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The past couple days I’ve felt what recovery is. My intrusive thoughts are rare, and not particularly unsettling. I often laugh them off or immediately forget about them. Any physical symptoms (disassociation mostly) have been there, but for the first time I really do not care and am not afraid. When that happens, I find I have times where they’re so unimportant that I don’t even feel them, because I don’t care and I’m not trying to make them go away. I’ve been journalling my progress to make note of what makes things worse, and what makes things better, so I thought I’d share them. 1. ERP. Nobody wants to hear that, I know. I make loop tapes of my intrusive thoughts or write them out and read them over and over. Right now my ERP schedule is 15 minutes in the morning, 15 at night, and 15 in the afternoon if I have the time or am particularly anxious. I don’t have many compulsions and have good control over the ones I do have, so just listening to the thoughts makes me think about them less through the rest of the day. 2. Mindfulness meditation. I get really anxious before I go to bed because there aren’t many distractions, so I like to meditate for about 5-15 minutes before sleep, depending on how anxious I feel. Taking the time to focus on my breathing and be able to notice the thoughts without attaching meaning or judgement to them is really helpful. 3. Gentle yoga before bed. If I’m very anxious and restless, I watch YouTube videos on yoga for night time anxiety. Gentle stretches and slow movements help me settle down and feel ready for bed. 4. Exercise. On the days I go to the gym for an hour or so, my anxiety plummets. Its nice to be able to focus on something outside my obsessions and emotions and really engage with something positive. If you don’t like the gym, you could try exercising at home. I do 5 push-ups when I first wake up, and I have an exercise bike (although I don’t use it much since I started at the gym) 5. Reading and writing. I used to love writing stories but I really lost sight of it when my OCD was at its worst. Forcing myself to go ahead and write even though it was crappy and disjointed really made a difference. Lowering the importance of your OCD is SO important (and will become easier with ERP) 6. Not researching. I don’t google OCD. I don’t google my obsessions or my disassociation. I don’t talk about it (I’ve even tried to post less on here) and I don’t dwell on whether or not I will recover. In general, maintaining positive habits and self care and really focusing on things other than OCD, as well as plenty of ERP have really helped me gain control of my life, but I still believe ERP is the most important thing I’ve done for my recovery so far. I wish you all the best in your own journeys, everyone is different so experiment and see what works for you!

I can't remember when my hocd started but when I was at my gymnastics I always thought that the other girls thought I was gay so I'd prove to them and tell them about my crushes on boys to show them that I was straight. Idek why they would think I was gay I just thought they did for some reason. Then for some reason I couldn't stop looking at their boobs I was like obsessed with them but I wasn't attracted to them it was really weird..I only had these thoughts while I was at gymnastics, but then a couple months later I was at a pool and I had this feeling that felt like heavy and awful that I was gay. I couldn't stop thinking about it for days after it was all I could think about. I looked up "I keep thinking I'm gay and I don't want to be" and saw hocd show up. I was so relieved, but the thoughts just kept coming back so I just kept obsessing about the fact I might be gay. I looked up pictures of pretty girls to see if I was attracted and I felt the best feeling ever when I wasn't. I had one panic attack and started bawling because I thought I was actually turning gay even though I had only ever had crushes on guys before. For hours and hours I would look up "hocd or denial" and would bawl if I had like 1 symptom of denial. All I could think about in school was "what if I'm gay "what if I like her" "oh shit." It was awful. Then things started to get really scary. I started to feel somewhat attracted to girls and I was freaking the hell out. I even kinda had a teeny crush on a guy (which eventually turned into a relationship for about three months but I stopped liking him and so we broke up). But then I got terrified that I had a crush on this one girl and am still scared to hell that I do like her. Every time I see her I get really anxious and I can't stop staring at her, this happened with a couple different girls too but I've gotten over them and knew that I didn't really like them. But this "crush" won't go away and I hateeeee it I honestly wish I never met her or knew who she was. I can't tell if I like her or if it's just hocd it's so confusing. I eventually told my best friend about this and she said she had OCD too so not to worry.. ?yeah right. Then I figured out that bisexuality was a thing I'd never heard of it before but I freaked out . (I'm only 14 so I don't know a ton about that kind of stuff) and started to obsess about that and am still obsessing about it. Recently my hocd will come and go every few days and it makes me so anxious when I don't obsess about it because I'm worried that I've accepted that I'm bi. I just try to avoid girls so I don't have the thoughts. Every day the thoughts seem more and more real and Idek anymore.. I'm sorry this was long but I just wanted to share my story of hocd. If anyone Is willing to share theirs that would be great, hope y'all have a good thanksgiving!

Hello, I have contamination OCD and actually I don’t know what dirt or contamination there might be, things are simply ,contaminated‘ - do you know this thought/feeling, too?? And do you also have very clean areas in your house and areas which are quite untidy because you avoid touching things there?

Hey for anyone who’s had to do erp for hocd because their psychologist told them to. When you do the pictures for exposure have they still stayed in your mind after looking at them? I’m only asking because it’s happening to me and I know it’s just hocd but it’s bothering me from the stand point looking at the pictures is supposed to help with my obsession not enforce the obsession more so I just want to ask. I know it’s a thought process but I thought I asked and want to know other people’s experience with looking at pictures for exposure therapy on HOCD.

I was in class and someone’s phone went off. I swear that I could still faintly hear the ringtone for a few moments, even after she turned it off. I feel as if I’m going crazy. This happened before with repetitive sounds as well. Could it be that I’m confusing my inner voice or misinterpreting other sounds?

I constantly have a fear that my boyfriend still has feelings for his ex. There isn’t signs exactly more my paranoia at the fact that she looks like a prostitute and wears tons of makeup and shows off her body way too much. You know one of those (that for some reason every girl is turning into nowadays) and I’m not like that at all. Complete opposite in fact. And this isn’t about me “hating” on a certain type. But we all have our opinions. This is more about me having a hard time accepting that he would want to be with me if that’s the kind of girls he was with before. You get me? Also thank you to everyone for always trying to help and being so kind. You all are so wonderful! ?

Does anyone else have issues with anger or are overly sensitive? I kinda have both and they drive each other. Cause I’m sensitive to what people say and do I get angry at them or just really sad.

Does anyone have recommendations for CBT that will ease guilt? Thanks!

i’m so mad! my hocd just comes out of nowhere and just stays no matter how hard i try. i just want to get rid of these thoughts forever i’m sick of them affecting my daily life!

Hey guys, just wanted a bit of advice as I’m sure my friends are sick of me constantly asking them for reassurance and to be there for me. I use to be very close friends with this girl who had kids with a complete an utter nasty piece of work, anyway when they were together I was friendly with him as he was with my close friend and that’s only right, even though most people despised of him, I never see the bad in people. Then when they broke up he came to my home a few times to chat and for advice, which I gave him, he then tried it on with me sexually and I obviously declined in which he didn’t like, I then had the decency to tell me friend the mother of his children and it back fired on me for trying to be the good friend by telling her the truth, she then took his side in which I lost all respect for her as I was trying to do right by her for telling her what had happened as o hate things like that on my mind. After this he came to my house and threatened, send me a whole load of abusive threatening voice notes too like the vile human he is because of course he got found out. I drifted away from her because of the situation and clearly trying to do the right thing was the wrong thing, we have briefly spoke since this happened a few times within the last three or so months. This caused me to have severe ocd and have the worst paranoia, I don’t want her in my life, I don’t even have her number saved but today she turned up at my door unexpectedly just to ‘pop in’ although I don’t want anything to do with her, the whole situation makes me feel ill, makes my ocd bad and bad paranoia. What can I do?

I have the hardest time figuring out how to do ERP treatment because I'm confused about how I'm supposed to know what's OCD & what's just personality quirks or interests that are different from other people. Like for example therapists ask patients to make a picture on the wall crooked for an exposure & habituate to that. Me, I like pictures hanging straight. It's a preference of mine. I could list alot of other examples. This gets confusing alot of the time. Anyone else experience this?

I started a new journal. I have this thing with new journals is that they have infinite possibility for expression and creation. I want to arrange the whole thing, my experience about when I write/draw, the category of whatever I record or create. I want to anticipate whether or not this is private or something to be shared. If it is useful. If it is benign. And I also remember previous journals and experiences. Instead I do nothing stare at it, think about doing something, start and then hate it. Mostly I do nothing. And then I turn to compulsive cycling for however long. I feel sad about creating nothing. But creating is often also a path to further cycling. So avoidance etc. etc. etc. thanks for listening. The birds outside are a good distraction. Sigh.

I can’t believe OCD kept me from celebrating my birthday today. Well, technically yesterday. I’m so afraid of contaminating myself with my cold sore that I wouldn’t go out and do anything because I wouldn’t wear my hair down or put on makeup in case it spread to my eye. I feel defeated.

I'm in need of some advice. It's about skin picking/biting. So I've always been nervous & anxious, even from a very young age. I just recently turned 23. Anyways, I've always had the bad habit of biting my nails, but that stopped a long time ago. Then I moved onto biting the skin around my fingernails as well as picking it. I was able to stop at one point, but I'm right back at it again. I was on meds for about 1.5 years but came off of them at the end of 2015. I didn't even realise that my OCD was basically gone until I stopped the meds and it came back full force and then some. Coming off of my meds really messed me up because my depression and anxiety came back and got even worse which in turn made my OCD worse as well. So of course I started to pick and bite my fingers again & I haven't been able to stop since then. It's very embarrassing & I'm always trying to hide my hands. They bleed, they're red, and they hurt really badly but that just stresses me out more which causes me to pick more. It's a never-ending cycle that I can't get out of for anything. Does anyone have any tips on how to quit this compulsion? It's ruining my life & I'm not sure what to do. I've tried bandaids, cotton gloves, manicures, stress toys, stress balls, having a friend call me out on it, I'm so stuck. Thank you in advance.

I didn’t know there were guidelines to follow on this app. Apparently I’ve been breaking all the rules and didn’t know it.

So sorry if this is a trigger but does anyone feel the need to have to know why a murderer killed someone? One of my thoughts is that I’ll become an unexpected murderer (or that I already am one I just haven’t done it yet) and hurt people I love. The guy in the US who has just been sentenced for killing his wife and little girls and I’m desperate to find out why he did it. I know there can be many reasons, but I’m really struggling to understand how something can lead you to do that and I’m so worried that that could happen to me, and something could trigger me to do something awful. :( what Would you guys do in these situations?

Can anybody share their success story for overcoming their OCD? Not asking for reassurance, but just looking for some positive recovery stories to instill hope!

Im struggling with my memory a lot lately. It’s triggering health ocd concerns and causing some depression. Im trying to remain accepting of the uncertainty that I could have early onset Alzheimer’s. But it’s depressing not knowing if it’s because my mind is just too clouded and by getting better with ocd i can begin to have a stronger memory, or if none of this will really be worth anything if I begin losing the ability to access my memory at all. I feel so hopeless!

I told my close friends about my OCD a few months ago and they were really supportive at first however there is this one girl who is really horrible about it. She tells me regularly that I should ‘just stop’ and that if she had OCD, she would just find a way to turn it off which makes it seem as though I am making my problems up! As well as this, she will often laugh at me for doing my compulsions even though I have explained to her on numerous occasions what they are and why I need to do them. Does anyone have any ideas about how to explain to her why I am like this? I feel like I have tried everything! Any advice would be greatly appreciated ☺️

I was doing exposures and someone said something about ‘being bisexual later in life’ and I spiked so badly. But I thought hang on if I’m bisexual it’s a relief COS I CAN STILL BE WITH MY BF WHOM INLOVE AND JUST IGNORE WHATEVER THE F IM SUPPOSED TO FEEL WITH girls THEN I spiked hard going wait why do I feel relieved?! Can I really be bi?! And then freaked out and cried... when do people know they’re bisexual? Not asking for reassurance more just education so I can continue with ERP