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working to conquer OCD
Hi. I have been having extreme anxiety about passing out and fainting. I constantly am checking my blood pressure and heart rate and last week I passed out and went to the hospital. But it turns out it was just stress all my tests were clean. This happens especially when driving feeling faint and anxious. It’s causing me to have high blood pressure. If you go through the same thing what do you do to help yourself? Or coach yourself through it? It’s been a struggle lately.
Hi everyone. I am currently on Luvox after being on Prozac (20-40mg) for the last 5 years. Prozac was no longer working for me so my doctor/therapist and I decided to switch SSRIs. With help from my primary care doctor, I tapered off of Prozac while tapering on to Luvox over the course of a few weeks. I am now off of Prozac and on 150mg of Luvox. I had a couple good weeks where there were more good days than bad, but recently I have felt more depressed, anxious, and in my head on 150mg of Luvox. The anxiety/Harm/Suicidal/Relationship/Pure OCD has been ramping up and it makes me feel a bit hopeless that I won’t get better. The mornings are hard when you feel like it’s just another day suffering through the ups and downs. If anyone can share their ideal Luvox dosage/medicine combo where they finally felt consistent relief from intrusive thoughts and rumination, I would be so appreciative. I know switching medicine and doing ERP is a long process, and I’ve only been in the thick of it for 5 weeks (6/29-8/2), but as I’m sure you can all understand, it’s hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel with this disorder. Any positivity, encouragement, advice, coping mechanisms/tools and success stories are appreciated!
Something I’m really struggling with is the thoughts of having a child. My husband and I got married last year and always planned to have kids. I am currently experiencing an OCD “flare” and I’m wondering how ethical it is for me to have a child knowing I may pass this condition on. Any insight is appreciated!
Hi I got my OCD 3 months back after watching a horror movie as I connected that movie with my past experience. Does any one enjoy horror movies who could help me to break my OCD by watching that movie. Kindly let me know
Recently I’ve come back to God, specially Christianity. I prayed and wrote to God for a sign concerning a mistake I made, and put within this letter for him to show me a yellow car if everything is going to be ok. Kid you not, same day I see a yellow truck parked while driving. I believe I was answered but my mind keeps nagging me I wasn’t. Do you think this is the devil and ocd trying to downplay what I prayed and wrote to God for? I know you shouldn’t ask for signs and wonders, but I desperately needed one.
My anxiety fluctuates throughout the weeks and it gets me so confused! One day I have absolutely no anxiety but the intrusive thoughts still remain, but aren’t as intense. The next day, the anxiety rises again and I tend to do more physical compulsions since the intrusive thoughts are more intense. I have no idea if it’s an influence from my daily structure (more anxiety on the weekend?) or if its hormonal or something else. I really don’t get how ocd works sometimes
Hi! Does anyone else find it hard to accept that you have ocd? I think it’s the most difficult part.
just venting. tw for SH. too lazy to type everything. genuinely just tired. I don’t want replies. the end is somewhat beginning to be appealing. maybe if I do it, they will care. I’ll be pissed if they do. fuck off, you didn’t know me, you have no right to care if I go. I was always in the background. all of a sudden I will matter for a few moments, and what for? don’t even try to give compliments to who I was. you didn’t know me. it’s a shame I thought of a future. a non realistic one. I only felt comfort in my imaginary world. hopefully there is another life. a better world. I think I will rest now. good night.
Hey! A little about myself my names Jacob, I’m 23 years old, I’ve been a firefighter since I was fresh out of high school and I’ve been dealing with OCD symptoms since around my Senior year of high school. When I was 17 I vividly remember being at home one day and all of a sudden having a full on anxiety attack with no trigger whatsoever. From then on it developed into me having no idea what was going on for weeks-months until I was able to do the right research and figured out I was dealing with OCD, more specifically Pure OCD. It mainly was made up of intrusive thoughts of harming myself or others, for example thinking of crashing my car into oncoming traffic or randomly attacking someone for no reason. It terrified me because the thoughts never reflected my character at all. In fact I’ve never even been in a car accident before thank god and I’ve never been in a fight! As I’ve gotten older and learned how to deal with OCD I was put on to a prescription called Fluvoxamine around the time I was 18-19 and noticed it helped significantly in reducing my intrusive thoughts and when I would have them there would be no anxiety or rumination following them. I’m now 23 and I work a steady job at my local fire station and I absolutely love it. OCD sometimes makes it challenging to go about my day especially when I have “flare ups” which don’t happen all that often but when they do it can be pretty overwhelming. I’m currently going through a flare up that is as challenging as all the other ones and it relates yet again to harm OCD. One thing I’ve been able to do very successfully is being able to recognize when it is a problem and I’m able to rely on my mom to sit and chat with me about what’s going on and help get everything off my chest. Flare ups usually only last a few weeks maybe a couple months usually, sometimes getting better and sometimes getting worse but I always remember im able to get through it and this too shall pass cause I’ve done it before and I will always continue to do it again. One thing I’ve been researching recently is Ketamine therapy for OCD/anxiety and was curious if anyone had any input on the idea of it. I’ve read some good things and some bad and would like to know too if anyone has tried it for themselves. Thank you if you took the time to read this😁
Hey, this is my first time posting… so I am a little nervous. I have OCD, along with Bipolar 1, and Autism (autism was assessed by a therapist and psychiatrist but not an official diagnosis cause of the cost). I used to have my OCD treated with Effexor until it revealed my Bipolar disorder and instead I can only be on low dose Prozac (alongside other meds for bipolar) One of my biggest and oldest OCD symptoms has been a constant need to confess everything hidden about my life to my parents. It started when I was 15. I suddenly would become so stressed about something I did in the past (usually regarding more private topics, stuff no one wants to talk to their parents about). It would be so bad I would struggle to keep food down if I was fighting those thoughts. Although it’s gotten better, it hasn’t left without leaving me completely exposed, and it still pushes me to want to confess my private life to them. I always think “but X or Y was wrong of me to do, or was private” and then I’d feel like NOT confessing was me “lying by omission.” It’s hard to explain it… but I just wondered if anyone had and advice or just messages of solidarity. Thanks to anyone who read this long message, I appreciate it.
I have noticed that my ocd symptoms has went sooooo downhill after my second trimester. I am terrified that this will get only worse during pregnancy. I recently finished my therapy and i dont have any medication currently. I have been getting instrutive false memories from past event. I feel that i’m losing my mind with it, and been crying all these 3 days in a row. I feel like i need to confess these hurtful false memories and instrutive thoughts to my man and i can see him getting upset by them. So, this one tv show triggered my cheating ocd, where this one girl kissed another guy than his spouse. And my situation basicaly was a taxi ride home with my male friend (i promised him to go for his avec to one wedding before knowing my man so i went. We never had anything romantic between us just old colleagues), and i was tipsy and telling him how glad i am to have him as one of my good friends. I kissed him on his cheek and the chat was that. Then we went home where my fiance and other friend was. This happened 3 yrs ago. So i think the cheek kiss triggered my cheating ocd also bc of that tv show. I have told my partner about this millions of times and he is okay with everything. There didnt happen anything else. (Even my ocd is reallllyyyy making it hellish for me to say this) Still i am ruminating so much. And i am doubting that do i remember right, did i kiss him properly, is there smtng i havent registered bc of alcohol etcetc. Or the worst have i told him not to tell me if i ask him? Its so ridiculous. I am SO dissapointed to myself as i was doing so well couple of months ago and now literally i have been asking reassurance from this person who was at the event with me already 2 years ago and now again. Im just embarrasing myself so bad right now😭 I feel so helpless with these kind of situations
I was listening to some podcasts on OCD and heard that a lot of times OCD can be triggered from a traumatic event. Looking back I can say I’ve always had OCD tendencies but it didn’t get really debilitating until a few years ago when my dad became a late in life alcoholic and drug addict. This event traumatized me in many ways including almost all of my OCD fears and compulsions today. I know it’s up to me to learn to manage my OCD but on days when I’m having a hard time trusting when someone says they’ll come back at a certain time and start to freak out and check their location or ask over and over where they are I can’t help but be so angry about where a lot of these fears stemmed from and why they might have such a grip over me. It might seem selfish but it’s how I feel.
firstly im not privileged enough for a diagnosis but i am not the type to just label myself as such, when i had the symptomps i knew there was something wrong with me thats when i searched if such things are normal and it all lead to me having ocd, i wasnt really familiar with ocd back then so i didnt belive that i had it cause i thought its only about physical related obsessions (washing hands, repetitive behaviours etc.) i would get this thoughts that are unwanted and find myself hyperfixating on it and rationalizing my thoughts but in the end ill just keep doubting myself its so bad to the point that it would last months the first time it happend was last year i was in a relationship and experienced rocd where i doubted if i was really loyal to my partner id get this thoughts abt other guys and worry that im being unfaithful. i would research abt things to see if its normal and such and find reassurance that would only work temporarily and then doubt myself all over again. this is just an idea of what i was struggling with but it was more complex than this. that resulted with me breaking up with him. it stopped my ocd. but i got into a relationship again, i was pretty confident because i thought i knew better but guess what it happend again and i had to break up with him again because i was so scared of my own thoughts making me doubt myself. but now i have new obsessions and its pocd and i cant do anything about it to make it go away i honestly feel so disgusted everytime i have thoughts related to kids and i feel so guilty about it. i know deep down that i really have ocd since i relate to every videos about ocd since it EXACTLY explains my situation. like unwanted intrusive thoughts and obsessing about it, constant doubts, trying to fix or ruminate about the thought, having to do something that would make me feel at ease (compulsion) so please help me, i would really want to go to a therapist but i have to explain to my parents first but i feel like they wont bleieve that much and im also starting to doubt myself because of it.
For the past week or so my ocd and anxiety have flared up when it haven’t been for a long time. All I could think the reason for this is from my period but it hasn’t lasted this long in ages and it’s making me feel so down and anxious and I’m lost on what to do or to ease it.
I know this may seem silly, but I'm afraid to go to sleep, because I know that when I wake up I'll feel terribly anxious. It happens each morning. I feel awful from the moment I wake up until like 4 pm, and on the mean while, I can only be on freeze mode, scrolling on my phone, trying to make the ugly feeling go away. And by the time night time arrives, I feel a little more stable, but regret that I didn't more during the day other than suffering and procrastinating. Has anyone ever dealt with this? If so, do you do something to feel better?
for the past 12 days i’ve really been struggling with feeling contaminated, over washing my hands yet they never feel clean, washing them so hard that i start to sweat and my arms give out. i feel like parts of my body are contaminated from being outside. instead of showering and washing my face like a normal person im avoiding myself because im afraid. im afraid that my hands will get contaminated and i wont stop washing my hands. (i know it doesn’t make sense but im experiencing a lot of stress that’s causing my bladder muscles to tighten and i can’t hold in my pee, i need my hands to be clean to even lower my pants) if i get stuck in a handwashing cycle ill pee myself and i never feel brave enough to start. this week has been very hard for me, struggling to eat, sleep, and bathe. i feel i have to move very carefully just to navigate life in a way that won’t stress me out. the fear of touching these areas and my brain constantly convincing me i did had been very hard on me. i know the answer is obvious but i don’t know how to build up the confidence to do these things. i’ve been in a very stressed out and suicidal state for the past month i really dont want to trigger any negative feelings but this isn’t any better. what can i do to just… i guess not be afraid and go for it?
I hate pocd so much… I hate it so much. I just want to be happy but this will never let me be happy. Idk if i only have pocd but my mind makes me think that i’m attracted to anyone I get close to. My mind doesn’t care how inappropriate it is. I hate this so much. I live with my family and I never go out. I’m stuck here with my thoughts and the people who trigger the thoughts. I hate saying that I feel so disgusting. I feel like a horrible disgusting person. I wanna live a happy life but I know itll never happen. I don’t want to kill myself but I wish I could just die. I just want it all to end. I don’t understand what caused this. Why me. I do believe that I can be a bad person sometimes. I’m so rude to my mom and I have a bad temper and no patience. I hate myself for it and I always try to blame my dad because he acted that way my whole childhood. What if this is my karma. I hate this so much. I wish I could just go to sleep and wake up without an ocd thought. Sometime I think about taking medication but i’ve seen people struggle with choosing the right one. And I’ve seen people taking them still struggle. This will truly never end. What if while taking medication the thoughts are still there and it was never ocd. Im so scared.
ik it’s dumb but it does hurt seeing every single one of my friends and my bfs friends post their gf for national gf day but i don’t get a post. it’s v cringe. i know. but it’s triggered me into thinking my bf is cheating on me and idk how to not be so upset with him over something so dumb. i just feel like im being played and our relationship is fake from this STUPID thing. like now i think he’s hiding some alternate life from me and it’s making me question if i know who he is. FROM THIS STUPID MADE UP HOLIDAY THATS AB POSTING A STUPID STORY. i can’t help it. and maybe maybe not mindset is just making me more upset bc it’s so insanely difficult to sit with this kind of uncertainty. i know hes not, but at the same time NO I DONT AND I CANT STOP THINKING AB IT.
Hello, does anyone else have health anxiety/OCD with physical symptoms? I have had depression and OCD since my sister passed away when I was 16 YO. It has been on and off with flare ups here and there. The last 18 months I have had a lot of trauma in my life and started developing anxiety. With all this trauma developed physical symptoms of tingling in limbs, an increased startle reflex, muscle twitching, brain fog, tremors in hands and neck. I have had a brain MRI and countless other tests and the doctors said its all from stress but I am worried they could be missing something. My compulsions are to have symptoms and then google them and then what I see on the internet really worries me and its an ongoing cycle. Has anyone else experienced this? The Drs think I have a disregulated nervous system from trauma and repeated stress. Can anyone relate?
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