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Anyone willing to share how debilitating their OCD has been? 1. Able to work? 2. Consider yourself miserable? I haven’t been able to work three years and have been occasionally suicidal many many years

Today’s thoughts brought to you by OCD, I mean me… yeah totally all my non doubtful thoughts. (Just a vent post to write down what OCD wants me to fear/thinks, please no reassurance needed) I don’t have OCD. I’m making it up. I read things that described what OCD was like an lied to my therapist and tricked her into thinking I have OCD. All the things I think may been OCD driven in the past weren’t. After all why didn’t I react to all of them? How come when I’ve had thoughts to harm myself or others I didn’t avoid the things I was going to harm them with after? How come I’m not reacting to my same sex thoughts with distress now like I did in February? It’s all because I don’t have OCD. I just worry about my thoughts a little more than the average person. Worrying about my sexual orientation for 15 minutes here and there, for multiple hours a day, for 4 months running doesn’t mean I have SO OCD. It just means I’m confused and discovering my true sexuality. After all I’m not googling or asking for reassurance. You’re only thinking about doing those but you don’t. Besides if you’re looking for reassurance that your aren’t a different orientation than you think, doesn’t that mean you actually are? You’re just finding out your true sexuality now like some of those stories you’ve read as part of your exposures. It’s just a mix of repression and late discovery and the only reason you’re so worked up about it is because you have to leave your wife who you don’t love the way you should. Even if she left you and you moved onto another woman, it’s only a matter of time before she realizes you’re actually gay because of the thoughts running around in your mind. Just come clean with yourself. You’re making OCD up and using it as an excuse to be in denial. You don’t have it as severe as many of the other people whose stories you’ve read or have the exact same experiences. You’re misinterpreting memories as being possibly OCD driven just to fit your narrative because there were a lot more “normal” times in your past than possible OCD ones. Besides how can someone say they aren’t their thoughts? You have your thoughts for a reason and you have to know what it is. What gives you the right to say which thoughts are yours and which aren’t. Even then how many are yours? How much time do you spend thinking about them? There’s too many variables to consider.

I have seen by mistake photos related to cannibalism and since then I am having harm thoughts with this subject.. it’s very hard for me, I try to tell myself I don’t do these thoughts but when I say that they become more persistent and I feel like I don’t want the thoughts to go away.. even after two years things are very hard for me, I teach and it’s hard doing so with these thoughts I feel like there is no ease.. lately I began therapy here and now I am doing exposures by watching medical videos but still no relief. Any one knows what to do? It’s hard for me to live everyday.

My boyfriend has had serious money problems and he has confessed it to me, and he feels so low that he thinks of breaking up with me because this money problem is hitting me too. I don't know what to do. I feel so hurt because I know he doesn't want to do it deep down. Please can someone give me some words of wisdom I'm already spiraling

So I haven’t been getting intrusive thoughts as much but I have been thinking that maybe I force the thoughts and am really a bad person just tricking myself into thinking I might have ocd but in reality I want these things to happen but I know I don’t and idk what to do or if I’m just a bad person it hurts me a lot.

I’ve been on a healing journey, I’m still on it and trying to figure myself out. The thing is, I had my heart absolutely smashed to pieces and I’ve been trying to put it back together and I have been successful, it’s just I’ve now convinced myself I’ll never be able to like a man again. I’m scared I’m not gonna be attracted to anyone after this, that I’m always gonna think about him when I’m with another man. What if it’s made me not like men anymore? I don’t fancy woman so what am I gonna do? I had planned to meet up with a guy of tinder today, but suddenly got so many fears in my head that it freaked me out and I had to cancel. As well as that my period started, so it was like my body was saying I’m not ready, but what if it’s my body saying you don’t like men. I do like men so so much, I know I do, but what if this one guy has completely destroyed me ever trusting or fully liking a man again. I can’t do it. I want to be loved and be held, I want to explore and date people without this guilt hanging over me, because unfortunately I still have feelings for this other guy so now all I can do is just feel guilty. During the talking stage I’m fine, but then when I get asked out or anything like that I freak out and say no. I wanna be the confident girl I once was with no care,and I know time heals but I’m getting exhausted now

18+ Hi everyone. I’m dealing with the Urge to m-sturbate to my intrusive thought. It’s so scary. Someone had it in the past and did it pass or got better? I’m scarred that I will always fear from m-sturbate to the intrusive thoughts. And maybe even act on it (I acted on it one time to test myself and check how I feel but it gave me big shame and guilt feeling and bad anxiety. I don’t want to ever do it again. But the urge feel so strong. I know it’s a compulsion) My question is will the feeling pass ? I’m so scared I will feel like this forever.

Sometimes I feel sad because my friends and family do get frustrated with me when I constantly ask for reassurance, even though I fight it with all my might Truthfully, in my mind, I don’t even think it’s reassurance. I just think it’s a regular question like are you going to pay for those socks? Or how are we splitting this bill when we go out? But since they are so used to me asking for reassurance, they assume it’s me having another OCD tic for reassurance and it’s not. A friend of mine got upset with me yesterday because I asked him the same question three times only because I felt as though I didn’t get the clarification that I needed. he said that me asking was annoying. and this happened twice it left me feeling depressed and sad. My response to him was how do you think I feel I’m the one going but this after that, I didn’t say anything else about it, but it did leave me feeling sad, but I realized that this is a hard condition for people to understand but even with that being said, I still deserve respect and empathy, and I stand by that

this is my first time posting about this but I gambled again. so there’s this dress up game I play & have decided to stop gambling on it bc it’s just gacha-based (lucky rolling game to get items). I have spent so much money on this stupid game so my character can look good. it’s a thing that’s been going on since I was 17. I started playing around 13 years old & the gambling began when I started working at 17. my mental health was complete shit & I gambled like crazy once I got my paycheck. it felt like an escape route to my problems. obviously, it was not healthy at all. still didn’t solve shit lol. anyway, at some point I stopped playing and had a hiatus of like 2-3 years maybe. then I come back & to just get freebies. the game has events where u can rank in & get rewards. well, this certain event is where everyone is active bc it’s club-based (people join clubs and in this club event, they team up to rank & get rewards). I didn’t have a club & so I created one to see the event rewards (bc u can’t see the event page unless u are in a club). can’t remember exactly but I maybe decided to play a gacha cos I had tickets to play. if the gacha comes with ‘charm’, then the more points you get. so when I played the gacha, I decided to be silly and try to get points. eventually, I liked the competitiveness and got points. after the semi-final round, I got comments on my board with praises for being able to gain so many points by myself. I was invited to join some clubs if I wanted to in the future. I added those people. ever since then, I decided to spend money again for gachas to look good and have joined this one club when I could to rank in the club events. so much was wasted because of that. I then decided recently to cut spending and just play for free (even though it’s hard but I won’t be spending money at least). then I did it again this morning. I woke up, checked the game cos I just get my freebies and go. but saw this gacha that rlly caught my attention because it had male items & I’m a sucker for male items to dress up in. had some coins saved up. used those. now, there’s this promotion that comes with every gacha. basically, it comes with rare items and stuff to really increase the look of your avatar & background. I really like the background and the unique clothes. there are ‘key’ items that you must roll and get in order to ‘play’ that promotion. let’s say I need grey hairs to trade for an item in the promotion. to complete the promotion, I need 8 of those. but with a special promotion, once you trade two grey hairs, you get one trade spin for free. so in the end, you need 6 grey hairs because of the 2 free spins you get. I didn’t get key items for the promos. so I decided to buy coins. I was desperate for these items. didn’t get key items. bought more coins. barely got any key items. I bought even more coins. barely completed one promotion but really wanted the main promotion (this gacha came with 2 promotions). eventually I gave up bc I checked my bank account and spent a lot. it was just buy, buy, buy; spin, spin, spin. gamble, gamble, gamble. it’s 7 am in the morning. this is not how I planned my day to start. I gave into gambling again. I can’t feel anything. and when I say that, it’s not like a depressed “I can’t-feel-anything” type of thing. it’s just nothing. it’s like looking at a piece of blank paper. you feel nothing of it. I feel like the disappointment became far beyond that I’m just like “oh, okay” & that’s it. what makes it worse is that I didn’t go out to eat with family (aunt, cousins, brother, and mom) members bc the buffet they were going to was pretty expensive since I was saving up money. it rlly wasn’t expensive in the end cos my mom called to say that I was exaggerating & arguing with me about why I didn’t go with my brother. I asked my brother before going how much it would cost and so after he gave me an answer, I didn’t go. 1) because I will just eat a plate and be full. 2) my baby brother doesn’t eat shit & is picky. I’m not leaving him at my house by himself. although my dad was there but it will be mean not to include him. my mom told me my aunt gathered us to celebrate my brother’s (18) birthday. no one told me that. I thought it was just a random get-together at the last minute. if I would’ve known, I would’ve gone. anyway, here I am. contradicting myself because I spent very much like 9/10x the amount of the buffet. on gambling. and every time I bought coins, I thought “this is a future reward for when u finish ur homework. u gotta put extra work in to make up for this.” I had hopes I would complete the main promotion. I didn’t. so I wasted all this money because I wanted to look nice. and this isn’t even about me irl. this is about a virtual character I have in a game. this isn’t even a future reward. this is failure.

So, usually when I am at work (or really any social situation at all) by myself, I immediately start to panic and want to compulsively document and record my actions and surroundings. I feel like my life is a 24/7 reality show because I am convinced if I don’t document when I’m alone, that something bad happened to me whether that be someone did something to me or that I did something bad to someone and just won’t remember or recall it. It is my biggest nightmare and makes me feel so weak that I can’t be alone leisurely anymore because I’m going to convince myself bad things happened unless I take pictures or record myself. It is exhausting and years ago I was never like this. I would love to take drives and listen to music and look around stores for fun and peace. I can no longer do that, and am having a hard time even being at work alone unless I have a trusted co-worker with me and even then I still get the compulsion to document things. I’m having a very hard time trying to work ERP therapy in with this specific obsession.

Yesterday I told my friend about my harm OCD, she is really good friend and understood everything, but it was my first time i talked about it loudly expect my family members, but I have kinda sad feeling after that, because i felt weak and I think that i am not longer same person as I was before my harm theme and they just don’t need this kind of friend. What about u? Are u talking about your OCD?

Do any of you ever convince yourself that you are faking your OCD in its entirety, I am uneducated on what ocd even truly means even tho I have been told I have it by my psychiatrist that I do in fact have OCD. Because I’m uneducated on the disorder tho, that means that I can’t tell if a lot of the things I think and feel are normal or not, and whenever I think it’s OCD there’s this loudd voice in my head that tells me I am faking it completely

So, I'm having a pretty bad breakdown at the moment. I'm in my room currently and I'm really trying here, I really am, but saying I want to go back to who I was or remembering how happy I was feels like a complete lie. I'd really appreciate some advice, thank you

So this morning I woke up to the grim reaper for about two seconds then I went back to sleep. I don't know if it was a thought image or actually standing there. The thing is I can't really how it look or happen but I know it happen. Is this common with ocd

hey all:) hoping i get some responses in this. i’ve been doing a lot better, but something i’m noticing is a. obsessing over obsessing and b. my brain going back and forth about my relationship. when im calm i feel so light and happy and open with my partner, but i find that my brain loves to switch back and forth and “rationalize” the thoughts i “used” to have. i’ll think: wow i don’t know where this is going but i feel happy and good! and other times that thought will make me anxious and ill be like “well what if i’m just settling, i’ve been ocd and anxious a lot in this relationship, what if it’s just not the right person? i don’t feel like i did in my last relationship (note this was an emotionally draining and abusive one), i can love someone and not be in love maybe that’s it, but are you REALLY sure and POSITIVE you like her, want this, blah blah these are all things that i can definitely accept and allow to be thoughts. i’ve been doing much better on this. but they are also things that my ocd has latched on to make me feel like it’s not an intrusive thought atp. i know i want to be with my partner and i know that this is something im working on and that it’s ocd. the thought of leaving her pains me. she checks all my boxes and loves me so much, and wouldn’t want to find anyone else! so i guess im asking, how do you feel secure and confident in continuing in relationships with uncertainty, how to you securely and confidently hold your ground with ocd and change your perspectives! i hope this makes sense

The past couple of days have been so stressful, I’m 15 years old and my older brother,mom, and dad all work sometimes, and some days ALL three of them work, so it’s only me and my younger sister left at home, and our 4 dogs. I’m super stressed out, even when my brother is here, he doesn’t help around the house. He’s just in his room, my sister doesn’t either. So I’m left doing all the work and taking care of the dogs. It’s so frustrating, it’s two huskies and 2 other breeds and the huskies are too much, I hit them on the snout when they bite me or scratch me and I feel bad, I pushed one too and I know I’m super stressed and that’s why I’m getting aggressive but my ocd is starting to make me freak out, it’s saying like what if I can’t handle it and do something bad??? I don’t even wanna think about it , I feel like crying, they’re always barking and whining and biting me and I hate it, I love dogs, I do love them, but I’m so stressed and It’s just making me feel terrible ,,

My adult son is suffering so much. He is basically non-functioning. He can’t get a job, focus on his college classes, or do much around the house because of his intrusive thoughts. He doesn’t want to hang out with his friends because his intrusive thoughts make him think he wants to be with them sexually. He refuses to take medicine or go to therapy because he is afraid that it will somehow prove that he doesn’t have OCD. He relies on me 100% to help with his OCD. It’s not working. He suffered for four years not knowing what it was, then finally broke down and told me about it about nine months ago. He stopped doing all drugs (he was self medicating). He’s an adult and can refuse treatment, but any advice about how I can encourage him to at least try would be greatly appreciated. Note: he did try Zoloft for a month and said it made his anxiety better which made him worry even more. Thanks.

Does anyone have any good book recommendations with characters who have OCD? I know Turtles All The Way Down is a very popular choice, and I do love the book as well as John Green himself, but I would love more options. I am also open to nonfiction book recommendations about varying topics around OCD (such as how to better handle OCD, the authors experience with OCD firsthand, understanding the inner workings of OCD, and more).

I take 10mg for ocd anyone else on lexapro for ocd ? & if so what mg? Is it helping you?

I have the worst intrusive thoughts about ending my life...I absolutely don't want to but my brain tells me I'm depressed and I actually hate my life and that just sends me I to a panic.. I can't be around people for long or else my thoughts say this is the last time I'm gonna see them. Then I feel like I'm in absolute torture and then my thoughts say the only way to get relief is death. I'm so scared.. I had such a good day yesterday and now this.. :(