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for those with sexual orientation ocd.. if you are comfortable sharing (and if you remember), what was the moment/person/place/etc. that first triggered your sexual orientation ocd? i’m just genuinely curious and want to see if there are any patterns. for me it was the summer before my freshman year of high school (i am currently 21). i was going to a pride parade with some family friends and was texting a guy that i ended up dating for a while. to be quite frank, he was a total idiot. he asked what was up and i told him that i was going to a pride parade with some friends. his immediate response was “wait does that mean that you are gay??”. i remember that i got this weird sensation of panic after i read that text. and his question like stayed lingering in my mind for longer than it should have. long story short, my sexual orientation ocd really kicked in halfway through my freshman year of high school..but i didn’t realize that that was what it was until about 2 years ago.

All of my intrusive thoughts feel so real and I’m having daily panic attacks over them. I’m so scared all of the time and I don’t know what’s going on or why it’s getting so much worse all of a sudden. I hate this so much, I just want to feel normal. Can someone please give me advice on what to do? I am going to a therapist but I’m really hesitant to even bring up the content of my intrusive thoughts.

I've been struggling recently. It's like I'm getting overwhelmed not just by what I've lost due to this illness, but the fact that I don't seem to have the foundation necessary to move forward. At 36 I've never been on a date, I live alone, and am very introverted. I like being around people but I struggle to talk at length with anyone. I don't really have any friendships that I find fulfilling. People like me, but they don't typically want to spend much time with me. I have a job that I sometimes really enjoy, but it doesn't pay well. I have a counseling appointment scheduled, but not for over 3 weeks. I struggle to pass so much time by myself and things I otherwise might enjoy I'm either too tired too do or they now seem pointless because I'm not doing them with or for anyone.

Hello all, I have two questions (posted at the end). So, I have harm ocd/fear of going crazy, and recently I feel like I’ve been getting better at letting intrusive thoughts sit with me without me analyzing them. However, now I’ve been experiencing unwanted urges/feelings, which I feel like are waaay worse. Today, I was with my dog, and had the intrusive thought of snapping her neck, and then I feel like I felt my hands want to do it. The worst part is that I didn’t feel immediate anxiety afterwards making it feel real, like I actually wanted to do it. Eventually, I thought myself into anxiety. I’ve actually grown to like anxiety because it helps me recognize intrusive thoughts as unwanted…and I hate when I don’t immediately feel it. My biggest compulsion is definitely rumination. 1: what are good ways for responding to unwanted urges (that feel so so real it’s scary) 2: what are good ways for responding to intrusive thoughts/urges when you start to feel less anxiety around them?

Currently reading about ERP. Is it as hard as it sounds? Lol

can anyone talk???

How do you deal with toxic siblings? I’m sick of this at this point. I am christian so I just keep forgiving at forgetting but my sister has zero respect for me and she makes that clear day by day. She has never even made an apology or attempted to respect my boundaries and mocks me while I tell her them constantly. Whenever she does something I don’t like and I speak for myself, she becomes rude and either mocks me or intentionally sings and speaks over me. I’m not even given the opportunity to share how I feel. I refuse to continue being treated like this.

Someone just wrote a really triggering thing about how they realized they were gay after therapy and im so scared and numb and i dont think i can live with this any longer and i dont wanna be gay i think idek anymore

Has anyone with health anxiety/OCD had a rough day today, lol…? I was out today, and it’s just been one thing after the other! First, we had to SPRINT to catch the train because we had gone to the wrong station (it was a whole ordeal) and had to basically run through a city in under 5 minutes - it was stressful, and my heart was POUNDING. I started to get a pain where my ‘heart’ is… (of course, it probably wasn’t my heart, but - health anxiety 😊) and (thank GOD) we managed to get on the train, and it was extremely crowded. I don’t usually mind crowds at all, but a combination of me ruminating on this pain in my ‘heart’ and being squashed amongst people in a boiling hot train, led to me having a panic attack. My mind was saying, ‘what if you have a heart attack and nobody can help you because it’s so crowded?’ etc. I know that’s stupid, but like OCD, health anxiety creates so much physical emotion that it’s incredibly hard to think straight, and you go into fight or flight. I didn’t tell my friends, so I just stood there, trying to do deep breathing, terrified that I was going to collapse all over a slight pain that was likely just a stitch, lmaooo. And then (the plot thickens) I was waiting with my friends for my other friend because she was getting her eyebrows waxed. We were sat in the waiting room, and I suddenly started to feel my ear crunching - I don’t know how to describe it with any other words… I adjusted my jaw and was waiting for it to go back to normal, and then I started to taste blood, and my anxiety was like… ‘This is it… you’re going to curl over and pass away in the waiting room of a waxing parlour’ I was panicking so much but didn’t wanna embarrass myself…. Hopefully (if anyone’s anything like me) you’ll feel less alone after reading that, and I’ll be really interested to see if anyone else has had any weird dramatic health anxiety stories recently…

Hi I'm very desperate. When I read about erp I think it's never gonna work for me because I can't accept them to be true. Apparently I maybe have OCD since I have 7 year old (I'm 21 now and my psychologist and psychiatrist that I see since June tell me they're think i have it but I don't have the time to tell them everything. I really want to talk to them everyday). I was anxious about health and death, I always seek reassurance by Google it or tell my mom, its better now but always here. Primary school I was afraid to go to school I don't remember it because its get better. In middle school I go to another department and the second year I was not okay because I dont really have friend and guys do stupid shit like trying to make me tripped. So I thought everyone pity me and make fun of me. The next year a friend make me laugh and I pee on myself,I go to the bathroom and 3 older girl saw me and mock me. So everything get harder, I feel ever more like shit, I don't want to go to school even more and for me everyone know and talk/ mock me on my back. I was really anxious when ppl look at me or laugh near me. Then I go to high school not wanting to but have to. I don't really have friend in it but I become friend with friends of mine and old middle school classmates. I meet my boyfriend and I got better. I feel love I stop doing or less complusion. And I started to accept everything that happen. I thought I was really too hard to myself. But then I have a friend birthday, I drink to much even if I tell him I don't (to my bf). My friends tell me I was on the moon,and I even cry( don't remember it ) The morning I feel not good and my bf was angry because I don't do like I said, he said I disgust him. Then I thought that maybe I've done something horrible like cheated on him. I have to seak reassurance to my friend (my boyfriend and little sister wasn't here and its make me feel more anxious because I know they're always have an eyes on me ), I note snapchat message and photo with the hour and what I do on a memo. Then I start to feel bad about everytime I drink to much and have black out. "Maybe I do something bad and don't remember it. Maybe something bad happen to me " So I fell guilt when I'm with him because I love him and he don't deserve anything bad. I have also think about my old bad dream I have with a member of my family and feel like shit. I do a similar dream so I though about it again and feel awful. I have another one with another member. I have intrusive though everyday about being a sexually instable person, I have sexual intrusive though on every close person I have family, pets, friend and even person I don't know but I'm with (like on the bus ) I also have intrusive though about not loving my boyfriend. Its really hard because I accept and get better because of my old compulsion of death, health and middle school event. And now I have worst intrusive though. Its really hard I want to punish me by doing mut*lat*on . If I have to not respond to the intrusive though It's like I tell them its true and I can't, I can't be that person

extremely long rant incoming . i don't think there's any hope for me left. i can't explain my symptoms, ocd or whatever this is has become second nature to me, i don't know what it feels to be "normal", sometimes i even forget i have ocd because all these rituals just feel so automatic and like the norm to me. i wake up taking it for granted that there's something wrong with me, or there's something i need to look out for, i assume i am a threat to everyone and must "control" myself and my environment by doing compulsions, my pocd is so fucking stupid, i woke up doing checking compulsions to ensure im not attracted to a 12 yo anime boy (killua from hxh) and i felt so paralyzed by fear, later on i was talking to my brother and he was telling me about his ex-gf and i was almost unconsciously checking for feelings of jealousy, throughout the entire interaction i was plagued by uncomfortable sensations and had to check i wasn't enjoying anything, one of my friend's 13yo brother was talking to us in our groupchat today and i had to withdraw from the conversation fearing what if i found myself attracted to him, this is literally all i do all day i would rather drink toilet water than have a meaningful interaction with a really young boy out of fear of being attracted, seriously. in the past few days ive also had 3 intrusive dreams in a row, they felt so heavy, and you know that feeling when you wake up from a dream and you think that it was all real? that's how i felt. i woke up and the first thing i felt was immense guilt and hopelessness (i remember hitting the wall out of. frustration) because i thought i had acted on my thoughts and it would take me a while to snap back to reality. i don't feel miserable or angry. i feel numb. neutral. even happy at times. not because of this, but because this is the new normal to me, and i don't understand why my brain decided this is the way i have to live now to ensure my well-being. i don't think i have a choice. i guess you could say i could spend time with my family members, talk to young boys, and ignore my ocd, but i can't take that risk. it's just too much to bare.

I am literally so worried and overwhelmed right now. I have no idea what the hell is going on with me. I woke up from a nap today and I had a terrible thought. The worst is that I felt like I was considering it. I thought of doing something terrible to my mom and my sister. And I think I CONSIDERED IT. What the actual freak!! 😭 I feel like I am a psychopath. That’s it. I feel like I’m a freaking psychopath and like I want to do all these things but I’m trying so so so so hard not to do it or for it not to happen. I am so freaked out because I feel like I will end up doing it sooner or later, at some point of my life. I don’t know how to escape it, I don’t know what to do. I feel like I’ll get home and do all what my thoughts say. I feel like this evil side will take over me. I feel evil. And I don’t know how to escape it. I hate it, I flew all through the country to come to see my sister and I was so excited to see her, and now this horrible thing has ruined everything. I am terrified. Help, please.

Is anyone here interested in reality/shifting or manifestation? I was rlly into manifestation before but I kept obsessing over is it working or not and I tried to shift a couple times but I never could

I think my therapist doesn’t believe I have ocd, and that in itself is a bit frustrating because I’m not even sure I have ocd, where would I go to find out for sure? Because she doesn’t seem open to finding out if I do or not.

Has anybody has real event ocd around not being authentic around someone? As in, you were tense and not yourself? It comes more with chronic regret as oppose to chronic guilt. Just wondering if anybodys had that particular theme?

How do I get over my fear of aging?

it feels refreshing when i have those periods throughout the day where i completely forget that i have hocd

18+ ONLY This is kinda stupid but I’ve never done anything sexual or romantic with anyone ever. The most I’ve done is a light hug and that’s it😬. I keep thinking and wishing I had those experiences in high school, even tho that’s so stupid. I feel guilty for feeling this way. Any insight?

My husband’s current energy and attitude makes me want to go somewhere else. He’s all stressed because we have a lot of housework to do. It’s on my list, but I have other things I NEED to focus on first—things due tomorrow. His attitude is really starting to trigger me. My chest is tightening; my stress and anxiety are bounding. My motivation and productivity are plummeting. I’ve gently shared this with him and am trying to meditate with my dog, but he keeps creeping on that too. Any suggestions are welcome!

I know that I’m not gay, but there’s always these thoughts telling me that I am. Or that I might be, there will be intrusive thoughts that make me cringe and make me stop whatever I’m doing because that simply isn’t me. It’s not only with gay thoughts, it seems like every week a new form of intrusive thoughts take over and make me argue with myself. For instance, one week it may be gay thoughts, the next it might be self harm thoughts, and the next it’ll be whether I love my girlfriend or not. I try to let the thoughts happen but i fear that if I do then they might be true and I know that they aren’t so I try to fight them.