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What’s your “why” this week? 🎯 Share what’s motivating you in the comments.

Well, not entirely new. I am a gay, cisgender male. About 10 years ago, I struggled with the OCD fear that I was trans, but I recovered from that. I’ve had many other themes both before and after, (perfectionism, SO-OCD, POCD, and so on). Last Monday, after wondering if I made a mistake cutting the blonde highlights out of my hair and letting it go back to natural brown, I wondered if I wasn’t expressing myself authentically. (Authenticity is very important to me.) That quickly turned into questions like: am I just dressing heteronormative because I’m too afraid of the backlash for dressing more androgynous? I had never wanted to paint my nails, wear heels, skirts etc., but now, in a matter of a week, it feels like I do and that I’m living a lie. Idk what to do—for the last ten years of my life, I have felt very comfortable and content in my identity, and that has felt amazing. I am a huge Lady Gaga fan, and I’m obsessed with all her wigs and outfits, but for the last ten years (and after dealing with the trans theme), I’ve never wanted to wear them myself. But now I’m afraid I’ve just been suppressing the fact that I do—and that if I don’t dress like that (or paint my nails/wear makeup), I’m dressing boring and living a lie. :(

Hi everyone, I just want to share my experience and maybe receive some helpful tips or something. Growing up I never understood why I was the way I was. When I turned 18 I had the first life changing flare-up. I wasn’t officially diagnosed until I was 21. Over the last few years I’ve been on and off of different themes such as HOCD, POCD, COCD, etc. Over the last year I met my boyfriend who is the first healthy relationship I’ve ever been in. Before him I was cheating on. And not to mention I have some serious abandonment issues lol. After about 5 months into us dating I had a flare-up which so happened to be ROCD. With that I was constantly so scared I would lose feeling or cheat. It was a very hard recovery, but I did it. Some crazy stuff has recently happened in my life that has brought up a lot of trauma and trust issues. I am now constantly thinking that my boyfriend is cheating on me. I know it’s important not to seek reassurance or confess. But it’s all I can seem to do. It has really started to affect our relationship. I will also say I am starting therapy soon. I know I just supposed to tell myself I need to be okay with the unknown and maybe he is cheating maybe he isn’t, but that moto is not seeming to help. I have never felt worse that the past 2 weeks I can’t seem to sleep, or just “be normal”. I know I will be okay, I just can’t seem to pull it together. I feel each time I make a recovery something else takes its place, but each time it’s more scary and feels more real. I don’t know if anyone can relate to this or not but if so you’re not alone.

Lately my health anxiety has been taking over. I get scared that something’s seriously wrong with me, and I end up overanalyzing every symptom and every blood test result. Even when my doctor says everything looks fine, I can’t stop rereading the numbers and Googling what they mean. I also find myself constantly asking for reassurance — texting friends or family to ask if they think I’m okay, or avoiding the doctor completely because I’m terrified of what the results might say. It feels like a never-ending loop: fear → checking → temporary relief → fear again. I know this is probably health-related OCD, but it feels so real and scary in the moment. I want to break the cycle and learn how to sit with uncertainty instead of trying to control everything. If anyone else struggles with this — avoiding appointments, obsessing over test results, needing constant reassurance — how do you handle it? What’s helped you start trusting that you’re okay without checking? Thanks for reading. It helps just to say this out loud. 💛

Does anybody constantly think about how a therapist would react to your real event if you were to tell them about everything you’ve been going through with intrusive thoughts and past memories/actions when surrounding taboo topics. Like my brain is telling me that even though they may not directly say that I’m a sick/bad person, they will secretly think it. Like one of the biggest reasons as to why I haven’t sought out a therapist is because I’m afraid they’ll secretly think I’m a pedo. I also keep imagining actually meeting with a therapist and then them going home, sharing their day with other people like we all do and then saying things like “ I had this new patient and this is what she did, when she first told It was the first time I’ve been taken aback and I had to hide my disgust, she’s really sick” like that’s literally the worst case scenario for me. I think because my real event(s) doesn’t involve any one real or has to do with anything illegal and my brain can’t turn to what are the consequences of this it turns to my own morality and catastrophizes it in the sense that I’m actually a sick person and although my undiagnosed ocd is a mental illness, it’s only bringing to light what I didn’t recognize before my ruminations and obsessions.

It’s my birthday today and I feel like I can’t allow myself to be happy or anything because this terrible disease just makes me freak out all the time I feel worthless and ashamed and like I shouldn’t be celebrated. I usually hate my birthday but it’s so much worse now. It feels like a punishment. I’m going to a psychiatrist tomorrow which is also freaking me out. I’m 24 and I feel so terrible and this is nothing like what I envisioned. If you’ve had any success with medications I’d be interested to hear, im super scared about starting them. Thanks for listening idk. This is so isolating

everyone says to live my life and enjoy my relationship even if i have the thoughts, to separate the ocd from reality, but how can i do that if it feels like its not rocd, but the real me, that i actually lost feelings. I literally feel like a different person, likei have changed…. i used to be so loving, in not anymore, it feels like the ocd its just thereal me and i dont accept that i lost feelings, maybe im just scared of change. please… i dont feel any love. i am disgusted, repulsed, annoyed, by him. And he dosent do anything wrong. i used to be ao loving and actualy feel something but that is long gone. maybe when i did that i just tried to cope and deny the fact tbat i lost feelings

So my dad has been in the hospital the past month because he has this uncommon blood circulation disorder in his brain that causes his brain to flow too much blood in his head it has caused a stroke seizures blood clots fistulas and he has had two embolisms in his brain since he was born which apparently I now have to see the doctor next week about because it could be hereditary. His symptoms haven't started until recently. He has had five operations in the past ten months for it. My mom also had a liver biopsy this week to see if she has chirrosis and my step grandmother died in the middle of all this and I was going through a severe OCD flareup and episode while this is all going on. I have exams and college assignments to study for and I'm currently studying for an exam and worried about failing because the extreme stress from everything is causing me to have visual hallucinations again like I did when I went through psychosis several years ago. I'm also having a hard time focusing. I'm seeing shadow people walking around my house and weird shadow shapes it's in my direct line of sight it's not like when you see something out of the corner of your eye, it's literally a shadow people walking around the room I'm looking into. I know theyre not real but I get nervous walking into the room they're in. I have severe OCD and panic disorder and some other stuff.Life is really hard right now.He also has to repeat. How to do everything his personality is there but his voice is very different and it makes me cry. He will have to learn how to do literally everything from the stroke he had but the doctors say he has a lot of hope for recovery and they are apparently the best neurosurgeons in the country so I'm trying to quiet the what ifs that my OCD is trying to tell me. I also hope the hallucinations go away as the stress does down. I'm not looking for answers I'm just venting and wondering if anyone else has ever had issues with seeing things that aren't there during extreme stress or have any advice on how to cope, uplifting quotes or nice words are appreciated as well thank you for coming to my ted talk lol.

Need this badly...

Soocd. Still awaiting help. Been talking to ChatGPT all this time. I just really don’t know myself. I don’t know. I’m young, so I know there’s lots to figure out, but why am I so adamant that I must be into dudes and not girls? Why can I not just be ok with it???

I’ve been trying to understand how much my OCD affects the way I behave in relationships, and today I realised it may play a much bigger role than I thought. I’ve always known OCD shows up in different parts of my life but I’m starting to recognise certain patterns that feel very OCD-like, especially when it comes to romantic interest. Whenever I meet a man and develop even a slight interest or crush, my mind goes into overdrive almost immediately. The intensity is disproportionate to the situation and sometimes it happens after one meeting, one conversation, or even just a moment of attention. I start experiencing a lot of obsessive symptoms like constant intrusive thoughts about them, rumination about what they think or feel, replaying interactions over and over, predicting or imagining future scenarios, checking their social media repeatedly and feeling unable to “switch off” thoughts even when I want to It feels like my brain latches onto the person as a theme and then the cycle just continues. It doesn’t feel logical or based on any real emotional connection , it’s more like my OCD finds something uncertain or exciting and turns it into an obsession. I’ll catch myself thinking “why am I this fixated on someone I barely know?” and it feels completely out of proportion. Does anyone else with OCD experiences similar patterns with attachment, crushes, or new relationships. Is this a common presentation of relationship-related OCD or obsessional thinking? And have you found strategies that help break the loop?

(This is a bit of a rant sorry) My OCD has been so bad lately because I haven’t been taking my pills right. I keep skipping it every other night. I know it’s bad and not healthy but I honesty struggle to take it because of my OCD. I have an extreme fear of choking and not being able to breathe that I have to drink a lot every time I take my pills. Then I have to swallow over and over again (like 30-50+ times) until I feel my throat is clear. By the time I lay down to go to sleep, I have to pee. Oh and I have bladder OCD. So I keep having to pee over and over again until my bladder is completely empty. Which takes forever because I drink so much. Then I have to drink and swallow more because I want to make sure everything is clear and it just never stops. I can’t sleep until hours after I take my pills. Then when I don’t take my pills I start getting these delusional intrusive thoughts and false memories that feel so real and make me question everything. Oh and the withdrawal makes me itch all over so I keep scratching for hours. It’s just so frustrating and I feel tired all the time and my sleep schedule is off because I avoid taking my pills sometimes until the morning and ugh. I just feel defeated. OCD is in every little thing I do now. It’s taken over my life, ruined my friendships (my friends barely talk to me anymore), delayed my college graduation, made me question my family and their love/goodness, almost ruined a family members life due to a false memory, given me depression and dread to the point I barely do anything, ruined the things I do love by feeding me delusional intrusive thoughts, ruined my mental and physical well being, made me question everything and every thought, sent me to the mental hospital like two or three times due to suicidal OCD and harm OCD stuff, and prevented me from finding happiness in the things I used to love. I know it gets better, and I have good days. But lately I’ve been so exhausted. In the past I had bad OCD (not as bad as now) and I managed to get over it by telling myself one morning “I’m not going to give in to the OCD” and it worked. I wish I had the strength to do that again, but I feel like it’s deeply rooted in my head to the point it’s second nature to give in to compulsions. I just want to rest, just get genuinely good rest and stop worrying. I want to wake up one morning and be able to live without worrying. I just want to be able to breathe freely. Is anyone else going through a hard time? I mean, OCD is like a cancer that spreads to every part of life. So I know everyone here has/or has had a hard time. I just don’t know what to do. I need some advice, if you even bothered to read this far. Thank you.

so basically two weeks ago i blocked my only guy friend bc he was literally provoking me i swear 😭🙏but then today at school he asked me to unblock him and im like no but then he messaged me like “forgot to block me here” and im like hsjdjdjdjd goodness 😊 jolly 😁💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀 and we talk about why i blocked him and he was being really nice and stuff and i got so scared- like basically im scared of guys in general like all of them- i dont have any- trauma or anything its just like- or maybe i do have trauma and just dont know about it I dont know but i dont speak to guys AT ALLLLLLL like ever- they avoid me, i avoid them, and whenever a guy speaks to me i literally become the most avoidant and rude person ever and i just ignore and hide away 😭 and somehow i managed to become friends with this one guy- ive had a few guy friends before but theyre usually gay- but this one isnt- 😭 and okay I DO NOT LIKE HIM and he DOES NOT LIKE ME…. He literally has his own crush or whatever that he yaps about all the time and i really like another guy too (never speaking to him or initiating anything with him though because i cant 😭 im most terrified of him) but my BRAINNN keeps going like “you like him. You should date him.” About the guy friend and like “he likes you. You want him” BRO NO I DONT PLEASE STOP IM SO SCARED WHY IS THIS HAPPENING I CANT

When you're having an OCD flare up, what's ur go-to thing to "sit with anxiety." Like do you meditate? Like I'm confused.

I have been dealing with ROCD on and off my entire relationship with my now husband. Sometimes it’ll get better, sometimes the ocd will Latch onto other things.. but it’s always there. Recently since getting married I have felt myself slowly losing it. I love my husband and we have a very beautiful relationship, but sometimes I deeply crave emotional connection with him. I do get it in bits, but never feels “enough.” He used to be very in tune with his emotions but after 5 years and life happening, he is very stressed and doesn’t have as much capacity. I know for a fact that I deeply crave emotional connection beyond surface level. But how do I know when I’m asking for too much? Just that question alone tells me that this is my OCD, but I genuinely crave this deep connection, I always have since I was very young. I feel so much and I crave to be stimulated mentally and emotionally. Since moving in with my husband it’s just been very surface level, we barely talk all day because I work from home and he is away. He gets home and I’m starting work. We never wake up together, go to sleep together. On the weekends we watch movies or shows and that’s about it. I want adventure and exploration of emotions and to feel deeply with him like the beginning. I never know what is ocd or what’s real. That’s the hardest part. How do I know I really crave this? Is my mind just trying to make me suffer? I feel so unhappy, partly the unhappiness comes from within, because I truly love my husband more than anything in this world. There feels like there’s just no way out. I feel lost, when I bring up the topic at least once a week or on a bad week, he gets defensive. It’s a repeating cycle of struggling, opening up to him, him getting defensive, we repair (somewhat) and say we will try to connect more, and then it doesn’t happen and the cycle continues. I know probably no one will see this, but I’m just so lost. I don’t think I have the money to even get professional help. It feels so out of reach. Part of me feels like this is a very real need that I need met, and the other part of me is saying “suck it up, being comfortable and routine isn’t bad. It doesn’t have to be sparks all the time” I’m so lost and I’m struggling so hard.

I keep obsessing over a past extremely toxic relationship. I’m dreaming about him again. Stalking the social medias. Just can get him out of my brain BUT I KNOW ITS NOT LOVE I KNOW IT ISNT this is just me craving the chaos and stress from that time of my life because I am now in a place where my life is calmer and I’m in a steady and healthy relationship with my now boyfriend and he’s the best thing ever. I just can’t stop these thoughts and I’m scared I’m gonna run back to him because that’s what’s happened in the past. I don’t want the cycle to repeat but it’s like I can’t stop. I am medicated for my ocd but this just feels so much stronger then what I can handle especially because I’ve never overcome these thoughts before and always just went back to him until he broke my heart again. Help

What’s a win from your week? Take a moment to reflect on what you're proud of, and share it in the comments!

I am reluctant to talk to a therapist because I know what I did was illegal although I was in elementary school and didn’t know it was wrong at the time. It’s bothered me since forever and I’m not even sure if it really happened or was a dream but talking to a therapist would help me I know but I have a hard time opening up to people, I’ve told my friends but that’s it. Any tips or opinions?

Hello, Asking for guidance for my partner whos lifelong OCD morffed to pOCD years ago and the situation has gone worse over time. We have not had normal intimacy now for half a year with some stressfull exceptions. The big problem is that pOCD thoughts have tormented my partner and she "can never be certain" if there was a "bad" thought some time before that created arousal and for that reason all sexual feelings and action feels inappropriate. Over time Ive stopped all sexual approach, because it might cause more anxiety in her. We might try be close, but any moment a thought might jump to her mind and then we have to just stop because they tarnish the whole experience. We have feelings for each other but OCD has highjacked our relationship and killed our sex life and even affection and it feel like dead-end every time. I joined no-nut-november with friends to have a month of selibacy to give her space with the subject and for me to have an experience of autonomy by choosing a period of non-sexuality for my self so it is not the OCD of my partner that is calling the shots, whitch have been devastating over time to be in an infinite-feeling rejection loop with no control over it. We are studying the subject to go forward. Some helpful points from the forum has been stop reacting to that mean suggesting inner voice so not to argue with it because it always claims the pOCD is actual p and learning about the groin responce that it is not a "proof" of being a p. What advices would you have or material to look in to grow out of this nightmare? This is maybe a sixth variation of OCD she has had over her life and the other form have resolved over time, but this challenge feels off course the worst in every way and we feel generally helpless in moving on.

Adults only It's so hard for me to move on in life without thinking about my lowest points. Primarily, they come from porn addiction. I watched so many degrading, questionable, objectifying, weird, and uncomfortable things that I feel hurt my morality and I just can't take that back. I know it's an addiction but I still can't help but feel like this is something that just makes me an unlovable, or bad person. I just can't shake the thought that if people in my life were to figure this out, they'd see me differently in a negative light. I just don't know how to move past this.