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OCD and ERP so difficult. ERP is so difficult, I want to try so hard. As I do not want to waste these sessions but as some days I feel like I cannot do it. Like how do I change my mindset.

Does anyone else feel not as triggered during your exposures vs when the intrusive thoughts come up out of nowhere???? I am starting back in on the ERP sessions for my subtypes that hold the most power over me. It is very uncomfortable. Feels so awkward and silly TBH to even entertain these thoughts and yet... HERE I AM! Thanks OCD. I am going go commit to the homework that my therapist has sent and hoping for the noise to quiet down soon

Has anyone found a correlation in their OCD / Intrusive thoughts getting WAY worse during their cycle. I am doing fine with medication any other time but when I have my cycle it is debilitating… And have you found anything that helps?

hi i’ve been struggling with religion recently. when i was younger i went to a catholic school that was very poorly run and as a result i decided to not follow a religion when i left. within the past few months dealing with my ocd made me feel like there was no hope other than turning back to religion. i have been praying more frequently and i talk to God a lot abt my ocd. however i just bought a new cross necklace and have been wearing it for the past few days. however i got the intrusive thought this morning that if i wear a cross it means i am a hardcore conservative christian. and although there’s nothing wrong with that if you are, it is most definitely not who i am. so now i don’t know if i should still wear it. bc i also feel like if i take it off God will be mad at me and i’ll go to hell. i don’t go to church or read the bible or anything my religious journey to me is just the relationship between me and God and i am extremely private about it bc it’s extremely person to me. i just don’t know if following a religion is a good thing for me to do with ocd idk if lost

I wrote this post earlier but I put it again because I need some advice otherwise I will be ruminating all night and suffering. I feel quite numb to everything now but I’ve got a bad habit of everytime I get a horrible/gory thought I start deliberately imagining it/playing it out like a scenario in my head and I don’t get anxiety and sometimes it feels like I ‘like it’ or almost like ‘i want to do that horrible thing’ I think drinking caffeine effects me but I drink Diet Coke before and last night it was really bad like I also keep doing this thing where I keep pulling faces in the mirror like I saw this thing where it said evil killers or psychos you can see the whites of their eyes at the top and I keep pulling that face in the mirror and sometimes it feels like I’m actually evil or look evil and I had this weird horrible dream and in the dream I got like adrenaline anxiety and I was smiling about being evil or doing something bad and last night I had a Diet Coke and was up really late and I went to brush my teeth and started pulling those faces in the mirror and suddenly I felt like adrenaline or soemthing and was pulling like evil smiles in the mirror like ‘imagine you killed/stabbed your mum right now and it felt real they I ‘wanted it’ or ‘liked it’ or I’ve got this horrible thing in my head I heard before that evil people enjoy doing that and get adrenaline excited and I’m thinking why am I believing that about myself or almost thinking I could be like that and I feel numb but I’m worried I’m scared but at the same time feel nothing I’m scared I will become evil or would give in or when i start deliberately imagining the thoughts it feels like I’m being hypnotised in that moment or that it could actually happen because of they way I’m thinking I can’t explain it but I’m scared and don’t know what if I’m secretly evil why do I keep deliberately imagining things before it was to test myself but now it feels almost like instead of denying it I’m almost trying to convince myself I am evil and I’m worried what if I’m curious about being evil that’s why I’m imagining sick things I’m worried, I do things that show that I care for others but at the same time I’m thinking what if someone could still be evil even though they do good things? And someone on here once said they think you can become evil if you keep thinking you are and sometimes it feels like when I’m imagining those thoughts almost like so real like I’m being influenced or it could happen and I don’t know what To do I can’t even cry over things anymore I’m scared

Hey.. How do y’all experience m*******tion with OCD? For me it’s been really hard to manage lately. I enjoy doing it but I feel so guilty and nasty after… Plus, my Sexual Orientation thoughts get in the way and it’s so complicated to manage…

I wanted to take a moment to share how ERP has given me freedom back, which I’ve been reflecting on lately. I used to have terrible driving anxiety. I didn’t like driving more than 15 miles on the freeway, and avoided doing so. Forget driving at night or when it was raining-so out of the question. While I really didn’t want to work on this, I told my therapist, and she gave me some exposure work. I watched videos of car crashes, and wrote a worry script with my worst case scenario. Prior to ERP, I preferred other people drive to the far off places, and if I drove by myself, I was constantly checking my body, in case I got light headed or lost control of my ability to focus and steer and brake. Which truthfully just caused more anxiety, which didn’t help. So, for several weeks, I worked on this fear until it got easier to manage. And yesterday, I drove 45 minutes away, so I could attend an OCD walk hosted by the IOCDF. I met someone in real life that I’ve seen in my support groups, I walked with a friend who was recently diagnosed herself, and I was surrounded by people who have OCD, a disorder that can be so invisible and isolating, so terribly isolating. To be in a community of people with similar struggles to mine, after I struggled with feeling isolated for so long, was beautiful. There are many wins and struggles that led me here, but being able to drive again, to take the reins back from a fear that controlled me, is more wonderful than I can say. I can drive alone now, I can go to favorite cities and beaches that are farther from home to do some self care. If my friend is tired, I can drive instead of hoping she would. The thoughts aren’t gone, and I know they don’t disappear. I do sometimes think “I’m going to die on the freeway today,” or “there’s going to be an earthquake on this bridge as I drive over it.” But the thoughts are more like whispers now, easier to manage and talk back to. Today my anxiety was going up, I feel like I don’t have control over my upcoming work week, I know I needed to relax but I didn’t know how to relax in just the “right way.” But I can breathe through the things that used to drown me. So if your ERP feels like a nightmare, or hard, keep going. It’s so worth it, even if you’re clawing your way through like I was early on. ❤️

I had OCD as a child and then my symptoms became less noticeable and easier to manage as I got older. Now I am in my 30’s with my first dog and am constantly terrified he is sick or dying. Any abnormal behavior triggers it- a cough, not eating as much as usual, excessive sleeping. I monitor how many times he goes to the bathroom. It’s exhausting. I know logically that he’s okay, but I just can’t seem to shake the anxiety and OCD pattern of calling his vet, asking my husband if the dog is okay, or taking him to the urgent care. Anyone have any advice? This is my first post here. Thank you in advance.

Any advice on how to get relief from nightmares? I have been having them constantly and struggling with images/“videos” in my mind when I’m awake of violence happening to others as well. My psychiatrist prescribed me ambien to use every once in a while, but I don’t want to take it every night (I don’t even have enough to do that, and he recommended against it).

I am almost 18 right now and when I was 16 and under I did some horrible things I regret and make me feel like a bad person. I won’t go into detail but stuff people would find weird/hate me for. I am quite popular on social media and I see people getting cancelled so much on TikTok for things I used to do. It scares me. I acknowledge that what I did was bad and don’t do it anymore/havent done it again but the things still haunt me :(. I imagine scenarios of being cancelled and being infamous and everybody hating me. The stuff I did was because I was immature/didn’t really know it was wrong but I still feel like such a shitty person. I really want to be a good person and try to and whenever I try to think “I’m a good person” my ocd cancels it by reminding me of all the stuff I have done and I can’t call myself a good person. It also affects my boyfriend as well and my ocd latches onto him being imperfect. He has done things wrong/ things that have upset me, but my ocd takes this and uses it to show me “he’s a bad person” and we are both “problematic” I’m currently obsessing over it.

About 7 months ago, I went through a very stressful episode of ROCD centered around cheating. I essentially dissected every single even remotely questionable interaction I’d had in the past 2 years of my relationship (and even before it) and confessed them all to my partner. I was basically going through a nonstop panic attack. However, never did I ever think that I physically cheated with ANYONE. I only obsessed over incidents where I worried that I might have emotionally cheated, or cheated online, or crossed into a morally gray zone. Eventually my thoughts cleared up and I started feeling normal again. I was free from ROCD for months. Then a month ago, I had an image flash into my mind involving me kissing a male friend a year and a half ago. This turned into an obsession that lasted over 3 weeks. I was genuinely and truly convinced that I had cheated on my partner with this person. I was ruminating and obsessing and panicking 24/7, and I finally ended up caving and texting this person and asking if anything ever happened between us. He confirmed that nothing did, and I finally was able to relax. Now it seems like this incident opened the floodgates for countless more false memories of physically cheating. I have imagined myself cheating with another mutual male friend, with a coworker 2 years ago, and now with a guy I met at a party almost 2 years ago. I don’t know what to do anymore. I just went on a once-in-a-lifetime trip with my partner and our friend group for 2 whole weeks and I literally spent the entire trip panicking and ruminating. I was luckily able to give the illusion that I was doing okay, and I was able to have fun on the trip. But the thoughts would never leave my head. Most of my obsessions were centered on the coworker during the trip, and now I’m obsessing over that guy from the party. Each obsession feels more ridiculous than the last. I mean I never found this guy attractive and I remember feeling really grossed out during the party because of how much his B.O. reeked. There is no way I ever touched him. But I have crafted this scenario where I went into a bedroom with him and we did something. I’m having such an easy time imagining that scenario and it’s freaking me out. Thoughts like “if it’s so easy to imagine it must mean it’s real” are running through my head and ruining everything. I just want it to end. I’m finally looking for a therapist. I’ve realized i can’t do this anymore. But until then, how do I deal with these thoughts? My go-to instinct is to just replay the “memory” in my head a million times and try to discern whether it’s real or not but this just makes it feel more familiar and realistic. I just want to go back to living life happily. But it seems like that happiness only transitional between OCD episodes, which are like the real landmarks in my life.

i wanna try supplementing if it’ll help my friend started taking ashwagandha for stress and she said it’s been helping a ton so i’m wondering if anyone has any recommendations for a supplement that works for ocd

So many thoughts are coming into my head right now I don’t know how to think. I don’t even know how I am going to put this into words on here I just don’t know what to do . I am so scared of throwing up it’s so hard to explain . Everybody tells me “well no likes getting sick” but they don’t get it. It’s not just that, I am scared about getting any major illness and my mind keeps making me think that everything will give me food poisoning or a stomach bug if I am not careful or if I don’t check my temperature ten times in a row . I have to wash every produce throughly if I don’t I will do it again. And it sucks . Every time my stomach hurts I think that I will get sick. I barely eat and sleep because I am so scared . I am scared to sleep because I genuinely think that “anything can happen while I am asleep” so even if I take sleep medication my mind makes me stay awake out of fear. I just want to feel normal . I can never eat out without doing research of the place I am eating at and even after that it doesn’t help. I always feel worried that I will get sick on an important date just because that day is important like Halloween or an upcoming concert or hanging out with friends , so now I just mainly stay at home … but it hurts me because i want to live ( it's ironic because Liv is my name) so badly . my dream is to someday go on a Europe trip but i can hardly leave my state without thinking that something bad will happen to me . its getting unbearable at times . I wonder what it would feel like to not be completely burdened by anxiety and horribly disgusting thoughts every second of my life. And if you're wondering why I haven't had any medication prescribed to me is because I am also scared about taking any medication . I just feel helpless and it's my own fault . And I know I am holding myself back at times but I just don't know how to stop being scared and how to stop worrying about every aspect of my life . It's going to drive me insane .

okay i took only an 1/8 of a thc gummy and i hate the way it’s making me feel. it’s amplifying my intrusive thoughts at the moment, making me feel calm and like i don’t care about acting on them but also anxious at the same time. my body feels kinda numb. my chest is heavy. and my adhd symptoms feel stronger. is this normal for some people?

Feeling like a bad person has always been one of my reoccurring struggles with OCD. I’m working through trauma therapy at the moment and recognizing a lot of stuck points, and connecting a lot dots in relation to my OCD. But I feel like even if I make a small mistake or mess up, I can’t give myself grace - and I assume I’m an awful person. Obviously, my realistic self reassures me I would never intentionally hurt someone or have malicious intentions in situations. But sometimes I go round and round, and even think the only reason I think or want to be a good person is because I’m scared of being a bad person? I know that doesn’t make sense but it fucks with me and I’m sure only this group would understand. Anyway, today for example: I got sorta mad at my bf because he was trying to smack my butt and accidentally hit my back. And I said “ouch, stop - you got my back.” - in literally the least menacing way. And we laughed it off and he felt bad. And then I just couldn’t help myself from apologizing to him because I felt like I overreacted somehow. He seemed very confused and was so sweet about it. But I just felt like I overreacted, and I told him that I felt gross - I was trying to prepare food and it caught me off guard. And he was like “no yeah, that makes total sense - you literally don’t have to explain yourself or apologize at all!”. But I just got into this weird mood now, where I’m convincing myself I’m a bad person and a bad partner. And he should be with someone who is truly the sweetest person ever and beautiful to add on to the obsession. Sometimes I just don’t know what’s wrong with me. I know I’m not a bad person but sometimes the OCD itself is very annoying. I feel like this wave has passed, and I’ve worked a lot on grounding myself and bringing myself to reality. Which is great! But I would really love to know if anyone else struggles with this kind of thing and what helps them in these times?

Hi guys, I’m a follower of Christ and I definitely have a lot of religious OCD I’m always thinking I’m committing the unforgivable sin, and always thinking that God can never forgive me. And there’s so many people that have their own idea of what they think the unforgivable sin is so it makes me have even more anxiety and honestly I really need help because it’s been a few years now that I’ve been battling this and I just want to live comfortably in my faith

I am about to go on a night out with one of my girl mates just the two of us! SO ocd has stopped me from doing that with just two of us drinking for 4 years and I am so proud of myself for saying yes I will go. I of course have had some intrusive thoughts pop up but trying to focus on the small win of saying yes and going. Wanted to share with people who will understand how big this is for me!!

Help!!!! A family friend’s young teenager is really suffering. He has autism, so he won’t talk about his feelings and what is going on in his head. He can (in a limited way) talk to people, and he goes to public school. However, he is unable to describe his thoughts or feelings or inner experiences at all. He seems to exhibit OCD behavior, but no one can really tell if he has OCD or not. He can’t communicate his experiences with a therapist well enough to get a diagnosis, and no one has been able to help him. His parents have been exhausting their money on expensive sessions with therapists. However, since no one can deeply communicate with the child, nothing has helped. It seems unclear if the child’s issues stem from autism, OCD, or both. I would imagine that having both OCD and autism would look different than just having OCD by itself. But I don’t know how people diagnose that or treat it. Can anyone give advice here????? Anyone have similar experiences?

I feel like ERP both works and doesn’t. My OCD is very much mental and trying to resist compulsions is an all-day task. When I do my ERP homework, it works for that scenario but OCD comes back the same force later. I am tired at this point. Days are long but I don’t feel like much happened. My prayer life is the only thing that works as joy is being sucked out of everything else. Did anyone else go through a stubborn bout of this?

I feel like I have been spiraling lately because all day every day I’m scared to do something wrong in my relationship. I can’t be near men because I’m scared that I kiss them If something touches my lip like my hair or sweater or even a rain drop tbh I think I kissed someone Just today i was getting out of my car and I was on the phone with my boyfriend and I think I turned my head and my hoodie hit my lip and right away I started freaking out bc from a distance I saw a man so I was already anxious and I convinced myself he was near me and that it was him just bc what I think was my sweater hit my lip and I was on the phone with my boyfriend and I still think it was another man I feel like it’s getting out of control but I can’t help but to confess everything all the time because then I feel like I’m hiding something and then I start feeling guilty and then it turns out to be for nothing But I can’t sit with the uncertainty especially if something touches my lip, I can’t stand it I hate living like this tho because I lose all motivation for everything tbh 😭