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forget wishing for love and success! im wishing for total sanity. for freedom and a sound mind; perhaps those two are one and the same. i need to focus on gratitude. ocd makes it easy to get swept up in chaos and nonsense. but when it rains, i remember all my pets and family are safe inside, and i have a bed. i get to watch spongebob before falling asleep. someone’s one wish would be for such simplicity.

Hi, today was my first appointment with an OCD specialist. I don't know how to feel. Part of me feels at peace with it and like everything just clicked and made sense. The other part of me feels as though I've manipulated someone into thinking that I have it and I really don't. I know that's common and I'm trying my best not to seek reassurance for it, as I've realized that's something I do quite frequently. I feel relieved that other people feel the way I do. My new counselor is amazing and everything I had hoped that they would be. I'm hopeful for what's to come of this. Things that they said to me today made me feel so seen and understood to the point where I actually teared up quite a few times. What I'm struggling with now... I don't present OCD in the typical ways you would expect someone to without knowing much about it. I'm thankful that I'm able to read other people's experiences and connect with them in a space where everyone is experiencing similar if not the same thoughts as I am. However, I'm afraid to tell those close to me because I'm afraid that they will think I'm lying. I know that I shouldn't care and that I shouldn't worry about others' opinions, but obviously I've tried to not care and well... here I am. I am not overly cleanly, and I am not someone who makes sure things are completely organized, honestly, I prefer things to be a little bit cluttered. I told my mom a few hours after my appointment and she made me feel guilty in a few ways. The first thing that she said was "Do you think I did this to you?" and I was honest with her and said that I wasn't sure if it was something that was caused by anyone. There were a few things that I shared and said that I have realized I view crying as manipulation now, because when I would cry sometimes when I was younger there were people around me telling me I was doing it to make people feel bad for me. When I experienced suicidal ideation, it would be turned into another form of my "manipulation". I wouldn't say that I feel shame when I cry in front of others and don't typically avoid doing so, but I do tell them often that I'm not trying to be manipulative in doing that. Which I think confuses people because most people don't view it that way. When I told her that I was diagnosed, she said that she would have never expected that from me. I told her that there was no way she could have known. Many of my intrusive thoughts were/are taboo and I only found it easy to tell the counselor because he made it a comfortable space by putting many different subtypes out on the table very early on in the session. She told me she was sad because she thought I shared everything with her. I told her some of the things that lead to me wanting to get checked for it just to make her feel better, because I didn't want to hurt her feelings. It was vulnerable of me and not what I was looking for in that moment. I really just wanted her to know that I have it and not how I knew I had it. I'm not really sure what I'm looking for out of this post, but I guess I just hope it helps someone. It helps me to type it out and get my feelings out there to maybe be heard by someone. If you have advice or need a place to vent in this post OR if you can just relate to what I'm saying, please say something. I don't have anyone in my personal life who understands this and I would love to hear what others have to say! Thank you :)

Let me introduce myself first. I am Reense. 25 years old & my biggest dream is to become a girl 1 day ( i am transgender ). I am very kind to everyone and i show always respect. I compliment many people & like to talk. But .... Since 2020/2021 i have OCD. It changes so many times, the one time this and the other time that. It's so scary. Now my question. I had last Friday an OCD situation. I worked very hard that day & i dont know what i had, but i was a little angry, when i walked home, really exhausted and dizzy, when i got back home, and i know that i did nothing but then my ocd suddenly thought: did you do something horrible on the way to here? Which makes the real reality doubtful. Harm OCD. Very scary. Then i became scared, and i deciced to relive the entire walk back home in my head with images, but .. i forgot about False Memory, but False memories, some of them, blend so much in with real memories which is very scary. When i got home, it was a normal time, nothing strange. But i am so worrying that, what if i don't remember something or what if the false memories are actually true? All of that. I know that it is all big Bullshit, but it feels so real. Especially with the memories, the false memories & false images & all of that. What can i do now? Am i a bad person? If you are dizzy or something else, is your ocd much more dangerous? Am i the only one in the world experiencing this? Thank you for reading this. I appreciate it so much. Much love.

I’ve been having a pretty bad OCD flare up this past month & have been meaning to start back up with therapy and psychiatry anyway just to get my foot in the door with getting OCD manageable + I’m having to go visit my home state after two years of not visiting it and my OCD is doing classic OCD things like “What if XYZ happens?” & “What if you ruin your favorite things/interests by looking at them there & you start pushing them away to not ruin them and then you ruin them?” etc etc. But during my appointment she prescribed me fluvoxamine for my OCD symptoms. Now for some context, years ago I was on Zoloft and it absolutely recked me and did not help me at all, and due to that SSRIs have been placed in the “I never want to take those things again” category & she obviously prescribed me an SSRI. Last night I had an absolute OCD meltdown. Thinking about how I felt during the time of taking my last SSRI, how unstable I was, how sick I felt, how I pushed all my likes and interests away in fear of ruining them etc etc & now that I’m so comfortable with my interests and hobbies and stuff like that, the mere idea of the prescription is like threatening my comfort. Which is obviously the OCD going full blast. I also would be starting a new medication out of state on a vacation in a place I have a lot of anxiety to be in, so I’m not gonna start taking it. I would much rather take a medication to ease my anxiety as needed + the medicine I’m already on and do ERP therapy IRL than take that medication. I have an appointment set up for when we get back and it’s virtual and for some reason I feel shame about wanting this instead of what she prescribed??? During our appointment she was very kind and warm and seemed to actually care about me so, during my next appointment I’ll mention all of this to her, I think I was to nervous to say anything my first time because I didn’t wanna seem to like intense or stressed or something. Does anyone know if this would be appropriate??? And does anyone have any tips or suggestions on how to ease those anxieties???

For the past few days I’ve been struggling to eat and sleep properly as side affects of my anxious thinking. Even though I’m not actively triggered, my body is acting like I am, and the increased heart rate/nausea/tight chest is pulling me back closer to my rumination and intrusive thoughts, like my body needs something to panic over. Does anyone have any advice on handling the physical side effects of OCD? And do you think this might be reflective of a new developing somatic theme?

Hello all! We are trying to find someone to do a psychological exam on our 11yo son. We are 95% certain it is OCD. We have tried balancing it at home, working through an “understanding OCD” book with him, and coming up with ways to “throw away” those thoughts. But we need more help. We are very nervous about finding the right help as when we reached out to a therapist we’ve used before with our other kids, she immediately sent us to the ER this summer and he was quickly placed in a 1013, without any proper warning or learning the intention/no ideation. We were able to advocate and get him reevaluated the next morning and he was released. To say it shook all three of us to the core would be an understatement. We need help in providing him care and treatment so that he can feel successful at beating these thoughts but we are scared that we won’t be heard again and we will go through another traumatic event. How did you find a therapist/medical professional to diagnose correctly and begin treatment? Thank you!

I really don't know what to do right now. I am feeling ashamed and guilty that how can I swear , abuse and curse my loving God, my parents and loved ones. I just want to remove this. Even if I sit with this , i experience discomfort. Oh God! Please help me. I don't want these thoughts. Why it happened to me. It attacked me where I was most sensitive. Please God help me with this illness. It's so hard. I don't know what to do. I feel like I am a very bad person. Feeling very alone in this fight or journey.

hi everyone, this is my first post and i’m pretty nervous because i’ve never really talked about my fears in the open before. i find myself worrying constantly that i might smell bad, look dirty/disheveled, or that people think i’m unclean/unsightly. i know a lot of this must stem from self-esteem and body image issues. even when i shower and use lotion, perfume, etc. i feel like there must be some sort of smell that i will never be able to control. when i sit at my cubicle at work, i swear i can smell something off, but people always tell me i smell nice. it’s especially bad when i don’t wash my hair (i have bleached hair that i dye vivid so i try not to wash it often to prevent fading). when i use dry shampoo or corn starch to freshen up my hair, i only feel more dirty and disheveled, even if it looks okay. i admittedly fell victim to the “cleanliness olympics” as the internet may call it, where many creators made videos saying if you didn’t wash a certain way, use certain products, use chemical peels, antibacterial soap, etc. it means you’re unclean. it’s to a point where i’m worried about being unclean, but i’ll go a few days without showering because the task is so daunting, but i will use cloths with soap and scrub myself to at least feel cleaner. i am stuck in a horrible loop and i guess i just want to know if others go through this too… does this count as contamination OCD? i’m very much a newbie as i’ve only just been diagnosed with OCD and i feel very intimidated by what my thoughts and compulsions could mean. i feel so silly for saying that i’m afraid of being dirty/smelling bad while also being stuck in a loop of being unable to bring myself to shower at times. i’m sorry if maybe i worded this badly or if it’s triggering without me realizing.

So I had a fight with my girlfriend last night and it was because of my ocd. I have rocd and friendship dynamics really trigger me. I have a very open friend community and outlook on friendships. When I invite my friends out there is a “more the merrier” mindset and we really don’t care who brings who even if we’ve never met them before it’s very inclusive. We’re all neurodivergent if that makes sense. I’ve also known I was queer my whole life and never played into the “girls night” “boys night” dynamic, My girlfriend is not neurodivergent and I’m her first queer relationship, and her friend groups are very exclusive. When we first started dating the idea of me joining in on her friend hangouts was alien to her. None of her current friends ever brought their partners or invited new people into the group. I don’t think this way of relationships is wrong but I don’t understand it and it’s not what I wanted for myself. We talked about it and we came to a good spot on how we navigate friendships in our relationship and we now have some good mutual friends. ( we found out we were more compatible then we thought) We’re both happy with it now. The problem comes down to the fact that my girlfriend doesn’t make plans. I planned all our dates for a while and it was a bit of a burden. I was struggling to come up with ideas and we just kept eating out over and over. Then her friends who I didn’t know yet would invite her out to cool shit like concerts and piercings and escape rooms ect. It really triggered my ocd and I didn’t understand why I was upset at first which led to a couple of fights. She thought I was trying to control her and not let her hang out with her friends without me, but I was just feeling left out because l struggling to plan fun dates. Eventually I figured it out and we talked, and I had her plan a couple dates. We also made a list that we add too and pick from when we want to go out. I thought it was resolved until I realized it wasn’t. Because I still planned 90% of the dates and contributed to 90% of the list. I was missing a core part of why I was upset and it was that I wanted to feel validated and loved, like she wanted to include me in her life. Also she would mention in passing she wanted to go somewhere and instead of planning it so we can go, and I could experience the things she’s always wanted to do with her and receive the validation of her putting in the effort of sharing it with me, I would have to plan it. And sometimes her friends would happen to invite her to it first and I would miss the opportunity to go because I hadn’t gotten around to planning it yet or I planned it after them. It felt like she didn’t care whether or not I was there for her important life goals and experiences. We fought about it a little bit but I had gotten better at figuring out the root of the problem through the “I’m dying” feeling ocd gives me. And I told her that I needed her to show more initiative. At least occasionally I really don’t need much. 30% would thrill me. I said she can start with my birthday weekend and she’s done an amazing job. But I still had the lingering fear that after my birthday weekend she’ll stop planning things. Because I always asked before. This comes to the fight. So we hadn’t fought in a long time and we’re in a really good spot. She got invited to this casino by her coworkers (mutual) and I couldn’t go because I’m not 21. This triggered me because she mentioned she has always wanted to go to a casino just once in her life for the longest time and it felt like a really big deal that she didn’t want to include me in. She threw in that we can just go again but she didn’t know I wanted to go but this felt half assed and we had talked about it briefly before and I said I would take her and teach her how to play black jack. It also hurt to watch her come to me so excited about these plans she had that don’t include me, when she’s never approached me super to excited about a plan she made that included me ( that I didn’t ask her plan). But I let it go ( this is when we talked about her planning more stuff and my birthday ect.) anyway 2 months went by and nothing happened. Now I just turned 21. I can go to the casino now and I was holding on the hope that she would include me now because originally the reason was because I’m not 21. And you know I didn’t want to plan it because that would defeat the whole point. I hear her phone blowing up and I asked her what’s up and she said the group chat was finally planning the trip. I was like oh you know I’m 21 now, and she was like yeah? Which hurt like hell. Now I was a bit passive aggressive and it led to a fight. She said the casino was never as important as I thought it was, just like going to the movies for her, and she didn’t do any planning, someone just through up a date and everyone agreed to it before she could respond and I wasn’t available and she said she might be busy to so she didn’t mention it to me. But it just felt like hashing out old stuff we already solved. I feel like instead of talking about why I was triggered by it she just kept saying that’s not what happened I don’t understand what you want from me. I wanted initiative from her to include me in something important and I thought she missed an opportunity to do that after we just talked about it. I realized it was a misunderstanding and I apologized and explained it but it was difficult to get to that point. she got upset because she thought I just didn’t want her hanging out with her friends without me, which isn’t true obviously and we had already talked about how we want friendship dynamics to work and we’re both happy with it. This was an original point of conversation when we were first hashing out how we feel about friendships and it was very important to me she didn’t feel that way. We were both happy with the friendship dynamics we established. I wasn’t trying to change that now. It felt like we were having 2 different conversations, she just kept shutting down and saying I don’t know when I would ask her questions to try and figure out if she was truly happy and comfortable with the friendship dynamic we picked. This made me keep thinking she just didn’t want to include me and that’s why she didn’t invite me to the casino and it hurt even more. She was saying it’s healthy to hangout without me and I was like yeah but the why is important, so why? What situations do you think it’s healthy for me to step back? And it was just more I don’t know. She was saying she feels like she’s right but maybe she’s wrong and that made me feel like I was pressuring her and I don’t want to do that. She finally said some of her side and I was finally able to realize there was a miscommunication and explain it and apologize. And then she said we were good and she was happy and she felt everything was resolved and our current friendship dynamic was fine and she thought I was upset about her going out without me, not the underlying fear i had or the assumption I made. The whole conversation was very difficult to engage because my ocd was telling me she was gonna break up with me the whole time. It makes it hard to advocate for I want and think clearly about what’s fair for both of us becuase I just want to bend to her side and move on. It also makes the situation very painful and sometimes I revert back to old compulsions like asking for reassurance or being slightly passive aggressive. It’s difficult because sometimes half way through she gets frustrated by the conversation and says fine we’ll just do it your way and I have to be like please don’t do that that’s not what I want and your obviously lying. (Communication was something she had to learn because she lied to avoid conflict a lot even if the thing she was lying about wouldn’t have caused any conflict) I want her to understand my side and want to come to a compromise. I don’t want to have to keep pushing for what I want or feeling this way. i feel like it also takes time to implement our compromises which leaves room for ocd to scare me into thinking she’ll forget about them or ignore them and I’ll continue to feel this way. But she’s usually good about it. But I also don’t know what’s my ocd and what’s healthy for a relationship ( I was in a toxic one before this which definitely skewed my perception of what a healthy amount of affection looks like). Even though she said everything’s fine I still feel she’s lying to appease me. I’m scared I’m asking for too much affection. I’m scared I’m pressuring her and she’s going to leave me because I’m toxic or something. I absolutely do not want to do that but I also want to feel loved and validated. I’m scared it will never be enough and it’s all my ocd. Is my ocd the reason I give so much affection and want “ a lot” of affection in return? Is my ocd the reason we keep having this fight or is it because the issue was never really resolved and my ocd is making a normal issue hard to navigate? I just want to have some mutual friends with my girl, have her plan some dates without me asking and feel like she’s actively sharing her interests and passions with me. I know she’s already shared some of her interests with me but I ended up planing them and making them happen. And when that happens it feels like she could take it or leave it ya know? Maybe I’m being too much and I should be grateful for what I have and asking for more is too much?

Here is what I can't get past "accept uncertainty" In practice what does this actually Meaaaan? When I hear that, I interpret as "lie to yourself, destroy your own integrity, accept being delusional, etc." if it relates to things that are certain - real events OCD ... things that are factual / they happened - true things. I have like some form of neuro OCD or something where I trip out over neurological technical things. Some of these things are scientific certain facts. - the real certaint impact of OCD. Is this anxiety uncertain? Is this tension headache everyday uncertain? Is how it's affecting my relationships - and I can see it in their eyes - uncertain? I don't get it. I'm missing something. I think I'm slow and it needs to spelt out for me lol. I'm struggling to understand the diff. between "accept uncertainty" on real/factual things. I do know maybe it's the *response* to those things that matter probably.

Do any Christians struggle to understand what God wants us to do? I struggle with understanding if what I am doing is what He wants… should I get married, my career choice, etc. Sometimes He feels so distant. Any advice from other Christians?

Hello. Everyone it’s been a while since I’ve typed on here because I’ve been from so ocd to rocd . But now it’s both attacking me. So recently I was on TikTok and saw a guy who I thought wow he looked good back then. Then it spiraled into an are u gay and I panicked and got anxious and turned red because of the anxiety and fear of that. Then I started getting scared for the day and then eventually it stayed in the back of my head. I couldn’t think and eventually in the next while my friends said they wanted to go to a rave and my friend said that they were bringing their gay friend to it and sometimes they joked around that they ask the gay friend if I was cute and he said that I am attractive. Yk how that feels as someone with so ocd. So I kinda was like what if I engage with him or what if I like him and what if I let him do something to me or I do something to him. I then looked up his instagram because I was avoiding him in anyway and I saw his instagram and he js looks like a normal fit dude but I knew he was gay. So it made me think if I think he is attractive or a good looking guy or compliment how he looks in anyway does that mean I’m gay, do I like him and then anything related to working out or anything related to my friend he then pops up. And it scares me thinking why am I thinking of him does that mean I feel something for him and etc. I have a girlfriend of 2 and a half years so it not only interferes with my relationship and rocd but it makes me think yk do I like my gf is that why I can’t feel the love strongly , am I not in love, am I js staying in the relationship to not be gay. Also me and my gf have been having problems recently in our relationship like communication and other things people have. I genuinely js want to love this girl and be in love with her without all these thoughts coming up and if I could I would give up my arm and leg to js be happy with her forever. I told her about my “ocd” today for the first time and she looked confused. I told her I suffered from subtypes like false memory, religious, harm, contamination, and the two biggest ones rocd and so ocd. So I told her and she gave me a hug and said we’ll get through it and I felt slightly better until after she left. All the thoughts rn came up. I felt like she doesn’t understand still but I hope she does. I js wanna be happy I’ve had a crush on her since the 10th grade and we barely dated at the end of senior year. But right before we dated march 2024 in December 2023 all these thoughts popped up of so ocd all from a. Little thought in my head saying “what if I’m gay” and me researching scared me even more. I later in the year got therapy and they gave me ocd suggestions that help people with ocd. Basically typical ocd treatment ,my therapist told me sounds like ocd idk if you have heard of it and I knew all about it I js didn’t wanna self diagnosed but I never heard the words you have ocd. Which scares me rn too. I js want peace in my relationship l, peace in my mind, and peace in the future. It’s torturing me and it wasn’t this bad since August 2024. The so ocd went away until now and the whole time it was js rocd. Js do I love her, am I losing feelings, what if I cheat on her or she cheats on me, what if I lose her and she replaces me in the future, she’s gonna be happy with someone else if I leave. I’ve been panicking every day. And not knowing if I have ocd fully also scares me. I can talk privately about more before all this like more times that sounded like ocd to me. Please help me.

When people recover from ocd is it gone for good?

The last few days have been hell on earth for me, about a week or two ago I started experiencing horrible back pain that was spreading to my legs, it made me panic, like A LOT. I went to the doctor and they found no actual issues, but they asked questions that ended up triggering me more and increased my constant body-checking to make sure I wasn’t experiencing them. I had no idea what was causing my pain until a few days later, I’ve experienced secondary amenorrhea for the last 7 months, up until a few days ago, the leg pain definitely matches with what I used to experience during my time of the month before those 7 months, but this time I hadn’t been expecting it, so the sudden symptoms took me by surprise. So I got my explanation for the pain, but for some reason I still can’t manage to shake the awful feeling that something horrible is going to happen to me. I feel like during this whole experience I’ve just wound up finding more “symptoms” of potential issues around my body, even if they’re something that I’ve had since before all this obsessing started, but just never noticed until this spree of constant checking. I feel like I’ve dug myself into a hole, and even now that I know my reasoning for doing so isn’t true, I’m still stuck inside of it. I’m starting medication later on this week, and I’m really hoping that it manages to ease all of this, as it’s affecting my life and my attendance at college.

So, I really like this music artist, but she has king of demons tatted on her forehead and is overall disrespectful to religion. But I listen to other artists who aren't exactly Christian either, but I've been told to not listen to her specifically from my mom. I dont get a bad vibe from her music, I just don't support her as a person. Idk what to do because then I'd have to drop basically everything I listen to because in some way, everyone who is famous is demonic on some level. And I'm not a big fan of worship music in all honesty 😭 now, every time I listen to music, I think "what's the difference between this artist and another artist?" Or "am I committed to God if I can't even stop music for Him?". I'm very confused

So… I have a very strong and rather unhealthy attachment to someone I know… and it scares me how much I like them… so I try to avoid them… but then I’m thinking all day, every day about how I’ll break the ice when I choose to reach out again… and it’s terrible because I feel like they’re trying and I need the constant reassurance of them initiating conversations because it shows me they care and WANT to talk to me… but now I’m afraid my avoidance will push them away and it’s such backwards thinking but… I’m not avoiding them because I don’t like them or want to talk to them… it’s quite the opposite… I want to talk to you so badly because I like you so much that I have to restrain myself… and now it’s been rather silent on their end and I’m not sure what to make of it because I don’t know how they feel so now I’m scared I’m losing them but I don’t know what to do… do I text back? do I wait for them to reach out again to confirm that they still want to speak to me? what if they never do because my silence has pushed them away? I miss them so much but I don’t know what to do.

My OCD is now moral checking people around me and now its on my dad, i keep replying stuff he said or did years ago to see like what if he is weird or sum like im checking real events but about other people and of course i always find something and it hurts so bad that my OCD is now focusing on my Pa, im very close with my dad and it hurts me so much to even think like if he is a bad person or not, i love him so much and i genuinely cant handle it, i dont know what to do i keep replying stuff he said and i dont know like what if he was weird cause he said that even tho like i dont think he had bad intentions he is truly like amazing and i cant handle this i dont know how to beat this theme since its not like my morals or anything its someone else that i cant solve since im not them

There those crazy thoughts are again! I’ve been waiting for you. I’ve been waiting to shut you down! You will not affect my night!

i’ve been having troubles in my relationship. it’s been very one sided on feelings and by that i mean i’ve realized i’ve been too focused on mine rather than remembering the fact that my partner has feelings too. that he can get mentally exhausted also. i thought that maybe i needed to work on myself more and i do i know that to be true. i apologized to him for just realizing that. we’re learning to really come together on both of us being better for each other. the progress we have made has made us proud, but still i find myself going back to those thoughts and feelings. i’ve gotten better communicating those to him. he understands that i can overthink, he just still questions why id even think that way to begin with. back early in our relationship, i used to be so confident on his feelings for me. it doesn’t matter how many times he tells me or shows me, i still fall into questioning what if he doesn’t really want to be with me. what if he’s getting ready to leave and find someone better. when i ask him a question about what i’m thinking in that moment, i can just see in his face the shock because we would be having such a normal moment. i’ll question his ego and wonder if he feels like we’re equals as if he thinks he’s better than me. he can look at me a certain way and i’ll question what he really thinks of me. i’ll apologize to him for things that i can’t help when he’s not even affected by whatever it is I’m apologizing for. i’ll imagine him at his worst when he’s given me no reason to believe he’s that person i can see in my head. sometimes i get worried that i’m doing something just to upset him. i want to be better for him, he doesn’t deserve to have to constantly reassure me if we’re okay.

Friday something happened to me. I worked very hard, way too hard & i was exhausted but pushed myself to make the work done. When i was finished i started to get very dizzy & i was exhausted & a little bit ugh. When i got back home, my thoughts suddenly went: hey, have you done something evil outside, did you do something bad? I was confused but exhausted. And later i went back in my memory rethinking & reliving the situation. But the images i saw are disturbing & the more i try to remember, the more images which makes you question about the reality, while i know that it's not true. But my mind tries to make me believe i did something very bad. It's like a chapter you dont really remember. And the images are like, a horror movie. Im so scared. How do i need to handle this? How to stop the images? And how to not believe it? Because it feels so real, it scares the Fuck out of me. I dont remember the exaxt situation, so im reliving the situation with my image thinking, but it feels like it's getting twisted. Help me please. What do i need to do. Any advice. Help. Comfort words. Anything