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Uuuuuh, I just got an anxiety attack out of nowhere because something triggered one of my ocd themes and I was overthinking about it. I feel better but still scared, I'm trying my best to just let the thought be

I think very frequently about my love life, mostly reflection on where I’m currently at and how I feel about potential partners in my life. Sometimes, things are quiet and there’s not many prospects, while sometimes, things are loud and there are multiple prospects. Right now, I’m in a period where there are people in my life I’d like to go out with, but I just have absolutely no mental energy to do so. I have no desire to pursue any of these prospects because I keep overthinking everything that could happen, like “what if we get together” or “what if I miss out on my true partner” or “what if this ends like my last relationship.” All of these horrible thoughts are from my OCD, no doubt about it, and I’ve just been so preoccupied on finding my person for SO long that I find it impossible to live my life without that search. It feels like it’s eating me alive from the inside out. It’s almost like I can’t be happy. When I have nobody to get involved with, I wish I had a girlfriend. When I might be getting involved with someone, I’m scared to commit. Doubt doubt doubt. I just want to be content with where I’m at, and I wish there was a way I could be completely 100% assured that the right woman would come into my life someday. I’ve raised this concern to people in my life before, but the response has always been “you’re only 22, you shouldn’t be thinking about finding a serious partner right now” or “the right person will come along when you stop looking.” That doesn’t help me calm my nerves 🥲 anybody else felt this way before?

I am in therapy like its very irregular and i am very inexpressive , so every conversation isbvery surface level i feel , like maybe my problems are not worth yk discussing and when it comes to intrusive thoughts i just cant , i did tell her i get really bad intrusive thoughts but not ghe content , it been happening since i was 11-12 i did get into therapy at time time also but i didn’t know how to express those thoughts and the compulsions and that I dont actually want it , so i used to try expressing in weird ways like i feel scared all the time and stuff like that so the therapist told my parents that i just needed attention well after that i just stopped - like my ability to express deteriorated each passing year and at this point - the guilt and shame is so high, i have lost interest in everything, i have minimised my basic needs because it increases the shame and guilt- also like i never thought i would restart therapy but i had a really bad depressive episode the starting of thebyear that i had to- but its just not working like i feel maybe i am gonna stay the same i feel so hopeless (Sorry for the rant and. Thank you if u read till the end because my thoughts are just too messy evidently)

I just wanted to put my story out there because OCD is kicking my butt today and I just need to vent. About3 weeks ago I was bitten by a dog in my apartment complex. The dog (fancy little pure bred) was vaccinated and quarantined for 10 days and was cleared. My OCD was focused on rabies for the first few days but it subsided after quarantine confirmation. This morning I woke up with a sore throat, my mind immediately went to rabies. Was the dog they quarantined actually the dog that bit me, because I was never able to see the dog they quarantined? This dog was crazy and jumped and bit my hand, even though crazy is the dogs typical behavior but that has to mean rabies, right? Maybe the dog didnt actually clear the quarantine and the sheriff didn’t do his due diligence? OCD is such a jerk. It holds on to the worst case scenario and just won’t let go. Sitting with this “it’s rabies” thought is so scary and hard. It feels so dang real. I’m trying to just sit with it but this theme is really hard. I Googled a bit this morning which just fueled my OCD but stopped and put my iPad away for the day. Just wanted to vent because today is really scary and hard. Any tips on getting through the day would be much appreciated.

Hi guys this is my first post :) Panic disorder and OCD combo- i struggle with existential OCD and have an embarrassing fear of death and the process due to past trauma. These thoughts will not leave me alone from the moment i wake up to falling asleep- and it triggers my panic disorder into where i can’t function. I am 20F and am trying to get into my lifelong passion, EMS. My emt class is next semester and i am having a horrible flare up to the point nothing feels real and i am panicking around the clock… please help me

Hello Please tell me what are intrusive thoughts ?? What i can tell is -thoughts that suddenly appear in your mind or pops up and you are not even thinking about it. In my case i am sure i had anxiety first ( due to genes ,environmental factors plus many more factors) ?? From childhood I worried about real life situations hyper arousal hyper vigilant and what ifs taken to catastrophization level then after that I developed oc many years later I’ll give you one situation —If I am going to make a dish —Due to my chronic anxiety and self critical nature I have already decided i won’t turn out to be good. So all the what ifs comes and i have oc so what is the exact right amount of salt to put so my dish doesn’t taste bad. What if i added too much salt so i need to know the exact amount of salt to put in a dish. I think thats how i developed oc after many years from being super anxious to having oc patterns in me because both disturbed me a lot. First i had chronic anxiety that led to OC thats what i have found out ( my best diagnosis after going to psychiatrists and finally finding one good psychologist in 2026 ) so spent almost 7 years to found what i have. Because now i need reassurances and what ifs comes plus mental rumination doesn’t stop. Do you think it’s OC (mentally or internally) (if that’s the right word) i have physical oc but very less ?? Please explain me if anyone can?? It would be of great help for me Thanks.

Haiii guysss!!! I’m back with an update: Today was my third day of 10th grade, and honestly, it was a rough one with my OCD. My “forgot/lost/left something” obsession was REALLY loud today. I ended up taking way too many photos and videos for reassurance. I took them in almost every class, almost every place I went, and eventually I caught myself taking photos of things that didn’t even make sense anymore. At one point I was basically documenting the ROAD. 😭💔🥀 I’m disappointed because I had been doing better with this recently. On my first day, I managed to leave some classes without taking proof photos at all, and yesterday I took photos but didn’t go back and check them. Today, though, OCD got louder and I fell back into the checking cycle. But I’m trying to look at this differently. ( Even though I’m disappointed ) I didn’t fail recovery. I learned something. I can see much more clearly now what the compulsion is trying to do: convince me that I need photographic proof before I’m allowed to move on. And the more proof I give it, the more things it finds for me to document. So tonight, I’m choosing not to continue the ritual. I’m not going through all those photos, zooming in, checking them, or trying to reconstruct my entire school day. I’m letting the uncertainty be there. Tomorrow doesn’t need to be perfect either. I just want to take one small step toward resisting the compulsion again. Recovery isn’t a straight line. Sometimes you make progress, sometimes OCD gets louder, and sometimes you realize halfway through that you’ve been taking pictures of the freaking road. 😭💀 But I’m still here, still going to school, still learning, and still working on recovery. One day at a time. ❤️ I also wanna mention something honestly that I kept inside me for too long, I’m extremely lonely. Like I talk to some classmates at school but when the day ends we get to our own homes and our own lives… I wish I could make friends on this app but I don’t think I’m allowed to. If you feel the same, just so you know that… you’re not alone anymore! <3

Can a false memory feel like you're remembering something in your past that you completely forgot about? Mine is about doing something harmful / inappropriate but I didn't remember it for 16 years. Is that possible?

my therapist has recommended medication to help manage my symptoms. of course, I’ve heard lots of negative things about SSRIs and I don’t usually recommend them in my own practice (as a therapist). I’m worried about becoming numb, and struggle with feeling like I’m making up OCD symptoms (OCD brain trying to convince myself I don’t have OCD). are you taking medication? if so, what kind/mg? what’s your experience - positive/negative?

So over the past year, I’ve been obsessing about an event that I “remember” happened 6 years ago, & because I was drinking back then I must’ve forgotten it happened. My memories of this have built and have changed over the past year until finally I ruminated so hard about it that the worst case scenario became vivid and convincing and real. This all started when I was going through my google photos and saw a picture of someone at my house that I had forgotten even came over. I started trying to remember. I even asked someone that was there too about him and they’re claiming that didn’t and wouldn’t have happened. But my brain is thinking they’re covering for him and I’m convinced they plotted all of this to harm me & that I was just too drunk and too naive back then to be aware of this horrific event happening. I can’t stop trying to remember every detail and it keeps growing and there’s a new flash back image in my head of this event that show me like a timeline of the events and conversations that we’re had every single day. I try to tell myself that I have to be ok with uncertainty but the memory is making me hate these people and so angry that I didn’t do anything when it happened…. If it happened… I’m always unsure of what memory is real and what’s not

I’m almost the whole day trapped in a meta-thinking process (think about your own thinking). As you can imagine this is exhausting and even though I overcome the part of uncomfortable body reactions (part of it.) I think this is causing me unnecessary stress, dissociation and lack of focus. The pattern is like this: - 3 Thoughts appears at the same time and I feel like I have to create a queue on my head and start to process each of them: sensations that this thought produces, what it means? Is this something for my future?… - If I forget some of these thoughts in the middle I just start to feel uncomfortable and try to recover even if this lacks of value. It feels like “I lost something important”. I work as a Software Engineer and I think I translated the way I think on my work to my personal life and that sucks. Honestly It’s hard to divorce from the way you think and solve problems on your work and make a separation on personal life. Any thoughts on this? Being honest Im tired of this. Btw: I’m don’t do drugs, alcohol or any addiction. I don’t even use social media (actually, I hate it). My daily life is basically: family, enjoy time with my girlfriend, workout 5 days a week, watch tv and work a lot on computers.

I feel so bad for what I put my loved ones through with ocd, I have been a ball of anxiety and really struggling, my poor mom so worried, my husband he's always there for me, my kids are 11 and 6 they don't know, I always put on a brave face for them. This morning I got some anxiety while talking to my husband about ocd. He said to me you always get through it and always get better every time. To a normal person that is a positive encouraging statement but my mind goes what if I don't get better and I don't want a next time for ocd again, trust me and I know you all know when your in the thick of it you don't feel like your going to make it. It's the worst thing to ever happen in my life. It's the most despicable, torturous and evil disorder. I think I may have ptsd from it. I am not way out of the woods yet. I'm still very struggling I think the only thing that has helped me is meds. I feel I need to develope a better relationship with ocd so when it does happen it's not a big deal and won't define me. I have alot of emotions right now, sadness, pity for myself, anger at times how come I'm like this, there is a grieving process, anxiety still all about the what ifs. I have alot of growing to do still and that feels hopeful, my husband and mom tell me they feel one day this ocd won't bother me as much and that does make me feel hopeful.

i feel so alone in how i’m feeling right now. i want nothing more than to be able to enjoy life again, but putting the work in feels impossible. i work, i come home and i bed rot for the evening, repeat & repeat. the thing is, i ENJOY it. i like being comfortable. i know i need to change and i want to, but i also don’t. because of how non active i am, when i actually do have to be active, my body feels weak, my breathing is bad, im tired so fast. i don’t know how to snap out of this

ME: I wake up already feeling behind. Before I even get out of bed, my brain is making a list. Work. School. The house. My child. My relationship. My family. Appointments. Responsibilities. Things I forgot yesterday. Things I can’t forget today. I tell myself I just need to manage my time better. If I can do everything well enough, nobody will be disappointed in me. So I start trying. WORK: They’re good at their job, but sometimes things take longer than they should. They want to make sure they understand everything. They don’t want to ask a stupid question. They don’t want to send something worded incorrectly. They don’t want anyone to think they’re incapable. They check again. And sometimes they’re so focused on avoiding mistakes that it becomes harder to actually focus. Everyone else moves on. They don’t. ME: My child needs me while I’m working. I stop. Now I’m thinking about work. I feel guilty because I’m not working. Then I realize I’m thinking about work while I’m with my child. Now I feel guilty about that too. So I try harder to be present. Except now I’m monitoring whether I’m being present enough. I’m watching myself parent instead of just parenting. MY CHILD: My parent is here. But sometimes they’re looking at a computer. Sometimes they’re looking at a phone. Sometimes I have to get their attention more than once. “One second.” I don’t understand deadlines. I don’t understand assignments. I don’t understand why the house needs to be clean. I just know I want them. Maybe eventually I stop asking because they’re always busy. ME: That possibility destroys me. So I try to make up for it. I give my child more attention. But everything else is still waiting. Now I’m behind. So I try harder. MY PARTNER: They’re doing schoolwork again. I know it’s important. I know work is important too. But sometimes I miss my partner even when they’re sitting right next to me. I’ll start telling them something and realize they’re still looking at the computer. “Did you hear me?” “Yeah.” But I can tell their mind is somewhere else. Sometimes I wonder if there’s ever going to be a point where everything is finally finished and I get them back. ME: Now I notice my partner is irritated. I can’t concentrate anymore. Are they mad at me? Have I been neglecting our relationship? Am I a bad partner? Should I stop working? But if I stop, the assignment won’t be as good as I know I could make it. So I keep going. Except now I’m doing schoolwork while thinking about my relationship. Earlier I was parenting while thinking about work. At work I was thinking about school. I’m everywhere. And somehow I feel like I’m failing everywhere. SCHOOL: They read the directions. Then read them again. They write something. Delete it. Rewrite it. Read it again. Does this actually answer the question? Could this be better? What if they misunderstood? Eventually they submit it. Maybe it’s good. Maybe they even get a great grade. There’s relief. Then another assignment appears. And the entire process starts again. FAMILY: They always seem overwhelmed. We tell them they don’t have to do everything right now. They say, “I know.” Then they keep doing everything anyway. Sometimes we hesitate to ask for anything because they already seem stretched so thin. We wish they could just sit down. Not sit down while working. Not sit down while checking something. Not sit down while making tomorrow’s list. Just sit down. ME: Eventually everyone goes to bed. Finally, I have time for myself. Except I don’t know what to do with it. Did I finish everything? Did I forget something? What needs to happen tomorrow? Was I productive enough today? Did I spend enough time with my child? Did I give my partner enough attention? Did I do enough at work? Was my schoolwork good enough? Did I clean enough? Did I do enough? Am I enough? I’m exhausted. But resting feels like another thing I’m doing wrong. MYSELF: I’m tired. Everyone gets part of me. Work gets me. School gets me. My child gets me. My relationship gets me. My family gets me. My responsibilities get me. OCD gets me. And whatever is left is supposed to take care of me. There usually isn’t much left. ME: So I try harder. That’s always the answer. Overwhelmed? Try harder. Behind? Try harder. Made a mistake? Try harder. Someone might be disappointed? Try harder. Don’t feel like a good enough parent? Try harder. Partner? Try harder. Employee? Try harder. Student? Try harder. Person? Try harder. But maybe trying harder eventually becomes part of the problem. Maybe the pursuit of being perfect in every area of my life actually takes something away from every area of my life. Maybe my partner feels pushed aside. Maybe my child notices I’m distracted. Maybe my family gets tired of watching me run myself into the ground. Maybe exhaustion makes me worse at my job. Maybe school takes more time from me than I can afford to give it. Maybe I burn myself out trying to prevent myself from burning anything else down. Maybe there is no perfect schedule. No perfect balance. No perfect routine. No version of me that can give 100% to every role at the same time. Tomorrow I’ll wake up and still be all of those things. A parent. A partner. An employee. A student. A family member. A person. And there will still only be one of me.

I’ve been struggling a bit lately and I met with a physiatrist and they prescribed me to Zoloft, I have heard there are side effects but honestly all I want right now is the voice in my head to shut up. Any advice or comment from people who have experience with Zoloft? If so I would be very grateful! Thank you ❤️

21+ and gross tmi 😩⚠️⚠️⚠️ I just found something out that’s gonna haunt the rest of my life- I have an STD. I know it’s gross but my OCD got a hold on it and I have NO IDEA what to do now. I don’t know who it’s from and I’m getting false memory but here’s the thing- I had a partner for 8 months and neither of us had any signs of it. The last time I saw him was 2 weeks ago. I thought I’d venture off and try my first “casual” hookup, and somewhere along the lines I started getting my symptoms. I can’t remember if the symptoms started the day BEFORE I saw the other person, or the day after. So now i’m really confused and I can’t relax at all. Should I discuss this with the guy that I saw? Do I ask him if he has a disease/signs of one? It’s not to be accusatory but I need to get to the bottom of it or I’ll feel horrible forever. As far as I know my ex partner to this day has zero signs at all. What do I do.. how do I remember this timeline right 😩😩 people say the day after seems a bit too soon but I don’t know?? I HAVE TO FIGURE THIS OUT ITS KILLING ME!!

i struggle IMMENSELY with maladaptive daydreaming and i can't stop because it feels like anywhere is better than here but i can't complain because i have more than others and some people around the world would pray to have a happy life with family and friends, its not that i have a bad family life or anything, i just really struggle for some reason that nobody can ever understand, no matter how much i try to explain or anything, i realise that it would never be possible for anyone to understand my struggles and that makes it so hard, i haven't felt so confused or upset since my last post and i thought i was doing so much better but it comes back when i least expect it and that hurts more than anything, i dropped out of university at the start of the year, i was studying mental health nursing which i only chose because i wanted to make mental health a thing in my family because nobody acknowledges it due to culture reasons i believe but i couldn't go through with it, i don't think I would want to do long shifts for the rest of my life or work in that field of work when ocd consumes me but now my family are right because nobody really believed i could do it so now i'm just stuck somewhere and i don't know how to move forward because although i genuinely had a greater experience after dropping out, i feel this pressure that i have to know what to do and what i want to do right now but i have no idea what i want to do and also the pressure i feel to drive when i get extreme anxiety about it because anything could happen and all my brain can think of is all the 'what ifs', it literally took me 2 years to make my provisional license. it all leads back to maladaptive daydreaming because i'm doing it all day everyday whenever i have time like when i'm in the car or its night time and everyones asleep or even when i'm just home all day doing nothing but lounging, i believe that it has lessened now because i am more busy recently because of my cousins wedding but it still feels like too much but i really really really really really dont want to stop because it makes me forget about everything including my ocd and all the intrusive thoughts that come with it 99.99% of the time, i fear this is the closest ill ever get to any sort of help or therapy until i'm much older so that i don't have to tell my mum or anyone that im going because that conversation feels so difficult, i suppose i'm just lost and confused and tired all in one. i went to the beach this summer and i'd do anything to go back and just feel so carefree and happy like that day.

So I have a fear of becoming bl#nd or d#af, like I can’t even think or say the words or else I automatically assume it’s going to be a curse that is brought upon me. If I hear it in a song I immediately freeze up and feel like I am cursed. That song that goes “oh to see without my eyes” omg I haven’t been able to listen to it ever because I’m terrified that it will curse me 😭😭 does anybody else do this same thing LMAO it sounds so funny for me to actually verbalize these thoughts

Hi, I’ve spoken with my gp today and he has agreed to refer me to any service within the UK to help support me, I’ve based this on a right to choose pathway as I’ve completed four courses of cbt remotely, and unfortunately due to agoraphobia and the passing of my father these have been unsuccessful. I’ve looked into several options, I’ve started some support for my agoraphobia and I’m making slow progress, I’ve been housebound for six years now, so when I leave my home the rituals are trying to implement themselves e.g walking same routes, and counting ect, I think the patterns are deep routed but because I’ve been in my home everything I do now has to be followed till it feels like it’s correct :( looking for some advice PLEASE HELP much appreciated in advance.

I was listening to Close Behind by Noah Kahan today (for probably the millionth time lol) and for some reason today I started relating the lyrics to my OCD and now I can’t unhear it. “That all my fears are facts of life” especially got me because that is literally what OCD does to me. It takes a fear or a random thought and my brain treats it like it’s something I need to take seriously, figure out, check, prepare for, etc. “I live my life in years to come, to prepare myself for sorrow” also hit differently. I spend SO much time worrying about things that haven’t even happened yet because some part of my brain thinks if I think about every possibility beforehand, I’ll somehow be prepared for it. And even just the name Close Behind feels fitting. I can be doing better, doing ERP, having a completely normal day and OCD is still kinda… close behind lol. It finds something new to grab onto. But I also like thinking about it that way because if it’s close behind me, then it’s not me. It can follow me and be loud as hell and I can still keep going. Idk if anyone else will understand what I mean by this 😂 and obviously I don’t think Noah wrote it solely about OCD, but it hit me really hard today. Does anyone else have a song they’ve randomly connected to their OCD?