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OCD has done a lot of damage in my life. It made my high school experience miserable, it made things rough for my freshman year of college and it negatively affected my first relationship recently. I have gotten better with finding better copping mechanisms and I thought I had everything handled entering my first relationship in February. However after a month in, I kept overthinking stuff. I kept having “what if’s” pop into my head and I would try to fight it but it didn’t make things better. I kept worrying about stuff with my ex, even overthinking her bad days when she was more reserved. I went to her friends for advice on handling things and trying to understand her. I have talked to her about my OCD and she was supportive of me and understanding. I just didn’t want to annoy her when she was dealing with a lot her freshman year of college. I knew her friends wanted the best for us and became closer to me, but in the times I was panicked, I over shared stuff about our relationship. My ex found out about it over the summer. I told her months prior that I’ve gone to her friends once before just for advice on things and she had no issues with that. Regardless, I handled things poorly even with good intentions. I went to her friends for advice a good few times and the reassurance didn’t make things better. It was like a drug that helped me in the moment. Communication issues caused things to go downhill with my ex and I and it sucks. I kept feeling like I had to be perfect for her and I can’t make a single mistake or she would end things, but she loved me for everything I am, even my flaws. I just put so much pressure on myself. We both hope to be with each other in the future and know we can come back together stronger. I just feel guilt and shame for my mistakes and I don’t want to make them again and feel better about being with her. She didn’t do anything to make me feel pressure. She’s a very no bs type of person as her first relationship didn’t go well as she was badly mistreated.

“TEACH YOUR CHILDREN SCRIPTURES EARLY AND THEY WILL BE ABLE TO ACCESS ARMOR THEY DIDN'T EVEN KNOW THEY HAD.” For me, I am always blessed and HIGHLY FAVORED. You don't have to be a strong religious Bible thumper to understand. You don't have to believe in someone's GOD. Just believe in something greater then you. So, what does this mean for you. There is not perfectly right or wrong answer. Grounded

I met my current boyfriend after ending things with my ex a month earlier. By coincidence, my current boyfriend and I had a class together, we became friends, and of course I started liking him. By May 2021, two months later, my feelings for him grew stronger and stronger. At that time, I wasn’t really going through a depression over my ex. In fact, little by little, we had stopped talking since January 2021, and by the end of March I told him I needed my personal space because I was dealing with another type of OCD. Looking back, during all that time I was open to getting to know this new guy (my current boyfriend). Finally, in July everything was going well between us, and we decided to stop giving each other space. Meanwhile, my ex was stalking me on social media. I was very happy to be getting to know my boyfriend at that time. In August, we had our first kiss and then, as I mentioned earlier, we stopped dating for a while. In September, we ended things, which hurt me a lot, but in November we tried again. During all that time, I didn’t have OCD. Later, in January, when my boyfriend and I made our relationship official, the doubts started: “Am I still in love with my ex?” “Am I using my boyfriend to forget my ex?” “Am I really over my ex?” The memories, physical sensations, all of that. So, my question is: does OCD with thoughts about an ex only happen to people who just broke up and are still grieving, or can it also show up later on, even if you’re already in a new relationship? I ask this because I’m afraid I might not have gotten over my ex and that these intrusive thoughts mean something else, since I’ve read that some people develop OCD right after a breakup and get stuck there. But in my case, I just moved on, and then the intrusive thoughts showed up later.

Really struggling with my ROCD lately. I see anyone attractive and it immediately triggers doubt thoughts. Idk if this ever ends or you just learn to deal with it?

What is it about getting a groinal réaction, feeling like you are into it with the not-prefered gender and not getting any with you partner and prefered gender? As i am not fzeling anxiety it really confuses me like do i want to have a girl not a boy

My 12 year old granddaughter was diagnosed with OCD. How can we best support her?

I was looking at adult pictures and I had a small groinal response to a really triggering picture of a man and it’s making my sexual orientation OCD go into hyper mode, idk why I do this shit to myself I keep acting on compulsions that just make things worse

Does anyone else have posted here and than delete they post more then once because no one pay attention. And it makes you feel like people don’t react on the post because it’s to bad and they think it might be true and I am what the feelings and thoughts saying?

I keep asking questions about ERP because I'm trying to convince myself that it will actually work for R/E OCD. In one of the NOCD youtube videos, the analogy was "well people live with uncertainty all the time - they keep driving a car even if it can crash" etc. Yes, but driving a car is an uncertainty that people accept because it doesn't directly correlate to their IDENTITY, CHARACTER, and INTEGRITY. So to me that's an apples and oranges comparison. So yes I believe ERP can work (or I've heard) BUT can it work in the "right way" going forward. What I mean by that is do you come out of it 1) not having to accept a dogma / delusion? 2) do you keep your integrity and identity in tact or have to lie to yourself to move on from the real event? 3) is it TRUE peace of mind or just delusion? If it's not, if I have to sacrifice my integrity and identity to move on, to me that's not a genuine and sustainable solution it's just a bandaid. I hope someone who's done ERP can convince me otherwise because it'd be nice to move on from OCD

We’ve had a rocky period recently while he was off on a trip bc my ROCD flared up really bad. I can’t shake this awful feeling we’re on an inevitable decline, esp bc I’m unemployed and still in driving school and feel really useless in life and have nothing to contribute. I had an awful nightmare just now that he broke up w me and called my bf in tears and he seemed somewhat annoyed (granted it was 6am in the morning) when I was hoping for reassurance (yes i know bad but I wanted him to at least say it’s not real! 😂). I can’t help but take his irritation as confirmation of the inevitable. The dream felt SO REAL. Scared it had meaning.

Hi. This is my first post here and it was recommended by my therapist to join and speak about this to get help and advice from others on top of therapy. For context sake, we are a wlw couple, I was raised in a purity doomsday cult, and I have been diagnosed with OCD since I was 14 and PTSD since I was 24. For about 4ish weeks now, I have been having horrible intrusive thoughts, daydreams, nightmares, and night terrors about my gf sleeping with or doing other sexual things with her exes. I just can't get it out of my head and it is breaking me. It feels like it was timed out of hell itself, because while I have been fighting this literally 3 of her exes have tried to contact her or get back with her. She tells me, without me asking at all, each time it happens so that way she doesnt feel like she isn't communicating about these things and to help my insecurities (I know I have them, I struggle with them often but don't use them as an excuse for anything). I know we are rock solid, we have been since we got together as we have been friends for 7 years before starting dating. But thats made this even harder. I know her exes, I met 3 of them and shook hands with one of them. I know the stories, I know the times she did things and "kiss and told" to me cause I was her bff. I know when she hooked up with people on dates. And all of that has exasperated this issue in me. It doesn't help that my last relationship (a marriage) ended cause of getting cheated on by my exwife with someone who I thought was a friend. So I keep getting thoughts along with these daydreams and nightmares like "does she really love me more than any ex that could try to contact her", "am I just a placeholder?", or "is it gonna happen again?" and things of that nature. Mind you, we are moving in together next year, so I know that those things arent true yet they still berate my head with scared paranoia. I will be minding my own business and then next thing you know my mind throws an image at me of her underneath one of the exes I know about or have met. It destroys me. I have broke down crying several times from it. It also gets worsened when she gets flirty comments on her tiktok. I just feel like I cant take any more. I am not sleeping, cant rest when I am awake, and feel like I cant even lean in and get comfort from the relationship without these thoughts flooding in and crushing me. She has been amazing through this and tries to help in any way she can, but idek where to start to handle this. Next week me and my therapist are gonna dig deeper into where this may be coming from (outside of OCD) and I hope we get answers through that. I just can't keep feeling like something that happened in the past and that I never witnessed is causing a rift between us emotionally, and will definitely affect the relationship even harder if I dont get this under control. Im so tired, I just want my peace of mind back. I just want to not think about the past and instead think about us. But it is like I am being haunted by her exes and other people wanting to get with her. Almost as if I am wondering just who its gonna take to approach her before I become the afterthought. I just want my happiness with my gf back. Thank you for reading this, I am not doing well and just needed to get this out there to both vent, cry, and get support.

Hello everyone, this Monday I have my first therapy session at my school and I was wondering how I can talk about my existential crisis. I’m extremely nervous. Also, I’ve been trying to train myself so I can’t stop questioning and being afraid of existence. As I’m writing this it freaks me out. It use to be really bad. I use to cry every night because I was so scared of the afterlife and losing my loved ones. Lately, I’ve been trying to accept reality. But it’s difficult. This whole existence thing scares me. I hate questioning how I got here and what the meaning of life is. Does it get better?

21, have had OCD for as long as I remember and I have had no social life for as long as I remember too. I spent more time at home with compulsions, and any social mistake I made would lead to weeks of intrusive thoughts, so I simply stopped talking to people. I can barely speak, I'm not sure how to say what I want to say and I constantly stumble over my words and am just incapable of being socially normal. Like I can barely talk, there's people who learned English as a foreign language who are far more capable of talking than I'll be in the language. So I simply become more reclusive and my OCD becomes worse, which leads to me being more reclusive and so on. Even if I ever get cured I'm not sure I'll ever be socially normal, I think I'm too late for that. Is that true? Or can I change. I'm just giving up at this point I think, I'm just not sure I can. I sound just so odd.

Today I was told I do suffer with subtypes of OCD and also panic disorder. I’m struggling at the moment with persistent relationship doubts when I love my partner and want a future with him. We have been together for 7 years now and I have come to a point in life where I need to stop using cannabis. I’m so scared this is going to affect my relationship, even tho it should only get better . I’ve just been in a state of anxiety for the whole week and I just want to feel normal again and be able to continue working on my relationship positively but I’m so scared of all the changes and how I’m going to change as a person. I have a lot of work to do on myself and I’m scared of how we will work out , I can’t calm down and the second I have a thought it fills me with dread and I can feel my heart racing, it’s draining me

Hello finding it hard today to not ask questions to my partner . When we first started dating I seen a heart on the garage fridge that said John + (ex gfs name). I seen where there was another writing on the fridge smudged off , and wanting to know what it said

I try not to pay attention to my thoughts. I realized that when a thought pops up for me (sex scene), I go back to it a couple of times to figure out what I am I also felt whether, and I simply decided to let them go..however, I am worried about that feeling of sensation in my groin at those scenes in my head, I am afraid of the fact that I can feel something while I am imagining it and that it is spinning non-stop in my mind! l imagine Just A part and it's constant for some days (like a part of a face, a look or something) the whole scene goes to that I spontaneously imagine and I have the feeling that only that part "turns me on" at the beginning, then the rest... Have you had similar experiences and how to overcome? thank you (edited)

My partner had a big spiral last night his foot became contaminated so he didn’t want to put it on the bed. We spoke for a bit then he decided he would just try and go to sleep. Now this morning he won’t eat or get up he believes the whole bed is now contaminated I’ve tried convincing him to do his meditation/breathing exercises and use some of the apps that have been helping him, but he’s just completely shutting down. I feel like anything that helps him he doesn’t want. I hate it when he won’t eat or drink. But he says it’s a punishment for how stupid he is. Does anyone have any advice? Has anyone gone through stages like this? What did you do? What do I do?

One of my big ocd themes revolves around the fear of passing out. I have agoraphobia and panic disorder too bc of this. It started when I was 5 when a doctor gave me a shot, I passed out. After that any time I went in for a regular physical exam I would get so nervous I’d pass out, it then extended to other types of doctors. To as an adult everywhere I go, I have this extreme fear of passing out. It doesn’t help that I have some sort of validation behind the fear bc it has happened. Throughout my whole life I’ve passed out maybe 10-15 times so idk how to get over this. It rules every aspect of my life and I’m completely home bound bc of it. I also just feel really dramatic talking about it to people who don’t have anxiety, so I don’t talk about it and I keep it in and it’s not fair that whenever I have to do something I have to be brave. I don’t want to be brave, I want to feel comfortable

I’ve acted to an extent on my thoughts in the past. I never cheated..but I did try and look attractive in front of certain people even though I only want to marry and spend the rest of my life with my fiancé…. How do I get over this😣

Ive been with my partner for 2 years. I haven’t had sex with my partner in a pretty long time. I feel like it’s been so long now that the idea of having sex is really causing me anxiety. I also don’t want to kiss or makeout as much. When he brings up sex or making out more or anything intimate it gives me anxiety. I feel like I truly don’t want to do those things, and that scares me. When we started dating I don’t think that this gave me anxiety, I think I was excited about it. But now it’s something that I find I’m almost avoiding. I want to be excited to kiss him and be with him but I’m just not, and I’m worried that that means the relationship is over. I know that the honeymoon phase isn’t forever but is this really what a relationship is supposed to feel like? This has gone on for so long now that I’m almost scared enough to admit to him how I feel rocd wise. I wanted to add that I’ve been on antidepressants nearly my entire life and i definitely have low libido anyway, so not being intimate doesn’t really bother me. Sometimes I can’t figure out if that’s the case or if it’s just because I don’t find my partner attractive anymore. I really don’t know what to do. I don’t want to force myself to be intimate but I think he’ll catch on that something’s wrong if I keep telling him no. If anyone has any advice, or relates at all, id really appreciate it, thank you.