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Can I get some web links for advice and tips?

I’m planning to talk to my therapist more about medication during our next session but I was wondering if anyone felt comfortable answering what medication has helped you with? Or talk about your experience with medication and if it has helped you deal with physical symptoms, rumination, etc. I have been in therapy a little over 2 months and have been able to manage my thoughts better I think but I still have very strong reactions to them and it’s almost like I feel like I’m dealing with something new everyday. I admit I can practice doing exposures more. I’m interested in hearing about people’s experiences. Thanks in advance!

Powerful Questions to Disrupt Negative Thinking Patterns 1. Am I 100% positive this is true? 2. Is there evidence that contradicts my thought? 3. Am I trying to interpret this situation without all the evidence? 4. Will this matter 5 minutes from now, 5 days from now, 5 years from now? 5. What would I tell a friend who was in this same situation? 6. How can I look at this situation differently? 7. How can I look at the situation in a positive way? 8. Is this thought helpful to me, how so? 9. Is there anything I can do about this? 10. Has this happened before? 11. If I am to think logically, what’s the worst that can happen? 12. Is this situation in my control? 13. Can my spiritual beliefs help me with this? 14. Will thinking this way help me become my best self? 15. What can I learn from this situation for next time? 16. Am I considering my strengths or only focusing on my weakness

I have been struggling with intrusive thought.... and hocd is one such struggle...... I was relating my intrusive thoughts to my sexuality.... ie; "I have these thoughts because I'm gay" Ie; harm, POCD and sexuality thoughts. Gay people dont have these intrusions... so is it (Hocd) I realise that Hocd suffers have fears of being "Gay" I dont (thoughts above) Anyone got helpful advise or insight? Cos I'm confused 😕😕😕😕

I broke my phone screen abit more and its really annoying me because of the wrist and neck thing and even when i put them or do them it stresses me out and does anyone else go hot when theyre like anxious or scared or you know? And then when theyre normal and fine they stop going hot? Ive had ocd for years they keep changing i used to do numbers even numbers then odd numbers then washing my hands now its harm ocd (and unplugging plugs but i didnt know that was a sign of ocd but when i do unplugg and plug in things i have to do it loads of times) i think about harming people and myself that i DO NOT want to do and i hate it it tortures me i have to think "f*** off (my name) no your not no you dont shut up (my name) no your not no you dont" i have to walk over or past things alot of times becsuse it "slits my wrists" or "slits my neck" and i dont want that to happen so i do the things and i even dont do school work because if i write things wrong i have to cross and cross things out and write them loads of times just to cross them out again and put loads of dots and underline things loads of times and sometimes i cant even put my hand on the paper because its "slitting my wrists" or "slitting my neck" and i dont want to put my self under that much stress so sometimes i just dont do it so i dont get stressed but sometimes i get stressed and carry on and then takes ages to stop and when i stop i dont want to start again incase it starts again and i get shouted at by my teachers for not doing any work most of the time the teachers dont notice that ive done none or not much but then they dont notice me crying over it anyway the worse part is mental health day or when they talk about mental health because all they talk about is depression i know depression is bad but why cant you talk about other things like ocd like eating disorders why cant you just talk about the problems im facing and what other people are facing instead of depression all the time ive told teachers about this my old head of year i told her more than ive told any other teacher more than ive told any one i think actually but theyre no help ive never been to a therapist or whatever you have for things like this i really want to go to one because i think i need one but i feel really awkward talking about things like normal things like underwear and puberty and mental health I feel like ill never be normal i feel like i cant have a normal life like bring up a kid and that breaks my heart all the time and that if i ever have a kid i cant bring it up properly or it'll look at me weird or that ill pass it onto them I hate what happens to me in my mind everyday it tortures me everyday I hate that i look at myself abit differently learning its a disability Now that i think of it and i really dont want to say this but a few times i have thought about people sexually any ages normally not even my own i DONT want to think like this I sometimes think about suicide but i dont know if thats an instrusive thought because i DO NOT want to commit suicide AT ALL I hate how my life has come to me not being able to tell my parents or anyone my problems i hate hate HATE IT i dont know what to do...

How often do you guys do exposures? (ps if it’s not as often as you’d like, don’t feel bad! Exposures aren’t easy to do and any time you do one you should celebrate.😊)

Hello my name is Connor and I am 18 years old. I’ve been suffering from HOCD for 6 months now and it’s completely turned my life around. Recently I’ve just come off a very bad relapse and I’ve felt different, almost good you could say. I wasn’t overthinking or ruminating. I felt straight and my mind was okay with that. I started to feel like the old me again until I was thinking about how I’m gonna tell my girlfriend that I think it would be best if we were single. She’s been amazing with this and at one point I do believe I loved her. That love has slowly and cruelly been ripped from me by the ocd as it convinced me that I was gay. I do however think that it would be best for us to break up tho because I want to give her my best and I cannot do that right now and I don’t feel the same way I used to feel about her. Anyway my mind started thinking that now I’m single I can be gay and I rejected that thought but it keeps coming back and now I’m sat having a poo and typing right now as I’ve had a poor day filled with thoughts and emotions. I’ve lost my life, I’ve lost my girlfriend, I’ve lost my innocence and I’ve lost my respect for women as my ocd has poisoned me. I just wanna be the old me again and if I can’t have that then I genuinely don’t want to change.

I need help. Please. I know it's long and it's a mess but I just need help. Recently, I've been talking to a guy for three months and everything's been great. He's a good guy, assures me sometimes and he doesn't really do things to make me question his faithfulness. We aren't officially together though. Anyway recently, I've been overthinking a lot because a little has changed, but it's so minuscule the good still outweighs the "bad" but then recently a girl had commented on his post and I think it's an ex-match (we met on bumble and he has told me he's been off it since October, we met during September but it wasn't THAT deep before so it's understandable) I know in my gut he's a decent guy and sometimes ex-matches can turn into friends because that happens to me but my overthinking during that time kind of made me lose control of my thoughts. I used to have this habit of checking my ex's followers and following that I tried not to do again but after that I did it with him and it kind of broke my heart to see her on top of the list, more recent than me but then the logical side of my brain was also like "you guys weren't that serious for the first few weeks of meeting so that's fine if she came in a little later than you" anyway basically, i believe he's faithful but sometimes i get intrusive thoughts like what if he's not? and then especially when I'm not busy these thoughts attack me then I end up stalking social media profiles like his or the girl's. Making conclusions and connected trivial things and I honestly think it's stupid and crazy of me to do cause if a friend told me they're doing this i'd be like "girl chill it's probably nothing" I fee guilty that I'm becoming this CRAZY PSYCHO GIRLFRIEND (who isn't evne his gf yet) and i hate it! i'm aware and sometimes i really stop myself but i can't help it sometimes? and i feel like i have to CONFESS to him i've been doing this but we've only known each other for three months and it could scare him off so I don't think that's a good idea. I'm just bothered that I feel like I'm crazy for being stalkerish. Sometimes I also calculate active status, time stamps and shit and analyze This is like a mixture of my trauma from older relationships + OCD mixing and I'm afraid it can fuck up the possibility of a first real relationship. Am i crazy? Am I a psycho? Do I have to confess to him? I'm gonna try my best to stop it and just live my life as normal as I can, I do have a life and I live it but sometimes I get so stuck in my head I end up ruminating and stalking.

I didn’t realize it, but my OCD started when I was about 16. To everyone else it looked like anorexia, but in truth I was compulsively counting everything in my life. I wouldn’t eat a food if I couldn’t construct its total calorie count (no home cooked meals), and at any point in time I knew exactly how many calories I’d consumed that day. In private, I was engaged in long rituals about touching certain parts of the house in a certain order, maintaining certain postures meant to control my body, and counting far more than just calories. Fast forward 18 years (I’m 34), and OCD has been a debilitating part of my entire adult life. Though it shows up in a few ways, it is most aggressive in romantic relationships. I have horrible, continuous obsessive thoughts about my girlfriend with other people sexually. For example, if a friend of hers recounts a time they went dancing years ago, I will spend the next few weeks obsessively replaying scenario after scenario about how she met someone while dancing and will envision them together, even though no such event was mentioned by her friend. I’ll take an ordinary experience and imagine it in the most threatening of possibilities. In these obsessions, my girlfriend meets and is with someone strictly preferable to me. Someone with a more attractive body, someone who is better in bed, etc. I obsess about the actual number of people she’s slept with and any activity or place that might have some association with an ex. If I learn she went to a national park with an ex, I get nauseous even thinking about the state in which the park is located. Obviously I don’t believe that her past is actually problematic. I was very promiscuous for most of my 20s, primarily in an attempt to feel better about these insecurities, and yet I appreciate her more than anything. I strongly believe nothing about these choices should matter to me. Still, whenever I love someone, my mind basically becomes an infinite film of that person with other people. I’m forced to continuously watch them appreciate someone else more than me - their body, the way they look, how they have sex. In response, I spend hours, even days, seeking reassurance from my partner. That the imagined scenario is made up, or if it isn’t, that they’re more attracted to me, prefer my body to that of a previous sexual partner, etc. I’m 34 years old and have never had a very serious relationship. In every case, the distress I feel about these imagined scenarios makes relationships so painful that I am constantly nauseous. Ultimately I conclude it to be unbearable and break up with them, using some other excuse. And of course that only hurts them. I’m hopeful to try NOCD but just felt like sharing my experience. I guess I’m curious if others have had similar manifestations of OCD.

I dont feel like no one can help me 😞

Does anyone ever get over an ocd thought, then weeks later boom it comes back and you spend the next However long it takes getting over it again and start thinking what if something really did happen. Iv spent the last few months going back over this thought and keep thinking it’s real!

anybody else here can't tell what their emotions are? i don't feel anxiety, i don't feel annoyance, i don't feel sadness. but i am so unfocused and unmotivated. hopeless even. but i don't feel anything either.

can someone help me with this? i have trouble with ocd thoughts but only when they’re connected to actual psychical feelings or especially groinals :( like for example, if i move too much or smthn while having a groinal and having the thought that the feeling is connected to someone i overthink on if it is sexual then or if i actually do wanna do something sexual when i don’t want to smdkdkd i want to do erp but i don’t really know how to go about it i’ve never seen anyone with this problem and i’m too embarrassed to talk to my therapist about it

I'm not doing well... My life is a mess...I just can't do this anymore

Hi everyone. New here. I suffer from harm OCD and suicidal OCD. Hoping when my treatment starts I can begin to regain my life back.

I don’t know how to live normally anymore. I don’t enjoy life. I don’t look forward to anything at all. My days are spent hiding from OCD , over analyzing OCD, crying, feeling crazy, wondering if I made up the past me that didn’t care about the thing I’m OCDing about. Everything scares me. Life scares me.

My therapist from BetterHelp just messaged me and told me that he can’t help me with my issues as it’s beyond his abilities. Now I can’t go to sleep. my anxiety is starting to flare up. I feel like I’m a hopeless case at this point. I don’t even know if I have ocd anymore.

Does anyone else just feel unbearably restless? Like it doesn’t matter what I do, I just feel so uncomfortable and like I’m supposed to be doing something else, but nothing is fulfilling. I can’t relax or enjoy anything, because I just feel this ridiculous urge to be doing something (what, I do not know, but something) and nothing is relieving it. I’m constantly waiting to be able to go to sleep so that I’m unconscious and the urge will go away. Or I’m waiting to eat something because that makes it go away temporarily. But I’m eating too much now because that’s basically the only thing that makes it stop. It’s not like pain in my chest like normal anxiety, it’s just an unbearable urge to find something fulfilling. It doesn’t feel like regular boredom, although I am bored. It’s like the feeling is intensified x1000. I can’t relax, I can’t even just be regular depressed anymore. I’ve had this feeling for like a week now and it’s not going away.

-Trigger warning- I feel like I have more clarity and my hocd is true. I feel like I feel aroused to boobs and enjoy it. How could I feel that if I'm a straight woman? Like if I think of sex or something I feel like I'm aroused by my boobs or the idea of another woman's. My therapist had me do an exposure where I fantasize about sex and I feel like I finally realize I like this. I feel bad because I still haven't followed her advice and I'm compulsing 😥 but this also feels true and like I have no anxiety and finally accepted it 🤦‍♀️

I have HOCD. How can I tell my girlfriend that I have doubts about whether I am gay? How can she ever feel comfortable around me knowing that I may be dating the very fundamental question about my secular identity and whether I actually am attracted to her? Wouldn’t telling her devastate her? Should I keep these hocd fears to myself forever? Is it unfair to tell her this? I have constant anxiety that maybe I don’t truly like the feeling when I kiss her and wonder “what if I don’t like it because what if I’m gay?” “What if I don’t love her?” “What if she thinks I’m gay?” “What it I’m hiding it? What if I’m repressing being gay?” “What if I’m ruining her life by misleading her?” I can’t enjoy any time with her since these fears are constantly on my mind especially when kissing her. There is no way for me to stop these mental compulsions - I have tried and cannot do it. Wouldn’t life be better off if she broke up with me so she could find a more suitable guy who wouldn’t doubt whether he loved her or was even attracted to her? There is no therapy on earth that will work to make my life better. I have tried ERP and it does not work for me in this area. Will I ruin her life if I confess to her? Will I ruin her life if I hold this back and do not tell her until much later and then cause her even more pain?