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For me OCD feels like a gut punch, kinda like a guilt feeling. It can be distressing at times, curious what other people’s experiences have been!

for starters i’m not even diagnosed with ocd. i’m diagnosed with bipolar, ptsd, generalized anxiety disorder — and was told i had emerging borderline personality disorder features. these diagnostic impressions are a mix of what two different psychologists said. one psychologist came from trying to get diagnosed with adhd (bipolar diagnosis); the other psychologist was from when i tried to get diagnosed with autism (ptsd and bpd features). i already knew i likely had ptsd and definitely had anxiety. i found myself relating to bipolar when i was trying to figure out what was “wrong with” me but always felt weird about that label. i suspected i had borderline personality disorder before suspecting that i was autistic and stopped suspecting borderline when i started suspecting autism. none of this is really important im just getting literally everything off my chest in this post. because of the ocd subtypes i have dealt with, i know i have ocd (or im just an awful person) — i just haven’t tried to get diagnosed with it. i didn’t know i had ocd for awhile; i thought i was just a disgusting awful person that should not exist — then i learned about pocd; i was definitely struggling with pocd. i haven’t struggled with that subtype much, if at all, for years at this point but i was never going to talk to a psychologist or anyone about those thoughts especially before i knew about pocd. my most common struggle currently — because i am in a relationship — is rocd. i’m getting stuck on thoughts that he is not the right person, that i am not the right age to be in a monogamous relationship (or any kind of relationship honestly), that i am too young to commit for such a long time, that i have more experiences to have — but that i will have to lose him if i give into these thoughts. i don’t want to lose him but i also want less. i want less having to love someone. i want less commitment. i want less thinking of a future with someone. i want less caring about another person so deeply. i want less emotions over emotions and relationships and everything. everything. i want less of everything. i want less spiraling. i want more fun. i want more freedom. i want stupid noncommittal flirting that actually means nothing to me just makes me feel happy and worth something and entertained. i want my boyfriend, here, with me, when i want him here with me. i want alone time. i want to not be sick of face timing all the time. i want to love him like i used to love him. i want to feel like he loves me like he used to love me. i feel like im going insane and i just can’t stop it. i’m so contradicting and confused and im sad! i’m so sad and i don’t even know why. and ive been having multiple dreams of cheating on him which made me feel weird and i hoped i had not talked in my sleep or anything where he would know but i was not really spiraling out about it. and then i googled having dreams about cheating on your partner and now im spiraling what am i missing from him… im missing a, b, c, d, e, f, g, the whole damn alphabet i could spiral the whole fucking alphabet. how do i address the whole fucking alphabet?!?!? and i fear he can feel the shift and maybe me spiraling about my uncertainty for my love for him is the same thing that’s causing me to spiral about his love for me. and im just so over it and i want it gone. i want the spiral gone. i want it over. i don’t know how to communicate and i feel like im hurting him and i don’t know what i need and i don’t know how to fix anything and im so SAD. and maybe im not hurting him, because why would i assume that when he hasn’t communicated that? but it feels so unfair. so unfair to him to be so sure of me whilst i am spiraling in so many ways and i can’t even tell him that because i feel crazy and i don’t want to lose him over stupid fucking spirals. and i need to shower. i told myself i would.

Hello everyone I am asking the same question again but if anybody could help please do My anxiety really destroyed my life that today I feel stuck Really don’t know what to do Never felt fine leave happy and now i am exhausted. Exhausted to a level that i want to run somewhere and be in nature for sometime. I don’t think i have intrusive thoughts because it’s not unwanted thoughts feelings or urges. Its rumination and I am unsure if intrusive thoughts are more than unwanted thoughts images or urges if not then i don’t have intrusive thoughts. But mental reviewing, or wanting a lot of reassurances Is there. I don’t feel happy. I feel disconnected not part of family groups. They enjoy but I don’t feel connected or enjoy and it was from starting nothing new. I am so tired that I don’t want to get better now. Like I am done. 27 years caused too much exhaustion. My problem is I worry a lot- what if I told something and the person exploited me . So I’ll keep it inside ( I am from different country and different cultural context that’s why I don’t trust people and I am always confused ) plus my sense of judgement or confidence in sense of judgement has been destroyed from childhood its just that i have lived in survival mode all the time. My brain works very slowly now- poor concentration. Whole world is doing something —working earning and I am doing nothing. I don’t want to put a facade now because I have reached a level where I can’t act anymore. I have spent my money on meds Unfortunately no medication worked and saw therapists in my own country so to be honest I can’t afford therapy Through this platform I share my story. Because I have no one to share my story with except 1-2 people. And they understand it I don’t know. I really don’t even know what to do- any job that I am interested in because I am interested in nothing I am completely exhausted and numb.

I’ve been with my boyfriend for almost four years, and lately my feelings around him have become really confusing. Sometimes I feel happy when I see him, want to be close to him, want to kiss him, laugh and talk with him, or notice that he’s handsome and cute. Other times I feel completely normal, tired, blank, heavy, avoidant, annoyed, or disconnected, and then I immediately start wondering what that means. One thing that confuses me is that sometimes I’ll see him and naturally feel happy, but then the feeling disappears quickly. I might think he’s cute or handsome but not get the strong “AWWW he’s so cute” feeling I remember having before. Sometimes I look at him and feel lucky or think he’s amazing, but then afterward I feel empty and start wondering where the feeling went. change. Sometimes I really want to kiss him or hold his hand, and I’ve even spontaneously kissed him without planning it. Other times he tries to touch me and I don’t want to be touched, especially when I’m tired, annoyed, overstimulated, or in public. His touch can sometimes feel strangely unfamiliar even though we’ve been together for a long time. Sometimes I enjoy his touch and it feels warm, while other times I feel like backing away or think “stop.” Then I start questioning whether I actually like being close to him. I’ve also had moments where I felt “annoyed “with him. For example, he’s joked around with me when I was already irritated, gotten lost or confused, tripped, been in someone’s way, or done something that made it seem like he’s “embarrassing “ but whenever I look back at it , it’s like he’s a small cute guy . I’ve called him annoying or said something mean when I was angry and then felt bad afterward. Sometimes I apologize but don’t feel the amount of emotion I think I should feel. Then my brain asks whether I don’t care about him anymore. We’ve also had normal disagreements. Sometimes we give each other the silent treatment when we’re upset, but later we talk, smile, reconnect, and act normally again. I can be mad at him and still want to be near him.A big part of this has been my thoughts about our future. My brain will suddenly say things like, “Are we even going to last?” or “Maybe I’ll leave him.” Sometimes I’ve deliberately tested what it would feel like to tell my mom that I wanted to leave him, and the scenario became emotionally convincing. Then when something about our future comes up like my mom mentioning senior portraits together or my boyfriend joking about becoming my future family I start questioning whether my reaction was genuine or whether I forced myself to feel happy about it.Sometimes I’ll see something online or hear someone say something like “leave relationships you’ve outgrown,” and my brain immediately asks whether I’ve outgrown my boyfriend. If someone says something about young love or relationships not lasting, my brain can suddenly give me a heavy feeling and make the possibility feel real.I’ve also noticed that when I’m with my boyfriend, sometimes I feel like I’m avoiding him even though I don’t necessarily know why. I’ll get a heavy or doubtful feeling and think, “Why don’t I want to be near him?” Then I’ll later walk with him, talk, laugh, or reconnect and feel differently.There are also moments where I feel completely normal around him. Sometimes he texts me and I don’t feel excited, especially when I’m exhausted. Sometimes I wake up and see his messages and barely react. Other times I get happy when I see him, wonder where he is, want to talk to him, or think about things I want to tell him. I’ve noticed that I keep comparing my reactions to what I think I should feel. I wonder why I’m not excited enough, why I’m not jealous enough, why I don’t automatically think he’s cute, why I don’t feel melted when he touches me, why I can be annoyed with him, or why I don’t feel strongly when he says “I love you. Also I can’t tell if I’m testing or not it just happens and I also feel normal but with heavy feeling

Hi guys I’m new and don’t have an official OCD diagnosis but it’s possible I have health OCD. Today I just feel tired and down and I’m working and I feel really sad. I’m having a hard time not constantly doing mental checks on my body and symptoms and I just want to lay down but I’m afraid to give my brain space cuz I don’t want to spiral. I just am tired. I’m tired of constantly feeling like I’m scared of everything and like I’m a bad wife and like I failed at life because I still don’t feel good after 17 years of therapy. I have a lot of chronic pain today and my head feels like a mild migraine and I almost had an anxiety attack thinking about Christmas and having to travel. That’s all. I see my regular in person therapist today and start NOCD therapy next week so maybe I can work some of it out. I’m scared to get my hopes up about NOCD just because I don’t want to disappoint myself. Being this sad just doesn’t feel like myself and I always worry it’s something worse like psychosis or another disease.

Hello everyone my name is Jessica and I am new to “ NOCD” I struggle with pure O and bad health ocd and Aniexty. Today is really hard. I left work today with really bad upper stomach pain which I know is indigestion but my brain is convincing me it’s something else. I am so scared for the feeling to come back and I am researching a lot. It’s a hard day today.

I wonder if I have ever loved my partner. I don’t feel like I have a deep love for him, even though I objectively know he is a wonderful person—intelligent, funny (though on this point I feel like I’m lying and that he actually isn't), loving, patient, sensitive, and kind. We’ve been together for a year and a half, and about six months in, I started having the first doubts that immediately made me spiral. In my previous relationship, even though it only lasted three months, there were real underlying incompatibilities, and at the same time, I had started having doubts that I later found out were ROCD. So, in my current relationship, as soon as I noticed I was having more or less the same thoughts, I immediately turned to a therapist who then diagnosed me with OCD. I must say that when I enter a relationship, I feel like I almost lose my compass a bit, and that scares me a lot. At the beginning of my relationship, since I got along very well with my partner and we were highly compatible, I was able to enjoy our moments together; every background detail felt special and every moment I spent with him was special, maybe also because it was the first time someone loved me and spoke to me with that kind of kindness. When I received the diagnosis, I was actually quite glad to tell my boyfriend that what was happening to me was a disorder and that I wasn't the problem. Unfortunately, over the months I kept engaging in compulsions, which are often mental and therefore very hard to stop, but I still felt a connection with him and everything was still fine looking back now—we were still very close. Over the months, I confessed several things to him (he knew about my OCD and I had talked to him about it extensively); I often made comparisons between him and a past date, and also with my ex, and clearly, it hurt him a lot. I often behaved toward him in ways that I don't think are right, even though he keeps saying that I never disrespected him and that I’ve always treated him well despite everything. One day I asked him if he felt loved, because at that moment I was focused on whether I felt loved by him, and the answer was no, so I turned the question to him. He told me that when I’m myself he feels loved, whereas when I have OCD, it's like I seem like a completely different person. In all these months, I’ve also suffered from depersonalization many times. I thought I had depression, but based on the clues I gathered from my therapist, apparently that's not the case. She tells me my mood is very low, and I’ve started taking supplements for now. However, for the first few months after I found out about the OCD, things were still good with my boyfriend. Slowly, in my opinion, we grew apart a bit; I started judging myself for every single feeling. Today, I feel like I experience a sense of flatness toward him; we are distant, sometimes I feel like I don't want him at all, and most of the time it’s like that. Maybe I got so immersed in doubts and in judging myself and my feelings that now I don’t even find pleasure in being with him anymore, which is something I used to feel before.It’s clear that after being together for a while, the strong feelings fade, and rationally I understand that. Obviously, I can’t expect to tremble inside every time he touches me like in the beginning, but at the core, maybe I should still find pleasure in being with him. Instead, many times I have to convince myself because maybe I’ve associated being with him with anxiety, fear, feeling wrong, and derealization.I’ve wondered many times if I’m only with him just to have someone, or because he treats me well. I often think he isn't enough, or that I would be better off with people who share my same emotional level. I’m wondering if I really ever loved him, if he is enough for me, if this will ever pass, and if we will maybe return to a new version of us, but closer.The point is that I’m struggling because I feel like I have so many problems, that I’m the one who is wrong, that I hurt him, and that it’s my fault if our relationship isn't going as well as I’d like right now. But it feels like all of this can never change, and I don’t know how to make it change.My therapist also suggested the possibility of taking a break, but I don’t want to. My boyfriend also told me that if I’m not happy, it’s okay to go our separate ways and simply accept that we aren't good together, adding that if he were certain that breaking up was the right choice, he would have done it already because he doesn't want to see me suffer like this.Sometimes I feel like I can’t stand him, like I want to stay away from him; other times I get close to him, but feeling fake. I never understand what my real intentions are.Inside, it feels like I’ve convinced myself that our story will end and that maybe I never loved him. I feel helpless in my situation with him because I often feel overwhelmed and anxious just being near him. I push him away; he irritates me even when he does nothing wrong. And I don’t know if this means 'I am exhausted from the constant anxiety and the continuous checking that I can’t seem to stop,' or if I’m tired of him and have realized that I actually don't care at all and just unconsciously used him for my own purposes. I feel like I'm a bad person. Rationally, I tell myself that if I actually cared, I would feel the desire and the drive to change my behavior toward him, but I just can't do it, and then I think that my motivations are wrong. I also know that I’ve been trying to hold on in this relationship with him and with OCD for a year now, and I can't take it anymore. It's as if I've started seeing him as the threat, and seeing him do things for me out of genuine interest while I fail to appreciate what he does makes me say to myself that I don't care. But then I think that maybe I’m just tired of everything. I can’t change; every time I see him, I internally reject him. I don’t want to kiss him, and I only do it more because he leans in. I would gladly give him lots of little kisses on the cheek or on the head because I like kissing him there. I don’t feel the pleasure of being with him and sharing things anymore—I just don’t feel these things at all, and I don’t know if it’s OCD, real lack of interest, or lack of interest caused by the situation and I don't care about him, or if it’s internal trauma or other mechanisms. Either way, it feels like I can’t resolve them.I can act kind to him, answer him more calmly because he doesn't deserve a harsh response since he always speaks to me kindly and does everything for me, but then I can't maintain that behavior for a long time because irritation sets in, or I notice that I'm not interested.I don’t know if I just need to make a decision and stop dragging out something that isn’t going to change over time.I want to understand how to change. I hear many people say to focus on the partner you want to be, but that doesn't mean love, and besides, I would only do it because I think that if I do, the relationship will bloom again. And I think that way about everything. I see that i’m not spontaneous anymore with him. I probably am never out of my spiral I wish I could experience this relationship just as peacefully as I experience all my other relationships with friends or family members.

Hi all! Im new to the app as my therapist recommended this during my one appointment. I was in a relationship from July 2024 up until end of June 2025. During the break up, I would reach out every month and beg him to make it work. He ended things because I constantly nitpicked and would argue. I don’t know why I was like that because he was not a terrible boyfriend and I did trust him. Sometimes I felt he would give me mixed signals throughout the break up which I would take as hope but then when I would keep trying he would eventually get frustrated and tell me he doesn’t want to get back together. For whatever reason, since he broke up with me I still have hope. I still am fully in love with him and have not lost any feelings. We did see eachother this year in February, where he told me after the movies he didn’t feel strong enough but he didn’t not feel nothing. He then told me that he didn’t want to keep hanging out or talking for the slight chance his feelings would change. He then proceeded to tell me I begged him to hangout and it didn’t work in my favor he doesn’t want to be with me. April came he ended up calling me end of April. Things hit the fan shortly because he was telling me we can hang and see where things go while openly pursuing other women. He met someone else end of April and has been talking and seeing her since. Even though he is seeing someone new and serious with someone else, I still have hope and I thought that would be my closure but it’s not. I constantly find ways to check his social media, I still have hope for us when I probably shouldn’t. I’ve also been blocked on all social media from him since May. It’s like I don’t know what more it’ll take to accept that it’s done, to stop checking up on him, and ruminating on everything and blaming myself.

Hi all I am just wondering if anyone here has any experience managing their ocd effectively without the use of ssri meds? I am just curious to see a life not dependent on medication is possible and still thrive or I am doomed to a life of suffering without meds? I currently am taking zoloft which has been working very well but now my dose I believe is too high and I hate the whole up and down withdrawal process. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

hi everyone! this is my first time ever posting anything on here and I’m really scared and this is not like a super big feeling for me because I know that I have OCD and I’m trying to tell myself that it’s simply OCD and it is not that big of a deal. But literally, a five second interaction has me upset and feeling like I’m being too flirtatious and I’m cheating on my boyfriend. My cousin’s friend who my cousin is like 40 and his friends like 40, we’re outside and I was coming back in with my laundry, and I had received a compliment from his friend saying my singing was beautiful. I come back with my laundry. I’m holding my laundry bag and I’m like talking to my cousin and I know that the guy is looking at me so I’m looking at my cousin and I’m like smiling and I’m talking in like a sweet voice and I feel like like anyone I want other people to view me as pretty and cute but in a weird way, I feel like my feelings were a little bit different ? and I feel like I was carrying myself in a way where it’s like oh I want you to think I look pretty and I look cute and my mannerisms, I just feel that I look back on a lot of my interactions with people and I’m scared that I’m like being disloyal or being weird and I know I’m not and I know that’s not what’s going on and if somebody thinks I look cute or pretty that’s simply a human thing that everyone wants other people to do but I just get so scared and worried. And I feel like I’m looking out for reassurance for someone to tell me that’s not what’s happening, but I just really need to know like am I being weird to my boyfriend? I care about him so much and this relationship is very fresh and I don’t wanna hurt him. I want a relationship to be built on trust and loyalty and beauty. In the past, I know that I would like attention seek from other people and I feel like now my OCD is using that against me where it’s like I’m constantly in a battle with myself. Please be honest in the comments and just be gentle about your honesty, please

For context,I have not yet been diagnosed with ocd but show alot of the symptoms for it. My grandmother passed away earlier this year in may,and I STILL am struggling with things around my grandmother.I struggle to touch her belongings like her clothes,her pillows or blankets,her left over trinkets or makeup and brushes,perfumes etc. My mother has been going through her things and it's emotional for both of us but sometimes the intrusive thoughts or what ifs about touching or inheriting some of her things has been making it difficult to cope,and it breaks my heart since my mother has told me my grandmother would want me to reuse her things yet here I am constantly washing my hands several times,huge anxiety spikes if its somehow disrespectful to take these things,if me using her things will give me 'bad luck' and I hate it,I hate it so much. I don't know how to deal with these compulsions and its making grieving so hard.I'm trying to do at home erp but its so difficult doing it on my own,and its making me feel like a bad granddaughter. :(

Today I had my first session of ERP so I know I cant make any decision on whether it’s helping me or not. I just was struggling cause the exposure I’m doing doesn’t cause me anxiety even though if I think about it it causes a thought loop spiral and makes me analyze it. It’s like my brain doesn’t compute anxiety anymore. My intrusions barely trigger anxiety anymore it’s more like extreme sadness, annoying, depressing, and defeated feelings I get rather than panic attacks. I used to have full blown panic attacks but now I’ve had these thoughts for so long I’m like “really? Seriously? Can’t you just leave me alone?” And then start to analyze and “figure out” why or how it’s not true. I guess my question is how can you do erp correctly if you’re not anxious by the exposure.

so for a few years i’ve suspected inattentive adhd in myself, so last year i started seeing a therapist. after we had discussed my symptoms i visited a psychiatrist, who allowed me to start taking meds (methylphenidate) for it a few months ago, which basically equals a diagnosis in my country’s health system, i think. but recently i’ve started doubting it. and i don’t know if it’s regular ocd doubt or impostor syndrome or genuine realisation, but i’m worried that i actually don’t have adhd and that i’m just pretending and have lied to myself and others. it feels like i’ve exaggerated my symptoms a bit and that i don’t deserve to be on meds because i’m not struggling enough. i don’t know if being on meds made me forget what it’s like to be without them in school environments, but whatever it is, i’m doubting, checking memories, worrying and seeking reassurance on the r/adhd thread to try and find out what’s going on. if i go back in my memories, ask my parents and look through old physical notes from daycare, i find the following symptoms: very forgetful, hyperfixations, poorly organised, easily distracted and frequently zones out, senstive, impulsive (at times), very talkative, procrastinating and the basic stuff like that. i KNOW i technically reach the diagnostic criteria for adhd, i mean, right now i’ve been trying to study for the last 3 hours and barely moved, and i’ve gotten NOTHING done because i’ve been procrastinating and getting distracted by reading on the previously mentioned reddit thread and the dread is starting to kick in. now that night approaches i get my typical night owl energy boost and i suddenly feel like i could hyperfocus with the help of a little caffeine, almost. but still, it feels like my traits arent THAT bad or damaging my life enough to be treated. it just feels like excuses, somehow, like everyone does this. i’m scared of being dumb and stupid and an example of that, i that i feel ashamed and responsible when i read about the declining literacy and math skills in the west for example, thinking somehow that’s my fault and i’m just sitting here blaming my stupidity on a disorder i don’t even have. even though i’m very literate and actually do know a lot of stuff. but nope, still my fault. (kinda going off track here sorry) the annoying thing is that i’m trying to reassure myself and actually find information at the same time; i want to feel certain, but i also genuinely want to know if my symptoms ARE symptoms or just normal stuff. that’s why it’s tricky to navigate this. it’s probably mostly ocd because now my memories are getting fuzzy from trying to remember, and the whole ”doubt and check again”-cycle is a clear sign of that. and yeah, i should address it by ”maybe, maybe not”. but this DOES MATTER a lot to me, since it would be a huge part of my identity and it’s something i take meds for. while i know i’m not PURPOSEFULLY faking it, i’m painfully aware that i could just be a misdiagnosed, insecure teenager looking for an explanation for feeling crap. AGHHHH IDK WHAT TO DO ANYMORE

Trigger; Idk just storms in general if you're like me and stressed over storms. I put a trigger warning because like at least for me basically everything can be a trigger. This is a vent and any advice welcome but I do request at the bottom- So I thought I'd been getting better with OCD when it comes to thunderstorms this year because I live in Arizona where there's an entire season (end of summer) where it's just storms and rain and clouds basically most the time. Basically yesterday me and my parents (luckily my parents were home or I'd have lost my mind), it started thundering all of a sudden while me and my mom were about to watch TV and stuff started sparking (visibly and I feel like I could feel it but maybe I was freaking out idk), the power went out, so she being smart turned off all the stuff we could (we live with weird wiring don't ask idk), and basically we stood in the middle of the kitchen (our biggest room) and waited it out but it's awful. Now I feel like I'm just waiting for it to be that bad again. Especially when my parents work a lot so I'll just be by myself a lot of days until October when it's supposed to chill out on the storms. I only mention my parents a lot cuz it helps me feel better when others are around. Also wanna add it's somewhat connected to some kind of moral OCD/religious OCD with feeling like if I don't tell the entire truth or if I'm being a little mean or stressed and snappy I'll just get smited by some god I displeased. So basically I want to ask: if anyone can give me like facts about storms or anything that might make me feel less anxious about storms? Especially bad ones. Or like ways to stay safe? I feel like no matter where I am I'm not safe because I live on a mountain high in the sky (closer to the frickin clouds), with metal everywhere I look (metal lockers for closets and storage+my dad's toolbox+metal bed frame) and I feel like when I walk if I drag my feet too much or if my feet stick to the floor I'll charge up or something. Yk. Idk. It's just scary how random lightning can just zap you. And I live far from a hospital so I'd probably just die. I also feel safer with socks on weirdly but I also feel less safe because I feel like it also "charges up" or whatever yk. Also if my hair moves at all I feel like the static is gonna get me killed, all that. Like genuinely anything I do feels dangerous. Anyways. Yeah I'm scared and freaking out especially more since the storm yesterday (which by the way took out our Internet/fried our router or the power thing for the router) Any help is appreciated. I'm just posting to ignore the current rain and thunder going on rn (light thunder for rn, ahh) It's gotten to the point I think I'm starting to see flashes that actually aren't there out the corner of my eye and some times I close my eyes I feel like I see flashes right before they close. It's gotten bad lol. Also another question -(ok this is so disorganized and large lol) - would watching the storms help "exposure therapy" or make it worse? I feel like it does both depending on the day and severity. Just general advice for a kinda astraphobia mixed moral OCD thing would be appreciated.

Hi everyone. I’m 25 and I’m looking for some advice because I’m starting to wonder if what I’ve experienced for years could be OCD. I don’t want to diagnose myself, which is why I’m getting a professional evaluation, but I would really appreciate hearing from people who have experienced something similar. Last night honestly felt like my breaking point. My thoughts were making me so nervous that I was shaking, felt extremely nauseous, and ended up throwing up three times and having diarrhea. I was supposed to be studying for a nursing test, but I couldn’t concentrate because my thoughts and anxiety were making me physically sick. I felt completely overwhelmed and exhausted. Looking back, I think I may have first noticed some OCD-like patterns when I was around 8 or 9 years old. At night, I would constantly worry about something bad happening to my family. Sometimes, if I forgot to pray or do what I felt I needed to do for them, I would become scared that something bad would happen. I never wanted anything bad to happen—I was actually trying to prevent it. As I got older, I’ve noticed different fears and behaviors. For example, sometimes I’ll take a water bottle with me to the bathroom, and afterward I’ll suddenly worry that someone may have tampered with it. Even though I have no evidence that anyone touched it or did anything to it, I can become so uncomfortable that I throw the bottle away instead of drinking it. I’ve also had different intrusive thoughts over the years. In 2024, I had a very disturbing sexual intrusive thought involving my younger brother even though nothing happened between us and I absolutely did not want the thought. It eventually went away and no longer bothers me. More recently, I’ve been having a new episode where the thoughts feel much more persistent. It started around September 1. I’m in nursing school and I’m in my last few classes before graduating. On my way to clinical one morning, I was listening to a song I’ve heard many times before and suddenly became emotional and cried because I realized how far I’ve come in nursing school. Later that day, I started having an unwanted harm-related thought involving a patient. That made me start thinking, “How am I going to be a good nurse?” and questioning why I was even having these thoughts. Then, during clinical, I witnessed a 40-year-old woman code. She was young and had children, and it really affected me. After that, my thoughts shifted toward my mom. I started thinking about what I would do if something happened to her and how I would function without her. Then I started getting horrible intrusive thoughts like “do something to your mom.” I do not want to hurt my mom. I love my mom, and these thoughts scare and upset me. I have no desire or intention to hurt her or anyone else. What makes everything worse is that I start analyzing the thoughts. I ask myself why I thought it, what it means, whether I secretly feel something, whether I’m becoming a different person, etc. Sometimes I feel like I need reassurance that the thoughts don’t mean something about me. The more I focus on them, the more noticeable they seem to become. I’m still functioning. I’m going to clinical, doing my schoolwork, studying, seeing people, laughing and doing normal things. I’m not isolating myself. From the outside I probably seem completely normal. Internally, though, I’m exhausted from constantly fighting with my thoughts. I’ve noticed that lack of sleep, caffeine, stress, and possibly my menstrual cycle can affect how intense my anxiety/intrusive thoughts feel. I’m not sure how much hormones actually play a role. I’ve also been seeing disturbing things online recently, including pop-ups about an upsetting criminal case involving a mother and children. I don’t seek this stuff out, but seeing it seems to make me anxious and can get the thoughts going. I’m seeing a psychiatric provider because I want a proper evaluation. I don’t want to walk in and tell them that I definitely have OCD. I want them to evaluate me independently and tell me whether this sounds like OCD, anxiety, something related to stress, or something else. I’m also really nervous about medication. I was prescribed fluoxetine previously but never took it because I was afraid it could make my thoughts worse, affect my memory/concentration, cause suicidal thoughts, make me lose control, or make me dependent on it. I’m finishing nursing school, so I’m especially worried about anything affecting my ability to study and function clinically. I’m open to discussing medication, but I really want to learn about ERP/therapy and all my options first. Has anyone experienced different OCD themes over time, such as fears about something bad happening to family, contamination/tampering fears, and then intrusive harm thoughts? Did you also find yourself analyzing the thoughts and trying to figure out what they mean about you? I’d really appreciate hearing from people who have experienced something similar. I especially want to know what helped you stop getting stuck in the thoughts and compulsions and feel like yourself again.

It is my first time making a post I don’t know if anyone’s going to read this, but I’ll just rant. When I was a kid and even as a young adult now I’m struggling with a lot of health issues .. at first, when I was sick, I never used to correlate my sickness with God, I would just think I ate something bad or I made a bad decision and it ended up with me feeling sick. I have emetophobia, which means I have an extreme fear of vomit. I’ll be honest I couldn’t even type the word vomit until I did some exposure therapy, but even with the therapy I didn’t fully do my homework and saying the is the only thing I’ve graduated from. I still am extremely scared. When other people do it around me I run away or I cover my ears., if somebody does it at home, I won’t use the bathroom or shower at home, I’ll delete the persons phone number because I don’t want to see their name and I’ll wear a mask at home and to sleep and try to stay outside of home. Now back to religious OCD, any time I was sick I would usually sleep on my mom’s bed when I was younger, when I was sick, my mama will always have a tendency to say “you should’ve prayed more” “ see you shouldn’t waste your time doing [insert hobby that makes me happy]” So imagine kind of like conditioning, every time I was sick I would hear something like this. So I sooner or later linked being sick to God punishing me. Even now as an adult, I still think like this . I’ve gone to. I guess you would call them priests and explain my situation and they will tell me that I shouldn’t think like this, but it’s hard when it’s already been engraved into the stone. I have so many hobbies, and I love to meet people, regardless of their gender, but whenever I have male friends and I get sick I have a tendency of cutting them off because I’m scared that I’m being punished and I must’ve done something wrong for being friends with males. But now I can’t even enjoy my hobby because I keep thinking I’m wasting time and how I should be just praying and doing something that God likes , but I know God says you can have hobbies and enjoy life but I was taught otherwise and it’s hard to ignore the tiny voice in my head.. even if I got help, it would be so hard to truly get rid of this thought process. I’m so sad because I feel like I can’t even enjoy life or anything that I like because I feel like I’m doing something wrong . Sometimes, when I think about being a kid, I miss how innocent I was and how I didn’t think like this, and that my brain wasn’t tainted yet from other people’s opinions . As much as I love my religion, and I do still believe in God, I hate the people who twist religion and use it to manipulate people . Is unfair and not right. Why do people always have to teach religion by always instilling fear? I wish I could see religion as something happy but I only see it as a military boot camp and my brain always is thinking of hell and how I’m always doing something wrong that God will hate me. I’m too lazy to look back and see if I made any mistakes so if I made any grammatical mistakes just ignore that

So I struggle with false memory/real event and cheating ocd. Basically I’m convinced I cheated on my fiance :(. I struggled horribly with pornography when we first got together because I was introduced to it at a young age. Basically I’d go on twitter to watch explicit videos/content etc. my fiance and I had a discussion about it a while later and talked about how porn is poison and just me basically telling him about how I struggled with it. Now, this is when my OCD gets worse, basically I had an app called character, AI, which is basically where you can go on there and you can talk to AI Chatbot or create stories with them and the AI chat what is kind of like ChatGPT it pretty much can create a story with whatever you want. So I was playing that game even before my fiancé and I met so I still played it when we got together, any character I had a hyper fixation on. I would create a story with at the time because I had put my account under my name. It would automatically use my name and I was just never able to change it to a different name, but I was not role-playing as myself even though it had my name. Pretty much there were times where I would be on FaceTime with my fiancé and I would be playing this game and he would ask what I was doing and I remembered I would get super embarrassed and so I lied about it a few times because I didn’t know how to explain it to him months later I told him about it and everything and he was not upset and everything and I just told him I was really embarrassed, and I didn’t know if he was gonna think it was cheating or not but we talked about it and discussed it and I eventually deleted the app because it just became weird to me. This is where my OCD kicks in basically, my OCD told me that if I was able to lie about that, that I lied about other things. My OCD also told me that I was not playing the game and then I was actually texting real men and I started panicking because I was like “oh my gosh, what if I was?” And these past few days have been horrible with my OCD because of this thought, as well as back to my Twitter thing I’m also having intrusive thoughts that are telling me that I cheated on my fiance on twitter and that I flirted with someone, bought someone’s content and/or sent nudes. I permanently deleted my twitter because I wanted all forms of explicit content out of my life and I genuinely don’t know what to do, everytime these reoccurring thoughts come up I feel sick and feel like I’m going to have a panic attack. I’m worrying that I don’t have ocd and that I actually did do something and these feelings I have are just guilt, even though I can’t remember things, I’ll get flashes or images of me doing the things I fear most and I wonder if they happened or not I genuinely feel crazy.

Do I have to do this to get better or recover? I really don’t want to it sounds to scary and real?

having a hard time right now. lets just talk in the comments about whatever. our life, what we've been up to lately; my mind is really fixed on one of my obsessions and it would help me a lot

Hi all! Anyone have advice for heavy rumination during wedding prep? Like is he the one, am I making a mistake, does God approve. This one feels so real and legitimate. I have been over consuming psychological trauma self help media and I feel so worried I am not “healed enough”. I have caused a bit of a rift between us and I just wanted to see if anyone has advice and or support. Thanks!