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TW: Potential CSA. I just want to know if it counts, when I was 6/7 my cousin who was maybe 8 would force me to do things I was uncomfortable with and he touched me in places, more than once and I remember saying no multiple times. The thing is, I know this traumatised me because I started getting intrusive thoughts after this and they were of a sexual nature and religious nature (sometimes the 2 combined) and I had to do compulsions like shutting doors and praying to every religious photo in the room. I also gained a lot of weight after and still have food issues. Our families fell out and I havent seen him since (I'm 22 now). My mum knew about this because I would confess that and these thoughts to her. But I think she justblamed bad parenting on his mums part and that was it. I hate him a lot for it. ALOT. It makes me feel sick he did it but at the same time I dont know if my situation is real enough to be considered as abuse as he was also a child. I just got sent a picture of him with his girlfriend and it made me sick seeing him, and seeing his face. I'm even more angry because I feel that hes the reason I still suffer with intrusive thoughts today as what he did is what triggered it and while I'm mentally ill and my life is falling apart, he is happy and soon to be married and just getting on with life. Are my feelings correct? Should I be allowed to feel this way?

Are you ever afraid that you're spoiled? Like I asked my dad for some expensive art supplies and he said yes and now I feel guilty y even tho he said yes of course Without even considering it

Has anyone taken buspar for period anxiety? (Aka the ladies) haha

i got my hocd(homo ocd) awaken 4 days ago and i wasnt able to eat and have fun from that day.... I wanted to go too therapy but im from iran and there is no sexual ocd therapy and for online therapy i cant pay because im only 15... And btw... Is that okay to think about pedophile ocd in 15-16age?

Pocd doesn't stop. I'm crying about de CP I saw in Twitter, I feel so gross. It is so horrible I wish I had never seen that. I wish I hadn't clicked on it to report it. You can't cry and feel gross about something you are into right??? I feel like if this is pocd it's never gonna leave me alone. A few weeks ago I was scared about that I liked the weird hallucination I had about the girl I saw in that Twitter page when I was daydreaming about my boyfriend and was already like,, really horny. I woke up and I felt even more turned on about it then when I was thinking about my boyfriend but now I think of it and I think it wasn't the girl because I think of her alone and just cry. And if I were given the chance I would NOT do that so that calms me down not even if it wasn't illegal to do that... It just feels like it's "something" to fuck like I can feel the same about idk fucking a cat because it's sex and I don't fucking like animals. So... I should be fine right... My mom still says it's normal and that I'm okay and that I'm just a really horny teenager but what if I get turned on by a kid a few years from now??? That could happen. I can't breathe and this feeling of puking at any moment remains and every time I'm left alone with my thoughts I feel horrible and can't stop thinking about this. I wouldn't ever harm a child like those men in those videos did, it makes me cry I keep seeing the faces of the children and I'm so mad. Please someone help.

I was good for a couple days then today it’s been bad. I can’t tell if it’s real anymore, ugh. It feels real but I don’t want to date girls I swear. I HATE THIS. It’s always like “i don’t want to date girls. Well what if you do?” Like why?

Does anyone else have the fear of doing therapy online because of family members eavesdropping? I want to start doing the nocd therapy but I'm nervous, I've never done it online before.

** Trigger Warning ** This is probably going to sound crazy, but I just need to get this out there. This past Sunday, I was sitting in bed and relaxing after dinner when I started to feel kind of weird. It came with the thought that something bad was going to happen. I ended up taking off work the next day because I couldn't sleep Sunday night and kept waking up in a panic. I kept having thoughts like, "what if you don't live to tomorrow?" or "you might die" or feeling jealous of people who are married and living long lives because for some reason I feel like that won't be the case for me. I remember this happening to me back when I was in 8th grade in 2010. I had this overwhelming feeling like I was going to die & I would cry a lot because those thoughts really scared me. That feeling lasted a few days or weeks. A similar situation happened about 3 years ago on my way to one of my classes, so I googled it and the results came back saying that it could just be anxiety. That helped me calm down a little bit. This time when I looked it up, I saw explanations and examples of how those thoughts might be signalling to something bigger. Like an actual health issue. So I've been nonstop panicking since Sunday night and I don't know how to calm down. The thoughts and feelings will subside but then come back again. I don't know if anybody else has felt this way. I've tried explaining it to my boyfriend, but I'm not quite sure he really gets it. I also talked to my therapist about it & it didn't really help me like I thought it would.

Can SEXUAL ORIENTATION OCD bring false attraction and false urges PLEASE COMMENT

How do you finally move on a bad thing you did in the past?

The last couple of days have been rough. I've been having just generalized anxiety due to the pandemic, but I'm sure so are many others. Unfortunately, I've also been lagging in doing my exercises, so been dealing with OCD thoughts, too. Most of the day I feel as though I can't do anything. I love to draw, play video games and etc., but I get so worked up over my thoughts that I don't even attempt to do them. Anxiety can be quite difficult to get over sometimes. I think I just needed to vent, mostly. I'm going to start up exercising again tomorrow, so hopefully I can get back on track. Stay strong. ♡

Does forgiving mean forgetting what somebody did/said to you? It’s hard to forget the things people said to you when it had a big part of who you are today.

Does anyone else have the compulsion to confess? Even if I haven’t actually done anything my OCD will give me reasons that whatever I’ve done has either hurt someone or will cause people to dislike me. Is that just me?

Has anyone here recently had ERP therapy, and, if so, what was your overall experience with it? Did your symptoms improve and by how much? Thanks

I’ve been really struggling with university assignments at the moment, purely because I have a massive fear of failure. I get very panicked if I think I’m doing something wrong, or that I start believing that I’m going to fail everything. I have anxiety too but I was wondering if this could fall under ocd too? I had never thought about it until now. Would be very grateful if someone could help me out with this! ?

I find it helpful to distinguish between pure O and OCD because, while I do have some triggers in my environment, they’re not consistent enough to really establish a theme, and most of the time I’m triggering myself with my own thoughts. For years I didn’t think I had OCD anymore because my OCD was so adaptive, and I had no physical compulsions, besides reassurance seeking and avoidance, but the compulsions were so covert that I rarely, if ever, noticed them. It wasn’t until reading about Pure O that I was able to expand my understanding of OCD as a WAY of thinking rather than a strict set of obsessions and compulsions. As I learned about how my OCD had creeped into the way I thought about practically everything, I became envious of those whose OCD was traceable in a specific theme, e.g. contamination (although I know this is an oversimplification, and people with contamination OCD don’t have an easier time with OCD at all), because I felt like OCD was always two steps ahead of me, distorting my thinking about things big and small. Now that I’ve gained some serious ground, I can see OCD in every area of my life through the way it distorts, but it’s still a constant battle, and I have to do mental exposures all the time. It would’ve been helpful though for people to explain that thoughts can also be triggers, because that distinction kept me in the dark for years. I thought “oh, I don’t have OCD, because there’s not a SPECIFIC trigger I can trace all my obsessions back to.” No—my obsessions are also my triggers, and they are also my compulsions, combining into one great maddening combustible mass that becomes so circular that it’s impossible to figure out where it started. I hope that people can understand this and not just think of OCD in its most stereotypical form. I suffered from harm and morality obsessions when I was really young, and I prayed and tapped and did all sorts of things that made it much easier to diagnose back then, but since then, 20 some odd years later, OCD had crept in the back door in a way that was much more difficult to track, and I spent countless hours and money on therapy that made me worse. It’s frustrating to think back on all the lost time, especially KNOWING I had OCD as a child, and that it duped me for so long afterwards in college and young adulthood. I’m more accepting towards it now, but I just really can’t emphasize enough how important it is for people to understand that OCD is not limited by “themes”, and that it uses anything to its advantage. The good thing is that once we realize that, the common denominator of OCD-thinking is easier to recognize in day to day life.

Frustrated that mostly all resources about sexual orientation OCD speak of straight people and gay people but never mention bisexuals. This makes it really hard to educate myself about it because I feel totally left out of the picture so feel it musn't be real for me.

This is mostly just a venting post cause I don’t know where else to turn to anonymously talk about this. One aspect I hate about being at home instead of being on my college campus is I’m much less confident overall. ESPECIALLY in regards to my appearance. On campus, I could wear makeup or wear slightly revealing clothing and feel confident. Particularly crop tops, shorts, not wearing a bra, etc. and I knew my friends would hype me up and I didn’t really care about what the other students thought, cause I was mostly just thinking, “if they notice what I’m wearing, then they’ll KNOW I’m a bad b*tch.” But now I’m at home, I feel so scared to wear these things. Don’t get me wrong, I know lots of people can’t wear scandalous clothes at home and get away with it, but I think my anxiety about it is a little different. I used to be able to be around family without a bra on cause I felt safe. Now, I feel like if I’m not wearing a bra or if I’m wearing a crop top, my step dad would check me out. I have two brothers I live with and I have my dad but it’s only my step dad I’m scared of. I don’t know why, he’s never done anything to indicate I should be scared of him. I remember once my family was on a cruise and we were getting our pictures taken and I was in a thin dress without a bra on and he had to put his arm around my waist and I felt like he kept moving his hand down. He didn’t grab me and he probably didn’t mean anything by it, but it scared the crap out of me. Now he’s started living with us even though he married my mom almost six years ago, and I hate having him around. When he didn’t live with us he lived in another state and I’d only have to see him a few days at a time every few weeks. The stuff he does to bug me definitely doesn’t help his case. He knows I don’t really like him (I haven’t told him, I guess he’s just figured it out) and is sad about it, but he still does stuff to bug me. He triggers my OCD on purpose and laughs when I get upset and when I ask him to stop he tells me I’m being over dramatic. I have a very strained relationship with food and because my depression has kicked in during coronacation, I’m eating even less than usual. The other day he ordered pizza and I thanked him and he said something about me eating two pieces and then leaving it in the fridge until it had to be thrown away. I said it was because of my depression and once again he laughed and told me I was being over dramatic. Also I’ve always been told I need to wear a bra around men who aren’t family, so I think that could play a big part in this. Regardless, whatever the cause, I really hope my college lets everyone back on campus this fall, cause I don’t know how much more I can take. PLUS he works from home, so he’s ALWAYS here. So it’s gonna have to be me who gets out of the house, which would probably be good for me in some ways, like I can get a job or something.

My hocd hasn’t been this bad in a while, I used to be able to ignore the thought, even though I knew I didn’t want it I was able to go along with my day without seeking much assurance. However for the past two days all I’ve been feeling is that it’s true and that I really am lesbian and that I’m only straight because of how I grew up, which I don’t want and I don’t think is true because all my crushes have been on boys and I have such a loving boyfriend that I’m so in love with and I don’t wanna let him go. I keep questioning why I enjoyed lesbian porn, why female moaning turns me on a little more than male moaning, why my friend and I experimented when we were really young (I was just around 7 and she introduced me to lesbian porn and we used to act it out sometimes & we’d always play king and queen and I’d always wanna be the queen but she never let me) <—— my tocd also uses that as proof... anyways, I’m so stuck, I’m struggling to see a normal straight life even though I want it so bad. I used to tell myself (I’m not homophobic so please no one take this the wrong way & am against the camp) that I would literally send myself to conversion camp if my thoughts are trying to display my truth and trying to tell me something. I feel like I’m living a lie. I hate this.

An online acquaintance reached out to me saying they think they’re experiencing intrusive thoughts - I did my best to help and provide resources in our country. However they said a few things that imply the thoughts may not be ego-dystonic (thoughts of just doing it, etc.). I’m just wondering what my role is here. I want to help them, but I’m not sure what they’re experiencing sounds much like intrusive thoughts. But if it is, I don’t want to trigger them and make them worse by validating that their fears are true! I understand this is a bit confusing, but if anyone could shed some light on the right move here I’d really appreciate it!