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I am having a really hard time tonight. :/ I keep ruminating... does anyone have any tips on how to stop thinking when you want to sleep? Or any videos or shows or just things to do before bed to get your mind off stuff?

Hi! Im wondering how does OCD affect your school work.. Since my ocd started school got much harder and i just cant focus. Im in law school and i cant handle the stress and feeling like all of my peers are better and smarter because they know how to deal with stress and dont go crazy... It sucks because its ruining my self esteem and i feel like a loser. I used to be a good student but now i just fail class after class. Is it going to get better? Can u study with ocd and get good grades? If you can please tell me how!

To anyone that has gone through SSRI withdrawal, did you get sensitivity to light? Particularly to your phone?

I feel like my sexual orientation has changed, it truly feels like I’ll never be straight again and I’m heartbroken. I go out in public and I check if I’m attracted to the pretty girls, I start to make new female friends and I worry I like them, I look at them in ways I never did before just to “make sure”. I worry that I’ll enjoy sex and feelings with girls more and that it’ll be greater than what I have with my partner. I worry that my struggle with intimacy with my boyfriend is because I don’t like men as opposed to my insecurities and inexperience and shyness. It feels like I can’t find appeal in men anymore and even though I find no appeal in women either, my mind tells me my lack of attraction means I Need to be attracted to women. I don’t want to. I’ve had two lesbian dreams this week and it felt like I wanted it. I try to imagine myself in same sex scenarios and I get confused , it feels like I want it when at the beginning of this it just didn’t click. It feels like all my close girl friends from my past are secret crushes. It feels like my attraction to men was never real. I’m so scared and so afraid and so lost, I feel like a prisoner. It feels like my sexuality has changed, I Must be attracted to women. Although I know I love my boyfriend deeply, I now worry a women will come and take his place. I hate this. It makes me feel like my bond with my boyfriend isn’t as special , when my bond with him is what I treasure most. Almost All the best days of my life were with him and now I feel like I’ll have to give it up to be with a woman. I feel like I’m living a lie, I feel like I’m going to have to come out and be with women, my grandma will treat me differently. It feels too real, way way too real.

My HOCD is crippling me today. I don’t know what’s real anymore. I remember being so happy. I’ve never ever been interested in a male before. I was so deeply in love with my girlfriend. We’re hitting 2 years this next month. I love her so much. Our romantic side is gone. I want things to be normal again. It breaks my heart because she’s sticking this through with me and I know how confusing it is for her. please god help me I feel like i’m living in hell every day I wake up. this came out of no where. i’m so confused.

Good morning, I hope everyone has a great day! You are strong and you are worthy! Remember, the more you do, the more you are able to do. 🙂❤

BIG TRIGGER WARNING! sometimes i feel so lost and hopeless after i have intrusive thoughts that my mind goes straight to suicide. it’s so scary, i feel this overwhelming guilt and shame because my normal brain says “why would my brain come up with such horrible thoughts???!” like i know OCD is built to trigger and IT DOES, but after when i have a moment of settlement, i feel so much hatred towards myself that my suicide OCD is triggered and it says “you’re horrible, you need to die” and all these horrible thoughts...it makes me feel sick inside, i’d never SWEAR on my soul ever hurt a child or want to think these intrusive thoughts, i don’t know where they come from, they just pop up and it feels like fire ants in my brain like i want them to stop but they don’t. i am crying when writing this because it sounds so insane, the last thing i want is a child to be hurt or anything, but my OCD says such horrible things and i feel so alone because i feel like no one else’s OCD is this bad and i am so isolated and alone. i don’t want to die, but when you have such gross evil intrusive thoughts, you feel like it’s your only way out....sorry if this was way too much to take in, i just wanted to let this out because it’s such a horrible overwhelming weight on my chest and i have no one to talk to about this. I HATE this disorder so much and what it has done to me.

Does someone in here has harm ocd and would like to talk ? I need someone that can i relate to. I have been having a lot of intrusive thoughts and need someone to help me please !

Nothing left. Feels like I never had OCD. Nothing left except the thoughts. Afraid ERP made me worse. Afraid that I lost females forever. Squandered my therapy. I suffered for a long time and I was finally feeling like I had hope. But I lost that too. It just feels like denial at this point. Fml...

My OCD is generally around my health. It is hard for me to differentiate between what is real and what is OCD. I have a skin condition (HPV) and it’s truly not bad at all although my OCD theme is very focused on it. I’m in constant fear that it will get worse, spread or ruin my life some how. Does anybody else have health anxiety OCD? Or OCD about contamination? I feel like it’s really difficult to combat my OCD at times because there is a level of rationality behind it. I do have the skin condition already that I’m worried about so my OCD has “evidence” to make me more worried about it. Does anybody else have an OCD theme that is hard to differentiate between what’s real and what’s OCD? Sorry for the long post but I’m very interested to hear more about your experiences!

this is a vent, feel free to scroll. i can't do any other compulsions. nothing works. im sick and tired i just want to sink into the floor and d*e. i can't answer all these questions. i just want to return back to who i was half a year ago when ocd wasn't even a word in my vocabulary. i don't know how to deal with this anymore im just praying it's ocd at this point. my mind is like a messy room i can't even enter because of the fucking junk that's in there. i can't trust my own self, my mind won't let me trust anyone either. i was my own guide but now i feel like i need a babysitter or I'll go insane. i didn't know it could get this bad and i wish i had gotten professional help already but, that's not even possible when your mother “doesn't believe in mental illness”. im sick

i personally do not have OCD, but my boyfriend has ROCD and it’s really taking a toll on us and our relationship and i’m not sure how to stop getting upset over his negative thoughts

After a morning of unwanted thoughts I got really triggered by a picture while doing ERP. Now it feels like it all true and it's all denial at this point....😭😭😭😭😭

Hey guys. My name is Wyatt Stevenson. I have been struggling big time with Pure O OCD, and I have to say this has been the most difficult time of my life. I don’t think anything will ever be as difficult as this was for me. I was suicidal for a while because of it and yes I know that’s selfish but I feel so much guilt from the HOCD because I am deeply in love with my girlfriend. It sucks because I know my reality but it’s like this subconscious villain screwing with me all day. I’m getting better but this has completely ruined our romantic side of our relationship. We are stronger together than apart and this is hopefully just another challenge we can conquer. Any advice on how I can give my girlfriend peace even tho she is along for the HOCD ride? Please someone respond I have been struggling so much.

My biggest triggers for myself are my past and how I looked/didn’t try at all and was always a “tomboy.” Like I look at myself in pictures and think I knew then and looked gay. Then at the same time I get thoughts “you didn’t know in your past because you didn’t have a boyfriend until you were 19” like I only think I’m gay now because I get rocd like thoughts in relationships as well. Also, sexual stuff. I have always been super aroused and wanted to get off to lesbians kissing, porn, erotica, fantasy, etc. that was my go to. I get more aroused thinking of that than straight sex and makes me feel like I would rather want it with a girl because of the stronger response. Like I would enjoy it more with a girl than a guy and only don’t want to because of suppression type things. I have no desire at all to try or do anything with a woman at all, but these are my biggest hurdles. I’m making scripts about it, looptapes, and even started to watch certain tv shows I know have these scenes in the show but I still can’t bring that fear down and it’s always there. I don’t know what else I can do? Patience? It feels like I can’t get over it because I am certain/convinced I’m gay now.

In the last few weeks I’ve developed extreme death anxiety to the point where it’s all I think about and I can barely function day to day. I have a therapist who’s telling me to do cbt for thoughts but I don’t know how to. Can anyone give me some advice on how to manage this extreme fear? I want to st least live as normally as possible but right now I can’t.

Plz answer this !!

For those who are on medication, roughly how long did the increased anxiety last for when you first started taking the medication?

Hey, can anyone give me some advice? I stopped my SSRI sooner than I should’ve (I can explain the circumstances in the comments), but I think I’m having withdrawal symptoms. For a week now I’ve had vertigo-like symptoms, some nausea, eye strains (like blinking and moving my eyes side-to-side), and difficulty concentrating on work. I thought at first it was side effects of my first COVID shot, then thought it was motion sickness or “cyber sickness” (spending too much time looking at my phone, work monitors, and tv). But the timeline of when I stopped taking it matches up when I first started feeling symptoms. Any suggestions to work myself out of the hole I foolishly dug myself into? I do NOT want to go back on it, I’d rather try and tough out the symptoms, if possible, so I can be free of medications in my body.

SOMEONE please respond. I don’t know If this is intrusive thoughts but my sister compared me to a person appearance who is not soo good-looking and I don’t mean this in a rude way. Then later on she started saying she’s joking but my brain already believes her? I’m literally panicking thinking I’m ugly idk what’s wrong with me. I start to believe anything. I’m so insecure about my self already and feel like I look like a catfish cause I use makeup and filters but still its still me right? I hate this what do I do. Idk why I believe her now it’s my brain making me think that way :(