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Question for those struggling that are also Christian? I was wondering what you guys think when it comes to OCD and spiritual attacks. As Christians we know the enemy tries to steal, kill, and destroy. We live in a fallen world so the enemy is all around. However I’ve also heard we shouldn’t give the devil credit for every bad thing that’s happened to us. Just because our car broke down on the way to work or we burned the popcorn in the microwave doesn’t mean it’s the devil screwing with us. So when it comes to OCD, I know it’s a mental illness and it seems like it attacks us with the thoughts/feelings/urges it presents, but sometimes I get frustrated and think is this really OCD going at it or is it the enemy filling my head with these horrid thoughts? For example, one of my main themes is suicidal OCD, so everything about suicide. I know I don’t want to kill myself and enjoy life, yet OCD being OCD, it fills us with doubt, confusion, intrusive thoughts saying otherwise. So I try to look at this as OCD messing with me with intrusive thoughts, but at times as well I think what if this is the devil playing his fittest by trying to fill my head with this and hoping I’ll do it. This can go for any theme I believe. This worries me more because I ask whether I’m on the right track of dealing with this: both/either as a mental health issue or a spiritual attack. When my OCD first appeared, I truly believed it was a complete spiritual attack. I threw away many of the things I enjoyed for fear they were not of God, dedicated myself to only listening to worship music, reading only my Bible, throwing myself completely in the church - in hopes God would miraculously heal my mind of this attack of the enemy. It wasn’t until I ultimately decided to go to therapy where I learned I had OCD and started ERP for it which has helped a ton. However I still wonder otherwise. What are your guys opinions on the matter? It makes me feel torn.

Hey! Can someone with experience with the diagnostic call tell me what to expect?

how long did it take you guys to reach out for help, get diagnosed and start treatment? im just curious because ive seen many people say that they first started having intrusive thoughts when they were 14 for example but only got an ocd diagnosis and started therapy multiple years later which is kind of odd.

Vent: Kinda just want to go back to having regular teenage problems again. Getting sick and tired of the same shit thoughts ruminating over and over again and I'm sick of remembering the stupid mistakes that I've done. They're embarrassing. They're dumb and it shouldn't have ever happened. I hate that I even tried to experiment sexual feelings in my life because all they've done is brought me nothing but trouble, stress, shame, insecurities, and low self esteem. I don't want to deal with it anymore. I've never been in a relationship before and all I've wanted was to be with a girl my age that appreciates everything about me. Even the bad parts about me while I accept the bad parts about her but I guess everybody can't get what they really want. So I don't care anymore. I don't want to deal with anything sexual at all because all it's done to me is make me feel horrible about what I've done even if I didn't know any better. I hate that I've tried to use pornography to get away from my feelings especially since it just made me feel so much fucking worse. I hate the things that I've seen, I hate the things that I especially didn't want to see, and I hate feeling like I'm a horrible disgusting person that doesn't feel forgiveness and only deserves nothing but jail for my mistakes. I hate when my mind tells me this almost every day. I hate being anxious. I just want to be a regular teenager again. This is now how I wanted to feel during November at all. I just can't stand it anymore

I am really upset right now, mad. My sister knows about my real event ocd that involves her, the thing is that happened 10+ years ago and she has beeing rude and mean as fuck recently. Dont know if its because her period or what, but she has been being an asshole with me, my mom and dad and now just because I said that probably she gave me covid because she went to doctor recently and started feeling cold and fever, as me as well and now she is accusing me indirectly of entering her bedroom while she was asleep last night. Like really? REALLY? The only thing that she knows I can end up killing myself, because I cant forgive myself in the past. I dont want to see her again nor talk to her anymore. I would never do that. I still cant believe and she is still talking about it. Really. I cant go on.

Anyone here Gay/Bi?

Can anybody please reply and help me? I have always been a good person and never had a rebellious phase or anything like that but my mind is telling me I want to or that I am being too good or responsible and that I want to live a bad life and start doing bad things. I can't figure it out. Every time I do something like decorate for Christmas, my mind tells me I'm being too childish. Every time I try to do schoolwork or work my mind tells me I being too good or responsible. I am so scared. I end up avoiding these things and I can't tell if its bc I really want to bad things or if its bc I don't and so I avoid it bc of these thoughts. I am starting to think I really want to be bad. Whenever my brother cones over and says something inappropriate its like my mind says "he won't accept you if you are too good" and it feels like I dont want to work or do school but I just want to become a bad person and I can't tell anymore 😭

Do you guys ever get false emotions? Like resentment, for example? Or blame? I feel guilty all the time, but lately I’ve been feeling resentment toward my family and it’s way worse than any guilt. It makes me feel like I’m alone and I can’t trust anyone and any comfort my family tries to give to me is tainted by these feelings.

im worried about my sister this isnt really related to my ocd but i thought it would be safe to vent here... shes taken a bunch of pills before a few years ago a sort of cry for help ... she was physically abused by our father growing up and i think he might be a narcisist because he directed all his rage at her i was definitely not treated as badly ... we all stayed a close family though but very toxic like way too involved in each others lives for a family with a history that we have and would just pretend the bad times werent that bad and go on family trips and even have really good times together (even though i know that sounds crazy) we just learned to adapt to the family we were given 🤷‍♀️ this past year we both quit our jobs and moved back home (3 years after the incident with the pills) shes been extremly depressed never leaving her room or rarely but whats worse is i think shes home seeking justice for her childhood she says she has no plan to leave even though our childhood home makes her worse and she wants to wallow in her trauma and make my parents relive it and i think she wants my dad to pay for what he did to her and take responsibility and she wants us all to accept that but the thing is she played 3 sports growing up and played basketball in college she got a phd in physical therapy her depression and anxiety and being on the spectrum a bit have made things challenging for her along with how my father treated her but shes a capable kind person who i know has had a bad hand dealt to her but she has had a lot of great things in her life as well and good friends but instead she views herself as broken and shes mad at not just my parents but our extended family for not adopting her and taking her away from our family when they shouldve and im her younger sister so im the only one she doesnt blame or hate for her life but i take on a lot of responsibility trying to make her okay and i know i cant do that but shes starting to really worry me ... my god father tried to talk with her the other night telling her she could stay with him in florida and away from my dad but instead of being happy about that shes shut down even more and was kind of having an adult temper tantrum saying we cant fix her and leave her alone let me watch tv all day... she also went cold turkey on her antidepressents and says things like i just go to therapy to appease you guys i know its not working and idk like me and my mom want to take her to an outpatient facility and pay for expensive care for her but she wont even do that shes 31 years old and im 28 and im definitely trying to leave my parents house but i dont want to leave her behind and its hard to tell what to do? like i know my father is in the wrong and our childhoods shouldve been better but she could leave and find support elsewhere and cut him off but instead shes doing this self torture by living with him again as an adult i know her depression makes it hard to function but i also know she can function better than this so like what does somebody do? being in this environment makes my ocd worse but because of my dad and my sister most of my focus goes on them would love words of wisdom and comfort from anybody right now 🙏🙏🙏🙏

My boyfriend said I love you and I said it back. I have back been in therapy for OCD, specifically a relationship theme, for about 3 weeks. I've been with my boyfriend for about 2 months. I started having a lot of doubts (followed by compulsions) about a month in when we made it official. I've been very very nervous about him saying "I love you" to me, because I felt like I would want to say it back, but I don't know if I feel it like I am supposed to. I have been in love before and not had this kind of indecision. My last serious relationship was 3 years ago. It wasn't that long of a relationship, but serious enough to say "I love you." I didn't experience ROCD then. But I did kind of have a mix of ROCD/scrupulosity toward the beginning. Essentially, that person was an atheist and I'm a lapsed evangelical. I started to feel like we were unequally yoked and went back to wondering if I believed the right things blah blah blah. So I guess it had a relationship tinge to it, but it wasn't specific doubts about my feelings for him. It was more like doubts about my beliefs and if being with him was okay or "right." My point being that while I had an OCD flare during that relationship, it wasn't like this. I don't expect everything to feel the same. I just feel like maybe I'm a fraud. Anyway, the point of this post was to say that my current boyfriend told me he loved me last night. It was via text (I am quarantining right now and he was very nervous). I immediately felt panic...like what the fuck should I do?? This was what I had been worried about. It's one of the more tangible fears I had told my therapist about. I made the decision to call him and say it back. I don't know if it was the right decision. Part of me feels like a liar or a fraud. I have been trying to focus less on my feelings and more on what I want. What I want is to be with this person because they are kind and caring. He has watched me cry due to my anxiety and held my hand and hugged me tightly. He laughs at my jokes and nerds out with me when we watch Lord of the Rings. He is kind to my friends (which is very important to me) and kind to his as well. He is creative and a deep thinker. I can see myself having a child with this person, even though I haven't even been sure I ever want a child. That's something, right? I really want it to work. I have dated...a lot. It has been exhausting and a roller coaster. And I finally found a stable source of comfort. And yet I feel like I am chasing some mysterious feeling or worried it is missing. So I said it back because I want it. And maybe that is wrong. I really don't know. I don't know what to do anymore. Just needed to vent.

I don’t see a point to treatment anymore. I am making out wi try my girlfriend and constantly analyzing and checking whether I like the kissing or whether I don’t like it and am therefore gay. I don’t see how ERP can help with HOCD.

my intrusive thoughts aren’t like fully formed phrases or a voice saying “you’re in denial” it’s more just like a persistent feeling that i am. i’m worried because everyone else’s are like a voice or full sentences or words

Has anyone ever got cheated on and had ruminating thoughts that I don't love this person and they're ugly you don't want to further the relationship but you do want the future with this person but OCD gets the best of you. I'm sorry if this didn't make sense.

An Update (it does get better) : About a 140 days ago, I checked myself into a psych unit and a hospital around my house. I had been on NOCD for a bit of time, and my previous posts showed my spiral into a deep and dark depression stemming from my OCD theme. I didn’t feel like I was myself. I was engaging in risky behaviors (specifically surrounding the medication I was on), and suicidal thoughts I hadn’t had since the age of 13 returned. It had been days since I bathed or had taken care of myself. I started gaining food aversions because of my intrusive thoughts, and I was afraid to sleep alone. I can say that those 5 days in the unit completely changed me for the better. I got the medical help I needed and I got the psych treatment I deserved. I had a therapist before going to the unit, but having a psychologist who can come up with a complete treatment strategy was what was needed. I could eat again, sleep alone again, and remember who I was before OCD took its control. After the unit, I continued therapy with my current therapist. She isn’t an OCD specialist but she does her research and is completely understanding to OCD and wants to work with me to increase her knowledge is treating OCD patients (wonderful lady and one of my truest rocks). I also confided in my mom and she has been the person holding my hand throughout this whole thing. I’m currently on medication, though I am looking at other medical options. Some things I am looking at are dTMS, therapeutic ketamine, and therapeutic psilocybin. I know those things sound scary, but the research behind them is insanely promising. CBT has also been a great source for me. I’m still working up the nerve to do ERP because my OCD theme scares the hell out of me and I’m afraid ERP will be deeply triggering (however don’t let this disuade you from ERP is works!) This post isn’t made to talk about how good a psych unit can be. It was meant to show that even when OCD drags you to your lowest and most difficult point in life, it can get better. Don’t give up on yourself. Find someone you trust who won’t judge you whether it be a parent, friend, therapist, etc. Talk to them and explain the grief that comes with OCD. Having people to talk to is godly. Explore medications and therapies, but also know that standard SSRI’s and CBT aren’t your only options (I’m not trying to push alternative methods by all means, but consider looking into the new studies for new options especially if you feel like you’re treatment resist to standard methods). And lastly, you deserve to feel good. You deserve to feel loved and accepted. You deserve to feel like who you were before this bully in your head decided to take over. Yes you’re currently still “you” but there will be a day where you have a moment of peace from OCD. I wish you all the best.

Hey so Ive been smoking weed for about a year now. however, I have developed CHS from smoking so much and have just started to stop smoking. (CHS causes me to throw up non stop until I get dehydrated and have to go to the ER) ever since I stopped smoking I have been having really bad intrusive thoughts about harming myself, animals, and my girlfriend. I think I subconsciously was smoking so much to block all of these thoughts out and ever since I stopped they have been really bad. My thoughts get worse at night and often are really scary because I know I would never do these things and that I’m a good person at heart. Any advice or help? I really hate these thoughts and often struggle with getting them out of my head. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

I can NEVER fucking shop. I always think I’m going to get the wrong thing. So I keep looking for the BEST OPTION because that way I get my money’s worth. I feel like I have such bad luck that even if I get the best quality, that should last for years, it will only last for 6 months. So I keep checking the reviews and keep looking for better products. Sometimes things stay in my cart for fucking months. Friend also noted that I’ve mentioned buy a thing years ago, but I never got it cause my OCD said it was right or good enough. Urghhhh. I just want to buy a fucking weighted blanket without obsessing about which brand is best or right!!! CAUSE THERE IS NO RIGHT!

I really need some help/guidance with this struggle. I really want to and need to start working but my pure O makes it very hard because I do a lot of mental rituals and it’s so hard to break out of it and get myself to focus which is currently why I’m not working. The anxiety gets so bad and then I fear messing up so I constantly wanna perfect stuff in my head so I can focus but it’s time consuming and exhausting and plain out not okay for me to do. I just want to work and be able to focus and not fall into rituals mentally because I can’t do that at a job. I see an ERP therapist but this is a topic that’s hard to get advice on.

Hello everyone! I just wanna give a heads up that this post might not be for everyone and you should all do research before you even think about trying what I did, but I just wanted to write about and remove some stigma around magic mushrooms. I just had a psylocibin trip and it has already changed my perspective on life. I don’t know if I’ll feel this way for a long time but as of right now I feel happiness and self love, something I haven’t felt in months. I was diagnosed with GAD, OCD and depression and I am also battling addiction (I’m about 3 months sober now) I felt extreme guilt and shame for years but as of 2020 I felt myself going down a bigger spiral. I completely isolated my self from family, friends and even my fiancé. I’ve had 4 therapists in the past months and I’ve been going CBT and I just started ERP but I felt so overwhelmed with everything that I was having a really hard time forgiving myself. I found myself calling the suicide hotline often and I started googling on what would be the most pain free way to do it. I knew I needed help. I saw studies that psylocibin was tested to be helpful with depression and I came across videos on how it might benefit OCD as well and I decided to do it. My theme is ROCD. I fear that I am not good enough for my fiancé and I have intrusive thoughts that make me believe that I may have flirted or maybe even cheated on her in the past even though I have no recollection of doing so. I made it a goal to go into my trip with the mindset to heal from this. I ate the dose and I turned off the lights in my room, threw on some healing music on YouTube and closed my eyes. I don’t know how to describe it but I visualized my ROCD as a giant octopus whose tentacles had wrapped around my fiancé’s body and was strangling her. The more I fought the intrusive thoughts about not loving her, the stronger it squeezed her. It was really intense but eventually (maybe 2 hours into this) I realized that by not letting go of the thought I was hurting my fiancé more than if the thought was true. I realized that I’ve been putting her through so much by feeding into my compulsions and confessing to her and asking her for reassurance. Once that hit me I decided to not fight the thoughts and just observe them and I even started to agree with them. As soon as I did that the octopus let her go but her body was dead. I guess that is the way the mushrooms showed me that if I kept going in this direction I was really going to lose her. I cried so much and this was honestly a terrifying experience but I feel like it was just what I needed to realize that I can’t keep going like this. It was so hard for me not to do my compulsions of ruminating, confessing and seeking reassurance but now I understand that it is only making it worse. It’s like it all clicked once I surrendered to the thought. I have a new mindset now. If my worst case scenario comes true and I really did do those horrible things then I will deal with them when they present themselves. Even if we get a divorce and she never wants to speak to me again, I know that everything will be okay. I’ll always love her and I’ll always treasure every moment we shared together. I chose to live in the present and enjoy every second we have together. I hope this helps someone that’s in a similar situation that I was. I love you all and wish you all healing.

Does anyone have any suggestions or experiences dealing with fears of having done something unforgivable in the past? I had an ex who had emotionally abusive behaviors and took advantage of me sexually, and my fears are that I could’ve done something to him and forgotten or just not realized it was wrong in the moment? Any suggestions or help would be wonderful :)

Any uplifting success stories here? I’m in need of a pick me up. Some inspiration would be nice.