'd really appreciate some input on my situation. Please feel free to comment your true thoughts. I'm not a sensitive person so realism is best for me.
Hello! As someone with obsessive thoughts who hasn't been officially diagnosed with OCD or anything yet (I primarily have obsessive thoughts that I can't get rid of that have been causing me anxiety for about 3 1/2 months now) what has everyone found to be helpful with these thoughts regarding self help? I'm going to counseling, but she doesn't specialize in OCD, and I'd love to know what ways I can work on my own.
I'm feeling awful. This simply can't be true. If I was in fact bi I'd feel good because of it, but I don't. I actually feel dread by this thought. I don't have any will in being with a woman. Today my childhood friend that I lost contact with told me she's bi. This triggered me so much, got all these images on my mind. I just want to be free from these thoughts, I don't want to keep wondering if I want to be with women, this messes me up so much. I don't want to keep asking myself if this is really hocd or denial or internalized homophobia. I can't deal with this anymore.
I said something out of spite during an argument with my boyfriend and it was really bad and untrue and I’m ashamed with myself because I really hurt him and myself too. I immediately apologised when I realised how stupid I was and he was still upset but he said he forgives me and I need to stop talking about it and move on but I can’t. I can’t get over it and I hate myself and I ruined everything and I wanna go back and I feel like I’ll never be happy again. And it’s so annoying because we were finally in a good place after my rocd and now I’ve ruined it again.
RELIGIOUS I’m scared of God and I’m keeping a safe distance. I’m not leaving him completely I’m just talking to him from far away. If I get too close to him I’ll end up getting hurt. Just because I’m scared of him doesn’t mean I don’t love him either. I want to talk to him but ocd is saying I can’t because I’ve done too many problematic things and he’s judging me for it. So I’m avoiding praying as much as I can. This is painful. I really wish I would’ve come to find God when I was older and I wouldn’t have to question everything he did. I’d just go along with it because I would understand that I have to. Ocd really just fucks Up the idea of God. Completely. It says he’s sending me to hell anyway despite me believing he died and is coming back. It says hes sending me to hell because I’m too problematic. And it says he’s ignoring my prayers because he’s pissed with me. I want Gods attention but not that much attention because then he will see it as a chance to hurt me and call it “ a test of faith.” I even prayed to Mary and asked her to tell God what I need to tell him. Idk how praying to Mary works but I just trusted she told him. I sound so stupid but I’m lost and I just want to leave this alone until I need it. Because this isn’t healthy but I’m scared to make it healthy
Anyone else find it hard to trust their memory? I literally JUST spoke to a nurse who confirmed my old test for trichomonos/trichomoniasis was negative and I’m still like “did you hear her right? Was she talking about the same thing you were? Are you sure you can relax?” My brain can’t accept I’m fine I dunno why
I put a trigger warning even though I don't consider this triggering, some people might get upset if they don't agree or can't take on the same outlook because of personality differences. Has anyone ever tried to laugh at their OCD? Or laughed when explaining it? When I was in therapy, my therapist always told me it's a great thing that I laugh when describing my compulsions and obsessions. I didn't laugh on purpose, I just sometimes would find my rituals funny once I spoke them out loud. I realized how ridiculous it sounded. It showed that my rational mind didn't want to take my ocd seriously. A major internal conflict was going on between my logic/reasoning skills and my ocd. I would often say things like "i was worried about (obsession here) but I know it's just nonsense." I would usually chuckle when I rwalized I did something I considered nonsense for hours. This type of realistic outlook and rhetoric really helped me get to a better place. I'll usually call my dad when I need to laugh about my ocd. I used to call him for reassurance, but I found laughing off the fact that I'm worried about "nonsense" helped me heal. My compulsions tend to be external, like worrying about contamination and getting diseases. I'm not so sure laughing off suicidal thoughts, self harm, or anything like that will be applicable but most ocd is kinda funny if you speak it out loud. It kind of helps me dissociate myself with the ocd. It helps me consider my ocd almost a seperate entity than my actual rational mind. I've always seperate the two, they say when you have internal conflict it's like 2 dogs fighting. Which ever one you feed the most wins. The saying goes something like that. I turned a conrer when I stopped feeding my ocd and started feeding my rational mind and challenging myself.
(help please) Guys I’m living a total nightmare, I need your help I cannot Stop stalking my boyfriends most recent ex. I hate that I know that she loved him more than anything and that really really really bothers me. They were together for a year and he broke up with her but like ... I still can’t get over her. Recently she even changed her cover photo on Facebook to my boyfriend’s dogs!!!!!! And she’s with someone else. And I KNOW FOR A FACT she still loves my boyfriend. It’s driving me insane I just want to go punch her in the face!! I want to completely forget about her but I have no idea how!!!!
Hi all - so over a period of nearly eight years, I have experienced intense ROCD (relationship OCD) with my partner. Last week we got engaged, this wasn't a huge surprise as we were talking about it for months in advance. My intrusive thoughts tend to flare up really badly in times of change, even positive change. When we graduated university, when we moved to our flat, and when I started my job are all times I've had flare ups so the fact that I'm having another flare up now shouldn't have come as a shock - but I'm finding it so hard to cope with. The night of our engagement, after about five mins of initial anxiety from the shock, I was on cloud nine and couldn't wait to tell friends and family and begin planning our wedding. However, the next day, the rumination began. "Have I made a terrible mistake, do I really love him, am I just settling, everyone is so happy for us but I'm faking my emotions, if we're supposed to spend the rest of our lives together I should be happy, not anxious, etc." this has totally ruined our first week of what should be the happiest time of our lives. There are zero red flags in our relationship, in fact, the night before we got engaged I remember thinking to myself that I had honestly never been happier. I'm super lucky in that my partner knows about my anxiety, is so thoughtful, and has been constantly reassuring me that all will be well, we've been here before countless times and have always come through. My parents and best friends have also been super supportive as they know what my triggers are, and I've had some lovely messages from them. I'm looking for good coping mechanisms for how to deal with the thoughts and stop putting pressure on myself, as I'm currently stuck in that horrid cycle of endless reassurance and spikes and it's doing me no good at all. Can anyone who has ever been in a similar situation help? X
My friend said I had lesbian energy and I’m not sure why that makes me so anxious
Does anyone with HOCD worry about the times they were homophobic? Like today in my Women’s study class, we were doing the heterosexual questionnaire and then my teacher asked us to fill the blanks in our head. I filled it with homophobic responses because I thought about what my parents or what others might say. But now I’m convinced that I’ve been faking being accepting the whole time and I’m really as bad as my parents.
I have a problem that I'm scared to catch a serious illness like hiv or aids from kissing people or becoming to close to them. It makes me get away from people and I have problems in relationships because I cant trust them if they are clean and I'm too freak... this Sunday I kissed a girl I met on tinder and she made me an scar on my mouth... and now I feel terrible cause if her blood got into my scar I may have caught hiv. I have been 3 days on terrible distress and this sucks... I dont know how to not think about it and I really dont talk to this girl anymore, I checked her mouth 2 or 3 times for injuries or blood (she didn't had any and I dont know if she has hiv or not) but I'm in terrible distress just for the fact that I had an open cut while kissing her and thst kiss could have made me sick with hiv. I really hate this and I hate myself and my decisions of kissing her. And this combines qith my religious compulsions... I'm really hating myself, OCD and illness right now... I'm in big distress and just want to vent a little bit. I just hope I didn't caught hiv from kissing this girl that made me an open cut as I said before but I cant be sure and this makes me crazy.... I just hate it... and hate this thoughts
If you are in crisis, please use these emergency resources to find immediate help.
OCD doesn't have to
rule your life
