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Does anyone have any tips on how to move on from intrusive thoughts when you’re constantly afraid that if you ignore them God will be mad at you?

I noticed myself not understanding why things are wrong like I be having thoughts like "why would cheating be bad" and I just actually find it hard to find a reason? The only things I know are bad are like being mean and doing crimes but like damn

I was going through my old account (I had when I was 12-13) I noticed I was following this little kid that was like trying to flex, and my brain keeps saying weird things, I feel so uncomfortable rn, I keep yelling at it to shut up, pls help guys

It’s another sleepless night accompanied by my most painful obsession: what happens after we die? It’s not so much a mental debate, rather than a panic provoked by what I believe to be absolute. I’ve struggled with religion, and I still do. I was raised Christian, but didn’t find much belief in God after my father passed before my teenage years. I’ve considered myself agnostic with an open mind to religion, but for as long as I can remember, the most logical afterlife scenario to me is nothing. Just. Nothing. Pitch black, no consciousness, nothing, just as it was before you were born. And this TERRIFIES me. I don’t want life to end! Sure I’ve had my struggles in life, certainly had moments where I’ve wish I didn’t have to live, but the idea that one day I’ll never experience life again makes all the bs worth it. I’d rather live a life of constant tragedy and struggle than to simply cease existing. I’ve had this obsession since I was in elementary school, before I even knew what religion and death truly were. Before I ever experienced death in my family, I’d be crying and panicking to my mother in the middle of the night about how I’m terrified to die. It went away for a couple years, but the last couple months it’s been resurfacing out of nowhere. Whenever I have a calm and quiet moment, this thought pops in my head. Like a little devil whispering reminders with the sole intention of causing panic. I try so hard to think of something, anything different. But no matter what, the dread of death persists and it’s all I can think about until I’m hyperventilating repeating “no no no” to myself, desperately trying to calm down and fall asleep. I’m so tired of this torture. How do I stop this obsession? How do I come to terms with my inevitable fate? I’ve tried finding solace in religion but I can’t force myself to believe in something I don’t just to find comfort in death. I want there to be something more after death, but how do I believe it to be true? I want to believe in an afterlife, whether heaven or hell or reincarnation. I don’t care. I just want to live life without this fear of what comes next.

My life now compared to when I first started therapy with NOCD has been drastically different. I remember thinking that what I was going through was a case only affecting me. I was miserable, alone, and afraid of the things my intrusive thoughts said I would act out on or become. I was disgusted with myself for having these thoughts/images, frustrated that I kept relapsing back into old patterns, sad that reassurance seeking didn’t alleviate compared to other people. I lost interest in a lot of things that made me happy, family, friends, hobbies. The anxiety and depression wasn’t helping at all, especially with OCD latching onto these symptoms and further enhancing it like some sort of super drug. I was tired of being paralyzed, I was tired of my low self esteem, I was tired of constantly giving in to OCD. I came across NOCD through various Google searches about my symptoms and social media platforms. At this point I decided to try it out, and let me tell you that the amount of psycho education that went into this helped tremendously. Seeing a community of people going through the exact same thoughts and experiences as me, The amount of support backed into this, and the survivors who are living a seemingly “better” life gave me more hope. Throughout my sessions, I cried out of frustration, desperation, heartbreak. It is not easy accepting the truth sometimes, and the same goes with accepting the intrusive thoughts as just thoughts. The amount of patience, self compassion, and mindfulness I learned to cultivate is an ongoing path I will continue going forward with. Some days OCD does not interfere with my life, while others it’s as loud as it can be. Understanding that it’s “Just OCD” and how I do not need to identify with my thoughts is a hurdle that I’m still applying to my life. Relapses exist, but I know that the tools I learned in my sessions can help me be present. ERP being the main help, although very frightening. I will admit I try to find any excuse or avoid my exposures, but my determination, that little voice inside my head that tells me to overcome, that I am capable of facing my fears, pushes me to do them. I encourage anyone reading this to do the same. DO YOUR EXPOSURES. It does not matter if it takes the whole day, a whole hour, or even a simple 5-10 minutes. I would rather live with facing my fears than letting my fears take the life I want to face. I am not stuck with OCD, OCD is stuck with me. As of today, I am taking it a day at a time. I am learning to cultivate a better life for myself. To be more loving, forgiving, and present. To feel any emotion and not numb/make it go away. To notice my intrusive thoughts and let them filter through. Sometimes, all you gotta do is live with uncertainty and accept life for what it is. There will be bad days, but there will also be good days. There is a reason why we fear and react to our intrusive thoughts, and if they were true about ourselves and what we would “presumably” do, we would have done or become them already. OCD attacks our values, so let’s be grateful that we at least have them.

My mom has let my little brother have a phone since he was like 4 and he’s exposed to literally disgusting videos on YouTube and TikTok and I’ve told my mom multiple times he’s watching inappropriate shit and she’s constantly just like “I’ll tell him not to give him back his phone” and it makes me feel disgusted. He doesn’t know better and he doesn’t listen to her he’s 7 right now and today he told me he searched up “naked people” on YouTube and TikTok and I told my mom AGAIN that he was doing this stuff and I took his phone away from him and I told her I’m not giving it back to him and alls she told him was “demons are gonna come into his life if he looks at that stuff” and then she forced me to give him his phone back and literally said she was gonna slap me and take my phone away if I didn’t give it back to him so now I’m not talking to her, I feel complete disgust towards her in this situation and thinks she’s handling it horribly ESPECIALLY because she knows I’ve been groomed and shown horrible things by people on the internet at a young age as well so you’d think she’s do everything in her power to prevent it but it seems like she just doesn’t fucking care and it’s making me so mad. My brother constantly says and does inappropriate things and I’m not mad at him because once again he’s 7 and he doesn’t know any better but it makes me so uncomfortable and it triggers my POCD horribly and I genuinely don’t know what to do at this point?? I’ve tried everything in my power to take his phone away and get him away from this stuff but my mom Just doesn’t seem to care or give a shit. My POCD tells me I’m “letting him watch it” and that I’m a groomer and this horrible person and it makes me feel Sick I’ve done everything I can I’ve tried to block the videos delete the searches filter it delete it and everything and it still always ends up coming back I don’t know what to do I feel sick knowing that I’m completely helpless in this situation I don’t want my brother to go through what I went through just please someone offer advice or help me the best they can with this I’m genuinely terrified

I’ve struggled with ocd for many years. I’ve had a bunch of different themes over the years but for the past 5 months my brain has broken. Out of nowhere I got these two images in my brain that I immediately thought were real. They acted as memories and I was horrified. Then I started logically being like ok there’s no way that all the sudden my fears are true and I’ve remembered this so called “event”. They go completely against my values and include someone who I’m super close to. I asked that person if they remember what happened in this so called “memory” and have reassured me multiple times that it never happened. They’re very understanding of my mental health and have helped me through all my past and present struggles with different issues. But my brain is latched so hard onto this I truly don’t know what to do. I’m scared that these false memories are actually real and that I’ve just repressed them or something. I’ve never had a theme like this before and it’s awful. My ocd has stuck to just thoughts, this is the first time it was images. It’s like snippets from a nightmare. So I guess I’m wondering 1. Can ocd truly just give you images out of the blue of totally false things? There’s some elements that are real like locations but what actually happened in the false memory is not true at all. At least I hope not. And 2. How do I get my brain to stop latching on sooo hard?? I feel so stuck it feels impossible not to react because I’m so scared I’ll never be the person I used to be before this theme ;( I’ve lost so much time to it already. And I’m especially afraid it’s going to always be on my mind whenever I’m with the person in the false memory. I love that person so much I don’t want this to affect our relationship. For context there’s been a lot of change in my life and I’ve had a lot of stress to unrelated things so I’m pretty sure that’s what sorta caused this whole relapse. My ocd was manageable for the past 3 years and with this new theme I feel lost. Again it’s something that would totally go against my morals and aligns well with some of my core fears that ocd likes to attack with other themes lol. I’ve always been so good with my memory and sure of the kind of person that I am and this theme just totally caused me to lose my sense of self trust.

This is extremely hard for me to say I have danced around it in previous posts but I simply cant hold it in anymore. The guilt that I feel for thinking these thoughts is immesurable and is driving me to want to hurt myself. I'm gonna start from the very beginning it all started when I was put on Fluvoxamine back then I had the bad habit of looking every medication that I was on up and with that I found out that a student with another student had brought a weapon to school and hurt many people with it. (I can't even write the word but I'm sure you know what the thing was) The intrusive thoughts didn't start then for some reason but later when at my school we had a threat of someone who was wanting to do the same thing. But then one morning I got the thought of what if I do that. And then it got worse I would get the thought every day. And then summer came by and I thought I would be fine but it came back when I went to school again this year it got so bad that I had to drop out of school. But for some reason I am still getting the intrusive thoughts and they are even more horrible now with images of me doing it, I get horrible urges, and my mind tells me that I want to do something this terrible. I want people to understand when I say this I don't want to do anything to hurt anyone and never have. I have 0 history of violence to anyone and have been in several situations like that where there was a threat and have felt the fear that comes along with that. I don't understand why these thoughts are there. I feel like I need to put myself into a mental hospital. I never want to hurt anyone and never will.

I can't do this anymore I feel fucking insane my mind keeps telling me I want to k word people and if feels like my mind is making fucking plans. I'm diagnosed with ocd but I don't even know if it's ocd what if I'm just a terrible fucking person that actually wants to do this. My mind is literally telling me to go buy a weapon and hurt people like I get fucking urges. I can't keep food down and have not for the last few days I feel like I need to go to a mental hospital but I don't want to burden anyone in my family. Like my mind tells me specifically I want to do this but I don't want to but recently ive been having the thought of what if I did do it but I don't want to. I just want it to stop I'm a good person I don't want to hurt anyone at all. But what if one day I actually do want to do something. I can't do this anymore.

I find that politics triggers my OCD, with how much every side tells you that you are responsible for every bad thing that happens if the other side wins.

So, I literally have no control over anything in my marriage. I never did. This week I took my daughter to a specialist after getting injured playing sports and then my husband insisted he was getting a second opinion. The second opinion was in agreement with the first doctor I took her to. He texted me that he told doctor he needed to discuss the appointment with me but what he really did was schedule a surgery behond my back when I already had scheduled a surgery. He knows nothing ago it then doctor I took her to but of course his doctor was better. He does this with everything in your lives abd when he does thibgs like this I can see my OCD symptoms escalate! I want to run and errabd and our cat would not start....(third time in a month) and I asked my husband when he-d be back from getting battery checked and he told my so neighbor outside could gear, "I DONT know. I don't havecOCD!" Then he sorta,looked at the neighbor. I took an anxiety pill cuz I felt so upset. I needed money from.bank and errands to run abd HE told me I waited till last minute. So how was I to know they car would not start??? He makes all decisions and blames me when things don't work out! Is he my trigger???? I cannot take being treated like some loser which by the way is just one of his NAMES for me! Can a person be a trigger? I really feel.like I am allergic to him!!!

as soon as i see a girl looking slightly masculine or have tattoos my brain goes she’s gay and then my brain says the fact that you can tell she is gay means you are gay as other gay people can tell when someone else is also… anyone get this?

How have you dealt with this? OCD definitely has affected my relationship but he’s been and stayed with me for over a year and a breakup hasn’t happened. Yet in my mind I’m not worthy of a relationship because of my mental health. Help?

Hey y'all, I've been noticing a lot of people on here are religious. It's been years since I've been religious myself, and I'm just curious as to whether it helps and how it helps with OCD.

Does anybody have any advice for how to help your partner cope with your anxiety? It causes a lot of tension and fight or flight feelings in my partner and it’s clearly very distressing for him. I don’t want him to feel anxious because I am.

TW (SEXUAL TRAUMA AND FIGHTING AGAINST SU1CID4L THOUGHTS) My POCD hit me hard with a relapse and my brain will not shut up about if I need to delete myself. I don't want to, but my brain is telling me I should, that no pedo, offending or not should live. I don't want to do it to my friends and family. I just wish I could feel relief from all this guilt. It hurts so bad. I don't want to die, I didn't ask for this even if it wasn't OCD. I feel terrible and like if I try to be okay and not condemn myself for these thoughts that I'm throwing away my morality. I have kinks and fetishes that are related to my traumatic childhood, I don't want these fetishes and kinks, but I know I like them. OCD latched on and demanded to know if I would want to watch something worse, something illegal, if I am a pedo because of how my sexuality was twisted and broken at that age. I talked with a sexual trauma informed therapist and explained everything and she said that she didn't think I was a danger or that what I liked was wrong or dangerous. She said it was probably my brain trying to make sense of what happened and cope by giving me control back. Still my OCD is operating in black and white, pure or evil. The fact my kinks are too close to something amoral, illegal and bad that I basically am that horrible bad person. That the only thing holding me back is my OCD and without the condemnation and panic, I'd go feral and hurt someone, an animal or a child. I don't want to hurt ANYONE. God forbid like that. I hate how my sexuality has been damaged. I'm actually terrified of sex, I can't even put a tampon in without crying. I still feel so guilty finding the things I do attractive and am scared I'll find other things attractive that are actually bad. My OCD is demanding to know if I deserve to live. And I want to live, i don't want to die. But my OCD says I deserve it and that I'm evil. It won't shut up. I just want to be pure again even though that's not true and a social construct. I feel guilty and worried anyone who knew about what I like would think I deserved the worst punishment in history. I just needed to vent this out. For the record I am NOT going to delete myself. I won't. My OCD is trying to make me give it an answer as to why I deserve to live.

Tw???! I started thinking about a time where I said that I wanted to or wondered of I would date a certain character that was a villian but he looked and acted like a kid and basically is a KID but I was so confused and scared but when I said that type of thing for whatever I said people like the fans said things like “Isn't that a child?!” or “that’s a child” and something like that. And now I feel like I'm a horrible person and even then I felt so ashamed and embarrassed that I actually said that or whatever I said. I deleted it and everything and I don't want to be seen that way I don't want to become like that but it still haunts me. I think I actually did want to date the character but I’m literally NOT physically attracted AT ALL to the character physically with his form or disguise if you want to know which character it’s pride from the anime fmab. I don’t know why it suddenly still scares me. Even though that’s not me. Like I know it made me sound like a creep or weirdo but I genuinely feel guilty and like I did something terrible!! But I didn’t I just basically shared a thought that I shouldn’t have shared. So I guess that’s why I also now feel like if I do or don’t have ocd. I mean I always feel disgusted and ashamed if I get intrusive thoughts like this and I do feel disgusted and ashamed it doesn’t matter if the kid is fictional or real I still feel disgusted and ashamed I want to throw up or trap myself in my attic or turn myself in just because of this now I can’t roleplay with a character like this or act I also do theatre so it’s been even hard for me too do anything because of this. I can’t even get to a psychiatrist and that’s why while I’m waiting to get into one I’m still dwelling on this😭 This scares me so fucking bad. Please help me.

tl;dr // I feel like my ocd has latched onto the idea of "dont go to bed angry, you never know what could happen and tomorrow isnt promised." and it's really messing with me. One day in high school, my seinor year, I was getting on the bus and I told myself it was going to be a good day.I remeber the morning so vividly. I was listening to my favorite musical at the time and I was practicing trying to be mindful and speak positively at the start of my day to try and have a more positive outlook (a tip I probably got from some instagram info graphic or podcast). That same day, probably in my first or second period, my mom pulled me out of school, frantic, saying that my grandpa had been hospitalized and was critical. We were terrified and we made the 5 hour drive up there. days later, he passed away. I was convinced that me, for the first time, trying to convince myself to have a positive day, somehow influenced the events that led up to my grandfather passing away. I knew then what I know now: words and thoughts cannot manifest real events to happen. I know this, and yet I still catch myself when I think "I'm having a really good day" and hoping I dont jinx myself. All this to say, this type of theme has crept back a little bit today. I got into an argument with my boyfriend. In the middle of it, I got a flood of thoughts saying that since I'm being an ass and bringing up these serious problems that "something bad is going to happen to him at work tomorrow or in his sleep or what if he kills himself or what if there is some freak accident?? You need to apologize for having started the argument and we need to end things better because if not you'll feel guilty and full of regret if something happens, which it will." I told him about it and we apologized to each other and he understood what was happening. we then had a better conversation and we talked and I'm more okay with how things ended until the next time we can pick up the conversation. I think me immediately bringing the argument to a halt because of those thoughts was a compulsion. I also asked him before he fell asleep, if tomorrow could he text me periodically to let me know he is okay, which i also think is reassurance seeking. I recognize this, yet it still feels very necessary and very dangerous if it doesn't happen. how do I even go about trying to find peace with the existence of these thoughts feeling so terrifying and real because of what happened with my grandfather?

Im so depressed... and I feel alone... theres no hope... My pocd keeps saying that my worst fear of unknowingly cybering with a minor has actually happened and it's really triggering the hell out of me... I feel so horrible...My pocd keeps saying I "unknowingly erotically role played with a minor" when idek if this actually happened or not... this was nearly three years ago... (september of 2021) for context we were erotically role playing on an 18+ discord server, (she wasnt verified, but I assumed she was 18+ because we were on an 18+ place) and then she suddenly stopped responding, before leaving the server shortly after an unknown time... im so freaking anxious and scared... her grammar was fine at first, but then as we were going on, she kept making errors like "boxer" or "then" instead of "than"... my pocd keeps saying that I "UNKNOWINGLY EROTICALLY ROLEPLAYED WITH A MINOR" when idek if this happened or not... some people told me she sounds like/is a young adult... chatGPT tells me she sounded like a teenager... I genuinely dont know what to believe anymore... (these two photos are from her account, and the beginning of our ERP... I hope she wasnt a teenager... I really hope she wasnt...)

my friend told me that she and her boyfriend have been nasty texting, she’s 15 and he’s 17, and I got so uncomfortable because it’s really wrong, and illegal, but I’m afraid what if I gave the wrong advice and people don’t actually care? I mean kids actually go to court for this