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I want to be happy and not be miserable and I feel like I try to help others be happy but I can’t get myself to be happy 😢

I have a friend who im close with (we are both girls) and we're both in a relationship with boys. I've always had ROCD intrusive thoughts that made me feel as if I don't love my boyfriend but this time it's different. It started when my friend opened up abt her sex life or something to me and I for some reason started feeling really upset and uncomfortable. I didn't know why it honestly felt like jealousy and I wanted to hear her out but also I didn't want to continue listening. I then started having intrusive images of HER and HER BOYFRIEND doing stuff (how creepy I know) and it just made me so upset. I started feeling like it meant I was jealous that IM not in a relationship with her. I start getting groinal responses every time I see her pfp online and I got so panicked I read the lesbian masterdoc which made me MORE confused bc some of the stuff on it I related to. I don't even know if this is ocd or not bc low-key I do think she is extremely attractive and obviously imagining myself in a relationship with her makes me cringe so bad, but also imagining her in any other relationship also makes me feel jealousy? Idk I saw a TikTok with a lesbian girl explaining how to tell if you have romantic or platonic feelings for your female friend. She said to imagine her standing at the altar at her wedding and how it makes you feel. It felt awful like i felt soo uncomfortable at the thought of seeing her get married to her current bf. Then I imagined for myself if I was the one getting married to her, and it felt easier and better to imagine. Surely that means something?? I also felt rlly tall and manly in that marriage imaginations which is weird. I feel weird. I'm now worried I'll never get over her and that I will never love my boyfriend the same again. I'm worried I am a lesbian even though I truly do love him and i remember so vividly what it felt like to fall in love with him (it was awesome). I've been with him for 3 and a half years anf im losing sight of where I stand with him because I have dealt with horrific TOCD for the last year and now I think (hope) HOCD. I just need this to GO AWAY!!!

I want to end It all, I feel so alone in my head, like no one understands at all.I just want to end it…

i've seen there are actual posts on here that straight-up talk about actual actions associated with "p", while i absolutely need help with this, i cannot and will not tolerate seeing such posts and nor should anyone else. this is disgusting.

how do you guys get over the anxiety of what people with no ocd would think of the stuff/thoughts we did/think. that’s my biggest thing right now is being afraid people wouldn’t talk to me ever again if they knew my thoughts and compulsions i had done.

Ive been in treatment for OCD off and on for 2 or 3 years now. Ive been finding myself in a “flare up” after moving and changing jobs. My biggest thorn/theme has been harm, specifically suicide. Just from having gone through this before, I know the line between what’s ocd and what’s truly being suicidal can be blurry. I’ve had people tell me that the intrusive thoughts of death can be OCD or it can be depression. Forever I’ve operated with the belief it’s OCD with sprinkles of depression (who wouldn’t be dealing with this) I guess my worry is that if this is what being suicidal is, I need help, bad. I can tell myself it’s OCD all day, but being it’s the doubting disorder, I ask “what if I’m lying and want to die?” I want this certainty that I’m not truly suicidal and it’s just these unwanted thought. Is it even possible to have that certainty? How can do tell the difference between the two?

if I stop trying to suppress or review horrible intrusive images, am I not just telling my brain that is okay to have those thoughts? Can my brain start to perceive horrible things as normal? Maybe I'm reaching.

What should you do when you're *about* to have a terrible intrusive image? Should you just let it happen? Something that I often do probably as a compulsion is to try to suppress the horrible intrusive image from fully forming itself, and when I do that I notice that I always scrunch my eyes and contort my face. Do we have to allow the intrusive image to just happen? Even though it causes us distress?

I recently developed a rumination surrounding my own thinking. Its a bit confusing but I was using Dr Greenbergs method on rumination and to not engage in trying to solve something, and this includes not thinking or thinking what be it. Yet, I began to ruminate that if I dont direct my thoughts to the rumination then do I just dont think? And when I think am I engaging in a compulsion to prove that thought wrong? Its been bad these past hours and if anyone knows please let me know. He mentions bad distraction but am I doing bad distraction when I think aloud to try to prove this fear wrong?

I keep having the most extreme, disgusting thoughts. I’m scared that if I keep thinking it I’ll end up liking it. My mind is telling me that I like it even though it has always disgusted me.

it’s so embarrassing doing compulsions in front of people. like i literally NEED to do them or i can’t function. one of my compulsions is praying so sometimes it seems like i be talking to myself. anyone else relate to this?

Hi there! I'm new to the NOCD community. Up until very recently, I thought I just had anxiety but hearing some of my friends talk about their OCD and realizing I related to a lot of things has made me really confused (I always thought OCD was limited to contamination OCD). The way my anxiety/OCD presents is largely through comparisons to other people and this is enhanced in relationships. I'm not sure why but if my partner/friend is doing X or Y that day I have to do that too and if I can't or don't I feel like shit about myself and I ruminate constantly about it. Another example would be if my partner/friend has X number of friends I have to have that exact number of friends (that have the same "characteristics" too). I've always been really ashamed of this because I know it's stupid and I feel like a jealous/envious/bad person so I've never really talked about it. I had a 3 year relationship and this constant comparing and trying to do the exact same things my partner was doing made me so miserable and depressed. I never wanted to talk about it to anyone because I felt like it was stupid. Another way my OCD/anxiety presents is I get obsessed over the process of things rather than the results. Like when I study first exams I have to revise X topics a day (and do so in a very specific way, not leaving any details out) and if I can't I ruminate/make myself feel bad. Or if I'm building a chair from IKEA for example I have to follow the exact instructions and if I don't but it still works I will always feel like there's something wrong with the chair. I'm really lost right now and I guess I would really appreciate any insight/resources that would help with this. I've been in therapy for anxiety but never really gotten diagnosed with OCD so I'm just confused like is that not something that your therapist should tell you??

Hi everyone. I am new to Nocd. My story: The first time I got intense intrusive thougts of religious ocd is when I was 11 years old. They were very intense. I was ashamed of those thoughts and didn't know what to do with them. I literally didnot tell anyone and suffered alone. It made it hard for me to pray. Over the years it took many forms. I didn't know it was OCD. My mental health deteriorated with waves of depression because of OCD as I got threatened from my OCD thoughts of death of me and my closed ones. They were scary. I also imagined things and felt like seeing things out of fear. These phases of depression brought me down everytime I stood up somehow. Soon I was struck with existential and identity crisis, questioning the meaning of life and existence, nothing seemed valuable and worth it. I questioned my academics and everything. Definetly my grades and health everything deteriorated. It showed in my physical health too. I started having mental fog and questioning reality, my self along with a lot of changes in my life. After class ten, there were suddenly a lot of changes when my mental health was already not okay making it hard for me to adapt. I saw everything blurry and removed. I couldn't connect to anyone. I associated fear to all the things, plus my home. And because I already had so much threatenings of death, I couldn't even recognise the reality. I felt far removed from my reality like I went somewhere far away, a lot of time has passed and there's not much time for me and I struggled with memory too. After 12th, I joined University. One year later, I met a boy with whom I instantly felt sparks. Note: I never dated anyone before and feeling a spark like that with somebody which made me take the step is a lot. I wanted to commit to him but then my ROCD kicked in. I didn't even know about it but I did some mistakes because of it I feel like because ROCD was so intense it made me feel like an emergency to leave the relationship. He had OCD too as he said. He have it in terms of 'perfectionism'. Also he was very sensitive, enraged kind of person, I got to know later on. Had a lot of emotional outbursts making me more question the relationship to leave. We became like an anxious-avoidant couple. I regret many things like what I have avoided if I knew its ROCD and worked on it and so many. He 'abused me. He started abusing me. Idk I started feeling like I made him that kind of a person because he actually compared me with his former gf, with whom he used to even secretly talk. I couldn't get out of the abusive relationship sooner but recently which added extra trauma. Well, here am I 'single' but I feel a lot of guilt and also I need to make my mental health better because this experience made me realise how my bottled up things made an explosion. Thankyou! to whoever reads this! Oh yeah I also deal with a Lott of decision making difficulties, indecisiveness and regret over small things and doings. And also because of my life going like this and getting ruined where there was so many expectations from me, I regret a lot I guess. I think of many possibilities how my life would have gone and always put infront of me possibilities and choices. So I am currently dealing with my thoughts and uncertainty about my future after a Lott of trauma. Oh my god..there is so much

How do I sit with uncertainty?? Like I understand that I should just let the thoughts be there and not do a compulsion, but HOW? I would appreciate any tips

Has anyone found good books they’ve read that address OCD/provide coping strategies?

Lately I have been going through this theme about being obsessed with just being a brain. I constantly wonder What if I’m just a brain and genuinely have no control over anything I do and just think I do. Like I question why do I make certain decisions specifically and what makes me make those decisions specifically like in my brain. Literally every thought that pops up in my mind I question like how did this thought get here? What makes me want this thought? What makes me make this decision based off this thought? If I’m not my thoughts then what determines my actions if actions are determined by thoughts. Even writing this I have these same thoughts. I genuinely don’t know how to sit through these ones, they feel so important. Like what if I’m not questioning these I’m just on autopilot basically and not actually conscious of anything. I also catch myself doing little actions that I am not usually consciously aware of and fixate on them and wonder what in my brain makes me do these things. Like is it me or just my brain?! I feel so stuck and was just wondering if anyone has had this theme or these thoughts.

I was texting my best friend, and I was responding to her reels. She sent this one where a little animal was having a spa day. I responded to it. After I had this feeling of attraction and I remembered a picture I had seen where I thought she looked pretty and I sent another message "aw you should have a spa day like this". I think I flirted. I was going to go see that picture too but immediately stopped myself.

My OCD has gotten better, at least as good as it can get, but my depression has been awful lately. I take 100mg of Zoloft, and I feel as though I’m going backwards. It’s helped my anxiety a ton, but it feels as if it’s made my depression worse. I spoke with my PCP, and she recommended adding 75mg of Wellbutrin. I’m picking it up today. I’m hoping this can help me. If not, I’ll switch everything and start taking Luvox. It’s so annoying trying to find the right meds when you’re already struggling. Anyone else taking Wellbutrin in combination with another med ?

Im not diagnosed, so my situation is more scary :( Today I was in art class, which is really scary to me since because I deal with sexual nasty thoughts, images and urges and we’re all in the same table and that makes us be really tight one to another, and I get really uncomfortable Everything started good, we’re only a few of us and everything was fine and i didn’t have much issue but then a female classmate sits next to me and we start talking, but then idk what came first but i had this thought of me touching her chest inaproppiatly before or after ( i don’t remember) i was talking to my classmate and she answered my question with a nervous tone and the answer was short and, first I didn’t overthink but then i tried asking her more questions and she answered me with the same tone and I got really anxious because why isn’t she answering me? Then she got really frustrated because she didn’t wanted to do her drawing and she was really frustrated all the class so maybe she was answering me weird because of it, and I don’t even know if her answers to me were 100% weird because I haven’t talked to her a lot but I felt like she was ignoring me and now I’m scared that I did do my thought and that I traumatized Then when I had to leave, I complemented her drawing and she just said “yes” so I’m overthinking right now What if it’s true and I traumatized her for life and then she’s gonna acuse me or something even though I don’t know if it’s true aaaaa help

i like seeing this images in my head and im not sure what they are and im afraid im schizophrenic…they might be intrusive images but im not sure and its scaring me i want it to stop are they demons??