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The thoughts are more believable when you don’t have anxiety

This post may be triggering for those with SOOCD, so please don’t read if you’re in a vulnerable spot in your recovery. I feel like this will end my marriage. I’ve read things on this app that triggered me, and I’m doing a lot to keep going. But I feel like every day is a new battle. Someone said that finding women more sexually arousing in porn is a common theme for lesbians. I do have that, but I also love and want to be with my husband. My sex life has always been pretty hard due to anxiety. Am I in denial then? What’s happening to me. Last time I had sex was miserable. My therapist thinks I’m making progress but I keep having dreams with naked women where in the dream I cry because I’m afraid I feel aroused. I’m not aroused by abs on men. He told me to look at pictures of men with abs for exposure but I tried today and I feel helpless. I’m not hopeful sex will get better or that I’ll ever get out of this.

So I have this compulsion and it's kind of like reassurance and for some people could be triggering so beware. I spend hours on the internet looking up if it's possible to change your sexuality because even if my obsessions happen to be true I'd still have the chance to change it. And I get so anxious and depressed when I don't find anything because sexuality is still a complex matter. I don't endorse any type of conversion therapy because they basically have zero scientific arguments and cause more harm than good and also I don't think that people need to change their sexualities unless they wanted to. So it makes me feel bad because I really end up wishing that science hurry up and comes with some concrete facts regarding sexuality so that I can be reassured that I won't have to be what my thoughts tell me to be

This has an aspect of OCD but isn’t mainly about that. I’m 90% sure I have ADHD, like I keep seeing articles about how symptoms present in girls and I match with most. Currently counselling isn’t an option as I’m in a tier 4 zone and in lockdown, so there is no way to ask a counsellor for their opinion, which means I’m stuck, unsure of what is happening. I don’t want to self diagnose because I know that is awful and the whole situation just makes me feel very anxious. My OCD is making me doubt that I have the symptoms and telling me that I’m faking having everything. That I’m faking OCD, anxiety and that I have no symptoms of ADHD. Does anyone have advice on a way for me to get this checked out over lockdown to appease this?

Hey everyone, my ex girlfriend broke up with me in October. She told me she wasn’t ready for a relationship with me as she hadn’t healed from her previous relationship even though she left her ex boyfriend for me. I met her in College two years ago and we became really good friends. I was single at the time and she was in a long term relationship so there was always boundaries there I suppose. However, early last year she confessed she had strong feelings for me whilst still in a relationship. Tbh, I was quite in shock. I always felt she had feelings for me but never thought she’d confess whilst being in a relationship. Therefore, I rejected her and explained why because I had a feeling this would eventually happen as it wasn’t straightforward and all seemed quite rushed on her end but because I loved her so much, I foolishly went along with it. Looking back now with my OCD being less severe, I can think more clearly about how naive I was at the time and why did I tolerate so much bull shit? I have so much anger built up inside about all the red flags and why I didn’t put my foot down sooner. She used to tell me about other guys such as a guy in work who sent her nudes. I told her to block him and I’m not even sure if she did because I see she follows him on Instagram now. Then her male friend who was flirting with her and texting her who she told me not to worry about even though this is the guy she’s now dating which I will discuss below. She told me when we broke up she needs to be alone for a long time anyways. I contacted her last month to see how she was keeping and she told me she has been dating this guy since 3 weeks after we broke up. I found out that for myself she just denied it even when I proved it with evidence. I was fuming and we had a huge fight. I text her a few days after we broke up because I was genuinely suicidal and asked her to meet up to find some closer yet she went drinking in a park with him and some of her other friends and bare in mind, she never broke up with me in person. She broke up with me over text message and I never seen her in person since we broke up. I just can’t believe after everything I sacrificed, how much love and time I gave her how she could do this to me and pretend it’s not a problem?? I hate how blinded I was by her when she literally begged for me to be with her last year. She even used to slag the new guy off to me saying he’s ugly and just a friend yet told me last month she has more feelings for him instead the same thing she told me about having more feelings for me over her other ex. I’m furious about how deceitful, manipulative and easy she has become. I have lost all respect for her. I’m not perfect by no means but I’m such a loyal person. She knew how bad my OCD was and how much of an effort I was making in terms of my relationship because anytime I was with her my OCD was very manageable, it was only bad when I used to be at home thinking about it. One month before we broke up, we were planning our future. How many kids we want. Where we want to live. Where we want to travel etc. She even told me I’m the love of her life and she wants me forever. I just feel so betrayed and taken advantage of. I feel like a fool 😔😔

HELP PLEASE so this guy I had a thing with nearly 2 years ago messaged me about something, we are still friends but my bf is uncomfortable with it, we were talking about him getting over his ex and he said he has been getting fit and he would show me but he doesnt wanna make me or my bf uncomfortable I dindt reply to that I just changed the subject, after I said I had to go he said "talk soon yeah" and I havent replied and I feel like I've cheated on my bf or something and I feel like this guy was trying to flirt with me but I'd never do anything with him whilst I'm with my bf and I've told him I'm happy now I cant relax 😥

I'm new to this app and really need support or someone to talk to right now. I've been feeling horrible the last 2 weeks. I feel like I have had OCD for about 8 years now but recently it has been making me feel horrible. I have been feeling anxious, sick to my stomach, crying most of the day. I have been feeling unmotivated to do my college classes or play video games. I have experienced Harm OCD, HOCD, and a couple others but right now its ROCD that has been bothering me. I have been with my boyfriend for almost 6 years now and he is literally the most amazing and loving boyfriend that I could ever ask for and we have no problems in our relationship but I have just been having these thoughts and like "Do I love him?" "Should I break up with him?", "Do I have feelings for him?", Ect and it really bothers me cause there's no reason to break up with him. I keep trying to dissmiss the thoughts or I look for reasurance by looking up ROCD on the internet but I know that it probably makes it worse by doing that. I can't tell him about my ROCD because he's going through his own mental problems right now and also has tons of family stress at home and he's seeing a therapist and I know that If I tell him about these thoughts that it will make him feel confused and insecure and I don't want to risk harming my relationship. My mom is currently trying to find me a therapist that covers our insurance and is affordable for us cause my brother also needs a therapist for OCD. I just think that I really need a therapist right now to help me through my OCD. I have always been so scared to talk to someone about my OCD because I thought that it was crazy but now I realize that so many other people are going through this as well and that I'm not crazy.

Please help I feel like a horrible human being. I’ve never cheated on my partner but I almost did 5 years ago. I was in another country and I got blackout drunk. I was walked to my hotel room by a woman I didn’t know. The next day she talked to my cousin and told him what happened. She also told him that I was talking about my girlfriend the whole night but I can’t help but think that I was too drunk to think straight and reject her had she tried to hook up with me. I know I didn’t initiate anything but what if I’m my mind I thought about cheating? What if I wanted to and we didn’t because she was a good person and knew I had a girlfriend? I feel so horrible about this incident and I wish I could go back in time and not get that drunk. I know for a fact that nothing happened but what were my intentions that night? I can’t figure it out and it’s driving me insane. Please help

Hi, I'm a girl and I'm 20 yo I'm Italian, so first of all, I'm sorry for my bad English. I've always had an anxious and obsessive personality since I was a child. when I was 9, I saw a gay couple in a movie, from that moment and for about a year I was constantly afraid that I could be homosexual. with the beginning of middle school and high school, however, I acquired more maturity, I probably moved all my anxiety into the study as I was getting panic attacks almost every day bc of school and exams. A year and 3 months ago, with the end of high school, I met also my boyfriend and I can say that between us it was love at first sight. but after a while I started to be afraid that our story might end at any moment, I was afraid of the future, I started to question my feelings towards him, and lately I am scrutinizing my gestures and my behaviors when I am with him, believing that my feelings are not spontaneous. I don't know if mine is a rocd, but I know that I constantly think about these thoughts, sometimes they seem so real to me that I can't be productive in anything. sometimes I feel I love him, other times idk. I fall asleep and wake up with the same thoughts. when I am calm and without anxiety, I fall back into the vortex because I tell myself that if I have no anxiety, then it is all true. sorry for writing so much. I wanted to share my story. I am not very good with English, I only get by with writing. Thank you and have a nice day

i have a question. when my ocd first began, it wasn’t like i was like “no, i’m straight.” it was more of a “woah, am I gay?” and my compulsions weren’t to “prove” to myself that i was straight but rather to “figure out” if i was gay. did anyone else have this experience? i was also quite young when this started, around 12/13, but prior to that I had been boy crazy my whole life starting at 4.

For people that struggle with HOCD/TOCD, do you get personally offended when you come across a homophobic/transphobic post on social media?

Is ruminating on a thought a compulsion? Even if you don't know it was intrusive?

Does anyone have any OCD/ERP questions they want to ask someone who recovered? After my recovery I didn’t visit this app regularly, and I want to help people. ✨🙂

TW 18+ I’m 3 months free from my porn/masturbation addiction. It was horrible and it caused a lot of pain to me and my relationship. As proud as I am to say I’ve beat it, I am also extremely ashamed and guilty. My OCD has focused on making me feel guilty about it every second of every day. I was introduced to porn at age 9 by my dad. By age 14 I was already a regular user and I never went more than 3 days in a row without it until age 26. I feel so guilty to have hid this from my partner and I was only able to break free from it once I came clean. I feel like a horrible human being. I know a lot of people will claim that porn addiction isn’t real but I’m here to tell you that it is. It ruined my life. The fact that my partner still wants to be with me is surprising to me. I feel both grateful and unworthy at the same. Coming clean enhanced my ROCD and Cheating OCD. I became suicidal because of the shame. I feel like my relationship will never be the same, but ill die trying to make it up to her. I’ll do everything in my power to make my partner as happy as I possibly can and if she decides to leave me then I guess I deserve it. I know this post isn’t too OCD related but I just wanted to get this off my chest. Thank you for allowing me to vent.

Lately whenever I cry I kinda force myself to. Like I’ll purposely watch sad things or trigger myself with sad content. And me and my OCD are terrified that this is proof I’m a terrible evil person who can’t cry naturally. I cry a lot when my family are mean to me, but the times I make myself cry is watching sad things. It’s because I want to feel human and compassionate.

I’m depressed cause turns out I’m only able to have proper therapy at the end of Feb or March and I don’t know if I can last that long. I just want help why is it so hard. If I broke my leg the hospital would cast it instantly but, if I go back to the ER for being suicidal I have to wait hours just to be given meds and then be sent back home told to wait till there’s an opening. Mental health isn’t treated equally to physical health I feel let down and uncared for.

I was getting ready to post a question on this site and after I click "Share", a message shows up saying that it is important for us to avoid seeking reassurance and then forcing me to check boxes asking me to promise not to ask for reassurance and some other promises to make. Well how are we supposed to learn anything if we cannot ask questions?? I was trying to get insight from others here about an issue I am having but seems like now I am censored.

dealing with real event and hocd together SUCKS. i once saw a post of this girl talking about how she wouldn’t mind trying out sleeping with a girl and i agreed with it. my hocd is using that as my proof and i can’t let it go. it won’t accept that i didn’t mean what i said. it’s also making me doubt whether or not i wouldn’t or would sleep with a girl now even though i know i wouldn’t. god this is so hard. i feel so alone. nobody relates to my situation 😞. advice is very very appreciated 😞💞

ive been having a hard week or two ive been triggered a lot lately i also let my erps slip my pocd has been getting really bad i thought i was getting better to the point where i even was like maybe im making this up and was wishing for bad thoughts just to make me at ease that i have ocd and the ocd is real but now im having them and i regret that wish... this sucks whats worse is sometimes it feels so real i was watching a show and didnt realize one of the people in it is a p*** and one of my biggest triggers i guess is that ive been alone my whole life no relationship history and this person hadnt either and the similarities are what make me feel that i am i turned it off once he was saying these things about liking who he is god god god i just i really dont want to be that i hope im not that i want reassurance and i know i wont get it my current erp is to listen to a recording of me saying maybe im a p*** and i should be listening to it 4 times a week but ive been slipping to once a week that is only my 9 on my hierarchy when i get to my 10 i have to read articles about people who are p***s next and i dont want to do that i think for me the biggest triggers arent really even young people its people who are definitely p***s and then if i find any similarities in us i freak the fuck out and i guess i do that with anyone psychopaths, lesbians, anything i dont want to be but could be if i find enough similarities if there are similarities and i guess also im constantly looking for explenation to being 28 years old and alone with no relationship history my brain is constantly looking for answers but the answers are always scary and freak me out is anyone else this way or ever feel this way i feel like a freak if anyone knew what was in my head id be locked up my therapist knows whats in my head but we never really go into detail like sometimes im worried like if she knew this thought she wouldnt help me anymore sometimes i think i make up that its ocd to relieve me of guilt i was getting so good at accepting uncertainty too and my exercises were becoming easier but its just i mean i feel like thats a normal thing no one wants to listen to a tape of them saying to themselves maybe they are a p*** like since my intrusive thoughts had lessened and my mood was better i thought okay yeah i feel better i dont need to do these much anymore i just feel like a failure and a fraud and scared ... its not the worst ive ever felt but its definitely reminding me of bad times where ive been at my worst ... also im pretty good at didtracting myself from things and so if i stay busy im better and if im not im worse i feel the need to want to confess on here and to my therapist but i know i shouldnt but i just feel like an evil person i feel evil and i want reassurance i want relief

Just read about the different types of empathy and I feel so anxious. I’m worried that I only ever use cognitive empathy (when you simply imagine how they feel - this is quite easy to do). Like I’m good at understanding emotions but now I’m scared I don’t FEEL those other emotions. Even though I think I do. It’s so distressing. I know I have emotional and compassionate empathy too as I often feel sorry for people and often cry in movies. If someone was being bullied, I would feel for them and try to help. I’ve always supported the underdog. And in films I tend to cry more when someone else is also crying. But my OCD won’t buy it. Like sometimes when I help people, I’m just using cognitive empathy and I’m scared that’s really bad of me for not feeling what they feel. This could be because I often help people online and not irl so it’s harder to see their facial expressions. But still. I’m just really scared that I don’t have emotional empathy but I think I do. I worry that’s not true though.