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i feel like something bad is going to happen any time i make a change.. or do something different. like my hair or my makeup. or i’m getting a new phone soon and i was excited but now that im thinking about it im scared something is going to happen bc im changing my phone.

I was diagnosed with OCD in late last October despite having it since I was around 4 years old. I have a long history of not eating in order to ”keep control” and realized that I had been eating badly last year. My usual ocd topics in my life have been harm ocd, magical thinking ocd and especially existential ocd. Right after my ocd diagnosis and starting setraline I developed a really big health concern ocd about my heart. I’m constantly aware of my heartbeat and worried that there is something wrong with my heart due to mild malnutrition even though seversl medical care professionals have told me several times that my heart is completely fine and I dont have to worry about it. I started eating better recently on purpose and then ended up quitting caffeine and I feel so calm (I’m used to having anxiety 24/7) and now that is freaking me out because I feel so calm and I’m afraid of my heart and I keep focusing on it 247 even though I’ve made immense progress since starting my ocd recovery journey. I just cant seem to let it go, it feels strange for my heart to feel calm. I feel good and calm and then I start freaking out about it thinking that something bad is going to happen or that my heart will stop working…. I know writing these thoughts out loud help and it’s incredibly hard for me to do so because I’m afraid of ”manifesting” it by speaking it out loud. My heart is adjusting to not having caffeine and eating more and I know that that’s what it is but I can let it go. Does anyone have any tips on how to push through this? This is my first post on here, I really want to recover because ocd has controlled me since I was 4 years old and I’m ready to live happily and to work towards that. Luckily my loved ones are very good with me about it but I want to write here since they’re not fully capable of understanding the nuances of ocd. Thank you for reading my message I’m new here so I’m not fully sure what to do 😅

This is something I've struggled with since around two years ago, when my symptoms started diminishing. I've had symptoms of OCD for my whole life. I only recognized this when I was 18 - but at that point, my symptoms started decreasing. This was distressing because labeling things was one of my compulsions, and I needed labels to fit right. So I'd write out or say that I had OCD over and over again (in addition to compulsively googling symptoms and all that), but it would never feel "right," which would make me think that I didn't actually have OCD. It also felt like my OCD symptoms were a part of me, so it was distressing to feel like I was losing a part of myself. I finally got help when I was 20, at which point my symptoms had decreased substantially. Again, this prevented me from being able to feel secure in the OCD label. I was hoping that a professional diagnosis would help me feel like I legitimately had it, but it didn't. But it's hard for me to differentiate if this is because I couldn't satisfy my compulsions around labels fitting just right or because I didn't feel like I resonated enough with the label. I'm now at a point where my symptoms are subclinical. I've never been able to fully convince myself that I have OCD, despite the severe, extremely distressing symptoms I had for over a decade. Like objectively, I had it. I was a textbook case. It took so much away from me. Severely impacted my academics, personal life, ability to do basic tasks like reading and writing and putting things away and cleaning myself, etc. But because I only sought treatment when things were getting better, it's just hard to feel secure in that. Like, my therapist here has never seen me at my worst. Do they even believe I have/had it? I've been wanting to write an essay or something about my past experiences just to show the world what I was going through when things were bad, because as it stands, all I have are the memories (deleting/throwing away/erasing stuff was also one of my compulsions, so most of the evidence is gone at this point). I feel like I need to share specific examples to prove it to others. My mom always told me I was a perfectionist. If I could just show her a fraction of what I was really going through, maybe she could begin to understand how things really were. Another thing I think about - they say that OCD is supposed to be a chronic thing. So did I ever really have it if I feel like I don't have it anymore? I always make such long posts...

I struggle so bad with intrusive thoughts. They can be so bad that I'll cry because I KNOW that's not how I feel or want to do. (Too embarrassed to say what they're about) I'll constantly try to figure out why I have them, and constantly figure out what they mean, causing me to constantly circle around and around. I had to get on anxeity meds, which helped a little but the thoughts still happen. How do you help yourself with this? How do you know that you're just not some physcopath? 😅

Last night I was staying at my boyfriend’s house and couldn’t sleep. I felt like i desperately needed to go back to my parents and clean and organize my room. This has happened a few times before when I was staying at his place. Since then he’s been very upset with me. Does anyone else’s partner do this? Any advice? It’s been hard. He’s made me feel so shameful for having OCD. As if it’s not tough enough /:

This is awful. I felt like I was doing so much better. Then today, I pretty much started an argument with him under the guise of a wanting to have a conversation about something bothering me. I just wanted to self sabotage and I knew it. I could literally feel the tell-tale anxiety and what-ifs running through my head. I could feel the guilt and the insanely strong desire to just do SOMETHING that would confirm or deny these thoughts. I knew I just need to sit with it, give it a “maybe, maybe not”, but I had a moment of weakness. Anyways. Mid argument I found myself wanting to just end it. Like let’s just be done with this. I’m exhausted. I can tell he’s beyond lost for what to do to help and he’s the sweetest man on the whole planet. He doesn’t deserve this at all. He’s also not a pushover. He’s patient and loving and so understanding, but I don’t think he’ll tolerate much more of this and I don’t blame him. I know OCD makes us feel like we’re juuuuust about to do things we would never do in a million years, but this one really freaked me out. I swear “I don’t love you anymore” was on the tip of my tongue and it felt so real in the moment. It would have completely crushed him. And now that I’m on the other side and out of the heat of the moment, I feel so incredibly guilty. It’s so unbelievably untrue and there would have been no coming back from that. I would have completely ruined our beautiful marriage for literally no reason. Trying to cope with the guilt. Trying to remember my tools from my therapist but just struggling. It’s so scary to feel like you had your mind taken over and it was so close to destroying the thing you care most about. My husband is the man I respect and adore more than anyone I’ve ever met before. He’s the man that showed me how deep my love can go and has made me such a better person. If I don’t love him, I’ve never really loved anything. So WHY would I feel so tempted to say something so horrible? I’m just really, really having a hard time today. I guess the lesson here is to not give into your compulsions. Do I feel less anxious? Yes. Do I feel more sure that I love him? Yes. But do I actually feel any better at all? No. And I dragged him down with me. :(

**TW for anyone who’s like me a picks up new fears** I’ve been struggling with intrusive thoughts about inappropriately touching people I care about. These thoughts are distressing, and I never act on them, but sometimes I feel this overwhelming tension or urge. To manage it, I end up doing things like lightly smacking someone’s knee or arm, or poking them in a safe spot like their ribs. It feels like it helps release the tension or stop the thoughts. It scares me because I feel like it might mean I’m dangerous, even though I know I would never actually hurt anyone. I’m assuming it’s some sort of compulsion. Does anyone else experience something like this? Any advice or insight would be so helpful—I’m just trying to understand this better.

Literally have been so confident in myself and my sexuality through recovery. Right now I literally feel like I changed from straight and in love with my boyfriend to either bisexual / lesbian with a “desire” to do sexual things with women in the last 2 hours. It feels like I’m attracted to every single woman on my tik tok and instagram. Whyyyyyyyy 😭😭😭

Could someone please tell me how I should deal with conflicts in the family because of my OCD? I have contamination OCD. I have requested and begged my family members to do lots of compulsions for me which they do. We will be shifting our house soon, and I'll have to face a lot of triggers. I know that my family won't be able to comply with my requests at that time. So I tend to cry alone, because I'm unable to deal with the anxiety. ( I don't fight with them for not doing the compulsions. I just go and cry alone.) Lots of fights have happened because of my requests and because of my crying. Please advise.

The guilt that I feel won’t stop and maybe it shouldn’t but when I was 14 and just started highschool (I’m 15 now) I went into highschool with a messed up mindset idk if it was from the pandemic or not but I made friends and afterwards I messaged those friends and made sexual jokes/advances crossed boundaries and made them feel uncomfortable to the point now they don’t ever want to talk to me again and I don’t blame them.I even did the same to a 17 yr old who tood me I s@d him even though I never met him irl but I felt so sick I apologized multiple times but he told me that he was manipulating me the whole time to keep doing THISE bad things so I felt bad later but idk if he was being honest.and I asked my parents to get me therapy like 3 times and they agreed but the first session I told them that I was exposed to explicit content at a young age by my older brother and so was my younger brother and how I cocs@d my little brother when I was 9 and my therapist told my mom and she never brought me to therapy again and told me that I would go to jail. And my little brother told me he never remembered our older brother showing us that stuff or me cocs@d him which is weird because I remember both THISE things and I’m scared that he was so traumatized by THISE things he forgot about it.And I feel so helpless and sick of myself and can’t stop thinking what if I s@d my little brother when I was older that would mean im an even worse person a disgusting criminal and to make it work I have nightmares about me doing horrible things and I wake up feeling horrible and it sometimes makes my memory even worse and I don’t even know what to do anymore the guilt is LITTERALLY so crushing and idk what to do anymore it feels like I shouldn’t be able to continue my life.i just feel like I’m gonna go to jail sooner or later and I can’t even do anything anymore because I feel so much fear I don’t know what to do

Anyone else develop it in their 30s? I’m 33 and just started showing symptoms in October 2024. So far have only been diagnosed with GAD , PD and depression.I started having intrusive thoughts after a series of panic attacks . My compulsions would be googling. I have made an effort to stop though because it only makes me feel worse. My intrusive thoughts have been around fear of going crazy

fear of my closed ones, like mother and father being secretely bad people or have done bad immoral things i cannot tolerate. now a doubt was brought up, what if my mother had intercourse with a much younger person in the past? i dont think she's that type of person, she isn't at all, but we all make mistakes when we're immature. and why does it suddenly feel real and true? i can't shake off the feeling that it could be true. now the seed doubt has been planted. how do i stop being doubtful? i feel like i need to clear it. i can't just maybe yes maybe not out of it. because a doubt like that becomes forever. and i dont want to have that doubt. i dont want to start doubting my mother, but the doubt is already set in stone. there is no evidence nor indicator of behaviour that she might have done something like that. what do i do? like there is this girl who i thought was an ok fun person, 2003, had an intercourse with my friend who's 2007. and she's a normal person, and she can become a mother in the future. a mother who has done something like that.

Hello there everybody. I am just posting to ramble about my feelings, and to get some advice from people that might understand. This is going to be talking about a mixture of things between the subcategories mentioned above, including stories about intimacy.. Please do not read forward if that makes you uncomfortable. To make an extremely long story shorter, I am very particular with how I like my dorm room to look. I also have come up with a routine that helps me with the basic things- brushing my teeth, getting my clothes out for the next day, scheduled deep clean and laundry days, etc. even with a jam packed schedule of 3 jobs and 5 classes, this routine always worked for me, even if I had to switch around a laundry day. Usually, I deep clean my room twice a week, and do laundry once or twice a week. This has worked for 3 years already, and this is my 4th year in school. During the 2nd week of school, me and a girl from school started to date. She is the TOTAL opposite of me- she is a really big hoarder (and she gets mad at me when I tell her how it is.) and she is extremely used to living in what she calls “organized chaos.” She pretty much uhaled the situation - she pretty much moved into my dorm. (Mind you, she has SO much stuff in her room, and it’s extremely messy. So she brought things over to my room to “store”.) this naturally made me really.. uncomfortable. Because I got so used to my routine and having my belongings where they were. It really caused me to spiral this semester and I keep trying to bring it up and have a conversation about it, and it feels like she completely disregards my feelings. It’s starting to really mess with me and I’m unsure what to do. As messed up as this sounds, she also has very narsasistic and codependent tendsncies.. it’s usually her way or the highway. I am the opposite. I am independent, but deeply care about those around me and their thoughts and feelings. I feel like I ask her for one thing, and that’s to respect my space, and it feels like it’s shrugged off over a shoulder. Now for a different story. This woman is the person I lost my.. “V card” to, if you will, and we’ve explored lots of situations in bed. During our intimate times, with my permission cause we wanted to experiment, she began to treat me like a “sissy.” (Basically, if you’re not aware, a boy that acts feminine, dresses feminine, etc.) and this sort of started causing my dysphoria to spiral.. but in other instances I really like it? She also would make jokes about how “we’re a lesbian couple.” And those made me spiral as well.. I just want some advice and tips on what to do. I feel.. very stuck right now. Idk what to do. any tips or conversation is greatly appreciated. Thank you for taking time out of your schedule to read this and allow me to express my feelings.

Okay so I’m gonna rant for a second about ocd hanging around in my personal life. This may be mostly about my personal drama but these situations contain all the ingredients for ocd to thrive. I have romantic feelings for my friend that started a couple months ago while she was in a relationship. We have very strong chemistry and I have this warm pleasant feeling inside my chest whenever we hangout. I’ve had crushes before, but it’s never felt like this. Normally ocd chatters and undermines my feelings but every time it tries to touch my confidence in what I feel for her, it just bounces off like raindrops on a windshield. I’m probably delusional, but I feel like we both are aware of this connection. Then, about a month ago, she broke up with her boyfriend. It would be very unhelpful to her for me disclose how I’ve been feeling right now. Also very scummy I feel. Here’s where ocd enters the picture mainly. My hands are tied. I want to be a good friend and respect her grieving the end of her relationship (lord knows I have been there too). I also know what I feel and how smitten I am with her. I’m trying to hold these two things together but ocd tells me stories about how I am awful for having these feelings and that I need to do something to make them go away. Alternatively I feel like I get stuck in these prolonged day dreams where it’s telling me that she’s absolutely perfect and that I’m messing up my one true chance at finding love. That I’ll end up alone forever because I didn’t do enough. It baits and traps me in these no win scenarios. I’m exhausted. I’m not looking for answers with what to do. I know that I need to sit with the uncertainty and let the thoughts come and go. It stings because I do really care for this person and it’s leveraging that against me. Life is complicated and humans are messy. I am human, I am messy. I know I’m allowed to feel what I feel. This kind of pain is common to anyone not just folks with ocd. However It certainly is not making it easier. It feels like the physical sensation you get when you mess up in the operation game, if that makes sense. I have no idea what’s to come romantically. Regardless, I need to focus on presence and patience. Whether or not things work out with her is irrelevant. Things will end how they are supposed to. I just don’t want ocd to be the reason I pursue or don’t pursue anything. This is my life that I get to live. I will not be bossed around and tortured by this if I can help it 🕺

Hey. So I think I’m recovering from a false memory-real event ocd. I wasn’t able to function these last couple of days (eating, working, etc..) and now I’m feeling bit better because I was done with the anxiety of uncertainty even tho I know somehow there’s pretty much fair evidence that back me up. But ocd doesn’t work that way, it will just keep trying to convince you and make you doubt so I’m done engaging with it. But I find myself feeling guilty of not giving it my attention. I had a thought that sounds disturbing about how I’m back to -kinda- being normal again. Does this happen often when people try to break through the endless cycle of guilt? Whenever I feel okay, or just chill and not anxious, I start to panic because why am I fine or chill when this may or may not have happened. “YOU NEED TO FIGURE IT OUT” it keeps going, or else I am a bad person. Sounds related?

Starting a job soon working to end child sexual abuse. I love this job, and I am so excited. Right now though, I feel so so so so bad about myself and things I have done. I keep ruminating over past sexual encounters I have had, parties where I have blacked out in college and etc. I am worried someone will come out and say I assaulted them and I forgot. But now I am worried I misremembered and maybe I just assaulted this friend. Another is my friend my child hood who I was completely toxic with. Like very codependent, and she was 2-3 years younger than me. We had some very sexual conversations and I look back and feel so disgusted by myself. Lastly, I have a friend who I no longer speak with for different reasons. That friend and I were at a party and I touched her thigh, she moved my hand off. I put it back and she moved it off again and I stopped. Are these horrible? Am I horrible? I have been healing and in therapy and learning more. Honestly because of the internet and some online grooming from when I was a child I thought this was all normal. It wasn’t until after I graduated that I learned it wasn’t. I feel so so so so horrible. And I feel as though my life will fall apart. What if these situations are worse than I remember? What if something happened that I don’t remember? I just do not know what to do. I cannot even think really. It’s hard. I got this new amazing job working to end csa, but what if I’m not a victim, what if I’m a perpetrator? I don’t know what to do.

So, if I'm retelling a story or relaying information to someone, after I'm done speaking, my brain will send me thoughts like, "What if you lied? You might have told the story wrong! You're lying!" I've started second-guessing myself, even when I know I'm not lying or telling the story wrong😭 This has also bled into twisting my intentions behind certain actions... For example, the other day, I'd been babysitting my younger brothers. I'd gone to use the restroom and thought, "What if the door isn't locked or closed all the way?" Because this has happened once in the past. Turns out, it didn't lock correctly, and one of my little brothers almost walked in on me, but luckily, I shut the door in time, and we laughed it off. But then, I kept getting thoughts like, "You knew that would happen, and you didn't double-check! You wanted that to happen and for him to walk in!" :( I know this isn't true, but it's so annoying! Has anyone dealt with this? If you have, do you have any advice on how to deal with these thoughts?

whats up guys what are some tips dealing with ocd and what to do when a thought makes u anxious ??

I’m having a big OCD relapse and would like to hear anyone’s tips on how to be present and healthily deal with these intrusive thoughts and the “need” to preform compulsions. Thank you!!

It all started in 2017 when I saw that it was gay, it was gay, and I was simply filled with fear and had such intrusive thoughts that I said I was going to be gay or that I was the one. I have always loved women and I have been in love with women. There is absolutely nothing and there was no gay thing about me. I have always loved women. I even desired them. I looked at them. I masturbated.Like a normal heterosexual, then it passed, I got my life back, then after 1 year it came back, I fought with it for a while, but it was never as strong as it is now, then it disappeared, then false memories appeared Ben too, but I also lost it, while I lived my normal hetero life, who I am and what I want, this is really me, I don't play around with myself, then she became my girlfriend, I was with her for 3 years, she was the love of my life Now he is the one I planned my whole life, my future, everything with. At that time, I very rarely had 1 or 2 intrusive thoughts, but they almost never affected me. As soon as they came, this intrusive thought went away. Thought then after he broke up with me I fell into a severe depression I shut myself off from the world and so I randomly saw something gay on TikTok and got an intrusive thought again I said this is me, but I didn't know at the time that I had OCD or that such a disease even existed, so it's been affecting me quite badly for 1 month now. I have 0 24 intrusive thoughts.I have false feelings and they are so strong that even though I know I'm not gay and I don't want this, my subconscious automatically believed this because I kept looking for it and looking for it. And I argued with myself.