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Hi. So I've been restructuring my views on taboo,intrusive sexual thoughts for a while now and it's ended up with me being desensitized to them via ERP and CBT. The issue now is that.., I feel desensitized. I don't feel as much anxiety as I did, which I feel like is the only thing stopping me from acting on the thoughts besides my values. I don't feel as disturbed, I don't feel as distressed with groinal reponses, I don't feel as distressed experiencing unwanted arousal which makes this feel so insanely real. I've moved from focusing on thoughts to focusing on what's happening emotionally, all day, every day, trying to "catch myself" feeling something wrong and then wondering what that means about me, whether it does or doesn't, what to do etc. I also started engaging in this ritual where I bring up a wanted thought or image then go to the unwanted image and check for either a change in reaction or a new reaction appearing, or vice versa: automatically neutralizing a bad thought with a good thought, experiencing arousal as a result of the good thought, but then wondering if it wasn't because of the bad one all along. It's tremendously confusing and concerning - I sometimes experience this very odd feeling of chest tightness or warmth that feels like anxiety but also sexual for some reason, but it's definitely still anxiety. However what's more concerning is I feel much more comfortable with such a taboo topic than I did as a result of "not reacting" as I was told to do. Like ERP somehow normalized these thoughts and made me actually fine with them even though I really don't want that to be the case. Ideas?

So, I told my mom about the prices they gave me for OCD therapy, and she thought it was just wayyyy too expensive + it REALLY sucks how the discount they gave me will only apply if I pay for a bundle of four sessions beforehand instead of paying per session (that's how I thought it was going to be, unfort they didn't explain that part properly). I might look into some books for the meantime and she also mentioned she's going to ask this person she knows if there's any psychologists who're experienced and specialize in dealing with OCD when she goes on her trip this week, so it's not entirely terrible, but yeah. It just blows. I was really counting on getting professional help, and this one therapist I found did seem very experienced, but it's not something I think I'm able to afford right now. Not being rich sucks, man.

I’ve been really struggling with OCD within my relationship. We’ve been dating for almost 2 years and things were going really good but we just moved in together and it seems to be making it worse. We have both made mistakes in the relationship that I’ve mostly been able to work past but this last month my partner had gambled away a majority of our money. He’s offered to go to counseling and get help but I’m finding it so hard to trust him and to move on. I constantly find myself trying to look at his phone or ask questions. I get panicked when he goes to the bathroom bc I’m convinced he’s lying to me. I feel like I’m in a constant state of fight or flight. I just don’t know whats real, when we argue i convince myself he’s being evil or abusive (im a dv survivor) I don’t know if I should just leave him for the sake of my mental health or stay and hope it gets better and he proves himself. I’d never want someone to turn there back on me when I’m struggling so I’m lost between this moral ground of guilt and taking care of myself. Any advice?

So I won’t go to much into detail as I’m about to head to work, but one of my main “complusions” is my legs. It almost feels like someone has a rope/ hands around my right leg and it constantly annoys and frustrates me because it’s ALWAYS there and the only time it’s slightly eased is when I’m sitting down do to being able to sit on my leg and just the overall lesser movement also helps but I can’t just sit around all day lol, but what I do to relieve this feeling is stretching my left legs until it pops/cracks and feels even(I almost ripped a sink out of the wall and it’s the amount of pressure I apply so I have to be careful where I do it haha(I can even add a picture if anyone would like to take a look!) and usually it’s accompanied by a mental ritual that’s sounds something like “hmm hm hmmm hmm…. Hm HM” but what I want to know is it better to try and ignore these thoughts for as long as possible, I had like 15 minute timers before that helped me space it out but I released that since I was so focused on not doing my leg, it was way easier to slip up in other thoughts and complusions. I do also work in a warehouse so am constantly lifting packages that affect the feelings in my leg and adds to the unevenness and some days it’s really hard to push through without spiraling or shutting down and majority of the time even though I am diagnosed and all that my boss refuses to let me scan packages for a shift instead of unloading when I am having a harder day and it’s just really frustrating and I usually end up spiraling and becoming irate. Any help would be extremely appreciated, it’s been a long battle with lots of medications that didn’t really help, places that didn’t help and a lot of self medicating and hiding the symptoms. I finnaly found an actual OCD specialist and will be starting with TMS therapy which I am praying and hoping that it does SOMETHING for me and anyone else who try’s it. Any help and/or advice would be greatly appreciated and I hope you all are having more good days than bad days and are winning your battles! PS. I found out you can’t upload videos which I was going to do but here’s an image of what I do, and as you can see my hands are simultaneously pushing/pulling my leg and the other is pushing to apply the most pressure I can get.

I’m not making this post to gain any reassurance (my therapist would kill me lol) but I just need some support here as I feel so alone and lost. I’ve been in ERP for a few years now and it’s been a journey thus far. I’ve experienced many different themes but currently it’s on sexual themes and I’m being drowned by it. I have to do exposures with videos of girls making out or being sexual with each other and then basically sit with the discomfort after. My brain literally jumps all over the place all day long. It’s throwing every thing at me from shows that I watch where women who were once with men get with girls, family members that I have who are gay, it’s having me question if I love my husband or feel anything toward him anymore, I have these thoughts that I can’t get close to God because “I like women” while also having it tell me that’s it okay because gay people still follow God. The other thing that gets me is the guilt I feel with my kids. It’ll throw images of my kids at me and I cry instantly. My brain is constantly talking to itself if that makes any sense? Constantly battling itself throwing thoughts and feelings at me to prove that I’m supposedly gay and then the other part is firing back showing why none of it is true. It’s just a lot of noise all damn day ! Anyone get this?. I try to sit with it and let it just go at itself but now I’m being told that’s not what I’m supposed to do, that I’m supposed to interrupt it?. I really feel like there’s something wrong with me that this can’t just be OCD. Can anyone here share there experiences with these theme? Anyone experience my type of story? I feel like no matter what I do I can’t get out of this.

Could a 9 year old do something inappropriate to me in my sleep?

Sorry if this counts as asking for reassurance, I don't want yall to tell me if im a p€do or not i just wanna ask this. Is this normal while you have a kink (not something bdsm or anything more like a body part connected with like gaining weight, but not obesity or anything unhealthy of course, just a bit) to feel weird when you see it in a child? Because look i know im not attracted to kids but now (maybe due to my ocd flare up) whenever i see a chubbier kid or just someone talking about stuff like this when it involves a child i get groinal response and treat it like they're talking about something sexual? I know it is not and it's a normal thing, I don't think that before OCD flare up i treated it sexually or anything and i really don't have any urges to sexualise a child and i know im not attracted to kids but im being scared my kink is something bad and its making me a pedo? My therapist knows about the kink and she says it's normal and i know you can't get rid of a kink, i just really really want those feelings to pass.

I FUCKING HATE THIS DISORDER - I figured out that my saliva hyperawareness is what triggered my mind to have the oral sex intrusive thoughts, and now my OCD is making me think it’s not an intrusive thought, my question is - can OCD do that? Can it take one of your intrusive thoughts and make you think it isn’t an intrusive thought after you’ve identified the trigger??

He broke up with me out of nowhere and told me he never loved me & he said he stayed with me for years due to comfort and guilt of not hurting me.He was emotional & physical distance for years and drove my ocd and jealousy up ,leading to him reaching a breaking point and few weeks after his with someone new . It’s been almost two months now and still can’t eat or stop crying and spiraling. It’s affecting my job and never got closure because he just sugar coats things if I ask or ghost me . We together for almost 5years . I’m stuck and can’t stop my thoughts consuming me . I also have trouble doing daily task or finding energy too. I don’t have friends or family and trying to make friends but I have bad habit of trauma dumping and that pushes people away. I also live alone and being alone is something I struggle with and causes me so much anxiety/panic attacks Idk what to do to get back to normal I made app to see a psychiatrist, but it’s not for a few weeks and I am seeing a therapist. I just started, but it doesn’t seem to help because I’m just venting to them and I feel they don’t specialize in OCD. Is there any actual supplements that helped anyone or anyone in a similar situation will helped you get through this I feel like my OCD makes me self sabotage my relationships because of my insecurities and I also have abandonment issues.

Last year, I started to get HOCD, and I didn’t know what was going on. And then a couple weeks later, my Auntie died from cancer. I couldn’t be there for her, because my mind was wrapped compulsions. And a couple of months later, I started to get Religious OCD. And I’ve been trying to do proper treatment for my OCD recovery with an other app, and 3 weeks later. I discovered that my grandmother had cancer. And yesterday, I found out that history repeat itself, because she died the following year of my Auntie’s death. First my Auntie, and now my Grandma. Why I do have OCD at times like this? Why do they have to die? Why couldn’t I be there for them? Who else is going to be next? I never wanted my Auntie or Grandmother to gone, and I never wanted OCD to get in the way. Now I really need to seek professional help with license therapists here, but I don’t know how much it’s going to cost. I know that it’s going to be expensive per session, but I do really need help.

with soocd, does anyone else experience feeling like sex with the gender you’re having the intrusive thoughts about would be more exciting/interesting than sex with the gender you were attracted to before soocd? Now I feel like I can never fall in love again and that sex would be “boring” I also feel like I have to try having sex with the other gender and that it’s urgent and something I absolutely have to do or else the thoughts will never go away :((

I’m so worried if I actually did something to my little brother when he was sleeping next to me once like I didn’t know it was inappropriate to sleep with a little sibling but I feel so guilty because he and me were talking and he mentioned his shirt light up and that reminds me of an old pajama he had and he showed me his shirt and it lid up and I feel so guilty because I don’t remember if I did anything bad how do I know???? I asked him if I did he said no ok maybe he doesn’t remember?

- what if i fall backwards in front of the whole class ? - what if i strip down and reveal myself in front of everyone ? - what if i hurt one of my good friendships by doijg something bad ? - what happens if i start an argument with the teacher ? - what if i start violently vomiting / retching ? - what if i read a worse inappropriately wrong aloud ? - what if my crush finds out i like him ? - what if i randomly blurt out a random classmates name for no reason ? - what if the teacher gets super upset and yells at me ? - what if i answer the question wrong ? - what if i cry super loud ? - what if i open my phone and something vulgar starts blasting this is only a few of the many i think on the daily. theres so many what ifs and infinite possibilities its hard to protect myself from all of them and feel secure

Hey friends, I just wanted to share that the past couple of days have been getting tougher, and today was especially challenging. Still, I want to remind you (and myself) that emotions are temporary, and our thoughts can be handled in ways that lead to real peace. I’ve experienced that freedom before, and I know I’ll step into it again soon. It’s kind of like a storm… loud, heavy, and overwhelming while it’s here, but always passing, leaving clearer skies behind. And even the scariest storms come to an end eventually. Btw.. I gotta new cat today. His name is Otis:)

Is anyone worried abt the rapture or is that just me if it happens or not

fyi: [x] - feared identity So I've had OCD for a while now and even though I'm on a different theme than I was, I find that I sometimes feel indifferent or numb to an act that is completely immoral, especially after desensitizaton and learning that there is nothing that I need to do about the thoughts. I even ask myself "What if one of my friends turned out to be [x]?" and instead of immediately saying "I'm completely cutting ties and never looking at them the same way again" I'm like "..that wouldn't be great, I'd stop talking to them but also encourage them to get help.". Pure OCD for some odd reason made me feel empathy for even the worst, most evil people - not that it excuses their actions, or makes them any less evil, but then it also took that and made me panic about it: "What if you're becoming antisocial?" "What if you're on your way to degeneration?" "Why do you not care as much as you used to?" "Are you corrupt?" "Are you [x]?" "Only [x] would feel empathy for [x]." "Are you justifying these actions?". I feel like it is concerning, it does feel like I'm ignoring something that goes against my values, or that I have lost all values and I'm just a bad person. Especially when I get arousal nonconcordance or GRs: "Maybe I'm just traumatized, maybe I'm okay" turns into "You're okay.. with what? With becoming aroused by these things at all? Have you lost your mind? What's next, you're gonna act on these thoughts and say "Oh I'm traumatized?"", and I don't know whether it's logical or not. When I started with sexual intrusive thoughts I immediately found them disturbing and horrifying, and now after ERP and just living with the disorder for so long I'm almost numb... it feels terrible. It feels like I'm justifying or have become legitimately okay with untolerable, horrible behavior, and I feel like that says something about who I am really. I feel like that makes me dangerously close to acting on the thoughts, or that the thoughts were an indication of some repressed desire all along, even when I know there's no evidence towards that... or is there? Pure OCD has convinced me I'm in denial about something horrible many times before, mainly by utilizing my reaction and moral stance around the intrusive thoughts. I still feel like "If I panic when I have these thoughts, that means I'm not [x] and I'm fine."; "If I'm disgusted by the idea of acting on these thoughts, then I'm fine"; "As long as I don't respond the wrong way to the thoughts, I'm fine".. so what happens when you're told not to react to the thoughts at all? Or on the other hand, not to try and analyze a reaction? Panic. Cognitive dissonance: "Something's wrong, I'm not reacting how I'm supposed to". At the end of the day, I really hope I'm not [x], I really do. I can't imagine not only living with the title of [x], but also with the insane levels of distress that title would cause because for all I know, I'm not really [x]. But I could be, like I don't know if I'm not, and even though I'd rather not be [x] I have to somehow accept uncertainty I guess. That's what I've been told to do - but I feel like it's backfiring. I feel like I'm either a) recovering and meta-obsessing, b) I'm still in poor insight OCD and I'm not actually [x] c) I'm [x] and in denial / having OCD about a real issue Speaking of insight, it tends to come and go but it's been poor for most of the time, even after I learned about OCD.

So I’m getting laid off soon because of budget cuts from the Trump admin. I am going to go back onto the job hunt but it’s stressful for me because I was let go from a job earlier this year due to not being able to handle the schedule and commute. They said they would rehire me if I moved closer to the job and that they appreciated my work, but it still sucks. I’ve been ruminating on what I’m supposed to put on applications when they ask if I’ve been terminated from a job and why. A lot of people apparently just lie but it makes me so anxious.

Was getting food with someone, I got excited to eat it, but as I was talking, spit flew out my mouth and it looked like it got into the food. I really wanted to say something but the awkwardness and anxiety took over and I couldn't pick what to do and they had eaten the food This isn't someone that's happened for the first time, I've had this happen when someone passed by my in a tight space and my mind told me if I didn't move my arm in it would be a huge mistake I'd regret so I did the opposite and I thought what could go so badly, and it turned out to be really bad because the person's rear touched my elbow. I feel awful about this but at the same time I'm getting thoughts that say it isn't so bad. Thoughts trying to rationalize, but I hate when this happens to me.

hii! this is my first post so im not really sure what to do but lately i’ve really been struggling with trich & derm obsessions. [trigger warning for the rest of the post— mentions of tweezing, bfrb specifics, etc…] it’s gotten to the point where i’m practically addicted, especially when i’m in an active picking/pulling episode. my problem areas are my face for derm and my legs for trich. the urge and “need” to pick at my face comes and goes with stress levels and i have people in my life who gently try to point out when it seems like i may be doing particularly badly with my bfrbs but even that doesn’t really do anything for me. i’m becoming more and more insecure about myself due to how my body parts look as a result of picking. my boyfriend tries to help the most and i think he’s approaching it the right way; he doesn’t shame me at all and reassures me that he doesn’t think i’m ugly or gross or anything for my bfrbs and all of the marks i’ve got now. right now we’re trying a method of him keeping my tweezers at his house because my tweezers really let me dig in and having access to them seems to just put me deeper into a picking episode. my boyfriend even opened up about his personal experience with picking and what’s helped him stop and i was really encouraged by that for a while but that positive feeling has sort of worn off since then… i feel like i’ve tried a lot of things but i don’t think i actually have. i’ve been trying to be more intent about noticing my hands and keeping them in a “safe” and neutral (folded or clasped together in my lap) position and i’ve started to correct myself into that position if i start picking subconsciously. i can’t really seem to notice any specific triggers that make me start picking other than simply noticing my leg hair growth. i don’t want to cover my hands because it’s a huge sensory issue for me and right now it’s still a bit too warm to wear pants. i really wanna stop but i feel like i can only find the same few suggestions (tape over my fingers, gloves or leggings, harm reduction) and i was hoping maybe someone here would have some advice for me? it will probably get easier as i wear long pants when the weather cools down but that doesn’t change how distressing it is to me right now. i mean i’ve wasted HOURS just picking and plucking my life away. i’m honestly exhausted :( can anyone help?

I have had extremely bad health anxiety for almost 7 months now. It started after I had a POTS flare up, started having panic attacks, stress migraines because my uncle passed away, then came the DPDR, dizziness, just a feeling of something NOT right in my body. I have had holter monitors, ECGs, an echo (all fine apart from POTS), multiple blood tests that are clear apart from one vitamin deficiency that I’ve taken care of, stool samples all good etc. but I just can’t shake the fact that I have a brain tumour so I’ve paid out of pocket for a full body MRI which is a week from today and I am absolutely terrified that they will find a tumour or MS or something else. I have headaches, dizziness sometimes, a really weird feeling in my head (not painful but like my head is kinda floating and not on my body? I can’t describe it), I also wake up every morning with a pounding heart and a nervous tummy. I had my worst panic attack the other day which led me to booking this scan because I’m just so convinced there is something horribly wrong with me. I’m so so scared all the time. I am in the waiting list for health anxiety based CBT but that will be in another few weeks. I just can’t keep feeling like this anymore. I’ve gone from being scared I have throat cancer, to stomach cancer, to heart attack, stroke, and now brain tumour or MS. I know if the scan is clear it will help the anxiety but I also know it won’t completely get rid of it that’s why I’m on the list for CBT. But I just can’t shake the fact that they’re gonna find something really wrong with me. I literally feel like I’m in a countdown to finding out that I’m dying and I was right all along and I’ve left it too late. I’m absolutely terrified. The scan is a week from today and I get results within three days so I won’t be waiting long but it feels endless :( I had a panic attack before bed last night and woke up three times during the night panicking because of all of this. Idrk what this post was I just really needed to vent ahhhhh