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He won't use condoms due to ED, so I started taking birth control for him. He also refused to give oral until i let him inside me which was weird to me. Anyways, I went to his home at the weekend and it was very messy, tiny room, unclean. It annoyed me that he felt comfortable inviting me, knowing how tidy and spotless my house is, and it took me a few hours to get there on public transport. (I understand that rent is pricey and he travels a lot, but a toilet seat missing). He drives 5 hours to see me on some weekends but my place is always to a standard. Next thing, he always wants to be on top of me but it hurts me and he won't keep trying different positions, and says things like "I give up" then walks off to a different room and won't speak because I won't do it how he wants. I didn't wanna be in his house not speaking so I stayed with family last night. Am I out of order for leaving? first we had the protection issue, now the position issue plus his attitude. Makes me feel like im in the wrong for not letting him have what he wants after 5 months of talking and meeting. I thought once I started taking BC this would solve our problem but now it just feels like pressure, and he also says "you know what I'm doing" like I have some sort of game plan, when I would literally be happy kissing and touching because I love him. I can't figure out why he's so desperate for it, wouldn't he want to make me feel comfortable? This was the first time with him in his city, and he didn't wanna go out anywhere, not even to dinner. I don't ask for much

My head feels weird all the time, it feels like I have a tight headband around it squeezing , like heaviness and a really weird feeling, literally feels something is wrong inside, I also feel spaced out and this feeling of going literally crazy at certain moments of the day and the anxiety spikes. The thoughts are always there 24/7 even in the back of my mind, nothign I do makes these feelings and thoughts go away which is extremely scary. I can’t go on like this, wish I woke up tomorrow and OCD didn’t exist anymore. Do you guys also feel like this? 😫

Does anyone else relate to the above being the go-to mantra when OCD wants to manipulate you? It's a hard one to shake for me personally, if you have any tips for overcoming this particular thought, it'd be much appreciated! The current example: There is a sticky fly trap that hangs from the ceiling above our drying rack. I removed a strainer to strain my pasta and worried it hit the fly trap (even though I have no reason to believe it actually did). At first the voice was saying "better safe than sorry" and I was able to "overcome" it to drain my pasta but now that I have a bowl of pasta sitting in front of me, I can't get myself to eat it. Update: I asked my mom for reassurance and she gave it to me so, now that I'm eating the pasta, I'm worried, what if she was wrong. This is a pretty common version of a spiral for me when it comes to contamination and consumption, it's just very hard to shake the "better safe than sorry" mantra. No reassurance please, just tiprs to get over the "better safe than sorry thought." Thanks in advance for your insight and support!

Has anyone on here been on Lexapro before ? I just recently started it and I just wanted to see if anyone went through similar symptoms and if they went away at all. It started out as me feeling extremely tired all day long and now recently I feel numb like I have no feeling or reaction to anything like I used to before starting this medication. Has anyone gone through this? Does it go away after a while? Do you end up feeling normal and able to cope with the OCD better? Any feedback would be really helpful. Thank you

So I’m scared I lost feelings for my girlfriend of almost 9 months and I feel like it’s my mind overthinking and anxiety. I talked to her about it and I started crying to her because I don’t wanna break up with her. I care about her being a good person and all and just making sure she’s okay but I don’t wanna lose feelings and I would do anything to get them back. I had the biggest crush on her and seeing her with other guys before we dated even broke my heart for weeks. I wanna live a life with her but it hurts because I think I lost feelings.

I just ended my 2 year relationship with an amazing guy because my intrusive thoughts wouldn’t stop. I started Prozac 9 days ago and the first few days, I felt great and all the original love I had for my partner came flushing back. The next few days I started becoming anxious and today I had to leave work because I could not stop ruminating. When I initially broke up with him I felt a split second of relief, but now I am having the same feelings that I was having before and I don’t know what to do.

My life ended in july when this started. Im waiting for it to come back. Ive been unemployed and cant keep a job because its so debilitating. I used to be happy, But i dont think ill ever be okay again. Its like i died and im just here observing life happen.

About a little over a year now I have had this constant feeling that “I’m going to die” or “need to die”. It started in the summer of 2023, then when fall came around it went away for a while. This past summer it began again and has continued since. I remember searching online “Why do I feel like I’m going to die?” That’s when I read about suicidal ideation. I wasn’t sure if it was that or if it was possibly another OCD flare up. These thoughts are just constantly lingering in the back of my head. Whether I’m at work or out doing something fun I get this really upsetting feeling that I’m going to die. I become panicky and cry a lot when I feel this come on. I’ve also been so terrified at the thought of death and what happens when you’re gone. It’s difficult to tell whether I’m depressed or if it’s suicide OCD. My brain always tells me “What if I actually want to die?” or “What if it’s not OCD and I’m actually just insane?” It is so debilitating living with this. I also have another thought saying “What if this is the only way to make things stop?” I get extremely worried about doing something bad to myself everyday. I can’t even tell what’s real or not anymore. Does anyone have any similar experiences or advice?

My ex therapist said I was probably a lesbian if I had these thoughts, she never diagnosed me with ocd even if I was so obsessed with being sick that I used to go every day to the hospital for years. I was so obsessed with not loving my ex boyfriend, my mom, my Friends that I used to cry every day and Watch their pictures all the time to see if I loved Them. I Changed therapist and She immediately diagnosed me with ocd. But i'm scared to go to therapy now, because of my ex therapist. What If the second One is wrong and First was right? What If they can see things about myself I can't see yet. I'm terrified. I don't want to talk about myself anymore to anyone.

For context, I have severe health OCD and contamination OCD. I also am possibly on the autism spectrum. Sometimes I truly wonder if it actually is this debilitating or if something else is underlying. I can’t go out in public anymore, my physical symptoms are so severe that I can’t do anything but lay in bed, they are so severe that I wonder if it’s a chronic illness instead, I can’t do my online school work, I can’t hang out with friends, I don’t enjoy things I normally would anymore, I’m starting to lose hope, every day I’m unbalanced, floaty feeling, pressure on my chest, weird tightness where my heart is, PVC beats, headaches, my heart races when I get up, I feel weak, I’m so tired not physically but mentally, I don’t have motivation to keep up with my hygiene, I can’t even walk down the road without panicking, I can hardly even sit in a car to go to the doctors, my appetite is completely lost and I’ve started losing weight, I’ve started to even get depressed because I realize how sad my life is, I worry over every single symptom and every sensation I feel. Everything feels so real and so intense. It ruined my birthday, I didn’t even enjoy it or do anything. I’m so exhausted. I’m not even exaggerating, I eat, drink water, sleep, and lay in bed all day. I don’t do anything. I’m only 17 and it already feels like my life is about half over. Each day that goes by feels so hopeless and meaningless that they have started to merge. I really started to go downhill whenever the election happened. Then my therapist didn’t have any openings for 3 more weeks so I haven’t left the house, my life 360 says I’ve been in my home since “November 14th” my symptoms got really bad (which i definitely was sick with something looking back), and now I just feel the same symptoms I listened above every day. I stopped taking hydroxyzine cause I found out that it can cause heart issues and haven’t felt safe to take it since. I was prescribed Zoloft for the second time, it worked the first time but now my mind is too scared to take it again for fear it may make me worse. So I can’t take medication. I genuinely don’t know what to do anymore, my life is so depressing. I’ve just started to go completely downhill. I’m 2022 this is the month that I went to a mental hospital for the first time, I’m about to make it a second cause i genuinely don’t know what to do anymore. Is OCD really this debilitating? It feels like I genuinely have to have something else, there’s no way that something mental can really cause this much devastation in someone’s life. Right? I don’t even know anymore. I’m trying to stay positive but I just want to break down and cry. I feel so lost and hopeless, am I really this broken mentally that it’s ruining my entire life? I would appreciate any support and motivation to keep going because I genuinely feel emotionless.

I feel so alone am I the only one who suffered with intrusive thoughts images and fear of becoming terrorist. This is by far one of the most difficult themes I’ve had to face to date because of the severity and feeling of immediacy. I’m constantly in state of anxiety. I avoid spaces with lots of people, toilets, I won’t go near places that are associated with subject such as hospitals, train stations, airports, college and other public spaces. I can’t deal with the thoughts and I’ve got a holiday coming up where I will have to be on plane for 13 hours I don’t know how I’m going to cope. I just want it to stop I was on the verge of crying in the car while driving back from hospital trying to understand why this theme even came to existence it so painful thinking these thoughts that you going to cause mass harm to innocent people. It makes me just want stay-inside and never leave the house. The thought that is making it worse it what if I have psychotic break convince myself I’ve actually done something, the plane get grounded I’m chucked into custody in a country I don’t know. I thinking I’m catasphrophising but can’t stop living this fear inside my head. I just don’t want to go but that would meaning losing £2,000. How can I prepare for this 😭😭

In a nutshell I was struggling w another theme and then a thought of “what if this gets so bad you hurt yourself?” Came up and got stuck. The other theme completely went away I will admit I’ve compulsed and dug into this so hard that now it feels real. It feels like I want to do this but am just holding myself back. I have no history of self harm or suicidal behaviour. Nothing was even going on in my life to make me want to do this. It feels like I did a 180 in a moment. It’s blurred the lines of what’s real and what’s not where even when I’m typing this out that I’m struggling it feels like I’m lying and just going through the motions. I even have thoughts that I’m delaying the inevitable and that even if I go somewhere for help it’ll just happen after. It feels like I don’t want to get better. This never used to be me and I honestly used to be terrified of death. I’ve done some ERP. I can hold knives, belts, pills and stand on bridges and of course nothing happens. Just can’t shake this feeling that I want to and it feels real. It’s such a catch 22

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.