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For anyone struggling with religious OCD/ scurpulosity?

Hi all, I’m curious is anyone taking medicine for their OCD and if so which one and is it helping? I’ve been on Prozac for almost 7 weeks and I just don’t think it’s doing much. I’m only on 30mg so perhaps I need to get to 40.

I was looking into stuff for my friend who apparently has no internal monologue or capability to imagine images which is amazing but I can't imagine a life with that. I knew someone years that also couldn't imagine images a few years back and asked her what would happen if they took psychedelics. It turns out they've been using something called psilocybin to tackle a range of disorders like the ones mentioned above, ptsd and ocd with some positive results. I feel as if it might untangle some stuff in our minds in order to see more clearly. The hallucinations of the psychedelics may purely be our brain reorganising itself. Thought it was interesting

I have suicidal ocd and im feeling so anxious. I was feeling a lot better for around 3-4 weeks, but I saw many posts about suicide these last days and they triggered me so much. It feels like I cant move on until I have the certainty that I will live a long and happy life. Life would be so beautiful if I didnt have that strong fear. Its making me anxious physically in my chest and I feel kinda depressed. Then because I feel depressed, ocd tries to tell me I will commit suicide. Sometimes it even feels so real, like if I really had suicidal ideation. Im scared these are not intrusive thoughts, but really ideations… But I know its just intrusive. I love life and could never do that. The simple thought of it makes me so anxious, so theres no way I could possibly do it! (My ocd just told me that last sentence was me trying to convince myself of something false) Its just so confusing, I feel like im loosing myself and I feel like im gonna die so young. Im terrified and I want a long happy life!!!

So I am trying to get help and I have to fill out this Obsessive compulsive inventory and it’s stressing me out so bad - a bulk of the questions are things like washing your hands etc and counting and nothing is specific in any way to the sub type of OCD that I might have it’s causing me to spiral and think that I don’t have OCD. I am so stressed right now. I have a follow up phone call tomorrow and I’m terrified they will say it’s not OCD. I just tested my results and looked online and it says that I don’t have OCD - for example it says you have to have a score above 41 or a mean score of 2.5 on one of the sections which I don’t.

I’m struggling with my moral scrupulosity OCD. Whenever a therapist has assigned me ERP in the past, I feel like it goes against my values. Like I obsess over being a good person, following the rules, and in general not causing harm in the world. And I’m asked to do things that go against that? Does anyone else struggle to reconcile these ideas? I want to get better so shouldn’t I follow the therapy.. But also I feel like it makes me hate myself even more. And provides more fodder for my OCD. Is anyone else stuck?

Hi, please somebody help me. I’m living the worst time of my OCD, and I really need reassurance that this is really OCD. I’m wake up already with the thoughts and the emotions, and even the physical sensations. I can’t stop thinking about killing people, I don’t want to stay alone but at the same time I also don’t want to be with certain people. I even question if i like my parents, and my close people. I feel like I Will lose control at anytime. I feel like I am some kind of psycho or a serial killer from the tv series.

I’m so tired practicing ERP like I’m so mentally exhausted and also feel a little unmotivated. I don’t want to feel anxious it’s freaking me out now but I have to do it to stay vulnerable. How do I do stay motivated and strong-willed?

I was raised by very strict parents and have always longed to Ben independent and have an adventurous life. I originally wanted to be a nurse because that provided the lifestyle I was hoping for. I didn’t like some aspects of it and my father also wasn’t really supportive and tried to sway me to be a teacher. I never really wanted to be a teacher but I kind of felt forced to do it. Also, I’m not a confident person, I’m very fearful. It took me a long time to learn how to drive. Partly because of having overprotective parents who infantilized me. But then also partly because my natural fearful and cautious personality. There’s nothing I want more than to be free and have adventure. But there’s also nothing more terrifying to me to be free and have adventure. I am now a young adult but still live with my parents. They have control of my life and I don’t have any friends. I thought about changing careers so I could be financially independent. But sometimes I think I should just stick with teaching. I just don’t think I could be financially independent which is probably exactly why my father wanted me to do it. He always says I should stay at home until I get married. I’m not going to go into a philosophical discussion about feminism vs traditional gender roles, but like I said I’m a fearful person, and if there was someone to just marry me so I could escape living my with parents who mistreat me I would be fine with that. I guess I’m just wondering what to do. I want to be free but I’m also terrified of making any decisions on my own. Terrified of the outside world and I have horrible ocd. I was also raised Christian. I still am a Christian but I don’t believe in a strict set of rules you must adhere to, to please God. Does anyone know what I should do? I have dreams of adventure but the dreams paralyze me because being alone in the world is so terrifying? I’m also afraid that God would be upset with me. It’s like my parents treat me terrible but I’m afraid of being alone. I am the scapegoat of the family and have always disagreed with a lot of my families ideas. I believe in Christianity but I’m not very traditional or family oriented like my family is. It’s hard to be around my family because I disagree with all of them but I’m also scared to be on my own in the real world.

Hi. I’m writing this post because I don’t know if I should be medicated again. Lexapro worked well for me, but I gained like 30 pounds. I quit because of that and honestly I thought I was able to manage my OCD well better. I was wrong, it got worse again. I wish I can do this without medication…that’s why I expose myself everyday, doesn’t matter how drained and exhausted I get. Are you guys medicated or trying to go without medicine. How is it going for you guys? Many hugs for all of you. We got this.

Do you ever have a situation in front of you and you genuinely don’t know the best way to get through it? Like a difficult situation but the question is do you grind it out or use self compassion and give yourself breaks? There are so many different philosophies to follow, even if they’re not formal philosophies. For example, I have watched a lot of David Goggins and Jocko Willink on YouTube. Both of them have very extreme philosophies of discipline and how to handle hardship. Both of their philosophies have helped me during times of hardships in my life. But other philosophies have also helped me at other times of hardships in my life, philosophies that have more to do with self kindness and self compassion. So sometimes it seems like there’s so many approaches to how to live life that it’s paralyzing. Were any of y’all able to overcome the seemingly endless amount of choices towards mindsets to approach life with? How were y’all able to overcome this?

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.