Kickstart your recovery journey with a caring community of others
working to conquer OCD
Mine tried to convince me once that if i dont say God and Jesus Christ and imagine him perfectly while praying id be praying to a random guy named jesus or whatever id be looking at đ cant look at statues pcs ect bruh
First let me start this off, I mean this in a philosophical way (yes I know Iâm a real person). Recently I had the thought (maybe time just noticing the realization) of my own consciousness. My own self. Like, I see through my own eyes. I canât see my face without a mirror, because I am me. Others canât hear my thoughts. I can talk to myself in my head. I can choose what I say in my head. Iâm sure everyone whoâs ever lived went through a realization like this, but my OCD/Anxiety mind just keeps looping it over and over in my head until it freaks me out, where I start thinking deeper âhow would I really know other people do the same realizationâ? Anyone else experience this?? Feeling better the brain loop is almost over lol
Does anyone have false memories from their childhood? If so would ou mind sharing and how do u know these are false memories? Did they pop up as a memory or was it a thought? Guess im asking how do you know if false memorh or real?
hi there! iâm new here and new to ocd in general. i apologize if i unintentionally come off as assurance seeking, so please donât hesitate to hold me accountable. i really just need an outlet so iâm not holding in all my panic. i understand that there isnât a solution. but basically i was introduced to social media at a very young age. and of course i was very irresponsible. i was in multiple fandom spaces and my young brain thought i needed to create an account for every fandom. iâve gotten rid of a good chunk of them but there is one i lost access to and i tried to get back in today so i can delete it. it turns out i might have gotten the username wrong because a screen popped up saying the log-in info was incorrect and they sent an email to the personâs account about the log-in attempt. and now iâm paranoid that instagram might somehow punish me for trying to get into someoneâs account when it was just a mistake. and i worry that i might have caused whoever the account belongs to panic when i didnât mean to (if the account is even still active, it looked blank). but yeah. iâm not sure what the point of this post was. i was just very distressed and typing it all out kinda made me feel better. so thanks for just reading if this even reaches anyone.
I really hate that scrupulousity is called religious/spiritual OCD bc there's no other name for the non-religious version that I've heard other than scrupulousity, which nobody here uses and is seemingly associated with the religious aspects. Harm OCD isn't the same either. I'm terrified of being morally wrong, a bad person, a terrible member of society, someone who, if hell does exist, belongs there. But I don't believe in God. Or hell. Or religion. As much as I've tried so hard to, I simply just dont...but I still I experience every aspect of this form of OCD just minus religion. In conversations about it or definitions of it, if you replace "sinning" with "being immoral" , "God" with "society", and "religious practices/values" with "moral duties and obligations" and then maybe some other things, that sums it up well. Obsessing overdoing the right things in the right ways and staying true to my beliefs but also making sure that my beliefs are acceptable in society and valid and if I disagree with the majority of society's opinion I have to make absolute sure that I'm not a terrible person for it especially if it's a moral issue and if I can't be certain of it then it means I'm evil and I have failed as a member of society and I'm a terrible person and that scares me because I just want to be good. Constantly overly evaluating all of my beliefs why I believe them where they came from where I get my information how I process things how I decide what is or isn't right or wrong in my own personal view of the world and versus everybody else's. Why I agree with people on some things why I disagree with people on some things why I'm mixed on some issues and why and how I go about everything related to my belief systems. I can't help myself I review everything so often that it gives me headaches. I have even prayed to nothing out of desperation "just in case I'm wrong" despite not being religious or spiritual or at all believing that my prayers are heard/taken in. It's a nightmare. I just want to be a good person. I don't want to be bad or problematic or evil. But I'm scared that if I disagree with a moral value the majority holds, despite all the review and reconsideration and time looking at all sides and evaluating myself, then I am evil. And that makes me wanna puke.
What is a hobby outside of what ocd tells you that you actually enjoy or used to enjoy!
Hi OCD Community, Does anyone have checking compulsions? Mine, for instance, make me do alot of things I know are not necessary, but of course I do the dance of OCD. Some, for example, are checking multiple times to make sure doors are locked (car home) and make sure nothing is plugged in that can catch on fire, which are just some OCD compulsions that I think are more normal. The one that really frustrates me and affects my life the most is I will have something whether that be a bag, a package I just opened, clothes Iâm getting rid of, etc, and I have to check everything before I throw it away- every little crease of the bag, every little crease of the box, every little crease of the pocket of the clothing, and as you can imagine that gets exhausting, and very frustrating. I am prescribed Prozac and it takes the edge off, but I honestly donât even take it because it doesnât solve the problem. If anyone has the same compulsions, have you came up with anything thatâs been able to help them or to help you get through your day? I would really appreciate advice especially on cleaning faster where youâre not taking forever to throw one thing away because you have to completely, thoroughly search it. Thank you!
I recently started setting boundaries in my life, and Iâve noticed that I used to take many things personally, especially because my family was involved in a lot of areas of my life. I also realized that a big part of my anger came from not having clear boundaries between myself and others. Iâve also ended some relationships because certain people didnât understand or respect the boundaries I was trying to set. Lately, I feel like Iâm no longer seeking acceptance as much as I am seeking respect. However, sometimes I worry that Iâve gone too far in the opposite direction. There are moments when I wonder if setting these boundaries is making me selfish. There is also an older woman at my workplace. She is a good person and has helped me a lot, but I sometimes feel that she interferes in the way I speak or express myself. Iâve been thinking about keeping the relationship more surface-level, but Iâm not sure if thatâs the right choice. When Iâm with her, I sometimes feel like Iâm losing my sense of identity, and she often gets upset with me, which leaves me confused about the relationship. Since I started setting boundaries, I feel like Iâve lost many relationships. I used to be very social and had a large circle of friends, but now I sometimes feel like I donât have a close friend. So I keep wondering: am I setting too many boundaries, or am I simply no longer accepting relationships that donât respect my needs? Has anyone experienced something similar? What are your thoughts?
20 y/o NB (Masc) CW: Mention of Kink At the current moment, I feel as if I have entered a stage of emotional burnout, in which my anxiety needs much more effort to be consciously present. This allows me to think a bit more clearly about potential big life decisions. This burnout was caused by a relapse into certain kink fantasies that I genuinely enjoyed, but I feel like the ethical tolerability of such a fantasy can be debated. I was somewhat pressured by a friend into it because it was purely fictional, but it still made me feel dirty after, even if it was fun to roleplay. I did try to go on trying to enjoy it for about a day like a normally did before I had my spiral. Cut to today, and I had another fantasy. Again, it felt good, but I felt so wrong after. This led to a short anxiety spike and subsequent burnout. Now I'm here, thinking about how that friend, as well as an unrelated friend group of mine who all share a common kink. I can't tell if it's subconscious anxiety, or if I've gained perspective on the topic, or if I just grew a bigger conscience, but I think I'm starting to outgrow that friend group, or at the very least I feel like I need to sooner or later. My issue is that I love them, and I don't think they're bad or malicious people. Maybe the fantasies are or aren't ethical, but either way, I don't think I can agree with that style of fantasy for much longer. And so I'm left with a difficult choice of staying with my friendgroup but risk losing myself due to permanent anxiety, or leave the friendgroup that I've spent years of my life with and love with all my heart, and learn how to be a more well adjusted adult while still running the risk of relapsing. I don't think the safe and stable core of the kink will ever go away for me, so even if I do leave, it's likely I'll "see them around" so to speak. I doubt I'll ever leave the more tame and ethically sound part of that community. Still, I don't know if I can keep the persona I have associated with this kink going 24/7 anymore. Hell that's probably why I spiraled in the first place. I'm not sure what choice to make, but my burnt out mind is currently craving the more stable seeming option of slowly drifting away, even if it hurts a lot. Not really a post to ask questions to y'all, more-so just a way to type out my thought process. But if y'all have any advice or input, feel free to five your two cents.
Well, isolation has completely stripped me of relationships but I also think those relationships were rocky anyways. How do you get through treatment while dealing with the amount of loneliness surrounding your life? I need to use the support groups on here more often
Never thought I would make it to this point! Itâs been a goal of mine ever since starting NOCD. This doesnât mean the work or the difficult days are over, but itâs impressive to see how far Iâve come! Going from a point of feeling no hope to thisâŚ. I canât even begin to explain how amazing it feels! I want to thank God and my therapist Kayla Cumberland, the two who without them, I wouldnât have gotten through this. I also want to thank myself, for staying strong and resilient, even when it felt so close to the end. These are the days I prayed for! Thank you!
I survived the hair salon today haha thats me for another 8 weeks ? It funny because I know for a lot of people they would not describe a trip to the salon as something to SURVIVE. But many of us, do. And its nothing to be ashamed of. I bought myself some crisps and biscuits, tomorrow is Saturday and I have got nothing to do, which is a nice feeling. Wishing everyone a nice weekend, has anyone got any plans over the weekend?
This post is a bit corny but I realized this today and I would feel relief to dump my thoughts. (Also it's a bit scary to post because of #shame) I am a Yumeshipper/Self shipper; which I do because I just enjoy it and it also helps me cope with a bunch of things. And for a little bit of reference I'm under the "Non-Sharing" label which tbh I can't really control. đ Because of Autism: characters I become attached to do not feel like ordinary interests to me. They become DEEPLY intertwined with my identity, comfort, and emotional stability. (They practically become apart of my soul) And I've realized that I'm prettyyy sure my OCD really affects with how I selfship and interact with people in the fandoms I'm in. So with how this hobby gets affected, I'm an EXTREMELY possessive person and I constantly put myself into obsessive loops and checking over how others interact with a character I enjoy. I very very frequently develop a STRONG need to know where I stand in relation to other fans. My brain becomes fixated on questions such as whether other people self-ship with the character, whether they are more popular than me, whether they own more merch, whether they are more recognized in the fandom, or whether people see them as the "real" fan instead of me. (Stupid but it distresses me) There are even times where I flat out avoid or ignore the media/parts of the fandom out of paranoia. it seems I am trying to protect myself from the distress that comes from comparison, uncertainty and a multitude of other things. However, If I don't check for people/media that I KNOW will trigger me; I feel intense anxiety, my brain keeps returning to it, and the urges to check are STRONG (which they momentarily provide horrible feelings and then relief) it's a back and forth cycle of constantly checking and then flat out avoiding everything. It usually begins as panic or a feeling of threat. That feeling can quickly transform into anger, disgust, jealousy, envy, and sometimes even resentment toward people who have done nothing wrong. And it's these thoughts that also sort of turn into moral OCD because then I start spiraling if I'm evil and other things attached to that. Anyways this was my short-ish (I tried lmao) rant about this experience and realization. It's a bit dumb because it's FANDOM and online stuff and tbh it isn't even that 'bad' of an OCD thing because I have way worse obsessions/intrusive thoughts. But ironically this is one of the ones the bring me the most stress and is extremely Frequent đ
I got prescribed hydroxyzine for anxiety recently, and I just tried it for the first time tonight. It makes me really sleepy, but I'm known to fight tiredness and the anxiety still persists. It's just frustrating. I'm already on a mood stabilizer and an atypical antipsychotic for bipolar disorder, but my anxiety is still high at points. I'm so so tired a lot of nights, but can't sleep because either thought spirals or general anxiety keeps me up. I know I've barely given it a chance, but it kinda just feels like I took a benadryl and I feel like I need to make another appointment with my psychiatrist to see about something else. I also feel like I need something that isn't just to use as needed and instead handles persistent anxiety. I can't use SSRIs, so has anyone here had good experiences with non-SSRI medications for persistent anxiety?
Today I was scrolling through Instagram reels and saw a video that briefly looked sexual to me, even though it wasnât. I see a man and a women you know ( sorry I donât want to give to much) and I felt a sensation that was familiar and it when me and my boyfriend were really close and intimate. While that imagine was playing while I was like also watching reels the guy and girl kept automatically switching to a girl and girl. The switch felt intrusive and unwanted, and when it happened my heart dropped and I became scared and upset. I noticed that the images felt very vivid and immersive, almost like I was âthere,â and I still felt that sensation which made me worry that they meant something about me. It played in the back of my mind or when Iâm like read comments , or telling myself that âI donât like girls , I like boys â repeatedly, and while it intrusive thought I can feel that sensation that felt familiar sensation and it makes me feel so sad and mad because was that sensation for image? And sometimes I wonder did I see the girl and guy?then i get worried if I was lying to myself and making excuses . I started questioning whether the thoughts felt like me and whether they meant I secretly wanted them, even though I didnât want the switch to happen and it upset me when it did. Recently Iâve also noticed that I sometimes feel ânormalâ or emotionally flat during these thoughts instead of panicking like I used to. This confuses me because I worry that feeling normal means I secretly like the thoughts or am accepting them. I also notice that intrusive images can automatically insert girls into situations where I normally imagine my boyfriend, and I become afraid that this means my true feelings are changing. I feel confused because the thoughts and images can feel real, vivid, and personal, and sometimes my body reacts or I become hyperaware of sensations. I often question whether these reactions mean something, and I find myself worrying that Iâm discovering something hidden about myself.
Hello to everyone reading, this is my first post so please bear with me. Quick brief about me: I always have struggled with anxiety and mental health. I could never figure out why I handle things a certain way and why I obsess over every little detail; past or present. Until recently my doctor had begun talking to me about OCD and how she recognizes the traits and similarities she sees in me. It made sense to finally put a word to what has been the reasoning behind the way I think. I wasnât even sure if it was OCD at first. I thought I was just overly sensitive. Iâm still trying to navigate this all. This post is long but please I hope whoever is reading this will give me a chance. Anyway, my OCD is based around the subject of health and pregnancy. Specifically, tokophobia (fear of pregnancy and childbirth) and just generalized health. It all started roughly 1 year ago. I was diagnosed with a pituitary macroadenoma. A non-cancerous tumor of the pituitary gland. After of not having a period for a year I was able to seek treatment however I was under the care of a doctor who was inexperienced with my condition. As I began to take medication to shrink this tumor without the use of radiation or chemotherapy, I started to slowly get my period back. I would like to preface that I was deemed infertile throughout the duration of this who process. My sexual life had remained intact with my fiancee and all seemed to be ok. The only problem was my doctor did not tell me I would eventually become fertile again. I was prescribed a horrible birth control that was too much for me to handle (my body does not respond well to added hormones) needless to say I will admit I was at fault for keeping up with them. I was never instructed on how to protect myself. After one event I found out I was pregnant. After tears, yelling and screaming from my Mom; she supported mine and my fiancee decision to terminate. My decision is as followed: 1) I have a tumor that I am trying to treat, if I continue with the pregnancy I would have to discontinue usage of my tumor medication. 2) I am struggling to find work, I have not even $10 to my name. I am supported by my mom and also my fiancee whom he barely makes minimum wage. 3) I am not healed from past trauma. I feel like I need to justify my decision only because I know termination has become such a political topic and in no way means am I trying to offend anyone. For me, I had to choose this route because I was not mentally, financially and physically fit. I would go into detail but the process was smooth yet traumatic at the same time. Flash forward to my appointment with my new endocrinologist. She had reviewed my scans during the duration of this process and during a visit she said the following: âIf you continued with this pregnancy I would have had to take you off of this medication. The tumor would absolutely grow because of the pregnancy. Given the size and placement of it on the optic nerves, you would have gone blind and I would have to perform surgery to try and save your eyes.â I belive this is where it all started. Now here I am a year later. I have a new OBGYN who actually performed the procedure and placed me on an amazing birth control. This pill has actually stopped my cycle all together. I am now 1 year without a period. Which actually in a way doesnât help my OCD. This time around I am taking it the same time everyday on the dot. I use condoms as well even though sometimes my fiancĂŠ doesnât want to and he always pulls out minutes before he âis doneâ. We always try to do a âno condom timeâ once a month only if that makes sense? I trust the medication, I trust my doctors, and I trust my fiancĂŠ with withdrawal. I have never noticed anything inside me after these encounters. To reiterate, I take the pill same time everyday and have not missed one pill. I skip placebos and go straight into a new package. I am ware that birth control is an effective form of protection with perfect usage, that condoms are just another added form of protection. So why am I getting this fear that every time I have sex without a condoms that I will end up pregnant? I feel like I am reliving this whole nightmare. I keep obsessing over the tests so to speak. Sometimes every month, I will get a âphantom periodâ. I will get all the PMS symptoms such as headaches, acne flare up, bloating, nausea and slight cramping. But there is no blood on the account of the birth control pill. During these times I go into panic mode. I obsess over every little ache and pain and think âOmg this was similar to when I was pregnantâŚcould I be?â The only way I feel like I can snap myself out of this is if I test via blood or at home. In the past couple of months I have spent well over $400 on pregnancy tests. Tests that I keep for days and days and look at everyday. I start to feel like what if the result changes past the time youâre not supposed to ready them anymore. I will get a flashlight and shine it behind the testing site and see if I can see another line. Iâll even go as far as using a magnifying glass to see if I can see anything. So far, nothing. Every single test negative. But when Iâm like this I canât stop. I want to stop but I donât know how. My fiancĂŠ has agreed to now use condoms exclusively with the birth control; that he doesnât care about how it feels for him he just wants me to enjoy sex and feel comfortable. Though even with the condom usage I still feel afraid and think of the âWhat ifs?â I never ever want to experience what I went through again. Iâm afraid of pregnancy and the idea of it. I donât think Iâll ever be ready but in the meantime I want to just heal and be me. I want to stop this obsession over tests and bloodwork. Itâs hurting my finances, my relationship with my fiancĂŠ and the relationship with myself. I want to enjoy life and not worry about testing. Please, if anyone out there can relate or give me some advice I would forever be appreciative of that. Iâm sorry if this triggered anyone. I donât mean to offend anyone as well. Anyway, thank you for reading. Iâm kind of a chatter box, Iâm sorry this is so long.
I struggle with the same things every day and I pray before I do something like God help me not to fail or whatever and then I feel like I do. I struggle so bad with my eating I want to eat for God and be healthy and then if I eat a certain amount of the same thing then thatâs a sin for going over the serving or if I had say bread for a carb and I wanted chips later I already had my carb for the day or if I just have a random snack cuz I donât need it then itâs just mindlessly snacking and only eating when necessary. Then I had dinner tonight and I was like okay help me have self control and I did. Like I didnât keep eating after I was full but I was pretty full then was like okay Iâm done. But then a little later I was like well I kind of want another bite and I shouldnât have. Like every day things like that I feel guilty after cuz it was my own desire. Like I didnât need the extra piece even tho I wanted it. So now Iâve been full and feel like I canât sleep cuz I ruminate abt this every day. But then I eat healthy but then feel like I over eat when I get full and I hate being full. But then love to eat so then I just try to be strict so that I donât have to fall in to temptation. Does anyone else struggle with food like that? Then I will see my reels are like how to stop being in the same cycle of sin and what to do if youâre stuck and then I just spiral cuz I just canât in my brain. Like why does my brain think everything is a sin? It must be If I always feel guilty after
Warning: Mentions of ROCD and POCD I never post here anymore because I didnât feel the need to, but a week ago, I broke up from a relationship I shouldâve let go of a while back but wasnât ready to accept that it wasnât working. Iâve been reflecting on how I acted in the relationship before things ended, and it has lead to painful realizations. I get intrusive thoughts of whether Iâm a good person (partner), whether Iâm a sexual predator, whether the love in the relationship is true or not, and when in a relationship that had forms of intimacy in it, there were more times than I could count where I just wanted my head to shut up. I know that reassurance seeking is a compulsion and I have abused that to a fault. I kept asking for reassurance about multiple things like whether she loves me, whether she felt assaulted by me, or if what I did 2 years ago would be considered cheating. She reassured me even if it didnât help, but I craved that temporary comfort. It was to the point where I was confessing things that when misunderstood, lead to more harm than good. There were times that I said that reassurance doesnât help me but then Id come crawl for more after. I became quite contradictory when it came how I wanted my needs to be met and other things. I didnât fully realize that me constantly opening up, confessing, and not properly coping with my anxiety lead to emotional pressure on her end which made her exhausted. She is a human being, not an outlet for my shitty mental health. I am also an incredibly insecure and self deprecating person, which also exhausted the relationship. I gave up easily and talked down about myself alot and itâs just not a good thing to be like when being with someone who loves you, when you donât even love yourself. I ruined so many moments this way. Dates, phone calls, intimacy, and because our mental healths clashed so much with each other I ended up confusing love for anxiety and worry. Even if I was better about these habits or had changed sooner, I know things wouldnât have worked out. The spark between us was dying for other reasons and the relationship wasnât working out. The guilt of my immaturity and emotional dependence has turned me into static. Not because I miss what we had, but I held onto the hope that things would change and that I couldâve been a lot better. I even have therapy but I donât think I talked about this enough to have found a way to cope. The feeling is painful and the only times Iâve been truly happy lately is when Iâm drunk as of recently. Iâm not drinking constantly but itâs the only time I feel truly loosened up. I know that change is possible once I find the right coping skills and change my behavior patterns, Iâm not even going to try for a relationship until Iâm certain that this behavior wonât be a reoccurring issue. I became a version of myself I hated in that relationship. I have a lot to work on, but I feel hopeless right now and I just canât forgive myself.
18+ only I was on reddit looking for something safe to the m*sturbation to but everyone kept breaking my rules and being in disgusting subreddits and I got worried about someone's account that was a year old and said they were 18 so I reported it (Didn't see anything) and then I got really scared about someone's body on redgifs and reported them to be safe and had to check their tos and got worried the site wasn't doing enough so reported the site to ofcom. At one point when I was looking at someone's instagram, I pressed back and it sent me to the home page and I saw a kid in something to do with Palestine, obviously it wasn't anything bad, it was entirely normal but it was still triggering and I had to wait 3 minutes before continuing to look for someone safe. OCD is really messing with me and saying I saw really bad things without realising and that I did nothing when I know it's not true. One person I was suspicious wasn't safe and checked their account to confirm my suspicions turned out to immediately not be safe and I reported them even though they weren't doing anything bad, just broke everyone of my rules and I got worried they were infantilising themselves. I finally got to someone I thought was safe, they weren't in any weird subreddits, they had multiple sites that require a verified age so I thought they were safe and did the compulsion but OCD is trying to tell me otherwise and I'm worried, they used the same site that's like embedded into reddit that I was worried about earlier and of course, I wasn't going to check their account there because I didn't want to go back to the site but now I'm scared they broke my rules too and put like "teen" in their tags or something despite looking like they were their late 30's I just want to be normal, I don't feel attraction, it's always just OCD messing with me and I have to shift it to something safe.
Hi! New here. đ This is my first post so I am nervous, but, literally everything makes me nervous so why not just nip this one in the bud. 𤣠I have severe health OCD and Iâve been in a panic flare for about a month now. Any bodily sensation/pain, numbness, tingling, lump, bruise, my brain catastrophes it as cancer, MS, ALS, stroke, tumors you name it. I was on Prozac for a long time and it helped so much that I thought the smart thing to do was to get off of it cause I was âbetterâ(it wasnât and I wasnât). Now I have to get back on it and my brain is panicking about the side effects and anxiety I will have while my body gets adjusted. Anyone related to this? Iâd love to speak with people who struggle along with me, I have no one in my personal life that has this. Thanks! Happy to be here!đŠˇ
If you are in crisis, please use these emergency resources to find immediate help.
OCD doesn't have to
rule your life
