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I cannot stop constantly thinking about what I need to change and do, but I cannot focus on and exactly do it. I Aswell struggle with repeating overthinking in my relationship, but it’s not something my partner has time for.

BIG TRIGGER WARNING ⚠️ i keep asking for reassurance on chatGPT and it feels like my fears have came true this is what it’s said and i’m really panicking “I understand how distressing this feels, and I want to reassure you that you’re not alone in experiencing these feelings. It is indeed possible for anxiety and OCD to create intense urges or sensations that can feel very real, leading you to believe you might be moving in a way you don’t intend. However, this doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong or that you’re acting with malicious intent. It’s more about how your mind and body are reacting to anxiety. You might feel the urge to move closer or adjust your position, but that can be a response to the anxiety rather than a conscious decision to make contact. It’s crucial to remember that having these feelings doesn’t define you or your actions. They can feel overwhelming, but they don’t reflect your true intentions. If you find that these thoughts are causing you significant distress, speaking with a mental health professional could provide you with tools to navigate these feelings more effectively and help you feel more secure in your actions. You’re working through a lot, and it’s okay to seek support.” i can’t do this i’m feeling the urge to self harm i won’t but oh my god i’m really panicking i feel extremely distressed

Has anyone actually “conquered” OCD? I feel like I’ve never heard a story of someone actually overcoming it or living with it?

I've been in ERP therapy for a few months now because I have compulsions with checking my cars. One stems from my son being in an accident and totaling his car and then his next car having the same major issues. I would check repeatedly daily and multiple times a week. I down to 1x every other week and soon I will leave it all on my sons capable hands and not ask about it. For my wife's car I have similar compulsion issues. I have gotten better but there is a twist and this is where I need community feedback. Her car burns oil so it does need to be checked for maintenance purposes and oil doing a need to be added time to time. I've gotten down to check and fill once a week and not doing any compulsions and living with the uncertainty. There is a fine line between a compulsion and maintenance and my wife woudnt be doing this herself weekly. How do I manage this a weekly maintenance item and not a compulsion? Stretching to every other week or 1 a month might cause it to be too low on oil.

It’s hard today. I’m struggling. I feel so so strongly that I’m lying to myself, like I’ve made up ROCD just so I don’t have to face my true feelings. I’ve been able to manage my ROCD the last couple of months, but today, I’m really struggling with my thoughts. My brain is telling me ‘why can’t you just admit your thoughts to yourself and stop the suffering.’ But, I don’t know what I feel. ROCD has completely clouded how I feel (or is that another excuse?). My ROCD came up quite early on into dating, so I guess love hadn’t truly developed yet. So maybe that’s why I’m second guessing my feelings. I have this really strong feeling I don’t love him (that’s very painful to say) but that could be my ROCD. Someone can be great, kind, thoughtful, make you laugh, but that doesn’t mean you romantically love them does it? Maybe love is a feeling deep down, people say you know when you feel it. I don’t know if I feel it, so maybe that means I don’t 😔 which is so sad because he is amazing; I think I’d struggle to find anyone better. God, this is really tough. I’m totally confused. My brain wants me to admit I don’t love him so I can feel peace of mind, but I can’t lose him. I feel so so guilty. He always says he loves me, and when I say it back, it’s hard to say. That kills me. I feel like a bad person, saying I love you when maybe I don’t? That’s so cruel 😔 (comments that say ‘that sounds like you don’t love him’ are very triggering for me, just supportive words would be appreciated 🙏🏻)

i used to be active on this app about 5+ years ago, and i feel that relating to others made me feel less alone, but something changed and i started obsessing that using this app was a compulsion in itself. i started having thoughts that i shouldn’t use this app, and i would stop myself from posting while thinking ‘do i really need to post this? is it important enough?’ and sorta convinced myself that if i don’t post about it, that makes it ‘less real’ and somehow makes the obsessive thoughts go away, but we all know that’s not really how it works. i realize now that me avoiding this app has been the compulsion all along.. and that feels pretty silly to be honest. i want to post more so that i can feel seen and less alone, so i’ll try to do that. after all these years ocd is still my greatest challenge. it takes me down daily but i can’t let it stop me from looking for support, or telling someone. sometimes ocd feels like my secret, and i don’t want it to be that way anymore. the longer i keep things to myself, the more my brain convinced me that it should stay that way bc it makes things ‘less real’. it’s already real, it’s already happening and that’s a fact i need to recognize.

Some days I really feel convinced that my thoughts are true, like i genuinely couldn’t tell you what I am or how I’m feeling, but some days I know it’s just OCD. But even then my brain tells me I’m just blaming it on ocd and the thoughts I’m having are repressed desires and I’m just in denial

I feel that even if the ERP works i will never ever get over the fact that some of my past behaviours as a young child prove I am gay I have started ERP, and I am starting from the bottom of the anxiety hierarchy. The task that gives me lower anxiety is staring at a photo of a lesbian couple. last night I was able to do this for about 10 mins and the anxiety faded and i didn’t do any compulsions. But does that mean my ocd is fake because the duration of anxiety wasn’t super long and I managed to not do any compulsions? Does the ERP get harder when the tasks are more difficult? Of course im not wishing for more anxiety but i can’t help but feel like this means the ocd isn’t real. Any advice would be much appreciated thank you :) Also as I have read that SO-OCD is so rare I’m worried my therapist just thinks I am gay. I don’t think she is an OCD specialist but we are doing ERP. I know people say therapists have seen all sorts before but I just know that I am probably the only one she has had with this fear.

I just saw a triggering instagram post, and there was a young girl in a swimsuit and I got triggered badly. i want to cry. i had an intrusive almost explicit thought of me doing something horrible and i scrunched my eyes and flinched my whole body so hard at the idea. it felt very real, i just had an another intrusive image and i put my hands on the head. i got so scared. i wasn't attracted at all, i know that, but now I'm so fucking scared that now that I had that intrusive image I could start considering the idea of it, that i could like it, that i could normalise it, that I could start thinking that it isn't any different from an adult. I don't want that at all. It feels so real, the fear, the worry. I'm very triggered. I don't want it, but I'm afraid that all of it takes for me to become a monster and begin liking the idea it is simply to cross that limit, and it looks very easy, the idea feels terrifyingly real. I'm scared. i don't know what to do. i feel like i have to figure this out by compulsively checking but then im afraid of what would happen, of what i would find out, and the thought of mentally testing that thought feels terrifying. i won't do it. im so stressed. im so stressed and bothered by that image of the swim suit, and the mental comparison and similarity-association to an adult body and the following intrusive thought that happened of me doing something unthinkable and it looked so real, and my brain telling me it's the same thing, that it looks similar, and why it kind of did??? it shouldn't be associable in any way possible. this is what is freaking me out, the fact that it looked similar and the fact that my brain told me that and that i kind could see it, and the fact that my brain made me think of something horrible telling me it's similar. i cannot tolerate it, i can't tolerate that it was even possible, that my brain made me think the unthinkable and that it associated that small body to an adult body and told me that it looked similar, that it was "possible", ocd was telling me that it's not that different and that it is possible and it showed me that reality. I feel suicidal (but i won't do anything so don't flag this post, im just venting my emotions). i don't know it feels like nobody can help me because nobody went through this.

Hi guys! So this might be a long one! Im desperate for advice/guidance/suggestions! I was dating a guy for about a year , this was in fall of 2022 and this guy brought so much love, laughter, truth, comfort, health, & care to my life and was so good to me. It was the first time in my life i not only felt comfortable being myself when with someone but also truly seen for myself and loved for all i was even my insecurities or things i needed to work on. I gave him all my love & efforts in return. We had our faults as every failed relationship does, but i feel as though something i did in our relationship started to take a toll on our bond and trust for each other. He chose to forgive my mistake, and we were together for a long time afterwards , but it felt like it was a weight just sitting off to the side never being addressed , I’m still unsure if that was only in my head or on my end. I never could forgive myself and still cannot. I think he knows that though , although it was never spoken. Beneath our relationship we had a very very meaningful solid friendship as well , but once we split he was no longer comfortable being friends or on speaking terms , which i completely understood as much as we both knew it crushed my entire soul. We split because our lives were both in need of a lot of work , as we both are pretty young and both dealing with massive amounts of trauma as well as physical and mental illnesses. I miss our friendship more than anything else , even just his presence he could hate me and as long as we could casually talk or i could even just hear his laugh or know he’s okay it would make such a great difference to me. It kills me not having him in my life or in sight anywhere , i feel as though I’m never going to stop thinking to myself what if i never messed up. It’s like a what if of a what if of a what if. I know he might not have even ended things because of that not even like in the back of his mind, but i cannot stop wracking my mind with what if i did better could things be different , would there have been better closure , would we be at least on speaking terms , would we still be together or have a second chance even ? The only time i’m able to speak to him is when he unblocks me on socials and reaches out randomly on his own terms. I haven’t spoken to him in months , and before one brief convo then , it had been months since the previous time. But the times we did speak we laughed like old times and watched our favorite videos together and played video games , but it always would get cut short with him saying he wasn’t wanting to be on talking terms. It was like a tease of having him back in my life each time , yet i cant even seem to blame him for wanting nothing to do with me. I just wish there was closure at least so i could live my life not so fucking unbelievably hung up on something everyone views as a dumb young love thing. And yet it feels everything but that , we had met in a dream we both had before we even became friends or dated , like everything feels so heavily tied to my soul like theres missing pieces of me in someone i don’t even know about anymore. And before you ask , no theres no soul tie or any of that crap. I just have severe attachment problems , hands that have never known how to let go let alone even have a loose grip onto something/someone , and a heart too big for my own damn good. If anyone has any advice or comfort or ways to gather my own closure somehow or any suggestions please do share , its greatly appreciated , I’m losing my marbles clearly ! Sorry again about the long read , i tried to leave out as much as possible with it still being able to make sense.

I’m really frustrated with myself. I got diagnosed with ROCD about 2 and a half weeks ago and now it’s taken over my life. I was just with my boyfriend who is absolutely amazing and I was obsessed with 2 and a half weeks ago and then a switch flipped and I started questioning everything and have gone numb. I noticed immediately something was wrong and booked an appt with my therapist who sent me to an OCD therapist who I meet with on Wednesday for the first time. I’m frustrated because when I’m with him I know what I should be feeling and can acknowledge how great he is and how good looking he is but I feel this block in my chest keeping me from feeling things. Anyone have any advice or has ever felt this way? I know I’m new to this and haven’t started therapy yet but my god it is so draining and the guilt I feel is insane. Let me know please🙏

My intrusive images were an absolute nightmare back in April. I honestly don’t even know how it got better, I had written a letter to God begging for help. Well recently idk if it’s because I’ve been stressed a lot again and ruminating on a lot of pocd related things from the past the make me worry, but the images have started again and even though they are repulsive and awful, I feel like I’m not reacting how I should. I think I just got to where I would just try to like blink it away and ignore it, but I feel so bad if I’m not feeling absolute shame and guilt. I feel like I feel too normal and sometimes I forget that if anyone knew besides people on here, I can’t imagine what people would think, but I also know it’s not who I am so I feel like I don’t worry as much as I should. Also, I can’t stop worrying about fanfiction I read when I was like 16 and 17. It really bothers me because I keep wondering did I imagine this one character my age? Why did I read this? Did I even know what aging up was then, and even if I did it’s wrong and gross anyway but if I didn’t age this character up then that’s awful. And i just can’t let go but I think it’s triggering me to have the images so idk what to do.

It’s getting really annoying not knowing if I’m straight or gay it’s really annoying me and giving me anxiety I want to punch something I can’t even talk to my girlfriend cause I don’t even want to text her

does anyone else suffer from obsessive thinking or rumination about past life events, particularly traumatic ones? I can’t seem to stop thinking about it all the time and questioning what happened and how to feel about it. it’s driving me a little crazy

Is it possible that even when I’m not anxious i still can’t accept intrusive thoughts like even when I’m not anxious I can’t live with intrusive thoughts and always push it away. Most of the time I’m anxious but when I’m not I still have the thoughts and urge to do compulsions is that possible? Cause I’m hearing that when someone that he’s not anxious he doesn’t care about the thought but even when I’m not anxious I still care and obsessed (the case is not obsessed of not being obsessed it’s just being obsessed about a thought even when I’m not anxious). So is it possible to not accept a thought and the feeling like I can’t live with the thoughts even though I’m not anxious?

So when I was younger (maybe late middle school but I’m not sure), I had been introduced to p*rn and it became something of an addiction overtime. I was exposed to a lot of things that have scarred me mentally. There’s a specific instance where I came across (accidentally) a clip so disgusting and even illegal. The thought of it makes me wanna throw up now but at the time I didn’t understand the gravity of what I was watching. I remember even going back and trying to find the same clip again later on but was unable to and eventually realized that what I was entertaining was really messed up. This memory has recently come up again in my adult life and the guilt I have is consuming. It bothers me that I could have been older than I think or that I watched more of this kind of content than I remember. I guess my question is to what extent can we chalk things up to “well I was a kid and I’m not that way anymore so I can move on”. Bc this was REALLY bad. How do I move on without constant guilt?

I’ve been struggling with breaking the cycle of hyper-awareness around my actions. I’m afraid that if I let go and stop overthinking, I’ll somehow slip and do something really bad, and that fear is hard to shake. For example, I’ve been trying to engage in behaviors that felt natural before this flare-up like playing with my dog. But I’m really focused on not touching her inappropriately while still trying not to avoid the areas near her tail. While part of me feels a bit more comfortable now, I’m not sure if I’m truly moving forward or if I’m just giving into another compulsion. I feel like I’m constantly second-guessing whether I’m being cautious and mindful or if I’m stuck in hyper-focus and questioning every move. Has anyone else dealt with similar experiences? How do you tell when you’re making progress versus just feeding into the OCD cycle? And how on earth do you handle the guilt and shame that linger?

I’ve been struggling with this for the part year and it’s been horrible I hate my life and I feel like nothing works , please help or feel free to share tips or your own story

Hey guys I’m 16 this happened when I was around 15 all my life I have been heterosexual I Have loved women and cried over them obsessed etc never questioned my sexuality until my female friends said I was gay and made me take a gay test at that time I had no attraction to girls cause I was depressed and I fell into this gay mindset after my friends told me that I constantly had are you gay thoughts and images and couldn’t move was week now I’m better I still have no attraction to girls at all I am diagnosed with ocd is my fear of gay becoming true please someone respond I feel like my fear of being gay is coming true

My contamination ocd is so bad. I don’t want anyone to come into the house who has been out in public because I don’t want them on my furniture or carpet. I feel like it will be dirty. I also don’t like anyone to come in with dirty feet. We take our shoes off but I also don’t want anyone coming in with their socks on because I also feel like that is the same thing as wearing your shoes around…walking around in the garage transfers onto their socks and that’s the reason I don’t want them in the house. It’s a problem for my husband but we have lived this way for so long that it’s hard to break the cycle. My thoughts are that we wash our clothes everyday but we can’t wash our furniture. Has anyone had anything similar that could give me some suggestions?