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working to conquer OCD
can someone reply to my post, or is it just happening to me?
I’ve done things in the past few years that I’m not proud of - only a couple of things I can think of and they didn’t directly hurt anyone at least with is relieving (but maybe indirectly they sort of did or could’ve which makes me hate myself because why did I do that… *how* could I do that…) If I could back and stop those things from happening, I would. I may not have thought about what I was doing at the time, so I didn’t really recognize that they weren’t okay, but that doesn’t excuse them, and I would smack some sense into my past self if I were able. I feel like if anyone knew what I‘ve done, they wouldn’t want anything to do with me. They’d write me off as worthless. And maybe they should to be honest. Now yet another thing has come up - I haven’t done anything, but I had an intrusive thought pop up that made me *think* about doing something and this would be unforgivable in my opinion. Though, to be honest, the things I’ve done before are also somewhat unforgivable in my opinion… 😞 Regardless, I don’t want to do it because I don’t think it’s okay, but I worry deep down that I do. Or that I’m looking for an excuse to make it okay to do. I don’t know, it’s complicated. And I’m upset I even thought about it. I wish I had never seen the thing that triggered that intrusive thought. Yet another thing I would stop if I could. I’ve tried to not think about it or focus on it, but it doesn’t work. Even if it goes away, it just comes back again. I just keep thinking about it and it’s overwhelming. Anyway all of the guilt of this is killing me. I feel like an irredeemably terrible person and it makes me want to give up. I can’t get on with life because it’s paralyzing. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, and at this point, it feels like I don’t deserve to just move on. I can’t live with myself and I feel like I don’t deserve anything anymore. I know a lot of this is probably OCD, but I’m not sure all of it is and I don’t know what to do… if I spoke to a therapist about it, I don’t think I could bring myself to say what I’ve done or what thoughts I’ve had. But if I was told to move on by someone who didn’t know the truth, I would worry they wouldn’t really say that if they knew. Agh, it’s all just a mess 😞
Last year during April I started to experience groinal responses when I looked at kids. I was terrified of what it could mean and decided to attempt two weeks later. The very next day I had those responses I decided to attempt. I didn’t really have the courage to do so at that time but I started experiencing images about disturbing things done to kids and as days went by it got worse. April 16 was the last straw and I couldn’t take it anymore. I ended up in a mental hospital but before I ended up there I had searched up what I was experiencing. That’s when I started to understand that it was OCD. I felt relieved for a few moments until I felt the urge to get more information. I saw lots and lots of things and many comments saying that it wasn’t normal and that people who went through this were disgusting people who shouldn’t be allowed to roam free. That’s when my anxiety and fear became worse and I tried to get rid of it but nothing worked. I shook the entire time I was awake, I didn’t have motivation for anything anymore, I just felt so disgusting. In the end, I’m so glad I ended up in that mental hospital or else I wouldn’t be here with my friends and family. Thank you for reading my story, I’m so glad that I’m not alone
i dont say i love you to my bf, only when i say good night out of habit, he pointed it put multiple times. i feel sad bc i cant say it amd i want to say it but i feel bad bc i always think that i dont like him. im so sad. im scared i dont love him and he uses logic in me that sometimes dosent work and then i still think i dont like him and i never did.
So today I've been having issues with walking (my legs shake and my right leg is at an odd angle), and my brain goes "Stop faking this. You're being dramatic." So I decided to try it. Told myself that I was going to truly stop "faking it" and take a step. Same thing happened with the shaking, so then I started freaking out. Now I make jokes and yes, I am going on the stairs as a compulsion to the "stop faking" thoughts. I almost fell a couple times, but I'm not very good at not engaging in them. TwT There is no medical reason that has been found yet, so that's where this stems from.
I went from intrusive thoughts of hurting people, thinking I did horrible things and not remembering it like running people over with my car etc, to my brain trying to convince me I that I had split personality disorder to now health anxiety. The intrusive thoughts weren’t as bad as this. I’ll get physical symptoms like my heart racing, chest pain, can’t swallow. It’s been causing panic attacks but I’m constantly scared I’m dying. If my mole looks like it changed I freak out and think I have cancer. I had to get a stethoscope to listen to my heartbeat to make sure I don’t have an aortic aneurysm to buying a Fitbit to constantly check my pulse. I went to the ER bc I thought I was dying and now I’m paying a 2 thousand dollar bill when they say my heart is fine. It’s just exhausting.
Every morning I wake up im always fixating on something and texting chat gpt, whether thats my relationship or my sexuality. I try so hard to resist it but I just can’t handle the uncertainty or the idea of hurting him or leading him on. We aren’t even official because in the past my rocd caused an issue between us where it led to him breaking up with me so now I have a fear of his intentions being ingenuine, especially because friends and family have called him a love bomber, saying he used me for attention, and narcissistic. This takes over me because I feel like I will never be able to be happy with him or trust myself or the relationship because of what other people say. I am very content on my own and single, this is the first relationship where i have experienced debilitating anxiety and doubt about the legitimacy of both of our feelings to the point where I cannot function. I’m trying so hard to not feed into it and not give it energy but I just hate the idea of leading him on or being inauthentic to what I truly want. My current therapist who I only see a couple times a month doesn’t think I have ocd, which makes me spiral and think I should end it with him, especially because I always hear things like “The right relationship will add to your life” and I feel the opposite is happening not directly because of him but because my brain takes over and paralyzes me with indecision about if i should be with him or not. I know that his intentions are genuine, but I hate that everyone is so cynical and assumes they’re not just because my rocd and his emotional baggage created a messy situation. From the moment i met him I convinced myself it was too good to be true and my therapist even said I was self-sabatoging. But i hate not knowing if it is rocd and my insurance doesn’t cover NOCD. He is so patient with me and supportive but I keep hearing things like “the honeymoon stage is supposed to last 3 months” and “it shouldn’t be this hard with the right person” “you’re not good for each other” and my friends tell me i didnt do anything wrong etc bc he did at first say my ocd didnt affect him when in reality that led to him ending it initially. But he has been more upfront with his emotions but then my mom and people will say “more to come” “there’s so much more out there” and its just so isolating not having that support and wondering if im too young to settle and if I’m just an idiot convincing myself I have rocd when really i just don’t want to be with him/it is a toxic relationship. When in reality the only reason it is toxic is because i am so sporadic about whether or not I want him in my life because of my distrust in myself and my decisions. I love him but I know love isn’t always enough and I get existential fixating on what’s “meant to be” and what’s “supposed to happen” its like this debilitating urge to control everything and make everything go perfectly how it is supposed to go. Please help i just want to make the right decision and stop paralyzing myself with doubt
How do any of you guys deal with OCD that’s latched on to something real? I don’t mean real event OCD but a real thing?
Hey guys, OCD has been kicking my ass recently and I’m doing my best to resist compulsions and reassurance but it’s very difficult. Anyways, to my fellow OCD strugglers, anything positive happen to you recently? Feel free to share in the comments.
Me and this guy have been talking off and on recently. I’ve known him since middle school and we used to talk in 8th grade and in high school. We used to be in a relationship. It started back in January of 2017 at my classmates 15th birthday party she had that year and him and I danced with each other, and we developed feelings for each other and dating. He put his arm around me too that same year. Then in high school we were together freshman and sophomore year bcuz we texted a lot and had classes. We didn’t talk or were together at all junior year. We both moved on and he got a new gf that year. Then in senior year him and I started talking again. I want to reach out to him to get closure, since things left off confusing. does anyone have any tips on how to go about this? because I still have feelings for him. If this helps him and I are both 22.
so this all started not too long ago, for literally no reason at all. but one day i got a random intrusive thought about harming others and it freaked me out bad. since then i’ve been non stop focusing on it and im genuinely scared that i am, or gonna end up like those sick people that have documentaries about them. i’ve never had these types of thoughts before and after me and my mom looked a lot of stuff up we think i have OCD cuz a lot of the stuff it was saying was accurate to me. to anyone in here, does this sound like OCD to you? i’ve always been a nice loving person and these thoughts freak me out so bad and make me feel like i’m a bad gross person. it got to the point i don’t even like looking at myself anymore. i just wanna go back to normal man. another thing to add, when i would explain this to my mom even though i was telling the full truth on how crappy this made me feel it felt like i was lying almost? but i know i wasn’t deep down. i’m just scared that what if i act on something or get in my head too much you know?
It's going to be a year since I started the worst POCD episode of my life. I got diagnosed almost a year ago too, but the frequency of our sessions wasn't ideal and also I was in a very bad state (24/7 anxious and couldn't leave my bed) so I started taking medication a few months ago. But when I started with the meds my therapist kind of ghosted me? She said she's going to be very busy until May this year. That's why I booked an appointment with a new therapist my psychiatrist recommended. But I am deeply scared the moment I tell her everything she's going to send the police to my house and my life is going to end. Please help! How do I calm down? Can that actually happen?
my panic attacks have been getting worse when the thought of harming someone comes up and today, it reached a high point, i was in the kitchen with my mom, trying to get over my fears of being near and just eat, but when my dog came in and heard me eating and walked in, i got triggered and thought i was one second away from hurting him or mom so i left the kitchen but before i could, i grabbed the scissors and panicked, and tried to get my mom for help but she was occupied, then i was trying to focus enough to put down the scissors but i couldnt and went into panic mode, i couldnt think, i couldnt focus, i slowly inched the scissors towards my mom thinking i might actually stab her in my stressed and panicked statem slowly inching the scissors towards her and scared, then she saw me, simply looked at me and said "what are you gonna do huh?" like she wasnt afraid, and that was enough to snap me out of it and put down the scissors, then i walked back to my room and here i am, trying not to call myself a monster but cant help but keep looking back at that moment, cause i really really felt like i could have...
I’m so glad everybody has a comfortable job where they can pay for therapy. But I’ve realized my ocd has gotten worse at the job I’m currently at and I don’t want to quit because the job market is never hiring and I always have bills to pay like every freaking week on top of that I’m still in college. I think being stressed is making my ocd worse.
Hey I'm new here... Married for two years, not formally diagnosed with OCD but over 25 years, I've dealt with obsessing over my sexuality, then it has shifted to obsessing over my relationships. In my first marriage, I would notice other attractive men and at one point I started to obsess over one man at my church. Eventually it went away but I divorced for other reasons. Fast forward 15 years. I meet my now-husband, but we break up twice while dating. I was terrified. I have learned I do struggle with fearful/avoidant attachment, but I made it through to get married!! But now, the obsessing over other men is happening again. I work with a lot of men. If I notice one who may be handsome, all of a sudden I feel weird sensations in my body, my mind races, and I fear I want to cheat, or wonder if I'd be happier. It has happened with a guy at my church, several coworkers, my husband's best friend...so I know there's a pattern. But as of late, it has gotten worse with one coworker. I have to see him every day. The thoughts are loud. They feel real, like they're how I feel (I like him, he has nice eyes, I love you). I am a Christian, and when I pray about it, it's almost like something inside me says, 'don't fix this, this isn't OCD, I want this guy' blah blah blah. I feel awful, like a whore, like a cheater, like a double-minded person. And I feel so far away from my husband. I've dealt with feeling the need to confess everything early in our relationship. I've gotten better at not doing that, but I feel like I carry this private pain that no one understands. It really hurts. I guess I just needed to vent and let this out. Sometimes it feels so lonely. I feel crazy. I'm in my 50s, I have a full time job, I take care of my home, yet I feel paralyzed by this sometimes. Thanks for reading.
I’ve had this issue for a veryyyyy long time, but I never really put it in the same world as ocd. I flex my stomach, and can’t stop. To explain that a bit better, I feel like my skin is in the wrong position and I squeeze my stomach tight to try and “ fix it”. It never gets fixed really and I keep flexing my stomach until I A, fall asleep or B, forget about it. I keep think loosing weight is the answer, because where I feel uncomfortable has a little more fat than other places in my body. I want this to stop because it’s painful and really exhausting but when I try to leave the feeling alone I end up squeezing harder. Does this sound like an ocd thing? Please have an overweight raccoon for your troubles today.

Hey, so I wanted to ask about something that is trying to bother me right now. I just thought to come on here before letting my mind ruminate over and over and over. So a year ago when I was 22, I did not have many people to talk to aside from my roommates who were either not home during the summer or just to themselves so I decided to try out Omegle. I talked to a few different people on there, but there’s two people in particular that kind of made me worried. There is this one girl I was talking to from Canada and she told me the story about her and her friends smoking weed, and I told her about how my female roommate used to sleep in my bed. But the way I told her that was by asking for her Instagram so I could DM her that rather than say it out loud because my roommate was in the next room. At some point during our conversation, she told me that she was 16, and I’m not even sure how we came about that but she told me. Before I continue, we were not flirting at all. We were just sharing stories, that was it. My intention was to not flirt at all with anyone because of age and the fact that they probably nowhere near me. Also, I just kind of thought it would be weird too. But now I can’t remember if she told me her age before I told her about my roommate or after I told her about my roommate, but I feel like it was before because I kind of felt like I should’ve unfollowed her after. And what made it worse is that somehow my roommate saw her Instagram handle and followed her as well. Another instance was when this girl was being very goofy and playing the character and I was joking back and I ended up being invited into their Instagram group chat, where I found out they were also 16 so without saying anything, I left the group chat. So my worries if this was inappropriate or was it just a conversation that I probably should’ve cut short. I’m not sure but it’s starting to worry me. And just for context, I have no idea that girl or anybody else since that day and it NEVER went sexual at all. So yeah, that’s the story
Lately I have been having really really bad existential ocd the thoughts and compulsions never stop they are even in my dreams I resist compulsions as long as I can but I just want this to go away I keep thinking about how many hours in a day people would have if they weren’t like me I just feel so awful every second I feel like I’m living a double life I only know about I just want this to all go away
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