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What are some ERP exercises I can do about meaning/worth/reality? For example these last couple of weeks I’ve been struggling with intrusive thoughts about if this life/what I’m experiencing is real, intrusive thoughts such as “this doesn’t mean anything” or “what’s the point” Etc when I’m just trying to live, etc. I feel like if I’m thinking about it and searching for an answer too much I’ll go into a panic :(

Hi all this is my first post. I have a very specific, unique, debilitating ocd. I feel I am in control of what happens to family members. I don’t care about myself dying but I am constantly redoing things in order for my family to stay alive. especially my mom. Right now I feel if I don’t rewatch something on the television and think a specific thing, then my mom and I can’t be close or “normal” with each other or she will die. How can I let go of this? I have been in therapy for years. I am almost 30 and finally am done giving in to every compulsion. But I’m terrified of the risk of living day to day and risking my mom dying because I didn’t rewatch something on tv. Please help if you can.

Anyone on Anafranil? I think that’s how you spell it. My doctor is reluctant to prescribe it and just keeps upping my lexapro.. thanks guys!!

Hi, looking for some solidarity here :) I’m wondering if anyone in this community has relationship ocd? Like obsessively questioning if you fell out of love/ ever were in love or you’re attracted enough. I’ve never met anyone with the same experience! This Covid 19 crisis has given me more time to worry and I’m hoping I’m not alone in these thoughts

Someone please help!! My HOCD is taking over my life. It feels like it is engulfing me and preventing me from taking a breath. It came on about 6 months ago when i had a thought ‘what if I’m gay?’. And since then it has been racing around my head everyday. I think back to things in my childhood which seem to ‘confirm’ that I am not straight but whenever I imagine doing something with another girl, it repulses me. I used to watch videos of girls twerking when I was younger, i don’t even know why. I got turned on by it but I don’t want to be intimate with a girl. I’ve always had so many crushes on guys. Before my HOCD, I also often felt uncomfortable in changing rooms and i don’t know why. Is this normal? I just want my life to go back to normal:( It feels like I will never be happy again and I am so exhausted from putting on a brave face and acting as if i’m okay to my family and friends even though I am breaking inside.

Anyone else here have harm ocd :(

Wow I'm so triggered. I was watching a interview with Russll Brand and he said in it "all my life had the feeling something bad will happen to me and alot of those things happened to me, like going to jail, getting sacked from my job etc" I'm so freaked out. I always the feeling something bad will happen to me... :(

I feel like when I just accept my thoughts by agreeing with them it definitely feels like I am making them true. It doesn’t come with any anxiety anymore though but it’s still hard because I really want to fight back and I don’t wanna like girls (I am a girl). Sometimes I can look at normal social media stuff without thinking anything and then I realize that I have been looking at girls without reacting and then I start overthinking that and so then it changes my whole perspective till I forget about it again and then the whole cycle starts over. Like I just want to think normal like I did before without even being worried about this stuff. It’s like every time I say “yea that’s true cool” I’m actually believing it and then I’ll think that I’m actually going to like girls in the future and I don’t want that I want to marry a boy. So every time i see old couples I say “well that’s not gonna be you”. What do I do with this? It’s taking the excitement out of couples when I used to love watching old couples and imagining myself like that one day with my bf

How do you know, despite all the lack of feelings or strange feelings and thoughts you have, if it’s still rOCD or already you falling out of love?

Has anyone ever experienced a mix of real event and false memory ocd?

I feel so paranoid and like I am going crazy ?. I was alone & I remember just literally sitting there and being paranoid that I just said something when all I remember is just sitting on my phone .. I was talking to myself a bit before but positively . Basically my mind thinks that I said “I love myself “ which i wouldn’t have any problem with ofc but it’s making me think that I was thinking something that I’m not while saying it, obviously something that angers me because I am not and it ruins my happiness, but again I doubt I said anything to begin with and I just don’t know anymore for sure but again even just after I didn’t remember ? even moments after I did not remember, I just stopped and said “did I say anything?” I couldn’t put my finger on it... my mind assumed and then of course latched on to a very big trigger. I don’t know what to think I believe it’s not true and not knowing for sure kills me but I genuinely believe this didn’t happen I just can’t bring myself to believe it. I feel so helpless and attacked like you can literally just be sitting there and your OCD attacks and leaves you in shambles. Like my mind always believes that it happened but never it didn’t... What do you guys think?? What do I do??? help!!! ??

Does anyone here have a tendency to fixate particularly on something or someone to the point where it overtakes your entire life? I feel like I can’t live my own life because I’m so invested in the life of someone else. (She is a celebrity.) I just can’t do this anymore. I’ve never heard of anyone having this to the degree and intensity that I do and I feel so alone...

As with most kids who are given internet access at a young age, I was exposed to pornography at a pretty young age (11-12 maybe). Recently, I’ve started to become more aware of the impacts it can have on you and your relationships and have been feeling really guilty afterwords. I’m currently in an amazing relationship that I’m so thankful To have, but I don’t want it to seem like I’m hiding anything from my girlfriend or anything. I want to be honest with her, maybe try and figure out how to stop this addiction. I just don’t really know an appropriate time to bring up this sort of thing. Has anyone else been in this sort of situation? Thank you for taking your time to read.

Does anyone have any recommendations on all natural supplements that help with their ocd? (Obviously not ERP and CBT therapy). I am having a hard time deciding on if I should get on meds or not. Unsure of if they make a huge positive impact.

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.