Kickstart your recovery journey with a caring community of others
working to conquer OCD
does anyone else have a rly hard time getting over fights/ previous issues with partners? my partner messed up a while ago but it really wasn’t a big deal and we bounced back instantly but for some reason i can’t let it go, and the more i try to stop thinking about it the more it pops up in my head. i know our relationship is solid and he is awesome but what can i do to stop these intrusive thoughts and stop self sabotaging??
I don’t care if this sounds mean. The man just decided to post that OCD is a beneficial disorder. It angers me so mucn that people think of ocd as this thing where it makes you more clean or it makes you more meticulous and perfect, etc. etc. it took me so long to get diagnosed with OCD because nobody could understand the fact that it’s not about being clean or having any sort of obsession with cleanliness or structure. For me, I’ve always struggled with OCPD. I’ve never not been obsessed with something in my entirety of existence. I have relationship OCD. I have OCD about being in narcissist I have OCD about climate change. I have OCD about the wars going on and how they might end up the state these things have genuinely impacted my left the point where I live in fear and I get so scared and will spend hours and hours researching the possibilities of these things being true. Misinform damages literally every single person involved even people who don’t have OCD. I’m just so sick of it. This dude has a huge platform and it really bothers me that people can get away with this shit
Hey! I don’t want to get too political or upset anyone, but I just am feeling really alone: Has anyone else been facing moral scrupulosity or other intrusive thoughts about world events like the war on Gaza? It’s hard to know what’s an appropriate amount of concern and what’s OCD and it’s kind of taking over my life.
Has anyone ever had panic attacks out of no where that then brought on the intrusive thoughts?
Before I talk about this I just wanna say that if you have any form of contamination ocd related to bodily fluids I recommend not continuing to read this. Since the beginning of my ocd, my biggest fear has always been semen. My fear of semen has plagued my life and is constantly affecting me. My ocd stained my senior year of high school as it was at its worst during that time. I was constantly concerned that everything had semen on it and therefore I couldn’t touch it, resulting in washing my hands close to 30 times a day and no longer being able to do things I used to normally do. I eventually got into therapy and got on a medication and have managed to majorly progress in conquering my ocd though the one thing I cannot get past is my fear of semen. I moved into college back in august of last year and ended up having a rough year in terms of my ocd. My roommate was a very sexually active person and that had major effects on my ocd and honestly made me scared to even be in my dorm as he also wasn’t a very clean person. I spent pretty much the whole school year living uncomfortably and was beyond happy to finally move out of that dorm. I’m sitting here now just stressing a little bit about my dorm situation next year and also a little about myself. I’m 19 years old and can’t physically engage in anything that may be sexual because i’m so scared of semen and I just feel like a weirdo for that. I also don’t know how my new roommate is going to be in terms of cleanliness and really don’t want to be living another year in fear. I guess what i’m kinda just looking for is someone else that understands what i’m going through and what has helped them. This isn’t exactly a topic I want to discuss with people I know personally so I just need some reassurance that i’m not the only one struggling with this.
I had a friend last year who shared his OCD experiences with me and we bonded a lot over how we ruminated on stuff and how debilitating it was to exist as Queer people with OCD. We had a lot in common and a lot not in common. Unfortunately, because my harm and relationship OCD is so bad, I would constantly worry about harming him, especially since I am white and he is a person of color and happens to be less financially privileged than me. He has some form of relationship and harm OCD as well, but he was also extremely insecure and would get triggered by so many things. Understandably so. We’d have endless conversations about race and class and gender and sexuality, and they were enjoyable to an extent, but I always felt like most of the things I said or thought was wrong and harmful and that I needed to make up for it by doing everything I could to make him happy and comfortable, but it ended up I would agree to things I didn’t really want to do with him. We got into several huge arguments because he felt betrayed and hurt when I backed out of things I initially agreed to, I do this a lot, and I would feel overwhelming amounts of guilt and shame for harming him. I felt like I was caught in a loop of trying and never being good enough, and he would rage at me and I would cry and then he would try to comfort me, but I felt powerless and like I could never express my true feelings with him without being critiqued or criticized. He and his whole family would poke fun at me for being a “privileged white boy,” which I tried to be okay with because it’s true. But it really did poke a sore spot. I would get it in my head that I’m just a racist, terrible person and wonder why he even bothered being my friend if I was so obnoxious to him. But I also just felt like our relationship was causing me too much stress and rumination so I told him I didn’t want to be friends anymore. But I really miss hanging out with him and the good times. I miss the conversations we had and the ways we used to relate and try and help each other with our mental health. I don’t miss him talking about wanting to have sex with me a lot and getting defensive when I told him to stop. I don’t miss when he would rage at me and make a confrontation turn into multiple hour-long critiques of society. I don’t miss him dismissing me asking him to give me space to focus on a task at hand as “being dismissive of real problems” because “white people never want to talk about racism,” which just wasn’t true because I spend a lot of time talking about race and racism and learning, I just can’t multi-task while I’m driving or trying to play a game and I have a really hard time with commitments and focusing. I do have ADHD as well, which isn’t always an excuse, yet I don’t think he understood how debilitating my lack of ability to focus really is, so he would constantly get angry at me for forgetting things or not being able to multi-task and I just felt like a fuck-up. But I do miss playing video games and talking about cartoons and hanging out. I don’t know what to do. I keep wanting to talk to him but it never, ever goes well. Am I just too fragile? Am I just too afraid to take accountability for my racism? I know relationships are a two-way street. And I try not to demonize him or myself in my head. I just wish it didn’t hurt so bad for us to talk with each other.
Any advice please ? What do you think about this? So I dont know what is intrusive or real . I doubt everything. Recently , a friend that I had just cut the contact.I had a crush on them .I think I still have .I need to tell that I am a lesbian.The problem is that Idk if I really cared about them . So a long time agp they told me that I was dry with them .. And I continued to be dry .. The thing is that I was like that because I was nervous when I was around them .And I was pushing them away . I am an idiot . I made someone I care about suffer and think that I dont care. Please be honest .I feel like it was more like an obsession .. how can I say that I care about someone and hurt them... To continue to hurt them. I feel ashamed. I feel like I dont have the right to be ashemed because I hurt them.I am so sorry that I kept a secret my feelings for them . I betrayed their trust .. Also I had intrusive thoughts which made it worse. Like I need to convince myself that I didnt want to hurt them but they are not in my life anymore. Its one of the worst ways a friendship ended. I didnt told them what I felt because I was scared it will end our friendship and I didnt want to make them uncomfortable . I also think that I am manipulative in a way .. sometimes I realised sometimes I dont . They told me I was gaslighting them because I was dry and I really was in messages and I really was and I told them that I am dry in messages and told me this is gaslighting .I broke their trust they didnt belived me anymore. I fucking hate myself because I feel like I destroy every friendship that I have and I fucking hate having crushes on a friend . And how I handled it . I ended up being a bad friend anyway .I didnt told them especially because I didnt want to tell them because I didnt want to make them feel like I was friends with them just because I wanted to have a relationship with them . But I think: what if I just wanted that? What if I was using them? It makes me feel so gross and I feel like a creep.Idk if it is because of ocd .I realised I am a shitty person but I am scared that I am like my intrusive thoughts ... I dont know what is true anymore its like a nightmare. At the end they told me I was fake and Idk if I am really fake or not but I really enjoyed their company .One day I met them again and they gave me something and I heard them cry . I fucking hate it . I hate that I make them suffer. Bit I cant change what I did. I wish them the best.
Send any support you can for dealing with this. It is very difficult.
Does anyone have fear of just “thinking?” Like being scared to just think? My thoughts can get very racy, & intense. It can feel like I have too many thoughts at once. I’m afraid of being a bad person. Im afraid my intentions aren’t always good. Sometimes I have very negative thoughts about people. Im always scared of what my motivations are. I feel lost.
so it’s been a few days i lost my best friend it’s been hard my ocd has gotten worse but i had a therapy session yesterday it went okay i guess… but i was telling her about losing my best friend and telling her i’m still highly aware that it’s ocd… she was like well a psychiatrist would diagnose u with ocd then she asked if i pay attention to numbers and im not for sure sometimes i don’t even know my compulsions.. but i do repetitively like tell people my thoughts so i’m guessing that’s repetitive reassurance.. my ocd thoughts were rlly high this morning like: “what if i hurt myself” “what if i want it to happen” “do i want it to happen because i’m going through a lot” “i don’t want it to happen… but what if there is a reason to” but it makes me nervous that i’m afraid it’s true because i think this happens from a tramatic experience from losing a classmate even tho i wasn’t as close with her it tramatized me bc she passed away due to s*cide and i guess that’s why it started my fear because she had mental issues and that started that crazy maze with my thoughts.. but not the only thing after when my best friend passed away at the funeral it was a open casket, she was rlly pale and it was rlly scary i use to constantly check myself to make sure i wasn’t gonna turn pale but it calmed down but then last night i was having trouble sleeping because i was having racing thoughts while i was sleeping so i guess i was sleeping very light but i get scared i will die in my sleep… my therapist still hasn’t figured out saying if i have ocd or not and sometimes i feel like i’m depressed or if i’m bipolar
I’ve been dealing with the fear of schizophrenia for about 10 months now with symptoms varying from fear of hallucinations, constantly on the look out for negative symptoms such as flat affect, low mood etc. to now constantly having to fight off delusional intrusive thoughts. I feel it’s worth it to mention I am an atheist, secular humanist and realist and had/have very firm beliefs about reality that were evidence based and very grounded. Ever since this theme has started, these thoughts and feelings coupled with derealization have completely warped my mind and I’m constantly getting thoughts such as “the world is way too good and complex to be true, there must be something more at play here” “there must be something sinister at play here”“this must be some sort of simulation” “there must be more to the world than just science and biology” “what if satan is the true creator of the world” “What if the government is working in accordance with Satan to keep up with this simulation” etc etc. just bizarre crazy shit. these thoughts feel very very convincing, despite there being no evidence for them. I’ve gotten to a point where I’m done fighting and don’t know what to believe. No amount of logic that I feed these thoughts will ever be enough. I feel like my case is different form most peoples with ocd, from what I’ve read, everybody with my kind of thoughts still have a meta awareness that there thoughts aren’t real and the world around them is very much real. Well I feel like everyday I’m losing that awareness more and more, moments of clarity are quite rare for me now. I feel like I am becoming convinced what I’m thinking is true and I’m getting thoughts and feelings like “how could I not see this before, this is all way too good to be true” and I don’t want that. It is scaring me that I am thinking this way. Like I said this is a COMPLETE 180 from the way I used to think. Please help. My mind has me convinced that there is no other way to think about it and I’m possibly just in denial about it
hi! I have never talked about this before so this is going to be quite long but I just need to get this out and I hope someone can relate to something. I’m a 22 y/o about to start my PhD in the fall and I have struggled with mental health my whole life. I had a pretty shitty childhood and throughout life it felt like bad things just kept happening to me, almost like the universe was against me (it didn’t help that I grew up in the church). I’ve always been a little “particular” about things but never had the classic counting, repeating, etc symptoms, and my mental health journey started around 15. high school sucked of course because it was high school but all day every day nothing seemed to shut my brain up!! finally when I was 17 I met a psychiatrist I actually enjoyed talking to and she diagnosed me with bipolar II because I was quite the delinquent for a time but I would also get super sad a lot. also important to note that I’m one of those gifted kid burnouts (hopefully no burnt out because I got 5 more years lol) so I’ve always been above average. my psychiatrist was so nice and fun to talk to and for a bit it seemed like she really understood and cared! but somewhere along the way, around age 19, I realized things still sucked in a way that they’re not supposed to if you’re getting the right help, if that makes sense? I started telling her again that my brain is too fast and won’t stop (things I’ve said my entire life), that I have these “silly little things” I do because I can’t focus, and so many other blatant signs (retrospectively). one day she “diagnosed” me with OCD and gave me a weak med for it (guanfacine?) and never really talked about it again and at some point I just stopped taking them. all of our sessions for YEARS were just us talking about life, my mom, theater, school, etc, and every time I’d bring up a concern she’d say “that’s just how my brain is” and “I’m just too smart for my own good” and similar lines – I wasn’t sure what to call it because I feel so guilty and scared every time I question her but I think this has been medically traumatic. I feel like everything is just “how I am” so I have to deal with it and it’s just been that way for 22 years because “I’ve come so far and done so well!” even though I tell her it’s exhausting every single day to have gotten to this point. I’ve been feeling unheard and frustrated for at least 2 years but have only thought about it a handful of times because it makes me feel so guilty - we’re friends! she says I’m one of her favorite patients! she’s so nice! but then one day a few months ago my friend started telling me every silly little thing I did was actually OCD. I brushed it off because I already had a diagnosis (bipolar) and we hadn’t talked about OCD in years, and we would’ve if it were relevant, right? I talked to my psych and got the same dismissive replies and just a change of dosage in my mood stabilizers, like it’s been for the past 5 years. however my thoughts have gotten so bad and the compulsions that I didn’t know were compulsions got so bad that I didn’t want to leave my house unless absolutely necessary after believing it’s all trauma-based so if I go over everything I’ve been through I’ll be cured (very bad idea LOL). anyways now I am at my peak severity (counting, repeating, washing, clenching my body to the point where my jaw hurts, etc) and I got the OCD workbook and have been crying for days because I FINALLY FEEL HOPE. I did not think this part of me — the part I struggle with the most — could be fixed. I found a therapist who taught me about ERP and have been trying to implement it but he is very new to this as well (not a specialist but very willing to learn!) so it’s hard. about my psychiatrist though, can someone please give me advice? is she just a pill-pusher and I’ve been bamboozled and played the last 5 years for that monthly/bimonthly check? :( ok I think that’s all for now but these have been an incredibly intense and emotional few days and nobody understands even though my loved ones are AMAZING in trying. it’s nice to see this is a real thing and that’s not “just how my brain works” :’)
I don’t fight the thoughts I just let them be. I don’t ruminate on them, well not in the same way that I used to. Attempting to disprove them is not something I engage with anymore. But since I’ve been not trying to disprove them I feel as though the distress is so unbearable. And I weirdly feel as though it’s now real and it’s not even OCD. When will the distress stop? I haven’t been doing compulsions. Yet the distress never seems to go away.
sometimes i genuinely believe that i would be a lot better off as dead. i hate being like this. i hate being me. i don’t want to be a bad person or a burden on anyone. it’s starting to feel like i want the thoughts because they’re no longer causing me anxiety, i don’t know if that’s down to my meds or what but. it’s like i feel disgust and guilt but i don’t feel the panic if that makes any sense? i’m a terrible person, i don’t deserve any type of happiness. it all feels so real, i fully believe what my ocd is telling me even though i know this time a few months ago i wouldn’t have ever thought anything like this. when will this all stop? i feel like the right thing for me to do is end it all
I just performed a ritual today and fell again in the cycle of contamination ocd. Now my brain is telling me to do more compulsions now as i feel dirty and then i cant start ERP from tomorrow again. But i don't want to do any more compulsions now. I know i did wrong by doing one but i dont want to keep doing them all now bcz my brain will now tell me to do more and more. I want to start resisting but my brain just tell me you did one and now you need more. I am just sitting with this anxiety. Can anyone please give me some suggestion? I just want to fight against this ocd. Although i do fall in the cycle sometimes but then i get up back and start resisting. Its like i cannot get fully normal
So, a few nights ago, I had a really intense panic attack because I’d did some really stupid googling and basically convinced myself that I have cancer. Ever since then, things have been…off. I can usually bounce back from bad flare-ups, but this has been different. I just don’t really feel like myself. I also don’t really like being by myself and have struggled falling asleep because I don’t really trust my own mind not to overwhelm me with these intrusive thoughts that I have cancer. I’m not really sure what to do. I guess all I really can do is wait for it to pass, but I was just wondering if anyone potentially had any advice/wanted to reach out? For the record, my doctor has NO idea that I suspect I have ocd symptoms, and getting meds will probably be a whole thing, even though I would love to start medication at some point.
If you are in crisis, please use these emergency resources to find immediate help.
OCD doesn't have to
rule your life