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Is anyone else good mentally and emotionally for months/years, with no intrusive thoughts or obsessions, and then have a relapse into an “episode” that what I call them. I’ve had 4 in 8yrs, does that sound similar to anyone else?

I’ve found this last year or so that I just really like being alone. And part of me was always like ‘ah that’s great! We value independence’... but now I’m realising that essentially all I do when I’m alone is go on my phone. I’ll be on it for hours, on social media or YouTube or Netflix or playing games. And I know that that doesn’t massively set me aside from any other teenager. It’s just the fact that I like that MORE than social interaction. I’m just really scared that I’m broken for this. I don’t know how to spend a chunk of time alone without going on a device. But I like spending chunks of time alone. Can I change this? Or is this okay?

I didn’t realize how much avoidance I do as a result of OCD. There are simple things I want to do throughout the day, such as laundry or other tidying up things, and because I’m worried an OCD thought will happen while I’m doing xyz, I don’t do them. Anyone else have this experience and wouldn’t mind sharing?

Need someone to talk! I struggle from OCD alot. And i keep remembering the past mistakes i have done. I keep thinking about how i will face certain people in life again. I fear about getting anxious in front of them. And they are my old friends. What to do?

My partner broke up with me in Thursday night. Huge surprise, huge blow. She’s the love of my life. We were just planning out when we were going to move in together last week. We talked about spending our lives together. Our kids names and what not. My obsessions (which were closely related to her) and my co dependent behavior finally wore her out. Tuesday we were sharing a great day/night together, she even texted me telling me she wished I had spent the night. I have a hard time falling asleep, so I left early. I didn’t want to keep her up, I’ve fucked up her sleep schedule enough as it is. We got into what I considered to be a small fight on Wednesday night that carried over to Thursday morning. I was just feeling triggered because I was having a really rough day and she didn’t seem to be there for me as much as I wanted, or had grown accustomed to. I didn’t like how insecure I felt for being the needier one. I wanted to feel like she needed me as much as I needed her. I said some really needy, co dependent stuff and looking back on it, it was terrible. Basically told her one day she would need me like I needed her and we would see how she felt. I have been re reading and remembering all the stupid ways I acted and really feeling a ton of guilt and remorse. I can’t believe I treated her the way I treated her sometimes. I could be a jerk and be distant sometimes, when I was going thru an OCD episode. When I was good, things were great. We were like 2 peas in a pod (Forrest gump is our favorite movie). And I was considerably better and more present. Took care of her more. I feel like I took her support, patience and kindness for granted. She’s my gal. Instead I just ran her dry, especially at the beginning of the relationship. Even though my ocd is considerably better now, and I have been sober for 8 months, she said she was tired, tired of fighting and physically tired. Told me I deserved someone who wanted to fight for our relationship as much as I wanted to fight for it. Told me every time we fought or bickered she just felt like giving up. That she was so used to putting other people in front of herself and that she was doing that again and that she couldn’t do it anymore. She said she didn’t know if she had a stable future with me. I was so hurt and blindsided, I begged her to work out it with me, that we could do it. That I was only getting progressively and exponentially better. She agreed that I was getting better, but she said she was exhausted and that she needed space. Told me she didn’t know what she felt right now and needed time to process it. She told me she needed a few days of space and that we could talk then, but for now, we needed to be considered broken up. I’ve been going thru a terrible OCD episode now. Just cycling through a bunch of negative emotions, really. Guilt, shame, remorse pain, longing. This girl is my best friend. I spent the last year of my life planning our future out in my head and with her. Literally in the blink of an eye, everything changed. I took her for granted. Thought we were locked in. Never considered she get up and leave, so suddenly. I have been telling myself I am going to get her back, trying to devise a plan to get her back. It’s the only thing that is keeping me upbeat. I have to believe there’s a way. Just last month she told me she had a terrible dream that I broke up with her. Told me she remembers thinking “how do I get him back?”. Who would’ve thought I’d be in this position, a month later Now I can’t stop thinking about, what if she found someone else? I asked her if she was going to start dating next and she said told me “you know I have my own things to figure out and work on, right”. Later she told me “you need to be alone, too” although I’m not sure if she meant “too” as in both of us, or was just compiling the list of reasons why she was breaking up with me And my mind just keeps compulsing, looking for evidence. Why did she say that? Why didn’t she just say “no” if she wasn’t going to. Was she was dodging my question? Maybe she didn’t want to hurt me. She was always so honest and that’s what our relationship was built on, trust and honesty, but what if she became attracted to someone else? I don’t know how, she literally only goes to work and spends time with me and her family. Maybe the occasional friend. I know everyone she works with, ain’t no contenders there (no offense lol). I don’t think she would entertain anyone while still with me. We both hated cheaters and both of us would’ve considered that a form of cheating. But I guess anything is possible. Anyways, I know I’m just compulsing hard right. I’m not looking for reassurance. It just feels good to share what I’m going through with a community of people that might understand my pain. I hope we can work it out. My sense of comfort and security has been really de stabilized by this whole ordeal, and I also wonder how that will play out if we do get back together. I want to be with her. I know we have at chance and something special, stable and long term. I can try and be even better, I know it. I’m aware of my short comings now. She’s a gem. We have very similar values. But I also know she’s pretty decisive, so I could be SOL. But I’m also the first person she’s ever been in love with, so maybe I have a fighting chance. I guess we will find out soon enough. Thanks all for taking the time t read this novel, I just needed a safe space to put my feelings into writing.

I'm someone that suffers from Real Event OCD and POCD and I constantly think about the mistakes I made as a teenager. I was never educated about sex ed and I tried to explore the sexual feelings I've had at the time with other people online. Around 15-17 I engaged in sexting with a couple of people I met online and I didn't see anything wrong with it at the time. I felt really happy doing it and I thought I was sharing love with the people involved because they consented with my along the way. But now, I feel really bad for it because it was something I feel I shouldn't have done and I would never do now. On the other hand in my opinion, consentual sexting between teens is something I don't think is a bad thing, other than it being two teens curious about how they feel sexually for one another. I've always seen it that way but I'm afraid that I'm wrong and have really made a horrible mistake. This has caused me to do nothing but search about teen sexting articles with older ones explaining the consequences but newer articles going against the laws that tackle the practice in the wrong ways. I even went on YouTube on the topic to see what comments were left on several videos and many of them were either agreeing to change the laws for good I also have a bad porn addiction that I'm currently fighting with the use of blockers and remembered watching a ton of different categorized porn but just as I was finished watching I have had accidentally came across what I think was illegal content that I did not want to see nor did I search for. I quickly left the entire site altogether. I'm certain I was on a legal porn site that was secure of most of its videos. Is this something that happens to a lot of people? I've seen on Reddit that people have also talked about this and said people cannot be blamed for accidentally watching especially if they didn't want to see it. Things like this have even happened to me on Twitter and Instagram. Other incidents included a time where I wanted to search for girls my age which is 18 but by accident it had searched 16, but thankfully nothing terrible came up, but I still feel awful that I even made that search by accident. I had searched for girls my age on YouTube once again and for the most part I got what I wanted to see but then comments kept saying the girl was underaged but others saying they were actually 18 and it made me terrified that I once again saw videos involving underaged teens. It was never my intention to see girls under the age of 18, but only my age which is 18. I've even seen people talk about things like these on TikTok which isn't a platform I use. These thoughts have been roaming my mind ever since I joined this app. I'm so uncertain on basically everything and I'm beginning to feel terrible for even letting myself watch so much sexually explicit content. Am I horrible for this? Am I deserving of something bad to happen? I'm so confused and concerned and OCD bullying me with false convincing makes it all the more worse. I've also never ever saved any of the videos I've watched because there was no need to keep them. Has these things happened to anyone else? Can anyone relate in a way or have real event OCD stories to share?

Anyone else with religious OCD? How do you cope? I have blasphemous thoughts, and pray compulsively for forgivness. On bad days it can take up my brain space for 8+ hours. I'm 100% pure O as well. My prayers usually have to be perfect and can be quite complicated, and I can get so frustrated and feel so defeated because I want to pray for forgivness but I keep messing up and more bad thoughts add on to the list of things I need to ask forgivness for and it can get overwhelming. I try sometimes to just trust in God and ask forgivness for all of my sins, but feel like that doesn't count when I know I can ask forgivness for them all individually and perfectly. I feel like I'm being lazy and choosing my own comfort over doing everything I can to be forgiven. I know God doesn't hold me to the same rules I hold myself to and try to remember that but my brain makes it very hard.

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?