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Is avoidance or looking away a compulsion or trying to think of something else ?

What’s the best way to respond to an ocd thought? I think my current one is becoming compulsive.

Cried because I couldn’t find the courage to show up to my night shift. Had such a bad existential OCD episode and panic attack that I gave into my compulsions another night in a row. I decided to take a night walk to make up for that though. :( I’m scared I’m not making enough progress anymore and that I’ll never get out of this. It’s been two months into treatment and I relapsed halfway through. Please send prayers my way. Every day these past two weeks seem dark. I’m looking for the light but I can’t find my way out. I do my exposures every day mentally but the real life exposures I’ve held off for so long that the fear of them consumes me. Eventually I’ll get there. I just need to realize that recovery is gonna be slow for me and that’s okay.

If I have OCD driven porn addiction will Exposure and Response Therapy help? I fear I cant control the urges and will just continue to relapse

I want to feel happy again

Hey there everyone, I’m newly diagnosed with ocd and and still very confused with this whole thing. The question I am wondering about is if it’s common to have themes shift rapidly. I experience harm ocd. It started with the fear of intentionally hurting a loved one, then shifted to “what if I become a serial killer” and “now my theme seems to be what if I commit a mass shooting”. It’s extremely difficult for me to express these the things. But I don’t want to research it as that only seems to make the condition worse. Just wondering if anyone had experienced rapid shift of fears like this. I’ve learned I need to try and stay away from Reddit, as much as a love it, it’s hard to filter good posts from disturbing posts and when I see a disturbing post without being prepared for it, it can really mess with my ocd.

I'm so sad because I have done a compulsion a minute ago. :( it directly made me feel anxious again. It doesn't reassure me anymore. I hate it :( I was doing well, I was avoiding compulsions as much as I can. But today I have done so many analyzing and compulsions. I feel so sad, but I will keep fighting. Much love <3

It’s 12 am and I am obsessing and idk if this is rocd or not. My boyfriend and I have been together for almost two years and I love him so much and my fears are that he doesn’t care about me and I’m not important and that he won’t put effort into this relationship and he will keep hurting me. I don’t know if this is rocd simply because I truly believe he can be rude and say mean things to me. I have no clue if I’m just in a delusion. Bcuz I feel delusional 24/7 like I need to go to the hospital. I have these thoughts that he doesn’t try and have facts behind them. Like “does he even think about my love language and what makes me feel loved?” “He is so emotionaless, he doesn’t even care about me”, “He doesn’t feel the same as me” “He doesn’t know how to show love” “He isn’t even putting in effort or giving me attention” or if he has a certain tone even saying sorry or doesn’t do something I want right away I get anxious like I have to ask him what he is thinking or feeling because then he will never tell me how he thinks or feels, because he usually doesn’t tell me anyways. Or like sometimes i feel empty and unloved and I see so many ppl w rocd that have it centered around themselves about their love but no one says stuff about how they are mad at their partner 24/7 about past things or little things or if something isn’t in a certain way they want or obsessing about the persons actions in the relationship. So I don’t know if that’s an rocd symptom. This is so stressful. I sometimes obsess about all day like “Is he abusive to me” then I look it up and I’m like oh he does that and he does this, then I go on tik tok to avoid my thoughts and then I get triggered cuz my feed is all relationship related cuz I have liked stuff like that b4 and then it gets me super sad and angry like why doesn’t he do that for me and I cry my eyes out and feel heartbroken and unloved. Is this a symptom ? Like he can sound so heartless but sometimes ppl have a certain tone to their voice and it hurts me and scares me ig like that tone sounds so harsh or bad that it makes me think he doesn’t love me or I’m being judged and I feel unloved because I’m triggered. Anyone relate ?

my ocd: forget the couple of times you fucked up and hurt your partner, what about that one time he did something messed up and even though he admitted it was a serious mistake and he would never do it again and showed clear signs of remorse, you HAVE to leave him bc he’s a terrible person and it’s tainted ur relationship

TW: GENDER OCD Okay, I posted a lil while ago about SO-OCD, but I have recently been suffering Gender OCD too. And unlike SO-OCD, this one is blowing a hole through my heart. I have never once questioned my gender. I’ve helped my trans and NB friends come out, and never once thought about my gender. But ever since my SO-OCD started and then died down, the thoughts about my gender cropped up. They range from two thoughts: I’m nonbinary, or I’m a gay trans dude in denial. And the latter one freaks me out so much, because I love reading queer media (I’m bi, and so many of my fave book series focus on gay couples), and my brain uses that as an excuse that I like it because I actually AM a gay guy. The thought is paralyzingly, and I can’t even begin to think of a way to overcome it like SO-OCD because the thought of me ‘accepting’ it as true scares the hell out of me. I can’t enjoy my favourite books anymore, or my favourite TV shows/movies. Anything with a gay couple makes my brain think I want to literally be one of them, when before I could just enjoy it for what it was, a story with queer characters. My connection to my gender is something I’ve always held dear to me, and the thought of being pulled from it is heartbreaking, and also makes me feel extremely guilty because I support trans rights so much, so why am I so scared of being trans/NB? How do I even begin to get over this when the idea of accepting the thought terrifies me? How do I begin to convince the anxiety that just because I enjoyed reading/watching something doesn’t mean I actually want it to happen in real life?

Anybody else letting OCD overtake so much it starts to push people away? I feel like such a burden and I hate my OCD.

God i wish i could just stop thinking/obsessing about everything. Like i just sit here and think “this is so fucking stupid”, why cant i just go back to living life and worrying about other things like school. I havent done any school work since august, im failing horribly. But i have no strength to do it. I cant focus cause my intrusive thoughts bring me down. I just want to be myself again :(

Just spent the last hour asking my boyfriend the same questions over and over and confessing about how he is too stupid for me and how we probably arent supposed to be together. And asking him if he is stupid and why and everything. On a loop. "Why do you hate me so much?", "why do you want me to die", "why are you so mean to me?", and reacting when he doesnt answer "correctly". And something the back of my mind begs me to stop, but I just HAVE TO keep going ... I feel bad. And guilty. And I am. I am being abusive towards my boyfriend by telling him he's stupid and asking why he wants me to die. And all I want is for us to just ... hug and have a good time. But my mind goes crazy and I loose my mind. I feel crazy and like I cant stop. And even now typing how I realize this is wrong and Im being rude and disrespectful all I can think is "what if he is stupid!?!?!", "what if we shouldnt be together" and needing to figure it out. It all makes me want to stop existing. Im so sick of being like this. Sabotaging everything. Do I choose to be like this? We all have free will dont we? So Im basically choosing to be abusive towards my bf? What if I dont love him or what if I hate him? Is this normal ROCD? Or am I just blaming OCD for being a shitty person?

I'm having such a terrible fucking day to the point where I don't even know who I keep acting on impulses my mind thinks nothing but the worst and I'm just so alone and don't really have anyone as a distraction because they're all so busy. I guess one thing I do is that I don't want sexual activity in my life for quite a while but I can't even help it because aside from my mind making every thought negative it also makes everything sexual which may have to do with hormones. I really don't know what to do anymore.

How long has it taken you to get better? Has it been hard for you to discipline yourself in therapy? Not in terms of being responsible, but rather in terms of overcoming the difficulties that your OCD puts in your way towards working on therapy.

I feel like I lost the battle. I feel like I have so much evidence and I don't want to admit it. All reasurances confirm my fear. I don't know what my compulsions are. Please someone help me by answering. Sorry.

I posted yesterday evening about how my husband had both of our boys (ages 2.5 and almost 4) in the car with him yesterday and when our boys were fighting and screaming at each other my husband got frustrated and smacked my older son in the face. Afterwords once my husband gained control of his emotions he apologized to our son and he said he felt horrible when he saw that our son flinched and shied away from him at first when he went to apologize. This is the first time my husband has done something like this. We don’t spank our kids. For the whole rest of the afternoon yesterday I did not let my husband be alone with the kids. It was exhausting because normally he’s a very involved parent and I’m also four months pregnant. Last night we spoke about what happened a little more and he said he realizes he made a mistake and that I’m just going to have to trust him that it won’t happen again. But of course all the what-if’s are gnawing at me. I’ve spent hours upon hours reading mommy/parenting forums online (like reddit and babycenter) where women have shared stories of their husbands hitting their kids and all the responses are like “call cps” “he needs anger management therapy” or “you need to leave.” The small “rational” part of me is saying this is an isolated incident and he is a great dad and it’s okay to move forward without making this a huge deal. He made a mistake and apologized. He acknowledges that what he did does not align with our parenting values. The anxious part of me is saying that I’m a horrible mother if I let him be alone around the kids and that of course this will happen again and that I need to stop trusting my husband altogether. I am having trouble functioning normally today because of how physically anxious I feel. My husband, I can tell, is tired of talking about this. I think he wants to move on. But my anxiety is saying that he just wants to move on because he isn’t really as remorseful as he should be. I guess this is like real event ocd/harm ocd but in regards to someone else who I can’t really control... which makes it all the more maddening. All I have to go off of is his character and his previous behavior and I know I need to make a conscious decision whether or not to trust him. Has anyone else struggled with a situation like this? Any other moms who can give input? I know so many other women in this scenario would say “trust your gut” but I know because of my anxiety my gut is not very trustworthy.

I’ve been feeling so down and not good about myself struggling with depression my anxiety got better and less thoughts but I just feel like this huge failure bc I just turned 25 and thought I’d have my life in order by now and my illness makes me feel even lesss worthy

I’m currently seeing a therapist and ERP is going okay however I haven’t told her about my worst ocd topic because I feel too scared to tell her. I haven’t told anyone before because I’m scared it will make me seem like an evil person and I know that’s just giving the fear power but how do I tell someone the most disturbing thought in my head?

I don’t think I will ever get better