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ERP is so intense just talking about the things I’m going to be doing stressed me out! This week is going to be interesting! 🤨

Hi, I've been a having therapy through NOCD since February but this is the first post I've written. I have had OCD since teenage years but it got severe nearly 7 years ago (I'm 34 now). I think I have several themes and my new intrussive thought, which started about 10 days ago, is so strange, illogical, distressing and riddiculous, I don't think it fits into a theme at all. I feel so hopeless, lost and full of fear. I am mentally exhausted. I am a Christian and I would really appreciate any prayers for help and healing please? I saw another post where someone said about praying for others and I thought that was so nice. I would also like to pray for anyone who would like me to. God bless.

18+ only please When I was 18, nearly 19 in a month and a half, I was reading fanfiction and for some reason decided to look for some of a character who is 15. I know for a fact that I understood being interested in someone that much younger than me was inappropriate but I still went out of my way to look for this content. The character wasn't even aged up or anything. I don't think I was looking for anything explicit, but I think I was still hoping i would find something with at least a little NSFW since thats what I normally read. For context, it wasn't a random character, it was a character I had previously had a crush on for years (started liking him back when I was 16). The weird part is that I had already sort of moved on from this attraction but I guess I just got nostalgic or something and decided to go back to this character. I never ended up reading anything inappropriate/explicit. I found one story that interested me that did contain nsfw but I didn't get further than like 3 chapters. I can't remember why, I think I didn't like the writing style or something. After that I never tried anything like this again. I think I thought it would be okay at the time since the character is fictional and animated and I was imagining myself to be his age while reading the story. I just feel so gross and despicable. How could I have been okay with that? Am I a monster or criminal or p?

18+ please. I have talked about my friend a lot on here, but this particular thing is something that consistently bothers me. Basically, I'm very much attracted to my friend, s*xually, and I have constant thoughts about it when she's around. A very particular thing that bothers me is that it feels like the only reason I would want to video call her is for a chance to see her without clothes. It's always the first thought that pops into my head, and I end up feeling excited at the possibility. It's not the only reason, but would this not make me a certified creep for it being something taken into consideration ever? For it being any sort of motivation? Especially if she isn't aware that its something I would want? I've talked about it on Reddit a long while ago, and mentioned how she often just doesn't wear anything when she's at home, and they told me that it was her choice to turn her camera on and that I was beating myself up too hard. But I don't think I'm beating myself up hard enough, it's always my very first thought every single time and it's making me angry.

I love my pet so much but i keep havinf the thoufht that im INlove and its so horible and i hate it so so much and i feel disgusting but irs so hard to disprove bc i do love him just not inlove bir when i try and be like no im not inlobe my brain is like ok but u dont hate him right so it must be love and idk how to make it go away i want it tk stop so I can be a good pet parent but It feels so real and idk what to do

I have so many negative thoughts..it becomes so overwhelming I just go into a spiral. How do you overcome your negative thoughts?? Any advice?

Since being diagnosed I can’t stop crying, I feel like my world has came crashing down. Everything that I thought was normal wasn’t. How do you cope? I don’t want these thoughts anymore. I want to be happy again.

Senior year/last year. The most traumatic events have originated from school, I can't wait to leave. Mom tells me, "Put on your batteries! Apply for scholarships, for college and so you can be in your dorms + future blah blah enjoy the last year, try to (then continues with similar sentiments.)" She's right but OCD has crushed many of my dreams.. as well as I just don't know what I want to do in life regarding careers. I tell them that when I graduate I don't want a party, I just want to nap for an entire week and do nothing. They laughed saying that's all I did throughout the summer, I laughed too but deep down I was being serious. I don't want to be in college, I don't want to make new connections, I don't want to contribute, I just want to lay in bed and sleep forever. The future, whether if good things happen or what.. I just don't feel excited for it. Sometimes I don't want a future, I don't understand the point of finishing school if I just don't want to do anything after it. I don't feel like myself either, I don't feel like I'm alive. I act happy and I love doing the things I enjoy but when everything's silent I always come back to the beginning, remembering what my purpose really is in life. Just nothing, honestly. Maybe that's completely untrue! But depression has already halfway won.

Im seriously considering relocating to the UK, Australia, Canada or US, partly because I feel like the uncertainty, corruption and inconsistency here can really aggravate my OCD, especially at work. I’ve been ChatGPTing English-speaking countries with stronger corporate cultures around ethics, compliance and reporting. One of the things I’m hoping for in moving is a more structured corporate environment clearer rules, stronger compliance culture, regulators being taken seriously, processes being documented, self-reporting when things go wrong, etc. I could absolutely be idealising it, but I feel like more predictability at work might help my anxiety. And just an honesty element in the population. For anyone who has lived or worked in these countries, does that description actually match your experience? I don’t mind anecdotal answers. I also wanted to ask specifically from a POC perspective: what has your lived experience of racism been like, and how has it affected your mental health? I already deal with racial microaggressions and sometimes find them exhausting. I also feel unsafe as a woman in my home country, so part of me wonders whether relocating might reduce some stresses while introducing completely different ones. The internet and the news scare me, especially stories about racism in policing, healthcare and everyday life. I don’t want to minimise those experiences at all, they are real, serious and part of why I’m asking. What I’m trying to understand is whether my OCD/anxiety sometimes takes those very real risks and magnifies how likely I feel they are to happen to me in ordinary day-to-day life. For example, would I constantly feel like I have to monitor my tone around police, doctors or colleagues, advocate for myself, or worry about being perceived as angry rather than passionate, frustrated or legitimately aggrieved? As an example, gender-based violence is a very real problem where I live, and crime in general means people are understandably careful. But I think my anxiety takes that real risk to another level. I don’t like going out at night. I dress very conservatively because I’m scared of being raped, even though I know a rapist is responsible for rape, not someone’s clothes, and that dressing differently could never guarantee my safety anyway. At home I lock every door and window, sleep with pepper spray nearby, and sometimes make myself feel like a hostage in my own home. In crowded places I almost always have a hand on my bag or valuables. I’m generally much less fearful during the day, but overall I know I am another level of fearful and vigilant. So that is really what I’m trying to understand about racism abroad too. I don’t want anyone to tell me the risks are imaginary, because they aren’t. I want to know what everyday life actually feels like for POC in those countries, and whether my OCD/anxiety might take real events and real systemic problems and make me feel as though I need to be on high alert all the time. I tried asking a talkspace therapist once but she didn't answer. So I felt bad for being to nosy or too much. I know nowhere is racism-free. I’m just trying to understand the reality before convincing myself that moving abroad will automatically make working life calmer while potentially aggravating other parts of my life.

Hey, listen.. I know you’re struggling. It feels like you will never get past this. Maybe it feels like God is upset with you.. but I want to gently remind you that He isn’t. He loves you so deeply, and everything you go through has a greater purpose. I want to choose my words very carefully, because I never want to trigger anyone who is struggling with a religious type of OCD. I want to spread His love to others so that they can experience it too. No obsession, no worry, no fear, no anxiety or past is bigger than the cross. I recommend the song Flawless by Mercyme, it is my favorite song by them, and it is very encouraging for when you feel that you’re too far gone. You are NEVER too far gone for Him. I can promise you that. ❤️ if you need any prayer or support, you can leave a comment down below. I’d love to pray for you and help in your time of need :) Verse of the day! - Deuteronomy 31:6 🫂

How do you deal with it? Accept that we all will be gone? I think is a new theme.I try to find reassurance but is kinda difficult lol)) because no one can know .And mostly I fear that I will die young and with regrets I have big panic attacks and cry

I’m having this weird feeling here lady few days like nothing feels the same anymore and like it’s all doomed, it feels like I don’t know what’s going on and I’ve become evil now 🙁 I keep constantly having these feelings like ‘imagine you got upset and killed someone’ and it feels almost like im considering it and it’s an option or could happen like an urge but it’s all day like that and I keep thinking about it. Then I’m laying in the bed trying to sleep and I keep thinking the same thing and ‘why am I sleeping’ what if I just got up and was evil’ and it feels almost like I’m evil and wondering why I’m not being evil and like to could happen 🙁 then I started imagining this stabbing thought about my mum and I was literally trying to imagine it and how it would happen then I started to get an anxious feeling in my chest and made myself feel like I had to go poop but it still doesn’t feel like I hated the thought and feels like I wanted to imagine it and almost like I want to do that and it could happen and I could suddenly get up and do it. It feels like I could act any moment and I don’t know what to do. I’m desensitised and feel like I don’t even know if I’m evil or good but the fact I keep imaging sick things on purpose and ruminating on it when normally I would be desperate to forget about it makes me think Its a desire and I’m actually evil and I keep getting this weird feeling like I should pull a ‘evil smile’ idk if I’m testing myself to see if I’m evil or if I actually am. 🙁🙁 I’m scared but at the same time feel like I’m crazy or would be evil

I’ve been trying exposure therapy and acceptance for my meta ocd, but i feel like it’s going nowhere. I’ve been trying to confront the fear that exposure therapy and acceptance are only for short term solutions. But what really gets me is that during exposure I get the thought “isn’t it counterintuitive that you’re doing exposure so the results is that the thoughts lose anxiety but you’re accepting that eventually thoughts can come back with full anxiety? You’re contradicting yourself!” It scares me because my hope for resulting with less anxiety goes against the acceptance that anxiety may come back fully in the future. Can someone help? I can clarify if you’re confused.

Hey guys! I just wanted to make an open space where people can ask ANYTHING about the Bible or God and I will try to answer :) 💜

Okay I’m sorry if this isn’t the place to put things like this and I’m going to put some context but I have an extremely close friend who I admittedly had a crush on at one point. It caused a messy falling out I ended up back on great terms again but ever since then my ocd has latched onto every moment I have with her convincing me that it’s a crush and most of the time I’ve managed but this last week it’s been really bad and it feels like I’m doing all of the same things wrong I did the first time I had a crush on her. I want to hope that it’s OCD or an extinction burst but it feels so much more real this time. If anyone either has some insight or experience with anything similar to this please let me know. I don’t want reassurance just perspective I guess is the way to put it

I’ve been in erp for a couple years now and haven’t felt like I’ve achieved significant improvement. I know the reason for this is because I don’t follow through with not engaging in mental compulsions and I don’t tend to make good choices about doing things that are uncomfortable or resisting the urge to ruminate. In practice it’s so hard to do, and even if I understand these are the things I need to do to get better, in the moment I don’t feel like it’s possible for me to get better and I don’t feel like I deserve to. I have read that medication can help with depression and ocd symptoms and make it easier to actually do erp effectively. I desperately don’t want to take medication. I have a lot of trauma associated with medication in the past. My experiences in the past have involved being over medicated on adhd meds and not being allowed to stop taking them, not being able to stop on my own due to the withdrawal effects, no one believing me about how bad they were, my doctors wouldn’t listen to me, ultimately had to trick my family/doctor to let me try a different med which allowed me to be on a smaller dose and was able to slowly ween myself off until I was able to convince them to let me try non-stimulant meds which did absolutely nothing. I truly believe that getting to stop taking meds was one of the greatest blessings of my life and even though this is a different kind of medication, the idea of going to a doctor willingly to take meds willingly is absolutely the last thing I would want to do. Especially if those meds are gonna take months to even be able to see if they’re helping, or would take months to be able to stop taking. I don’t want to commit to being on something I can’t stop taking. Also read they generally dont consider weening you off ssris if you’ve been taking them for less than 2 years?? My dad has ocd and he used to be on medication. He tried many different meds over ten years or so and ultimately found them not to be helpful, and now does erp without them. I know I have his genetics and we are very similar. I recently went on a diet and lost over 20 lbs. it was really difficult. It’s not just that I am worried about gaining the weight back, I am worried about sacrificing one of the few areas where I have felt successful recently for something that may or may not work. Just really not convinced this will be helpful, worried it will make things worse because of the weight gain canceling out my recent hard work. I know it’s important to trust doctors and people who have worked hard to learn these topics, I definitely don’t know better about medicine than your average doctor is psychologist. But my experiences have been so bad and our medical system is so fucked. I have so little faith in our medical system. But this is clearly not working the way things are

I never meet people with ocd, the most people I talk to with ocd is on here and I’ve been wanting more friends and I just don’t have any.

People say it will...but I'm struggling to keep going long enough to find out. Every time I do an exposure, or try not to engage in a compulsion, it's SO hard. Then, the next time feels even harder, not easier. It makes me lose hope and figure I'll always be this way...

What was the lowest point of your H OCD, mental intrusive thoughts, depression, DPDR and other mental disorders ? Pls explain im in the worst place right now. (I don’t know if i will experience any psychosis later or not im down)

What do you do when you have ocd about yourself? Like when you wonder if each things you think about aligns with your thoughtd or morals or what you want to be in the future? I'm having an ocd about wanting to get the final answer which I know isn't real but I have this weird obbsesion with it and I can't seem to accept any thought and I'm kinda scared to let go. It feels like the final boss of ocd but I feel like I haven't learned anything to deal with it in all my years of having it. Do I accept the thoughts and let go or is there something because I genuinly feel like I'm going through phsycosis and I can't tell the difference between if it's me or my ocd because. I genuinly feel like I did this to myself as well but I genuinly don't know how to move on or accept if the thing is mine or not.