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My therapist told me today that if I get intrusive thoughts of other people: friends/randoms/children/pets, to put them in the corner of the room. I can try that but I feel like I’ll still be focusing a lot on the intrusive thoughts during such a vulnerable time. It makes me feel like if I focus on intrusive thoughts, and I reach a point where I am feeling good physically, I’m scared I’ll associate those thoughts with feeling good or feel like I “got off” to them. ***TW*** Apart from that I have creative intrusive thoughts like imagining my bf isn’t a grown man which repulses me to even type. Or that he’s a family member. Those drives me absolutely insane. Those I don’t know how to handle. How would you handle this? How do y’all handle this?

Hi! I am young and undiagnosed, I'm gonna get an appointment set up to start that process. Right now though, I feel like this came almost out of nowhere. I've been diagnosed with GAD and emetophobia for many years, and I realized a couple years ago I had some symptoms similar to OCD and even briefly considered that I may have had POCD just before highschool. However, because of what I suspect to be scrupulosity OCD, I was so deeply afraid I was faking and didn't say anything else. But a few days ago it really hit me that OCD actually aligns with my experience like.. a bit too much? And since then I've been driven absolutely mad. I spend an hour or more a day anxiously researching and the intrusive thoughts have gotten so much worse because I just can't get out of my head. I feel like I have to constantly research to make 100% sure my symptoms actually line up because if I'm faking that would make me a bad person. It's a constant stream of thoughts telling me I'm a bad person. I freak out and just repeat "no, no, no" or "stop, stop, stop" or try and think of something else. This is very ramble-ish and vent-ish, I know. I'm just so afraid. Did anyone else's OCD come out of seemingly nowhere? Or maybe this is just my first bad flare-up and I spent so long thinking my behavior was normal I never thought about it till now?? I'm not sure. Talking to a doctor ASAP because I can't take being undiagnosed, it gives the anxiety too much ammo to call me a bad person with.

My therapist asked that I reach out to the community for feedback. I have checking compulsions and one is for checking a car that has to be monitored for oil use. This car does need to be checked weekly to know whether oil should be added or not. We’ve been working to frame this as a maintenance item instead of a daily compulsion but have hit a stall in progress. One suggestion was to have my wife check every week or someone else (brother in law). I don’t know if it is something she would be comfortable with and it could be a lot to ask of someone else outside the house. I feel bad about this situation bc I am in a tough spot and new compulsions will come up in the future and I can’t keep pushing off the triggers to someone else as the solution. I’m looking forward to the communities suggestions.

how are groinal responses supposed to feel. every time i get an intrusive thought or image or even see something in real life that could trigger me i do get groinal responses. the problem is is that sometimes i feel it directly in my groin or sometimes its like in my lower stomach like my stomach drops in a way? does this mean that im actually attracted to these things? i never would be attracted to these things just the thought of it is debilitating and stresses me out so much. i’ve struggled with groinal responses for nearly 6 months now and its very debilitating and i just want it to stop. i want to get help but i dont know how to get help im only 18 and im a student and these things really affect my life on a day to day basis. is there a way out of this? am i a bad person? please help

i don’t really have a theme going in my head right now. i’m not having intrusive thoughts, but im so anxious and my mind is going through all of my themes i ever had and every moment of anxiety for me and trying to get me to stick to one because im not on a theme right now and i guess my OCD is convinced i need to be. i have this off feeling and it’s causing me so much stress. i can’t rest with this at all.

I’m really struggling right now. My mind is racing and I’m panicking about the content that I watched in the past because I don’t have a way to ‘prove’ that it was safe and consensual. I stupidly caved in and googled “what happens if an accidentally saw illegal porn” and I ended up making my anxiety so much worse. What if the images I saw in the past had underage people in them? Am I going to jail? Will my ip address be tracked? My brain is making all sorts of scenarios up and they feel so real. At this point I don’t know if I’m a bad person or not, I just feel like something terrible is about to happen. Although I know I’d never intentionally look for that kind of stuff there’s still a chance that I could have seen things without realising, and I actually don’t know what to do. I’m in total panic mode

I’ve dealt with SOOCD for a while, but does anyone else who is straight, have their obsessions go from being gay to being bisexual or bi-curious? How do you deal with this?

Hi, Sorry for the short title and reduction on words, it’s just you can only use 50 characters, Now what confuses me is I have been diagnosed with HOCD and told I am not gay or bisexual, but then people keep responding saying it doesn’t mean you are not gay and slightly confused as my therapist said it does, Now what’s confused me is a girl called Ellen Warren was diagnosed by NOCD with sOCd and realised she was actually a lesbian. I am freaking out. https://iocdf.org/blog/2021/06/21/bisexuality-sexual-orientation-ocd-double-invalidation/ https://www.treatmyocd.com/blog/bisexuality-so-ocd-the-invisible-so-ocd https://www.treatmyocd.com/my-ocd-journey/is-it-really-poison

Recently, my brother moved back in after losing his job. I now share my bathroom, which used to be mine and mine alone, with him and his constant company. All I ask is that he close the toilet lid before he flushes, and leave it down when it’s not in use. Just in case it’s difficult to remember— I have a decal on the inside of the toilet that says to put the lid down. I also have various signs in every single direction in the bathroom that ask to put the lid down. I do not feel like it is a difficult or crazy request. But whenever I calmly ask him and his many, many guests (he is always inviting his friends and girlfriend over— and they also refuse to follow this rule) to please be mindful of this, they just laugh at me or outright ignore me. My whole family thinks my OCD is just a joke. Even though I have been professionally diagnosed and dealing with the symptoms since I was in elementary school, I didn’t find out I had this diagnosis until my 20s. My whole life, they constantly tell me I’m dramatic and use OCD as an insult for me. They think OCD is not real and that it’s just my excuse to be a burden to other people. I learned not to ever talk about my symptoms so that they won’t humiliate me. Every time I enter the bathroom and see the lid open, I get severe anxiety and intrusive thoughts about contamination that keep me from sleeping sometimes all night because I'm just thinking about how everything is contaminated. Every single surface and even my skin. And then I start getting intrusive thoughts and compulsions about cutting my skin off or worse because the air in the bathroom contaminated me and even if I take a shower it won't be clean because the shower is also contaminated by the same air. Just now, he used the bathroom with the door open and flushed with the lid open. My bedroom door, which is right next to the bathroom, was open. Now I can’t stop thinking about how the air is contaminated and I need to cut my lungs out to be clean. I’m not going to do it. But I can’t stop thinking about it. I’m so sick of living like this. I understand I can’t control others. I don’t ask others to make accommodations for me ever. For example, at work in the work bathroom. I just quietly suffer with my thoughts. But. This is my home. This bathroom used to be mine only. And yet even at home, I am powerless and nobody respects me or follows my one rule. I can’t take it anymore. Why can’t they just listen? Why do they do this to me?

Every time I go to bed late and I’m falling asleep, I suddenly get an intrusive thought of a child’s face and my groinal area always responds to it. It’s such an uncomfortable experience. I am way too tired to try and freak out so I end up falling asleep. The next morning I’m always trying to figure out whether I had the groinal response first or after the thought. I start giving OCD power but it feels like If I let it go, then I’m in denial or whatever. I don’t want to ever do anything sexual with a child. I don’t even feel comfortable talking platonically with people who are 17, much less a child. My therapist says that I have a deep rooted fear that I’m this horrible person and that OCD loves to feed off of it. When you get a groinal response, it makes the thought that much more real. I never want these things to happen. I want to only be into adults. It’s so discomforting and stressful. Especially since I’m hyper checking how anxious I am, and if I find I didn’t really have much anxiety, then I’m like “well if I didn’t have anxiety, what does this mean?” And more questions occur til I end up in a rabbit hole

I keep overthinking of me being a bad gf for having guy friends is because everytime i made a guy friend or met a random guy i would get random thoughts about them but i wouldn’t think about them romantically and then i would start to have intrusive thoughts about them that what if i liked them or what if I’m think about them bc i have a crush on them or i want to be with them but then i would get disgusted of thinking about liking them or being with them it wouldn’t make me happy all i would want is my boyfriend so i knew it wasn’t a crush or i knew i didn’t like them like that at all and so then i would always remind myself why i dont like them and that i love my boyfriend but i also did like talking to them but not like that like its cool that they talk to me but then i would stop being there friend bc they would just disgust me and i felt like a bad gf and bc i kept getting intrusive thoughts but then latly ever since august i started to get scared again what if all this happen bc i liked them but i knew i didn’t still deep down in my heart i know i didn’t like them like but re searching stuff on google or tiktok just made me even more scared saying that if u think about somebody it means u like them or if u think somebody is cool that means u have a crush on them like i dont get it how dose that mean i like them idk but it just all made me scared. And i tell my boyfriend my boyfriend seems to be understanding and that its nothing to worry about and then i feel fine for a little bit and start to worry again.

So a long time ago, I made a wish at 11:11 that unexpectedly came true. Since then I have been terrified of that time of day and it’s power to grant wishes. This morning and tonight I accidentally made a really bad wish. It’s not something I want to happen. The words just strang together cause I was freaking out. I don’t know what to do. I’ve had 11:11 wishes not come true in the past, but… I’m scared. Help?

Does anyone else’s ocd cause physical things? Like I pee a lot and idk if it’s a health thing or a physical thing. I can’t sleep if I have to use the bathroom and I go to the bathroom sooo many times before bed. Also I have to pop my knuckles if I can feel my bones if that makes sense. Like I can feel each area in my fingers that needs to be popped until I pop them.

Anyone struggle with this with having ocd?

as the title says. i am trying, i really am but i cant help but think that i have been gay this whole time. it feels like i can never be happy again unless i come out. i cant do it anymore. everyday is hard. there are not easy days. i just want to love my partner and i cant. i look at him and i get this wave of anxiety and guilt. why can i just be me again? i miss the days there this was just a past thing. i feel alone and i feel stuck like this forever. my heart hurts all the time. i am trying to sit with uncertainty but i cant because it feels certain and that i know i am gay but i dont want to be. its really really sad. i hate my life and i need it to end. bye.

i’ve been thru rocd thru out my whole high school year with the girl i’m still with to this day. i’ve been back and forth with her for the longest and even broken up with her and got back and it would repeat all senior year. i got over the rocd and slowly just accepted that it’s my thoughts and i stayed with her and still with her to this day. we’ve been together for 2 years and soon will be hitting 3 years and i times i still have rocd and yes it sucks but at times i know i just gotta keep pushing. what hurt more in my relationship with my girlfriend is hocd.. it just hit recently in october 2024 near my birthday and i was completely devastated. i’ve never been with a man, never kissed a man or even did anything 18+ with a man but recently my mind has been making me think things i don’t want or even make me feel like i’ve completely become gay. recently it’s been pretty low but at times i still think and it’ll give me this gay vibe or even make me feel weird about everything or even like things gay. i hate it man, i hate it all and i just want it to stop. at points my mind doesn’t even budge anymore when something i should be saying no to or even weirded out to it just my mind accepts it. i clearly don’t wanna be gay but it’s bad like at times i think i look gay, act gay or even might be gay for the rest of my life. its making me be bad in my relationship because i can’t even find myself and it’s hard. i don’t wanna lose my girlfriend and be lonely for the rest of my life cause at times i can’t even find her or any females attractive. what am i gonna do.. all the females i used to find attractive in the past all gone, i haven’t been trying to find them attractive to be unloyal to my girlfriend it’s just to make sure i like women still. i’ve just lost myself and i think im gonna just ruin my life with this mind and i even feel like a gay brother or a gay son to my family. its hard to hang with my own father cause i always feel so feminine or anything along those lines cause of my curls or just in general. i hate this life and it’s getting really bad to where i don’t think ill ever be helped at all. if yall have any answers or anything please give me some..

I went to bed one night in November, and I can't quite say what happened, but I believed that I had a "memory" from childhood. I won't discuss what, but I had "remembered" doing something sickeningly awful. This thing came to me almost as clear as a real memory. I remember thinking something along the lines of 'How could I forget doing something like that?' followed by a feeling of complete horror and terror. I have moments of "clarity" where I can't believe that I'm questioning doing this thing, and it appears obvious that it's false. But now, I'm more than often believing that I did. I am spending 24/7 fighting my head, and it's taking me to dark places. I know this is the worst thing to do, but you don't understand, if this is real then I am a monster and I can't just adopt the 'maybe I did, maybe I didn't approach'. I just can't. I have to know. I'm so scared. My entire life is on the line. I don't have anyone to talk to about this. Literally no one. I feel like I'm insane, like I'm a monster, like I'm hiding my true identity from everyone I love. Does this sound like False Memory? Or am I in denial, trying to convince myself this didn't happen? Why does it feel so real? And why do I have moments of clarity? I also had my first nightmare about it last night. Please someone help me.

So I don't feel attraction to kids at all. But I do get like intrusive thoughts about people r@p!ng me like family, teacher, etc. I know this is a result of me being assaulted as a child continuously, but I wasn't sure.

I’ll cut a long story short… SOCD/ HOCD was one of the first themes I got when I was a teenager. The first one was health but I didn’t know that was OCD at the time. Anyway, I have had SOCD for 11 years. Sometimes it leaves me alone and it feels like I’m my own self again! Don’t get me wrong it lingers but I manage. But… IT IS BACK!!! My head is telling me that I am a lesbian and that I need to just admit it. I hate it. I have a boyfriend who I love unconditionally and this has just sprung out of a dream I had -.- I don’t want to be a lesbian! The groinal responses have always been the worst. It started when I was around 16, I woke up one morning and my brain just said ‘you’re a lesbian’, as you can imagine I freaked out, panic attack and cried. Then, my brain starts looking into my childhood… well it’s had a field day. When I was around 9 my friend showed me girls kissing on YouTube and then I suppose I got addicted to it. I then used to play on Habbo and walk up to girls and say ‘kisses’ etc. my brain is now saying that this is evidence that I’m gay. I DONT WANT TO BE A LESBIAN!!! I have no issues with gay people, I just don’t want to be gay myself. Sometimes, when the thoughts come in I don’t seem to get anxious but I get groinals and that freaks me out! I just want peace. I hate this. I get so many different themes. Now it’s this one and I just want to crawl under my duvet, sleep until they’re gone but then I end up dreaming about it!!!

I gave up on it. Not point in wasting my time thinking at all. It’s all fake. Life has been good actually, just a little stressed here and there. Recovery is hard though, harder than those thoughts and stuff. I’m on day 10 or 11 of my life not so impacted by OCD. This year I’ll rule the year, not OCD. I’m doing good. I have a good feeling About this new method. Good luck you guys. It’ll get better!! Nothing last forever! (Here’s my chicken shaped dog) I feel so hopeful and happy. I hope you guys have that feeling too!!