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I am just starting therapy (ERP soon) for my OCD. I keep learning new things about OCD and how it can present. I was diagnosed off-hand a long time ago but never believed in the diagnosis. I got a formal diagnosis through NOCD, and I’m choosing to jump in head first. However, I’m convinced my whole life is a lie. All of these thoughts and actions I thought were just part of who I am, are a lie. I don’t think I’ve ever known true freedom now. So much of my life has been doing things because I HAVE to. If I didn’t, I would be in distress or my life would fall apart. I’m trying to learn about OCD, but I can’t stop crying when I read a new article or watch a new video. I know it isn’t my fault. I had some health problems that literally required finding triggers and doing certain rituals so I could literally breathe. But it was so much more then and it is still so much more now. I’m super scared honestly. I’m afraid I won’t be able to handle it, but I know it is just that doubtful voice trying to keep me comfortable.

I just want to know how long other ppl have been dealing with SOOCD. Prior to having SOOCD I have had other themes throughout my life but I didn’t know it was OCD bc after a month/months it would go away. These small episodes would always pop up when my home/personal life was terrible. However SOOCD has stuck the longest. It’s been 6 years and it’s really bothering me that it’s been haunting me for this long. Past therapists would always tell me I had GAD and I’ve barely started proper treatment so that’s prob why it’s stuck around for so long. I have also dealt with a lot of anxiety and depression issues as well. What’s bothering me is that I can go into “remission” but still be plagued with numbness, lack of attraction/emotions, no libido and still deal with the groinal response, checking compulsion, and get triggered from time to time. I’ve also dealt with horrible depression from 15-19 (21 now) so maybe that’s why i’m so numb. I was feeling better but felt numb like I was a rock or just a floating leaf. For the past couple years I haven’t been tormented by SOOCD but those small things always would bother me. ESPECIALLY the lack of attraction and numbness. TMI!!!!!!! but I have not had any sort of sexual desires for years and had trouble being intimate in my past relationship esp because of the constant checking. I would want to do those things so badly but my body wouldn’t react and ofc that fed my OCD. No matter what OCD tells me I know prior to ocd I was a very healthy growing girl and I would always day dream about men, read fan fiction, fantasize, yk all that. TMI AGAIN!!! But I have/haven’t had a desire to do anything like that even TMI mast*bation and when I do it’s like “well…alright i’m done.” Sorry if that was too much. I was feeling a LOT better a couple months ago, I felt motivated to get my life back after many years and OCD was kind of leaving me alone (still dealing with the occasional groinal response, occasional triggers, and checking (only when triggered)). The numbness and all that still bugged me but I ended up developing a crush (on my now bf). But as soon as I start to feel real genuine attraction and happiness OCD starts to poke at my brain. It didn’t start with SOOCD thoughts at first, it was mostly just fear about WHAT IF my numbness and loss of attraction ruin the relationship or my feelings for him. I was finding him cute without even checking but when he confessed to me it gave me anxiety and I started checking my feelings and attraction. I would be scared of being affectionate bc again I was afraid I would feel nothing. But when I redirected myself and focused on him I would feel normal again and enjoy everything. I haven’t felt that middle school giddiness and excitement over a boy in so long. I couldn’t wait to talk to him. I loved waking up and having him call me or call before bed bc he always calmed me. The attraction and excitement just made all the worries go away. There’s one date we where I wasn’t doing my checking compulsion and I felt so amazing and free. Holding his hand and being with him felt so good and sweet. Ofc the checking compulsion and anxiety ruined a lot of things at first but once I redirected myself MY GOD I felt like a normal human again and I felt like I could finally start enjoying my life. I was in such a good headspace but then the rumination started bugging me again, which triggered the anxiety, which triggered the groinal response for some reason, and then I started checking again and getting triggered by ppl on social media, and then now I’m here in another SOOCD spiral. I think my SOOCD is mixing with real event OCD and it’s all just so exhausting. I can’t even fully enjoy being with him in person now it’s a constant battle w my brain. If you check my posts you can see how i’ve been just going insaaaaane lately. I don’t even feel like I know myself anymore. I have my small moments of peace but then it all comes back to get me. I’m even getting triggered rn by a movie that my mom insists on watching but yeah that’s all. Just needed to get that out.

I feel so beat down by life. My boyfriend lost his job in June. Luckily he got a job and started it mid September but money is still super tight and has been and it’s been a huge stressor. On top of that all my cats have ring worm and well as my boyfriend and I so now I’m obsessing over ringworm and I’m constantly scared to touch myself and spread it but because I’m always thinking about it I’m always itchy. I also have a medical issue going on. I just was eating corn and there was mold on it and now I’m disgusted. We have basically no food. I’m fucking tired and stressed and I have my school work and I’m working full time. Life is just rough right now and I’m struggling to deal with it and I don’t know who to talk to because I don’t want to talk about it too much with my boyfriend and annoy him with it because I also know he’s stressed too and I just want a break that I feel like is never coming. Thanks for reading. Any help is always welcome.

tw just in case. don’t know what to put but just proceed with caution. I’ve been obsessed with brands/companies to boycott for palestine and have been using two sources for when I shop. I am in the BDS subreddit and every time there’s a new thing and it just limits what I can buy. I’ve successfully avoided products/restaurants but I have so many questions. for example, I know coca cola is being boycotted. I have this question: what if local restaurants (which is encouraged over big names) offer coke products? do u boycott the entire restaurant, especially when they say they proudly serve it? or when u want a drink with ur combo and anything except water has a product that’s being boycotted or is from a company that’s boycotted. do u just drink water all the time? maybe these are stupid questions but I wonder all the time. I feel like it can get hard especially living in the US with many products having to be boycotted. anyway, I read posts on the BDS subreddit and I have wondered about snacks and a lot of the snacks come from boycotted companies that are all over the stores. sometimes I just want a snack especially after a long day & mental exhaustion. but then 90% of the products in store are not safe to buy. I saw comments on these types of posts of companies/snacks to avoid and people usually go “who figured giving up z!0n!$t products would make me healthier/lose weight” or “the products aren’t healthy to consume anyway. you’re better off without those products in your diet” and while they’re right, wouldn’t the same be said for safe snack products? they’re not healthy either. but yeah, finding snacks can be a hassle sometimes. and then worrying which grocery store to boycott because it’s on the list. I have donated to victims in gaza and have been trying to boycott what I can. I don’t know why but I feel bad for feeling frustrated when I find out a restaurant/company/product is on the boycott list. it’s a constant thing. now I wonder about people who buy these products? should I assume anyone who buys from these companies to be evil? for example, the company I work for has had a history of controversies with the lgbtq+ community. we get a bunch of customers everyday and I wonder if these people know? do they even care? won’t be surprised since the company is christian owned. I feel like a fraud for having spent money buying stuff at my job. all of the times were because I was just hungry. while the company stopped making donations that harmed lgbtq+, I then found out that the owner donated to something that harms the community that made me feel disgusted. ever since then, I haven’t spent a penny at work. I have been budgeting my meal allowance and that is all. I’m just so preoccupied with the what ifs and everything I buy. I’m overwhelmed and I feel like by saying this, people will say something like “u feel like this is a chore? well imagine the many kids and innocent people dying from choices like yours. you aren’t dying for boycotting this product/company.” I feel overstimulated from this. it just feels a lot with other things I have on my mind. dealing with undiagnosed mental illness and fatigue while trying my best to make ethical choices is exhausting. I don’t know if this is a case of “you need to get off the internet” or just take a break. I’m always worried about being a bad person nowadays. I feel like I over fixate on actions I feel like should’ve been avoided. ughhhhh my brain is overloaded.

I’ve been dealing with my OCD lately. It’s really been miserable. I’m Pure O and experience physical compulsions as well. I don’t care what OCD wants me to believe….i know at heart I’m a great person and when I’m down and feel like I have no hope I’m reminded of “Nothing Else Matters” by Metallica. It resonates with me. I cry every time I hear the lyrics “Forever trust in who we are and nothing else matters.”…. It’s like that part of the song has an angelic authority that makes me feel healed for just that brief time…

No matter how small, tell me something good that happened today. For me: I had yummy coffee today ☕️

my intrusive thoughts have controlled me ever since i was young. i’ve had constant fears of my loved ones dying in horrific car accidents and being unable to come home from work at night, passing away in their sleep, cancer, etc. and i’ve always thought that praying (when i still identified as christian) and doing things in a “right way” (strict routines, repeating the same task three times no more/less, so on…) would save them. for a while, i was okay with not doing these things. i was okay with sitting with the uncertainty and letting my mind think “so what?” if those things happen because i felt safe enough to do so. but im afraid to say that during the summer, my worst fears came true—my intrusive thoughts seemed to come true. my boyfriend of years quite literally died and came back to life and i dissociated for those couple of weeks until my body finally let me register what happened. i was so afraid and scared and i felt my body get physically sicker as the days went on. not to compare my mental traumas with his, of course, i just don’t think i ever fully got over what happened. he is still alive now which i am always so thankful everyday for and i am learning to love our life together instead of grieving it like i did previously. while it’s never fully gone away, my compulsions have come back to haunt me again. i keep seeing things around me and taking it as a sign that he’s going to die again, and im even more convinced because he had another scare today and i couldve lost him again. i keep sobbing just about everyday and i cant stop crying because there’s nothing i can do to save him. i keep grieving him even when he’s still here and when we can’t talk for even an hour i begin to worry. i start to rearrange my room because i think it’ll save him. i try to text him every second like it’s some sort of spell because if i don’t maybe he’ll never wake up. i remake my bed three times because if i don’t then he’ll never wake up. im afraid to talk to my friends about this because i think im a nuisance and speaking it into existence will become real. i cant keep grieving him when he’s not even gone. even when he’s here, i grieve him. i want to be able to love him with no fear, but that’s all that consumes me. i pride myself in being able to handle these things, but this has been the worst year of my life. i don’t know how to move on and get out of this loop. does anyone have any advice? at all? anything would be really deeply appreciated.

My main theme is SOOCD and with my flare up the groinal response goes crazy. Does anyone else get the groinal response for literally anything? Like faces, looking at body parts, being in close proximity to someone of the same gender, or when you’re literally just anxious, stuff like that. I think it’s maybe bc of the automatic checking. Like i’ll see a woman on social media, immediately get anxious (sometimes), and start checking everything. TRIGGER WARNING for anyone with another theme!!!!!! This makes me feel so disgusting to type out. I don’t want to think about it for too long before I trigger another theme. Like sometimes it happens with my own family members. It makes me feel so disgusting. Can anyone relate?

Please read and offer some helpful words if you’ve relapsed before 😭 I have been doing so well in recovery for the last 6-8 months or so with SOOCD. I’ve had my moments where I come on this app and post, but for the most part it has been very manageable. I moved in with my bf a few weeks ago and things are amazing. except my SOOCD is back in fullllll force. It feels incredibly real this time, like I actually want to be with women, like I knew I was into girls when I was young and forgot about it or suppressed it, etc. I feel like I have too much proof in my past childhood exploration / curiosity for me to not be into women. I truly don’t think I have ever had feelings for a girl before even though I explored things through media when I was younger. It’s a constant tug of war in my brain, and I feel so stuck and unable to pull myself out of this spiral. I will have these moments where I’m like “oh my gosh. This is actually true because it feels so real”. And then I will accept it and tell myself everything is real and that I actually do like women, but it only leads to more rumination and questioning. I just seriously don’t know what to do or how to move forward. I can’t go back to therapy unfortunately bc of finances, so I’m stuck trying to go back to erp on my own to get myself out of this. It’s just too much 😭

UPDATE: with my harm ocd hitting full swing... i find myself triggered by my pocd again... and i feel like a horrible person... i tried not to post... i tried to do what people told me... but right now i feel absolutely horrible... I genuinely feel so guilty and wanna exile myself from society... Youtubers are constantly getting accused of doing p3dophilic activity and inappropriately messaging women and minors and abusing others and its making me think my real events are as bad or as worse as them... Ive vented a lot to a lot of people in the PM's about my OCD... some of them younger (minors)... because I wanted reassurance from everyone and anyone... but this situation triggers me the most because I was venting about my 18+ HOCD situations... (the 18+ HOCD situations were about 18+ s*xual HOCD situations that triggered me immensely...) When I was 19, in an HOCD support group I was in, I vented to 2 minors in the PM's about my 18+ HOCD situations... The leader of the support group (that i vented to) was 17... I was 19 at the time... the other minor i vented to was younger (14-15)... the younger one told me she was uncomfortable when i vented to her in the PM's twice... The 14-15 year old said she was uncomfortable the first time and i tried to stop venting to her... after she said i was a bad person for supporting trump, i vented to her again because her saying i was a bad person triggered me... she said she was uncomfortable for the second time and then i blocked her... i kept asking the leader of the support group for reassurance for my 18+ HOCD situations for months because she kept giving me reassurance... i thought she was cute but didnt pursue her because of my age... i dont ever want to ever be a P or a MAP or a groomer in any way...

I have this intense urge to need to confess something about my past to my boyfriend. We’ve been dating almost two years and when we first started talking, I had told him about my past. I cannot fully remember everything I told him, as it was a while ago. One time I remembered something that I didn’t tell him and confessed because I felt so guilty. This was something that I actually didn’t tell him because I had forgotten about it. I am having a similar situation now where I told him about this person, but I don’t think I went into detail (I don’t remember if I did or didn’t), but I have a memory of me telling him I didn’t want to go into details about it and him saying that’s okay (I don’t fully know if this is a real memory or fake one). I now have been obsessing over this situation from my past and feel like I need to confess or else I’m a bad girlfriend, but at the same time he told me that if I remember something I don’t need to tell him unless I really can’t help it. He also said that he’s not upset about my past and I’m the one who needs to forgive myself, which I know he is right about but I don’t know how to do that without feeling like I need to confess. Any tips on how to manage these thoughts and how to stop confession compulsions?

I came across an older post on here about someone saying they gave a name to their OCD. I finally stuck a name to mine. Originally I was gonna go with "Ria", named after my friend at work that stresses me out and "Mr. Hyde" but that was too cliché for me. I went with "The Bug" named after a song by the same name by the band Crumb. It's been some days but it feels like it makes a difference already. It distances myself from it and giving it a name feels like it's a different entity that isn't me. I recommend you do the same if you haven't done so yet.

Super triggering set of events that’s been unfolding for some months now. I’m going to try and not seek reassurance but grounded advice or support is appreciated. A couple months ago, I had a close friendship with a female friend who was also new to town and we had a nice friend group. I developed feelings for her, articulated that to her, and she kind of breadcrumbed me until there wasn’t much of a friendship left unfortunately. I had a conversation with her about the impact that the situation had on me and the toll it took on my mental health. I was calm but assertive and was proud that I stood up for myself. This was sad but hey that happens sometimes as you’re growing and making new friends/trying to find your people. I took space this summer from that group and it was awesome. I felt so much better, my ocd symptoms decreased, I met a bunch of new people, things were good. I am now trying to jump back into my grad school community of students and I had felt a weird tension between me and some subsets of people. Yesterday I was told that the people she is friends with say that I am “unsafe to be around” and that I “blew up at her.” This hurts for a number of reasons. All I did was say that she hurt me by not communicating. I was vulnerable and I feel like I’m getting ostracized and dismissed as a nut case. I never ever spoke ill of her to this community. I kept my opinions to myself and tried to move on. Add on the harm ocd/real events ocd/ relationship ocd and I truly feel at my lowest. There’s certainly times where I have let my emotions and ocd dictate my reactions to situations like this in the past, but from the beginning of this one I made it a point to notice what was coming up and calmly respond with action based in my values. I am super proud of how I handled it and stood up for myself. Idk I’m human and I understand that everyone is entitled to their thoughts and feeling but this just feels messed up and disrespectful. Trying to get this out here because it’s hard to talk about rn

Can someone please talk to me about something, but I want someone 20+ and someone who knows well about Pocd

Recently my partner told me that they’ve gotten used to my ocd thoughts that it doesn’t bother them or that there’s anything wrong that I have done and that is like when we are together on call initially but when the moment passed it leaves them feeling maybe upset or even like they don’t feel safe or secure in the relationship. They said that they know it’s not my fault or by choice but it also leaving them like they’re letting things go or slide because of that even when maybe if it was a different situation it wouldn’t be the case ( like they wouldn’t let it slide ). That it’s not their battle to fight for how I feel about other people ( that aren’t my partner basically) and yea .. I’m not sure what I can do and I feel like I failed them so much even because my ocd literally blames me and attacks me for the shit it throws my way and now I feel like I failed at making my partner feel safe , loved and secured just like they always make me feel and never made me feel otherwise … Any advice ? It would be appreciated, what are some great dos and donts specially because I’m well .. a person with (R) OCD

Has anyone else ever had a groinal response that they physically can’t tell apart from real arousal??? I have had it the past few days and when I’m genuinely aroused the initial stages feel exactly the same as groinal response and it’s making me so depressed 😔

Hello, I'm a student from China. I've been struggling with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) for several months, and I want to talk about my situation. I wonder if any of you have dogs—my problem is related to dogs. At first, I was worried about whether a dog had licked me and if I would get rabies and die. Then it generalized to walking my dog outside: I’d fear that the dog might lick someone else and cause their death. Now, I have obsessive thoughts about whether I accidentally let a dog lick someone in the past, and what I’d do if that person died. These thoughts pop up from time to time. Because of this, I’m afraid to touch dogs, and I even dare not take my dog out for walks. I want to receive CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) treatment, but there are no professional doctors who provide psychological treatment in my area—almost all available options are medication-based. What should I do?

Hello friends! working through a breakup right now with someone I really cared for and ultimately walked away from myself for many reasons. It’s been two months of 0 contact, not a word, but he’s all I think about from the minute I wake up to the minute I fall asleep. Constant, agonizing, good feelings and bad, replaying the breakup and the good moments. He’s not unique - this happens every time I break up with anyone, regardless of closeness (we were very close this time and the breakup was pretty abrupt), and it takes me triple the time it takes others to mentally move on. Anyone experience this too, or any suggestions? It feels like being haunted and I develop stronger attachment to the person after we break up than I ever feel actually dating them. I actually left because I didn’t feel like I loved him!

What are things you would want portrayed in a fictional character with ocd?

Twtw Feel sick Back when I was 21 I roleplayed with someone onlineand I can't remember whether or not I asked them their age first or if it was them or me that initiated it. Anyway like the next day they sent me a pic and I asked wait are u an adult because I panicked because they looked young. They said yes and the next or a few weeks after that soon they'd turn nineteen. I felt relieved and kept in contact with them but continuously felt uneasy about the whole thing. There were times when I should have reached out to their friends to ask if this person lied to me or not but I didn't. I kept asking this person if they were an adult and they kept saying yes. However I kept growing more and more suspicious because of their behavior and because still they looked young. Ig the part that's scariest is that on September 15 ( I started talking to them end July and kept interacting with them until either October or November) I searched what the average age is of a high schooler ( or graduate) in the UK. Because apparently they were still in school. And the search said sixteen. I found out recently that in the UK tho some people go for an additional two years like college or college prep idkThat same day I asked them ( can't remember if it was before or after I searched this) if they were actually 18 or I asked them if I had asked them if they were 18 before we roleplayed.(or both can't remember) Also it was weird because when I told them I didn't want to roleplay anymore they freaked out and said they we're actually going to turn 20 soon. . I feel awful and disgusting. I know now this( was four years ago) that I would be a lot more vigilant if I was single and trying to mingle I just feel really gross. I feel like I need to confess more details of this to my bf. He's heard the basics but not all the details. I feel awful.