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Is there anyone I can talk to?

I had a OCD “low” today and my main theme is HOCD. Though today my brain latched onto the thought I have BPD/ Cluster B personality disorder. Has anyone’s else’s ocd done this to them? I don’t want reassurance I just don’t know whether ocd can actually do this as it’s not HOCD.

[ 24, F ] I apologize for intruding... I finally got courage to post here because I know I'll be seen with poor eyes however, I am ready for any criticism coming my way. I'm really sorry for making this post but I need help. 3 months ago, my gf broke up with me (yes, I'm gay) and ever since I haven't been able to move forward. I've had a few good days but all in all, I have either dealt with the mourning of the relationship or, as most of you know, my horrible ocd. She is a wonderful woman and I wish her all the happiness in the world but she broke me badly... Her reasons to break up were: my ocd, my suicidal tendencies, the long distance, my dependency on the relationship to be happy/alive, her own private matters, that we had never met before (though we made video calls) and others I don't know about. I'm not going to lie. I'm overly suicidal over this. She was the one for me and we had a wonderful future planned, only to give up on me... I feel betrayed but I don't blame her. She deserves better.... I never deserved her anyway and that is what I keep telling myself to cope with the pain. It helps me to stay rational. It's easier to take all the blame than to fear being unfair to her. Because in the end, she didn't do anything wrong. This was my first and last relationship. I never met her in person, it was always long distance. She was the best thing thag ever happened to me. And I know I won't be able to love again.... Because of countless reasons: - I don't easily develop a romantic interest and I don't forsee that ever happening again. - I'm a piece of shit... I don't deserve love - I won't be able to trust again. Telling me "I won't leave you" was a lie... - I feel like I am betraying her... She was the one for me... If I date someone else, I have lied... I'd feel like our relationship was nothing... I would feel guilty. Does it make sense? Like a fairy tale... I guess. I loved her... I shouldn't love someone else. - I feel like I still have to look up to the image people have of me and that is "(my name), never dates! She's superior to those things" Yes, I know what you are thinking. Innocent, gullible, childish, I know. I don't believe in soul mates and all of that but I believe in the goodness of people. I take dating very seriously and I fell in love pretty hard because she is a wonderful person... And we were compatible. I could never date for fun (please don't think I judge. This is my choice when it comes to dating but I respect every person's lifestyle as long as it isn't illegal or toxic) I need help... Or just someone to talk to. I don't know what type of advice to look for. I just want someone to talk to, I guess. And before I go, I just wanted to say that I'm really in pain. I started dating her because I really liked her and I saw a potential future. She is wonderful, sweet and we were super compatible. When we broke up, my heart broke in half. All the plans we've made, everything. It took me by surprise because I thought we were going strong as always. Apparently not because she failed to communicate me her fears... This sucks... My fucking life is over. I have nothing to live for. Life gives only to take it away to make me suffer. Thank you for reading.

tw // abuse i don’t exactly know if this is related to ocd, it might be but anyway if you’re a victim of emotional abuse, do u ever find ur self making up excuses like “it’s not even that bad, it was a long time ago it doesn’t matter, people have it worse than i do, am i even being emotionally abused”? im dealing with narcissist abuse from my mother and i have been for most of my life and my mind keeps telling me that i’m making all of it up and it’s not as bad as it seems. it even feels wrong calling it abuse. i told my therapist this and she reassured me that this IS abuse and that self doubt and confusion is common but idk why i cant allow my self to accept it. i plan on moving out bc of this reason, but again my mind will tell me “u don’t have a strong enough reason to move out, ur being so dramatic” ugh this is the worst feeling

Need suggestion: Top-of-hierarchy contaminant may have touched the quilt on my bed. Washing the quilt feels like giving in, but I’m having a difficult time imagining I could sleep in it, or have anything touch it. Avoiding it and washing it seem like the two options lol. Any suggestions on how I could make this a useful experience without doing a bigger ERP than I’m able to do...?

On Tuesday I was super happy that my intrusive thoughts diminished. Today they are ramptant. My therapist said that the distress from people with ocd comes from not actually wanring to harm others as opposed to actual bad people, their distress comes from not wating to get caught. And now Im wondering the true reason for my distress. Ocd (karen) keeps saying," I just wanna kill someone." And even writing this I feel like Im faking it. It doesn't help that I was woth my parents last night and I imagined hitting my dad with a metal tool. Im in this place where I struggle and wonder who am I? What is happening to me? Ocd says Im faking it. What have been

I got really triggered by reading on a vegan page on Instagram. It said killing animals is nicer and immoral. And as long as man massacres animals they will kill each other and cannot feel joy or love. I gotten even more triggered and confused when I went to the comments. Some said it was wrong to eat meat then others said it was natural. One comment scared me saying McDonald's has human meat in their food.... My harm thoughts are up by a ton. I'd never hurt my pets or family....I can't take these thoughts..

I work at a college. I have to start working in my office again on Monday. I'm petrified. I feel like I'm being gaslighted because admin is saying it is safe when I know it isn't. I keep trying to explain my extreme anxiety about returning to campus, but I keep getting responses like "we're anxious too" etc. They don't understand that my anxiety is more intense because of OCD. I went to campus 2 weeks ago and my first interaction was with a campus cop who didn't wear a mask or keep 6 feet apart from me. My college also had a flu outbreak earlier this year so I do not trust that campus will be safe from COVID. I'm in the process of getting a diagnosis, but in the meantime, I don't know what to do. Even if I did have paperwork, OCD is not a "risk factor" for COVID and HR doesn't have to do anything. I feel like I'm shutting down. Any advice about returning to work during all *this* would be appreciated.

How do I get therapy in the UK that I trust ? + My painful story I developed POCD, intrusive thoughts and false attraction in 2017. In 2019 I started reading about my affliction on the internet, I cried with relief and overwhelming pain of the fact that I’m even addressing a problem that I had locked away so deep. I decided to reach out but talking about a problem which I’ve never even uttered a single word of to anyone felt impossible. So I wrote a note to my doctor. Saying that I think I have OCD, but that I can’t speak out loud because it’s too painful. Saying I wanted a referral to a OCD professional to contact through the internet because it was too hard to address otherwise. (BecAuse of the Stigma of POCD) I walked to the doctors and waited in the lobby, crying. I got called into her office and I silently sobbed my eyes out as I passed her this letter. She asked me to elaborate my problem but I couldn’t so she printed off some mental health charities I should contact and I left. I walked out the doctors and uncontrollably cried all the way home. Then, the raw feeling of my problem Is too painful and I distract myself, I lock it all away. I carry on my life trying to escape any reminder of the depths of my mental health. But my OCD is like a lingering bad smell in the back of my life. I laugh, I have lots of friends and a loving boyfriend of four years, I run a business, I have hobbies. And then the bad smell creeps in to remind me that my life is a lie and that If people knew this about me, every single person who l love would be shocked and disgusted by me. Then the thought of that Is so painful that I lock it all away again and carry on as normal. I get triggered, I self loath, I bury it, repeat. This is my life. Then about 4 times a year I have this clarity about how bad everything really is - I break down, I have panic attacks; truly dramatic episodes where I lie on the floor in histerical unstoppable tears. Then I brush my self off and pretend like normal. I go to the pub and I’m confident, make jokes. I know everyone has mental health issues, I reckon most people probably think I’m the lucky ‘sane’ one. How ironic. I lie in my bed next to my unbeknownst boyfriend who I love. Feeling extreme guilt since I know that i should let him free because I can’t have children with him and he wants a family one day. I should let him look for a partner who can give him what he wants. Even though the thought of having a family with the man that I love fills me with joy, I fear it can never happen. I feel like my OCD is a ticking time bomb, I’m 24. My friends will get older, have children, I will lose my boyfriend because I can’t give him a family but I won’t tell him why that is because I’d have to admit my sick truth. A truth that the girlfriend he has loved for the last 4 years he hasn’t really known at all. So he will probably have children with another woman and it will be so incredibly painful for me. Or maybe I wont bare to ever break up with him and set him free, and he will lose the chance to have the joy of a family with somebody else. Sometimes I feel so incredibly selfish to even be with him at all. If he knew he would be discusted with me. but I know he loves me so much, and I love him too. In the end, I fear I will end up alone and silently battling with OCD whilst pretending to the world that I’m totally fine. But now I have found this app. I want to get better. I want to have the strength to talk. But I have to trust that my practitioner is qualified with POCD. The shame is too strong to bear the words outloud. I can’t use your online service because I’m from the UK. How can I get help in the UK? Can I trust my GP? Love to everyone suffering. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone but maybe in the long run over coming this will make me more mindful and more resilient than I ever would have been as a simple muggle. (As a Non OCD sufferer haha stupid joke)

I can’t stop crying. My partner has been very distant. He just admitted he has pulled back because of how bad my ocd has gotten. I found out he was seeing his ex behind my back and has been lying to me to push me away because he can’t handle how bad it has gotten. I feel really sad. And I’m at a really low place. I feel like no one will love me because of the ocd. The one person I trusted and was vulnerable with just told me that my health condition is making him takes steps back from me. I’m extremely codependent on him because of the ocd. I feel so scared to be alone and battle this alone.

okay im a 28 year old woman and my best friend since i was 4 is gay and everytime im on the phone with him i feel like hes waiting for me to come out and i feel like im lying to him and i feel guilty lying to him and i feel bad for not coming out but then i go i honestly i dont know what i am ive been alone my whole life but ive never known if i want to date women or men i feel uncomfortable with the idea of being intimate with anyone i have had sexual fantasies all involving men but ive had gay dreams im not sure what i should sexually be i masturbate to fantasies about men but then i wonder am i doing that to prove im not gay? i have found some women attractive but ive always avoided looking at lesbian movies and porn in fear that it would confirm im a lesbian its like i get this loud voice in my head saying youre gay just be gay but im like thats based on nothing but i feel like a lot of people think im gay because ive never had a relationship or sex but i never kissed a woman or fallen in love with a woman but i do have a lot of women i wish i could be and i go am i confusing my wish to be them with a wish to sleep with them and im just so repressed? sometimes i think a girl is hot but i think that about guys too and everyone thought me and my best friend of 8 years were a lesbian couple even though she had a boyfriend and i wasnt attracted to her in that way but i did love her and my thoughts start going youve been in the closet for 28 years and waisted your whole life and then i get afraid that im going to be a story people tell about a lesbian who couldnt come out and decided to kill herself because i was too afraid to be gay and then i freak out because i dont want to die and if coming out would make me lose this obsession then i would do it but if i do it and im not gay thats embarrassing... i also have some scary intrusive thoughts so i go well if im actually gay then that means my pocd is real and not ocd but maybe im gay with pocd and existential ocd but the gay one is real ... how do i know?! why do i feel guilty when i dont even know... but ive also experienced some ptsd that gives me trust issues i dont know why im alone at 28 and im scared my thoughts just circle for all the reasons im broken and then i freak out am i asexual? am i bisexual? am i a lesbian? and if i dont find out soon who will take care of me when im old and on my death bed...? and if i dont find out soon i cant finally start my life and experience important milestones in life ... and when i tell my best friend about my 2 recent panic attacks i cant tell him all the reasons i have them and that makes me an actual liar and i feel bad ... i hate this and worst of all i feel like none of you will relate to me at all this is scary to post but here it goes .... please be kind 🙏

For one specific obsession & compulsion there seems to be so many different ways of doing ERP for it. It's excruciatingly difficult to know what the correct ERP would be & what I should be habituating to. 😞

I have POCD. I can admit it now. I am a female who has been suffering with predominantly groinal response from the age of 18, I’m now 23. At some point this was coupled with bad intrusive thought patterns where I wouldn’t want to say key words like rape, and the sheer fact I wanted to avoid that word would make the word rape go round and round in my head like a carousel. Then I found out what the intrusive thought bit was online, and the fact I was aware of the cause - actually made me heal myself of that part after months of suffering. But even tho I fit the characteristics of POCD, I kind of felt like maybe i suffer with genuine attraction to minors, it’s been too many years now and it’s quite nuanced I can find it hard to distinguish and I feel disgusted so badly. I feel like I have visual prompts and preferences now which never used to happen, for instance I don’t remember seeing a young face and getting a response from the way someone looked. At the start that didn’t even happen and I’m worry maybe I’m training myself to actually be a pedo. Is that possible? It’s so stupid because I get groinal response from other topics that are also taboo - i get it when my mum behaves in certain ways - that kills me so bad and makes me want to self harm. I also get it when cats purr loudly, I can laugh at that one but it’s still pretty nuts and uncomfortable when it happens. However, I think maybe finally today, no matter what symptoms I have - I can accept that I’m defiantly not a peado, I fall in line with so many characteristics of this OCD, it must be true. Maybe I just need to put this uncertainty to bed and stop causing myself so much pain. No one knows about my affliction in my life. MY boyfriend of 3 years who loves me so much doesn’t know, i constantly have to bury the premonition that he would hate me if he knew my truth. It causes me so much pain to think that, I have to lock it away. I lock it all away so deep that it’s like I live to lives. It’s insane. I’ve never even said anything this open before, even online. I break down in tears at the mere mention of POCD. However It’s weirdly painful and comforting to realise I’m not alone, all at the same time. I just feel like my entire life is a lie, and Im just endlessly searching for escapism so I’m not reminded of the fact I’m a ‘pervert’. But I think I’m ready to truly believe this isn’t the case now. Any tips are greatly taken? Next I think I need to find a therapist in the UK. I’ll probably think they will tell the police. Oh the joys of over thinking! Love to anyone suffering this, I’m officially joining the club x

Does hocd make you notice every single sane sex and make think you are attracted

Does anyone remember the exact moment like the date and time and everything when Ocd hit you? I’m just curious because for me I remember everything about that moment. I’m always like “if I could go back to July 3rd 2020 at 8 am right before it hit me” I was drinking coffee sitting on the couch on my phone.

Hey y’all, I hope everything is okay with everyone. I’ve been struggling with thinking about a specific celebrity for a really long time now and it’s super intrusive. Like I’ll be doing something random like washing dishes and I’ll then be like “omg, ____ washes dishes too. I wonder what it would be like to wash dishes with them or when they last did.” Like an absolute obsession. I’ll be amazed and enthralled with the most minute of things that I imagine them doing- they are like god-like to me. I also compulsively look at pictures and videos of them to feed my thought addiction. It’s ruining my day-to-day existence. How do I stop thinking about them and their lives and focus on my own? It’s so difficult to live my own life when I’m so invested in theirs. I just wish they would stop running around in my head and I can have some peace.

Hey guys! This is my goodbye letter to OCD! Quick story: I’ve had OCD since I was little I just didn’t know but when my brother left to college it destroyed me and I got hocd! It was terrifying I didn’t know who I was and i went to therapy for the first time! It’s been a long journey that started May 2019 and I survived even when I thought I wouldn’t ever get out of it! Before I would be sad for a day and bounce back but this was different! I knew I was the one that needed to destroy ocd (even though I wished there was an easier solution)! It’s now August 2020 and I am ocd free! It took me a while to write this because I still occasionally get ocd moments and I was scared of falling back down but I’m done being scared!!! Letter: OCD you were the hardest battle I’ve ever dealt with! You stomped on me when I was down and I was too scared to fight back! But when I showed bravery I got stronger and you weakened! I want to say thank you because of you I am a stronger person! Yes I still have a ways to go but I know who you are and you won’t ever be stronger than me! I realized the power of silence and my relationship with God grew! So thank you for helping me see that I am strong and can beat whatever comes my way! Goodbye to my intrusive thoughts you came from a place of fear but I now laugh at you so thanks for the chuckle! Tips: MEDITATION!!!! I started meditation when quarantine started and it absolutely helped sooo much! I did try it when I was weaker and it was a bit harder but as I got stronger it became an incredible tool Mindfulness 24/7! When you get an intrusive thought just breathe and relax your body! This helped my body not try to fight making my OCD worse Therapy! I am still in therapy and it honestly feels good to just talk and cry it out! You are not weaker because of it! You are actually sooo strong! I went into therapy embarrassed I told them I was fine (even as I cried)! I learned how to open up Gratitude!! I’m Catholic and I would just talk to God and give thanks! This is something I still do now because there are so many places where He was helping me! But if you aren’t just say thanks for the things that you love ( family, friends etc) I know the pain from ocd the feeling of hopelessness but trust me there is hope! There is a light at the end of the tunnel! You are incredible, you are strong and you will beat ocd! I will be leaving NOCD but I am so grateful for the community on here and I am so grateful for all the people who shared their recommendations! I used to read people’s success stories and I told myself “that is going to be me ” and I’ve now made it! I know you all will too So goodbye OCD! I’m glad I met you but it’s time for me to say goodbye! I have control :) ps- I know everyone’s story is different but I just wanted to share my journey!

Has anyone tried Paxeva for their OCD? I've tried most SSRI's and was wondering if anyone had any luck with it?

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.