We are the faces of OCD

Today I was officially diagnosed, and a lot of my thoughts all day have been “man, what if I actually don’t have it and I exaggerated my symptoms or something.” I had this thought especially because I hadn’t had a really bad episode in a while. But then sure enough, I had a little episode tonight. I feel like I might’ve brought it upon myself, at least in small part. Having difficulty separating OCD paranoia from real life problems to be considered with at the moment 👎🏻 Gonna sleep on it! 🙏🏻❤️

The theme i struggle with most is suicidal OCD. And with September being “national suicide awareness month”, My anxiety is sky high. i’m back in my spiral. I’m back with the panic attacks. My mind keeps comparing itself to all of these people and now i’m convinced i want too or i have these symptoms and im next. i’m freaking myself out and idk what to do. I get scared i have suicidal ideation when i know i don’t because i would never ever actually kms nor hurt myself in anyway. Does anyone know how to comercome this??? I just got out of my spiral not even 1 months ago and im scared im going deeper this time. My mind is all over the place scared im actually going to do it when i know im not and i feel like i have to go to the hospital or something idk what to do.

This started happening to me in 2022 and it's gotten okay but it's still bothering me a lot. I to do erp when I get the thoughts but it really just feels like confirmation. Here's the thing the idea ALONE that I could be anything other than straight even if it is as tiny as .001% makes me feel awful because I know that the idea of being with another woman is just not for me. But the thoughts and goinals keep coming and I'm at a loss. It's just know that being with my man feels right but these thoughts are starting to affect that. I just feel so lost.

Can anyone relate To being anxious to watch a movie or tv show out of fear of being triggered OR fear that your mind will latch onto to some weird idea you got from the movie and it will become a new obsession.. like for example… my hubby wanted to watch lord of the rings tonight. I’ve never seen it and for some reason I had the thought that I didn’t want to watch it bc what if it made me scared of creatures or some weird shit like that lol. Or like I’ll think about watching some Si fi show but then I have the thought “hmm better not in case it makes me believe in aliens or something”. I know how crazy this sounds but why do I think like this lol

Does anyone else get “I hate you” thoughts towards their loved ones? For me specifically it’s towards my mom. I have harm OCD and it tends to be directed towards my mom. I have always been close to my mom, she’s my best friend and I know I do love her. I had not ever questioned my love or closeness to her before. However, now with this flare up, I keep getting “I hate you” thoughts whenever I’m with my mom. Even just looking at her can bring this thought into my head. I don’t feel anxiety towards it, but it does make me feel sad and down. I ruminate about how I truly feel, like I’m testing my feelings towards her - do I really hate her? Have my feelings changed and I know longer love her? I have told her this before, out of guilt and seeking reassurance, and she knows I have OCD, but it makes me feel guilty to tell her that since I know it makes her sad. So I guess my main question is, does anyone else get these kind of thoughts? And then do you question your feelings and just feel hesitant to even be around the person?

I just want to know the difference of someone who is gay vs someone who is just questioning bc of ocd. Like would you hear I’m gay im gay over and over and over again in your head but it didn’t feel right? But when I say this is a waste of my time im of course straight it feels like im lying but I know im not attracted to women at all I am certain of that. But picking a label is what i can’t settle on so this is my ocd or not

What do you do when you have a thought and you’re not sure if it’s intrusive or not? I just had one that was so strange and bad, and I can’t believe I just had it, but I’m almost afraid it’s not intrusive and there really is something wrong with me. I hate this.

I have to say im struggling with my faith right now. I watch alot of Mark Dejesus videos but i find myself questioning everything. First i was questioning for a while now if theres free will and God doesnt interfere with our choices then what is the reason of praying, asking him things. If someone wants to kill me God wont come down and stop him, then what is the reason of me praying for protection? Other is the thing we say that "If God is with us who can be against us? What can man do to me?" Well the same they did to Jesus. Many people get tortured by others,r@pd,theres alot of things in this world, i dealt with this before, I know theres no answer for us cause we arent God, but still this statement that "what man can do to me" fails there cause i can still be afraid everyday that people will attack me and my family. And this is what i realized this time. Sadly im not much in a christian community, if i am im with people who has these basic answers but its okay we arent perfect, but my friends are unbelievers and we talked many times about faith and why i believe and what they told me just stick with me and now i feel like i understand. The thing is that whenever you have a problem like i said before someone is attacking you, you have an illness or any problem, even if you are christian or not you will have to do something alone. You have to face it, you have to act, and if you dont know what to do nobody will come down from the sky to lead you somewhere. And the problem is that lets take two people one who is a believer other is not, they had a problem both decided to so something about it, the non believer goes through it and he id happy about himself, the believer says "without God i couldnt do it" well the non believer did it without God. I see alot of times that things that christians say they couldnt reach without God, non believers do it without Him. And no i dont think every non believer should suffer cause they dont believe... but then the question is in my head, whats the point? Cause my non believer friends say they can see that this is just a perspective too, how you view things, and now i see it that it might be true... What if i just choose that i see it like this? Now i dont think that i will become an atheist soon, all my life i believed theres something there, even when i said no i was just fooling myself cause the next day i felt different. But im struggling with these questions cause i hear it everytime in christian communities to "trust in God, pray to Him, ask and you will get it" but its not true, theres free will and God doesnt change someones mind and many thing in this world is controlled by people. And call me crazy but i think science is so advanced right now that people can influence weather and make storms and tornadoes if they want to destroy a city. So yeah for me theres a God but i dont see the truth in what can man do to me and he will protect you just pray and ask him... My friends say im just believing cause i need to think something is there to protect me, or to give everything a meaning and maybe theyre right cause i cant explain why do i believe, i just do, but for people who are deeply hurted my a religion or they have problems and they can get through it without believing God, idk what to say them, why to believe... The basic "cause eitherway you will burn in hell" is not going to turn anyone to a christian... I hope some can take this and answer it kindly not attacking me cause i struggle with my faith or "im not a true christian" if someone says that i will ignore it. Thanks for your time.

I’m just here to vent a little and hopefully I can get some advice… My brother recently out his dog up for adoption that has been in the family for 6 years. I’m a wreck and I can’t stop picturing him in a shelter all alone, I feel heartbroken and im going down there first thing in the morning and gonna adopt him myself. I’m praying I can get to him but I’m also terrified of taking care of another living thing. I’m damn near 30 and I feel worried that I can’t give him everything he deserves because I’m an anxious wreck all the time but I also know that no one can love him as much as me. How do I get over this awful feeling of worry and anxiety running through my body? Leave him in the shelter is not a choice , I’d feel guilty for the rest of my life and I love him too damn much. Am I crazy or do others feel this way about having this much responsibility over anther living thing :/

Hi everyone! I am a 22 year old AFAB nonbinary person from California, and I wanted to come on here and ask about people’s experiences with OCD surrounding taking testosterone and being trans/LGBTQIA/nonbinary. I am not talking about doubting identity but more so doubting whether taking testosterone is the “right” choice or whether the changes you might get are what you “truly” want. I would really love to hear from folks who also identify as nonbinary as I feel that nonbinary folks have a unique experience with taking hormones due to not being a binary trans person. I would definitely love to hear from anyone who identifies as trans or nonbinary, but I think that my experience with hormones is different since I know I don’t want to look or sound or feel like a full masculine person or man. For me, this means I am on a lower than normal dose of T right now, and I also don’t believe I plan on taking it longer than a few months or at least until I get my desired results. I want to be very androgynous, and I keep getting a bunch of intrusive thoughts about waking up and having all these drastic changes to my body and self to the point that I won’t recognize myself anymore. I know this is irrational and definitely attacking the fact that this is a huge decision to make to go on hormones, but I just feel like I haven’t seen this representation yet in both the trans and OCD communities. Again, please feel free to share any type of experience you have whether you are a nonbinary or binary trans person!

I keep feeling bad that I didn’t find my partner that cute at first. I didn’t think he was unattractive but when I first met him it was at work and him and this other guy were new. I thought the other guy was more attractive at the time. I even vocalized it to a friend. NOW my boyfriend is my whole world and I think he’s the most handsome man ever. Even more handsome than the guy I originally thought was cute. I don’t have a problem with his appearance or anything. I just feel guilty over not finding him more attractive than the other guy. It feels wrong and of course my thoughts are saying I should tell him this but I know it’ll just hurt his feelings.

Is this my life now? A loop of fears and panic? Freshman year.. two years ago is when all this started. When I began my journey with this debilitating and scary disorder. For a while I felt like everything was okay. Like things were getting better. But tonight it’s getting so bad. I’m shaking, the thoughts are literally making my body enter fight or flight. The feelings.. the thoughts it all feels so real. It makes me question every aspect of who I am.. Is this forever? Will this be my life? If it is, that sounds like pain.. I constantly check myself.. which ain’t realize might be a compulsion. But I wonder, am I lying to myself? But then again I wouldn’t fear it so much if what I felt was true. I try to stay calm, to not fight the thought but let it pass. But it only grows in power. It’s been giving me these fake feelings. Things in which i’d never felt before. I just want to be okay. And I wonder if that’s even possible anymore. All I know is that I have my family, my Mom, everyone who loves me dearly. Please anyone… I don’t want to beg but if you could give me some motivation or positive words i’d love that.

i literally cannot do anything bc of this ocd. i want to watch tiktok but i can’t bc i’m so paranoid that i will repost something by accident, especially something that could be inappropriate. i’m also scared if i like something on tiktok by accident or if i liked it and now i need to check it 100x. i just want to watch tiktok. it’s also on instagram too, i’m so paranoid that i will like a post or like a story. i’m so tired i just wanna be a teenage girl who can use social media normally.

i made a similar post, but I didn’t really get helpful responses. also I’m not diagnosed and can’t get diagnosed , but the past two days I’ve been spiraling and I have constant anxiety. I feel contaminated and like I keep having actions replay in my head and I see images of terrible things and I just feel gross. also like I can’t do anything alone or else I’m afraid that I might end up doing something wrong. so then every action I do has to be in from of other people so I can make sure I didn’t do anything crazy. any time I’m alone and I go about my day later on I always get these thoughts and what I’m pretty sure is false event ocd and I’m stressing so much.

Why everything I was once is gone? I had goals, I always been such an empathic and good person, I had so many plans in life and since ocd came to my life everything is gone, ocd has ruined everything in my life, I can’t see to find myself anymore. I hate my brain for making me think that I’m a bad person when I know I’m not. OCD really took everything away from me. I already have a lot in my plate for me to be dealing with this, it’s so unfair. I have never had it easy and now when my life was starting to get better I get OCD:(

im not diagnosed, but these past two days have been terrible. i constantly have this underlying feeling that i might do something that i think is gross and i feel like i can’t do anything on my own because otherwise i might do something wrong. like i feel like i constantly have to be in front of people so that i can make sure of my every action. this is so exhausting and I’m so confused. and like i keep getting terrible images and stuff replaying in my head. i also try to recall what happened but i feel like i have false event too. i used to have religious ocd and that eventually stopped completely, but now it feels like all my work getting over that was pointless. also like i feel like i might have contamination ocd but not the typical germ type. I just get terrible images and I can’t remember if those images are true or not even though they’re impossible and i feel terrible. I don’t know if i could ever get over this because even the thought of it is terrible.

Has anyone been prescribed Escitalopram for their OCD? And if so what was your experience like. I just got into my 2nd week of it and got bumped up to 20mg. Today has been weird because my anxiety is gone which has been for a bit but the thoughts seem stronger today especially the Harm related ones. Almost like commands now. Can anyone relate?

i’ve been doing so much better sometimes i forget i even have ocd and then it comes right back to remind me in new ways

Hello, so I have been thinking about getting medication for ocd. But I am not diagnosed by my doctor they tested me and said I had it but never followed up. I want to get an official diagnosis where should I get it that won’t be to expensive because I am a college student.

Hello! I'm new here and new to OCD. My therapist suggested I might have OCD due to my tendency to ruminate endlessly on doubts and fears. These thoughts are indeed intrusive and I can't seem to stop them. The thing I'm kind of stuck on is that I can't see where the compulsions come in. Unless the thoughts themselves are compulsions. Can anyone relate to this?