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OCD is playing with exposure therapy & has turned my life into a twisted game of "let's see how far we can go with exposures until your life is backwards, with everything the way you don't want it to be". Out of all my OCD themes, this is by far the worst & the hardest to shake off. In some ways, I don't understand what's happening. I used to be able to conquer OCD themes by experiencing my obsessions and not doing compulsions. Now, OCD is adding extra nonsense to this technique & it's really hard to ignore the thoughts being thrown my way. First, they come in the form of intrusive thoughts pretending to be exposures. Next, I worry I've followed through with the thoughts, which creates more problems. As an example, if I first get the obsession of "What if dropped some money over there?" And my compulsion is to check to make sure I didn't, my mind quickly jumps to this new thought of "Now go drop $50 and habituate to that. Make it your new reality. Get 100% comfortable with it, or else you're doing treatment incorrectly." It's like the OCD has switched from the initial trigger/obsession/compulsion to this new fear about how to expose and habituate. Basically feeling like I need to prove to myself that I'm 100% comfortable with dropping moderate amounts of money on the go. There's a lot of anxiety, guilt and shame around this new fear. Another example is when I'm taking a shower. Initially my thought is "What if I didn't rinse all the shampoo/soap off", so I go back once or twice to double check it's rinsed. BUT THEN my mind jumps to "Now Everytime you get out of the shower, put pumps of soap/shampoo on yourself, leave it to dry, and never rinse it off. Habituate to it. This is your new reality." I hate this, I don't understand what my mind is doing. Now I'm trying to figure out if I have alot of soap on my body dried because my mind demanded me to do that as an "exposure". Same with the demand to drop $50 and "habituate". This feels like it's never going to stop. I just want to get back to how I've been able to conquer OCD in the past (Experience the Obsession, Don't Perform the Compulsion), but I'm losing hope of getting back to that place.

I need some advice if anyone is willing to listen. So before i met my husband i was in a relationship with this guy who I knew when i was 13, he was 5 years older then me. When i was 17 we started talking and ended up dating it was a pretty toxic situation but i thought i was happy and was really naive. I had the best sex with him and had a lot of passion/infatuation with him. One night we were asleep and he woke up and kinda forced himself on my when i was still asleep i woke up and did nothing was just pissed off and felt horrible that he would do that to me. Eventually i broke things off with him after a few attempts. After that i was so happy to be single. I had a lot of ROCD in my last relationship but it was about him leaving me or him hurting me or cheating. Then i had talked to a few guys but something weird happened anytime a guy wanted to get close to me or wanted to hook up which I typically was not down for anyways. I was almost like numb or locked up inside if that makes sense like i was afraid of getting close with someone, yet i still would try to be close or flirt or want intimacy but when it came to it in person id freeze and change my mind all of a sudden. So about 6 month after that toxic relationship i was invited to hang out with my best friend at her new boyfriends house whom i had a small crush on but got over that quick, i met my now husband. He had just moved in to her bfs house and we all kinda hung out, then she asked me to hang out the next day as well so i came iver again and hours later they all left and her bfs roommate asked me if id like to stay with him and hang out, so i said yes he made me food and we watched tv then he kissed me and started to get kinda touchy and wanted to obviously do stuff i wasn’t going to do anything with him but then I decided why not it. Its not a bad thing and i can chose to do so if i want. So over time he wanted to hang out with me everyday and i was afraid of being in a new relationship and wasn’t sure what his intentions were but over time he grew on me and we fell for each other, but I remember there were time when we would have sex id force myself to think about other people to get turned on i felt unattracted to him a lot of the time and now looking back i keep thinking maybe i just really was not attracted to him. At this time i was not aware of my OCD and wasn’t really experiencing anything i was just annoyed by him and would question whether or not i wanted to be with him even tho there were moments where i loved him a lot. Anyways now i have ROCD towards my husband i have had this for about 2 years now sometimes it just so hard to know if we have no sexual chemistry or if its my stupid brain and OCD picking at his flaws or maybe its a mic of my ex being a shitty person and causing me to be afraid of intimacy like I’m uncomfortable having sex sometimes i just want to love my husband and enjoy sex instead of feeling numb and not having orgasms and wondering about all of this crap. Anyways if anyone has had similar experiences or knows anything about PTSD, ROCD that would be so helpful. I just don’t know sometimes if what i’m feeling is 100% ROCD.

Hey guys I am just wondering how do you guys just stop rumination I really need help someone please

Just applied for a new job and at the end they asked if I had any disabilities and they listed a few :Use of Wheelchair, Autism, Blindness, Deafness, and then they listed PTSD and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I about died. I didn’t know why it hurts to think of OCD as a disability, but it just does. It hurts like it means I don’t deserve a high paying job. Just thinking about something so personal having to be on file: I have a broken brain. It’s a disgusting feeling. I want to rip this out of me. Is this how the world sees us? Disabled?

harm tw I just self-harmed for the first time in probably four years. I always stopped myself by remembering that my body and mind want to keep me safe but today it just didn’t work. When I tried to stop myself with that reasoning, it just made me angrier. It made me want to hurt myself more because I hate my stupid body and mind and they deserve to suffer. Now I’m miserable because in my family pretty much anyone who self-harms goes straight to the psychiatric hospital. I know I’m in a very bad mental space. I think a lot of my friends know that too because they’ve been avoiding and ignoring me. I’m in a residential hall at college and now I’m just hiding in my room. I’m scared though because my intrusive thoughts are a lot worse right now and I’m terrified that I could possible act out on them. I just feel like it’d be better if I die. I hate myself so much right now and I’m realizing my friends don’t like me much either, so I don’t see the point of sticking around.

Do you sometimes feel like you should just came out and that is it

HOCD Ok so I went to the therapist for the first time and it was horrible. I told her how I feel and she started telling me things like "It's ok to be bisexual or lesbian" and she was basically trying to convince me that I am the whole time. And told her that I know there is nothing wrong with being bisexual or homosexual but she wasn't understanding. I told her that I found out something called HOCD and that I'm having all the symthoms, but she kept saying that there's nothing wrong, that I should follow my heart, etc. Now I'm much more confused and anxious, I don't know if it is actually HOCD or if I'm really bi/lesbian. Please help. Should I stay with this therapist? It was like she wasn't listening to me and she didn't mention even once that it could be HOCD. I'm so confused and frustated.

Does someone have some tips? Like I don't know but my general anxiety has been extremely high regarding my crush. My HOCD has been low but my GAD is so high right now. I feel bad, dizzy and I feel like vomiting :(.

I have struggled with OCD for almost 3 years now. I have days when I feel like I will never feel like my old self the way I was before OCD emerged into my life unexpectedly. My OCD journey started out fearing death as my obsession. I cried for weeks trying to cope with this obsession. My compulsions were simple yet they were purely mental. I would perform my mental compulsion to combat the anxiety that arose from having my death obsession spike. I would think to myself “You’re only 30 you have a long time before you die.” This compulsion would bring my anxiety down from a solid 10 to about a 4 then it would level out until my next spike. After about a month I recovered and felt fairly normal for about a year. Then it hit me one day. My OCD returned with a vengeance. I had a random thought one day...”What if you’ve hurt someone in the past and forgot about it”. This harm obsession became my next obsession. I would have violent thoughts enter my mind. They caused me great distress as I knew deep down this wasn’t me but my OCD tried to constantly convince me that I was this terrible monster of a person capable of these horrible acts of harm. It got so bad that my now ex wife had to drive everywhere we went because I was afraid to drive thinking I would hit someone when I was driving. It continued to get worse I was forced to downgrade to part time at my job and virtually became housebound and reclusive to everyone except my closest family members. I finally decided it was time to seek professional help. I sought out the help of a local psychologist whose specialty included OCD. To make a long story short she was of no help and every time I would visit her she stared out the window behind me and I felt she was ignoring my concerns for the most part. During my 3 month tenure her best piece of advice to battle my OCD was to put a positive picture in my wallet and to get it out and look at it every time I had a spike. I was prescribed Paroxetine by their psychiatrist as well as hydroxyzine to assist my anxiety. Since I realized that my psychologist cared more about her life outside her profession I said to hell with it and stopped seeing her. I continued my medication however. At this time I felt like I was at a dead end. I began researching every piece of information I could get my hands on. I studied the works of several renowned scholars from online sources as well as personal experiences from other OCD sufferers and began to compare them with mine. I began to develop my own techniques to counter my OCD spikes, which I still use to this day and feel that they have improved my well being. Shortly thereafter I discovered this very mobile app and have taken great pride to be part of this community. I feel like everyone here is family because we are all here to help and support each other with the ultimate goal of banishing OCD from existence. I truly feel with everything in me that we the OCD victims hold the key to the OCD puzzle and I feel that if we continue to share our experiences we just might discover some kind of missing link that binds us all and through that discovery perhaps we can find the ultimate anti-OCD technique or techniques that with dedicated practice will restore each and every one of us to complete mindfulness. I hope this message finds all of you well.

So know besides the fear of being gay, I fear being asexual/aromantic. And I don't want that. I want to be sexually attracted to boys and to fall in love with them. I want to have a family one day but I want to have it with someone I'm romantically in love with. Is there any aro/ace that could explain how does it feel for them?

Do someone have exemples of false memories?

so i’m 17, and i have a friend who’s 14. we’ve become really close throughout the past few months, and we both like girls so when we first met, we had a bit of a crush on each other. i was 16 then, but when i found out she was 14 i didn’t feel interested anymore because i thought that she was too young to date. for a bit of back story, i went through severe childhood sexual abuse when i was younger which causes me to not let anyone to touch me even today. i haven’t held my own mother in a long time, i’ve never kissed anyone or cuddled, done anything sexual, etc. we’ve been trying to help each other through our own traumas, and she suggested that i let her start trying to touch me more, which i was apprehensive about but i thought maybe it would be good. she started holding my hand when we walked down the hall, hugging me, and we cuddled with each other both of the two times we hung out. i felt fine about it, but the second time we cuddled just felt off, and i think she was thinking of it as a romantic thing and it made me uncomfortable. in the middle i told her i didn’t want to do it anymore and she got mad at me which prompted me to just deal with it and let her cuddle me again. i feel upset about this, because i was uncomfortable, but also because i feel like i’ve made her feel romantically toward me by allowing her to do this and i’m the older one so i should’ve told her no ? it’s been bothering me obsessively, i’m scared that i led her on and the age difference in general makes me uncomfortable ^^^ this was a post i made yesterday, today i told her how i was feeling and how i was scared that she felt romantically toward me and it turns out that she did. she said she needed to end our friendship because of it, which i understand, but i’m so devastated. i feel like this is going to turn into an obsession of mine, feeling like i didn’t handle the situation well and however she acts out because of this is going to be my fault. i feel at an all time low. i just wish she wouldn’t have feelings for me, or i wish we could stay friends and just stop trying to help each other through our trauma. i don’t know how to come back from this.

Does anybody have constant intrusive thoughts but no bodily reactions to them? Like your mind is constantly repeating words and phrases but your body is numb to it because you've done it so much?

It’s just incredibly annoying trying to enjoy sexual things and intrusive thoughts pop up and then if you don’t give them a reaction and it makes false attraction. I don’t even know how to live a normal life anymore without questioning myself.

I'm still obsessing over the fact that I'm an immoral person for ever viewing porn on pornsites. This is a constant obsession that comes back constantly. I stopped watching porn 2 years ago after learning about how unethical it is. I keep fearing I came across unethical porn unknowingly. I keep having porn scenes play in my head. It makes me want to punish myself severly for being so naive when I was younger and consuming porn regularly. I hate myself for ever watching it and I hate it for ever existing :(

Anybody every have their anxiety go away (or tune down) but the bad thoughts still keep going? Then I'm calm and not in a panicked state anymore but the thoughts are still there, which in turn makes me scared that this last bad run of OCD the past 2 years has changed me actually into all the bad things I dont want and have been worrying about... Which is not the case! Then in turn the anxiety comes back. These thoughts dont support who I am as a person or align with my beliefs, so I cant be "okay with the thoughts" even if I know the thoughts arent me... Thats just how my brain is and how Ive always been. Even if I know I cant stop thoughts. My head is in an endless loop full of oxymorons and terrible thoughts to the point EVERYTHING is a trigger (I hate that word) and this loop is so strong that any good content I put in my head gets pushed aside and forgotten, and/or twisted and tainted into something very negative. Life is hell. I know who I am but always freak out as if I'm questioning who I am.... But I'm not actually questioning who I am at the same time!! I know who I am, Its just words in my head that literally say the literal opposite of everything I want or believe in and provoke bad reactions. Then the words come back without anxiety sometimes and its awful because I dont want to think these thoughts without anxiety accompanying them... Because they're so bad I'd be even more worried if I didnt get scared, anxious, grossed out, etc at them! I know beating up on myself isnt helpful as it makes the thoughts stick worse, but I CANNOT be okay with them. Its wrong, sick, and even if it wasnt wrong or sick, it still just isnt me!! People say there is peace in accepting the uncertainty of the thoughts, but I am very certain they are bad and NOT me, and I REFUSE to even entertain the idea of otherwise. All this is one of the many reasons why mindfulness, cognitive behavioral therapy, and exposure therapy makes stuff worse for me. I want a therapist, but more somebody to just let me talk, and be like "Damn, thats heavy man, but you're right, you ARENT those things and you got this" but instead, everybody tries all this "accept your thoughts" bullshit which just warps my head and makes shit worse. Anybody else experience similar experiences?

Anyone else notice that when they go through OCD/Anxiety flare ups all their thoughts just feel so distorted? Like it’s like anything I look at I instantly have a sense of anxiety with any thought it pulls up. Almost like you just simple become anxious from something as simple as thinking. I have a horrendous fear of Psychosis but my psych assured me this is part of anxiety. Any tips on how to get past??

Anyone else with moral scrupulousity/real event OCD? I'd love to talk to someone who understands.

Hi! I come on here now and again to be a support to others suffering :) I am recovered from my horrible ocd through intensive erp! By recovered what I mean Is I accept that I have ocd and that intrusive thoughts will and do happen to me... however, through the techniques I have learned I am able to live a normal and even wonderful life with ocd hanging out in my brain... on the days I do have ocd I easily disarm it within seconds and it does not bother me or create anxiety, most days I might have ocd but because I trained my brain to ignore junk msgs I don’t even realize I had an intrusive thought and some days it feels like the ocd that was destroying my life never even existed... i sometimes now do exposures to just keep up and am honest that I might relapse one day but that’s ok... recovery is learning just how strong you really are, recovery is being okay with ocd taking up some brain space.. so if you have any questions for me about erp or the process please feel free to ask! I want to help others xo

Does anyone have similar thoughts or experiences. My ocd has been really bad for around 3 years but recently around 3 months ago I realised that I started doubting everyone in my life no matter how good they are to me even my parents. Iv been feeling as if everyone is a robot hard to explain but I feel as if no one really exists and that I’m in a simulation and is the only person who realises it and that everyone I know is just waiting to get the opportunity to fk me over. When I see my self in the mirror I look behind me thinking someone is next to me only to realise that it was my reflection. I don’t know whether this is ocd or not anymore especially the fact that my mum is schizophrenic and bipolar anyone know what these symptoms could be?