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I had a thought today and it's making me spiral...it was .."what if my compulsions aren't actually compulsions and I'm willingly thinking of the thoughts and feelings but just using it as an excuse to deny my orientation?" I don't know what to do it's driving me crazy. Can someone please help

I’m currently seeing a therapist (not on NOCD) and I’m worried she doesn’t really understand what she’s doing, as my OCD doesn’t seem to be getting better. However I’m worried if I see a therapist who does ERP, that they’ll tell me I don’t really have OCD and that I’ll find out all my thoughts are true. I don’t know what to do, should I stop seeing this therapist? Is ERP terrifying?

Avoidance. Its not about stopping myself from things, its mustering the courage to do basic stuff. Ita gotten so bad I can't even put on socks or have showers. I'm missing out on life, and truly I've been missing life lately. It all is so completely ridiculous. I want to go for a hike. I want to do zumba and yoga. I want to build a strong and healthy body. I want to experiment with cooking and learn to play the piano. But all I do is avoid. I do find support in "what would you do if you didn't have anxiety/ocd", but even if I know what I would do, I can't seem to be able to follow through. It feels impossible. My life has become empty and I'm not functioning anymore. How are you all doing? And how do you feel about avoidance?

I'm freaking out rn. When I was able to accept uncertainty, I was able to see my thoughts without bias. Gradually, my anxiety subsided to the thoughts. But when my anxiety subsided, my brain gave me a bunch of proofs from my childhood that I was bisexual/lesbian all along (to be honest a lot of them are BS proofs, but maybe they might mean something ??? ). There some small proofs that make me really anxious and I really wanna go to Google because I feel like it's real. Idk what to doo. I don't feel much anxiety and I wanna give in and search because not having anxiety makes the thoughts seem real. But like if I search and i see relief that's its ocd then i will be trapped again. But also if I found out that Im not really straight then i might freaking spiral again. But it is also difficult not to give in and find an answer because i don't have anxiety to the thoughts, then maybe it's real??? It's like I've accepted myself that I'm changing... What do I do? Is it ocd trying to pull me in? Or is this real? I can't distinguish, but sometimes it feel like the latter. Sometimes there is also some clarity that it's just a bunch of random thoughts stored in my brain to give me anxiety. Is this even ocd, or is this an identity crisis?? I'm not asking for reassurance, please give me an advice.

My confessions - please reply - so last year when I was 17 i guess I accedently gone tona child porn website. After seeing it for sometime and realizing it is illegal and bad thing I came suddenly out it. After some time I remember I masturbated to what I saw. I don't know why I did that. Maybe because of my hypersexuality or maybe because of when I was a kid I always search for girls my age. So maybe it was curiosity. I never remember enjoying what i saw. From that day I got into immense guilt and depression. That is when I remembered a childhood experimentation I did when I was a kid myself. I developed real Event OCD. It lasted for two months. After some time I somehow got recovered from it. After that I was at church. There was a girl who was around 13 standing in the church. She was wearing a tight pants. I suddenly looked at her bottom and that is when I asked myself the question did I looked the girl at the same way I look at a adult? Am I attracted to her? I suddenly remembered some events similar to this happened in the past but I never felt sexuak arousal for kids and I never fantasized sexually about a kid in my life. I masturbated to adult porn all my life.but I am really worried. If I am capable of being aroused of a child porn, does that mean I am capable of harming a child is what the thought that is hearing in my head. When ever I see a kid I just ask myself weather am I attracted to her. I am suffering from immense anxiety and guilt. I had dreams like starting my own family one day and having kids . Now I feel like I should just keep it as a dream.when I see a petite women who is my age I suddenly feel like if I am attracted to her that means I am attracted to a kid because they both are having exactly the same body and thoughts like this makes me feel immense guilt m.i forgot how much happy my life was before I get this thoughs. I am not looking for sympathy. I know a monster like me do not deserve any sympathy. If some one who is suffered from child Abuse sees this, I am sorry. I know I am not deserve to be forgiven for what I did. But I promise it was out of accident and curiosity. I feel like only dying would make this pain go. I no longer feel like me.i am not rich enough to afford a theraphy and I would appreciate if anyone reading this could give me any advice . Thankyou

For people who suffer from ROCD: What's your relationship with avoidance? how do you cope with avoiding seeing your partner/talking to them, etc?

I always thought people had this advantage that I didn’t have. Thinking people had it all figured out, I’ve always felt left out as if though these individuals were hiding their secrets of a happy life from me. When I look at the past, I get angry. I let too much slide and in viewing others through my lens I realized how content and ready to live they were. When I meet my boyfriend I realized how much I cling on to information to save me. I’ve always felt like if I knew everything about his past, about his ex, and about him and what he was doing I could somehow have that power over the situation, over this relationship. So I consumed as much as their media I could find, even though it was triggering to see their relationship unfold throughout the years, I convinced myself that it was absolutely critical. Spending hours scrolling and any time I had looking at their accounts but it dawned on me today something I never considered: We all don’t know what going to happen. Right now I keep looking around at my coworkers thinking to myself, they all probably feel the same way I do. Lost, confused, and maybe even a little anxious about the future. Truth is, by knowing everything in the past, I won’t ever know what this world holds for me. I just can’t and no one else can either. It wouldn’t matter if I thought it would have somehow prevented her from coming back into his life, stalking her social media and anxiously wondering what’s she’s planning is just something up in the air as much as any other possibility. A possibility I can’t predict. A possibility I won’t be able to somehow prevent. And I think that’s my source of my OCD. Obsessively wanting to know all the details about something/someone, doing my research, and hoping that I can somehow escape all the bad that WILL happen. But like you, I don’t know what WILL happen. It made so much sense in my head though, it even sounded simple: Dedicate your LIFE to preventing the (bad) future. And it always has to be bad because of course it does. I can’t, I will not hold onto that idea anymore. It’s causing me my life and my time and my happiness. The happiness I can have now. Even if I could prevent something I’d only be more afraid and want to do it again thus creating this cycle of fear. I need to start practicing not knowing and being okay with that. I’m not missing anything. I don’t need what I tell myself I need. I’m certainly not the revenge plot in someone’s timeline nor am I being left out like I’ve always felt like I was. I simply don’t know, just like everyone else and I feel like everyone else, and I have needs like everyone else. My life is much more than where this relationship will take us. Of course I love him and no one ever wants to loose our loves but I can no longer devote my life to trying to prevent something. That my form of self sabotage. What’s happening now is important and I can’t think that’s she’s pulling some strings behind the scenes and live in the fear that they both plan to break my heart. I’m gonna take the first step and take a chance and continue to be happy in my relationship, going against the fear that I should always keep an eye out.

Hello everyone this is my first time writing on here and I’m really scared to even say something because I have never had proper help with ocd or been diagnosed but I’ve been dealing with severe ocd since 2017 now. I just want to get better but it feels like there is no way out at times. My most common are sexual thoughts or pocd or ocd related to my family, sexual or harm. Yesterday my niece was at my house and I adore her to bits but over the past year I’ve become very distant with her and I don’t like hugging her or touching her or just being close to her. It makes my heart break because she is everything to me and I have to push her away when she comes to hug me. Yesterday I tried to get over it and play with her again so I hugged her and sat by her side with my head on her shoulder but a sudden urge came into my mind and it was so disgusting. I kept thinking I would touch her inappropriately or without her consent and that thoughts just took over my mind. This will sound so stupid but my thumb or fist was on her back and I had a thought that it was wrong to touch her so I pulled away but the thoughts came rushing back and I let my fist be placed in that same position again. I feel so disgusted I know it’s nothing and this sounds completely insane but I feel like I’ve done something disgusting and touched her in a inappropriate way and I havent been able to get over it because it feels like I let the thoughts win and they made me do it? What if it isn’t ocd? I’m feeling like I just can’t get through the night please tell me if real event ocd happens to you guys and how to deal with it? Is this ocd or am I just this disgusting person who did something to her? I keep replaying the moment in my head but all of it is fuzzy and I can rationalize it. I just feel disgusting.

These last few days I've been having panic attacks related to POCD symptoms and suddenly I keep feeling the urge to look at kids. It freaks me out and makes me sick to my stomach and so upset because I got rid of that urge for quite awhile and now I feel back at step one.

I do get anxious that medications specifically ocd medication would make me an addict and I won’t be able to stop them lol ( probably one of the reasons I haven’t been to therapy)

So I haven’t worked in almost a year but I’m starting my job Wednesday.. I’m incredibly nervous because my OCD and anxiety is still pretty bad, but constantly thinking about my theme and trying to figure it out is one of my biggest compulsions so I hope that getting out of the house and having a job/structure helps :(

I’ve felt like crying the last 2 days because of things that have happened in the past. I’m not sure if it’s my ocd that keeps reminding me or just part of the healing process as it happened 10 yrs ago but I found out in February of 2020. I want to be past it but it still hurts sometimes.

To whom this may concern, If had the balls I have now to have written to you, I would have said something alone these lines: I don’t owe you anything. Not my man, not my happiness, and certainly not my life. From the moment I meet him, you were always lurking in the shadows. I could feel you. Whenever I’d ask about his past sure he’s obviously mention you but it carries so much weight and that weight I decided to carry on my own shoulders. I know it was you who sent me those mean questions. I know it was you who wanted to throw me off and have me question his loyalty. I know it was you who resented me so much to the point of being petty you were willing to to look like the crazy ex. And guess what!! You got to me! Yes you did, for a really, really long time I was so fucking afraid of you. Any mention of his past, regardless of you, sent me spiraling and I thought that he was thinking about you and it terrified me. I wanted him, loved him, and needed him to focus on me so what I did was keep an eye out on you. Looking through each one of your social media’s daily. Looking for signs that my mind was right and that you two were still together like you were in my head!! Boy, oh boy did I really believe that and honestly I hated you for it. When you reached out to me, my heart sank. When you said all those mean things about him then told me how you cheated on him anyways, my heart fell. And I’ve held onto that, you know. I’ve held on to that same feeling I felt the day you actually looked me in the eye and I never let it go. I never let you go. It’s apparent that he had though. As much as my brain freaks out about the “what if’s,” my gut tells me he’s telling the truth and he was way over it before it was even said out loud. I’m not sure what the future stores for my partner and I. Of course, I want him in my life, I love him and I’ll say this: I know at one point you did, too. But I’m not just gonna give you, no, hand you away my happiness like that. Like I have for the past year. It was hard then because I had really strong resentment and fear for you but now I’m willing to forgive you even if I know you’re not sorry and let go of you even if the only reason why you stay is to see us fail. It’s okay. You keep doing that and watch how unhappy it makes you. I know it made me miserable. All I’m asking of this situation now is for it to just go and I’ll start by ending my contract to you here. I don’t owe you anything, in fact you don’t know me but were so entitled to tell me how pathetic I was for being with him when things didn’t go well for you. It’s okay. It’s life. I’m sure you’ve already moved on and found someone else and for that I wish you finally do look for what truly will make you happy. But I’m gonna let go of the idea that I can never be like you. I’m gonna let go of the idea that you have a hold of me or him. I’m gonna let go of the idea that you meant what you said because I’m not gonna carry this anymore. This is where it ends. It’s what I should have and wished I had told you. I’m only sorry to myself for hiding just how much fear and torment I had in my heart. I could say this all happened for a reason. It would sound poetic wouldn’t it? But I’m not going to. There’s plenty more of life ahead of me and I’m not gonna waste my time in thinking if I said sorry enough or made the right decision. As far as I’m concerned, I’ve always tried to do right by others. Now I gotta do right by me and I think this is a healthy start. So now whatever may or may not happen I know it won’t waiver my worth of happiness. It won’t determine my worth as a person. It will never be defined to what happiness I can/cannot bring to other people. Yours,

Has anyone ever had old themes resurface after years of it not bothering you? I dealt with HOCD fears for years in college and then one day, they just stopped. I started doing therapy this year for relationship obsessions regarding intrusive fears of my fiance cheating on me. Randomly this past week, I watched a video of a YouTuber I like who I’ve watched for years and have really identified with her style and overall aesthetic. In the video, she came out as bisexual and is now dating a woman, and i have been having all of these irrational fears that I have been bisexual this whole time, even though my fears in college were that I was actually a lesbian. I have never had a legitimate desire to date a woman or have that kind of relationship with a woman. I have just had a lot of intrusive thoughts about that in college that caused me extreme distress. After college though for some reason, those obsessions just stopped and I have just been living my life the last 3 years praying they dont come back and even laughing to myself when i think that those kinds of thoughts used to bother me. I have been in a loving relationship with my fiance for the past 2 years and have never felt more like myself since being with him. It has only confirmed what I already knew to be true about my sexuality as a straight woman. He and I are getting married in three weeks. It’s like my fears have totally switched from him being a cheater to me being secretly bisexual this whole time. I have not had any sexuality based obsessions since being with him and it is so incredibly distressing to me to have these thoughts now. Of all the times I could have in the last two years, why are they coming up 3 weeks before our wedding? I don’t think being bisexual is wrong, it’s just not who I am. I know deep down that if I was, it would not be something I didn’t think about for years and then get reminded of it by a random video. Any advice? My therapist is out of town this week and I could really use some non-reassurance advice. Thank you!!

Please help me. Please reply me .I once watched child porn accedently. I remember suddenly came out from that site. But after some time I remember masturbating on imagining what I saw. I don't know why I did that. I was 17 or 18 then. I did that maybe because if my hypersexuality? Curiosity? Or is it that because I always wanted to see kids my age naked? I don't remember I enjoyed it but I am greatly affected by hypersexuality. I will get urges to masturbate atleast 4 times a day and I will do that. But I don't why I did that. That was my first and last time seeing something illegal ( accedently). So this led me to millions of questions like if I am attracted to nude children, does that mean I am capable of assaulting them. I never fantasized any one who is below my age. I remember one or two times I looked at a girl who was around 10 or 11 who was wearing a tight pants. I saw her bottom. I never got arosed by it. But I felt bad. I never remember looking it in a bad manner. I promise. But i am really worried I am attracted to kids and one day I will harm them am I a phedophile? Do someone have some similar experiences? Please help me . I would appreciate any of your reply. Thanks

goes I’m going to be brief and very detailed as possible ,I’m 26 female and I don’t know if it’s pocd or the real thing .okay so for starters I do suffer from anxiety and sometimes depression from as far as I can remember,I’ve dealt with bizarre thoughts in the past ,such as intrusive thoughts.I remember reading something about an high profile person getting caught up in cp and that made me start thinking about should I watch cp?.what is cp?.but I quickly realized that is something I didn’t want. To do and it was wrong .I’ve been watching porn since I was 11.it was normal porn but over the years I started watching different types But I have never watched CP.and don’t want to.i have never looked or touched an child sexually or thought about them in that way.I love kids I’ve always dreamed of being a mother,but sometimes I used to be nervous of the future like would I be a great mom or what if I abuse my child ?.different things .but fast forward when I used to masturbate I always think of celebrities who are 17,18 who are attractive but I never thought it was an problem because I would think it would be fantasy and that I wouldn’t actually do it in real life .and I have been doing this for 2 years now .but I noticed that when I’m near my god kids I start having thoughts like what if I touch him ? Or should I touch him but I always dismiss it and move on and feel bad afterwards because I have never thought about any kids that way.so fast forward a month after I masterbated .I was watching a documentary or something and it triggered me thinking I was an p and I start feeling guilty of all the things I’ve masterbated too and I have thought some stuff I’m not proud of .but it was like it was sudden and I couldn’t sleep And it was like it just kept replaying in my head to the point I started crying and overtime it subsided but I keep having these thoughts convincing myself I’m a p and yesterday I was near my godson and a thought popped in my head saying touch him touch him it was like an urge.but I resisted and I feel so bad because i love kids and now I don’t want to have any and I feel like killing myself I don’t know where these thoughts came from all of a sudden and why I couldn’t fight them off .I came across a photo of a preteen girl and while I was looking at the photo a thought popped in saying picture her in a bra and I immediately got disgusted and scared.I’m just on autopilot I’ve been googling and googling and just don’t know what to think .I’m just tired I’m just on the brink of tears and killing my self because I can’t accept that I’m this way .I’m so scared I don’t even want to leave the house or anything I was fine couple weeks ago now i don’t know who or what I’m doing I don’t have anyone to talk to I’m scared .it seems to be not as intense as it first was a Month ,but it still stays in the back of my mind ,I get urges seems real and want Me to do things I’m fighting,and it seems like my attraction to normal ppl have faded I’m having dreams about this situation,it seems I have arousal and when I have these thoughts I just want to cry because I don’t know how I got to this point.every time I see an photo of a kid I get an feeling in my stomach and I kinda get sick and my heart starts to race ,I keep googling signs of a p and now it seems I have moved on too teens I’m just to The point where I want to kill Myself,I don’t know what to do any more,I love children I’ve always wanted an family of my own but now not anymore.I’m stressed out and it seems to be all I think about is that I’m a p ,I can’t wake up Without worrying about ,it’s from The time I go to sleep to The time I wake up,I don’t know

Vent: Haven't done these in a while, so it's good to come back to it I suppose.. Sometimes I feel really alone with my OCD... My only real struggle is real event and already that makes me feel like I have it worse than others suffering. I'm not trying to make this a competition or anything, definitely not. Maybe these feelings of feeling worse than everyone else is also OCD. I don't worry about intrusive thoughts that haven't happened at all as much as the ones that have happened. Everything stems from even I was younger. Everybody tells me that sexting is normal and a variety of all kinds of people do it. Teens do it with other teens and adults do it with other adults. I did it a lot when I was a teen... Ever since the 7th grade, when I were an 11 year old, it's like I had some sort of sexual awakening. I became so obsessed with sex and feet. I even remember these where I acted out on it. I sexted so much online with other girls and they did it back. At the time I thought it felt so good and it gave me a rush doing it and I was experiencing what it would maybe be like to be with someone of the opposite gender sexually. I sometimes did it with people of the same gender due to false feelings and curiosities, but realized I only like girls in sexual ways. I guess the adrenaline rush I would get from doing this is why I kept doing it. But other times, I've had friends that appreciated feet of people as much as I did. I really do love feet in a general sense and an attraction sense. At the time when this all started, I used to have a lot of trouble accepting that, but I'm very comfortable about it now. There were times where I had friends online that felt the same way about this and we shared pictures of our feet for further admirations of our friendship. This was still a time where I wanted to figure out all of these feelings but I just feel like I've done all of this in the worst ways possible. I'm always ashamed of this and I can't help but feel like I should be in jail. That might be really irrational but it's what my OCD tells me.. I managed to stop doing all of this at 17 because I guess I realized this wasn't worth all of the pressure and anxiety. I'm very glad that I stopped and I haven't done it since. Another guilt I have has to do with my addicted to adult content. I've been so hooked on it at a very young age. So many things changed for me at that time. I've watched so much of it, got off on it so many times, came across so many bizzare ways just to get the same fulfillment. This has been engrained in my life and I'm doing the best I can to keep it away. So far I've been 17 days fresh. I'm happy that I'm abstaining from it all because it got to a point where I didn't feel enjoyment out of the content, I worried about being addicted on occasion, and then I cried when I tried to add a taboo towards my fetish. I really didn't like that and the fact that I was addicted. I'm just really glad I'm doing something about it, I guess. I'm just really glad that I can be here, speak my feelings about all of these things. Just let them all out maybe. OCD convinces me of so many things. Like if I saved illegal videos into my computer which I know I didn't. And anything I did have NSFW I deleted everywhere because I felt there was absolutely no point in saving things I would realistically have no use for. That I would harm someone for pleasure, when I would never ever ever want to hurt people. I would only want to help people and just try to make friends. It's even convinced me that arousal is 100% bad. I hate the feeling of it and I hate when it get it and what it does to me. I began to be afraid of looking for content for pleasure and when I did find something that really messed me up and made me very uncomfortable, I would just have a meltdown. I'd report whatever I see concerning, but now I don't search for anything anymore. Right now I don't do any of the things I used to in the past when I was younger and I'm glad I don't, but I still feel like a really awful person anyway. I always feel like I'm bad or that I broke the law or that I shouldn't get a second chance. I dunno. Believing what is and what isn't is almost impossible when it comes to OCD. I'm sorry if anyone was bothered by any of this. Didn't mean to make people feel that way if it occurred.

For anyone that is barely surviving... Right now you might feel like you won't make it. You might feel like you're not strong enough to get through this. You might feel like you are barely keeping your head above water. I just want to say, you will make it. You are strong enough. If you are getting through each day, you are doing great. A few weeks ago, i felt like i was going to snap. My anxiety was so bad, my intrusive thoughts were so strong that i was starting to believe them. But if you have read this far, that tells me you do still have fight in you, you are strong. If you made the decision to join this chat, you already making a positive change. If all you had enough energy to sign up for this chat, you did more than enough today and i am proud of you. It's hard, i know it is. This journey is freaking hard, but by giving yourself grace, patience, love and compassion, you will get through this. Im working on being more compassionate to myself. Maybe next week I'll work on self love even when im at a low point. Soon enough, at least my head, shoulders and arms with be above water. You got this, we got this.

18+ I am a male who’s been struggling with HOCD for six years now I’ve had a porn addiction since a very young age I’d say about nine years old ever since my hocd started getting worse I cannot look at guy and girl porn anymore I have to watch lesbian porn so my brain doesn’t try and confuse itself with the male but even watching lesbian porn OCD seems to attack me while I’m enjoying it it starts to tell me you would feel this good with a guy or you see how they just go for it it that’s how you will be with a male and I just cringe and get so fucking frustrated because I’m tired of overthinking this bullshit I have loved woman since I was a little kid I don’t wanna continue my life questioning my sexuality I rather be dead sometimes i’ve even avoided hanging out with male friends male family members or even just avoiding eye contact or even small talk with males on the street because I know my anxiety will kick in even using public bathrooms were males are there triggers me and I just don’t wanna use them if there’s anybody in there the confusion and the anxiety sometimes causes me to wanna vomit I get groinal response but never erections to these thoughts I do get tingly sensations in my mouth which make me believe I want to act upon oral sex thoughts and that is just the scariest and most disgusting thing