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I didn’t mean to delete my post ugh. Basically I’m panicking because I’m 23 and because of trauma I age regress. Basically I just really miss being a kid. I miss being treated like a kid. I miss getting to do kid things and not be seen as weird or be like “oh you’re an adult so I’ll treat you differently” and stuff. Basically I was making something and talking to my friend and the subject was brought up because of it and I said “I almost said I was 17 last year to do a reading program” because you couldn’t be over 18 to do it. I obviously didn’t do it but like Idk. He was like “that’s getting into creepy territory” and I started panicking the fuck out. He said chill and said he knows I didn’t mean it like that but I legit feel so much panic now and it won’t go away and I want to just cry? I think about everything I used to say to my ex best friend bc I used to tell her everything and when ever I told her this stuff she used to tell me I wasn’t creepy and stuff but like I don’t know. I feel really sick now and it’s like every morning something seems to upset me and puts my on hard core edge and I’m always alone when it happens. I really really hate it. I’m scared because I’m so obsessed with wanting to be a kid again that it makes me some creepy p word. When I ain’t even attracted to kids and I’d never wanna hurt a kid. I just want to be a kid again and be treated like one. And just not have to worry about adult stuff like at ALL. My friend knows I regress so when he said that it just set me off so bad. I don’t know. I just hate how I’m always alone in the morning when this always happens. I’ll just panic and feel sick. Or I’ll be upset and depressed. And everyone would have already gone to bed. I just wanna disappear now and i think of any of my other friends heard any of my feelings they’d probably be creeped out and I’m just panicking. I don’t know what to do and I’m depressed and panicking and honestly I don’t know what to do anymore. I’m so tired of everything and my life is going down the drain anyways. As an adult life just sucks and everyone leaves you. My dog died the other day and everyone always just leaves me through death. Grandma, other dog two years ago, my dog the other day... and then my mom has Alzheimer’s, and I’m not emotionally connected to my dad so I feel so fuckint alone. My ex best friend left me last year. Legit just wanna go back in time and be a kid again like I don’t know.

Hey everyone. I spent 3 months at McLean’s OCD Institute. During that time, I learned about different forms of OCD, coping mechanisms, Exposure and Response Prevention and much more. Not many people are fortunate enough to have received treatment at McLean so I wrote an article discussing what I learned there. I hope you find it helpful! https://medium.com/@archie4321/i-spent-3-months-at-the-ocd-institute-heres-what-i-learned-85f47f559c83?source=friends_link&sk=19057f76d5ce290a67f218247130ad24

Has anyone had experience with needing to be very "demanding" with their prescriber? Sort of a long story, but here's the context. As a young adult (18-20) I dealt with (mostly circumstantial) depression. I was bounced around by university doctors, a pcp, and then to an actual psychiatric prescriber. I tried several SSRIs (including prozaprozac, Lexapro, celexa) and wellbutrin. Nothing helped and most were activating and I had suicidal ideation. I eventually landed on lamictal and ativan (which I never took, too scared of benzos). I went off at 20, and didnt look back. Things were great till 2 years ago when my brother passed. My OCD came out in full force (cant touch the ground with anything other than my feet, cant hug or touch people, etc). Added the med route to my counseling a little over a year ago. She listened to my past history and we started with lamictal. General mood improvement, but no ocd improvement. Then she added low dose abilify. OCD very very slightly improved for 3 weeks, then went back to normal. She tossed out the idea or Orap and I said no because of limited evidence with OCD and side effects risk. As of right now, her plan is to keep increasing the abilify and hope those initial results come back. I have asked to try luvox or anafranil but she is hesitant because of my past with SSRIs. However I never tried them with modifiers like abilify or lamictal and I also was very young, on birth control (which really changes my mental health state), and hadnt had a child. Also, OCD was not the concern then. I was very anti medication when we started but things are SO bad that I am willing to try anything. She is aware of this. I had my counselor talk to her and now she is coming around to luvox, but only after we try the increases in abilify and even then she is still hesitant. Has anyone experienced anything like this with their provider, or dealt with similar struggles in finding a good med combo? Also, any stories of experiences with luvox would be great! Tl;dr- provider is set on one med path that isnt getting good enough results, without considering other factors.

bad idea but just had to pull my own little placebo effect for comfort... haven’t really been doing good recently; i’ve felt better about my own confidence since i’ve cut my hair and found my style, but because the health ocd is such a heavy weight, i can’t seem to find happiness that i’ve done all these good things about my self confidence. all that my life revolves around now is being clean and free of illness. TW: MENTION OF CONTAMINATION/HEALTH COMPULSIONS/HARM because of my contamination ocd, i cling onto every little thing i hear that could affect it. example: once heard someone say that if i could hold my breath for over ten seconds, then i don’t have a virus... so what do i do every morning, midday, and night? hold my breath for ten seconds and hope i can do it, otherwise... well it’s over for me. my detriment was hearing my mum say that she had read somewhere about hot drinks (tea mainly) being able to wash down viruses that start in the throat. i remember that... and now, sounds silly, but i genuinely have an obsession with drinking tea ?‍♀️?‍♀️ started off small, i’d drink a cup every now and then, but lo and behold, feeding into the obsession made it worse. every time i felt dirty, every time someone came near me, every time someone breathed on me, my ocd would say: KETTLE, TEA, NOWWWWWW, DON’T BREATHE, JUST GO MAKE TEAAAA so i’d go and make tea, drink it, and it kept getting more and more frequent... until it got incredibly dangerous. every day, as i got more worried, i’d start drinking it hotter and hotter until my tongue and my throat would burn with every sip. but even though i was in pain and my mouth was burning, my ocd kept telling me that “this is working” because now “the viruses are being killed”. i’m going to eventually give myself third degree burns if i don’t stop ?✌️ now my tongue is completely red, and i see that it is, but i just can’t stop with the scolding hot drinks because i’ve convinced myself that i’ll become ill if i don’t drink it. it’s almost as if when there isn’t a hot drink beside me that i can just reach out and grab, i become incredibly nervous and close to mortified. it’s become a detrimental comfort to me now. i can’t even relax with people beside me because if they do so much as stand up and the air hits me then i’m out making another friggin cup of tea. so now i’m sat, my face is pink and my cheeks are burning just out of the blue, and now the big old question: am i having a hot flush or am i dying? so, my little placebo: had to take paracetamol and antisickness, solely relying on that for comfort. i guess the better comforts i have are listening to swan lake and reading animal farm... i also have good old animal crossing to relax me

How do I find peace when there's something wrong that you can't change? I have responsibility OCD. I'm 17 and I have a friend who's 15 and I just found out they're dating a 17 year old. Which I find really unsettling and creepy. And I know that whatever I do I can't convince him to dump their boyfriend.

Hey guys! I used to be a frequent poster in this app and I understand the frustration, worry and exhaustion you all are facing. I have suffered Trans OCD, HOCD and ROCD. Currently, my ROCD and HOCD are about 75% cured (Trans OCD is obselete but will pop up randomly sometimes) and I am more than happy to to answer any questions you guys have about this unforgivable mental disturbance. :)

Does anyone have OCD and Paranoia. I am out in a new medication with my Zoloft, it’s called aripiprazole. I was wondering if anyone has tried it and if it helped them. My doctor said it should help and I hope it does, I have been through so many medz that I never found any that really helped me.

Anyone have any tips or advice about bad guilt/anxiety/worry after a potentially very bad car accident? That would have semi been your fault. I was driving back to my university from my house which is about a 3 hour drive. I’ve noticed in the past that when I make this drive, I start accelerating on the open roads without even noticing. I’ll reach 70,80,90 even 100mph without realizing and then eventually look down and start decreasing my speed again. I stay in the left lane (so it’s deemed a little more appropriate to go fast), but in this situation, two cars were stopping to pull over to the side and a truck that was behind them got into my lane, and pretty much stopped. I braked as hard as I could, and literally saw myself almost slamming into the back of his truck, until I swerved onto the shoulder to pass him. Barely missing. I went into fight or flight mode and pretty much stayed calm the entire time- luckily. Another car that was behind me caught up to me and I could see him trying to get my attention, but I felt like he was going to cuss me out so I avoided eye contact. I knew I was going way too fast. I’m trying to just use this as a learning moment to be more aware of my speed on open roads like this, but I just feel really really sick about what could have happened. Sigh:/

Is it just me or is real-event OCD just TOO much? Like too much guilt, too much shame, too much thinking about the past, too much regret. it’s just too much.

Is it too much ERP if you see your child begging you to wash his hands , crying falling on the floor like an addict asking for drugs and not give in ? I wasn’t yelling just told him all the right things about talking back to OCD . He responded only to the possibility driving him to the hospital if he wouldn’t stop acting like that. I allowed him to wash hands only after I placed the soap dispenser in the garbage bin. Was I too harsh ? I do some extra exposure than the therapist tell us since I saw it’s working. Am I over doing it since it’s the beginning? I want to avoid medication so badly ...

I really just don’t know who I’m supposed to be. I think I’ve always suffered with identity. I’ve never really been myself, so I’ve always clung onto things that made me feel special or unique, and then I’d project that outwards. Like intelligence for example. I’m not a genius or anything, but I’d say I’m fairly smart. From very young I’ve been one of those gifted kids (sorry, I feel really narcissist saying that I hope it doesn’t seem as though I am). Then recently I found love for English Literature or essay subjects as a whole, because they were (and are) interesting and so I’m good at them. And I think that’s also partly due to my OCD, because I started seeing things in a more conceptual way, and started analysing thoughts more, and therefore EVERYTHING more. I got ‘deeper’ if you will. So as a result, I’ve sort of been labelled as ‘deep’ by my peers and friends etc. And I’m okay with that, because it feels special and new! And it’s true. But now I just feel like that’s something I have to live up to. And it’s hard because, I am complex and I know that because I know my brain. But the person I am on the outside, that person who interacts with other people, is not ME. They’re two different people. I feel like I’m trying so hard to live up to this image of myself, when really I’m not all that. I know I’m deep because I spend every hour of every day ripping apart my thoughts, but I’m scared people will just think I’m a fake. And it’s frustrating because I’m not a fake... but it’s so easy to just think a girl is trying to be quirky and all by finding new words and feeling smart and talking about mysterious things. I don’t know how to explain it. I can’t really find the right words, which further worries me because it proves I am a fake and I’m dumb or whatever. Truly smart people don’t have to prove themselves. I just fear judgement. I want to be me and I want to be special but it’s so draining being so cautious of everything I say, I post, I type etc. I constantly have to prove myself as smart and interesting, so that people won’t think I’m not. And I never used to be like this. I was just me, and sure I didn’t know who ‘me’ was, but I was never this insecure about my image. So what do I do?

I'm so so scared. Please someone help. I made myself think of women sexually over and over again last night and it really felt like I liked it. Then I thought of boys and I knew I liked it without a doubt. But now I fear this is the truth and that I'm bisexual and I want to take my life. I dont want to be with or think of women. But I'm getting everything saying i do I feel forced too. I don't want too. Please help

When someone has a false attraction what kind of thoughts can pop into your head?

What thoughts and urges do people get with HOCd?

My son showed symptoms of OCD after starting masturbating ( age 15 ). Even though he says he enjoys it he is afraid he will contaminate everything and everyone with his hands. It progressed rapidly during these hard times. We started ERP over the phone 10 days ago after we wasted 3 weeks with another counselor who didn’t want us involved until after he got to get bonded with my son. Now we do every week day sessions with someone else with me included. I continue the exposure at home daily and even though he needs to be pushed and sometimes yelled he is doing it and I see great results. He actually made chicken soup from scratch on his own thinking he has poop on his hands... he said he wouldn’t eat but got a full bowl in the end without being asked !!! The big problem is his dad ... He can’t accept that he got this from masturbation and can’t handle the rituals. He doesn’t to be near him now and avoids him. He uses foul language that can be heard in the house when I try to talk to him. Has anyone experienced that with a parent and how did it affect your therapy success?

This started when I was 18 when a lady I was seeing made a comment to me about that I reminded her of her ex who she believed was bisexual but all she meant was my humour and personality but then I went did she mean I was gay and that when I started going does she think and I am gay and then started going crazy texting her everyday, calling her asking what she meant by that comment and then I just spiralled out of control. We were very highly sexual together but I was constantly asking her if I was gay, I just spent hours and hours online speaking with forums. I became that bad I would pray and pray not to wake up because I couldn’t take the pain of waking up everyday thinking all these things. I then became a recluse for 2 years and was googling, looking at finger length ratios, how do people know they are Gay, started kissing walls, bending over, role playing in my head sexual acts. Photocopying my hands and measuring my finger length, looking at suppression, internalised homophobia, I saw articles saying HoCD is just denial. I was a complete nightmare I made up lies saying I have kissed a man and my OCD was just denial. I started blaming everyone around me for what was going on saying that this his just denial and I have been lied to about having OCD I then started looking at mens genitals 3 times, felt I needed to look 3 times. I had her use a dildo on me but then didn’t like it so then said she must of done it wrong so tried it again. I use to avoid friends as aniexty was high so just use to work all the time. I went to Portugal when I was 18 and had huge panic attack and started to put my fingers up my bum to test. (Sorry for graphic details) I became better after went to CBT but would always see men and get nervous round them. Got with my current girlfriend when I was 22 told her all about this as she could see I was struggling and she was upset didn’t know what to do. We had a very healthy sexual relationship and would do all sorts with her and then 12 months ago we moved in and hit the worse part of my life I was saying I know I am gay, I couldn’t get out of bed, I went 4 days without any sleep, work signed me off and all I did was tell her what thoughts I was getting, saying I think I know I am gay and don’t want to be gay. I was telling her what I was thinking of in graphic detail,telling her that I have lied to her I have been led on a path. I grew up chasing girls, going to parties wanting to do stuff with girls. I was always conscious of me penis size so would catch myself look at other mens genitals to compare. I remember a friend of mine having a really big penis and would no constantly looking at his crotch was there signs then when I was like 14/15. I have literally spent hours looking at gay porn watching kissing, trying to taste a kiss, I am round my friend sometimes and when they are close up I have this urge to go in for a kiss. Over Christmas I was with my family and was thinking of kissing my dad, brother and uncle. Last week I moved back home and my aniexty was through the roof, sweating, clams palms, couldn’t let sleep but feel last week I went sod it I am gay and then suddenly I have felt relaxed ever since. Is this me accepting I am Gay I feel I have always been scared to go out and try it in case I like it, isn’t that denial. Thanks for listening

I have continuous thoughts of insecurity. I am from India and people here think mental illness is a stigma. So there is no-one to help. My thoughts are generally about me facing situation which will bring disgrace to me Thought of sharing this with the community

I’m not trying to be mean or anything just genuinely curious for those who have HOCD and are afraid they might be bisexual...couldn’t you just continue to live as a straight person I’m not sure where the fear comes from...being worried you might be gay makes sense because that would actually change your life but being bisexual doesn’t do anything. Sorry if I’m coming off as insensitive but can someone explain this

Since I was diagnosed with OCD about a year and a half ago I have experienced many different shades of OCD. Death was my first obsession. Then after that I struggled with harm OCD and now I am currently experiencing harm OCD/ hit and run OCD. Before my divorce when I just started experiencing hit and run OCD it got to the point where my wife had to drive us everywhere because I stopped driving due to my obsession of the thought that I might hit and run over a pedestrian. Since my divorce a year ago I have started driving again but I still struggle with my same obsessive thoughts regularly. There are times when I’m driving and I tell myself “This is the last day of my OCD and it’s compulsions.....” Then shortly after that I know I’m lying to myself because right then I will drive past a pedestrian on the sidewalk and have an obsessive image of myself turning the steering wheel and running over the person. The instant oncoming of anxiety that washes over me for just thinking such a thing is enough to FORCE me to look in the rear view mirror to seek reassurance for in an attempt to relieve the overwhelming anxiety I get from the spike/obsession. I always tell myself that if I just look back it will get rid of my obsession and anxiety.......but it’s all a lie...the compulsions never promise any ray of hope I have found out yet....it seems to be the only thing we have...Once I look back and give in to the compulsion and I actually see with my own eyes that the person on the sidewalk is walking along just fine I get a glimpse of anxiety relief.....but once I get about a mile away my next obsessive thought hits me....”What if the memory you have of seeing that person walking and being just fine was a false memory created by myself to cover the actual event in which I actually ran over that person.....” Then the rush of anxiety hits me again and then my compulsion comes in the form of mental reassurance in which I review the situation and assure myself with everything I can remember that everything was just fine”....this cycle is never ending....my OCD jumps from one medium to the next. I have even experienced Pure O symptoms where I’m watching a news program and see the news anchor speaking then I immediately have a mental image of harming that person. My anxiety then goes sky high and I then perform a mental compulsion that says to myself “You have been sitting on the couch the entire time....that news anchor is several states away....there’s no way that you could have harmed that person. They are to far away and you would have remembered traveling some 1500 to 2000 miles to there. Then by performing this mental ritual my anxiety comes back down....for now....then I think I must SEE this news anchor on tv again to insure that they are ok....but then sometimes the news then goes to another anchor or story and I never see that same anchor that night...then my anxiety spikes again because I have no way to extinguish my anxiety because I have to live with the uncertainty of not seeing that anchor because they went off air. The OCD takes over and over and over....I try to remember a time before OCD when I felt mentally whole...I long for the day that I can return to that healthy and happy mental state....if anyone out there in this community can relate to my ongoing experience or have any advice I would be most grateful. I’m glad to be a part of this community. Thanks and

Lately I have been using gay porn as ERP. In the beginning i was filled with loads of anxiety cause I feared I could be getting aroused and might get an erection. However, once the anxiety went down it became clear I really wasn’t turned on by it and also it also slowly started to repulse me so I stopped cause I didn’t want to feel sick and at some point almost felt like crying cause the thoughts of doing those things really doesn’t fill me with any joy. Through ERP and acceptance it’s becoming more and more apparent I really don’t want to have sex with a man at least not at this present moment in my life lol. Although as I type this my mind bringing up different “what if” and “maybe” which is expected lmao. Just want any advice on where should I go from here? especially from people who are in recovery or have recovered. Was thinking of taking a break from the gay porn cause it’s not causing me so much anxiety that I can’t handle but when I expose myself a lil too much I start to get disgusted and I don’t like the sick feeling or do I still need to keep going to habituate? P.S the images and videos really messed up my sleep cause they kept popping up intrusively which was horrifying lol but oh well I’m sure they will fade eventually