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I'm feeling a bit down when reflecting how much time I've lost to OCD. I was housebound and stuck in compulsions for 4 years (age 18-22) and I feel as though I'm grieving. I'm doing much better nowadays compared to before but I'm still so sad this has been my life. I feel like I shouldn't complain considering I am doing a lot better, but when I see all my friends having their degrees already and having lived their early 20s happily I can't help but grief what I lost. Does anyone else feel this way too?

say “i” if you almost know youre in denial😭

i need your help : im generally sensitive to loud sounds, i don't hear that well, and my dad's family side has a history of hearing issues. so today right before an online class i was listening to music on an unusually high volume, and after that while taking a test on online school i could hear a strange sound kinda like the sound a broken radio makes if that makes sense and i couldn't tell if it was coming from my left ear or from the table lamp. i couldn't concentrate on the test and started panicking trying to figure out where the sound was coming from and although i don't hear it anymore i have terribly anxiety rn and i feel the need to check whether i can still hear something. i went and checked whether the table lamp or the computer in my room were producing any weird sounds and they weren't im so concerned this means ive damaged my ears without knowing.. i don't know if this is an obsession, ive never had health-related ocd before but im really concerned and confused on what to do any advice would help

I hope this can be a bit of encouragement to anyone in a dark place right now: A couple months ago I was at the lowest point I’d ever been at, constant stomach aches and anxiety attacks, It was literally painful to be awake. I cannot tell you how many times I told myself I deserved to die or that the only way to stop thinking or stop hurting myself or others was to die, but i can really see now how much power this disorder had over me. I got on medication (if you can also, I would highly recommend it) and at first It was still a little rocky, but I finally feel like I have my life back again. One of my biggest struggles was feeling like I didn’t DESERVE to have my life back, I would constantly ask for reassurance that my memories were real or that I wasn’t evil etc, and I feel like I’m in a spot I didn’t think I deserved to be months ago. Idk if this helped lol, but if anyone is going through something similar, please know you aren’t alone! And you can and will get through this. No matter what your obsession is, doesnt matter if you think it’s the worst in the world, you will get through it. Love you all and thank you for all your help, this app also really helped me get better❤️

God, this disturbing/unwanted thought will persistently bother me all day. I have to keep thinking about it over and over again. I try to erase it from my mind, I really do

Hello all! I just want to introduce myself and share my experience in hopes of helping others feel less alone in this battle. My name is Trevon Cutlerknapp. I’m from Utah but currently reside in New York with my amazing husband and our two Boston Terrier fur babies. I like most of you also struggle with OCD. I’ve dealt with it for most of my life to some degree, but it really came to surface in 2008. At first it was the Scrupulosity obsessions that grasped me as I was serving a 2 year mission for my faith at that time and was away from my family. I dealt with it for a good 11 years just seeing therapists who diagnosed me with generalized anxiety and depression. November 2017 I decided it was time for me to come out to my family. At this time the scrupulosity thoughts resurfaced for obvious reasons. But luckily I came to the conclusion with help of friends that it was time for me to leave my faith behind and come out publicly. At that time I felt a huge relief. The scrupulous thoughts left...or so I thought. I had believed at that time that the reason I was struggling so bad was because I had not been true to myself. Needless to say the thoughts did come back but in a different way. Nearly 6 months after coming out I was struck with overwhelming fear and anxiety after noticing that I had looked at a female in “certain type of way”. It was then I felt the grips of the anxiety overcome me like it had before. Although this time it wasn’t as bad. It felt familiar. It was then that I began to deal with Sexual Orientation obsessions, although it wasn’t for a few more months that I learned I was dealing with OCD. I began researching answers to my questions. It was there that I discovered that I believed I was suffering from OCD. It was also when I found my worst crutch and coping mechanism, the compulsion of “googling”. It was around the same time that I met my husband. I also found an OCD specialist that I began working with. I learned new and more effective ways of “battling” this monster. At this same time ROCD crept in. In June of 2019, me and my husband decided to move to New York together. Because I had lost contact with my therapist in Utah I decided I needed to find a new therapist. I met with Chrissie Hodges, an amazing woman, who helped me find NOCD. It was there that I began ERP treatment more in depth than I had before. My NOCD therapist helped me build my hierarchy and gave me the push that I needed to help myself get better. In January of 2020 me and my husband got engaged. In October of 2020 we were married. Around this same time I finished my treatment with my therapist in NOCD. I was also asked to become an advocate for NOCD. My reasoning for sharing my story is to give others hope that you can overcome this. You can learn the skills to battle OCD in whatever “form” it attacks you with. OCD is OCD, but you get what I mean. I also share my story to give others the courage to fight back and live your life how you want to even when OCD is screaming in your face telling you that you’re an imposter or a fraud. The greatest thing I remember from both of my therapists is that the greatest thing you can do is to not let OCD boss you around. Go and live life anyway. For me that meant, even though I was dealing with doubts surrounding my sexuality and relationship, I did it anyway. I knew what I wanted before those doubts crept in, but I didn’t let them have power over me. That doesn’t mean I didn’t have days that I really wanted to give up because I definitely did. I still have those days unfortunately. OCD by no means has gone away. It’s still here. But because I made the decision to get help and learned to trust my therapist, I learned how to better manage it. I know that all of you have the power to do the same. OCD shows up in the most brilliant and brightest of minds and it really can cause us to suffer and feel tortured. OCD is torture. It’s vicious and it’s cruel. But you can overcome it with treatment. You can recover and put OCD in its place. Don’t give up! Fight back! But don’t fight against the thoughts. Allow them to be there and learn to see them as just thoughts. That is all they are. Our thoughts do not have meaning until we assign them meaning. The sensations we feel in our body to the thoughts are just sensations. They’re also meaningless. Our minds are not moral gate keepers. Our mind simply presents us with information for us to sort through. We get to choose the meaning of that information and what we want to do with it. We can accept the thoughts are there, but it doesn’t mean that we agree with them. Acceptance ≠ Agreement.

My daughter said she can say to herself in her “head” that she is gay but she cannot say it out loud . She said it gives her anxiety. I guess this is HOCD

TW/// POCD If you know a lot about fandom, fanfic, or are just willing to listen, please help me think this out. Ive been “obsessive” over fandom for a while. But fanfiction had always been my comfort. It was pretty much the main way I interacted with fandom, and some times, I didn’t even read/watch/listen to the source material. I read the fanfiction just because I loved it. I would read it a lot, starting when I was probably 12 going on until now, as a 19 year old. I generally avoided sexual or “explicit” fanfiction or would skip over the sexual parts for the majority of this time, because I have always been a fairly nonsexual person, and have only really just recently been interested in sex at all (until of course my ocd worsened & switched themes). Now that I have switched ocd themes to pocd, I have been looking over my interactions with fandom/fanfiction, past and present, greatly. What’s weighing on my mind right now is that I just remembered that in the summer after I turned 18, the movie IT p.2 and stranger things season 3 came out, and I was obsessed with them both. I read shipping fanfiction for both of them primarily focusing on the adults but for IT (where the first movie is them as kids and the second is them as adults) I read some where they were kids at first and then grew into adults. and I think they might have had nonsexual pre-relationships/ crushes while they were kids. And then for stranger things, I read fanfiction (mostly about the older sibling characters who would have been my age but I read a few that focused on the young kids because there was a storyline of one of the kids being hinted at being gay which I as a bi woman felt should’ve been addressed more. But I didn’t read a lot because I did not like the relationships between the kids. and I think maybe the only reason I got into IT was because they were adults on the second movie). So I read very few fanfiction with a couple different “crush” pairs/relationships between the kids both of which were non canon gay pairs, despite only one character being hinted at being gay). These were very PG if I remember correctly but in the one I saved I checked it tags and it had “first kiss” tagged which is disgusting and I don’t remember it at all which greatly worries me because what if there is other stuff I didn’t remember?? -Oh gosh and now I’m remembering a very very fuzzy memory of fanfiction with aged up characters in it. I don’t know what fandom it was in but they might have still been older minors or they could have been in college but I think it was sexual. I don’t know when I read this or if I even did. If I did it was probably a while before this so I was probably still a minor myself, but I have a shit memory so I can’t be certain. I could’ve been older than 18 but read it and didn’t like it so I tried to forget about it or skipped a bunch. I’m just so worried. I feel for a creep for reading this stuff, and I feel horrible not remembering what I did read or not. I read so much shit. I know I’m not attracted to kids but I still feel like a predator. Fandom and fanfic and pocd gives me so much anxiety and confusion. Is it morally wrong, creepy and pedophilic to “ship” minors? Canon vs noncanon? Gay vs. Straight? Is it morally wrong to read any fanfiction including minor as characters? What if they grow up in the fanfiction? What if the minors are only in flashbacks? What about fanfiction of nonsexual “crush” relationships between minors? Does all of this change when it’s about characters portrayed by real life actors vs. Animation? (My heart pretty clearly says it does) I hate my creepy 18 year old self, though that was only just over a year ago. I wish I had all of my reading history so I could just know exactly what I’m working with.

False memory ocd Has anyone ever gotten a repressed memory of something that you did in the past, but not quite sure if it happened? It's been bothering a lot the past couple months because sometimes it feel so real. What's scary about this that it's been effecting my mental health and I question my character. This also lead me to feel suicidal and I'm having a hard to coping with this.

Hi. I need an opinion on this. Or help? Please be careful as this post might be of mature topics. I'm 25, f. I am diagnosed with ocd and I have to ask you all a question. Please if you are less than 18 I don't think this is appropriate to you but you are warned even though this post is not explicitl I have pervert ocd if that's a thing. I'm gay and I think I'm a pervert for lusting after women (pls note that I'm only talking about myself I don't think lesbian are perverts or monsters) and I know a lot of people (gay woman) suffer from this. I am very touched starved. Never dated. I want to but I am shy and finding the right one is too hard. I never meet anyone either. I'm also ugly plus I am not interesting. I'm just sweet and thoughtful but I'm a boring person. I was about to take a nap when I started fantasizing being with a woman, a imagined one. (note. This has happened a ton of times in the past few months... And I feel embarrassed by it. I feel like I just want s-x but that's not true... I feel so ashamed that is all I think about at night. Ugh but I don't persue anyone - I'm a kind person, I hope.) I was falling asleep and idk if this was a dream or an actual fantasy, my memories are fuzzy, but I was, excuse my rudeness, "sucking" the chest area - after I woke up I felt so guilty that I have not been able to calm down. I have been having a lot of sexual fantasies where I'm the dominant one and I feel like a pervert. (me doing the touching...) I feel like a monster for wanting to kiss a woman's lips and body and touch her (ofc wit consent) Thank you for the help... I'm so sorry for the long writing. I had to create an anonymous account just because of this. I'm so sorry for being annoying?

Exposures for fear of going crazy and sound Hello! I’m new to this forum. I have been working with a therapist for over a year and am not progressing as I had hoped, so I am trying NOCD. I’m excited to connect with others that struggle like me. I’m 51 and was a late bloomer to ocd. I was an anxious child, but no real ocd symptoms until around 23. At that time I developed harm intrusive thoughts. I sought the help of a therapist and was put on Paxil and buspar. Overall, the next 25 years were great! Ocd was really non existent. Fast forward to 48, menopause, getting rheumatoid arthritis, empty nest etc and my anxiety disorder is worse than in my 20’s. Anyway, over the last couple years I’ve tried several different SSRI meds and finally decided enough is enough and started therapy as well. I’ve been on on luvox for about 5 months now. it has helped tremendously with my harm intrusive thoughts, but I still struggle so much with fear of getting schizophrenia. I cannot shake it no matter how often I am told that I don’t have it. Around the time I started luvox, I noticed a sensitivity to sound and tinnitus symptoms. Like I hear everything - white noise type sounds. This is where the fear took root. I woke up one day and the fan was on. I swore it sounded like chatter or a radio. Welcome new obsession! So now, I find myself listening intently to everything I hear. I joke that hearing is now my super power. But, what is most distressing is that I find myself checking, listening and judging sound. Like a heater or fan will kick in or a fan and I’ll notice it and be like - “is that a radio?” Or I hear the motor on my laptop and insert my own scary narrative of what it “sounds” like - is that chatter? Full on panic attack. Then, I’ll have instances when I swear I hear a radio - most of the time it’s explained away (passing traffic, outside noise, appliances) and other times I freak out because I can’t find the source and it’s “proof” of my impending doom of “going crazy”! Logically, I can look at this as normal - we all mishear things from time to time. But mostly my ocd/anxiety takes over and convinces me this is NOT normal and I should be scared and afraid! This is totally reassurance seeking, but has anyone else become hyper aware or noise? I suppose this would be considered health ocd? And what exposures have worked for fear of going crazy/schizo? TIA! 😊

Guys with HOCD tryna chat?

My daughter has HOCD and she told me today she does compulsions in her head to prove she is straight and not gay . Is this normal With HOCD

Intrusive thoughts about my sexuality disappeared in 2015 and returned during lockdown in July 2020. I have no idea why they went away for so long, but what I take from that is that it is possible to live life without them. I didn't realise in 2015 that I was experiencing intrusive thoughts or potentially SOOCD. I thought I was the only person on the planet experiencing this. In those 5 years completely free from those thoughts, I use to look back on it and laugh about it. I'd even confidently tell others about it and how silly it would make me feel looking back on it. It may seem dire right now and you're full of dread, but as long as there is possibility, you can get through this.

Is there anyone else who deals with false attractions, that actually feel real?

i see a lot of people here who have sexuality ocd and have intrusive thoughts that they are gay. can it happen to gay people? is anyone here worried that they are actually straight? i’m not sure if its soocd or internalised homophobia

TW i had a self harm relapse and i just really don’t feel good. i’ve had enough

Can I talk to an advocate who has gone through POCD and SOOCD

why does cheating ocd make me feel like such a liar. i told my boyfriend that i had asked a guy to hangout once when we first began dating and i asked the guy to come hangout as a friend but my rocd is saying i lying to my bf and i wanted to hangout with that guy as more than friends 😞. even though i really didn’t. i hate this so much, this is so hard. someone tell me i’m not alone.

I am 23F who is living with my boyfriend of many years. We just got married and it should be a happy time for us, but I’m under a considerable amount of stress because of what I will describe below. I have always been turned by erotic images of women, erotica of men using women, and pictures/large breasts. This is only women in erotic photos. Not girls at school or anything like that. Never people I know in person. This is basically what I enjoy in bed (men touching me there, etc). However, I’m nervous because I don’t get these same reactions to erotic images of men. But I’m pretty sure I like men? I feel very aroused and have a racing heart around men I’m attracted to before we kiss. I feel that pull, excitement, and heat when you’re with a guy you’re attracted to. I also fantasize about men I am attracted to in situations where we date/hug/have sex. This doesn’t happen for women. I have always had crushes on men (not like the master doc, like forceful crushes). And have always wanted to kiss a man, have a man touch me, have sex with a man. I’m worried because sex with my boyfriend has always been meh. I’m really nervous because I’m afraid it means I’m not attracted to him and he isn’t very good at knowing what to do to me. I’m also nervous because I’m not turned on if he gets in the shower with me or starts making out with me out of nowhere. Sometimes I am, but not always. Is this all in my head! Am I fighting a losing battle? Tonight has been my worst night in weeks. I just spoke with a woman who said I could be bi. I just want help Anyone who read this much, thanks. I get this was a dumb read but I have no one else