Kickstart your recovery journey with a caring community of others
working to conquer OCD
Recently my ocd has been directly exasperating my health anxiety and it causes daily panic attacks. I’m tired of feeling like I’m dying every day when I know I’m physically healthy. Does anyone have any coping mechanisms for this?
I need to go to church tmrw but I feel like crap... ^^ Idk if this is OCD or not but I feel like I do not fit in my own skin no matter what I do :( Yeah basically I feel like sleeping forever idk :p
Hello! I have been dealing with postpartum ocd since right after having my first child in 2017. It started with worrying that someone would drop her. Then I was terrified of her getting sick. All of these symptoms could be shrugged off as being an overly protective new parent. I had my second child in 2019. I used an owlet device to help prevent sudden infant death (SIDS) in our baby. Turns out it did save her life, multiple times. The first time being the day we brought her home. We were told, after many tests and three days, those devices often just cause anxiety. I trusted my gut and continued to use the device which ultimately saved her life a second time when she stopped breathing again. We had to do cpr on her and she spent over a month in neo natal icu, come to find out she had severe central apnea. I feel like this experience reaffirmed my ocd tendencies. If I didn’t obsess over her health and be overly cautious she wouldn’t be here. The whole first year was her being on machines at home and oxygen. She was monitored constantly at home. Now she is a beautiful four year old. She’s strong and healthy and a normal kid. I however, am still a walking ball of dread and fear. I’m terrified of finding her blue in bed. Or even my oldest daughter blue in bed when there’s no reason at all to fear this. I’m terrified of “missing” something and them getting deathly ill. If one of them feels off or is tired my mind goes to “what if they have cancer and I’m missing something.” “What if they have a sinus infection and it turns into meningitis because someone is missing something.” “I am thinking this all the time because they ARE going to die and the universe is preparing me.” I don’t think other people can understand how debilitating this is. Constantly playing out every single scenario in your mind and preventing it from happening. It feels like I am trying to outrun fate every single day. The reality is “fate” is my obsession to keep my children alive when they ARE alive. I’m sorry to vent. I’m not really sure why I’m writing this. Maybe someone understands these feelings. The silver lining I guess is I love my children so much, my mind will solely exist to try and keep them safe. I know that they deserve a mom who lets them live this life outside of a bubble, to live not just to survive. I want so badly to be that for them.
Does anyone suffer from emerophobia? Currently doing exposure therapy and very triggered by it. And also very frustrated to that I’m not “cured” I have the compulsions to ask loved ones “do you think I’ll get sick?” And I need them to say “no”. Well my therapist wants them to say “it’s a possibility” and also tell myself that too. It’s hard. First few days was hard. I broke down a lot and had a ton of anxiety. After a week or so it got Easier. However I felt sick tonight after dinner idk if I was still hungry or anxious or what but I felt nauseous. I tried to tell myself “it’s ok it happens and just because I feel nauseous doesn’t mean I’ll get sick” I was ok but I just ain’t ok. I’m coping the ways I can, took my emergency medicine for anxiety and I’m just doing my coping skills. I’m frustrated because living like this is so draining. Not just the emetophobia but the ocd compulsions, the intrusive thoughts, the looping in your head…People don’t understand they think it’s just “oh I need my refrigerator organized” my house is a mess I can barely keep up with it because of this…. Half the time I’m scared that if I throw away something bad will happen. Resorting into clutter.. I can barely leave my house in the morning cuz I’m afraid my house will burn down, or my cats will get out of the house and I’ll never see them again. Resulting into me being late to work almost every morning. Terrified to go to bed because I’m worried I’ll wake up and get sick, I have to stay awake until a certain time and then it’s safe….😢 anyways I needed to just get this off my chest, and would like to see if anyone else experiences similar things.
Does anyone else have a combination of ADHD and OCD? If so, please let me know if you have unique experiences with the combination. I know it’s rare. I’m only diagnosed officially with ADHD but I’m pretty sure I have a mild form of OCD as well. Sometimes I think my OCD expresses itself as overcompensating for my ADHD forgetfulness , and I can’t always tell if I have obsessions or hyper-focusing and what the difference is between the two. Because whatever it is seems to waste lots of time and causes me a lot of anxiety.
I feel like I wanna self harm and I'm scared I'll do it due to me having an intense fear of pain :( Do yall have any substitutes for self harm? /genq
Is it normal ? My boyfriend has rocd he used to not be able to look at girls but now he’s having a wank over my sister ?? Told him to stop it and he’s done it again after everything he’s put me through with this rocd which I know isn’t his fault but 3 years of hell and I have been expressing my mental health is bad last couple days and he goes and does that when I told him to not ever do it again am I in the wrong for being mad he keeps saying most boys would do it and he felt an urge to
How do you know you don’t like the thoughts you’re thinking or the images in your head that you are seeing? Is there a way to get proof for yourself so I know I’m a safe person.
So I have a quick story… About six months ago my boyfriend and I went to dinner. He was talking about a hang out with his friends that happened recently and his friends gf and her best friend were there. I come to find out all the times (at that time) he hung out with his friends, his friends gf and the best friend were there. For the sake of the story let’s call his friends gf Carly and the friend we’ll call Sam (I know so original). So naturally I was upset that he was telling me for weeks it was just his friends when carly and sam were also there. A month later about we go to carly’s birthday party. I met sam. She was going on about how funny my boyfriend is, he’s so good at golf, he’s so funny. I was uncomfortable. Then a couple weeks later we go bowling with his friends and I was told just carly was going to be there because it was just a couples night. I get tapped on the shoulder and it was sam. My bfs friends were yes-ing me up and down saying they had no idea she was coming and it was a shock. The NEXT day, one of my boyfriend’s friends called him and said “yeah we knew she was coming, we didn’t think it was a big deal.” Since then, it’s been hard to move on and forgive them. I have spoken to them and sam about what I felt and basically was told that I’m crazy and toxic and they resent me. The point of this is I TRY AND CONTROL EVERYTHING. IT IS KILLING MY RELATIONSHIPS AND MY LIVELIHOOD. I don’t know what to do anymore. I can’t be around his friends because they hate me, I can’t go into public because they’ll see me and talk shit about me, I can’t do anything. I can’t even post a story on my instagram without feeling like they’re watching and judging me. I don’t know how to feel or act. I’m upset I can’t control anything and it can’t go the way I want and feel it needs to go. I need help. Or advice.
last week on tuesday i had a ocular migraine for the first time and it freaked me out. I started wearing my glasses more and when i take them off my vision is more blurry now. I also had a sinus infection that same day i got a ocular migraine, but im continuously scared that it is a brain tumor and that is why my vision is blurry and i’ve been doing clumsy things or accidents for example forgetting something or like anxiety on knowing what to say in a conversation because a symptom was not being able to speak and it’s like my body is manifesting these symptoms but it makes it feel all more real. what do i do
I feel so down about how out of control my symptoms have become. My OCD fears lie in the fear of contracting an incurable disease. I hyper focus on the disease of rabies. If I see an animal outside, even if it is 30 or 40 feet away from me I feel dirty. If an animal is outside a restaurant I will just leave because I become overwhelmed. My heart races, I feel nauseous, and sometimes I feel like I’m not even in my own body. I don’t interact with my own pets anymore, and it breaks my heart. I won’t hang out with my friend anymore because she works at a vets office. I’m in therapy but it’s not working. I’m on medicine that doesn’t seem to be working. I feel hopeless. No one understands, especially family. It keeps getting worse and worse, especially since it became spring time and animals that weren’t out much in the winter are coming back out. I just don’t know what to do anymore.
Because I struggle with false memory and real event ocd, I feel like God hates me. I remember praying to God please give me a reason to live and I honestly don't deserve it. What it makes this worse is that, I ask God to just end my life.
vent // ‼️TW: implied thought of su*cide‼️ hey guys, this is my first post. just wanted to share something from my notes app to see if anyone could relate! and if not, just something to see of how I feel/think when intrusive thoughts are beating me down :D here it goes: “I feel like I’m burning up. drowning. trapped. what if I am a bad person….? it’s like I’m obsessing over and over…. overthinking….. it’s killing me…. and I feel selfish for not wanting to die….. how would I react to someone who is going through the same thing as me…..? of the opposite sex….? I feel like I can’t even think for myself…. I doubt everything….. what if the next thing I feel or decision I make is wrong? I just want to be good. it feels like I just shed into a new person the next day……. like the past is not me……. but it’s still the same body……. I feel like I can’t ever be clean again…. I’m stained…… if I could go back to being a child, I would do the right things and make sure to stand my ground……. it’s hard…… not knowing if I should continue or not….. but again, I don’t want to die….. how selfish of me….. not because of that…… why do I keep asking so many questions…..??? like I’m not even sure who I am…..??? I’m doubting myself again……. sometimes I feel like a child that’s still learning about rights and wrongs…….. is it possible that I’m different…..? I feel like I see the world differently……. everyone does….but for me……there are certain things I don’t understand…… it’s hard……. sometimes wanting to go……. but thinking of her…….. oh, if I could just protect her from the world……. if she could just stay happy being little…… it’s funny how I want to shield her from the wicked…… but what’s the point if I feel like I am wicked myself……????”
I feel like i have gotten to the point where i realize it's my brain convincing me, telling me that there is something wrong with me. That i have cancer because there's no way that i don't. That I'm ill and i will pass in a few days. I get so scared and anxious about it because the truth is i really dont want to die so early in life. And the fear that i will, is just consuming the life i am currently living. I get so depressed and sad because i dont want to die because i like the life i have. And im scared that if i have cancer then everything will get flipped upside down and ill die and i wont experience everything i want to. When i was in middle school i hated life and i seriously had suicidal thoughts, and now i feel like my Health OCD is giving me karma for thinking like that. Because now, i feel like i have it worse than i did then. Everyday i live in constant fear that im going to just drop dead or develop cancer and die before i can even reach 18. But i feel like my intuition wants to keep me safe, so it tells me to check and to make sure i dont have anything wrong with me. I feel like everyone calls me crazy. But it's so hard, and so scary to not worry about this. I try and have a good day but a sudden pain in my arm just makes me believe that my vein is going to burst which will stop my heart or something. I just want to have a good time, The past few months have been worrying me sick. I'm not sure how to get better, or how to stop worrying about having a serious illness. I freak out even more that i keep saying or thinking i have cancer, because then i feel like i'm manifesting it even though i don't want it to happen. I just get scared that i keep saying it and then it will actually happen. I'm just so distraught. But i've been recognizing that i really need to stop this. I've been crying everyday about this. I really just need help and guidance, i just need to be healthy :(
I really need to tweeze my eyebrows but everytime i even look at them i get so triggered and spend hours in the bathroom (causing me to avoid looking at them). however today i physically felt the hair in between them and i feel the hairs are sticking out, but if i pluck them, i know it’ll turn into a compulsion. how do i get around this? I need to remove the hairs sometimes for real, but it’s so triggering???
Love it when a panic attack sneaks up on you. Doing some traveling for work and that includes me traveling from the east coast to New Mexico. I was very anxious about the altitude. I had it in my head that i was going to get ill from being higher up than i ever have been before and have to go to the hospital or back home. The first couple of days were a bit rough but i adjusted quicker than I thought I would. It’s been about a week being here and I had off today. I got to walk around a farmers market, get good food, and then clean and chill out. I was feeling really good, in control and care-free. The obsessive thoughts were only a light hum in the background. I took a short walk to a free library to pick up a couple books. When i got back to where i was staying, i was out of breath. Not uncommon for someone who isn’t fully adjusted to the altitude. I’ve experienced it a little before and after sitting down for a little my breathing is back to normal. Just feels like i ran instead of walked usually. But this time it kind of sent me. Now, i didn’t drink enough water today (also important in NM) so that was contributing to my hard breathing, dizziness, shakiness and bit of nausea. I knew after some rest, water and a snack, I would be fine. Instead I guess the bodily sensations really caused a panic attack which mimic the same symptoms of altitude sickness. Immediately i felt my heart rate go up and started googling. When the googling made me more fearful (doesn’t it always do that?) i called someone for reassurance that I wasn’t dying. I rested, drank water and ate a little and feel better. It’s been about 20 minutes and the panic and symptoms seemed to subside. Guess what I’m fine! So tired of being kicked in the butt by obsessive thinking and anxiety out of nowhere. Thanks for letting me vent.
With all my themes I got into a bad habit of deliberately imagining thoughts to test myself and see how I react to see if I ‘like or hate’ them but it’s got to the point where nothing phases me and I don’t really get anxiety anymore and don’t even feel disgusted or feel like the thoughts are ‘negative’ and I started having harm ocd and it’s been bad it started off with a stabbing intrusive thoughts and then it jsut got worse and the thoguhts jsut started getting more graphic and gory and I keep imagining the thoughts to test myself and today it feels like I’m literally ‘choosing’ to imaging really graphic thoughts for no reason, like an idea will come to my head of something really bad and I keep going into it and creating really messed up scenarios and almost feels like I’m choosing and ‘want’ to imagine the most messed up gory thought I can, like it feels like I’m actually trying to imagine the most worst things on purpose and I don’t know why I’m doing that and it doesn’t even feel like I’m ‘testing myself’ it just feels likes I’m almost ‘curious’ or as if I’m just a messed up person and ‘like’ imaging really horrible things when I have the option not to, 2 years ago when I started having this problem I was physically shivering in fear from a documentary I watched that caused all this for me and now I’m sat here with no reaction no nothing and it feels like I want and am trying to imagine the most horrific thing I can think of and I get this weird thing where it feels like I’m about to laugh or smile, I’ve been telling my mom everything and idk what to do I’ve never had therapy for this either and I’m worried I’ve become my fears or started taking a liking to disgusting things because why am I thinking of such disgusting things when I have the option not to and I’m delving in to imagine disgusting scenarios like what an evil person would do when their ‘fantasying’ Idk what to do I don’t even understand how I feel anymore about anything
I want to overcome OCD because I’m tired of it consuming me every hour, every day.
Anyone with Harm OCD ever have to be a caregiver for the person you have the urges and obsessions about? I'm not going to survive this.
If you are in crisis, please use these emergency resources to find immediate help.
OCD doesn't have to
rule your life
