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How do you work or focus on what you have to do while doing exposure and sitting with uncertainty? When I try to do this I get paralyzing crippling anxiety or in a mental funk that I have trouble concentrating and being productive at work or just my everyday life. I also get a hopeless unmotivated feeling because imagining the worst case scenario and not giving into compulsions (real event ocd worsened by PTSD) Any techniques to keep focused and motivated?

Hi everyone. I recently was diagnosed with OCD, and I'm about halfway through my NOCD sessions. I'm starting to get nervous about the sessions ending. So I'm wondering if it's a good idea for people with OCD to be in therapy all of the time, or if some people seek out therapy just when they get flare ups. I feel like I'm doing relatively well, but I want to see what you guys think. I want to make sure I have enough support when the sessions end.

I’ve reached my breaking point!! My resentment towards my mother for her codependent toxic behavior all these years makes me flip out on her over the smallest things. She would fill me with love and buy me things growing up, but it came at a price. She was a controlling perfectionist and she has some OCD traits. Whenever I tried to stray and be an individual she would threaten me with conditional love or money (she enmeshed me and set it up that I relied on her and she takes advantage of the fact that I confess to her with my ocd). She is also a huge gas lighter that will deny anything and everything negative about herself in an effort to make me doubt my reality. This helicopter parenting caused me to rebel over the years and I got myself into trouble and traumas which worsened my mental health. I tell her all the time I wish she was dead and I don’t mean it but my resentment and anger over the years comes out like this. I feel trapped in this house and wish I had enough money to be on my own. I’m a damn adult and I feel like I am not like other people my age because my mom groomed me to be dependent on her. I feel like I’m losing my mind during this pandemic and every little thing my mom does I hate.

i had a theme i obsessed over for a while but now it feels like a new theme is being completely taken over. how do people do ERP for thoughts of “what if i dont love my partner?” when i clearly do but the thoughts are just giving me discomfort? not sure how to do ERP for this one.

I met this girl online 5 months ago, we’ve been talking literally every single day, we talked on FaceTime weekly, the reason we never met was because I had to fly back home to care for my family when quarantine started. So we were both catching feelings for each other and everything was going amazing. Then this past week all of sudden she was acting distant, taking a really long time to respond to my texts and sometimes not even replying at all. After 2 days of no contact I decided to call her on FaceTime out of the blue. (Keep in mind that I did not blow up her phone asking why she hadn’t respond or stuff like that). I asked her on the call if she was okay and that she has been acting weird. She started crying and told me that she can’t do this anymore because she still has feelings for her guy best friend which she used to date. She said that she still wanted to be friends but I said I can’t be friends with someone I have feelings for. She told me she has feelings for me but the feelings for her friend are stronger. Shortly after we ended the call and I immediately removed her from all social media and she did the same. I don’t hate her or anything but she probably thinks I do since she said she was sorry for wasting my time and that maybe this would’ve worked out if we met in a different time. I haven’t talked to her or anything since that happened and that was on Saturday. I’ve been through breakups before but this is something different. Since we never actually dated and didn’t even met, theres so many questions about the what if. I find myself obsessing over her even though I have had the self control to not contact her nor stalk her via social media. This is literally all I can think about and I know I shouldn’t want her back but I still do. I know this is a very long post I just had to get this off my chest. What would you guys do? I struggle with GAD and OCD so this has not been optimal for my mental health. Thank you and have a great day.

I keep stalking my ex best friends’ Instagram and life and it’s making me worse. We were best friends since we were 11 (I’m 27 now) and after college we started traveling together. She would get jealous and say “oh look at you you’re gonna get guys attention again 🙄” one night 3 years ago in London she basically left me black out drunk by myself and let’s just say I woke up somewhere I didn’t wanna be and got traumatized. She didn’t even care and I blocked her after that. Now she’s better than ever, lost weight, kept traveling with the same tour group, made lots of friends, and I lost friends, gained weight, mental health horrible. I’m angry after what she did to me. Other friends gravitated towards her and stopped hanging out with me. I know I’m an adult but it just really hurts. Then when I see her social media I feel like crap about myself. My OCD checking habits make this worse.

Anyone’s OCD ever follow them into their dreams when they’re sleeping? I had this happen recently.

I feel proud of myself for doing ERP. I am here sitting with so much anxiety because of trying to refrain from performing a compulsion. You all should be proud of yourself if you do erp no matter how imperfectly you might be doing it. Facing our fears takes courage. I am trying to have faith this is going to work.

Hi my name is Kat and I just joined this app. I just wanted to introduce myself.. I have had ocd for 34 years and have contamination ocd. I went to Rogers Memorial in 2002 for intense ocd rehab. We did ERP and thought challenging. It was hard but I got better. Now my OCD has resurfaced more intensely again and last year I tried to kill myself because of it. This is the worst disorder ever! I plan on challenging myself again through doing behavior therapy and help from you all here for support. I hope I can help some of you as well! Let’s do this together!!

I am feeling like i don't know how my boyfriend is and what my relationship was with him. And i will never know how my relationship is with him. ROCD is telling me I've to leave him but i don't want to leave him but then it's telling me why don't i want to leave him. It's because i love him and he loves me. When will i feel certain that i love him😔

I am generally confused most of the time. I am a girl and a guy and neither, but am I really? My OCD thinks that. And it also tells me I like older men and girls my age. So... what's going on. Also, I really enjoy watching sort of MA movies and shows but I know they're bad for me spiritually. Idk what to do man. I've been stuck like this since I was 12. Yes. Since I was 12- I have liked to be as a guy should for a girl-hold them and listen to them, and care.... and I have also like older guys and would crush on them for too long, think about them, and hate it but also not hate it. I am so fucking uncomfortable.

this is a lot to unpack just because my mind is racing and i could probably win a marathon w my thoughts because they’re going so fast sorry if it’s hard to understand. me:17,female,not diagnosed with ocd, but it is a very heavy topic in many of my sessions and we are trying to figure it out (imsosorryifthisisntokaytodo) anyways here we go lol i always think that i might just be faking my mental illnesses in order to get attention from people. like i grew up in a very loving household where it a priority of a single mother to do the best she can in giving her three kids everything that they need and equal attention, but i always felt like i needed to act like there was something wrong with me (physically) like i would make up the most bizarre things to claim that i was sick and hurt. i would constantly use ace wrap bandages, bandaids, crutches, slings literally ANYTHING to draw attention to a wound that isn’t even real. so then growing up i learned more about mental illnesses and becoming more open to talking about them (this is past the faking injuries phase) with my therapists and close family. i then learned that i have anxiety, major depression, bpd, and bipolar disorder in the past like 4-5 years. so ive gotten help and i am now on meds but for some reason i always feel like ive manipulated myself and maybe even other people to think that i have all of these things so i can get attention and that in real life im just a sociopathic person who harmed themselves to the point of making themselves believe they have these illnesses. i haven’t talked about this to my therapist yet just because i feel like she won’t take me seriously and that she’ll “see though my lies” that don’t even exists(or do? I DONT KNOW IM PANICKING RN) and i then will start to feel like i can’t say anything because she doesn’t feel the need to help a sociopathic person. and thinking about it more makes me feel like im even more crazy because im feeling what im thinking about but im afraid of the outcome if i seek help. so that’s a big thought #1. this next one is like kind of hard to talk about because it’s religion and ive had the absolute most spiraling road of thoughts about it. so i was raised to believe god. growing up though i began to have thoughts of like worshiping the devil( that idk even exists like what) or practice something just other than christianity, questioning the whole system of christianity, and constantly wondering if it is real. like i feel like i need some sort of proof or else i feel lile im just part of a whole prank and one day someone is just going to reveal that none of it was real and that they made me worry about something that doesn’t even exists (which kind of leads more into trust issues i think?? idk) anyways, i just continued to have that mindset and would always debate with my mom about it (not really debate but more of discuss it deeply but then just agreed to disagree) until like 5 days ago when i was just laying in my bed and i texted my brother (who is a very open and accepting christian) about my beliefs and how to get stronger with god and my faith. this was completely out of NO WHERE and right after we had the conversation he bought be a bible and a prayer journal. i then think i became obsessed with the thought of having something to believe in because i struggle a lot with seeing what’s real and what’s fake and i jumped head into writing like two pages in the prayer journal and then i read it out loud and cried. i said stuff like “i believe in you, ur real, thank you, etc.” but now thinking about it i feel like i was just trying to convince myself. (that all happened the night of the convo w my brother) the next day i went to church with them and the same thing happened i became very into worship and greeting people and talking to people just about their testimonies and hell i literally asked my brother when is the next baptism because i wanted to be reborn for “finding god”. after church i got home and i felt like a complete liar and faker and that people could see that i don’t believe in god, I’m not a good Christian, and stuff like that. so that night i didn’t write in the journal and i tried not to focus on anything religious. so now today, I’m having a really bad episode where I’m just questioning everything and wondering if stuff is real and shit and i fee like by even typing this i am offending god who i don’t know if he even exists (and then if he doesn’t exists WHY AM I EVEN WORRYJNG LIKE THIS AHHHHH I’m so stressed) so i don’t know if it’s lying per say but i don’t know what else to call it. growing up i was a VERY compulsive liar and even now i struggle with it but i really am trying to get better. and i don’t lie with a reason behind it to harm people purposely at ALL, i think it’s just my struggle with reality and what’s real what’s fake so i create like these stories and i start to believe them. i create such elaborate lies and i will just tell them to people and i feel so bad after i get out of it but like in that moment of telling it i don’t realize because I’ve convinced myself that the story/lie was a reality because isolate myself a lot and i get scared talking to people so i shut down and i like dissociate i guess and go into auto pilot mode. i also feel like do it to avoid being hurt because i have this fear where if i don’t do the right thing im going to “pay for it” and i will create the most rash scenarios and THEN i go into that auto pilot mode and create a story just in order to save myself which sounds so selfish and i feel like a pos for doing it but i genuinely can not control it. man i need to gts but my brain won’t shut up.

I really feel like im not going to be able to survive at my job. Customers are so rude as I get thats a part of life but its really stressful and I also get times are tough right now but its tough for me as well. This is my first job and its terrifying and I feel trapped and destined to fail:(.

I need a space to breathe and rant and get stuff off my chest so this is what I’m using this for now. I hate being angry. I hate it so much cause I always feel like I have less control over my thoughts and feelings and it makes me feel like I have no control over possible actions etc. which makes it really hard with harm ocd. But it feels like an endless loop, because my ocd is so frustrating it makes me angry, and that makes me feel less in control, so the circle continues. It sucks feeling like if anyone knew what it looked like sometimes inside your head, maybe they wouldn’t love you and they wouldn’t see you the same way. I feel so lonely and hollow that days. I have so many “friends” but they all make me feel more lonely, cause everything is so superficial and pointless and sitting with them just makes me feel like I need to withdraw deeper into myself because they don’t get it and they don’t really want to get it or care. I want to scream and cry cause I can’t control anything. I can’t stop the people I love from dying one day, I cant stop time, and I can’t keep things the same forever. I’m so tired of doubting everything about myself. Am I a pedophile? Am I a danger to my loved ones? Am I psychotic? Ya da ya da ya da. This endless anxiety I have it feels like it’s slowly killing me and it’s making me depressed. I can’t sleep. I haven’t slept for two nights and I mean like at all. I forget to eat I get so anxious and either way I sometimes feel so nauseous I don’t want to eat. My family doesn’t really get it, to them ocd is always just an excuse, or it’s for drama. I have tried to ease myself into the idea that maybe everything is chaos. Bad things happen to good people everything has an end, etc. it’s much easier said than done. If life is an ever changing stormy sea of waves than I’m barely clinging onto anything.

I want to talk to my therapist about my real event ocd regarding my incident with a dog licking my genitals when I was younger... I don’t know how to bring it up though and I feel like I’ve mentioned it before to her and I know what she’d say to me already but I feel like I NEED to tell her anyways. I also want to talk about my hypochondria over this lump on my vulva but that’s too embarrassing, in my opinion. I haven’t told anyone about that and I’m really scared I have cancer or something and am going to die soon. I fucking hate this...

I get triggered when people discuss how it frustrates them to hear someone say, “That’s sooo OCD.” Then they talk about how OCD is *real* suffering, and these people don’t know what real suffering is. Another time, a friend asked, “Have you ever struggled with depression?” I said, “I don’t know.” He said, “You’d know if you had.” It makes me feel like suffering is a competition. And that I have to rank a certain percentage in suffering before I’m allowed to express my pain or ask for help or practice self compassion. Maybe nothing is wrong with me. “Suck it up, buttercup.” And all that.

When your hocd hits really hard today and you can’t tell what’s real or fake :)

What kind of hobbies do you people enjoy that distract you from your OCD? I only ever watch tv because it distracts me from my thoughts, but what do YOU do?

Anyone else suffering from derealisation/numbness

hi! my name is vic, its nice to be here with you all today :) i am a 15 year old transgender man. i was diagnosed with ocd at a young age and i am prescribed prozac. i often struggle with instrusive thoughts about worsening relationships with my family due to being uneducated on trans topics yet i cant find it in me to help them understand, so i usually dont bother. i often worry about my mom being upset if i transitioned into a man medically because i was her only ‘daughter’ and i feel like being trans would make me a whole different person in her eyes and even a huge burden, not necessarily financially, just personally. i also struggle with paranoia that people online are out to get me due to my interests or insensitive things ive said in the past unaware of how harmful they can be. i believe i cant really prove that im a good person to people i who arent around me anymore and theres nothing i can do but feel defenseless and vulnerable. i have an extensive past of relationships whether it be friends, family or partners that i couldnt begin to type all out here- which is frustrating. i have visited plenty of psychologists but im unable to tell them my stories due to the fact my mom is always with me and telling them what she knows of me instead of letting me talk, and i know well that if she found out about my past it would stress her out and she would take it out on me the wrong way.