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Does anyone else struggle with craving validation? I sometimes look at it as though it’s a compulsion. I just wanna be content with myself, I’m sick of feeling the need to impress everyone. But when I do, it feels good so I keep going. Similar to how reassurance feels good so I keep seeking it.

I wish I knew the reason I have OCD. Is this a defense mechanism from something that happened in my life and it’s my brains messed up way of trying to protect me? I know a lot of mental disorders are. This isn’t reassurance or anything it helps me to know the reason behind stuff. But I guess we may never know.

Ok but seriously this time it feels like I’m in denial. The thoughts and feelings I’m getting right now seem so natural to me like they happen automatically. I don’t even feel bothered by them anymore it’s like I’ve just realised I’m actually bi/ lesbian but I just don’t want to be. I’d rather have the panic and the anxiety and the disgust over this feeling of truth. I saw a post explaining hocd and the caption said something about it only being hocd if you’re bothered about these thoughts all the time and I’m not getting them as regularly anymore and they don’t really trigger me. It feels so so so real.

here’s my latest thought. “you don’t have ocd. you just latched onto that so you can hide the fact your actually gay. You are gay. your lying to everybody” ^^ feels so real. i just can’t

I'm struggling terribly please if anyone has any words of guidance. I've had a breakdown these past few months and my suffering of harm ocd has gone through the roof. I am also feared to death of bring schizophrenic and I'm worried that what I have thought are "intrusive thoughts" for all these years have actually been me hearing voices. my harm ocd has always been centred around my little girl. my intrusive thoughts are mainly images in my head but otherwise they can present like a sentence beginning with I or you. does anyone else intrusive thoughts come across as a sentence that it feels like your saying in your head.

Sorry maybe TMI :/ I’m worried I have a porn addiction. I find myself to ‘crave’ watching it at times and feeling happy (for like 5 seconds) after doing so. And then super guilty and gross, especially because there’s still stigma about girls watching porn. Anyway, I took a shift to a more ethical porn site run by women like a month ago... but it just doesn’t give me that same kick. So I guess I’ve just stopped watching it so much. Back in the day, on the original mainstream site I watched it on, I’d probably go on it like 5 times a week (ish). The guilt is what stops be going back to the old website and stuff I watched there but that doesn’t mean I don’t still want to. On the whole though, I hate that I feel this craving feeling and I’m scared I’m therefore a porn addict. I don’t want to stunt my sexual development and become completely reliant on porn. I find I CAN ignore the feeling when my brain tells me to watch it, especially due to the guilt. But it’s not super easy and I do sometimes really just want to.

I watch a TV series called Orphan Black. I have been worrying that this is not a good show to watch due to being a Christian. But I am unsure if its OCD or its the truth! I have Prayed, I've asked reassurance from my husband.. I want to keep watching it but I'm worried that the only reason I want to is because it is the world darkness in it that is looming me in. I know this will soundly like nonsense to anyone who is not a Christian. But those who are, we are to honour God with our lifestyle. Ughhh idk what to do. And yes I know this is a reassurance method by asking you guys on nocd. Lol... 🙄🤔

I really think this isn’t OCD. I haven’t gotten into relationships because I found them stressful, even though I wanted them, it’s always been easier for me to make close connections with female friends, whom I love a lot, and I’m very comfortable with them. I was extremely jealous at how they were able to talk to guys so easily whereas I always had an anxiety attack over it, or felt like I was forcing myself to be attracted to random people. I didn’t want to get married and found the thought of living alone, maybe with friends, a lot more enjoyable. I can’t imagine myself in a long term relationship with men at all. I had crushes on guys. I wasn’t boy crazy but I did notice them all the time. I had butterflies around 1 girl I thought was cool in middle school, and have admired women for being pretty, but I’ve never wanted to date them, and I never thought about them after. There was one girl in high school that I thought was super smart and I wanted to be her friend but I got this thought of ‘omg what if I have a crush on her?’ in high school and for a while I thought I did but I was honestly uncomfortable at the thought. I never thought I was a lesbian, for a while I thought I was bi, but I never wanted a relationship with women, and honestly I’ve doubted how attracted to them I was, because I just didn’t feel comfortable at the thought of doing anything with them. I could admire them but that’s about it. The thought made me uncomfortable. I’ve never fantasized about relationships with women, always about men. I’ve never even watched lesbian porn. What if I’m just a lesbian and I can’t admit it??

Whenever I hang out with my brother I fear I have a crush on him. My brothers always been very cool and popular and he isn’t bad looking. My brain always jumps me by saying that if he wasn’t my brother I would have a crush on him which is terrifying.

Hello everyone I would like to ask a few questions that are really troubling me I don’t want this to be seen as me asking for reassurance but at the same time there is a few thing I want to ask to see if anyone else is experiencing what I am going through. I’ve been battling what I believe to be hocd for around three months now and well my path to recovery seemed to be going in the right direction I’ve been doing gradual exposures such a looking at attractive men online sitting with that anxiety and bring it down I’ve also been doing a guided visual exposure around the same topic which has been helping slightly. My problem is I still can see these attractive men and find them attractive though I have to admit not sexually I’ve never had an erection while seeing the individual but I can find them attractive to look at if that makes sense? This is a problem as it links to my lack of attraction of women anymore which I used to have fully. Though I girl I know recently sent me a picture (which I admit I didn’t ask for) and I was able to get a 75% erection instantly but it quickly fell. This leave me in a depressed back and forth I can’t currently see my self getting a girlfriend again and even if I did I fear I would be secretly lying to myself and being unable to satisfy. I feel sick and my mind keeps telling me I’m going to be in this loop of sadness until my mind convinced me I’m actually gay and have to live that life. Does anyone have anything that I can use to help myself or calm myself. All responses welcome.

So there's one thing that always makes me feel insecure, spiral, and doubt pretty often aside from intrusive thoughts. And that thing is masturbation. I know people don't like to talk about it even though so many people and mammals do it themselves. I know it's not something people expect to hold dialogues on but it's something that's bothering me lately. This has always been something that I wasn't bothered by in the past. When I first discovered it, there were many ways on how I did it. Some were better than others, and I never felt bad about doing it because I always felt it was good that I found a way to make my body feel good whenever I wanted to. But now, in beginning to become really insecure about it, shameful, guilty, and disappointed when I do it, but at the same time there's something inside the way I feel that only wishes to do it whenever I'm aroused or when I want to feel better at a time where I'm not. I confuse anxiety with arousal, my thoughts are all over the place, and I get stressed. Sometimes, I just want to wind down and hope that I can take a break from those kind of things. And masturbating was one of the most common ways for me to do that ever since I was about 14. When I was younger, I never had any bad feelings towards it and I never judged myself for doing it, but now I do. Either when I'm in the middle of doing it or after doing it, my mind stats to really shut me down with thoughts I don't like but I try to ignore them and focus on how good it can make me feel. Even after it's over, that's when the thoughts like to try it's best to cloud into my judgement and make me feel horrible about myself. Is this a form of checking OCD? Is this a compulsion I shouldn't be doing? Is this avoidance in the sense that I shouldn't do it and sit with the stress, the discomfort, and the negative feelings even when I can subside it? This is something I used to have no problems with until I started to overthink the things I masturbated too or things that were uncalled for and very inappropriate and showed up at a bad place in the wrong time which has happened.. Does anyone have any advice? I guess my intrusive thoughts have also made this challenging for me

I breathe and my brain goes: “You should stop. You don’t deserve to be alive. Die.” I don’t know what to do I’m genuinely tired of my thoughts and the pain. I want to stop existing.

it's kind of ironic that in order for ocd to get better you have to believe that the thoghts could be true

Intrusive thoughts after intrusive thoughts after intrusive thoughts

Can a thought like “how do gay men even like men, men aren’t even as attractive as women.” Be an intrusive thought? It popped up randomly and I didn’t think much about it, but then I realized about what it could mean and freaked out. I used to find men attractive all the time before hocd, but now it feels like I don’t. I feel like I fall in love with every woman I see, even though I didn’t feel that way before. Was I hiding it in the past? I want to be straight. I’m also terrified that I’m homophobic and in denial :( I can’t even find men attractive anymore, it just feels forced. Why does it feel forced? Is that hocd or being in denial? Am I trying to convince myself I can be straight when in reality I’m not? I get very upset because there’s proof that I could be a lesbian. I used to watch a lot of porn, but not only that. I got aroused by music videos with women in it, twerking, lesbian porn, weird lesbian pictures, and lesbian cartoons. I liked watching that stuff, but yet I was okay with it back then. It didn’t bother me, and I still sought after guys while I was in school. I stopped watching all that stuff in may/June, then finally admitted to my boyfriend that I used to do it in July/August. That’s when my hocd started, and I noticed that my masturbation could have meant something. :( someone please help.

So I probably have Rocd (have i really?) Just a bit of backstory so I can explain my dilemma. I‘ve been together with my ex boyfriend for 2 years and till then everything was perfectly fine. Then all of a sudden I had thoughts that gave me the worst panic attacks ever. Like I have to leave him, i don’t know if I love him anymore, I didn’t want to be touched and kinda went out of his way. I felt so anxious cause i didn’t know what was happening - he was my best friend. The anxiety and the panic attacks got worse and I couldn’t eat at all. After a break I decided to break up with him cause I felt the urge to leave. I couldn’t handle these attacks anymore. We tried to get back together but it wasn’t working. So then I thought maybe it wasn’t my rocd. Even though i was obsessed with reading articles about relationships and how to not leave my partner. After 1 year I met a super cool and loving guy. We have a real connection and I can’t imagine that someone else would ever understand me like he does. It all was perfectly fine until he wanted me to be his girlfriend. I was anxious. I started to have thoughts like what if I’m not liking him that much, what If I just pretend to like him but I actually don’t, is this enough because I am not feeling these butterflies and so on.. We do have moments where I am super happy or I feel like telling him that I love him but the next minute my brain tells me it’s not real. That actually I don’t want all of this. I‘m feeling so sick sometimes that I can’t get out of bed. Sometimes I love having him around and sometimes I just want to be alone. But when he’s gone I feel worse.. I am sometimes even afraid that he’s texting me and asking me If i want to hang out. I really like him but I feel like my rocd will eventually tear everything apart :( I am scared that I want to break up because my brain tells me so.. I have so many panic attacks that I hardly come back down without any medication. I have the urge to read endlessly about relationships and love just to find the answer that I am looking for.. Sorry for the long text!..

Hi there, I'm living in the UK and have found this app really useful! Thank you for all your hard work. I am wondering if it is possible for me to access therapy through you or if it's US only? Thanks, Rachel

HOCD TRIGGER// TW so when I was about 10, I remember was sleeping over at my friend’s house. i remember nothing else except when she fell asleep, i was staring at the ceiling and I was thinking to myself “i’m a lesbian.” nothing had happened, but for some reason i was thinking that. i’ve gone over that night a thousand times over and over but I can’t remember anything else. then, when I was 11, I remember I was thinking about being a lesbian for a few days (probably 2). during these few days, i looked up the hashtag #lesbian on instagram, stared at girls butts at volleyball practice trying to see if I liked them, and one night, i went downstairs to sit with my parents far past my bedtime. my dad had been drinking and for some reason, the topic of who i would marry came up and he said “when you marry a man, hell you might even marry a woman!” and I felt happy that he had said that because I was thinking about it at the time and i thought to myself “oh my god he just said that” and i sat down with my mom and i felt happy that he would accept me? so i think what caused those few days of questioning was a “crush” i had on an older girl at girl scout camp. i say “crush” because i don’t know if it was; i don’t THINK it was. I thought she was very cool and I wanted to be her friend and she dressed so cool and I was excited that we were in the same group and so in my head I was like “you have a crush on her” but I was like ????what I don’t think so anyways after those few days of questioning, i completely forgot about it and just carried on being completely boy obsessed. never crushed on girls, never looked at women in “that way”, i was really just boy crazy. later that year, I had my first “big crush” on a boy at school. I thought he was the best person to ever exist. my heart raced when he texted me, i thought about him 24/7, I was in a generally euphoric state during the period which i felt I was in “love” with him. i would lay awake at night happy crying because i liked him so much. id write his name on the shower door, id talk to anyone and everyone about him, etc. this carried on for about six months, but he was never interested in me so i moved on. fyi i’m young for my grade so this all happened in sixth grade/summer leading up to 7th. I also started puberty at around 9. i never, never ever felt about a girl the way i have felt about boys that i’ve liked. all of these things above make me feel like I HAVE to be a lesbian. I feel like i’ve been lying to everyone on this app because i haven’t disclosed the above memories. i’m so sorry, i’d really appreciate your honesty.

⚠️may be very very triggering for pocd⚠️ YouTubers exposed This is weird to say, but I’ve recently found out that some YouTubers, who I’ve admired for quite a long time, are pedos. I feel very weird because I am struggling with pocd. It’s also weird because they were known to be humble people, and now they are very evil. Some say that they did there actions because of there power on YouTube. They had so many underage fans. It kind of gave me anxiety because I also have somewhat of fans on twitch and soon on YouTube. Thank God I know that those actions are wrong and disgusting, but it also kinda grew my pocd. I guess I’ll just have to live with the anxiety when I try to grow my own platform.I’m not looking for reassurance, I just wanted to write this out. If your a kid ( I’m also a kid), you might want to be cautious about being a fan CallMeCarson and Mini Ladd. It’s just a weird topic that gives me anxiety, but it’s also just a crazy case. What do you guys think about the pedo YouTubers abusing their power on underage kids? ( obviously it’s bad, but what do you think about the YouTubers I’ve mentioned? We’re you once a fan of them?)

does every time you get an intrusive sexual image distress you? usually it does but sometimes it doesn’t for me and i analyze it. i ask “why did that not distress me” “what’s wrong with me” “did i do that on purpose”??? Anyone else gone through this or just me? is it still ocd even tho the thought didn’t distress me as much as it usually does?