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Does anyone else's OCD get worse when you haven't slept well? I haven't been sleeping well since this weekend and my OCD and anxiety is just making me feel super down. Does anyone else have this problem?

Hi! I've been on my OCD healing journey for about half a year and I have seen a lot of success. I'm reaching out for advice, I am very willing to do exposures because I know the more I do them, the more I get better, but I struggle with the response prevention part. I don't know how to control my brain when it comes to facing the fears especially since most of my compulsions are mental. I can tell myself the typical things "I am okay with the uncertainty of this happening", etc. but its like my brain doesn't believe them. I've been stuck in this disconnect for a while and would love advice you have heard from a therapist or learned that has really help you.

I have grown up in a Christian community and kind of always been around people who believe Christianity or even catholic. In the past few years I’ve really dove deep into my faith and honestly felt good about myself sometimes but overall terrified and like I’m a horrible person if I do one thing wrong or make a wrong sin. I’m also not sure if I completely believe in all the traditional Christian practices anymore. But I’ve been in a relationship with my boyfriend for almost 5 months and everything is going great. We communicate and he’s so loving and respectful and I honestly don’t have any major issues In the relationship. I used to have a big fear of men starting when I was like 7 aboit my grandpa or my dad trying to rape me (even though they are good men and showed no real signs of it). But it ruined my relationship with them both for awhile til it eventually went away. I always told myself it was because the “spirit” of ocd was rebuked by Jesus but I honestly don’t know. Now I’m dealing with a more extosential or religious ocd where I’m terrified I’m a horrible person for being in a relationship and almost feel worse about myself if I get closer to God. I also feel like if I get too close to God then I have to choose between Him and my bf and I can’t have both. It’s driving me in San and I feel like if I tell anyone any of this they’ll tell me to just break up with my bf even though there isn’t anything wrong in our relationship. Idk what to do and it’s so draining

Hello! I'm new here and have a nice, big grab bag of OCD sub-types, but the one I struggle with most is health anxiety. I would love to hear from folks who have had success with ERP and this subtype! Maybe without many triggering details 😉

In ERP, but have made no progress. I’m also on medication for ocd. I actually feel like I’ve resorted back to when I was at my worst. Is this normal? I feel ERP helps everyone and not me. It actually makes me more anxious and want to stop, esp because my ocd is on something physical (imperfections/hair color) I’m not giving up & going to continue through this journey regardless. I long for mental stability 😭

I'm thinking of trying some ERP on my own while I wait for treatment, but I'm having some trouble knowing what is a compulsion and what would be good exposure. For example, I have huge fears of being a narcissist and/or a generally bad person. So whenever I watch a movie or read something that has an evil character in it I automatically compare myself to that character and stress over if I'm like that person. A couple of things I do when this happens is Google other people's experiences, seek reassurance, rumination, etc. Sometimes I'll also google different symptoms of narcissism, freak out over things that I relate to, then get relief over things I don't. So my confusion is, would researching people who have narcissism be an exposure, or a compulsion since it's something I sometimes do during a spiral? Or, would the exposure be watching movies/living life hearing these stories, and refraining from the spiral of rumination and no Googling at all?

Just kinda need to vent.

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...