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I can’t take it anymore I haven’t been able to sleep or eat I’ve been starving myself non stop like it hasn’t gotten this bad with ocd idk if it’s even ocd at this point I never i thought I would be in this situation this year this is a pretty new problem I’ve never ever had this problem before all my life when I self pleasure even before hand I never plan on acting on anything while doing my alone time I’m sorry this it TMi but all the sudden I get bad intrusive thoughts of my family and in the moment i think I may have felt like I got some pleasure form it idk it just felt like I was self pleasuring bc of these thoughts so immediately afterwards I panic and cry idk why I do bc I’m doing this to myself ppl say the fact I’m feeling scared shows I didn’t do anything bad but I THINK I ONLT FEEL THIS WAY BC I’m probably realizing I made a horrible decision I never plan this out ever and I never know when the thoughts will come and this fear comes once in awhile but not everytime I feel like I’m just the only one who feels this way I’ve had some ppl say they are able to stop in between but for me I stop until afterwards idk what’s wrong with me :( I’ve been feeling really bad to the point where I don’t want to be here when I try tell myself this might be ocd I feel like I’m in denial idk if I should just turn myself in I don’t want to have anything to do with self pleasure anymore I don’t trust myself:(

TW - mention of Panic attacks & C Since the last 30 days, I’ve developed anxiety like never before. It all started when one night i woke up with the heaviest chest ever (I had taken nefopam for grion discomfort) before sleeping and was heavily sleep deprived. I’ve always been an anxious person but never this way, i have never woken up with a heavy chest, never. That night I was convinced I had pulmonary embolism and made my father take me to the ER, where ofcourse I was brushed off. Since that day, i discovered a new side to my anxiety - panic attacks. I was never someone to avoid crowds or going out. Infact busy cities and places helped me avoid my issues and anxiety. Now i find myself monitoring my pulse like crazy. The funny thing is my panic/anxiety attacks dont even include a rapid heartbeat or racing heart. I just feel like my heart isnt beating properly and those sensations drive me insane. In the last month I have diagnosed myself with atleast 4 different types of C’s. Its been exhausting Since my body has never experienced physical anxiety like this before, i still somewhat think theres an underlying issue going on. I have done blood work and a lungs x ray. All is fine, i’m just mildly anemic and have cholesterol LDL of 154 (im 24 female) i also have irregular periods (gaps between 30-45 days) i did a pelvic ultrasound, everything was clear. Just my uterus lining was a bit high for the cycle day i was at. I live alone for uni and i cant function normally anymore. I’m hyper fixated on my pulse and heartbeat. I dont even know if its irregular or not, how can I tell? I have lost motivation to do anything and its affecting my masters degree. I have been taking Bromazepam which gives me relief but since its addictive I’m trying not to take more than 1.5mg. I dont want to take it everyday but sometimes my body forces me to. I have ordered L-theanine so im hopeful that helps me. Not to mention i have had on and off grion discomfort and sharp on and off pain in my left breast going towards my back. When that happens in public i freak out and then start fixating on my pulse. I’m genuinely tired, im scared of lymphoma or sarcoma. I dont know what to do. I cant get properly checked again until march when I go home for the break. My family thinks since my bloodwork and x ray was fine, im healthy but I cant convince myself. I dont know what to do anymore

If you suffer from Christian OCD and feel Jesus hates you and you’re going to hell every few seconds but I keep fighting it because when I pray it says Lucifer and I refuse to pray to him. If I do Jesus will send me to hell. I’m terrified. When does it end. Some Christian’s are so peaceful, I want that.. why.. I feel cursed forever. I have faith in others journey… not mine. I’m stuck like this forever. My mind will never be the same.

I feel really scared and worried that the therapist I find on NOCD might not be effective, and instead of getting better, I might end up feeling worse. I’m afraid that if I don’t feel any progress, I’ll want to switch therapists, but my mom might get impatient with me. I worry that she’ll lose faith in therapy, stop paying for it, and think it’s a waste of time and money. I know therapy takes time and it’s not a quick fix, but I’m scared that things won’t go the way I hope. What if I don’t connect with the therapist? What if they don’t understand my OCD as well as I need them to? I’ve already been struggling so much, and the thought of going through another disappointment is exhausting. I’m only 14, and I feel stuck because I can’t manage this on my own. I need help, but I also need my mom to stay patient and supportive through this process. I’m scared that if things don’t improve fast enough, she’ll give up on paying for therapy. I don’t know what to do, and it’s making me feel really anxious. I just want to get better, but what if nothing works out?

i feel so bad for posting here, idk what i wamt i have so many thoughts abt the feelings i have for my bf im scared my thughts are true or that they will be true and i feel bad for feeling amd thinking this way i such a bad girlfriend, i am scared that i like other people just because i look at them or talk to them normally and i feel like a liar what cam i do to stop feeling like this i am scared

Rather than posting about any concerns or questions i have i thought id just reach out to you guys and ask how you’re doing? Ill start… I feel lost, i got a diagnosis of GAD and OCD and i cant afford treatment at the moment, my psychiatrist is experimenting with my meds to see which one is more dominant but no one has offered any kind of help as to how i combat OCD so i guess im just trying to find ways to help myself…

Anyone else ever struggled with real event obsessions related to being a perpetrator of COCSA? A while back I had an obsessive episode about this, and it caused me to spiral so badly. It was so rough. it’s especially scary for me because I can’t confidently remember what I did or how old I was when it happened. The one thing I do know is that I was 5 years older than the other person, which just makes me all the more mortified and terrified, especially when I try to put it in perspective of how old I *might* have been at the time. (Hypothetically somewhere between 9-10) When I first had this thought pop into my head I spiralled so so hard. I spent so long replaying everything, trying to remember what actually happened, and every time I replayed the moment, it changed in my mind. I’m so scared that I’m a perpetrator of COCSA, but I can’t confidently say to what severity. I don’t think I could ever admit this openly to anyone, but part of me feels an overwhelming kind of guilt that could only ever go away if I confessed. It even makes me feel like I should be confessing to people like my boyfriend. I feel a sense of obligation to share this with him, I think partly due to the fact that I see us getting married in the future. But I don’t think I ever could tell him, and that makes me worry for the future of my relationship. I don’t want to build a relationship on secrets, and this secret feels so overwhelmingly heavy. At one time it even made me feel unworthy of love. But it would ruin our relationship if I told him. And even if I did decide to confess, I wouldn’t be able to confidently say what happened, because I don’t even know anymore. I’m stuck with an unsolvable problem it seems. The guilt is unbearable at times, and it comes and goes in waves. I’m scared that one day when I have kids the guilt will come back again in a huge way and I’ll be forced to confess. I don’t even know if this is “OCD” and I don’t want to label myself. I just know I’m experiencing some rough problems and I feel like no one can relate to my experience. At the worst of it, I felt so isolated and unlovable.

I’m a bi woman, dating a man and sex has been.. difficult lately. I zone out, I get intrusive thoughts. I’m not mentally there lately. I’m chalking it up to ocd and my birth control Or am I just realizing I’m actually gay and no longer want sex with him? And I’m seeing women who went through menopause realize they’re lesbians and I’m worried that I’m currently suppressing smthn. I know I’m bi, I’ve always enjoyed being intimate with my bf. Why is it stopping now I’m debating getting the birth control out (nexplanon arm implant) cuz it’s made the depression and anxiety worse. Which is making the ocd bad. And it’s making me panic. Should I try picturing having sex with a woman to see how it feels? Or kissing a woman? Idk anymore y’all

last night my rocd felt super real, i dont understand why it felt like that i felt like it was my truth and that im in denial, i was crying so hard, it was telling me i dont love my bf and that i never did. I hate it. Right now i have woke up and im still scared. my bf is amazing i hate this. Why does it feel like o dont like him

My major theme with ocd is contamination and that's mainly what I focus on with my psychiatrist but now I'm starting to wonder if the stuff I dealt with in the past that I dismissed where actually just ocd so someone pls tell me. - I used to have a thing with days having certain colours or 'vibes' and having to eat specific foods on certain days in 2021. An example is monday is red green warm colours and I can eat rice on Mondays but not Tuesdays. This wasn't a huge problem because I'm privileged enough to be able to choose what I eat so like I mostly just followed everything I thought because it felt write. I have a few things with food that are hard to explain. - everyday after school for months I would do a mental play by play of everything that happened that day and everything I said, every little bad joke or slightly loud laugh or almost rude comment I made and I would play it over and over in my head until I could make myself okay with it or parts of it and I would worry about it all night if I couldn't make it okay. This was every day and just mental stuff like I didn't do any actions except maybe sometimes I would text my friends and remind them and then ask them if what I said or how I acted was weird. But I wasn't doing anything like objectively bad I was just anxious. This was in 2023 (did not tell my psychiatrist this) -at the very beginning of 2024/christmas of 2023 I started having a problem with books and audio books which was very distressing because I've loved reading novels since I was 10 and it became like an actual thing that made me anxious. Like is started thinking I wasn't comprehending the words right or I would think I read something wrong even tho most times I didn't and it would usually be a small mix up.like if I thought it said blue instead of red and I would freak out and reread paragraphs over and over again and became super scared that i couldn't read which like fueled me being more anxious about it when.i tried to so I stopped reading books for months because it stopped being fun. Same with audio books like I would go back 15 seconds if I thought I misheard just one word and it didn't matter that 90% of the time I heard it right, that 10% is enough to make me feel like shit. (I mentioned the books stuff to my psychiatrist but not in much detail but she did agree that it is part of ocd) -more recently with social media and unimportant and feels silly but I have to do things in order like like the video then like the comments then save the video to favourites and if I did it wrong I will undo everything and do it again and sometimes I'm scared I didn't save the video right even when I stared at my finger do it so I go back and do it. I am pretty sure this is ovd but I never resist the compulsions because it's so easy and such a quick thing that solves the immediate anxiety I get about it also I will not be me mentioning this to the doc becuase I don't want her to think I'm silly. -minor minor possible harm ocd?? I sometimes get strong urges to hurt myself in like unrealistic ways that I can't imagine telling anyone like I used to self harm but this is like things that I can't do like smashing my head or stabbing myself and I know it's intrusive because I don't want that but it makes me super uncomfortable and like I need to do it. It only happens once in a while so not as frequent and only when I'm bored or overwhelmed.

Hey everyone, been doing ok this week but having a little bit of a rough moment rn. So I’m about a year and a half out of college and I still have yet to a real job job. I worked for eight months somewhere which was great but I decided it wasn’t permanent. Now I’ve been unemployed for about four months and OCD is really having a field day with it. Trying to deal with it and just keep applying everyday, but I always feel like my family and friends are looking down on me and/or just plain disappointed in me. Just wanted to kind of vent and get this out of my head before I go to bed. I hope everyone is having a great week!

Does anybody else get the indescribable urge to cut yourself, you don’t want to but you feel like you have too.

**TW for POCD** I’ve spoken about this a few times before. That urge I had to type in “child porn” into google. I talked to my NOCD therapist today about it. She told me the ERP for it was to type it in. She even did it with me. Obviously nothing but news stories, crime statistics, and photos someone would use for a project showed up. I’ve been so petrified of typing that in there. She wants me to do it every two hours and listen to what OCD will say. I typed it in that way, I typed it out full, and I typed it out with an additional word. I clicked and browsed through all the google tabs. I’m okay, but I can’t stop crying. I’m scared to do it again. She said it’s not likely going to get flagged due to people looking that up for research projects and stuff. I’m just afraid repeatedly searching it up will cause some sort of alert. I feel so scared and full of nerves. I guess that’s what the ERP is supposed to do, but it was so scary. So scary :(

Hello! I am really looking for some advice. I have been struggling with OCD for a few years now and it drastically affects my daily life. I am going to give a quick run through of my OCD, and then the current situation I am in now. So for almost 2 years now my most prominent themes of OCD have been getting sick with the stomach bug (emetaphobia) and watching someone die/ having to see large amount of blood or do CPR on someone (I just graduated nursing school). Last year I stopped eating out, wouldn’t touch any of my food with my hands, would wash my hands until they bleed every day, bleached everything I touched when I was in public etc… I would have these major panic attacks all the time and the thought of getting sick hasn’t left my head 24/7 for 2 years. I was unable to complete my nursing school clinicals due to panic attacks each time I was at the hospital afraid someone would die and get these terrible images in my head. I didn’t sleep ever, barely graduated. I did ERP after school and was able to make up the clinical days I missed. Got to a point where I was eating again, felt like I was able to get my hands clean just by washing them. I have been doing exposures every day, and have accepted that getting sick will probably happen at one point and I am okay with it as long as I am at home when it happens. So locking myself in my apartment for 48hr every time after I could have been exposed to the stomach bug is major progress for me and I have been overall doing much better. Fast forward to now: It’s time for me to start my new job on a med/surg floor in a hospital. This week I have made it through a few days of orientation with panic attacks day and night but I am doing it even though I am petrified. I don’t feel ready for this big of a step, being exposed to both of my biggest fears constantly. Today at orientation the girl sitting next to me told me she had been vomiting all day, and continued to run out of the room a vomit the rest of the day. I now am 90% sure I am going to get sick and feel as if I would rather die than continue this amount of stress and anxiety I have felt from just a few days of being on the job. This is my BIGGEST fear and it’s coming true and I don’t know if it’s worth putting myself through this every day at work to just be having constant panic attacks and be miserable. I know with OCD you have to face your fears but I have been pushing myself and trying so hard and I don’t feel like it’s worth it to work this job. I would also feel incredibly guilty for quitting on the first week, but there are a million other nursing jobs that are not in a hospital. I think this is too big of a step for me right now but I wanted to see what others think. Any advice at all is so appreciated!

Someone on here posted about being triggered by a post on pocd where someone else confessed to something really creepy and that they were a p and that they didn’t want to be like the poster because they really were a p and were just looking to not feel guilty. And they blocked the person too. And I’m so scared they meant me and that means I really am horrible and just looking to assuage my guilt. I’m so scared.

I can't stop thinking about ending my life. I feel like I'm not even living, I'm just surviving. Everyone is capable of being a person and functioning and I'm just stuck here avoiding everything. My psychiatrist said my ocd is severe and it will all take time and I'll start erp and I'm already on medication but I just feel so depressed and like I won't be able to handle erp and it's already too late for me. I feel inhuman, it's debilitating. My major theme is just fear or contamination, I can't even make myself a meal I can't touch anything in the kitchen. I get stuck in the shower for 2 hours and when I don't shower because I'm depressed I feel like a walking germ. My hands are a mess, my school work is shit, I avoid and avoid and I'm just so tired of "living" like this. My psychiatrist said they don't have any therapists available right now like.... excuse me? What do you mean u don't have any 😭 I honestly don't even know why I'm typing this becuase nothing helps, nothing ever will. I'm so deep into this I can't get out, my room looks like shit, I can't live in this body anymore, I really can't. I let everyone down, I am and will be such a dissapointment. I don't have any dreams or goals or passions I just wasn't made to be here. I don't know how or who to ask for help like there's nothing anyone can do, I'm already on meds. I can't keep being like this, seeing everyone judge me for acting insane.

I’m kinda growing weak in my faith and trust in god that he will heal me or he’s with me anyone have anything they can tell me that will help me have a little hope?

First, I want to apologize for any language errors—English is my second language as I’m originally from West Africa. After reading extensively online and watching many YouTube videos, I’ve come to realize that I may have been struggling with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) for over ten years. It has been an on-and-off battle, but the symptoms have always returned. I experience extremely unrealistic and intrusive thoughts that seem to trigger my body into releasing stress hormones, leading to overwhelming fear. This creates a cycle that feels unbreakable—like being trapped in a deep, dark hole. My mind is consumed by these thoughts 24/7, making it hard to focus, concentrate, or think about anything positive or meaningful. This has been my reality since my undergraduate studies. I’ve spent years trying to figure out what caused it or what event may have triggered this spiral, but I can’t pinpoint anything specific. I’ve even tried writing down my educational background and history, hoping to gain some clarity, but it hasn’t helped. When I was pursuing my bachelor’s degree in my home country, I often felt like I wouldn’t graduate. However, I was persistent and worked extremely hard. In the end, I not only graduated but also scored the second highest in my batch, earning a silver medal with a GPA of 3.96/4. Despite the challenges OCD threw at me, I didn’t give up. I applied for a master’s program and was awarded a fully funded scholarship to study in Germany. Even then, the intrusive thoughts were relentless—scary and unrealistic. They made me question everything, even dragging me back to painful and frightening memories from my past. Still, I persevered and completed my master’s degree with a strong GPA. I went on to apply for Ph.D. programs and received multiple offers. Today, I’m pursuing my Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at a prestigious school in the U.S. My first semester went well academically, but mentally, I feel like I’m losing myself. It feels like I’m no longer the person I used to be. I feel lost. People around me—my family, friends, and colleagues—have high expectations of me, but inside, I’m struggling. OCD and constant rumination have left me mentally and emotionally exhausted, causing what I believe is burnout. It’s as if I’m trapped in a cycle that has detached me from reality and from my true self. It’s the worst feeling I’ve ever experienced. Today, I took a step toward addressing this by visiting my university’s health center to seek professional help and discuss possible medications. I am holding onto hope that I can recover, live a good life, and rediscover my ambitions. I wonder when it will be my turn to feel genuinely happy and free. If anyone else is experiencing something similar, please know you are not alone. I’d be grateful to connect and support each other through this journey. Thank you for reading. Love ya all.

Yesterday my ex and I had let eachother go for the second time. I’m currently at work right now. My stomach hurts so bad and I just feel this intense amount of guilt. I’m going to try and explain this best as I can so bare with me… 2 weeks ago I was driving home from work and this might not be an “ocd” thing… maybe it’s just a me thing that I have to work on, but anyways on the way home we usually talk and catch up. While I was in the middle of talking and telling her about what happend at work, her sister ended up calling her in the middle of our conversation. So she put me on hold. I have explained to her it kinda bothers me when I have to stop mid convo when someone calls or talks to her. I don’t know why, but I get annoyed and I hate that I get that way. I gotta work on that. It’s also not her fault that she got a call. She can’t plan when people call her or not. I know this sounds so childish and silly, but because I got mad, I had a messed up thought and could feel myself mouthing it. I chose to think negatively in that moment. So after having me on hold, I was so mad at myself that I thought so negatively and immediately felt this guilt. I felt like I couldn’t carry on the conversation after what just happened (me almost saying the instrusive thought.) She asked me “Sorry what were u saying?” I replied with..” uhhh nevermind.” The. She said, “no go on.” I tried to hold myself together and said “can I call u back?” Then she said “what did I do?” I said “nothing.” And then she said …”what’s wrong?” And I just snapped. I don’t know if any of you guys snap and your significant other when u have these “ocd thoughts.” But I made her my punching bag in that moment. I was trying to hang up calmly but she kept asking and the more I felt guilty. We didn’t talk for a couple hours and I became closed off and dry, but apologized. I just needed to get myself together cuz in my head I’m thinking “there’s no coming back from what u almost said.” Ugh but basically she had said that she needed a couple days of space , but couple days turned into almost 2 weeks. As the days went by, I started overthinking and I had a gut feeling it was different this time. I ended up being right. I think she has told me she was initially gonna take a few days, but after talking to her therapist, she said that we don’t have to talk right away and to take time to herself. Lol I was Lowkey annoyed cuz I was like “ohhhh so this was yo therapists idea huh?” We ended up laughing about that. But sum that stuck is that my ex said was…” after this I’m done.” If I’m honest, I’m still kinda thinking about that. I think there’s been a lot that happened during this relationship and I feel like I made her my punching bag and would lash out and would distance myself when I had those messed up thoughts. I tried my best to protect her. But during these couple months I’ve been in therapy, we have been friends. That’s why I said “ex” because it’s complicated, but also because my ocd would flare up and make me second guess and I thought it would be easier to be friends so I wouldn’t second guess anything. I actually liked it because there was no pressure and we got along for a few months. She also had said something about “maybe for right now we just need to figure things out.” Kinda making it seem like we will talk in the future. So I called her out and said, “you just said we were done tho.” I don’t know, apart of me wants to think we’ll talk again. We just need to focus on ourselves and I’ll miss her, but I know for right now, no relationship. I need to get better. I feel like “ocd” ruined my relationship with her and drained her. I’ll admit I am a lot to handle and she really tried her best to make me feel better. I just feel so bad. It’s like everytime I would start to feel sum… another thought would pop up. This is so exhausting. I feel like I don’t deserve her. What do u guys think about this situation and has anyone had similar experience ?

If you had to pick one piece of advice from your therapist, or otherwise, that made the most dramatic impact on your recovery, what would it be? For me, maybe not "the most" but something my therapist said that radically changed my mindset for the better was that OCD is not an expert on anything. It doesn't know something, literally anything, that I don't. It doesn't have a medical degee, a law degree or any other degree. It's not a theologian, an astronomer or even a psychic. OCD is a small-minded stranger who knows nothing about anything and, maybe because of that, they have something to prove. They come up to you (knowing nothing about you) and they start acting like they know more about everything, including you and the kind of person you are. Being able to remind myself that OCD is a random, unknowing (for lack of a better word) idiot and being able to reframe its intrusions through this lens and this voice has significantly helped me in being able to talk back to OCD and even to prevent compulsions before they start. Looking forward to hearing what piece of advice has helped you all the most!