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I keep having intrusive thoughts that I am in love with my ex. I’m so afraid if I don’t sort through the thoughts then I’ll get in touch with him? I don’t want to hurt my bf so I feel so sick and just overwhelmed.

One fun thing about what I’ve experienced is that even if I go to people for reassurance, more often than not it doesn’t help and makes things worse. I see how from an outside perspective it looks like denial and the moment I open my mouth to talk about it the instant thought is “you’re faking it, you know it’s true and you’re faking it”. And it’s great when people say maybe you are this or that like it’s no big deal, …but it is? And then again it’s like maybe they see something I don’t?

Ok so I’m a 17 year old female, and I’ve always thought I was straight. But I just really want to know how you would know the difference between so-ocd and actually questioning your sexuality. I have nothing against the LGBTQ community (in fact I am very much a token straight friend, lol) but I saw a video about comp-het recently and it sort of felt like what I was experiencing. I don’t want to be gay, I want to be with men, I want to like men, I’ve always liked men, but now I’m questioning whether or not that’s real? Because people can be gay but not want to be right? I’m single and I always have been. I think women are gorgeous, but when I try to imagine actually having any sort of romantic or sexual relationship with a woman it feels wrong, at least most of the time it does? Sometimes I’m less sure, and I’ve never been particularly boy crazy. I’ve liked maybe 2 or 3 people in my life, (not to say I’ve never found other guys attractive, but it doesn’t seem to be as often as most people) I have no particular reason to be afraid of being gay, very supportive family, safe area ect, but I don’t want to be, does that mean this is ocd, I don’t know what’s going on every time I say I’m straight I feel like I’m lying, but that might just be because I think about it so much. The idea of being with a woman doesn’t feel like something I would want, but is that just because I don’t want to want it? People online say things with so much sureness, if you feel like this it means this. Ect.

When I was a little kid, I used to be horrible. Every time I thought an animal was too cute or something, i’d get violent, terribly violent. I regret it so much and wish I never did anything like that. It follows me in my mind and I hate it even though I was a child. Then a year or two ago, I got upset at my cat and tossed her onto the bed very quickly and hard, and pushed her down. I remember feeling like I didn’t want to hurt her but I didn’t want to let go. I cried after it happened and gave her many treats. Around the same time, my dog got me mad i just smacked her nose but I still feel sick to my stomach thinking about it. Idk if i was 14 or 15 at the time? I would never do anything to hurt any animal now, but why did I ever do it back then? It makes me so sick thinking about it and now I can’t STOP thinking about it. I still never wanted to hurt my cat, but she got on my last nerve at that moment and it happened multiple times and I threw her pretty fast. I can’t believe I’d ever do that. I’ve been hating myself for it ever since i started thinking about it again. I can’t forgive myself and Idk what to do. I wish I could go back in time and never do what I did. She was still only about 5 months old at that time. She means the world to me and we have a very close bond, but now I feel like I can’t love her because what I did. I feel like I can’t have friends, or anything really because I feel like I don’t deserve anything. I feel like a terrible monster and I hate that I ever did anything to a little angel that didn’t even do anything wrong. Idk how to forgive myself. I hate that I did that and I wish I never did. It still wasn’t as bad as it was when I was little, but it’s still not okay at all and I can’t go back in time and change it, so now idk what to do with myself. I feel like I don’t deserve to be around my cats babies even though I love them with all my heart. I’m 16 now and not the same ragey person as i used to be. I had a lot of anger built up from an ex that I was with at the time, but still WHY would I take it out on my beautiful cat. The more I think about it, the worst it gets, it’s sucking up all of my happiness.

I've just started dating this really great girl. She doesn't know about my ocd which is fine but I've noticed that a lot of my intrusive thoughts and worries about not following routines now revolve around losing her or her believing I'm a bad person. I just don't want this relationship to make me so paranoid. I also know have this where if I see a girl on my Instagram or on the Internet, I'll feel an overwhelming urge to clean myself and the device I viewed it on. This is part of a moral reaction and I also worry I'm not being loyal. I feel I should try and not follow through with these compulsions but as they now revolve around keeping my girlfriend I'm not sure. Any advice?

Been doing amazing the last few days…then today boom…my ocd tried to pick a theme ..it will pass though…so I’m just gonna ride it out ..

New to this community. Pretty bummed they don’t take my insurance. I’m gonna have a free call session later today but after that, I don’t know where else I’m gonna find online therapy specific to my ocd. I guess if it’s affordable I can still pay. It depends. It just sucks because I was happy to find this community and to finally get some help but they don’t take my insurance. I just want help.

I’ve recently become unemployed and the journey to finding a new job is honestly unbearable. I struggle with a major lack of self confidence and I don’t believe I’m good at anything nor smart enough for it, so whenever I look at job websites and see different things advertised I panic. Even with what I’ve wanted to do for years, the thought of going out and doing that makes me feel horrendous because I don’t think I’m capable of doing it. And what doesn’t help is the fact I’ve told my parents this and they just scream at me saying I can’t sit around doing nothing every day when that’s already something I don’t want to do. I want a job, I want to do something I enjoy, I like working I do, and once I’m it in I know I’ll enjoy it, but there’s certain things stopping me from going for it. I hate myself over every possible level to the thought of people seeing me everyday is making me panic, I don’t think I’m very intelligent so anything that requires me to do maths or organise numbers or anything like that is out of the question. I’ve worked in hospitality for 7 years, doing shit I despise and I honestly have hated every moment of it so I can’t go back there. It’s all scaring me, all making me feel like I’m just incapable of doing anything right, I genuinely just don’t even want to wake up tomorrow because the thought of living this life for the rest of my life is ridiculous. I don’t want to do it. I don’t have anything I’m good at, there’s nothing I enjoy what the hell am I meant to do with that? I’m honestly so stuck. Everyone keeps saying “beggars can’t be choosers” but this is my fucjing life and I have to do a shit job that makes me want to throw myself off a 30 story building till I’m 70? Fuck no. What kind of life is that? Just so I can make money? And afford bills? And pay to live? wtf I don’t even want to be here so why am I doing that. I don’t enjoy living I a really fucking hate it. And working down the local grocery store is just not gonna make me wanna be here any longer. I really hate it here and now I have to find a job that I’ll hate? I’m so stuck

Hi everyone! I’m not sure if anyone has had any issues with sleep and anxiety but these past couple of weeks I’ve been suffering with anxiety when trying to sleep. My mind will latch on to the idea that I won’t sleep and I’ll continuously try to fall asleep and end up psychoanalyzing everything im doing . Usually I end up freaking out and not sleeping and waking up with maybe >2 hrs a sleep a night and have an awful day the next day. I’m lowkey hopeless in this situation, I’ve tried melatonin, sleeping early, limited screen time and nothing will work.. does anyone have any tips and tricks on what to do?

I’ve had sexual thoughts that get so bad I used to cry daily. Today I tried to sit down and let the thoughts be there and I didn’t really feel anxiety? Does this mean I acted on the thoughts or I wanted the thoughts? There was a specific event like two days ago that I’ve been constantly having anxiety about because after the event I started getting sexual images and then I wondered if I actually did that. For the past two days life has been so bad. Today I woke up and I replayed the events step by step and I couldn’t find when I could’ve acted on the thoughts, so that gave me relief. Then I tried sitting with the thoughts, and the thoughts that once made me cry and feel so bad didn’t really feel like anything. Am I in denial? Just yesterday I was thinking the worst and that I couldn’t handle any of this anymore. I know replying events is a bad thing too but I needed to know for sure if I acted on my thoughts. My thoughts are so bad and the thing is if I did act on them I’d never be able to forgive myself. I notice in the moment I didn’t really feel anxiety like I did but I got so much anxiety the day after everything happened and then I wondered if I did something bad. Can someone please help?

I am so so upset and anxious right now. At this point I badly need reassurance as Im feeling a whole panic attack coming on. Has anyone ever had the feeling in their head and body like they are actually going to act on a terrible harm related intrusive thought like it actually feels like you are. Im scared as fuck i dont know what to do because What if i actually do that i am so scared does it ever feel like your on the edge of doing it and you get this whole intrusive urge in your body PLEASE REPLY please tell me experiences

I feel like no one cares about me... Im struggling in college and it just feels like I cant catch a break... Ive made bad choices that make me a bad person... I have to be uncertain about worst case POCD scenarios that may or may not have happened unknowingly... I genuinely dont feel like any one cares about me... and if I pass away, ill be laughed at and forgotten by everyone... Im alone with no gf, barely any friends, and I cant even be certain that my POCD fears of unknowingly cybering with a minor did or didnt happen... im stuck in hell...

Hi Im a 15 year old girl and about a month ago i started having these toughts about harming myself and other people. It was verry draining for me so thats why me and my friends stayed toghether for a week and have fun. Now i started having it again and i cant help but think im a pysochapth. Today I started breaking down and i dont know what to do. Are these the since of OCD or is something really wrong with me? Please help.

His so I have a question. Should I feel guilty for things I do like without thinking or naturally. Like for example if I’m around a person I find attractive I will naturally try to be funny or come off as attractive not in a bad way like it just happens I’m not usually aware of it until after it happens.Sometimes I do and say things without an intention it just kinda happens and then My brain after it will Be like oh you did that because of this and that. Or sometimes it’ll tell me I did it for a certain intention that I didn’t do it for, but it’s hard sometimes when I do things without a certain intention so then I can’t tell my intentions and I spiral but sometimes my brain is right and it makes me feel guilty because if I knew that’s was my intention I never would have done it if that makes sense. Is this part of OCD

So i’ve been planning to apply for a job that i’ve always wanted to experienced and i’ve been looking at videos regarding that job. I was scrolling on tiktok when i stumbled upon someone on live talking about the job. i had a very bad intrusive thought and my anxious mind told me that in order to be safe, i need to find that exact live and fix the thought. i’ve been scrolling for the past hour and have not been able to find the account. my brain is not linking the job to the intrusive thought. why is this happening 💔

How do yall handle intrusive thoughts !? I never realized that was a thing I think I’ve been dealing with this sense I was in elementary school I remember getting on the bus and had the the worry my mom was gonna get in an accident and it’s just gone from there

Hey, I’ve been doing some research on OCD and think I may have it. I’m not 100% sure, but I have a lot of the symptoms. I want to get myself diagnosed, but my parents won’t let me. They agree that it’s very likely that I have OCD, but they think that if I try hard enough, I can get over it. I don’t know what to do anymore or if what I have even is OCD, and I want to be somewhat sure before a I do anything. Right now, I’m a junior in high school, but freshman year was when my “OCD” was the most severe. I think I had (and still do) the symmetry/order subtype and “just right” subtype. I was obsessed with writing things neatly to a point in which I kept forcing myself to erase and rewrite things until all the letters were straight and all the graphs were neatly drawn (typing wasn’t safe either because I use Notability and felt the need to align every text box and make them all the same length). Handwriting was especially a problem in calculus A, and it got to a point in which I couldn’t keep up with the notes, and the homework was taking hours a night because I was obsessed with making my work perfect. Needless to say, I didn’t get a good grade in calculus A and didn’t build a good foundation for future math classes. This makes me really sad because I was previously really good at math and had a bright future in the subject. Eventually, I just stopped trying in calculus A, but by then, I felt burnt out, couldn’t concentrate on anything, kept putting things off, and lost the ability to properly manage my time. I think it may have escalated to executive dysfunction at that point, and it carried over to all my other classes. As someone who was previously pretty productive and good at planning, this was a huge hit on my self-esteem. I was also obsessed with symmetry. If I touched one side of my body, I had to touch the other side in the exact same place. If I was coding something, I would have to evenly distribute touch across each key on the keyboard. It felt like everything was a heatmap, and the colors had to be kept in balance at all times. I also avoided odd numbers because they were considered “asymmetrical”. I was obsessed with routine and had to complete tasks in a certain way, a certain order, and a certain amount of time. Even something as small as combing my hair for five minutes instead of six caused me extreme distress. Writing one word that “sounded off” on an English paper left me unable to keep writing until I fixed it. I had to keep the sound of my phone at a certain volume (6 normally, 10 when exercising, and 12 when cleaning, divide everything by 2 when using a computer) and had to walk a round number (any number that ends in 0) of steps a day. I kid you not when I say that some days I woke up and didn’t want to live anymore. Sophomore year, my mental health improved and I probably seemed overly perfectionistic but not to a point of concern. However, this year, the handwriting issue relapsed in all its glory during physics, and I’m not able to keep up with notes or homework. I feel the same way that I did in calculus A, and I don’t want history to repeat itself. I want to ask my teacher to let me do my homework on paper rather than the iPad (it’s easier for me to write on paper due to increased friction), but I’m scared to ask because I don’t have a formal diagnosis. I don’t know what causes my behavior. I feel like if I can’t do things perfectly, no one will like me. I’ll lose all my friends, and no boy will ever want to go out with me. I know it’s irrational. Literally no one cares what my notes look like or how long I spend on each step of my morning routine or whatever, but I constantly feel like people are judging me and will hate me the second I mess up. There are two more times in my life that I can think of when I displayed symptoms of OCD, contamination OCD when I was 9 and pure/religious/magical thinking/health concern OCD (they all just kind morphed together) when I was 11. I can go into more detail if you wish. As of now, I just want to know my behavior sounds like OCD, and if so, how to more forward. If not, I would love to know what I do have and how to treat it. Thank you so much.

What are some songs, movies, tv shows, books that make you feel safe? For me I have a playlist of songs that I add to over time. I only have three on there at the moment but they help me so much. (Something) by The Microphones Black Wave by The Shins Rosyln by Bon Iver and St. Vincent I’ll also imagine a storm outside, or imagine myself living in a lighthouse :p Hbu!?

Can thoughts actually become true? Worried ever since I read it on google. My OCD has gotten really bad since I’ve had 4 pregnancies in the last 3 years. I had a miscarriage stillborn healthy baby and now pregnant again. My mind has gone crazy.

If you're in pursuit of happiness, don't anchor it to a person or a specific event. Instead, connect it to a meaningful goal.