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I have contamination OCD and sometimes I don't feel like cleaning. I have a huge pile of blankets on my floor that feel contaminated and I have two dogs and seven cats. I don't really touch them anymore like I used to since my OCD got worse. One of my dogs like to pee on my floor a lot and sometimes I'm too lazy to clean it, because I'd have to get the carpet shampooer out and actually clean. Sometimes I do it because I don't want to wash my hands over and over, so I just avoid it. Now I'm scared that the dry urine is on my feet and are now in my bed. I know that I should just say well maybe it did or maybe it didn't and just go about my day, but it's hard. For the people who conquered contamination OCD how did you get through stuff like this? Thank you in advance to anyone who answers my post.

Does anyone else have a fear of anything being on their hands? Not necessarily that you don’t like the germs on it, but you can’t stand the fact that you have grease or oil on your hands. I can’t stand when I see people eat greasy food with their hands and then just casually wipe them on their pants or blanket. Like it makes my skin crawl. I can eat greasy food with my hands, but afterwards I have to immediately wash them because I don’t want to get that grease on any object. People always jokingly try to touch me with grease and it actually infuriates me, and also infuriates me when I see them touch another object like a remote with that greasy hand. Is this just me or is there anyone else who can relate?

Hi everyone! For the past 4 years I’ve been struggling with intrusive thoughts about myself or others. It’s mostly about others and it’s really scary. I’ve been to my doctor about it and for some reason he diagnosed me with depression and he said it’s the cause of my intrusive thoughts ( which doesn’t make sense to me)…I’ve done more research and I believe that it might be Harm OCD. These thoughts terrify me. It affects my every day life. Some weeks are better than others but it’s so awful when I have a “flare up”. Can anyone help me understand how to know whether or not I have this condition? And if I do what are yalls experiences and what are your recommendations for treatment?

Before OCD I never felt any hatred towards gay people or bi people or anything like that, and I even recall some shows were gay relationships had really romantic moments that I could admire, but now it feels like I hate gay people like they anoy me or smth, and I don't wanna feel that way, I don't wanna feel this way, and ofc my OCD says that Im homophobic therefore I'm gay but I wasn't even homophobic to begin with I just don't know what to do right now

I feel like is really hard to get better when you brain is trying to convince you that you actually want to do it and since it's really convincing I do not know what to do not feel like that. Nothing positve that I think makes me happy, I feel like I have no escape of this. Before I would get like moments of reliefs when thinking positive but now I don't, maybe I am going through depression. I am starting to doubt about my own person ( its not an intrusive thought )and to think that I will be ok being that horrible person, but I do not know what do to. I feel numb and I am so tired. I just know that I was not this person before, I used to be a person with goals, super kind and someone that loved being around people. I try to ignore or not engage with the thoughts, and why is it coming back? What do I need to do? Anyone going through this?

It’s been giving me panic attacks, fainting spells (I don’t get breaks lol so I go long periods without eating), and severe anxiety. As of right now, it’s nearing 3am and I’m typing this. I have work in the morning but I can’t sleep at all. I keep waking up in panics (which I just found out are nocturnal panic attacks lol great). I’m planning on just calling in tomorrow and quitting instead of showing up. I can’t take it anymore. What do I tell them? I don’t want to burn this bridge but my mental health is a mess. It’s my first job and only reference I have.

I was fine for a few months and I feel my HARMOCD is coming back. It’s still the targeted thought to “kill mom” it’s bringing me alot of anxiety and it’s the only thought that is still around. What do I do?

Struggling currently struggling with magical thinking and feeling like I’ll never overcome it. What has worked for you?

I hate how I can be feeling fine for a few days, barely any thoughts and if I do they don’t bother me, but then there are times where I intentionally think of them. For example, the past three days I was doing pretty good. Not really having my harm thoughts and feeling well overall. However, today I noticed I was ruminating a bit about my thoughts. Like I purposefully made myself think of them and dwell on them. I don’t have any anxiety anymore. I just feel nothing. Maybe I’m just used to them? I don’t know. But I still feel the urges - like I really want to harm someone and I want to act on it. It feels like pent up energy or something, and I’m holding myself back. It feels inevitable that I will eventually act on them. And for me to purposefully think about them makes me think I’m fantasizing or actually desiring them. Like actual wants. Plus I don’t feel like the homework that I have been given is as effective. Like just responding in with neutral “ok’s” to the thoughts just feel pointless or rather feels like I don’t want to get rid of the thought. I should be glad that maybe I’m improving, but at the same time I don’t feel like I am…I still feel stuck. I still feel like there is actually no cure and I have changed into this, and that it’s only a matter of time until I’m okay with acting on these thoughts. I just feel off and strange. Sometimes it’s difficult to know who I am, what I want, etc.

I am wanting to go to therapy to hopefully lower my OCD symptoms but I am terrified to tell anyone else, like a therapist, about my intrusive thoughts. Has anyone else had this experience and if so how did you get over it?

hello, i’m having a bit of a spiral so here it goes. if you have soocd and went on deep dives you have probably seen the story where the girl has soocd, but come out at her feared orientation, which is gay. big trigger for a lot of us. but i found that the only difference is she had past memories of being gay and then had hocd trying to convince herself that she’s straight not gay. mines similar in a way but i never had memories of being gay(ofc my ocd brain gets to tell me otherwise and will try and fake memories) and am just trying to figure out if im straight but also trying to figure out if i could be gay i was doing so good because i finally was like okay im still gonna have these soocd thoughts but i finally feel like okay i can say that im gonna come out of this straight because i don't have a history of being gay growing up. then this happens: i just saw a coming out story where a girl showed no signs of being gay had crushes on boys and dated boys and said she was fully boy crazy and even dreamed of like disney fairytales. she said the only thing was that she just sometimes didn’t want to hangout with her boyfriends. (like hello that's me). BUT THEN SHE WAS GAY! then i looked up if that happens a lot and google said yes it does, people don't have ANY signs of being gay when they are younger jen’s one cases i know ive been diagnosed with hocd and it's said the small percentage of people who have hocd and come out there feared sexuality and had pervious knowledge of being gay in there youth. BUT THIS GIRL DIDNT. so what if i have hocd, didn't show signs when i was younger, and am actually gay (the only difference between me and her is that i have hocd and im not comfortable with these thoughts and when she found out she was comfortable with these thoughts. but what if i accept these thoughts and get comfortable with being gay) i guess i just want to know im not alone.

I have a question My OCD has felt almost invisible the past few weeks and now that is starting to stress me out a lot. Right now I am at a point in my treatement where I was asked if I would like to take medication. I told my therapist this week that I would like to try the medication based on how miserable I feel in during OCD flare ups. But now my brain always tells me that I only go throught this treatement etc. to seek attention and that I am just dramatic and should be ashamed of myself for wanting to take this medication. So now I am doubting if I should take the medication or not. Any advice?

I jut read a reddit post of a person telling the story of their brother who suffers from ocd and schizo affective disorder, he has intruusive violent thoughts and he tried to stab his brother with a butter knife and threatened to kill everyone in the house hold and had to be hospitalized and all the coments were saying that he shouldbe locked up forever and because he is a threat to himself or others and these disorders make him dangerous. I shouldn't have read that, worst mistake, now I have unbearable anxiety and feel a panic attack coming, bc this person who had ocd acted on his thoughts and amost hurt his brother and makes me terrified believeing all my fears are validated. Someone please help I am literally shaking!!

I’m terrified to go to my grandparents alone tomorrow because what if my harm ocd flares up? I love my grandparents more than anything, they’ve always been by my side and I’m scared of losing them, what if my intrusive thoughts/urges take over??? I’m not sure what to do. I know I should go just to expose myself but I’m so tired of doing that and nothing changes:( I’ve experienced this when going over my dads because there’s two babies there. I’m not sure what to do. I sometimes look at people and think, “they don’t think/having urges of harming other people, why do I do?” Sorry for the vent.

Guys, I discussed this with a therapist, and it’s something I want to share with you. If you’re considering whether or not to take medication—both of which are completely valid choices—let me just say this when making your decision: Medications are not a long-term solution. Period. True healing only begins when you can completely and fully do without medication. In the beginning, they help with stability during exposures, and I totally understand that. But they won’t help you, if you decide to stop taking them at some point and that stability is no longer there. As hard as it may sound, and as tough as it is, real healing starts when we no longer need medication for our exposures. I know it’s hard, and I don’t want to discourage you or anything like that, I just want to tell you the truth. It’s absolutely OKAY (i did too for a time) if you decide to take medication, and in the beginning, they should help you, but please think long-term and consider it carefully. Wish u all the best ❤️

This may upset some people reading so here is just a warning that these are disturbing I don’t know what to do to make the bad thoughts stop. My mom recently had a baby, my little brother. I wasn’t exactly happy about this pregnancy, but I have nothing against my brother. He’s adorable and silly. Nothing against him. But I feel like these thoughts bug me because what if deep down I do resent him because I didn’t want my mom to have another kid? What if I did act on these things because I hate him? What if I just lose it and do something? It’s all so illogical, I know. Never would I ever want to do that. But there’s times I’m watching him for a few minutes for my mom and my brain just shows me an awful scene of me brutally hurting him or killing him. Or I’ll be holding him and my brain shows me a scene where I purposefully drop him or I just hurt him so badly. I’ll be walking near him and my brain tells me I’m going to stomp on him. It shows me such bad things. I have intrusive thoughts all the time, but this is different because there’s a semi good reason I “could” do it. That being, I wasn’t happy about the pregnancy. And it scares me. I’ve started crying because I was so scared it was going to happen. I have to back up away from him or sit down so there’s no way I can do anything. I feel horrible. I don’t want to hurt him. And I’m so scared I will. But I won’t. I’m hoping this makes sense to others who struggle with this. Because to anyone else who’s never gone through these things I’ll sound insane. And sound like a psychopath. Thanks for reading. Any help would be appreciated.

My mind keeps telling me “something is wrong with you. the weird feeling you are feeling or the weird tingling you are feeling or there is a weird mark on your body. Those are actually a severe symptom and by ignoring it you could die!” Or especially the constant, “go to the emergency room because this impending doom you are feeling, yeah that’s because your gonna die shortly” It doesn’t help whenever people say “well if something was wrong your body would tell you” because my mind keeps telling me that what I’m feeling is proof something is wrong and I need to get it checked out. That I actually am severely sick and that I need to get it checked out as soon as possible, that if I get one more test than I’ll be okay because it will prove nothing is wrong. How do I tell my mind that it’s just anxiety whenever my mind keeps telling me “well if you keep saying that you could be ignoring something more serious.” Or “the doctors are just brushing you off..something is wrong with you” It’s hard to live with my thoughts whenever they are constantly coming up with ways to challenge me and challenge logic. New reasons on why I need to get this checked out because “I’m just being ignored” or “no one is listening to me so I’ll just end up dying” My symptoms range from weak and shaking legs and body to dizzy and unbalanced and dissociated. Recently I’ve been getting this tingling feeling inside my head and on the back of my neck. And my temples have pressure on them. My body keeps coming up with new symptoms I need to worry about, whenever most of them are probably caused by severe and constant anxiety. So severe I can’t even leave the house because I constantly worry about whether this is severe and something will happen if I leave the house. I need immediate ways to start fixing this because it’s especially horrible whenever my period comes around and my anxiety/depression is already higher than usual. I’ve even started considering taking medication (Zoloft, 25mg) which is another trigger for me, I worry about the symptoms I might get from taking it. That’s how you know it’s gotten pretty bad whenever I’ve come to taking something that I’ve been actively avoiding. What are your thoughts? Do I take the medication? What are ways I can deal with my symptoms that seem so severe in the moment but pass by once I’m not anxious? What are ways my thoughts can ease and I stop taking every symptom as something serious, because at the end of the day my anxiety is most likely the reason I have these horrible symptoms. I’ve always been extremely healthy and everytime I go to the doctors they express how healthy I am with all the tests I’ve had.

I had to use a pseudonym and such to join this app in the first place. If I interact with OCD content outside of here it has to be anonymous or very very minimal without any details of what I go through. I consistently deal with shame and even when talking about my OCD with friends/family I become embarrassed and ashamed, fearful of what they might think. I am like this in more cases too. I am a very private person: I use anonymous modes on almost anything, I never post my face unless the account is completely private, I never share my name online, etc. One time I scrubbed a 5+ year old account of any photos of myself or mentions of my name because I was so afraid. It’s been getting easier but that toxic shame is still triggered sometimes especially if I think someone may find out who I am. It is hard to get over especially since I’ve been treated horribly in the past.

I have been doubting my salavtion for 18 years or 15 years does not matter I am 40. I was told I had ocd region last year and tore me apart. It does make sense I have also ptsd and bipolar. How do I know if I have repented and am saved? I feel numb to God. Never any love or change in my heart. I don’t belive good works save me. I know the Bible in my head but how do you know Jesus? I am tired and need a heart change but how does that happens with ocd? Forget about church they can’t handle me and have tried to help but given up. Been told I have been oppressed by demons pray harder trust God more ect. I feel depressed and take my anger out on my kids age 14 10 and 9 and husband. I feel alone and taking medicine does not help. I take my meds for bipolar and anxity. How can I be sure God has saved me or I want God? I am mad at God and been told it’s was sin. I think it is but why did I have to be abused as a kid and have mental health issues and now ocd junk. I don’t have the fruit of the spirit. My mind is in torment sometime and numb myself out with tv sleep drinks food pills ect. Where is Jesus ? Why can’t I have assurence? Just being real and the church is scared of me or I overwhelm people. Jesus offeres peace and rest and I don’t have that. I want my sins forgiven and be loved by God and have him as a my father. Dortine does matter saying the sinners prayer does not save me and I am lost and confused. I don’t want to go to hell. Please anyone have anything to say. I don’t have support

I am so angry with ocd. I hate that ocd even exists. I wouldn’t necessarily say I wanted to be a mom when I was younger. I grew up without my mom around. But now my sisters are both moms and I see them and I feel like I’m missing out. But having pocd and hocd has definitely made me feel like it’s completely out of the question. I even made sure my fiancé knew that I didn’t want children/ feel like I can’t have them for fear of hurting them or passing on mental health issues. I was abused growing up and one of my old therapists told me that “people who are abused can become abusers”. That is something that I am not willing to risk. And even though I feel set on that choice, my brain still tells me that I’m missing out. So I’m constantly questioning if I truly feel like I don’t want them or if ocd is convincing me I don’t. Ugh. It’s just so frustrating.