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Do people in your life recognize you have OCD or are you "flying under the radar"? I guess my question is like, with drugs you see someone and you know they are an addict and I'm wondering if people can see that I have OCD? As an OCD person can you see it in other people? And can non OCD people see it in you?

Anyone else feel absolutely defeated after work, I’m talking mentally, emotionally and physically beat where everything HURTS and you’re upper back to the top of your head is in severe pain from the stresses of OCD? I don’t even have the energy to speak when I get home to my family. I just feel Emotionless and dead. And getting out of my car just to the front door feels like the biggest task ever, my dad always says “here she comes dragging herself home from work!”

Hey guys I am not sure if this is normal but I am experiencing weird ocd thoughgs like existential and supernatural intrusive thoughts combined with derealization I get these terrifying what if stories, vivid horror images, and fears of going crazy to try and explain this physical anxiety like a fear of one day being possessed and attached with something supernatural or like being in a mental hospital and not being normal like stuff like that and they feel like if there is something off and like I am not normal and I am attach to something bad I am not sure what this is any advice would help

Hi everyone, for context I have experienced intense OCD on the false memory I cheated on my boyfriend. This morphed into thinking I wanted to cheat. For example, the other night I had the thought “I want to sleep with (co worker)” and this caused intense sudden panic and I ended leaving the party in fear I’d cheat. This past one year has caused intense anxiety and I’ve had some difficult nights begging my boyfriend to break up with me saying he deserves better. This is where it gets confusing. For the past 24 hours I experienced something I think would be described as limerence over my old boss. For context, I worked this job for 2 years, it was my first corporate job, I was 22 when I left, my boss (31 M), I thought he was attractive and there were periods he picked on me specifically. His approval consumed a lot of my thoughts during this time. When I was intimate with my boyfriend he would always come up and I’d suppress them or when I had random fantasies I’d never engage. I remember when I quit he hadn’t appeared in my thoughts in months and I was so happy. I left my job 1.5 years before my OCD fear of cheating theme. Then it came back and I felt guilty for wanting his approval etc… and when I shared this with my therapist, she said it is common for people in my situation to experience this and this sudden obsession I’ve done something wrong is being fuelled by this new fear I’ve cheated fixation. THEN yesterday my mind became stressed that I again did something wrong by wanting his approval but there was a new thought. I had the thought “would I have cheated on my boyfriend with him if I had the chance back then” and I genuinely felt uncertain. This uncertainty caused panic. But then all of a sudden I had rushing feelings of infatuation with this old boss and when I thought about my boyfriend I felt like I wasn’t attracted to him anymore. I found myself agreeing I’d cheat on my boyfriend for him and enjoying it? But at the same time in this 24 hours I refused to engage in all these sudden fantasies and I refused to look at his IG when I had a sudden urge to. I think deep down I knew when this would pass I would feel guilty for engaging in the fantasies/looking at this IG. But I suddenly felt like I was in love with him and wanted only him and would cheat to be with him. Anyways that lasted 24 hours and I felt like I was hit with a brick of what the heck no I love my boyfriend. I don’t care about this man. I feel terrible and consumed by guilt for looking at my relationship like that and agreeing I’d cheat. I know, it’s terrible. I feel terrible for all of this to the point I again felt the urge to confess and break up with my boyfriend. My brother took my phone away because I was begging to call my boyfriend. Has anyone experienced this? I don’t know what’s happened. I feel scared and lonely. And it should be noted never ever when I worked at this job I had the urge to be with this man, I just desperately wanted his approval.

ik this is tmi. but i feel like i cant have a regular sex life or do my thing alone cuz my ocd makes me get mental images and i feel so disgusted to do it. or even if i get mental images before or just having intrusive thoughts the whole day, then i get some of the arousal non concordance, and since i can feel it down there i feel like i need to let that feeling down there out but i dont wanna yk do the thing cuz it feels wrong. or if i get the intrusive thoughts and images and try to forget and move on, then i see something that can get me in the normal mood after and i feel guilty. idk what to do cuz if i get those groinal responses I want to just not feel it down there cause it can accumulate and I just wanna let it out but if I just have those responses because it’s constant throughout the day, I feel like I struggle, but then sometimes I just forget and then I can see something that’s normal and like normal porn and I can get in the mood and then I just wanna let it out but I feel wrong and I don’t know what to do. It just feels disgusting. And I just feel like I get those responses down there a lot or I just feel like I have to wait for it because like I can feel it coming, but then sometimes it doesn’t or I don’t know if I just overthink too much and what scares me the most is like what if my thoughts are really true and what if my responses down there are constant because I like it and what if these thoughts that tell me they wanna like it are true like I don’t know what to do anymore like it’s just haunting me because I don’t want to like it and I don’t wanna be into that cause I’m not. I’m sorry , I don’t want to seem weird or too much, I just struggle alone too much. My loved ones wouldn’t understand and they will probably view me as disgusting. I feel disgusting. I just need advice or someone to relate to. Thank you for reading.

Tw. My post contains talk of porn/sexual themes, and fear of cheating. So I have rocd and some hocd. My hocd usually related to my rocd, but rocd is my biggest theme I deal with. So a couple of days ago I was on Twitter and I saw erotic things. I got curious and scrolled on the accounts. My body had a physical reaction to the problem and I was like "so my body had a reaction so that means I need to conduct my business". This is highly unusual to me because I absolutely DESPISE porn. I dont actively seek out porn or to look at other people so this reaction my body had was distressing. I don't look for porn for pleasure because i think it's very bad for the brain. Anyways I thought I pleased myself to porn and it scared me (even though I was thinking about what me and my boyfriend could do when i watched the videos). It wasn't a huge deal until yesterday. I got hocd thoughts and I had the compulsion idea of "maybe I should download Twitter again and look at lesbian porn to see if I'm gay". Of course I got curious and my body had a physical reaction. Same events repeated.. my boyfriend was in my mind when I conducted business. Now I feel extremely guilty. Not that I did it once but twice. I talked with my boyfriend last night and he said he considers watching porn cheating. He said actively seeking out and watching is cheating but... i genuinely cant tell if i actively seeked it out or not. Now I believe I cheated and I feel the urge to confess constantly. I feel horrible. I feel like I betrayed the love of my life. I have no desire to watch porn and please myself to the porn. I would rather please myself to him but I feel so guilty that I did it twice. Both were slip-up's. I don't think it was my genuine intention to seek porn and jerk off. I just reacted to my bodys reaction twice and now i feel like I cheated. Now when I talk to my boyfriend I feel anxious and remember my guilt (classic rocd). Advice on how to deal with this? Can someone give me adivce on how to navigate the guilt. I genuinely can't tell if I've crossed a boundary with my boyfriend and should tell him or not to avoid confessing. It feels so impossible to live with guilt of thinking I cheated. I need advice on how to deal with it. No reassurance please.

I’m trying to break my rumination, replaying my old sins and transgressions, urges to confess, and trying to use scripture to heal. Any kind words or verses you can think of? Also, you don’t have to be a Christian to respond. Jesus loves us always!

Hi everyone. ❤️ I hope it's okay for me to post here even though I'm not the one who has OCD. My boyfriend has OCD, and I love him very much. Seeing how much he struggles sometimes breaks my heart because I wish I could make things easier for him, but I know I can't "fix" it. I also know that good intentions don't always mean I'm actually being helpful. That's why I wanted to ask people who truly understand what it's like to live with OCD. What are some things your partner, family, or friends have done that genuinely helped you? And, just as importantly, what are some things they did with good intentions that actually made things worse? I want to support him in the healthiest way possible, respect his boundaries, and be someone who makes him feel safe rather than accidentally feeding the OCD. I'm trying to learn as much as I can because he means the world to me. Thank you so much to anyone who's willing to share their experience. It would really mean a lot to me. ❤️

I’ve been on sertaline for 2 years now. Weened myself off of it over a course of 4 months but had to go back on due to extreme depression and compulsive thoughts. Has anyone been on sertaline but had better luck with a different SSRI?

Ive had these harmful intrusive thoughts starting when i was around 11-13, basically 2023 and it was the worst thing ive been thru at that time, by a month or a few it went away and i lived without it normally, then it would come back, goes and comes but it wouldnt be bad i would forget about it and get distracted easily from it, last week right before bed i just put my phone by me and wanted to sleep and it all hit, it was the worst thing ever, i dont recall anything i did differently that might’ve triggered it i was so confused, it was the worst ever, worst than how it was when it started, i felt insane i felt like i would get up n act up on these harmful thoughts, i didnt know how to calm myself down i just wanted something to stop all of it i dont want a distraction i dont want anything i just want it all to stop and its scarier bc ik theres nothing thats gonna help me, when that happened i ran to my mom i started talking to her about it but i didnt want her to be scared or uncomfortable cuz i wouldnt want my daughter run to me 6 in the morning telling me shes scared shes gonna harm someone, and its even worse thinking about it this way for me, i couldnt last minutes with her n ran back to my room bc i felt like the thoughts would take over and im too dangerous to stay in a room with my family, then with every day it would get even worse than that, it used to be that if i went out or did something not at home it would actually not follow me all around but then it didnt, which scared me even more cuz it made it feel real like this is what i want instead of just thoughts, 2 nights maybe i found something to calm me, i was just telling myself stuff n it would help until it didnt aswell, last night was really scary, its the worst mostly around 1-7am, i didnt know what to do or how to manage these thought it would just get so scary n i would start feeling my heart beating n start shaking and wait till im completely ready to fall asleep so i wouldnt last a second without my phone or think about anything while trying to sleep cuz i depend on distractions cuz the more i spend with my thoughts alone the more scary and the more it convinces me its scary and i dont want it to work bc its slowly is and i dont want it to be worse, im 15 and im worried this would never go away or i would actually act on them to calm myself which is the scariest thought, today i woke up and i immediately felt everything 10x worse, not a second break, i took a shower right when i woke up n i dont have my phone in the shower to distract me even a tiny bit so i was stuck n it got so overwhelming and my whole body started shaking n started having a breakdown in the shower till it all went numb from how overwhelming i felt, i think i mentioned this 10 times but once i stop crying or having a breakdown its also scary like its never a break bc i feel like it happens bc i dont care anymore n the fear is gone and this is what i want to do, i noticed the only time i get a break is when i sleep, idk what to do, my family doesnt want me to get any medications for it, idek if i need it yet cuz i havent started therapy for it yet, im starting this week, im going today to book a therapist and i really wish i could start today i dont want to start getting worse n worse

Hello, guys! I absolutely love poetry. If anyone wants to share their poetry here, please feel free to do so, I would love reading it! It can be ocd related or something else entirely! TW for the poem (I didn’t want to put a tw for the whole post bc it’s just the poem that may be triggering) 23 hours Of nails engrossed in mud That which is infused with feces And upon digesting mud One believes they mend it of its illness The dust causes them to choke 364 days Of drinking lead Begging their acid to rework it to gold 99 years Of collecting my blood Gulping it back into a body Returning it to some form Sand is sand Sugar is sugar Mixed, consumed, set alight, ground Alchemists burn away time Attempting to alter the fabric by which we live The only transformation they induce Is themselves to ash Lead is lead Gold is gold Water is water Lead is not wine My originals burn away their moments Trying to alter my fabric They are alchemist And they sicken themselves with my blood Maybe on the last hour, last day, last year, They may vomit back the lead Or die trying

I just scrolled on instagram through my bf’s entire following and all I saw was pretty girls…I went to every single profile. I just want to sleep but now I can’t stop thinking if he wants to leave me for any of these girls, and he is best friends with some of them. The other day, I saw that one of his best friends texted “you never called me back :(“ and he reassured her he’ll call her soon (he was with me). This made me uncomfortable because they’re not dating and he shouldn’t feel obligated to call her. Honestly, I get uncomfortable that he talks on the phone with other girls in general. Still trying to figure out what’s relationship boundaries vs. my ocd. He volunteered for us to go through his phone but he held it the whole time so I didn’t see too much but there are some convos with another girl he never shares. I don’t want to not trust him but this has been an ongoing issue and I always feel like I’m competing with these girls for his attention :(

This has been my biggest obsession for the last few weeks, to the point where I can barely even get out of bed. There's like, one big memory that keeps popping in, with a bunch of other "what ifs". All involving my nephew. The big memory in question is, at one point, my mom was forcing me to clean my nephew because she was busy, and I normally refuse to clean up children. I wasn't able to touch him to actually clean him, so I ended up putting him in the shower to try and spray him off in a panic, which didn't work either. I broke down and cried in the bathroom. But now I keep convincing myself that I did something bad to him. Accidentally or not. I keep getting an intrusive image of me touching him badly that I don't think is real, but I can't prove it. In addition to this, my mind just keeps asking "what ifs" "What if you enjoyed it when he'd climb all over you when he was a baby?" "What if those accidental touches and brushes weren't accidents?" "What if you're looking at him inappropriately on purpose?" My mind has pretty much turned every memory involving him into a POCD soup. I legitimately cannot tell you what the truth is. The truth I WANT is that I'm just overreacting, that I hadn't actually enjoyed or wanted any of these things. But my mind has so thoroughly convinced me I'm a monster that I can't calm myself down. What makes everything more confusing is that my nephew loves me, and my family doesn't see me as a threat to him, hell, they've even said I'd make a great dad, if I ever wanted kids. (Which I don't, regardless of POCD.) So now I feel as though I'm "lying" somehow. That I've put on a front to make everyone think I'm safe so I can do more wrong. Even though that's... Not what I want at all. I just don't know what's real anymore. I don't think I had done anything wrong, but my brain keeps telling me that I'm lying to myself. Any time someone tells me I didn't do anything wrong I end up telling myself that they're lying.

This is one of the hardest seasons of my life, and I genuinely appreciate anyone who takes the time to read this. I’ll try to keep it brief. About eight months ago, I lost my job due to budget cuts. I’m 33, and my fiancée and I were both living with our parents while preparing to buy our first apartment together. That all came to a halt when I found out I was being laid off..... ,Three months later, I lost my father. Two months after that, it felt like I lost my mind....It’s been one hit after another. On top of all that, we’re planning our wedding. I know family opinions are part of the process, and I expected disagreements. But in my case, it’s reached a level that has become genuinely destructive. Things have been said to both me and my fiancée that I never imagined hearing from family. Not because we’ve done anything hurtful, but because the wedding we’re planning doesn’t fit what some of my family thinks it should be...The biggest source of this has been my mom and my aunt. They’re both very traditional and incredibly opinionated, and I’ve been made to feel selfish, ungrateful, and even like there’s something wrong with me simply because I want our wedding to reflect what my fiancée and I want. The latest conflict is over the rehearsal dinner. We wanted it to be small and intimate....,,just our parents and the bridal party. My aunt assumed she, my uncle, all of my cousins, and other relatives would be invited. But if I invited my entire side, then my fiancée would understandably feel obligated to invite all of hers, and suddenly the rehearsal dinner becomes a second wedding....That wasn’t what we wanted. When I explained that, I was met with, What’s wrong with you? and How could you do this? My mom accused me of being selfish and ungrateful to put it lightly . My aunt criticizes me behind my back instead of speaking to me directly. Now my mom resents not only me but also my fiancée, who has become guilty by association. My OCD latched onto all of this guilt and confusion and stress with a vengeance...Every accusation gets replayed in my head until I start questioning whether I’m actually a terrible son, nephew, and person. Logically, I know my fiancée and I are simply trying to plan a wedding that reflects us, but emotionally I feel buried under the weight of everyone else’s expectations in a pit so deep I can't see the light... I feel like I’m fighting battles on every front...grief, unemployment, wedding planning, family conflict, and my own mind. Right now, it honestly feels like I’m losing the war. I don’t know if I’m looking for advice or just hoping someone out there understands what this kind of emotional exhaustion feels like, but I needed to get it off my chest and don't know what to do...I need help...I need so much help but I can't get help bc I don't have insurance and I feel so incredibly low, confused, and almost hopeless. Thanks for reading I don't know what else to say.

Hello everyone, I’m struggling with perfectionism ocd as a teacher. Anytime I plan a lesson (even in my head) I doubt every decision I make and feel I need to look it up. I fear a scenario where I’m being observed and I’m wrong about what my decision was on how to teach (example did I differentiate correctly, or is this the same level of difficulty?) anyone have any suggestions or deal with this?

I went to the dentist a few months ago and I was told that I had periodontal disease. The hygienist made it out to be that my teeth are about to fall out and she “hasn’t had to diagnose someone so young at my age” even though im at stage 1. and that has stuck to me ever since. I’ve never experienced this side of OCD personally before. It’s always just been the dark thoughts or ruminating thoughts. But the health OCD is starting to be a bit of a concern for me. I went down a rabbit hole about this disease what I can do about it and my brain just won’t shut off about it. It’s like a daily part of my rumination and I’m just not having it anymore. Anyone with health ocd knows how to quiet their mind and not make it 1,000 x worse than it already it? Asking for a friend 😅

Can SO-OCD cause feelings that make it seem like I actually want to have sex and a relationship with a woman? Can I suddenly get a feeling that I subconsciously want it, creating a sensation that I want to try it and that if I do, I will definitely like it? I am not excited about this feeling at all. In fact, I don't even want to think about it. Suddenly, I feel like I find all women attractive. When I see one, I get a freezing sensation, like my forehead starts sweating. It's like an urge...

I am getting stuck in a thought-spiral about my past mistakes and the compulsion to confess. And then ruminating on what if scenarios, how this would play out, how that would play out. Even typing this feels like a trigger a little bit. How are you doing today? Edit: it also doesn’t help that I am spiraling a bit knowing that my sessions at the VA are over, after a couple years, they ended last week. I do have a care in the community provider, but that appointment isn’t until Thursday.

Is anybody willing to talk to me? I’m very depressed.

im freaking out over rice this might sound really ridiculous but it's bothering me. so yesterday i wanted to make some rice, and there was some left over rice in the rice cooker that i wanted to cook in, but i didn't really wanna eat it, and wanted to make fresh rice instead. so i took a bowl from the dish washer and put the rice in there. the bowls in the dishwasher had some left over water from it, and when i went to put the rest of the dishes away, i know im probably not going to explain this next part well, but i'll do the best i can. you know when a plate or a bowl is clean, idrk how to describe it, but it feels a certian way? when i ran my hand over some of the dishes, it didn't \*feel\* that way. so when i went to put the dishes away i then got a little worried, and i thought that maybe the dish washer wasn't done its cycle, and i thought that the reason it didn't feel the way i wanted it to feel was possibly because of soap. so i got a little scared, and i took all the dishes that i'd taken out of the dish washer back into the dish washer, except the bowl with the rice. i was planning on throwing the rice out, but i forgot to and went to bed. then earlier this morning, i made some more rice but i didn't make enough, so when my brother went to go take some rice, i asked him to take a a little bit of the rice he too was from the bowl . and now long story short, i'm very scared that i could have contaminated that rice, and he ate it, and its bothering me. i mean the rice is still in the bowl now, and i ate a little bit of it, and it didn't really taste soapy? but i'm just really concerned because of how the dishes felt when i took it out of the dish washer , that maybe it wasn't done and maybe there was soap on it, and now im scared i contaminated his food. i mean when i opened the dish washer, it wasn't making any noise, so it could have been done washing...or at least i don't \*think\* it was making any noise? this only happened yesterday but i've been retracing my steps and trying to remember things, but i'm already forgetting. and this is particularly scary, because i didn't start the dish washer, i dont know how long it had been running, and idk if it was done, and im getting really anxious and its bothering me.