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Anyone feel the need to keep items in pristine condition like sunglasses or TV’s? My ocd is telling me not to post so I am going to.

I know mental illness is... mental illness; and it isn't just "ouuu brains a bit different, but it's so whatever and I act mysterious . Or haha I'm crazy but it's just quirky." I know it messes the brain, legitimately, and impacts the way one acts- But sometimes, I say things or act in a way where at the moment it's just goes and it's how I feel through the emotions that are ongoing, but sometimes I act a certain way due to my disorder/possible other things and later or afterwards I'm like: "Aueghh I need to shut up- why was I acting that way ?! 🥲" it's like I'm so hyperaware of myself but at the same time I'm not as well and I just cringe a while after. Anyone else ?

TW: Animals When I was younger , two situations make me feel so guilty and disgusted. I had harmed a gecko and two rats. This was 6+ years ago and for both of them, I cried and felt so guilty after situations. I hadn’t thought of events until just recently and it caused my OCD to spiral. I haven’t harmed an animal since and I love my pets but my mind races and gives me anxiety of “What if you do this to your cat?” “What if you did this to your dog?” And it’s been bothering me due to the online things of like “if you harm animals you turn into a killer” and it scares me, giving me anxiety when I see them walk into the room. What do I do??

I am in a relationship. I am engaged, I love my fiance we have been together almost 2 years ( in 2 months) and our wedding is this September (yay!) I know I have had weird thoughts about liking my friends even before I was in a relationship like wayyyy long ago. Ever since I have been with my fiance (this is the longest relationship I have ever had… and it’s my forever lol ♥️) sometimes when I have a coworker that’s a guy or a girl (but mostly guys) like everything will be super ok and fine and whatever then my brain with randomly be like “oop you like them” “you chose wrong” “you’re in the wrong relationship” “you like your coworker”???? Like recently i work with a guy that i used to think was cute like in 2022 from my first job but like we never dated and whatever, but we became like pretty good friends over the years of me leaving and coming back to the same job lol. This time around we have gotten to become pretty good friends and i want my fiance and some of my coworkers to meet and them to be friends because i feel like they would totally vibe. But now like recently my mind has been being like “oh you like him” “you wanna be with him” “you wish you dated” or like i will think about like oh what if we dated What would have happened just things like that. Or like “oh what if you just want to like be single and date other people”??? I love my fiance so much i would never want to hurt him I want to be with him forever and marry him and everything but sometimes when these things pop up in my brain I feel like I am cheating on him an I wanna tell him all the things in my brain but I try not to because I know seeking reassurance doesnt help. Idk has anyone else gone through this? (Ps if you read this whole hot mess youre an angel lol thanks for reading my vent🤍) super tired 🥱

How do y'all deal with guilt and shame which comes after the gruesome, disgusting, disturbing unwanted intrusive thoughts? I am just 20 years old and I have so many dreams for my future I really miss my old self without OCD. I really really have these big dreams for myself, I've always been ambitious but sometimes the intrusive thoughts can be so dark it makes me think I don't deserve to be happy and chase these dreams.

It’s important to focus on what’s good about your situation, not just what feels wrong. But sometimes it’s hard not to reflect on the cost of living with OCD—truly acknowledging how much it can force you to sacrifice. For example, I’m 25 and I still haven’t gotten my driver’s license. I’m slowly working toward it now (hopefully I get there), but it’s been a long, heavy road shaped by avoidance—driven by anxiety, depression, dissociation, and more. It’s been a huge inconvenience and, honestly, a little embarrassing at times. It can feel isolating, like I’m not fully living. And that’s just one area. There’s more…dating, work. I’m curious—what has OCD cost you?

Anyone else obsess about their boss not liking them/being annoyed by you? I’ve been a medical assistant at my current job for about 9 months. In that time, my boss has unfortunately seen my anxiety/OCD in action. I ask her often if she’s mad at me or if I’m going to be fired. And when I don’t ask, I just cannot stop thinking about it and worrying over it. I know that I should not ask or bother her about it. But the way she responds to me is very short and dry. So she always seems to be annoyed at me. Am I probably just overthinking? I really love my job and my coworkers and patients. But I can’t stop obsessing over my boss liking me or not.

How do you handle having a discriminatory or bad thought and feeling guilty? I usually pray about it, but as a Christian, I feel like praying for forgiveness isn’t enough; I need to pray constantly. OCD causes me to continuously think the thought and pray for forgiveness in a cycle. Does having bad thoughts that come out of the blue or imagining worst-case scenarios make you an evil person?

Does anyone else experiences poor memory? Is it correlated with ocd? Sometimes Im not even sure what exactly I ate 2 days ago

I struggle so bad with harm ocd and today I’m so proud of myself! Thanks to the comments from you guys I’ve spent the whole morning with my family and just fought through the uncomfortableness!!

Does anyone feel angry during your obsessive spiral?

There’s feeling of pain deep within my being physically weighing on my chest like a beating drum and my back aches and I feel out of breathe and I just want it to stop and this coat of anxiety to be lifted. How do I release this tension centered in my body? It’s been days on end and sleepless nights and I need a way out.

So I had severe SOOCD, and used to experience sexual abuse in my ex relationship. I would avoid sex because I was afraid I wouldn’t get aroused and if I didn’t, or wasn’t “wet” enough my ex bf would call say I’m not attracted to him and yell and scream at me. I was in this relationship from 16-19. I had no understanding of healthy intimacy. It was so bad I avoided doing anything to myself even, made me so afraid. When I started dating my current bf he was super helpful, patient and understanding. I would freak out if I wasn’t aroused quickly and would cry and worry it was because I wasn’t into him. 6 months into our relationship I applied this logic to him also. If he wouldn’t finish quickly it meant he wasn’t into me, or that he didn’t like me. I’m not insecure, I am quite secure in my relationship. But I heavily connected not finishing or being aroused enough to = not into me or I’m not into them. I still can’t get this out of my head, I avoid sex, fear it, and worry the entire time. Here’s the problem. Now my bf worries about the same. He said my constant checking and worrying makes him feel like he’s not normal and soemthing is wrong with him. He avoids sex, we are both afraid of it, and it’s led to a sexless relationship. I feel horrific for how Ive impacted him. I tell him it’s because of the abuse (very abusive) relationship and my ocd (he also has ocd). Do you guys think this is fixable? How can we work around this? Do you guys think once we remove the anxiety of sex, we will gain desire again? We are both attracted to eachother but man, I can’t help but feel horrible and that now our relationship is doomed. How can we work together to fix this?

Hello friends, I don’t know how to ensure I don’t do compulsions or do anything that would be bad for my healing journey. Can someone read and help? So, every month my period has been late, and every month my OCD fills my head with the same fear “what if you cheated on your partner and don’t remember. He won’t believe you. Because who would? And you’ll lose him forever” that’s the most prominent thought. Along with “what if your partner had his way with you while you slept” or even worse.. what if someone else did. I’m now technically a day late from when I got my period the last month. I have had a longer cycle then this before. June of 2025. Yes I track that extensively. Here is my dilemma. My mind tells me I should “take a pregnancy test” to put my mind at ease. I have done that before. Knowing I’m a virgin, celibate etc. and yet I still watched that test with immense fear. And when it came back negative (Because yeah of course it did). I started searching it’s effectiveness (expiry dates, if I did it correct.) I know it’s a trap but my god I would love the relief of not being a monster. My mind convinces me every month that I have betrayed my partner. He keeps trying to cheer me up. The doctors say it could be PCOS. As it runs in my family. I have most symptoms. So my partner just thinks it’s that like everyone else. But the doctor didn’t even pregnancy test me. So how can they know for sure. And if it did come back positive. How?! You know. I heard sometimes fake positive tests mean cancer too. So that also scares me. Anyway I have been being distant from my partner. My brain has convinced me I have betrayed him and he is being so sweet to me. And I can’t get the what if’s to go away. And I feel so guilty and stressed which isn’t making my period come any quicker being stressed. I don’t know what to do. Or how to cope. What to do or not to do. I want to make sure I don’t participate in a compulsion. I also want peace. Help.

One of the things that OCD makes difficult for me is buying things, particularly expensive things or things I'll have to use a lot, like sneakers. I have bad knees but like to run, so I want to buy sneakers that will be comfortable. I found myself going to 3 different store over the course of 2 days, trying on bunches of pairs, testing them out for a couple hours, and still feeling overwhelmed when deciding. I did purchase a pair but still unsure how I feel about them and debating returning them and going to another store to get another opinion/other options. It's exhausting and I just want to accept the shoes I bought. I don't want it to be a whole task. I am going to work on practicing NERs, just having a hard time with it right now. Just curious if anyone can relate so I feel less alone in this and if anyone has suggestions of what works for them? Thanks ❤️

TW: mention of my internal thoughts related to racism I am constantly stressed (no matter where I go, or who I'm talking to) about systemic oppression and problems in the world (namely racism, poverty, sexism, transphobia, climate change & environmental degredation) and how I can contribute to fix it. Its like a mental bug in my mind that won't stop saying "this is a problem you should be aware of and doing something about RIGHT NOW or else something terrible is going to happen and it will be all your fault." I dont like socializing very much anymore because this is always running through my mind, so when I engage in any sort of conflict or confrontation or anything outside of me doing something to help someone, I feel overwhelmed and sometimes break down emotionally. I feel like I can't do normal or fun things without getting distracted by and focusing on intrusive thoughts. This has been a significant problem since I was a teenager. It started with being worried about recycling properly or driving my car too much, or leaving the lights on. Now its gotten to "if i look at this Black person awkwardly, are they going to think I'm racist?" and then latching onto that thought and doing mental compulsions to figure out how I can avoid being racist. I am in fact White, if that was not obvious already lol. I feel like helping and engaging is more of a compulsion than something I actually love doing or want to do, instead it feels like something I HAVE to do. Im burned out constantly because in most of my relationships, Im just trying to figure out ways I can make peoples' libes better, I'm not actually being present or enjoying my time with them/engaging fully with an activity. I dont want to live in a state of constant burn out and obsessive thoughts. I want to tolerate being uncomfortable and allowing shit that's out of my control to just be, but there's lots of intrusive thoughts running through my mind telling me "you have to do something about this or else someone, somewhere will be harmed by you"

Need some advice perhaps?? So this is random but I want to be married someday and I don’t go on dates a lot and I pray about it all the time. And I don’t know when random people are interested in me I either shut them all off or like I’m like they could be a future husband or something yk I feel like I’m impulsive and we aren’t suppose to chase after someone else but how do I know If I don’t try they aren’t gonna magically appear. But then I’ll give them a chance sometimes or just cut them off out of nowhere and we like nah they aren’t it I already know or maybe they are a distraction or maybe I’m ignoring the signs of someone who it could be. It’s just a lot does anyone else feel like this? Cuz I don’t wanna make the wrong choice or be distracted but want to experience potentially finding someone and getting myself out there cuz I’m more reserved.

TW: Checking I have a huge problem with checking. When I’m triggered by something, I tend to always grab my phone and start researching and spiraling for hours on end about that one thing. Usually it will feed into other things I worry about, and the cycle repeats. For example, I’m awake now because I’ve been up for the last 3 hours being paranoid about a Quora and Reddit post I made a while ago asking for advice. Constantly fearing that people sharing them are making fun of me, worrying about the comments and dislikes. I also tend to get in my head about rude comments. I made a lot of spelling mistakes in my Quora post, and people were coming at me kind of rude because of it, and it has me feeling extremely self-conscious, worrying that other people will find out it’s me and make fun of me. Anyone have any advice on how to stop checking so much and to learn to sit with uncertainty?

Hi all! I am very new here. I was diagnosed with ocd a year ago, but was never able to get treatment and recently stumbled onto this app. I am not sure what category to put this in because I feel very confused right now. I have so many thoughts my brain feels a bit blank. But essentially, I am on a vacation with two of my closest friends, and one of their parents. There are have several things throughout the trip that have been heightening my anxiety. Right now I feel obsessed with thoughts around how the people around me feel about me, and about whether or not I am 'performing' well if that makes sense. It's an excruciating cycle because I know the worse I feel, the worse I am to be around, and then that exacerbates my anxiety. But I can't get rid of these thoughts about my behaviour, how I feel I've been unhelpful throughout the trip and about my friends and their family hating me now, or thinking worse of me now. I feel really upset with myself too because this trip, while being really fun, has also made me feel like a lot of the mental health progress I have made has been undone, and I've fallen back into behaviour I've worked really hard on improving. This is all to say, does anyone have any advice on how to regulate these kinds of emotions and deal with the bombardment of thoughts? Of course I want to be reflecting on myself and my behaviour so I can be a good friend and responsible, but I also recognise that this bombardment of thoughts is not helpful, and that a lot of these are intrusive thoughts. My sense of reality feels a little distorted and I feel slow and am finding it difficult to remember things. I am not able to calm down and I feel really disconnected from myself and what I think would be helpful for myself. Any time I do successfully calm down, I immediately have thoughts of 'well what if it doesnt matter and the damage is already permanently done' which just ends up eventually restarting the cycle. Thanks for any advice!!

Has anyone with history of TOCD found it possible to avoid being trans to align with the intrusive thoughts? I’m convinced that my TOCD is actually just a suppression of being trans because I’m scared of it, even though I am trying to remember that just because I’ve always been afraid of being trans and what it would do to my life, it doesn’t mean I actually am trans. I feel dysphoria and can’t stop imagining myself as a man, and my brain then tells me that I like these thoughts. I think I am suffering from depersonalization because I have been completely disconnected from my body for years as a result of trying to cope with this. I even developed an eating disorder as a way of trying to regain control of my life. I always identified as a cis straight woman and had no awareness of misalignment or disappointment in my womanhood when I was younger, I often times just felt like I wasn’t enough (pretty enough, nice enough, accepted enough, successful enough, etc.). However, early awareness of finding women conventionally attractive and fear of being a lesbian has intensified into years of TOCD. I’m in a spiral where I can’t stop ruminating and have spent so much time overanalyzing my whole life that identity feels gray and confusing now, and I’m uncomfortable by the idea of being friends or in a relationship with anyone. I want to be able to see myself as a wife and mom, to reconnect with my identity as a daughter and sister, but these thoughts have taken it all away from me. Like no matter what I think I want, I’ll never be able to happily be in a cis straight relationship because I’ve always been trans underneath it all. I’m hoping I can survive this because I don’t want that to be my life just because I couldn’t overcome these thoughts. I don’t know that I can continue on when it feels like I want something (to be a man) that I’ve always wanted to not want. Thank you.