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I haven't been clinically diagnosed with OCD but I do feel that I have a mild form of contamination OCD and my counselor thinks that I have OCD too. What I'm struggling with is the fact that I find semen really dirty for some reason, but I can't stop washing everything around me because I don't know how much I'm supposed to clean up when the topic is relatively taboo to talk about. For example, I wash my bathroom handles, my clothes and anything that have came in contact with my semen pretty often with clorox wipes Everytime I need to clean up, I take a shower for around 1 hour washing certain parts of my body multiple times. Everytime I wash one part of my body, I have to wash my hands in the shower before I move on to another body part. I also wash the shower handles and the bathtub sometimes while showering. I have to touch sink handles in a certain way to prevent contamination. I also have rituals around doing the laundry, because I'm worried that my clothes could have semen on them. When I put my clothes in the laundry, I have to wash my hands before I touch the buttons on the laundry machine to start the cleaning cycle. I also wash certain parts of the laundry machine that might have come in contact with my clothes with clorox wipes. When I wash my hands after I suspect that I may have touched semen, I get really sensitive whenever I feel that a drop of water might have splashed on me and I have to wash the area where water splashed on too. That is pretty much all my rituals surrounding my contamination OCD (probably). I have a few questions for the community: How much am I realistically supposed to wash my hands after a release of semen? Do I have to wash objects that MAY have come in contact with semen? (Not certain if it did) How dirty is semen in general? Like is it more or less dirty than snot for example? I would highly appreciate an answer. Thanks for reading!

Please can anyone give me advice. Today was a really bad day, I've spent all day long doing compulsions (pure O OCD). My anxiety is 20 out of 10. An I'm scared of going back to where I was because I was doing so well in my recovery and now I feel hopeless again and scared of never overcoming this hell. Help please

Hi everyone! ? I just discovered this app and it seems like a good place to talk about mental health. I am new here, but I am not new to OCD. I like to introduce myself: I am 21 years old and I have been dealing with OCD for 8 years now. I have already completed two therapies so far. Fortunately, I am doing better, but it still can be hard from time to time. I am easily stressed out by everything and I generally tend to worry and overthink. In daily life music and writing poems helps a lot. Although I have many good friends, I don’t talk much about my OCD. My OCD consists mainly of obsessions. There are almost no physical compulsions. Most of the time, I worry about doing something illegal or morally wrong. Furthermore, I have some hyperchondric anxiety too, but it’s not that strong usually. What annoys me a lot, is my perfectionism. It intervenes with my OCD and makes it harder to let me enjoy life as I would want to....But I keep working. I keep working on my mental health and on my progress, because (to say it simply) mental illness sucks! What about you? Why are you here? What helps you?

Yesterday, through no fault of my own, I came across something inappropriate online, I reported it to the website. My brain will not, no matter what let it go. I feel so upset over it. It keeps coming back to me. I keep having "what ifs?" about it, what if someone thinks im to blame? Even though I reported it. I know its irrational but that's how my brain works. The worst thing is that was during ERP so it just made everything worse. Feel like I cant trust any website online. I felt better yesterday night, someone told me that i did the correct thing and now it's time to let it go. I cant let it go though. Today was better but it keeps coming back.

Hello, I am new here, my ocd revolves around fear that I will send threatening message or something personal from my pc or phone to a politician and perhaps turn him against me. Thing is that we had "votes" in our country month ago, politician that I really supported won them along with his political "side", I sent him a nice and supporting message on messenger but then I started obsessing that I may have sent him something threatening or something personal as a message or file and then deleted it from my side, so I wont see it but he will. I never interacted with anyone powerful such as politician, and he hasnt responded,hasnt even seen the message,maybe never will, Im sure he gets thousands of messages from unknown people every month. But he may return to them after months or years. I had OCD 2,75 years ago, I dealt with it through antidepressants (neurol and sertraline), I took them for 9 months during which I was exposing myself to my fears. I do not wish anything bad to anyone,nor want to send anything bad or threatening to anyone, I am a non conflict person. But it is my OCD that is doing this fear, and giving me this fear and doubts that I may have done something bad. How should I do ERP in my case? I worry more here because exposure here may give me risk of sending a threat and that is illegal? And I do not want to risk anything or send any threat. Btw I have "false memory", "what if scenario" (which can take me hours to days till I solve, during which I barely eat,sleep and function and have huge anxiety) and "doubting my memory" OCD. How should I do erp please or how to treat it? Thank you.

I live in NYC - I’m 29 and was diagnosed with ocd over ten years ago. I came home during quarantine to make sure my parents are okay and spend quality time since we don’t normally get this time. (Please know, I quarantined for over three weeks before seeing them to make sure I wasn’t infecting them) I told them that I am going to go back to my apt in nyc at some point in May and they FREAKED out. There are multiple reasons I would like to be back in my own apartment, but the main one is my ocd is getting worse out here. The routine is crucial and being in my own home is what I think will be mentally the healthiest choice for me. They don’t understand and I’ve tried to explain numerous times. I’m the youngest and will always be the “baby” - even though I’m almost 30. They worry it’s too dangerous, but it’s just as dangerous where we are now as well. I am so lucky I have my parents and that we were able to spend this time together and I love them so much, but I’m an adult and feel I need to set boundaries for what’s best for me. Does this make sense or am I crazy?? Help??!! My brain is out of control right now.

Trigger warning possibly? Does anyone struggle with thoughts of doubting God? Or struggle with the fear of not believing or not believing enough? Sometimes I even feel like I started believing in God for the wrong reasons. I’m really struggling and always afraid. My faith is suffering and I feel bad. I’m scared I’m losing my faith. I know I want to believe in God, I just get scared I don’t. I don’t even know if I have OCD but I’ve been obsessing over these fears since February. Does anyone else deal with this? And do you have advice?

I can’t handle the internet and I can’t handle adulthood and I can’t handle bpd or ocd. Therapists and medicine can’t protect me. I have to fend for myself. I am genuinely depressed and constantly scared My every movement on the internet is being watched. I miss being a kid when I didn’t care and didn’t know anything including the scary dangers of the world. I just wanna go back and I can’t and I feel alone including in the emotional department. Sometimes I just really need a big hug and to be shushed and told everything will be ok but there’s no one to do that. I feel sick and tired of everything. I’m relapsing so bad with my ocd as of late. I’m TIRED.

Is distracting yourself by doing activities you like considered a compulsion? I didn’t think so. You just can’t ignore your obsessive thought right, just accept it?

How to explain OCD to my boyfriend? He doesn't understand my behavior. I hurt him in past and then he forgave me. My problem is that I keep recalling these events in detail and I need assurances that he really understands everything and forgives me.

How am I supposed to be comprehensive and help my girlfriend through her stress and ocd when she get mad at me, yell and smack me? I know she can't control it all and I'm pretty sure she loves me but still so hard to be there for her in those moments.

Feeling so alone in this, always. I know several other trans women with OCD, including OCD about whether or not they’re actually women at all, and there are other lesbians here on this app who have OCD telling them they’re straight. Yet when I look for resources on gender- and sexuality-related OCD, what I find is materials for straight people whose OCD is telling them they’re gay. Much love to those people, but I hate having to try to translate materials for them into advice for my situation, which is similar in some ways but different in others. Everywhere I go in life it’s like this: the human world is built as though people like me don’t exist. No wonder I have OCD telling me I must be straight and cis instead of a lesbian trans woman.

I need help my anxiety is very bad today :(

read a couple articles that you can be born a pedo. that you have no choice and that you were born attracted to prepubescent children. that some people believe they have it. it’s terrifying. i’m scared i have it. these people who “do” don’t want it and not all of them act on it. but i don’t want to be that. i don’t want to be attracted to that i don’t even want it in my brain. i tried to kill myself yesterday because of this. i talked to my therapist but idk what to do idk if this is pocd anymore. someone please respond it can be anything tbh

Hi! So I’m new to this app, and I’m really excited to start working with it. I’ve been under a lot of stress. Something that really bothers me is not being able to accept that my thoughts are the product of a restless OCD mind. But I find that harder said than done. Does anyone have any good suggestions for OCD acceptance?

I gave into my online reporting compulsion again. So I have moral/responsibility OCD and I constantly feel the need to makesure everyones following guidelines and is safe. The internet feels like a scarier place to me where there is more chance of coming across something inappropriate so I always feel the need to report things (I dont always report them though, I just ruminate on whether I should have or not). So in response to that, I avoid adults sites where I think the risk is higher of coming across something inappropriate. I was using literotica (erotic story website) for ERP and I came across a story that just seemed inappropriate, I didn't read it thoroughly enough to know but it mentioned horses breeding and it just didn't sit right with me. It seems to go against the guidelines. I reported it, saying it seemed inappropriate and mentioned animals and now I feel guilt for reporting it to the site because it may not have actually been against the guidelines. I dont think literotica is good for ERP, but porn itself terrifies me so this seems to be a good second option but idk anymore. Its 9am now and I feel like all I'm going to do is ruminate on whether I'm a bad person for : 1) even coming across the story 2) whether I've falsely reported a story which wasnt even inappropriate 3) if it was inappropriate then does that make me a bad person for coming across it???

(tw?: brief mention of quarantine ig) I still don't know if I have OCD or if I'm making it up lol but I do have an ADHD diagnosis and uh, I started getting symptoms that looked like OCD when I started taking stimulant meds. I have intrusive thoughts about mental health a lot, like I'll get a symptom I can't immediatly explain with ADHD and I'll go "oh it’s probably this disorder or this other one" and I won't be able to shake the thought away (which is definetly an ADHD thing) but the more I try to ignore it the more anxiety it gives me "I NEED to know NOW! I need to look it up!!" and I end up researching these disorders for hours and hours, it usually interrupts my homework time (since I'll be on my computer and it's easy to say "I can open another tab and look it up really quick and then I can keep doing my hw", but I never actually go back to my hw). While "just right" OCD symptoms fit me best out of all the subtypes I've seen, the mental health research thing is by far the most time consuming "compulsion" (idk if they actually are compulsions since I still don't know if I have OCD yet) since it usually takes 4 hours or more and I do it almost every time I touch the computer (read: every time I try to do homework hhhhhhh) and I get very anxious and irritable when I get interrupted. But even though I've read a lot about these conditions that have triggered this "but wHAT IF" kind of anxiety and every time I do I reach a conclusion "no I don't have it/oh yeah this is definetly me", I keep going back to it and reaching different conclusions every time. It happened with ADHD (which helped get me diagnosed), it happened (and still kinda does) with ASD, depression, anxiety and now it's OCD... I do really want to talk about this with my psychiatrist, but I can't see her during quarantine (for obvious reasons) and I don't know of any way to contact her outside of my appointments which just leaves me guessing and makes everything worse (but also my psych doesn’t seem to believe me a lot when I bring things up to her and the first thing she said to me on our first appointment when I told her I had diagnosed ADHD (another doctor dxd me) was "but you seem really fine to me" so idk, I'm hesistant haha). Oh no that's a big paragraph haha (sorry) basically what I wanted to ask is: Is mental health a common obsession? Does what I described sound like an obsession? (Thanks for your time and for reading aaaaa)

I know I shared my story before, and people may not be interested, but I need to get this all off my chest (again.) I am struggling because I remember when I was younger working at summer camp I had gotten semi-erections (I guess the proper OCD term is groinal response but I didn’t really have bad intrusive thoughts then) when playing with some of the kids. It only happened a few times, and I have done enough research ad nauseam to know that this can happen to someone, and I do accept that. However, what is scaring me now is that all of the times it happened it was a male child, and I am convinced now this means something. I know I have/never had any desire to hurt a kid, and when I told my therapist this she did not show concern, said all the usual stuff (it’s just a reaction to something on your body/ hormones/anxiety) all of which I agree with, and yet I am stuck here. I truly hope someone on here takes the time to read this and respond, it would help me immeasurably. I know seeking reassurance is bad, but just hearing that I’m not being judged can help tremendously. Please don’t think I’m a sick person.

I feel like i havent really been uncertain in a long time the only problem left with me is just not being able to love, to feel attraction, to have a passion for something because all of this is sort of related to my attraction?? Like i imagined my dreams and it all was nice because i wasnt having anxiety because of hocd and somehow i related a lot of things to love and men. So not being able to be attracted to men is like... lifebreaking it broke me and now i dont even think aboit the gay shit its just me being depressed and numb because my life just fought a big wat and now its like im just here with nothing left of myself tryna be happy and motivated but feeling attracrion will mae my life again.alsooo im finnalt able to go to therapy yaaay, but not yay bc ive been waiting for that moment for soo long buttt because im not rlly experience the wild doubting it feels like if imma talk about it with my therapist im scared it will feel like opening a wound like im gonna restart the doubting because im gonna be talking about it a lot, i do need fhe therapist because my life has just been so fucked up ever since hocd but im scared that its gonna attack if im gonna go trough alll my old stuff bevause im gonna have to catch the therapist up i cant just be like yo, fix me without explaing the story

Any tips on not taking other people’s ocd personally?? I’m a lesbian with SOOCD where I obsess over being straight/attracted to men. It’s been beneficial to use this app and look at posts from others with SOOCD because it gives me some perspective. However, it’s uncomfortable to see the fear that people have over the idea of being gay because I already feel like being gay is wrong/gross/scary and my brain takes those posts as “proof” that being gay is wrong so I’m horrible. I know that this is NOT a rational thing to think but my obsession on this topic are so intrusive I just can’t help falling into that train of thought. Essentially. I feel like this app is a double edged sword so I’m unsure of if it’s even worth it to continue looking at it.