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HOCD is making me feel like I am in denial of my sexuality..I feel like giving up and coming out but I dont want to.

Hi, I'm currently on 40mg of Prozac for my OCD anxiety and depression and I have a fear of never being able to get off of my meds. I've been on them for 8 years now and constantly changing the mgs. I don't wanna be dependent on medication anymore and I'm afraid I'm going to have to be on it forever. My psychiatrist just upped me to 50mg and says it's normal for people with ocd to take that much. I've never taken this much and I'm genuinely afraid going up more is gonna cause me to die or have a seizure or something bad. Im afraid I'm going to be at the highest dosage eventually and it is not gonna work for me because of my tolerance. I'm so terrified of possibly going back to being very depressed again.

For a long time now I've been having problems breathing and having a narrow airway so I constantly check my throat and have anxiety and thoughts about dying in my sleep choking or having an allergic reaction. Some nights it is very hard for me to sleep where I just am overthinking and hyperfixating on my throat to the point it feels like my airway is blocked and air can't get through. I do believe I have sleep apnea due to the fact I have nights where I wake up choking and coughing as well as making weird sounds at night. For this reason I am also terrified to eat in restaurants for having a fear of choking as well as sleeping with someone in fear of them hearing me snore and make weird noises. I also worry nobody including doctors will understand what I'm talking about or how I think. I just scheduled an ENT appointment after years of putting it off and I'm more scared of them not finding anything wrong with me. Id rather have something wrong with me so it can be solved. I am constantly thinking about the state of my throat and worried that I am going to die because I can't get a full breath of air.

I was diagnosed with OCD 2 years ago and have struggled with it nearly my whole life. I’m 17 and the thing I struggle most with is thinking other people, mostly people I look up to or famous people are “watching” me or “listening” to my thoughts, specifically my intrusive or embarrassing ones. Although I know it’s not true it really affects my daily life. I believe this falls under magical thinking OCD. when I think of an intrusive thought, I think these people can hear it especially when I’m doing an action so I have to re-do that action over and over until I do it without thinking of that intrusive thought. This also affects things I enjoy doing, I’ve been really wanting to exercise but when I go to do it I get so embarrassed cause I think I’m being watched by a famous person or people I see as above me that I can’t bring myself to do it. I’m sorry if this is lengthy but I was just wondering if anyone else suffers with this and if you do, do you have any tips? Thank you if you read this much.💗

Hey, I am 16 years old and I was on snapchat quick add and i added some people. But i asked what age they were and three of them people said they were 12 and 13 which has been making me feel really uncomfortable. I blocked then right after. Im i in the wrong here? I am worried if i said anything abnormal to them.

Does anyone struggle with confessing? Not necessarily to police, but to friends? I saw a friend who I haven’t seen in a while and I just kind of info dumped about my struggles over the past two months. Which involve the thought that I’ve killed someone and repressed it. Which came about after other fears that I would go to jail for various things from my past. I also had a really bad reaction to an antidepressant that kind of exacerbated my anxiety and OCD symptoms from bad to unbearable. Hence the irrational thoughts about murder. And it’s been really hard to shake. I’m not freaking out as strongly as I was before, and I’m WAY more able to function on a daily basis. And now my OCD is going crazy and saying that she’s going to report me to the police, I’m going to go to jail, etc. But this is a friend I trust who understands mental health. I just hate that I can’t trust myself or my friends because of this awful thing. I’ve had insight the entire time. Realizing that this is not a true memory. That it goes against everything I believe as a person, etc. But then that insight triggers me into overthinking that I’m just reassuring myself and I should stop it. Because I also have perfectionism OCD about my recovery and doing it exactly right or I’m a failure. I guess what I’m really looking for is a shoulder. Someone who understands. Just some words of encouragement that it does get better and that I’ll find my way back to myself.

If i have a thought and i dont want to have the thought/its intrusive but i dont push it away right away does that mean its true? Or just a delayed reaction? If i have a upsetting thought but i feel indifferent about it is it really intrusive? :(

How do I know after going through a severe episode of a panic attack & then (what I think is Relationship OCD), what’s real?! It’s been about 4 weeks since my panic attack & still every time I stop and think about my husband my heart sinks and I feel panicky all over again. How do I know now what’s real and what’s not real? How do I know how I actually feel? How do I overcome this feeling? Any insight? Thanks sm

Since the start of the year i had been feeling guilty for being in a relationship with someone of the same sex. I wouldn’t specify my religion but being gay is considered natural but acting upon it isnt allowed. The guilt and the thought were so strong that I eventually ended a 2 year relationship. I didnt want to tho but i do believe in my faith strongly and even tho i do question why something isn’t allowed, i do believe that if it isnt, it isnt for a reason. I had that reason too, i was mentally drained because of that relation, it messed my head in ways nothing ever will. But that never pushed me to end it

It’s been 4 years since I started becoming so concerned about my heart rate and how I breathe. When it first started, I didn’t know what was happening. I thought it was asthma - I couldn’t take full breaths, my chest felt so heavy, I would get lighthearted, my pulse felt so low. After tons of medical tests, I discovered it was just anxiety and honestly I felt worse about that because it wasn’t just gonna go away. I have tried meds, cutting out caffeine, sleeping in certain positions, relaxation techniques. Nowadays, I usually fall asleep with my fingers on my neck so I can feel my pulse when I go to sleep (which is probably a compulsion and I should stop doing it but how do you stop doing something that makes you feel like you can breathe?). It gets in the way of my life dramatically - I get lightheaded at the gym, it keeps me up at night, it’s hard doing roadtrips and being in the car, I feel like I’ll randomly pass out at the grocery store. There are things I do that exacerbate it like drinking coffee but I love coffee and I just want to feel like a normal human being and do things that I enjoy. I’m saddened that through everything, it always comes back and I’m just so tired of it.

i want to feel human. i want to feel emotions how normal people feel them. i get everyone is different but i dont get it. everytime i feel human for a second i get a random feeling of discouragement and false sense of temporary joy. i want it to stop but it wont stop why wont they stop. ocd and bipolar are not a good combination

it started happening suddenly. i just get so scared when i take medication. i immediately look up the symptoms and i start to overthink that i am having the bad reactions. i have visited the er twice because of this. i dread getting prescribed something. it has made me stop taking all my antidepressants. i am terrified of having something wrong with me all the time too. any little chest pain i freak out and i try to tell myself its anxiety but another part of me thinks to the most extreme like a heart attack or pneumonia. i am not too sure where to start the journey to getting better about this.

my bf and i text each other updates thru out our day when we don't see each other. but lately i keeep asking myself if i want to text him about my day or if i'm just doing it as a chore or if i'm doing it bcs i'm trying to put in effort into our relationship. when i think abt smt i'm doing i'm like oh i shld text him but then i'm like do i rlly want to or is it a chore or liek why am i saying i should. then i do it anyway but idk if thats a compulsion or if i'm just doing it cause i want to bcs i never know when i want to text him bcs i always test for that feeling kf wanting to and i can't feel it anymore. and then when ive texted him enough times as an update when i do smt new in my day i think shld i text him but then i'm like i think ive texted enough it shld be good. almost as if its a chore?? i don't want that feeling tho i wld much rather want to update him but idk what to think. can someone help relate maybe?

i feel like im such a burden to my partner with my ocd. ive never been sure abt my ocd and my gender, its all very fluid which im okay with but it still freaks me out because it'll be stagnant for months and then all of the sudden it'll change. this is complicating my relationship i feel like and i feel so so horrible because i said something that was meant to be flirty but hurt him instead. i feel like im so so bad for him and i get so scared he wont love me anymore or he thinks i dont love him anymore

We all have triggers to our OCD but what mine are like are i just recently got out of my OCD attacks, but recently there’s a story of a girl who recently committed and me being dumb knowing that that stuff triggers me watched all about it. now my thoughts are “what if i do that” “what if im not happy in my life” “what if i want to kill myself” but also “your just like her your depressed and want too” and “your not happy” when in all reality i’ve been so happy with my life and living until i started watching all of those videos. I’ve been panicking all day and have been isolating myself from everything because i feel like everything is a trigger to my thoughts. my thoughts are convincing me that i want to kms and im not happy but in reality i am. i hate ocd so much i hate it. because i know i would never do this thought but its causes so much stress and time of my life i feel that i cant function.

First of all, sorry for my bad English. I am a 15 year old guy, and I’ve never been with a girl, but I have fallen in love multiple times. I had never had a single doubt about my Sexual Orientation, but I think there are two things that made me start worrying about it. I think I am addicted to p*rn. I have been watching it like at least one time per day since I was 11 (I’d even say I’ve been jacking off two times a day for at least 3 years). Last summer, I watched some trans video and I didn’t really like it but it made me start worrying. I even got to watch gay videos because I was worried, but that was like only that day, and I forgot it and was never worried about it for at least 4 months. I’d say that was because of my porn addiction, because it’s like a drug addiction, you need something harder to get the same reaction. I’m really not proud at all of all the disgusting things I have watched before even thinking about the existence of gay porn. Well, it has only happened once, so I don’t really think it’s important. Then, as I said before, I started worrying again. I started watching some Spanish Talent Show that I watched when I was a kid and I noticed that mostly gays and girls watched it. I started worrying about that and every time something about it appeared on my TikTok i started checking if the guy was gay based on his videos or reposts. I think that was a compulsion. Now I’m sure that most of my friends (which are all straight) also watched it, because we talked about it, but none of us wanted to admit that we liked it. Months later, it got worse. I started having thoughts about liking guys. All of this while I had a crush on a beautiful girl i have liked for like 3 years. I started checking on gay porn and the groinal responses killed me. They made me worry a lot for days, I couldn’t stop checking gay and straight porn, although I didn’t stop jerking off to straight porn. Also, I’d like to say that I never jerked off to gay porn. Well, then I asked ChatGPT about my situation and it said that I possibly have HOCD. I started searching about it and it got better for two weeks, but now it’s worse. Better than months ago, but it’s not good at all. Today I even had an intrussive thought that told me that I should/want to try doing something with my butthole ( I don’t know how to say it), and it was really disgusting. I always trigger while watching movies or tiktok when I see an attractive guy and when I see gay people. I’d like to know what can I do to get better, because I don’t want to talk about this with none of my friends/family, because I think it’s something that I can overcome alone, but I need to know if I am certain, and if it’s really OCD. I think this is reassurance but anyways. Thank you for helping me.

I swore I wasn't going to tell anyone this or even try to post about it but lately it been feeling like I have just been fighting with myself. I remember when I was a %100 sure that I wasn't the type of person to be creep twords anybody but now im so unsure, like one min I would know im not attracted to kids then the next I have to constantly ask myself if I am and even that I still wouldn't be sure or think I do want that. Imagies and thoughts would keep popping up in my mind and it feels like a boxing ring trying to just fix them, I remember when I would scream and cry to these thoughts and feelings but now I just feel numb.. it feels like my morals have been switched and im just in denial about me not being a pedo. I obviously dont want to be a pedophile but now it feels like thats just what I am now and there will be nothing to ever change that part of me.

I’m struggling tonight. I seen something Instagram about a manifestation/karma and I responded to it, I looked on the profile after responding to it and one post it said black magic spells. I’m now having a really hard time that I’ve done something bad and I’ve messed with black magic.. I deleted the response and blocked the user, but my anxiety is through the roof stuff like that scares me and I’m crying. I’m so scared right now that something bad is going to happen 😢😢

I have ocd depression and anxiety and I have worked with psychiatrist in the past to try to find a good medication that worked for me. So far I haven’t had any success, I’ve tried about 5-6 different medication’s over the past 5 years but haven’t had much luck. I’m disappointed because I was really hoping that one of them would bring me some kind of relief, but they always end up giving me side effects (rashes, sweating, sleep problems, lowering libido). I read online that medication has been a big game changer for a lot of people and it motivates me to keep trying but the side effects affect my quality of life and I’m not sure if it’s worth it. Has anybody had a similar experience with medication? Should I keep trying? Also, my psychiatrist once mentioned that there’s genetic testing you could do to see which medication’s interact well with an individual, has anybody ever done that or had any luck?

I’ve struggled since childhood with anxiety. Specifically separation anxiety. My father passed away when I was 10 and I believe his illness and death is what started my anxiety. I am now 57 years old with two adult daughters. I have horrible anxiety about something happening to my younger daughter. She’s had health issues and we’ve been through a lot over the years. Even so, my anxiety about her is way out of proportion to reality. I fear for her every time she leaves the house. She just left to go shopping and I know that within an hour or so I will be wanting to check her location on my phone. Then if for some reason her location doesn’t seem right (like if it stays in one place on the highway for what I think is an extended amount of time) I’ll start to panic and text her. If she doesn’t answer I’ll call, and call, and call. All the while my brain is making up the most horrible scenarios such as car accidents, abduction, illness, tornados and on and on. It’s to the point that she now answers her phone with “Hi Mom! I’m fine!” I go through the same thing if she has a headache or is tired or nauseous. I can never just think “ she should go lie down. She’ll feel better in a bit.” I always have to Google her symptoms to try and see what could be wrong. Does anyone experience similar? I guess my obsessions are the thoughts that something bad will happen and my compulsions are having to check and check and check?