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working to conquer OCD
Hi everyone ! I have been diagnosed with pure, somatic and harm OCD since last year as well as dermatillomania. Oh ! And to top it off I have diagnosed ADHD as well. I wanted to just come on here and share some experience that I’ve had. I’m 23 years old and ever since I was a child I have memories of my dermatillomania as a way to cope with my anxiety. I have struggled with my mental health since being a child, my undiagnosed ADHD made me very self aware that I wasn’t “fast enough”, “smart enough”, or “cool enough”. My psychiatrist even says that this undiagnosed ADHD until my 20s probably exacerbated my ocd as a way to compensate. Now I still rely on my parents as they help me out while I finish my studies. One parent is very religious and believes that “disease does not exist” (only a projection in peoples minds), and is very against meds and my other parent seems to always want to change the subject and has refused to come into therapy with me to meet my doctors and understand what I live through. My religious parent, I refuse to tell them I am on medication and I know that they will disapprove and try to gaslight me into believing something that will “make it all go away”. So I’ve given up. My other parent although they appear to pay attention always changes the subject and makes me feel invalid, and no matter how many times I try to explain I feel like I am talking to a wall. I just feel sad because.. well you would want your parents to want to understand and help you. In my case I am fortunate that financially they back me but I feel like I need to be a different person around them, and when it comes to my mental health I have no support. I look at mostly white families (not all) online and they seem to want to understand and be a part of a healing process, or at least believe that OCD is a valid diagnosis. I just want to ask if any of you have had unsupportive family members, have felt alone on your journey, and if it’s okay to never really let go of that hope that one day they may understand you. And honestly advice is great but just knowing I’m not alone in this will already comfort me, knowing that we are all in this together.
So one of my themes is the fear of going crazy. When it was so bad I was having thoughts all day that everyone knew that I was going crazy and they were talking about it and just not being honest with me. Has anyone experienced this? Is it just ocd?
So my theme has revolved around the fear of having schizophrenia for about a year now, many therapist and mental health professionals told me they believe it’s a mix of ocd and hypochondria. Well my main symptom of this disorder is the fear of having delusions, so over the course of this year I’ve had thoughts ranging from “what if my wife is a demon” “what if this song means something” “what if there’s some hidden message in this movie” “what if the government created the world and controls everything” “what if Satan is the true creator of the world” “why did my cat look at me like that, what if he’s a spy created by the government, what if all animals are?” Literally crazy shit but it all feels so real, I’ve thought about this stuff so much that I’ve started to have almost an emotional detachment from the world around me, I’ll have thoughts like, “why should I care, nothings real anyway”. And now it’s starting to feel like my normal line of thinking, like now I genuinely feel like everything is fake or staged in some way, nothing feels real or genuine, it feels like everyone around me, the media, news, politics, all feels like some sort of big act or lie. Feels like there’s something more to reality that I’m missing or something, everything feels “too perfect”. I’ve lost all happiness in everything and I’ve become SO suspicious of every single thing, everything has to have some deeper meaning according to my brain, it sucks. Has anyone ever had the fear of schizophrenia and it got this bad?
so i am currently in a new and much better relationship than my last toxic relationship. anyways i was just thinking and having thoughts about how i planned a future with my ex and it didn’t work out and got a little sad and i think a little scared of things not working out with my current bf. i also think part of my thought process was feeling like i don’t deserve my current bf but im not fully sure. after having these thoughts of oh it didnt work out with your ex and you planned all this and had a thought of well anything can happen but i seriously see a future with my current bf. i have a fear the reason i thought “well anything can happen” was because i am holding onto hope my ex is coming back. which isn’t even the case im much happier now and just beating myself up for this thought i had. it wasn’t intrusive and i know that that’s what i meant when i had that thought. it just makes me think i think i want him back or something idek im scared bc my current bf is amazing and i feel terrible.
Me and my girlfriend had a conversation last night about how bad my OCD has got and how I'm over analysing her texts/movements etc for signs of the relationship going south. I plucked up the courage to talk to her about trauma and other stresses in my life which has triggered my OCD to spiral. We have agreed to keep all OCD talk out of the relationship and if I feel like analysing or asking for reassurance to get a notebook and write it down instead. I am now thinking constantly about how she asked me to talk but has kind of left me on my own and it doesn't make me want to talk to her about stuff now in the future. I get it's hard, but has my OCD taken a hold of this or is it valid to feel this way?
what are some things that help when you have unwanted thoughts and urges? For me i notice whenever I am upset I have a strong urge to want to hurt myself. I have too much anger built up inside of me and I need help. The gym helps calm me a little bit and i used to crotchet but i have been busy lately. Please any advice. I don't want to sit with these feelings or thoughts because i am scared of what will happen if I let go and hurt myself. I am scared of myself because i know i can be very violent because of all of my traumas.
I know what you resist persists, but something I've struggled with for years now is infatuation and falling in "love" with people. I fear my own feelings when I'm with women. I'm afraid of falling really hard for every second person but also avoiding is making it worse. I might get strong feelings towards them but avoid them because I know it's just infatuation, I fear falling for someone without knowing them then hurting myself and them along the way. Im also worried of falling really hard for someone and then getting rejected. My mind throws many arguments to mind about this such as : I'm not ready yet, it's a bad fit, someone else is better, you will destroy her life, I will get rejected, she's too good for me. Any advice. I was reading through the book Relationship OCD and it says infatuation isn't a good thing to base a relationship off and this actually triggered me more. Any ideas of how to allow this OCD pattern?
OCD definitely makes me feel like my future is nothing but bad. A bunch of what ifs and it feels super anxiety inducing. I remind myself that no matter how bad my life gets, I never want to harm myself or end my life. I want to get through each struggle in a healthy manner. I just have a fear of bad things happening in my life and Im scared how I would react to it. My OCD is definitely super anxiety inducing and I would love for anyone to share their thoughts.
My bf and I are gonna have to be long distance for 2 months and tonights the first night. I’m so anxious and I’m scared he’s going to leave me or cheat on me. What if he realizes he could be happier without me? What if he realizes there’s really nothing special about me? What if I don’t bring value to his life? What if somebody at his new job starts being sexual towards him? I cant do anything from 4 hours away I have no control and no certainty
I’m starting my first year at college after this gap year I used to improve my mental health aka ocd, and I’m not super sure how this will go. I’m living on campus, and I’m super excited to start classes and move in, meet new people. I just know it will be overwhelming, and if anyone has tips on coping with that, so my ocd doesn’t go absolutely wild, it’d be greatly appreciated
Does anyone else get this sinking feeling in their gut, like something terrible is about to happen? I use to panic over it but now I know it’s my OCD, it’s just so random, like all the sudden my brain is like SOMETHINGS WRONG OMG OMG DONT BE ALONE DONT LEAVE OTHERS ALONE 🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨
I have pocd and i’ve started feeling better about the whole thing but I can never fully get over it. I don’t have panic attacks over the intrusive thoughts anymore, but I can’t help but feel so grossed out and whisper “ugh i hate myself, i wanna kms” to myself. It’s like every time i start feeling happy about anything, I get reminded of the fact that I have disgusting thoughts that I shouldn’t and I can stop thinking about how it’ll affect my future. What if it gets worse. What if I get in a relationship and he wants kids. I don’t ever want to have kids and I don’t ever want to explain to my s/o what i’m going through. What if my ocd gets really serious like it was last year but I won’t be able to get help because I can’t tell anyone. Ik others without ocd will never understand. Sometimes I really wish that I die so that I don’t have to deal with that. But I want to live and enjoy life. I want to travel and fall in love and have a family, but Ik my ocd will never let me be happy.
I was just petting my dog and I had an almost vision of jamming my thumbs into his eyes and I literally can't look at him right now I'm so scared because he's so much smaller than me and weaker than me and I don't want to hurt him at all and I'm still so new to this world of ocd and I've never had this type of intrusive through before
someone said something WORD FOR WORD what i am going through. i want to post it to see if you guys have any advice. to me, it’s the fear that my values or morals have changed forever. i don’t want them to change tho, i have no idea what to do
Sooo.. for 7 years i havent worried about demons magic and other evil things.. because i prayed, and told my self. God is protecting me because og my prayers. And that worked very good. But my ocd just jumped to everything else in the religion like ocd do. 7 years of hell. Off all the things that ocd attacked in my religion from everything about sinning to perfect in prayer etc. I Got sick off all the stress. I then learned that prayer is a compulsion and that i have to face my darkest fear. Which is not to pray and face the possibility to get possed and attacked by evil. I Got the balls to do it. And i still beleive god Will protect me even if i dont pray. But. I worry if it Will work ore not. That i just should not Care if i get possesed ore not. To be honest i dont Care anymore.. But im afraid that it wont work this method. So i gues its the fear of fear.. what are u guys experience with this?
I love my boyfriend so much, but I often fear that I’m lying to myself and him im like “what if I’m gay?” And when I see another girl that’s about my age I’m constantly checking myself to see if I’m attracted to her. I’m just really afraid to lose my boyfriend and these are the thoughts my brain is stuck on right now. It used to be stuck on other ones too. It’s so exhausting.
For those OCD Conquers who have POCD, Harm/Suicidal OCD etc ... I would love to know how you got through Of course ERP, but how are you really doing today?? Do you still get thoughts of POCD or Suicide OCD? If yes, what's one Response prevention TIP that really worked for you? Needing some inspiration NOT reassurance that it's possible to move on from this OCD loop I am in at the moment
I’m super anxious about starting ERP therapy and worry that it will be super distressing and/or I won’t be able to will myself to do it. I have a visceral reaction in my body if I feel forced to do things and leave my comfort zone. Any tips?
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