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Am I the only one who gets truly terrible and graphic intrusive images? They're too much.

I think I have suffered from some forms of pure ‘o’ OCD for a while now, but I am not sure as they come and go and change with time. At the moment I cannot stop obsessing over the thought that I must be a pedophile, despite having no desire to harm children and no attraction to children. Now even the thought of the word ‘children’ or the sight of them makes me feel anxious and on edge that I will for some reason harm them or everyone will know that I am a molester even though I am not and would never want to be. I also cannot stop trying to look into the past to see if I ever behaved inappropriately around children and testing/bargaining with myself when there are children around to prove to myself that I am in fact normal. It is very hard to focus on anything, so sometimes performing weird rituals like counting to 8 and not stepping on the cracks helps to soothe me, but I have resorted to harming myself at worse moments. Also, when I was growing up, I thought I had sexuality based OCD or anxiety because I was terrified of being a lesbian. I would try and bargain and explain myself out of the idea that I could be gay, and try to find evidence that would prove to myself that I was straight. However, I have since accepted that part of myself and dismissed it as denial, but now I am experiencing similar anxiety levels with this suspected POCD. Now I am afraid that this means I am not truly queer, or even worse, that it is not POCD and I am in danger of becoming a pedophile in the future. However, when I was anxious over my sexuality I think I did on some level know that I was attracted to women, whereas I don’t have a clue where these thoughts that I would harm children have come from. However it was a while ago and I can’t stop obsessing that they are the same thing; these thoughts are extremely distressing so I don’t know what to do.

Last night my friend and I did edibles for the first time. We accidentally did too much and we both became incredibly anxious. For me it made my ocd bad I started constantly checking to see if I was aroused and I got paranoid that I was and then kept checking and it really just triggered my ocd. I was wondering if anyone else has gone through similar things? I got really bad sexual and violent intrusive thoughts.

Me and my long-distance boyfriend are meeting for the first time in 2 days! I'm so excited. I'm also starting to have an ROCD flare up right now. The thoughts aren't flooding in too bad but I can feel it coming. I think the flare up may be related to nerves? But basically, one of my worst themes in 2022 when my OCD was at its worst was ROCD because I was constantly worrying whether or not I had cheated on my boyfriend, every little thing sent me into a state of panic, I started having false memories and sometimes they still feel real to me if I think about them long enough. I’m starting to have a feeling of anxiety and guilt right now, like I don’t deserve to be happy or to even be meeting my sweet boyfriend. I love him more than anything and then thought of hurting him makes me sick, you know? I am resisting the urge to confess all my thoughts and feelings to people I know, because that will just make things worse. I think what I need right now is someone to talk to/relate to. Does anyone else relate? I’m feeling kind of disappointed in myself that it’s been 2 whole years of me suffering on and off with this same theme. And, with my OCD meds that I’m on, I’m gonna have to go off of them when I want to start having babies. Just thinking of that scares me because me and my boyfriend want to get married and have children, but the thought of being unmedicated while I’m pregnant/breastfeeding scares me so bad. I’ve warned my boyfriend that when we have kids I may be a bit delusional while I’m pregnant/off my meds and he told me he would take care of me when that happens. I’m grateful for him, so so grateful.. I’m just feeling like I don’t deserve any of this. My mind wants to go back to that place of ruminating and reassurance-seeking. Although I’ve been free of most of my awful compulsions for a while, my body wants to go back to it, almost like instinct. Sigh. Please pray for me. 🥺

Hello, so I had some pretty bad OCD. I had intrusive thoughts and I would do very disturbing rituals/ compulsions to try to suppress the thoughts. It was extremely unhealthy. It pretty much took over my life. It was non stop. I got the help I needed. I saw a physiatrist and she put me on medicine. We found a good combination of medicine that worked great. Over time I felt the best I had in so long! It was great! But then we lowered the dose of the medicine and eventually I stopped taking it. It turned out I didn't do it right. The first mistake was at this point I had not taken any therapy, only medicine. And also I believe I didn't take enough time lowering the dosage before I just completely stopped taking the medicine. So basically at this point I unfortunately relapsed and started doing all those terrible compulsions again. It was horrible! It was a nightmare. So I obviously saw my physiatrist again and we went back on the medicine. And she then strongly recommended I see a therapist. So I did. I signed up to NOCD and started taking sessions. They taught me a lot! It was extremely helpful. So after the therapy and continuing taking my medicine I got back to where I was before the relapse. I was in a great spot again. At this point my physiatrist recommended we start to reduce my medicine again.. but this time we did it way more slower. I would take lower dosages monthly. I would cut my pills in halves, then quarters, then I would take a pill every other day etc. We got to a point ( about 3 months ago) Where we decide I stop taking the medicine. Now here I am now. So I haven't relapsed. What I mean is I haven't done any of my terrible rituals/ compulsions that really spiral me out of control. So I'm proud of that. But unfortunately I just feel like some of the symptoms are returning. I find myself doing very small ticks to try to suppress some of these thoughts. I guess you can call them compulsions. There not anything bad but I know I'm doing them. I know I probably should stop because I fear that could lead to worse compulsions. So basically after I stopped taking my pills I've noticed a difference. It's no where near as bad as it was!! I'm able to live with this. Thanks to everything I know from therapy etc... but to be honest I kinda feel a little depressed because I know there are symptoms returning. I can feel them. So it kind of sucks. I'm trying my best to not do any compulsions. But it's been like every day where I'm dealing with these symptoms. And it's got me down. I'm seeing my physiatrist in a week. And I'm going to ask her if she thinks I should get back on some medicine. The best I ever felt was when I was on my pills. There were some side effects but nothing to bad. They weren't an issue. I felt amazing when I was on them. I just don't feel the best right now. It's it OK to be on medicine (at least a small dosage) for long periods of time? Potentially life? I really appreciate anyone who reads this! Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I'm 31 years old. Thank you

Hi everyone. This isn't as much a cry for help as it is a confession. I was out to brunch, and had a drink, felt a little tipsy and then went grocery shopping. All was fine and well until I started having intrusive thoughts about POCD. At first I was mentally saying no and disagreeing, but then I kind of started to ignore it. Well I went to the bathroom, and when I was washing my hands, I had more intrusive thoughts (or I was acknowledging the OCD I was having, I don't know for sure) but then I had a groinal response. It felt like pleasure but I knew I was also having OCD AND I convinced myself I had pleasure to the intrusive thoughts about POCD. I was numb and drunk and honestly I didn't even have a reaction besides I just let it happen like I didn't say no mentally I kind of just stood there with dead eyes at the floor. I feel absolutely disgusting and I feel the need to confess to my boyfriend everything. I feel disgusting. It feels like I was having pleasure to those intrusive thoughts and I'm disgusted with myself that my brain and body would do that. The problem is- I can't remember if I was just numb and not reacting, or if I keep doing it? It happened like 2-3 times that my body had that groinal response. I don't really remember thinking about a particular intrusive thought or I know I didn't like imagine anything TO have pleasure to, but I can't ignore the what-ifs. Someone please help

Im turning 21 this year and part of me wants to drink alcohol and enjoy myself (in moderation obviously), but I cant help being afraid of accidentally getting too inebriated and losing control of myself or possibly talking about my ocd. Im not ashamed of having ocd itself, but some of my ocd themes can be classified as disturbing if not explained correctly. Not to mention my experiences are relatively personal and I want to keep between my therapist and I. Im afraid of an instance like this where I start to talk too much and people around me get the wrong idea of my values, which, in turn, might push people away from me. I know the answer is to just drink responsibly, but can anyone share any experiences they have with having a drink while being diagnosed with ocd? How have you coped? Has everything been okay?

Can anyone tell me if it’s normal for a theme to stay stuck for months. My theme is harm ocd but I’ve had this same content for months and months. I was wondering if anyone else experienced this? Also, does anyone feel like they’re always on edge like something is going to happen at any second?. I feel like my body and brain is constantly scanning for danger and throwing things at me (even random things outside of my main theme). Thank you to anyone who shares their story.

So I have a theater camp I’m going to next week and I’m so scared to go for some reason. It might be because I have social anxiety and am not the best at interacting with others. During this theater camp we have to do a play and I’m afraid I’ll have to try out for a part in front of others there. I will probably have to sing and act in front of others to. I don’t know anyone there, not a single soul so I’m afraid to meet new people and go to this camp without knowing anyone. I’m afraid people there will judge me when I have to try out for a role in the play we are doing/sing to try out for a part. I’ve been super anxious about this. Can someone give me advice plz?

so ive dealt with alot of diferent subtypes so ik this is ocd but i also know regardless what i did was wrong and weird, i feel like I deserve nothing good and i need to confess to everyone that i love and that loves me or else im lying and forcing them to love me underfalse pretences even though im a bad person. okay so confession time, starting at the age of twelve hearing my step sister and her gf have sex any time i heard anyone having sex i “ got off” to it including parents or sybling with their partners. it wasnt to the people it was to the noises but now i feel like its irredemable and wrong. and if they knew theyd feel violated the thing is ive always been a very moral person like obsessed with them so ik if i had the knowledge back then i wouldnt have done it i just didnt see anything wrong with it at the time but now of course it ruin my live

ERP has been tremendously helpful for me, but I find it difficult to plan exposures to my obsessions, given that most of my intrusive thoughts are mostly about moral or conceptual issues, so it's hard to put them into smth "actionable". Do you guys have any advice?

So last night, I was doing an open mic and trying to get out the house. Me and my girlfriend went and we were received by our peers and another fellow musicians. We recently became official and now everybody in our friend group knows that were a couple. Everything was going well and I was out there performing music. Then for a split second, I’ll look at the crowd in my girlfriend wasn’t there. I only got flooded by intrusive thoughts in the sense of “where did she go?” And “what happened to her?“ I got flooded by intrusive thoughts of like oh she might be gone and left me here. That she left and is out there with another person. It was very uncomfortable, considering that I’ve never felt this type of insecurity. so I went outside to have a cigarette to calm myself down and then she was on the phone talking to her boss. She said that on my face, I had an expression of anger, which made me feel very self-conscious cause I didn’t think I was mad. I was more of just concerned. However, my OCD made me feel like she left me. She’s probably out there with some other guy. I knew that me getting emotionally invested with another individual was gonna result and hurt. When I came back inside, I felt hot flashes, shame, and guilt and anger. For some reason, it came through my mind that you know maybe I’m not deserving of love and I’m just some regular here in the street. Afterwards, we talked about it in private and she said that I was acting slightly different and that afterwards we’re gonna be intimate, but I guess I wasn’t up for it anymore because I just felt so much anxiety and pressure on my chest. And it made her feel unwanted and now I feel pretty bad about that. Question is is this OCD attacking now my relationship? Or is this my insecurity?

I’ve had anxiety surrounding driving for 4 years now. I don’t feel like I’ll ever move past it. I am so scared that I’ll get into an accident and hurt someone or myself, even though I know I am a safe driver. I’m not sure what to do.

Ive been having such a bad episode i keep ruminating abt my relationship and how when we were abt to break up i thought my whole world was ending like i actually wanted to just stop everythjng which i know is bad so once i felt thst ive been working on spending more time w friends and becoming more independent and me and my bf r working together to fulfill our personal goals so we can have a healthier relationshipnand make things work and stopnbeing toxic. but my ocd keeps telling me if im this attached and dependent then its not real love and its all toxic snd it wont work out which i dont want at all and then i had this thought that i have to break up with him bcs its valid to if im this attached but i don't want to at all and i don't want to think that either cuz we r actually doing well. but it got in my head and now i'm so stressed out and i have this other fear that once i become independent its just an obsession with him that will turn to disgust but i don'g want that rither. can someone pls pls give me advice that will help this is stressing me out so bad

So I wrote a list of my daily stressors down and came up with over 20 individual things that stress me out on a daily basis which is insane that I didn't notice this before hand 😅🤦‍♂️ Organising is something I haven't had a whole lot of structure with my whole life as I wasn't taught it in school or by my parents. That's a reason and now I know, it can't be an excuse any more. I felt like I should've known before but it is what it is 🤷‍♂️ Does anyone have any advice on how to be better organised? I want my daily stress and anxiety levels to go down. Just to mention, I'm not an overly stressy person but it simmers under the surface and eventually gets to a boiling point weekly. I believe better organising and routines will sort out the majority of my stressors. Any input is welcome 😊

Lately I’ve been having demonic thoughts, possession thoughts and just nasty thoughts about my soul and thoughts about my heart and the devil. Is that normal in OCD? I would never want that or say that! But recently been having false memory OCD and I’m scared what if I’ve said those thoughts out loud!! I’m always trying to say God & Jesus owns my heart & soul but I’m scared what I’ve I accidentally said the enemy instead! These thoughts cause so much discomfort! Please any advice? Does anyone else go through this?

Do you guys also have unwanted thoughts as affirmations/statements/invitations about horrible things? I had a voice saying "cmon we know you like that stuff" "cmon you can like it" "it's okay to like it" "why is that so wrong?" a combination of those things (but I don't remember the specific intrusive statement that bothered me and made me need to write this so I'm currently trying to recollect my memories to find it, but I think I should stop); and I don't know if it was ocd using implicitly my voice to automatically self sabotage and mess me up. Anyway it bothers me. But did it before? They appeared almost automatically that I couldn't even react or anticipate them coming to block them. I didn't see my will to block them so to know that they were unwanted, they just happened so quickly and they went away quickly. I was high on weed yesterday with my friends and they started saying very triggering stuff and I had horrible intrusive images to which my mind responded with uncomfortable intrusive thoughts that felt like invitations, but I was high so they felt a lot harder to distinguish from my own thoughts, it was all hazy and I didn't give it much attention. I was more concerned about my groin area. I don't remember that much. I'm bothered now but was I that bothered before? I don't remember being "no, stop, don't go there", only with intrusive images and triggering associations as my friend were describing triggering stuff not ill-intentioned. Since I woke up with others intrusive images that I tried to solve, I also have one triggering intrusive image stuck in my mind that I'm costantly trying to suppress.

So I’m in a relationship with an amazing guy, like he’s literally so great, and yet there have been a lot of moments of doubt and worry over many different things, some of them I know are small and insignificant, and yet they feel so big. But right now, I’ve been experiencing thoughts and feelings that don’t necessarily worry me, but I still try to understand them and analyze them to no end. For example, I’ve realized that I become a little irritated and weirded out by my bf’s overly hyper and cringy behaviour around his friends. I sometimes think he’s just a little socially awkward and he doesn’t realize it. I can’t quite explain it or put my finger on it, but it’s irritating, and a lot of it has to do with his voice. I don’t want to be irritated by this stuff tho, I don’t want to feel irritated by his voice or his hyper and cringy behaviour, but it can be a bit much sometimes, and I worry that it’s bad for me to feel that way. I just wish I could make that feeling go away. But even with this, I’m not feeling worried as much because I know I really like him and I want to make this relationship work, and yet I still feel the need to analyze his behaviours, trying to make sense of why he acts and sounds the way he does when he’s with friends, trying to understand how I feel about it, and how I would feel if it was done/said differently or by a different person. It’s all just a mess, it’s so confusing, and it’s even more confusing when I’m not feeling anxious or worried, but I’m still finding these quirks bothersome. I really just want this to work out, you have no idea how badly. It’s all just so confusing and I don’t want to let those flaws become dealbreakers. I’ve always been worried, even since the very beginning, that his minor flaws would become dealbreakers, it was like I was fighting a part of myself that felt it should be a dealbreaker, but I don’t want it to be. I just want to stop feeling this way about every little inconvenience, annoyance, or flaw. I feel like I’m constantly fighting myself.

I've had ocd for a year now, seen 3 therapists (currently seeing my 4th one now). the truth is i feel like i can't find the right therapist. ive isolated myself for almost a year now, only my family has access to me but they don't understand how hard it is for me. the worst part is ocd is incurable and u can never heal from ur triggers. i try to stay positive as much as i can but i dont feel I can make it far enough. even my therapist says "its gonna be all okay" but ik its never gonna be.

Am I the only one who is losing hope for healing from ocd? I was always really hopeful about it and thought that I will recover soon but now I had ocd for so long (4 years) already and even though I noticed changes they were not the biggest. About half a year ago I had suicidal thoughts and I feel them coming back. I don’t know if that’s normal or I might just have depression? Anyways, I’m just so sick of my ocd if someone has advice for staying hopeful or if someone just have any quotes or something that makes them stay motivated that would be great! ❤️✨🌧️