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Im Christian just to preface. I recently remembered something very bad I did when I was MUCH younger (like 7-11). Someone did something to me in which i did to someone else. I’ve been very considerate and morally just pretty much since I was a kid besides that instance. I feel awful disgusting and gross. And now I am having TERRIBLE scrupulosity OCD now. I NEVER ever repeated what happened that day and never ever plan to. However I feel gross and honestly the guilt is eating me alive. I honestly can’t take the thoughts rn I have NEVER felt guiltier. I feel like the worst person on the planet now and feel like maybe I dont deserve the life I have. And like I can’t be saved again? I feel the grace and love of God every day. But this guilt really affected me :( im afraid.

I’ve never been one to have anxiety or anything before but have known about OCD for a while. I woke up about 6 weeks ago having a panic attack about my health (I have a baby boy always worry about dying) this then turned into relationship anxiety. Me and my partner have had a baby, we have a mortgage together and he’s recently proposed to me. But I still can’t budge the fear of him cheating on. He’s constantly reassuring me and I’m convincing myself something isn’t right. He has a very strong opinion on cheating, the same as me. We can’t stand it. My mind is playing so many tricks on me, I’m constantly tracking is location and checking the ring doorbell.. I’m noticing things that have probably always happened such as him taking his phone into the kitchen while he makes the baby a bottle instead of leaving it on the sofa. It’s driving me insane and it got to the point where I convinced myself he was sleeping with the neighbour and then my best friend. He’s been cheated on in the past and so have I. I fully trusted him then all of a sudden (he didn’t do anything to make me feel this way) my brain is convincing me he’s cheating on me. He has 2 other children and literally says he wants them to look up to him and that he loves me so much he couldn’t even look at another woman in a certain way and he loves my family so much basically explaining that there is so much to lose for what? But all of this doesn’t seem to help me. It’s like my brain won’t chill out until I’ve found that he’s cheated on me but I’m not going to find that. I then started worrying at how do I know what he’s saying is true and he isn’t just saying it to make me believe he isn’t a cheat and that’s when he and other people have said you just have to trust what he’s saying. My argument is a cheat would say they aren’t a cheat. He’s said if he ever did (he explained he would never) he wouldn’t be able to live with himself, he’d have to tell me as he couldn’t cope with the guilt and also having to hide his phone but my point is he sometimes has to work away with work and what’s stopping him telling someone a completely different name and then never being able to contact him? I’m also worrying that what if he picks another girl up on the way to his hotel when he works away and when I ring him to speak she is just quite (because some girls really would do this) & then when I FaceTime him in the room she just waits outside. I just don’t know how to budge this feeling or what I can do to help????

18+ TW/ Mentions of Sexual Stuff and Age Gaps I've decided to compile my real events into one big post, maybe I'm doing this as a compulsion or maybe I want advice. I don't really know to be honest, but it might make me feel better. Anyway, I've been dealing with this for a while, my real event OCD really likes to cling to age gaps from when I was a minor. There's only really 2 things it can cling to but they really distress me now. The first event isnt as distressing to me but occasionally it can be. Years ago someone added me over Snapchat and they were 3 years younger than me. We spoke for like 5 minutes and I even sent a picture of myself to them, nothing bad just a picture I took a couple months prior. Afterwards I actually thought about the difference in age and immediately blocked them. Nothing bad was said but I still feel guilty about it as I should have realised the difference in age was weird sooner. I also don't think they were real as the way they spoke felt like a snapchat bot but I can't be fully sure. Then the second event was an event I've spoken about before in previous posts. I used to role-play with older men online in a sexual way. I don't know why, I didn't really get much enjoyment from it. I think I did it to feel better about myself but I always ended up feeling worse after. Then one time someone who was 2 years younger than me messaged me. I can't remember how we met but we agreed to role-play. Initially, I didn't think a 2 year age gap was bad so I agreed. I think I even thought something along the lines of "finally someone who is around my age". From what I remember we didn't speak too long as I had second thoughts and made us stop. I think we did start and stuff was said but ultimately we didn't get very far in. I don't know how I didn't see it as wrong then, I do think I stopped because of the age gap but it's so long ago I can't remember any details. Theres a chance we didn't even start, there's a chance we stopped way sooner than I remember, but the memory is so fuzzy that I can't be sure. I'm an adult now and I think about these real events constantly every day. I don't know if I deserve treatment or if I deserve forgiveness, I just really don't know. My family knows and for some bizarre reason they still support me and tell me I didn't do anything wrong. How can they say that? I feel like a monster. I should have known better and I just wish I never had Internet access. I quit role-playing pretty much immediately after the second event and I haven't had any real events like this since. I've seen people on this app talk about events similar to these and I can feel sympathy for them, after all we were kids and didn't know any better. But I just can't think in the same way for myself. I hope I never hurt these people. That's the only thing I care about at this point. Anyway, sorry for the long vent and thank you for reading all this. I'm going to continue to try and be a good person, even if I potentially don't deserve the ability to be one. I hope you all have a good day 🫶

My M33 boyfriend just called me F29 the love of his life at 4 months, and consistently tells me I’m his “life.” When I told him that I think he should only say such a thing if he is certain and say that to someone he was planning on marrying or getting engaged to soon - he said essentially “oh, I didn’t realize that’s what that meant to you, I’m sorry for saying it.” Then I brought up the concept of marriage for the first time in our relationship, and said clearly that I wouldn’t be ready to get married right now but that it’s a concept that I’m considering with him in a real way he said “Yeah, I wouldn’t want to marry you tomorrow.” He went on to say that he feels very optimistic about our relationship and that “I want to want to marry you.” We also discussed what kind of timelines, if any, we each felt were appropriate for such a big decision. We both said 1+ year for engagement. And we also discussed the idea that we weren’t completely certain we wanted to marry each other at this stage. He has said both that “I want to love you forever” and said that he couldn’t promise me we would be together forever. “No one can predict the future.” “I can’t tell you what is going to happen between us in the future.” It does not compute for me how both can be true. He is AuDHD and I don’t think he realizes the significance of what he was saying. I have ROCD, and so every time he says something big like this, it’s very difficult for me not to spiral about if he means anything he says, if we are compatible when the things he says now all feel hollow. My OCD spiral “How do I know now that he truly means anything he has said?” It feels like he’s engaging in a fantasy relationship, and I’m left to pick up the pieces AND contain my ROCD at the same time. I feel really hurt - it took so much courage for me to have this conversation with him and stave off ROCD (still in the process of doing!). To hear that he didn’t mean these big things that he said - it’s hard not to take all this as a sign that things are going wrong. For him to say all this and essentially take it back feels like he’s then specifically saying I’m NOT the love of his life, he does NOT want to marry me. With ROCD as well, it’s hard now not to compare myself with his ex, who he was about to propose to before she broke up with him. He was prepared to “marry her tomorrow” - My OCD “so what’s wrong with me where this isn’t true?!?” Separate spiral: I kind of feel like now (with perfectionism) I’m going to try to jump through all the right hoops, and try to be the perfect person to reach whatever criteria he has — so that I can prove I am “good enough.” Regardless of whether or not I really want to marry him, it feels like proof of my worth or lack thereof (now) whether or not he wants to marry me. And our whole relationship would just be better off in the first place if he’d never said any of it and just let our relationship be at the 4 months stage. I don’t know how to get back into that mindset now, of just getting to know each other and be in love in the early stages. I am quick to demonize my own behavior in the relationship as ROCD - but I feel like with all of this he is setting me up for failure again and again and making ROCD even harder. I’ve expressed this to him, but the urge to circle back and overexplain is so strong. He has agreed to not say these things anymore. My OCD: “What if he never means it? What if he never says it again? What does that mean about me?” (YEP seeking meaning) This is now the third person to call me the love of their life, and not really mean it. My OCD: “What is wrong with me where people don’t mean it?” Any non-engagement responses or tips for breaking out of these spirals?

My family and I are sick atm, but i feel like they are lying about being sick to make me feel more comfortable and at ease. Every time i get sick i automatically assume its rabies and i get a little bit of comfort knowing when someone else is sick aswell so i can rely on that and tell myself rabies doesnt make everyone around me sick. Although my mom was sick before me I feel like shes lying to me somehow even though she looks sick and acts sick, and was even sick before me. I feel so self centered and bad for even thinking this, Is this ocd or is this just me being self centered?

I'm actually gonna crash out. This was the one day of the week that I worked, which normally I worked more. But because I worked a night, on top of going to college I couldn't hang out with my boyfriend. And I was yapping with him in like d m's, and I happened to go through, like one of the discord servers we were in, and he offhandedly mentioned that he relapsed, and now i'm like, kind of crashing out, cause I feel like it's my fault, because I wasn't with him. Like logically, I know, that's not how it is. But like, holy fuck is my anxiety through the roof right now. Like, we were sending voice messages back and forth and I hadn't gone through that server. And I just happened to go oh, there's a little notification. There and I clicked on it. And I saw that, and now I don't even know how to continue on the conversation. Like he routinely has to talk to a doctor like because of his medications and s*** so like, his doctors gonna find out. But like, of course, this is almost midnight when i'm nowhere near the campus dorms and I can't just up and leave and go like talk to him in person.

I have been struggling with my OCD only allowing me to buy things on Mondays. My OCD tells me that technically Sunday is the first day of the week which makes it perfect for buying things but it is not allowed because it is a sin to purchase anything on Sunday so it skips ahead to Monday as the best day. However; there is one caveat that if Monday is on a day of the week that has a 6 in it (except 16-Don’t ask me why) or the 13th it makes the day cursed and whatever I bought is imperfect. I recently purchased something I needed (a new phone) on a Tuesday because Monday was the 26th and “bad”. I figured it would work the same way as the Sunday rule and instead of the purchasing day being Monday it would just move to Tuesday. This instead backfired and has caused me extreme anxiety that I feel will never go away. The anxiety is nearly all day long to the point where I don’t even want to use my phone. Every time I even look at my phone or think about it the word “Tuesday” pops in my head and makes me very anxious. It has been a few days and I am still nearly the same and feel the urge to return it even though there is nothing wrong with it and order another one on a Monday causing me lots of hassle. I have been hoping that eventually the anxiety will go away but I feel unsure. My OCD tells me if you had just waited another week it would have been a “Good Monday” but you didn’t and ruined your phone making it imperfect. Does anyone have any advice on what to do or experienced something similar? Any help is highly appreciated.

i keep forgetting to consult a professional about this but i genuinely need to know where this stems from/what drives it. i’ve always liked to take notes in the way i deem “perfectly” which is taking up as much of the paper as possible so that it was thoroughly used. this includes having all the material in order and together. like topic 1 has to be all together and before topic 2 and i need to fully use the paper neatly and so on and so forth. also with skin picking if i feel a scab or raised skin on myself i pick at it to get rid of it essentially. so that my skin is even. and then i can go in with products to make my skin tone even. obviously this causes more scabbing and scarring that i need to get rid of. which i find myself thinking about taking chunks of my skin off. and in my defense most of them have come from pimples (i don’t have acne my skin is just weird and i don’t know how to take care of it and how to help it when a nasty pimple decides to arrive and my skin kind of hates everything and sucks at healing idk i need to see a dermatologist but alas). anyways. thank you for coming to my ted talk. also i’m fairly certain i have undiagnosed adhd hence the horrible memory and forgetfulness. ok bye.

I have such bad ppd, & ppa. I am struggling everyday with that alone, but now it’s been popping up all over tik tok about ppocd. I use an owlet, every night. I still wake up panicking checking if she’s breathing nearly every hour. I’m scared to give her baths alone, what if she drowns, what if she falls, what if she gets hurt and I’m alone. I have a really hard time driving with her alone because I’m always scared of car crashes, I always think that will happen to us. I have to check her car seat 5 times before we leave to make sure she’s in good enough. I’m exhausted, it’s been 5 months I’m just waiting for this season of my life to pass, does it pass?

my intrusive thoughts are kind of quiet right now which is giving me more anxiety bc if i don’t feel anxiety rn does that mean i actually want to act on them..

Things got too heavy and Its like my glass broke and I opened up about my ocd to my friends and now I feel guilty and that I ruined my future have tou ever guys opened up to people about your ocd or I am stupid for doing that

Good afternoon everyone. Been a while since I’ve posted on here, but life has been so good for me these last few weeks/months …… my life is operating at 98 percent. I can confidently say I’m living life and loving it. This journey has been so crazy but I put the work in and fought my way out of that hell I was in! Was promoted at my job, had my second child whos now 5 months, my son is doing well! I’m going out with friends, and family! I look back to last year in shock out how bad my ocd had took over my life, but I never gave up hope. I kept pushing and fighting! I knew there was light at the end of that long ass tunnel, and if not fuck it I had kids that needed me! I wasn’t going out without giving it my all, and I can say I’m benefiting from all the exposures and hard work I put in. I hope everyone finds this peace of mind the way I found it. Bless you all. Till next time! ✌️

I'm getting the worst acid reflux of my life. It's like lava and stabbing pain in my stomach. I'm so scared that it's cancer

I want things to change for sure. I feel like where I am is not where I want to be long term. To be fair, things have changed, but I’m still in my childhood bedroom living with my parents with no long term romantic relationships. I feel stuck. Having said that, change terrifies me. It makes me wonder if I’m even capable of it. I know that change is inevitable no matter what and that if I don’t change I’ll get left behind. I don’t know what to do with this. I want to just scream at myself MOVE DO SOMETHING! I want someone else to scream at me and tell me I’m wasting my life. A satisfying life feels impossible.

I saw him texting the guy he’s expressed he’s overly attracted to. When he’s brought him up (at least twice) he talks for several minutes about how pretty and hot and sexy they are. He’s said how they “only had sex once,unfortunately.” I’m trying not to share my unease because I don’t want to fall into reassurance seeking ways. I’m also struggling with being my usual bubbly self. It’s also late and I’m tired so maintaining energy is hard . Truthfully I’d prefer if they didn’t have contact but I know that’s unreasonable. Being friends is completely normal and fine. I think I’m just surprised they still actively talk. I want to know what they talked about and whether or not it’s my bf reaching out and why. But that’s definitely OCD’s reassurance seeking and I don’t want to fall into that. He doesn’t talk about any of his ex gfs the way he talks about this guy. I’m stressed and trying not to show it and letting myself be uncomfortable. It feels awful.

I've just found out my iron is extremely low. My iron stores are almost completely empty, and it's now caused anaemia. My doctor is concerned, and honestly, so am I. It's been wrecking my concentration, and my energy. On top of that, my work OCD has been really loud: checking, second-guessing, reworking things over and over. With the brain fog, it takes me twice as long to do half as much, and I've started to feel like I'm failing at my job. Plus my manager is a bully. They berate people, they're insecure and conniving, and they use gossip as a tool. It's such a toxic workplace. It doesn't stop there. I'm struggling with group work in my university course, with teammates who don't want to pull their weight, and I feel like I'm clashing with everyone in it. I'm physically seeing Mt body breakdown, flu, sweating and sore throat. I've also been in a year-long battle with my condo association that just won't let up. It has triggered so much of my OCD, and it's shown me how little my parents care. With every part of life feeling like a fight at once, I've started to feel cursed. If there is a God, he hates me.

Perhaps triggering to ROCD This is gonna be long. Ive been with my fiancé 9+ years now, and i feel that we have a very good and healthy relationship 99% of the time. Of course we are still both growing together and trying to improve communication all the time as couples do. I know that we both love and care for each other alot, we plan to spend our lives together. During our relationship we have had arguments mostly revolving around my ocd and his own behaviors stemming from trauma and mental health issues that need addressing but we always pull through and come to an understanding and decide that what we spoke about made us stronger in the long run. Welll ive been dealing with ocd fears for awhile now about him cheating or lying to me or about there being someone else. Its been a couple years now since the theme started and i hate it. It flares every period and It makes me paranoid, no answer is good enough to satisfy for more than a few mins. I try my best to keep this to myself as it genuinely affects him and he feels that i dont trust him because of this theme. He struggles to get that intrusive thoughts are not thoughts i am actively choosing to think. I try proving to him that i trust him and I NEVER try to do anything to invade his privacy as i have seen upclose how toxic and unhealthy that can be for relationships. I try my best to believe in him, but my ocd always seems to pop up and ask those “what if,” questions i have to sit it it and its so unpleasant. Anyway he finds this theme very triggering because previous relationships he was in were volatile and full of constant accusations of infidelity and tons of insecurity. It makes him feel threatened and sometimes he reacts like ive accused him of something. I want to 100% believe he is honest and loyal as i dont think i could be with someone who isnt ever again, but ocd just doesnt work that way. Today i woke up and went into the kitchen and he panic closed out an app and then seemed defensive and said, “ yes i redownloaded instagram, you’re on there all the time” and opened it back up. I hadnt said anything at all yet this started an argument mostly on his side (my short term memory for what is said in these moments is not great especially when im stressed so i can only give the gist of what happened.) i was deeply offended and felt that it was a red flag how upset and defensive he got when i hadnt said anything to him at all, and mostly ive been trying to keep any cheating ocd thoughts to myself. He started justifying it without me even saying anything about it, all i said was “i only just woke up and youre acting like youre guilty of something when i hadnt even said anything.” And he said he knew i was thinking something. I said that i hadnt been but now im not so sure with that reaction. He said maybe you need to go through my phone (for reference i never have and never wanted to) with how things escalated so fast though i told him maybe i should so we can just let this go and he got upset and thought this was it that the relationship might be over. Of course this only made me feel more worried that he had actually done something. I told him i wanted to only go through it with him so we could move on from this. He tried to avoid the situation and have me look through it alone. I didnt want that i felt uncomfortable and made him come with me as he has a tendency to try and shut down and avoid conflict but sometimes these things need to be talked out. I found nothing and i figured there wouldnt be anything but after that reactivity out of no where i wouldnt have been able to stop having ocd either way. And ive been cheated on by previous partners my biggest fear is being deceived and being so naive and unaware and taken advantage of because im pretty ready to see only good in people, and pretty quick to tell myself its just my anxiety or ocd. I love my fiance so much and i think he is the most important person in my life. He felt relief when he realized i could calmly sit with him in that moment and that it didnt mean we were over he said maybe it was necessary to move past what happened and he thinks maybe he needs to go to therapy for always assuming that people are thinking the worst of him ( we have had moments like this before, just not this bad.) Unfortunately i knew that once things were improved and i was alone my ocd would start to ruminate and try to think of ways that something is still being hidden and that im being naive. I just want the rumination to stop i feel sick in my stomach. I just wish the whole incident never happened and i never ever wanted to look through something of his as i strongly feel against things like that. We always end arguments with reminding eachother that we plan to be together for life and that we love each other so i should feel relief, but my brain keeps replaying the negative parts and making knots in my stomach. Its rare when i see other people talking about the ocd fears of being cheated on so i dont know who i can talk to that relates most people without ocd just make it seem like i should “trust my gut” but that doesnt serve me with ocd i feel i cant actually trust it.

I'm really struggling right now and wondering if anyone with OCD has experienced something similar, especially when it comes to relationship uncertainty. My boyfriend and I have been going through a difficult time over the past few weeks. He's been struggling with his own personal issues and has emotionally pulled away from our relationship. When I've tried to ask him whether he still wants to be with me, his response has been "I don't know." And those three words have completely consumed me. I wake up every morning in a state of panic, and I experience intense anxiety and panic attacks throughout the day. My mind constantly replays his words, our conversations, and things that happened weeks ago, trying to figure out whether he still loves me, whether he's going to break up with me, or whether there's something I missed along the way. The hardest part is that I'm not asking him to fix everything overnight. If he simply told me, "Yes, I still want this relationship, but I'm going through a difficult time and can't be the partner I was before right now," I genuinely feel like I could accept that and give him the space he needs. But it's the uncertainty of not knowing whether he even wants to be with me anymore that's sending me into a spiral. I have OCD and am currently working on ERP, but I'm having an incredibly difficult time applying it to this situation because the fear feels so real. This isn't just an irrational hypothetical scenario. There is actual uncertainty in my relationship, and I feel like my OCD has latched onto it and won't let go. I find myself constantly mentally reviewing conversations, analyzing his behavior, looking for signs, and trying to predict the outcome. It's exhausting, and I feel like I'm losing control of my thoughts. I know ERP involves learning to tolerate uncertainty, but how do you do that when the uncertainty involves something happening in your real life that could genuinely hurt you? Has anyone experienced OCD attaching itself to a real relationship issue like this? How did you distinguish between addressing legitimate relationship needs and engaging in compulsions? And how did you practice ERP when you were genuinely terrified of the outcome? I'm really struggling and would appreciate hearing from anyone who's navigated something similar.

My partner had perfectionist parents. He demands perfection from himself. He also has severe trauma. He's been pretty okay about acknowledging it's not fair to insist I be perfect. Though that's been slipping as he's in the phase of trauma therapy where "things get worse before they get better." Recently, he's been learning to set boundaries, where before he avoided asking for what he wants. I support this. I know boundaries are healthy and it's good that he's speaking up for himself. But the boundaries are hard to remember and execute sometimes. I occasionally slip up. When I violate a boundary, he gets super hurt and upset. I apologize, and say I'm not dodging blame, but also point out that I'm trying to improve and it's impossible to be perfect. This doesn't land at all. It doesn't matter if I did something right 10 times and slipped up once. He feels betrayed like I didn't listen. He doesn't seem capable of processing the idea that someone can be working at getting things right but will inevitably slip up. He says that if this is how people are, then nobody is good enough to be in a relationship with. How do we navigate this?

my mom bought a bunch of water and stuff cuz she thinks there’s gonna be a grid power outage. and it’s genuinely freaking me out so bad, i’m very heavily relied on technology for my anxiety and stuff and im so scared. trying not to research ab it but i just saw a tiktok and went in the comments ab it. ugh