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Hi guys, I think this was bugging me before.. When I close my eyes, fast images and outside thoughts hit me like I’m just about to go into a dream. But the awake part of me is still too sharp and identifies it as “false” or “that’s not true, it’s the beginning of a dream.” Why would dreams be coming in so fast like that? I’m really beginning to think it’s more like hypnagogic hallucinations, since I have been known to hear noises, voices, and even slams while drifting off. These are like dreams that rush in and try to convince me to go along with them. But the awake part of me opens my eyes because it knows it isn’t true. I’m not overtired when it happens. It’s more like a certain stubbornness in me that refuses to just drift off with the dream. If it is a dream, that is. It not only causes anxiety, but annoyance. Gets the heart pumping.. pure frustration Took 3 hours to fall asleep last night, and about 20 of these false/fake sleeps that couldn’t follow through to dreamland I Hate It

Do any of you have lots of trouble “accepting uncertainty” as part of your ERP because as a Christian sometimes you wonder if it’s really OCD or true conviction? I’m struggling with this right now.

my aunt gave me edibles to help with my anxiety from my intrusive thoughts. well i think i ended up greening out and i woke up this morning and my brain feels all fuzzy and i still feel like im going to die. has anyone with ocd ever been through this. im so scared right now.

My Ocd turns everything innocent and normal into something horrible. Sometimes when my daughter and I are watching tv she will want to play with and brush my hair. It feels so nice and relaxing or she will cuddle up and rub her feet on mine which is relaxing and makes me feel sleepy but ocd ruins it by telling me it’s inappropriate and that i’m enjoying something inappropriate. One day I saw a snapchat video my young grandson made of himself just out of the shower looking at himself shirtless in the mirror and I was thinking that he thinks he’s so cool and is probably going to flex like all boys do and laughed to myself but then the ocd kicked in and said that I was attracted to him and it made me so upset because I never have and don’t think of any child in that way. I don’t feel that way so how can ocd try to make me believe that I do?? How can ocd be more powerful than my own actual thoughts and feelings? This disorder is so debilitating and upsetting. I can’t live like this.

I feel like cancel culture is the enemy of OCD. It goes against everything so many of us have difficulty accepting- forgiveness, self-improvement, and feeling like a morally good person. Does anybody else get severely triggered by people being “cancelled” over small things and thinking: “That could be me someday”

Possibly tmi but one thing i’ve been really struggling with lately is using the bathroom and I mean #2. It seems like one of the worst germs to me. First of all I wipe and wipe and wipe more than I assume a person without contamination ocd does but I feel like I must know that its completely clean. Also, I then feel that when I shower and wash down there that my hands are contaminated and I need to wash them multiple times and I spend way too much time doing so. I know this is abnormal but I have trouble understanding how someone without contamination ocd would deal with this situation. I wish I could watch the process of how I should wipe and then how to wash that area in the shower. If anyone else has struggled with this, what did you do to improve? I feel like I don’t know what a “normal” routine would be that is considered clean enough.

Is it normal to be flattered when the opposite gender gives you attention and to like to feel pretty? I have a loving boyfriend and I would never cheat on him. I feel like I emotionally cheated because I was dancing at a wedding reception and was enjoying that this MUCH older, popular, “attractive” guy was noticing me. I tried to move my butt or dance “better” when he was looking?? My boyfriend was not at this reception and I was drinking. When the older guy left, I was sad because I wasn’t going to get the attention that I was getting. But we didn’t have a conversation other than him saying a few words to me. I did not say anything back to him. But I did enjoy his attention because I felt pretty. I never ever wanted to cheat on my boyfriend. I just wanted to look good. I don’t know why. This sounds awful. This incident was almost two years ago and I still feel horrible about it. My dad has told me this is human nature and I’m just overthinking it. I’ve already told my boyfriend and he was hurt but he said it would be like him wanting to look good on the beach in front of people.

So, I was exposed to pornography at a very young age and it ruined my childhood. Of course, at the time I saw those disgusting, horrible and even illegal things and I liked them, but now I have to deal with the consequences of that, and I feel disgusting. When I got professional help, I was told that even if when I was a child and watched lolicon, for example, it is okay beacuse I didn't harm anyone. But I still feel guilty, I do not want to hurt real children, I had never had these intrusive thoughts about children, it is only now that I am overcoming my addiction that I realize how awful and harmful the things I've seen were. How do I forgive myself, and accept my past mistakes?

Hello, it’s been some time since I’ve been on this platform but I’m not sure where else I feel safe to talk about this. Every minute of every day, I have the most horrible intrusive thoughts imaginable and I am constantly disturbed and horrified with both these thoughts and myself. I understand that these thoughts don’t define who we are, but it constantly raises the moral questions of if my brain is capable of conjuring these thoughts, even if involuntarily, then what does that say about who I am. The only solace I have is that I’m always disgusted with these thoughts but I’m constantly afraid of being some kind of monster because I have these thoughts and I feel like a terrible person for having these intrusive thoughts. I am in therapy and on medication, but neither are making this any easier, at least not yet. I don’t intend on stopping either nor have I felt any urge to actually carry out these thoughts, but they haunt me every minute of every day and I can’t stop them.

This post is just food for thought and I guess kind of a venting post. I’m curious to see who else would agree with this. Is anyone sick and tired of being labeled ? I was “diagnosed “ with OCD officially about 7 months ago. I’ve been in ERP for the same length of time, and I won’t lie I’m going through it. This journey has been absolute hell for me in all honesty (as I assume it is for most people). However, why is that because we’re going through a hard time we have to be labeled with all these different diagnosis? Like if you’re overwhelmed or stressed you automatically have anxiety, if you experience scary thoughts or have obsessive tendencies you automatically have OCD, if you’re feeling down or sad it’s automatically depression etc …. Why can’t we just be told “hey you’re just going through a hard season right now” or like “you’re human and these experiences are all part of life “. I feel like these labels are what’s keeping people hostage, and making them feel broken or messed up. Even with ERP, there’s like a stigma that after a certain amount of sessions you “should” start feeling better , but that’s not the case for everyone. I’m in this for over a year and a half and I’m still very badly struggling. I think normalizing things like love, patience, and that this is all normal to go through is essential to build up someone’s self esteem. Challenges alone have the ability to make you feel defeated, lonely and broken. We don’t need extra stigma around it….. rant over !

Good morning friends. While I'm in my recovery and very close to I think my breakthrough I want to share what has been helping me and really what I came to the conclusion of. We think our minds and brains are broken but really we need to change our relationship with our minds and separate ourselves from them. Your mind is not a bully, your mind is not against you! Your mind is your very best friend. Every intrusive thought you have is your minds way of protecting you to the possibilities it THINKS will happen. You are NOT your thoughts you are NOT your feelings. Thoughts create feelings. Thus feelings are joined with thoughts. Once we start realizing our thoughts are protection we limit our suffering. Stop hating your mind, stop hating your thoughts they are protection. Your brain gathers information to create stories that may be similar to you however, it just wants you to be careful even though you know deep down you're safe. You don't need saving. Your brain is working just how it's suppose to. Our true nature is peace, joy and happiness. Our anxiety is a signal to step back and let our thinking settle like a snow globe when you shake it. When you take that step back and leave your thinking alone it will settle and your true state which is peace, joy and happiness returns to you. (the snow globe settles) Any thought you have while anxious is distorted and you will never be able to solve anything in that state. Leave that thinking alone. When you feel depressed that's actually a defense mechanism. That is a signal to rest you're fighting too hard. You don't need to fight just simply leave it alone. We have been taught anxiety and depression are bad and we need to fix ourselves but what if because we think they are bad we fight them and hence make our suffering worse? What if we change the relationship and notice these are signals to step back or rest? We don't need to fight we don't need to resist. Our minds are our friends keeping us safe from info we once gathered. Our thoughts are NOT us. No matter your worries no matter your feelings your brain is your friend anxiety and depression are defense tools. You don't need fixing you need to just be 🤍 everything will be okay. I love you all and I hope this gives you some help today. Keep on going don't give up better days are coming for you all ✨️

I know this may sound silly to be concerned about, but I have suicidal ocd. I get intrusive thoughts. And ruminate heavily. I feel like lately I cannot stop thinking about suicide 24/7. Until I fall asleep that is what’s on my mind. I had a med change a week ago and that’s when this started. Is this just a phase of my ocd? I am not wanting to kill myself- I don’t have a plan. I am just fearful

Anyone have problems sleeping? Like thinking about falling asleep and it never happens? Or is this just ocd?

Does anyone that is diagnosed have experience having different themes come up in a day? It’s like I ignored one thought and then my mind comes up with another one until it figures out one that is scary enough for me to ruminate. Does it ever make sense? Like today my intrusive thought was an image of me in the space or falling into space which made me also think - this is non sense! Am I going crazy for having such an unrealistic intrusive thought? And then my psychosis OCD comes to play 🫠 it’s EXHAUSTING but I’ve been answering with “maybe or maybe not” and “I don’t care” which is something I saw someone saying that helps and I’ve been using it. I haven’t started ERP yet but hopefully soon. Just this year this came up and I still catch myself feeling so sad and remembering how I was before this. 😭

Does anyone else tell themselves "don't do 'this' or something bad will happen!" or if something bad does happen you go "it's because I did 'this' thing beforehand" and you end up avoiding a lot of stuff you really enjoy? I get in a bad habit of it. I assume some stuff is cursed, in a sense, even if it's something as mundane as using something in video game or eating a certain food.

content warning: mentions of sexual acts things took a turn for the worse and I ended up opening up about the intrusive thought I had about some random guy while self pleasuring and my boyfriend took it really badly. we calmed down pretty quick and he apologized but I don't know how to feel anymore. with everything else he has been so caring and gentle and understanding. I didn't expect him to be perfectly fine but it got really mean and I don't know how to deal with this. he has apologized and doesn't expect me to forgive him and also made it clear that he knows he messed up, I just feel so upset by how the interaction went. has anyone had a partner react badly for a moment but we're able to move past it? I know how exhausting it can be fir the partner of someone suffering so much and I'm not mad that he felt that way, I just feel so taken aback and in the moment it felt like a dream and everything was just a haze and so intense. please help I don't want to lose him and want to know if other people have worked past this before

I hope someone can respond... Im genuinely so triggered and so anxious... This youtuber was accused of grooming a minor, making inappropriate sex jokes with a minor, and planning to meet up with him at dreamcon when the minor turned 16, talking about doing explicit stuff in the presence of minors, etc... this was all when the youtuber was 20 and the minor was 13... POCD is saying that my situation with me venting about 18+ HOCD stuff to people in the PM's on an OCD groupchat I found from NOCD, including minors, means that I am just as bad as they are... or worse... I pm'ed them from the support group and vented to them (including the minors) about my 18+ HOCD struggles... I dont ever want to ever be attracted to minors in any way... I dont ever want to ever engage in any inappropriate relations with minors in any way...

Taking a walk down memory lane ❤️I used to stare at the knife blocks in my house because I was picturing myself committing suicide in vivid detail terrified I would do it. I was probably 7-9. I also had one about a stuffed penguin I had, where I’d imagine it lost and crying for me :,) that one still gets me even as an adult.

Hello! I am pretty early in my journey with receiving treatment for OCD, although it seems I’ve had it my whole life. I would love to hear any inspirational stories from people who have seen improvements from treatment! I am feeling good about ERP so far but I could use some inspiration as I embark on the harder parts :)

Im 16 and i’ve always wanted to drink and smoke weed to use it as a way to ease my tension and anxiety like people say it would . I never have because i’m terrified id say something horrible or do something bad and not remember it . I don’t tell people that’s why i don’t wanna engage in drinking or substances because i just know they wouldnt understand and they’d tell me to ‘stop being so paranoid’. So, instead , they call me boring and frigid which is putting pressure on me. i wish i could have fun like them but i actively avoid parties and dont get invited to them because of it. Im just so scared of something bad happening that’s out of my control. Im not too sure what to do because i don’t want to stay a social outcast forever. Any advice would be appreciated ❤️