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My intrusive thoughts are so bad rn. But I’m on my period and I feel like garbage:(

My childhood boyfriend’s grandmother passed away in 2023. I had not been around his grandmother alone since 2016 when I was 22 years old. I loved her just like I loved my great grandmother who passed away on me in 2022. I didn’t think anything of his grandmothers passing. She was in her 90’s, just like my grandmother. Last year, I was having an episode already, I was completely spiraling and just not myself ever since my grandmother passed away. He came to visit me because I moved out of town years prior. What kind of sparked this is, at the time ( 2024) I was watching a special on tv about poisons and etc. I started to think like.. poison is a way you can kill someone and not even be around them. When I used to have intrusive thoughts when I would spend a night at other people’s home. To calm myself, I would say “ if every one was still alive when I left then I did NOT do anything crazy in my sleep or etc” which would calm me down. I started to panic like have I ever poison anyone? What if something came over me in my sleep or the middle of the night and I did something sick ? He doesn’t know about my depression/anxiety/intrusive thoughts. I hide and compartmentalize very well. I remember looking at him and I started to lose my thoughts about his grandmother out of nowhere ( just like I did my own grandmother after she passed away) . I started to think Like what if one night when I was alone with her in 2016. What if I snuck in her kitchen at night while she was asleep and poisoned her water bottle with diluted house hold bleach ? What if she passed away in 2023 because of me ? Wouldn’t her doctor have seen signs of a poisoning way back in 2016 ? It wouldn’t take her 7 years to pass away from a poisoning ? I was in my early 20’s back then. I wore contacts , which means that I couldn’t see at night without them. I always took them out every night. I also did not know anything about poison or bleach. I never even washed my own clothes back then 😩😩 Also his grandma was very able body. She was NOY helpless at all. I never cooked for her or anything. But I keep having flash backs of a specific night. It’s like a crazy image of me going in her kitchen and poisoning her water supply with bleach.

I have been diagnosed with OCD for a couple years now. I would say my obsessions stem around a fear of pain/getting sick/vomiting. And my compulsions are to constantly check expiration dates on foods multiple times, smell it over and over again, and i take one bite and wait a couple minutes to see if i start feeling sick, as well as eating really slowly in general. it's gotten to the point recently where i would say im entirely vegan except for breads/baked goods, and honey. But i don't eat meat in fear of getting sick, and I don't really eat out at all anymore. I eat a lot of prepackaged foods, and i'm not sure why but fruits make my stomach hurt (maybe a fructose sensitivity i don't know) but it's almost entirely prepackaged. This has hit extremely hard the past few months where i don't even recognize myself. I've always been an insane foodie open to trying new things, now i'm at the point where i eat the same foods every day and wouldn't dare eat out. i feel massive judgement from my friends and i don't think i can explain because they wouldn't understand the gravity of how this impacts me. If i start feeling stomach pain at all i start spiraling and i start having a panic attack. I'm doing talk therapy at the moment and slowly trying to find a routine again. But it feels so demotivating when i wont eat at restaurants without sobbing from overstimulation/nerves, even drinking water at a restaurant scares me. It blows my mind that 3 months ago i would and could have eaten anything! sorry this is so long I am new to an app like this

My OCD is directly tied to my PTSD from being hospitalized in the past. I feel incredibly alone because of this. I’m 26 and was hospitalized twice - once when I was 14 for an eating disorder, where I experienced solitary confinement and SA. Then again when I was 22 for depression, where I was “cold-turkey” from one of my medications and almost had a heart attack. I’m traumatized because of these events and struggle with “insanity OCD” that directly ties into my trauma where I get terrified I’ll “lose control” and do something that will cause me to be hospitalized against my will and taken away from my loved ones. I’m scared to even seek therapy or reach out. If anyone has similar experiences/lived experience I’d greatly appreciate your guidance. Please forgive any grammatical errors; I’m not in the best state of mind rn.

Open to friendships or ventships Lol

I always feel like i’m waiting for something. Like something is going to happen after I finish each task. Not always something horrible, sometimes it feels like I may be waiting for a reward. I’ll be at work all day and I’m just rushing through every. single. task. I’m rushing my bathroom breaks and my same 30 minute lunch but I get out at the same time each day. I rush to the lot and rush to get out of the lot and rush getting my things out. I know it’s anxiety but,,, sometimes I get so disappointed. What did I expect to happen,? I go home to my beautiful girlfriend in our cute little home everyday and I work to keep it all. Nothing is wrong with that and I’m happy but just,,, THATS what I was rushing all day for feeling like there was a gun held to my back,?? idk i cant explain ksksmdks

Hey! This is my first post here and I’m not sure quite how to put it but I’d love to connect with people who have struggled with obsessive thought loops,? Sometimes I’ll think the same thought over and over for hours, days or even weeks every now and then. It can be a simple thought like about a painting i’m going to work on or it could be a thought about something horrible in my past. No matter the degree, the thought just plays over and over, sometimes it even carries to my dreams. It’s exhausting and I can hear a ‘second’ voice in my head begging it to stop but I have no control. This is actually the very first symptom of my OCD that I’ve ever experienced and it’s what made me realize that my thoughts are definitely unwanted and uncontrollable. I mean literally the same thought plays over and over. Like a song, but just a thought or memory. It can make me spiral horribly into magical and spiritual OCD and I’ve yet to find anyone to talk to about this. Thank you!

Girlfriend loved me more than anything in the world, but I became too obsessive, controlling, possessive, I would get mad at simple things then cry about things I was insecure about. I kept saying I'd change. But didn't. Eventually she got to a stage where she is done with our relationship and doesn't want it anymore, even tho a part of her still loves me and I love her more than anything in the world. I had the courage to make the decision of going into no contact to become a better person with the hopes of getting back together with her some day. She said, "some day" only comes with change. I asked her to wait for me. She said yes. We ended on good terms. Then why am I still insecure about her moving on while in no contact, why am I so sure that nothing will work out, that she'll fall in love with someone better than me, why am I being so pessimistic, why do I keep getting the urge to break no contact whatsoever, please help, any advice would be appreciated..

Throughout my teenage years, i did some horrible things that I absolutely regret now... either involuntarily or voluntarily, I hurt people... and I will regret my actions till the end of time. While I aspire to be a naval medical officer, and currently a nationally licensed EMT, this does not atone for my mistakes, nor does it remove accountability for what ive done... for anyone that I have hurt... no matter how big or small... im sorry... for everything... and I will be better as an adult in the future, and raise my future family to be better than I could ever be ... (edited)

So I woke up today and my OCD woke up with a vengeance. It has been trying to convince me I liked my thoughts and sensations it gaves and I want to try them out. Can someone give me some advice on how to deal with this?

I was wondering if this also happened to anyone. I grew up very open-minded and allowed myself to question my sexuality when I was younger. I explored feelings for both genders and attraction to them from afar, because I didn't have any friends or experiences to guide me through them. When I started dating, I was open to both but slowly and surely naturally phased out women. It always felt performative, like pretending to be upset they didn't respond, choosing who to be attracted to, and while present with them, wanting to back away or feeling a level of discomfort. When my SO-OCD started, these experiences made it very difficult to navigate the anxieties and intrusive thoughts. My thoughts often circled back to the idea that if I wasn't attracted to women, I wouldn't have tried to in the first place. This type of thought is like a Catch-22. On one hand, I am surveying my past actions or memories for any signs of true attraction or trying to pick at moments where I could prove that I was actually uncomfortable. On the other hand, the thought of being uncomfortable with a moment is tainted in my brain because of the idea that I could just be in denial. Any emotion I've ever had gets scrutinized in hindsight, making it feel like any way in which I feel is wrong. SO-OCD has been particularly difficult because of the fact that I've never been pejorative towards being queer or the LGBTQ+ community. It goes against my own values whether or not I am actually queer or actually straight. I remember growing up in an environment (whether school, family, or friends) that was always lined with prejudice towards any type of outsider - OCD makes me feel ashamed for my own want to understand any group or background different from my own. Essentially, I wanted to know if that's also something that plagues others with SO-OCD. For me, no matter what side of the fence I fall on my OCD rewrites it as bad: Either I'm in denial and lying to everyone even though they already secretly know, or I'm a homophobe. Sometimes they even mix. It doesn't make any sense.

I could really use someone to talk to rn. It’s been a horrible day

I have recently switched themes and now I have like 6 emails 4 old ones and 2 new I created to keep everything organized because one of the emails started getting a lot of adult content spam and I felt gross and that made me feel like that email is messed up now so I need to transfer everything over and delete unused accounts and separate emails for shopping and social media and then when I forget and use the wrong account for social media I want to start over all over again and create another email because what if that email gets sold and gets gross spam.Also when I have a image pop up in my head I don’t like I think to take a shower to reset or clean to reset the area I’m in.Are all of these things ocd?please help.Im out of therapy atm and I don’t know what any of this means.

Tbh I don’t really remember exactly what/when I saw or read that first triggered my potential ocd (not officially diagnosed yet), not sure if it was a thought that led to research or research that led to thought. Is this normal? And can ocd first be triggered by something you read or is it like you read something + getting a thought?

For the past several years of my life I’ve always overly washed my hands. It’s never been as bad as it has been the last few months. EVERYTHING.. and I mean everything is dirty to me. I can barely go out into public and when I do I immediately have to shower. I use mouthwash because I feel my mouth has so many germs, I wash my hands, I sanitize my belongings… and there’s a routine to it so that contamination doesn’t spread. I can barely do a lot of normal household tasks because I feel that a lot of things are contaminated. It’s even hard to spend time with my dogs. I need help. There’s so many embarrassing aspects of what I do, but to me there is logic behind it. It has caused so many fights with my husband, yet he is still as supportive as he can be, but I push so far sometimes. Any suggestions or help, things I can try?

Ok, I’m 23 years old guy and I’ve never had a girlfriend or anything intimate with a female. There’s reasons for it I think growing up I was awkward, shy, and at times out of shape. But now I take good care of myself and though I struggle a lot with my mental health I think I could bring a lot to the table but I’ve just never been able to find somebody. I put myself out there on apps(no success) or just being out in the world hoping to meet someone naturally just nothing. I was pretty fine with this fact of waiting for the right person and taking more time than others to find love for most of my life..but everyday I get older it gets more embarrassing. Seeing friends and peers in relationships and talk about intimacy feels like I’m missing out on such a core fundamental part of the human experience. I try not to compare myself to others and have my own journey but I feel kind of pathetic honestly. I’ve been a hopeless romantic for my whole life I think it’s such a beautiful part of life and I’ve been dreaming of the day..that might be a problem honestly because I have such a romanization of it and idea of what it should be that the few chances I might’ve had I overthought or dropped because it didn’t fit that image I had…love at first sight, sparks flying etc..maybe I should be more open..And on top of all of that I do struggle with the fear I’m far to broken or far gone mentally to ever be able to maintain a relationship which hurts because as I’ve expressed it’s what I want most in life. Thank you for reading it might not be 100 percent ocd related but I needed to express this somewhere and I love this community helps me a lot, if anyone in my age group struggles with something similar feel free to share.

Love you guys. All I gotta say is healing is NOT linear. So I may have achieved some level according to the DOCS tests but what I have learned is how to live and manage the disorder. If anyone ever needs any advice I am here to help:) Finding peace is identifying your compulsions and cutting them out of your life as best as you can🩷

Im having issues with seeing my girlfriend as a good person, good girlfriend to me, idk. To be fair I do love her, but it feels like she's just so irresponsible. Which is ironic because she's older than me (1 year). She's just such a slob. I feel terrible for saying that but she's been so depressed and all and is ALWAYS finding a way to procrastinate cleaning her room, there are bugs and food and clothes everywhere it's an absolute mess and I pretend not to care but it grosses me the fuck out. It's been worse lately because she was given too much estrogen (she's transgender) and it can cause relapses in depression if the dose is too high, which is was the past month but she's tapering off now. I know I'm only 17 but I think about what it'd be like to date other women post college as an adult, cisgender women, black and brown women, non autistic women and more femme women. Women who got their shit together if that makes sense. I feel awful for saying all of thay because I still love her. I want to go to university, mostly online to finish my ITP and get my asl interpreting license (woohoo!) But she's doesn't even try in school. She's ALWAYS. Been like that. She wants to go to community College for business and marketing but refuses to get her shit together. I've talked about this dozens, hundreds of times this summer because she's a senior now. It's not just depression anymore I feel like. All she does is talk about weed, watch South park, and watch porn. Listen, nobody's perfect, but I never knew she would turn into this. I don't want to break up with her because I have genuine hope she can change or mature as she tapers off estrogen, but I'm still not sure. I love her, I want her to grow into the beautiful, amazing young woman she's destined to be, but if she's not even gonna try then it's useless to hope. I don't know. I'm so confused. Someone please give advice- we've dated for almost 2 years now with minimal problems, I feel so guilty for even thinking about this

How have you all seen caffeine or your level of stimulation impact your ocd? For myself I’ve noticed in general that caffeine reduces my ocd symptoms, but if I take in more than 70 mg at a time I feel anxious and jittery. I’ve also noticed that combining caffeine or stimulation, and a calming exercise at the same time reduces my ocd symptoms a lot while minimizing the anxiety. 2 of these activities for me are what I call 1) sword & Metal and 2) walking while doing mindfulness or breathing simultaneously. Sword and metal is a thing I started doing that stacks lots of skills on top of each other. I wield a sword while blasting heavy metal and stand up really tall and focus on breath and meditation. Sometimes it almost feels like different parts of my brain are going at different speeds when I experience OCD symptoms. Then I remembered that with ADHD different parts of the brain are actually going at different speeds. The frontal cortex is going slower namely. With the experiences I shared above and remembering the brain speed thing, I looked into if it’s a thing for OCD and apparently there’s research around it too, with different parts of the brain of course. Apparently, transcranial stimulation used to be used to address OCD. Anyhow, so my hypothesis based on all this is that if you can speed up the decision making centers of your brain while also calming your nervous system you can rebalance this inconsistent speed issue. Of course ERP is amazing, and I’m not bringing this up as a thought of comparison or replacement. It’s just a guess too. What do yall think?

I feel like whenever I'm at church I'm not doing good enough or my praying isn't enough. I'm also disabled and half the time am unable to stand for long periods of time. My ocd keeps telling me that I'm not worshiping good enough because I'm sitting down or because I can't sing that hymn. It makes me feel so alone when I'm at church like god doesn't love me because I am not worshiping correctly.