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I have been starting ERP with a therapist but what are some other things I can do on my own that would help me I am a straight woman with a fear of turning lesbian if you experienced similar

2 years ago I went to clean my room like a normally do, which included taking all my stuff out into the hallway so I could disinfect my space. (I have massive contamination ocd problems) I have been living out of buckets in my hallway since then. There is something in my brain stopping me from putting anything back in my room because it will contaminate the whole thing. Every time I try to overcome that I run into the issues of having to do everything in the right order to optimize time and cleanliness. Which just leads me down a hole that makes me so tired I quit. Somehow the stuff being in the hallway rather than my room doesn’t really trigger my ocd. I also have to reorganize everything and find/create spaces to put things in my room. Which cause another optimization spiral nightmare. I can’t keep living like this. Has anyone dealt with/overcome anything similar?

I recently just started seeing a separate therapist just for my OCD. I already had a therapist but she suggested seeing someone just for my OCD. I have many other conditions that make my situation a little complicated. I was told today by my OCD therapist that I should consider a partial program or more intense program before working with her on ERP. This kind of overwhelmed me because I had thought that I began seeing this therapist for ERP and I wasn’t thinking that I was going to be going through a more intensive program just to get to a point of being able to do ERP. I just feel so frustrated and upset that I am at this point. I was hoping ERP would help but I didn’t realize that I would be told I have to go through another program before doing it. Anyone have any experience in partial programs?

In a few weeks, I’m starting my senior year. The last couple years I was always so excited for school to start so I could learn and spend time with friends and boyfriend and also be busy, but this year isn’t the same. At the end of school this year, my flareup started around health and emetophobia. I’m so scared to go back. I know I’m just gonna be thinking about how anxious I was before and thinking about escaping. There’s so much pressure this year too, I have to do a LOT of things to prepare myself for further education. I did this when I was little. After every break I knew when I came back my routine would be changed and even seating being different threw me out of wack. I’m dreading the first day. I don’t know if I have lunch with people I’m close with and if I have any more classes with people I know. I can’t even get myself to go to church that much, that’s what I’m stressing about right now since I have to go in a few hours… I might just not go… I’m just so nervous, I’ve even contemplating switching online schooling for my senior year. But I know I can’t hide forever. Any tips on dealing with the beginning?

Hello. I am feeling incredibly overwhelmed. I recently saw a new psychiatrist because I moved and could no longer see my old one. I told her about some of my struggles and she mentioned that I may have OCD. I immediately dismissed it because I had a false preconception that OCD is mainly repetitive tasks like hand washing, etc. and didn't entertain the idea. On Monday, I had an appointment with my therapist and I told her what my psychiatrist said. We then discussed it in a little more detail and that's when I realized how much of OCD is in your head. After the appointment Monday PM I could not stop researching OCD. I went down a complete spiral and spent hours looking up symptoms and signs and questioning every event and interaction in my life wondering if it may be OCD. It felt like my whole world was flipped upside down and the floodgates opened. I started remembering things that were likely OCD that I thought was just severe anxiety but now make more sense. Then I started questioning if I am just imagining things now because someone mentioned OCD and my brain is trying to invent symptoms to match what I was reading. I kept looking up more things, reading the same information over and over to "confirm" I had it... and every time I thought I had myself convinced that I do have it - I started questioning it again... this went on for several hours until I was so exhausted I fell asleep. I woke up yesterday morning and it was the first thought in my head. I started replaying past events and wondering if it was OCD related... just questioning my whole life. Nothing felt real anymore. I cried so many times yesterday and I wasn't even sure why. There are so many things that make me feel like I definitely have it but then I just keep thinking maybe I don't? How do I stop? I feel like now that I have this information I don't know what to do with it. I would really love to talk to someone who has been through similar or can ask for advice. I just feel so overwhelmed.

Hey so I heard that there are statistics where they say 15 percent of people are bisexual, this is something that should scare me, but instead I'm getting calm. And when I get calm I scared or not I don't know but ,,am I getting calm because there are lot of people who are bisexual if people think there's nothing wrong with it then I can be this,, and then I feel like that this is it but I fight against this feeling because no I don't want it. It feels like I argue with the truth. Is this just another symptom if OCD? Because I think this is not the first time this happens.

Pardon my English :🥲 Today I want to open a small wound from my past to if possible help other wounded souls. Maybe your OCD is different from mine, but many of our actions are the same. I don't know if this will help you, but if you are someone who repeats actions because of OCD, maybe my story can give you hope. It has been 4 years since i feel like overcome maybe 70% if not 100.I lived OCD for about 10 years. Even now, obsessive thoughts still come sometimes, but that's okay. I can move on from them in a few seconds. Even it’s not 100 percent cure still my body is not slave Ocd anymore i move freely even though i have some obsession though Since my teenage years, I was stuck in my room and spent most of my time in bed. I had very little activity. My body felt like a slave to my OCD because I had to repeat actions again and again. It was hell. Like many people, I did my own research and visited many doctors. Doctors can guide us,🫩 but they cannot fully feel what OCD feels like from the inside. Everyone's experience is different. U can’t know test of food by just looking the food Not everyone is born with a silver spoon. Many of us need to work, and working while living with OCD is very difficult. This is what helped me. I call it my 3 steps. Step 1: SSRI medication I took an SSRI (Sertraline). After about 6 months, it gave me a little more courage to face my OCD. My fear became smaller, and I felt more ready for the next step. For me, Sertraline also made me feel a little emotionally numb, almost like a robot, but it helped me get started. Step 2: Fight OCD with OCD (make a deal with your OCD) This may sound strange, but it worked for me. The reason we repeat actions is usually because we are afraid something like obsession though , or we think our obsessive thoughts might become real! . So we obey our OCD repeat action , do I right?? For cure ocd most important thing is reducing repeating or redo actions because of ocd obsession though So I made a deal with my OCD. When I felt the urge to repeat something, I told myself: "This is my last repeat. After this If I ever in my life i !!!intentionally!!! repeat it again !!because!! of any Ocd obsession then all my OCD fears will become true." I am NOT recommending this to anyone. This was only my personal way of resisting my compulsions, and it happened to work for me. I created a new obsession that stopped me from doing my old compulsions. It may sound strange, but it helped me stop repeating my rituals because I became more afraid of breaking my deal than obeying my old OCD. Step 3: Resist the compulsions The first week was hard. Second week it became easy But after a few weeks, and especially after a few months, it became easier. Sometimes I even forgot I had OCD. But point is it’s just make me without fear to do activities , moving easy but not cure because for treatment ocd u need ERP : Acknowledge the thought: Let it exist in your mind without trying to push it away, analyze it, or judge yourself for having it. Cut the response: Avoid doing compulsions or seeking reassurance to fix the anxiety. Habituate: Sit with the discomfort until your brain naturally learns that the thought cannot harm you and the anxiety fades on its own So my this 3 step tips can’t treatment me from root but i it helped me Quarantine ocd 😩 Of course, sometimes I forgot about my deal and repeated something. When that happened, I reminded myself that it was not intentional, so I didn't count it. Sometimes my OCD thoughts felt very real. When that happened, I told myself: "It's not real. I didn't intentionally break my deal." The more I resisted my compulsions, and reduce my repeating ocd the more freedom I gained. Little by little, the chains of OCD became weaker. After about 6 months, I could ignore my compulsions much more easily. Now it has been 4 years. Yes, obsessive thoughts still come sometimes. But now I am much more active, and I don't worry as much about unwanted OCD thoughts. I can usually move on quickly by reminding myself: "I didn't intentionally break my !!deal!!, so my OCD is not real ." This is not medical advice. It is only my personal experience. Everyone's recovery is different. If my story helps even one person feel less alone, then sharing it was worth it. 🤗 Stay strong. Recovery is possible.

I can’t stop ruminating about how my ex called me selfish and said I don’t care about anyone except myself and called me crazy and some derogatory things and just made me feel really bad and guilty. I just can’t stop thinking that it’s all my fault and my OCD‘s fault and that there’s no way to get him to see that I did really love him and care about him and that he thinks that my character is just inherently flawed and that’s who I am or that I’m not capable of being a good partner and it’s so hurtful because now I feel like I’m just so stuck with every decision and I’m not really connected in my relationships. I’m just constantly focusing on trying to figure things out and solve things in my life and I wonder if it’s an emotional response to the break up because I really wanted to end up with him. It really took a hit on my self-esteem when I found out that he’s seeing someone new and I just can’t get some of his words out of my head and I feel like crap about myself and how I can’t make decisions and choices no matter how big or small cause now I’m just so terrified of fucking something up or something going the way I don’t want

I really need an outside perspective on my situation. For quite a while now, I’ve repeatedly felt that my partner looks at other women. Sometimes it seems like his gaze lingers longer than it does when he looks at men, and there have also been situations where, from my perspective, he has turned his head and followed a woman with his eyes as she walked past. For example, one time we were in the car and a woman was walking on the left side of the road. From my perspective, he turned his head and followed her with his eyes until she was beside me. Another example happened yesterday. From my perspective, he looked at a woman who was standing at the back of a parking lot for a longer moment, and then looked at her again briefly after we had parked. When I brought it up afterward, he told me he hadn’t looked at anyone. The biggest issue isn’t even the looking itself anymore it’s what happens afterward. Every time I bring it up, he tells me he didn’t look at anyone or he describes the situation completely differently from how I experienced it. This has left me feeling like either he’s not being honest or he genuinely remembers these situations differently than I do. I honestly don’t know which of those is true. I just know that our versions of these situations are consistently very different. Talking about it doesn’t help anymore. He gets frustrated or angry because he genuinely believes he doesn’t do this or he is lying. At the same time, I feel like my perception is never acknowledged, which has become incredibly hurtful. This has affected me so much that I constantly think about it, and I’ve even started dreaming about it. I’m wondering how other people would handle a situation like this. If you repeatedly felt that your partner was looking at other women, but they always denied it or remembered the situation completely differently, and talking about it only led to arguments, what would you do?

I have been on a kick lately with trying not to hide my ocd so much and to not be so dismissive about it. As a result, I plan to go back to therapy. Because of this I had to let my mom back in on the disorder a bit which I knew would be difficult because the last time we had really talked about it was three years ago when I had a really bad episode, and unlike many of my other episodes where I was able to hide my severe symptoms, we were on vacation so I was right next to her all the time. That really scared her and she did not react well to it. Last thursday,I told her a bit of generic facts about the disorder, that I was doing very good and had made great progress to where I am now living a normal life, and showed her some nocd videos about treatment. I thought it would soften it to come from the calming nocd videos, but it did not. She has been different since we talked last Thursday. I am beginning to think that this combined with my move to college soon is making me a source of pain for her right now, and that makes me just want to leave the house and find something to do during the day for a while so I don't cause anymore pain

At the beginning of this year I had an OCD flare up that felt life-ruining. For the purpose of some hope for those who might be in a similiar spot right now, I just wanted to share that despite how genuinely horrendous it was for at the time, six months later I am doing really well. Better than I was prior. It has not been easy, but I have learned so much and have expanded my awareness and strength in ways I didn't think were possible. I feel more in tune with my emotions, more self-aware and less attached to my inner monologue all the time. I feel more confident approaching future challenges with the skills this led me to develop. Everyone's journey is vastly different, so my simple recommendation for now is to focus on ERP (and ACT if suitable, as it is for me) models of recovery, ideally with a supporting professional. I know thats kind of obvious, but its true. Theres no cheat code, but you can do it. Personally, true acceptance of my symptoms has allowed me to slowly build myself back up. Building my mindfulness and thought defusion skills has also been greatly helpful but only after acceptance. And recently, actively engaging in self-compassion excercises has been really helpful at pushing me even further. Sending love to you all, be kind to yourselves and try to remember that OCD is a fucking liar haha

After years of obsessively hiding it, I told my mom about my ocd again last thursday and she has been different to me since then. I am also planning to go away for college, and she wants me to stay and we also talked about that on thursday, but that has been brought up throughout the last few weeks with no issue, and this is exactly how she reacted 3 years ago when i couldnt hide during a major episode because we were on vacation together. she told me a year after that that it really scared her because she didnt know how to help me. In the years since that even just me saying the word ocd made her seem different. that was way before i was even thinking about college. Anyways, she has been acting different towards me since last thursday and i only told her half of how bad ocd has been for me. I even left out what my obsessions were. for the last week when talking to her it has felt like she is disappointed to see me. i dont think that is the case but that is what it feels like. She has been doing better in recent days, but that is because I havent brought it up since we talked on thursday. I think this combined with the college thing is really getting her. yesterday she kept sending me texts questioning my plans to go to college elsewhere, and seemingly trying to catch some place that i had under-prepared that would stop the whole thing. I need to go off to college in a new state to show myself that i can despite my mental disorder, and additionally this new place has much better mental health resources for ocd than where i am from I am still glad i said something because i cant keep up hiding it. I have this problem of trying to seem like this perfectly mentally healthy person for people and i am just not that. I have a significant mental disorder that has been very severe

for starters, this is not intended to bash any religious groups or persons who believe this. this is merely a query of a somewhat wary and jealous person. i find it to be ultimately strange/hard to believe when people have “success stories” about giving their life to jesus and suddenly all of their ocd symptoms were gone. i grew up in the faith so i have an understanding that some christian people see god as a cure all / fix all but i don’t think that biblically that’s true, at least for this life? i thought that you were supposed to struggle on this earth. it makes me feel this deep mix of jealousy and surprise, that something could take all of this away. ocd effects every part of my life, and has only gotten worse as i’ve gotten older. it leaves me wondering how such people are claiming that it all disappeared? i understand the idea that giving your life to christ heals wounds, but do you not continue to struggle? isn’t it the continuous struggle and blind faith in god the mark of a christian? and if so, how are your symptoms throughly gone? i just don’t understand. it feels like maybe a placebo, or maybe a bit of white-lying.

I’m constantly ruminating, feeling overwhelming guilt and anxiety, and talking about my mental health all day, because it feels impossible to think about anything else. i also confess 24/7 I can’t even relax enough to watch a TV show or scroll TikTok because my mind immediately goes back to the same thoughts. It feels like my whole personality has become OCD, and I miss the person I used to be. If you’ve gone through something similar, what helped you start breaking out of that cycle? I’m looking for coping strategies or recovery experiences, not reassurance.

I have been suffocated with my anxiety and OCD the past few months. My brain never goes quiet, and I mean never unless I am asleep. I dread the day for how loud my brain is and I just want to heal and be happy but I genuinely do not know how. I don’t know if anyone has tips or what not but I just need someone. I got put on Buspar for anxiety?

I’m a recent high school graduate and I’m starting college soon. I’m hoping to find tips and support for managing adhd and ocd while being a student. Especially since I’m a CHRONIC PROCRASTINATOR 😭 who also happens to be an extreme perfectionist (to a fault ngl) and this combination can make it impossible to get work done on time and to the standards that I expect myself to reach. This becomes really stressful as unfinished projects pile up and my grades drop (and once an assignment is super late I get too embarrassed to ask for help because I think it’ll make my teachers hate me 😔). This usually leads me to do nothing about the assignments and failing them which makes me feel like a failure since I usually have such good ideas for them… and obviously this leads to compulsions like seeking reassurance from friends, family, and teachers, and I start compulsively checking grades, picking at my face, among other things. So does anyone have any tips?

i really wanna read more experiences with these subtypes, i feel like ive struggled with these for a long time and misunderstood them as plain indecisiveness or something else.

Some debates are unwinnable. There's not gonna be the perfect answer, the perfect solutions, the ultimate truth. What do you do then? I'm not saying coming to this realization is the "solution," I'm saying maybe it's just something to ask yourself -- does it even matter if I have this debate? And yeah I know OCD attaches to a lot of things that DO matter, that's why it's super tough to just brush it off as a another passing thought - especially if it's a dilemma that has no good sustainable answer and especially if it's creating mental effects that are affecting life negatively. But it's just something to keep in mind. ** TRIGGER WARNING ** Idk wtf my latest theme is... but it's bad. Maybe some type of Meta OCD or something. For the last year I'd say I've been consumed with Neurology - in a bad way. OCD is a very much so a disorder of someone being "too in their head." So naturally, you spot patterns. Some of these thought patterns line up with scientific neurology. So this has become a whole side quest of scary thoughts. "Do I have dementia." "Will OCD give me dementia" "Why does my brain feel this way," and some of the worst are how neurology affects me overall. Am I just a brain? Aren't a spirit with a soul too? The scariest things are when the boogeyman is actually true or parts of it are true. So at the same time, I'm not a neurologist, I don't have all the answers, I can't have all the answers, I didn't create me. But I have noticed neurological patterns first hand. But my perspective on that doesn't HAVE to be bad, doubting, negative, downward spiraling, etc. Think of OCD also like some mad scientist mathematician who obsessed with a math problem for years. He can't sleep, it's making him crazy, etc. In his mind, he HAS to solve that equation, he has to find the solution and certainty and "the answer." But he needs to take a step back and realize, "this doesn't HAVE to be solved by me." So sometimes the solution is to realize it's OK to stop looking for the solution and sometimes the debate is realizing you don't have to have that debate at all.

In the beginning of 2025 in January me and my friend went out for shots and pho. I’m randomly thinking about it now because I’m worried I carried out my harm intrusive thoughts and it’s mostly about family and I didn’t live alone. At first she said we were calm and now today she said maybe a lil tipsy but I don’t drink or smoke so what if I blacked out and carried those intrusive thoughts out. Especially because my harm OCD is targeted towards family and I had family sleeping in the living room, and my room was upstairs. Nobody has said anything but I’m scared it’s being kept a secret or something.

So whats the deal with ticks vs Repetitive Body Focused Behavior(RBGB) and how much does it really matter? I had intrusive thoughts for years before I realized I may have OCD. I never thought it could be OCD because it was entirely mental...or at least I thought so. The thing that made me finally accept that it was, was that it dawned on me was that my OCD definitely has an obvious physical side. I feel quite silly for not realizing this before but most ofnit feels pretty benign compared to the mental side. I often joked before I realized I had ocd that I had doggy ocd or something because walking in circles feels so good. Denial does run deep. What I have now noticed about the physical side of my OCD: Walking in circles/pacing. When I am nervous or stressed I get itchy all over. When I am nervous in crowded bars I get convinced theres something caught in my throat and I'll keep trying to clear it to be rid of the sensation. I am constantly scrunching my nose at a thought or shaking my head, sometimes letting out a little yell or an impression of a crow. I was shocked to learn how ubiquitous the shake your head like an etch-a-sketch move was. Which leads to my question. Is the etch-a-sketch move a tic or an rbfb? Also any of the above...because some are blurry to me. The throat thing is like kinda rbfb, kinda somatic ocd. The itchy thing is more on the skin picking side of things. I think the constant little noises and funny faces to be a gray area. I'll catch myself humming a song. Sometimes I don't realize and someone else catches me humming. The record for longest reigning song goes to "Closing Time by Semisonic" on repeat from April-October 2025. Surpassing the previous title holder "Twist and Shout by the Beatles" who only reigned for 2 months. Another fun one was "aye aye aye" my coworker said he knew what kind of day it would be based on the number of "aye's". Hot, blue bird days were always a 3. I have kind of shaped my career to work alone as much as possible because I have known for a long time I have the really annoying kind of ADHD. For better or worse my mind is usually an active place and I can entertain myself plenty. Sometimes its great! The best months of my life and most mentally healthy if my life were in the closing time era. I will admit there are definitely times where these tendencies have been inappropriate or embarrassing. What I am not sure on is if some of these tendencies are ticks or rbfb? Part of me thinks its more likely the latter because I can be quite impulsive...like plenty of things I say or do may not be well thought out to say the least but being a bit of a brash loud mouth or even just having loose lips doesn't necessarily make something a tick. But again does the difference even matter if they are treated the same? How much does it matter if I don't really mind some of them? I don't always mean for them to consciously slip out. Other will catch me humming a song before I do. Am I being lazy or soft on my ocd by humoring these tendencies? I guess over the years I had grown to accept them despite the occasional annoyances. Idk. Not really at the top of my radar in terms of the parts of ocd that make my life hell. That is until I am in any environment in which I need to sit still and be quite. Then its hell. But I always attributed that to the adhd. Where's on this one? Blurred I think.