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working to conquer OCD
Hello all, I delayed a compulsion today for 5 hours, but my anxiety never went down. It kept getting worse and worse until I finally did it. Is this unusual? Is this normal? How long of a delay is typical for it to go down naturally?
I think when people are saying OCD is egodystonic is really triggering me and I was just wondering if this has happened to anyone else? I’m going through a really bad relapse and right now I’m trying to figure out if my thoughts are truly egodystonic, like I how do I know I won’t act on them, how can I trust my emotions and everything. I feel really confused and I feel like I don’t know who I am anymore or how I carry on with life because it’s so long and I’m so unsure of everything that’s going on in my head. Like how do I know that this is OCD and true desires/urges. I’m so confused.
Sorry guys for not being on 😅 I was in the hospital because I couldn't walk. I've been diagnosed with FND (Functional Neurological Disorder). I'm sorry for any worries I have caused and not being on to help. Please have a wondrous day.
I would love to have some insight in this in general I deal with thoughts but for me it is the feelings that make ocd this difficult The feeling of disgust for my partner, the feeling of wanting the content of the thoughts , the feeling that this is the real me , the feeling that i am lying to myself and my partner, the loss of attraction,... Because when i write it like that ,that that these are feelings, it seems very much that i am just in drnial and i am bi but i cant love men anymore, or that i am not attracted to my bf and so on
I often feel like i did something wrong even tho i am positive i didn’t, my boyfriend and i have been together for like 6 months and i’ve been completely loyal to him the whole time but recently i’ve been feeling the need to confess that i cheated on him even tho i didn’t and there’s absolutely no proof that i did something even close, i don’t talk to other men and if i do my boyfriend has full access to my phone and it’s usually a friend or me asking a simple question but i still feel the need to confess even tho i’ve done nothing wrong🥲 someone please help it’s so confusingggg
I often feel like i did something wrong even tho i am positive i didn’t, my boyfriend and i have been together for like 6 months and i’ve been completely loyal to him the whole time but recently i’ve been feeling the need to confess that i cheated on him even tho i didn’t and there’s absolutely no proof that i did something even close, i don’t talk to other men and if i do my boyfriend has full access to my phone and it’s usually a friend or me asking a simple question but i still feel the need to confess even tho i’ve done nothing wrong🥲 someone please help it’s so confusing
does anyone else get really triggered when watching stuff to do with serial killers, p3dos, r@pists etc. I literally start to compare myself and check to see if i share any qualities with them. Ita really scary cause i really like this show Criminal minds, and i absolutely adore the characters, but its hard watching something i like cause of all the g0re and stuff. Not to mention all the thoughts that are convincing me i like the horrible stuff. Someone tell me if tou relate..
This isn’t OCD related so I’m sorry, but I don’t know another platform like this where I can talk to other people and actually get responses. OCD has been a huge fucking setback for me in life. I had to drop classes, wasn’t able to do things, and just felt so shitty all the time because of it. I feel like I blame OCD for everything I’m not. I constantly feel like I’m not good enough. Just today I saw someone I once knew and felt all of those feelings I used to have that made me miserable. Anyways, I tried taking my driver’s test a couple days ago but I wasn’t able to. The DMV only accepted cash. I felt upset but it was whatever. I’m almost 19, and I don’t have a driver’s license. So passing it would mean a lot to me. I compare myself to others my age; they have cars, hobbies, friends, go to college, etc… I don’t have any of that. Maybe comparing myself and all of that is my fault. My family says it’s my fault I’m sad because I just wallow in it. Hearing them say that makes me frustrated and hurt, but maybe they’re right. My mom texted a couple of my siblings in a group chat I wasn’t a part of, “He wants to wallow and be depressed. And woe is me, wah wah wah.” That made me really angry because my siblings were agreeing with her. Maybe they are right. Maybe I am selfish and think the world revolves around me. My sister tells me I need to advocate for myself more, I just don’t want to be a burden. I’ve only been a burden my whole life. My OCD created this whole issue in my family and I hate that. I don’t know what to do anymore. I just want an answer. Am I really a loser? Do I really wallow in it? Am I not trying like my family says? I just want to talk to someone.
Without trying to seek reassurance, I’m wondering if anyone has insight on identifying an intrusive thought vs reality. Something that’s always really helped ground me in moments of false memory ocd is clearly remembering the exact moment the thought arose and how it started as “what if I cheated and don’t remember.” Then the images come and are extremely distressing, but I’ve always found some comfort in coming back to that moment of “this started as what if.” It feels like my brain is almost getting more creative with the thoughts now, and I’ve been having probably the worst anxiety of my life the past couple months after another intrusive thought entered my mind. I woke up after a night drinking and thought to myself “did you kiss your friend and don’t remember?” (Didn’t happen, undeniably proved). The rest of the day I stayed anxious about other things I could have done and poured over all my memories of the night. Then the next day I finally had found some peace based on all the evidence from my friends who were with me that nothing bad happened. I then thought “what about when you went to the bathroom,” which I hadn’t really been thinking about before, and then my mind immediately started flashing with images of me performing sex acts in the bathroom with some person who has no name, face, details, or anything I remember about interacting with them. I think I’m just concerned that this was a moment of genuine memory recall since I hadn’t been thinking about the bathroom before, and it was more of a sudden flash of images and “did you do that” vs “what if you did that.” I’m wondering how others are able to identify that something is an intrusive thought vs reality.
My blood has never boiled this much than before. I genuinely wanna throw hands at someone and just scream. My parents always ignore my feelings and shit and always make me the bad one. I can let my shit out around these motherfuckers. My college plans and basically what I dreamed of is fucking destroyed. Nobody fucking understands the shit I have to deal with. It’s always on me. All the damn time. I fucking hate everyone. And whenever I try to fix myself for the better, surprise surprise, EVERYTHING ALWAYS FUCKS UP Everytime i try to vent, they never respond or never understand or it always turns back on me. My heart is beating so fucking fast. I can never enjoy anything with this shit.
Hi everyone, I’m reaching out for support. Right now I feel like OCD is “winning” in my life and I feel suffocated and alone. This is my story and I would love any support, guidance, or advice. Long post, but I appreciate anyone that reads it. I’m a 28 year old Muslim middle eastern woman. My family immigrated to Canada when I was a kid. I’ve never been very religious but I consider myself a believer. I also believe that religion is extremely personal and that my relationship with God is mine only. My faith hasn’t always been strong, it goes up and down. My family, although not super religious, has always valued tradition and my parents have always wanted me to marry someone Muslim and Arab. They are very adamant about that and very against mixing with other cultures and faiths. My father passed sway in my early twenties, and I’ve always struggled with doing things that he wouldn’t approve of and having him be disappointed or ashamed of me. I was very close to my dad - his death was really traumatic and I miss him everyday. I am in a relationship with a kind, caring man who loves me and takes care of me. We were friends first and I tried to not let things progress past friendship because I knew my family would never approve. But eventually we both confessed feelings and that led us to a relationship. He makes me happy and has healed many things in me that were wounded from past relationships. He’s Punjabi Sikh, so our cultures and faiths are different. He is not religious at all. When we first started talking about dating, he said to me that if he had to do an Islamic marriage to be with me that he would do it. If that’s what it took to be with me, he’d do it. That for me was the push I needed to go for it, and let myself get into a relationship with my friend and now lover. He even says that he’s open to our kids learning Islam. He just wants our kids to also learn about where he comes from, of course. I knew that my family wouldn’t approve, but having the Islamic marriage would be extremely important to maybe eventually have them accept my decision. My boyfriend has always been aware of my OCD and is always willing to do whatever it takes to support me. As we’ve navigated dating and being in a relationship we’ve had some challenges with my ROCD, and we’re actively working on it with exposure therapy. We’ve also had general relationship obstacles that we’re learning to work through, like communication and having different love languages. I tend to be anxiously attached and I get panic attacks when I think I’m losing people close to me. So even just the idea of a break up makes me feel sick. In all honesty, being in a relationship has been really hard on my mental health. My therapist says it’s like being in constant exposure- which can be exhausting (I always have the thought “being single is so much easier because there’s way less triggers” but I don’t want to believe that or let it dictate my life). My big struggles right now are guilt from hiding my relationship from my family, and dealing with constant ROCD intrusive thoughts like: “is he the one? You want someone from your own culture, your mom is right, this is never going to work and you’re going to be unhappy and divorced. You don’t want to mix cultures, you’re going to hate it, stop pretending to be open to it… your aunts and uncles are going to disapprove and cut you off, you’re going to be judged by everyone, your kids are going to be so confused about their identity, travelling back home is going to be so weird and not the same, so you should break up with him”. Often, this causes me to “test” the relationship or look for problems and create arguments. It’s a toxic cycle, and I’m so ashamed of it. I also often struggle with thoughts like “you’re lying to yourself, you want someone from your culture, you’re a bad person for leading him on, you’re a liar”…. “You did this to yourself by dating outside your culture”. Ultimately, I feel torn. How am I meant to know if I actually want to be in this relationship or if I want to do what my family approves of (and what would be easier)? How do I manage the thoughts that tell me opposing things? I have frequent panic attacks and when things are bad, they happen daily and are very debilitating. This is where I’m at right now, and this is the part that terrifies me. I don’t want to be stuck like this. I don’t want to lose my boyfriend. That thought terrifies me and I don’t think I can handle that. He means so much to me. I also don’t want to be suffocated by thoughts - if I have them every day first thing in the morning, does that mean I need to listen to them? I’m struggling so much and I feel so hopeless. I wouldn’t wish these feelings on anybody, ever. I want to feel at ease, more than anything.
A little over a year ago I ended a 10-year relationship. I found out that he had been lying the whole time and was an alcoholic and avid drug user. Since then, I unexpectedly met and started dating a great guy, but my relationship OCD and trust issues are going to ruin it. He’s given me no reason not to trust him and has reassured me plenty of times that I didn’t deserve what I went through and that it had nothing to do with me. So why do I continue to make snide remarks about his “other girlfriends” and what not… He’s also divorced and has his own problems to work through, so I feel bad adding more to his plate. I know that I’m imagining the worst case scenarios in my head to try and “prepare” myself for things that could happen, but I’m going to lose him because I can’t get out of my head. I’m so afraid of missing something like I did with my ex that I pick everything apart. Every story detail, every inconsistency, heck I even convinced myself he was cheating because he deep cleaned his house on his day off… Advice on starting a new relationship without carrying over the trauma of your old one?
Hello, so I’m currently spiralling so so so bad and I want someone to help me and tell me what to do rn. I have dyslexia so there might be some misspelling 3 months ago I read a manga that triggered my POCD to start The manga was cute, I enjoyed it tbh, but it had pedophilic themes (idk why I continued on to read it?!) and in the end it got quite sexual. I was sick while reading it so sadly I don't have much memories. Anyways afterwards I read some comments about how this was smth only pedos like. And since then, intense POCD. Stopped eating, isolated nyself, tried to commit multiple of times and called 991 on myself too. I kept on going about and thinking if I wanted smth sexual to happen, I know I thought there would be a time jump. And thought that something sexual might have happened then. But I can't stop doubting myself or thinking "what if I liked it when it started to get sexual" and the memories of such feel so real that I can't ignore them. I've never ever enjoyed CP before, or manga with SA (honestly I don't enjoy smut much overall, but they're pretty common in romance mangas) but if it has sexual themes and the characters look like kids/are kids/a weird age gap ect. I drop it, but idk why I didn't drop this one. Then I realised that I had never been attracted to kids, and this scenario doesnt have to mean that I am a pedophile. I also have ALOT of trauma around pedophilia (CSA survivor, started making CP as a coping mechanism. It ruined my childhood and took loads of cptsd therapy to stop relapsing.) And I didn’t have a spiral for weeks, I did epr fully and thought I had finally figured out a way to ignore the intrusive thoughts. Nope lol, today I was insanely bored and decided to watch black mirror. “Shut up and dance” I knew that there was an episode that I had been warned about being triggering bht naive like I tend to be I watched it. And now I’m deeply spiralling again. I’m so tired T_T
Is it normal feeling no connection towards your boyfriend if you think you're dealing with ROCD. I was talking with my therapist last Wednesday and she asked me if I can picture a future with them for the longest time I did but now I feel like my head is trying to tell me no is that common?
What’s on your minds?
I’m scared all the time scared that I’m gonna die or not wake up in the morning and I constantly seek reassurance. I can’t sleep I have PTSD OCD ADHD ANXIETY I also might have some bipolar I want to have a “normal brain “ it’s so dumb why can’t we just bee happy all the time we only live once right? I try to explain this I sometimes feel like I’m in a dream or a movie or I’m outside my body and that PTSD I hate it one of my biggest fear is death since my pappy died. I have VCD a vocal cord disorder makes it hard to breathe from anxiety and allergies. Why can’t we all be happy. Sometimes from my PTSD I think we are humans and we are living but we’re all gonna die one day and that scares me I don’t want to cause I don’t know what happens after you die. But that’s all I hope other people can relate to this and get better to ❤️
I got a therapist appointment in about a week and I'm scared I will get misunderstood, or I feel like Im not telling enough details, I'm scared that I have something else. This week alone was so draining
I am struggling right now with intrusive harm urges. They feel real and it feels like I am going to act any second. It feels like I have to hold myself back, which is a scary thoughts. I am trying so hard not to compulse, but does anyone have tips on what they do in these situations?
Harm ocd urges Does anyone else have such strong harm ocd urges regarding your obsession that it literally feels like you’re holding back from doing it? I understand that harm ocd does indeed include urges, but can they rlly feel THAT real? Like at any time I could just “decide” to do it?
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