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Trying to ignore my thoughts but it feels like they are only coming at me more now😭 im just at a loss i dont know what to do

Hi everyone, I am 23 and my ex boyfriend is 24. I was broken up with at the beginning of September after a 4 year relationship with someone I adopted a dog with and lived with. We were each other’s first everything and I thought this was the person I was going to marry. I was completely blindsided and the reasoning I got was “I’ve been thinking about this for awhile. I am not emotionally mature enough to handle the stress of my life and also be in a relationship supporting you. I don’t communicate my feelings or needs well. I hold in my stress and it leads to me building resentment towards you and taking it out on you, which isn’t fair.” It’s important to know that since June, I’ve been dealing with Harm OCD and Relationship OCD that I got back into therapy to treat. I was doing my best to be self reliant but I definitely was scared and asked my boyfriend to be home more and spend more quality time with me while I work through this period of anxiety. I made sure to let him know that even though I was dealing with something scary, I wanted him to open up and let me support him with his stress too because it’s just as important as mine. He always told me “don’t worry about me, I’m good. Let’s get you right.” Even when I told him I was scared he’d run because of my anxiety, he told me he wasn’t going anywhere and to focus on myself. Apparently, he lied. I have since moved out of our apartment and back in with my parents. And I am keeping our dog. Since we’ve had to un-intertwine our lives these last few weeks, I wasn’t able to go no contact with him. Because of this, it led to me initiating several conversations asking questions about why this was happening, when he started feeling this way, why he didn’t give us a chance to work through problems, etc. I believe my OCD was having a hard time with the unknown and uncertainty because I was (and still am) in shock that this is my reality. I had this insatiable need to understand why and how this was happening and his vague non-answers only made me more confused and upset. Because I asked so many questions and wanted to understand this, he got pushed farther and farther away. Now he just wants nothing to do with me. He has started being mean and has emotionally shut down. He went from “I need to work on myself and then go from there. Maybe in the future this will work out…” to “I think we should both move on. I don’t know how much clearer I can make it.” I genuinely don’t recognize him anymore. I am trying not to blame myself and my OCD for pushing conversations and asking questions, but what did he expect? That he’d just end our relationship, blindside me, and I’d walk away without any desire to understand why? If anyone has experienced heart break after a long term relationship, and if part of the reason for the break up was due to needing support with mental health, how did you not blame yourself? I know his inability to support me though a hard time reflects on him, not me. But I am still really struggling to be okay. I feel like if I hadn’t fallen into this period of anxiety and OCD, none of this would have happened. Please leave advice on how to move forward, how to survive no contact, and how to not blame myself and my mental health for the downfall of my relationship. Thank you

So I know it’s complicated but I have real event ocd that was caused by me remembering something I did in childhood I have intrusive thoughts about really everything pocd, harm, relationship I have intrusive thoughts and images, now im getting through the intrusive thoughts I just let them pass by because I know the feeling will go away eventually but when I have the images I freak out a lot more, that’s because I always had a very detailed imagination and I definitely blame that on maladaptive daydreaming and unhealthy amount in my life which in therapy I’m now realizing that I did that as a trauma coping mechanism, I didn’t live life I just daydreamed while listening to music for literally 8hours a day it effected me paying attention in school I already have ADHD, and having a hard time paying attention to anything because I ended up doing it all the time, before OCD it didn’t seem like a problem that was my escape, I’d daydream I was a pop star or a movie star while listening to music and it all felt real but now since I have ocd I have intrusive images if while I daydream so I stoped daydreaming, and the worst part is that they arnt even just “images” it’s me daydreaming causing harm or really messed up things iv seen in the past, I have no peace, when I spoke with my therapist she said if I started to daydream harmful things crumble them up in my head and throw them away which has been working, but I’m just concerned because people don’t really have that like I do with OCD and some people are like yeah you don’t daydream about these harmful things because that is you making it up in your head or if they daydream it actually helps them but it’s the opposite for me, I don’t know if I do this on purpose to check if I like these thoughts or even more punishment or a compulsion I just don’t know and it’s effected my sex life because I will daydream about my bf and then something taboo pops in my head and instead of Envisioning sexual thoughts with my partner I’m envisioning sexual things with the taboo stuff and it makes me feel like I am all of these awful things with the POCD and harm and people are like you just have to not pay attention and just be in the moment but I don’t know how to do that, most of my life iv been in my head that’s how I even get turned on in the first place fantasizing about my partner with no worries, now if I do I’m like am I attracted to children and my brain will check to see by popping up kids in my head and I’m very detailed innapropriate ways how am I ever going to get rid of this? How can I ever live a normal life? And even WANT to be sexual again if my brain keeps checking if I’m a pedo or want to harm animals and ect I know I’m not any of those things but my brain doesn’t believe it. I seriously don’t know what to do

I’ve been diagnosed with ocd but sometimes I think I’m faking or I don’t actually, but idk if that’s the ocd tricking me or if it’s true

I’m going on vacation to Vegas in a month. But my OCD thoughts are getting worse & im freaking out that they will ruin my trip. How will i deal with this

Lately, I’ve been avoidant of prayer. A lot of fear comes with it for me lately. Fear I don’t deserve it, fear I’m doing it wrong, fear I’ll say the wrong thing or damage my salvation in some way, fear God will think I’m fake, etc. But, if I avoid praying because I’m afraid, I’m afraid then that God is mad at me for not praying, or that it means I don’t have a good enough relationship with him. If I was a better Christian, I’d pray more. It’s a vicious cycle, because then I feel even more guilt and worry about prayer. Like, I’m scared God will think I’m full of it, or I don’t love him, because I go days without praying at times.

i feel like getting on this app is a compulsion, but it brings me so much comfort knowing there’s people out there like me. and knowing i’m not alone

Does anyone notice they change clothes after they either touched something that brings anxiety or are in a situation that brought anxiety in.....even if yours clothes were not touched? This happens to mr and it gets exhausting and I change clothes more often than I need yo. I have been trying not to change clothes if they are not dirty. I am trying to sit with it for a while. How long does it take before your brain stops telling you to change clothes or do the compulsion you do?

I just feel so lonely with my thoughts. I want someone to sit next to me for hours so we talk and I cry and I open up fully. I tried therapy but it just isn’t enough. I am extremely scared that I lose my mind any second and not be able to function normally like be hospitalized for the rest of my life. I can’t anymore. It’s too hard. I cannot open up because my thoughts and concerns are all sexual like about my sexual orientation or if I want to have threesome or what happens after and should I do it or not. I have this urge to ask my 23 yo sister about it but deep down I am afraid she would not understand me and judge me. it’s so scary to live my life. I am zoned out all the time. I am tired and scared and lonely and stuck. I cannot get anything done.

Does anyone else with ocd/perfectionism feel like everything is twice as hard for them in life? I have always tried to my best at school and in all my jobs. But I found that often times I would study twice as much as others, try twice as hard and others would still do much better than me! It’s like perfectionism and ocd make everything harder. I always noticed how there were some people that seemed to be barely trying but doing doing much better than I was! If there was a way to overcome perfectionism and OCD life would be so much better and more fulfilling. Have any of y’all done ERP therapy and found that you’re able to get more done? Do any of y’all know what I mean about everything being twice as hard but still getting les done than many people who aren’t even trying. There’s only one area that I have mostly conquered perfectionism in and seen how less effort has actually lead me to better results without even trying. This area is the area of food. I used to have a cycle of dieting and then gaining weight (10-15lbs.) Then dieting, restricting, then over eating. I decided to try something different. I had read about homeostasis, the body’s natural tendency to stay at a certain weight. I had also read about reverse dieting where you gradually up your calories over time. I had also spent some time looking into intuitive eating where you simply eat what feels right to you. I did a combination of these things. I literally did the opposite of what you would think you are supposed to do to maintain your weight. Instead of focusing on “keeping” a certain weight, or maintaining a certain weight. I gave myself room for error and said it was ok to gain 3-8lbs because I could always just lose them again. And, I made no foods off limits. If I overate one meal I didn’t sweat it, I thought “no big deal, one time of overeating isn’t going to make me gain weight.” Surprisingly, being easy on myself, leaving room for imperfections, and letting myself eat what I WANT to eat instead of what I’m “supposed” to eat has made it so much easier for me to maintain weight! I cannot even describe how well this has worked for me. Everything, all the mindsets seem the opposite of what you would think they would be! I have many aimed the same weight for over a year almost without trying and while enjoying all the foods I love! There have been 2 times where I gained 3-5 pounds but it was honestly so easy to get the weight off. I again used another paradoxically way of thinking. Instead of punishing myself, and pushing myself to lose the weight I did something else. I thought “what would make me feel better, losing this excess weight or eating the extra food?”. I realized I’d feel better to lose the extra weight. And I also barely restricted. I ate all the foods I wanted just slightly less. And instead of focusing on “eat less” I focused on all the foods I did “get” to eat instead of all the food I wasn’t going to eat. I know food is different than other areas of life but I just can’t describe how well this method has worked for me. Granted, it has taken many years of trial and error for me to reach this comfort level with food! But it just shows me if imperfections can be this helpful at maintaining a healthy body weight without even trying how much more can embracing imperfection make us more efficient in other aspects of life! I just need to find mindsets that work for me just like I did with food. Anyone have any mindsets that helped them navigate life with perfectionism? Do y’all have any stories about how giving yourself permission to be imperfection actually made you better?

I want to encourage everyone who comes across this to reach out to the people you want to reach out to. For so long, I know I felt under an obligation to be so self-sufficient in managing my life, that I didn’t need to rely on anybody. But this a sad and lonely philosophy. It denies the part of us that blossoms when we share our lives with other people. And I don’t want anyone else to have to experience that, so long as I can help it. I want people to feel free to love unconditionally and BE loved unconditionally. So show them your whole soul. Bright as the stars. I don’t think there’s a risk more worth taking.

Does anyone else wish there was a chat feature to speak with a coach or counselor on here? I guess they might worry that people will seek immediate reassurance, but sometimes being all alone is horrible. I have had non stop adrenaline since Friday and being alone like this feels 10x worse. I visited someone yesterday, and I’m trying to hold out to see my therapist tomorrow but it’s so difficult. I am so alone.

I’ve been doing a bit better recently at trying to move forward from my main event obsession. It has completely consumed me for years (which I believe is justified). To preface, I’m not looking for sympathy. I am not a good person. My event involved me being unfaithful to my girlfriend about 5 years ago. Over a period of MONTHS. It’s my biggest regret in life, my biggest source of shame and self loathing. Once I pulled my head out of my ass and fully accepted the severity and gravity of my actions, I confessed to my girlfriend and got myself into therapy. I’ve spent years self reflecting (and unfortunately continuing to confess every detail and related thought I can possibly think of to my gf). We have had many, many long and emotional conversations about this. Somehow, she forgives me, trusts me, and continues to see goodness and value in me. This creates a huge disconnect in my brain because I am my least favorite person I have ever met. I’m aware that I don’t deserve her forgiveness and continued love. I am aware that because of my actions, I can never be the person I was before all of this again. I have finally accepted that I am no longer in the “good” category of humanity. It was so hard to accept, my ego and selfishness desperately clung to the idea that with enough work and self reflection, I could someday be seen as “good” again. But that’s not the point, that’s not what matters. I don’t have to be “good”. I have to wear my regret and remorse on my sleeve and use my past as motivation to never hurt someone so GENUINELY good again. I have to swallow my pride and accept that the way that I see myself and the way that I feel about myself now is just the consequences of my wicked actions. I accept that. I just don’t know how to proceed. Somehow, my girlfriend still wants me. She still sees me as a part of her future. I am so endlessly grateful, and I will never take her or the grace she has extended for granted ever again. I have changed so much in the past five years. Now above all else, I value transparency, honesty, genuine remorse, sitting with my girlfriend in her emotions, encouraging her healing in her own therapy journey, validating her experiences and feelings, and doing what I can to be a source of joy, comfort, and ease in her life. It’s all too little too late, this is how a normal person with fully functioning empathy and respect for others would have behaved all along. Unfortunately that wasn’t me, so this is all I can do. I guess I’m writing this post because I’m still struggling to move forward. My girlfriend has wanted me to stop living in the past for years, but I feel like I still haven’t learned and internalized every lesson and meaning from my past actions. Even though my girlfriend doesn’t want any more details or confessions, I always feel like I haven’t told her enough (“If she just knew this one thing it would surely change her mind about wanting to stay with me.” Then I stupidly confess despite her wishes, and she still forgives me.) I’ve had about two months in a row now where I’ve done better at staying present and minimizing the amount I bring up the past (whenever we talk about this event, I am the one to bring it up). It doesn’t feel right though, it just feels like I’m ignoring my misdeeds. It feels like I’ve stopped actively learning from my past. And this isn’t even the only reprehensible thing I’ve done. I’m a very unstable, emotionally disregulated, and impulsive person. I have had so many hurtful and shameful moments in my relationship. Sometimes I suspect that I may even be dealing with something like BPD (not self diagnosing or trying to enforce negative stereotypes, I just painfully relate to a lot of the research I’ve done about interpersonal struggles with BPD). I have caused so much baggage in our relationship that I don’t even know how it’s possible that she still wants me without being a victim of Stockholm Syndrome or something. She very much disagrees with this sentiment and stresses the importance of me trusting that she knows what’s best for herself, and that she makes decisions accordingly. Sorry for the rant, I know maybe this isn’t even super OCD related (as I know my actions are severe and warrant a level of shame, regret, and disgust). I just feel so stuck. I want to move forward because I love my girlfriend and I want to do whatever she needs me to do to aid her in her own healing. But I am so stuck in fear. Fear that I don’t deserve her, that I’ve brainwashed her, that she’s trapped with me, etc. I just can’t fathom forgiving, loving, and reconciling with someone like me. I just need help, because I every time I take a step forward, I take 3 steps back. It doesn’t matter that I’ve changed, I’ve caused a monumental level of stress and grief in her life, and no amount of change will ever make me worthy of her love again. But I will never stop trying. If anyone has any advice or wise words for me, I could really use them right now. I’m sorry if I have triggered, upset, or angered anyone. If any of you reading this have been a victim of someone like me, I’m so sorry. You didn’t deserve that, and I hope that you can find peace and healing in your own situation. Thanks for reading.

Hey guys. Just a reminder that regardless of the subtype, our need for certainty is the enemy. I hope you guys are doing okay today. Any victories or grievances that need to be shared?

before we start let Me start by saying I need help and don’t know How to get it I’m struggling academically my ocd is taking over and I have white hair and I didn’t turn 18 yet (I turn in a few weeks) everyone else seems so happy😩 ERP is harder in my case because of the extremely weird thing my ocd wants My ocd is obsessed with order and certain numbers So I lost something in that place (it was a paper) I then recovered and found it but my ocd believes somehow something fell out and something is still lost even tho I know I found it and I connot stop In order To shut my ocd up I do a compulsion where I go to that place since my ocd is obsessed with the number 4 I need to go to that place 2 times more to make it 4 The problem is I can’t just avoid this place and move on which is ERP I need to go there for college things So my ocd’s logic is since it’s going to happen anyway why not whine and destroy the shit out of the time until I do it

Hi, I’m new to this app and not really sure what I’m expecting from it. I’ve dealt with many types of OCD throughout my life, normally only really one type at a time. About 2 years ago now is when I first developed really bad harm OCD. The worst part is that I didn’t know what it was, and I felt like I couldn’t go to anybody to talk about it because they would think I was a danger. I struggled in silence for months, until I came across a TikTok about OCD, specifically harm OCD. I remember feeling so seen, and so safe, that I cried tears of joy. I wasn’t crazy after all. I wasn’t destined to be the next Jeffery Dahmer, and I wasn’t some hidden psychopath. I didn’t want to self diagnose, however, so I visited my therapist, who I’d previously been seeing for anxiety, and told her what I’d been experiencing. I brought up what I’d read about online, and how I thought it sounded similar to what I was going through. The woman sat there and told me she’d never heard of it, and she had no idea what I was talking about. Over the next few visits, I tried to keep bringing up the possibility of OCD, and how everything I’d seen matched my symptoms exactly and how I really thought I would benefit from OCD therapy. She brushed me off each time, saying that it was just anxiety, and that OCD was a cleanliness issue. So I stopped seeing her. Around this time, summer started, and I was constantly busy and having fun. My OCD stopped bothering me as much, with only the occasional small flare up. I found myself able to listen to true crime podcasts and such again without comparing myself to the killers, or worrying about if what I was eating might actually be ground up people. School started back up, and I hardly ever thought about it at all. It was so freeing, like this giant weight had been lifted off of my chest. Then, in March of this year, on a random Thursday, it flared back up. Bad. I had a giant panic attack caused by my OCD and ever since then, while not nearly as crippling as 2 years ago, I have been plagued with intrusive thoughts again. They’ve stopped worrying me as much, because I know what they are, and I know what’s causing them and how to not give them power, but sometimes I still find myself consumed. There are no OCD specialists in my area, and I really don’t want to go back to that therapist, who never even bothered to look into it for me. I strongly believe what I have is OCD, and I have been calling it such for the past year, because that is the only thing that I have found that describes what I’m going through. Has anyone related to this? Is there anything anyone recommends? I was doing so well, and then it all just came rushing back, and I’m having a hard time squashing it again.

Hi everyone. Please read this and help me if you can. I’ve posted on here a lot. I’ve been going through therapy and (I’m the girl with the dog, btw) and I got diagnosed with Harm OCD three months ago. It’s getting really fucking bad even with therapy and I don’t know what to do, or maybe it’s not that anymore? My brain feels confused all the time and I can’t tell what my intent is anymore. My main compulsion with my dog was checking. Get a horrible thought, check to make sure that I wanted her here still. The thought of her dying always upset me terribly, so I knew that they were just intrusive thoughts. No intent, no plan. I used those as my checking mechanism for so long. Then, the last few days, I think of her dying and I get a feeling like I like it. Like I want her to be gone. If I hide knives and everything, my brain throws me a thought of something else. All day, I have this horrible feeling like I actually want to do it, a jittery, nervous, on edge feeling. Like I have more anxiety from not doing it than doing it. And am just holding myself back. If I say to myself “you have no plan” I get my brain racing like it’s making one or I’m making one, and If I say to myself “there’s no intent” it gives me a feeling of purposely doing that to her. If I tell myself “you love her and you want her alive” it gives me this wave of doubt through my chest that I actually don’t. This goes on ALL day and night. Everything becomes a thought or feeling of hurting her. I sit with her and sometimes get these impulses of “just do it it’s easy”. Almost unbearable and I’ve felt so close to acting on it. I don’t think I care about her anymore. I literally feel like I don’t. She was the most important thing; my value, my whole world. I never wanted her to die. That’s another thing - if I say the word die, I feel like I’m fantasizing about it. It’s a feeling I can’t explain. I hate this. I’m so sure I will act on these thoughts. Aren’t people with harm ocd afraid of acting? Not feeling like they want to and will (but don’t want to because I know in my heart I don’t possibly want her gone).

Hey how are you all doing ? I’m looking for people who has struggled with existential ocd bc I feel this theme is not very common and very hard ( at least for me ) so anyway if you would like to exchange about it don’t hesitate ! I’m looking for support bc god I hate this theme

I can’t tell what’s right and wrong anymore. It’s like my moral compass/rationality is completely broken. I could just shut my feelings down whenever. It might sound like a good thing but it also means I wouldn’t feel any remorse or guilt or negative emotions if I were to do something immoral (hypothetically speaking). In contrast, sometimes my feelings get so deep in the way that my rationality cannot win no matter what. My brain does that out of nowhere and I hate it because it ends up triggering my OCD theme and I have to start back up to be able to cope again. It’s like I’ve developed this intense intolerance towards any sort of stress whatsoever, even the good type of stress that helps you grow. My brain just shuts down and mentally I become a kid again and I can’t listen to logic no matter what.

From few days I am getting thought that how i would hurt a child but now I am not feeling anxious like I used feel when I used have such kind of thoughts usually I used to have panic attacks and felt extremely anxious. But now I don't feel anything like that ? Now I feel like I am a bad person who would not feel bad if I hurt a child. What's going on can anyone tell me. I feel I will kill myself because I don't want to hurt anyone?