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Hellooo I am a student struggling with a lot of anxiety/ ocd symptoms so much so that I am now in a php program. My anxiety got very bad over having a bathroom accident to the point I wasn’t eating properly and when I started taking meds it just kicked my anxiety into overdrive due to side-effect potential and I am now…here. I’ve been in this program for a week and can say I’ve definetely improved A LOT. I’ve started to eat more and feel so much more at peace but a lot of that has to do with the fact that I am not at school and don’t have that giant stressor looming over me. I came on here to say that honestly speaking I am pretty scared to go back. I know it’s not good or the point of the program because eventually I’m gonna have to go back and am projected to go back in about two weeks but I am just so scared because school is quite unpredictable for me. I’m surrounded by a lot of people there and just have such a lack of control and I struggle so much. I guess I’m mourning the fact that in a few weeks this is all going to be over and this past weekend was one of the first weekends I’ve had where I wasn’t constantly thinking about Monday or thinking about how fast time is passing and generally just having the Sunday scaries all the time. It sucks a lot to feel this way and everyone I know tells me to take it one day at a time but it feels like that’s all I have been doing so far for these past two months and it just landed me here all the while I constantly had that “make it to Friday” mindset and I couldn’t even enjoy it since I’d just think about Sunday I hate the relationship I’ve developed with school and generally all of this. It feels so overwhelming and I just wanted perspective from people who have been through this or experience similar things to me this is more of a rant so sorry about that.

My contamination ocd is so bad. I don’t want anyone to come into the house who has been out in public because I don’t want them on my furniture or carpet. I feel like it will be dirty. I also don’t like anyone to come in with dirty feet. We take our shoes off but I also don’t want anyone coming in with their socks on because I also feel like that is the same thing as wearing your shoes around…walking around in the garage transfers onto their socks and that’s the reason I don’t want them in the house. It’s a problem for my husband but we have lived this way for so long that it’s hard to break the cycle. My thoughts are that we wash our clothes everyday but we can’t wash our furniture. Has anyone had anything similar that could give me some suggestions?

I was doing fine and right now I’m ok but I still have this mental anxiety. Basically I keep seeing images when I’m in the bathroom of me putting the paper on my mouth or face. It’s so gross. I can’t get the image out of my head. It’s based on a true event like I really did go to the bathroom but I didn’t do that I know I didn’t because I checked my face and my mouth after there was nothing there no drops of anything and I didn’t even lift my hand to do something like that. Also in the moment I didn’t have anxiety but as soon as I washed my hands and stepped out of the bathroom how come I got anxiety and images then? Well actually I didn’t have some anxiety during but the thing is I’ve been paranoid about using the bathroom for a few days now so every time I go I get scared. Actually not every time it’s only really specific times. I don’t understand any of this if anyone has any answers please help me. This even affects me when I shower and it’s ruining my life.

Hi! I have contamination ocd. Last night I was laying in bed and realized I had put on a pair of shorts that were laying on my floor that were dirty. I think what happened is I was getting dressed one day, and I put these shorts on, then I had a bad feeling I was super scared I accidentally had urinary incontinence like a drop but I also felt like that was just OCD because I was thinking about it, and I checked my shorts and there was like a tiny wet spot, but I had just gotten out of the shower and I think I just let it go as me not drying off my body well enough before getting dressed. I put the shorts in my bathroom to put back on after a shower, and that was a few days ago. Last night, I put the shorts back on not thinking, and fell asleep. Now I'm going through an OCD cycle, and trying to order new bedding so I can throw the ones I slept in away. I really just don't have the money though. I don't want to throw it away but now I'm scared it touched urine, even though I don't really believe it all the way but I definitely am feeling disgusting. Whether it was urine or just water, or I'm just overthinking it and it was a different pair of shorts, should I throw my bedding and order new ones? If it's hypothetically urine, would my bedding be clean after I throw it in the washer? What would a non-ocd person do? It might've not even been that pair of shorts, because I can remember not putting those shorts in my dirty laundry for some reason. But I also remember it being that pair of shorts.. 😂 Idk. I'm very stressed out. I want to order new bedding so bad.

Sitting on a machine at the gym and worry another man just used the chair and inworry bout groinals. I adjusted my feet which caused more groinals. I know its ocd and dont want the groinals and me shifting doesnt mean anything

Hi, sort of a vent, idk. This year i had a really bad time with my ocd and autism. I had a sudden and unexpected change that happened and it sent me into a spiral. I felt so out of control and that made my triggered certain things with my ocd so everything just started going downhill. A relationship i had that didn't last long cause i couldn't get my brain to calm down and then i lost 2 friends that I'd known for years. Even though i acknowledged that the friendships weren't great and they weren't the right people for me, i still found it really hard to come to terms with and i keot overthinking and going over every single detail of what happened. It's just hard enough for me to make friends as it is and even though those people weren't really great for me it's still like, great now in back to being alone. Im waiting for my counselling to start (I've been on the waiting list for ages now) and i still have 3 friends i talk to but they have their own things going on, i don't feel comfortable bringing up what im going through because i know it is likely to trigger them or might bring them down in some way and honestly they've been through so much, i just want them to be happy and i don't want to put anything else on them. But then that leaves me feeling like i wanna cry as soon as I stop talking to them/hanging out, cause im carrying so much and I'm surrounded by family that just diminish what im going through and don't respect me. They help me with some things i can't lie and i still have a connection with them but im just over here wondering what exactly am i supposed to do? Theres always something going on and i know thats just life but this year, the way things have been getting on top of me i just constantly feel so tired and done with it all. Ive considered going in-patient but being a black person who is so often misunderstood, i don't know if i would feel safe in those places. Also i know I'd feel so uncomfortable because my need for things to be so clean and perfect and orderly is overwhelming enough when im in my own space or at my family's home let alone some random place I've never been. Idk im just tired of my brain and life right now. To think my day was going well as i was watching one of my favourite shows before i got a call telling me i needed to leave the house to do xyz last minute and I've just been feeling miserable and irritated since then. I can't go back to my show either cause i would start associating everything with something negative and overthinking again. It would be amazing to just be a vegetable rn.

I saw a post saying that thinking about something for a while will bring it to you. Now I’m scared and panicking because I think about illnesses and getting a disease almost everyday. What should I do? Im very scared

Hey guys! So, for those who have contamination OCD and that struggle with “taking showers normally”, do you have any tips for showering with OCD? It is hindering me from getting into the gym as frequently as I’d like because showering with OCD is just so exhausting (more exhausting than going to the gym, funnily enough) so any tips on how you overcame/are overcoming something like this? Thanks so much in advance!

This is my first post.. For years now I’ve had a severe fear of getting an STD, having one would make me feel unlovable and undesirable. It first started when my mom allowed homeless people to live in our garage, use our bathroom, and other parts of the house. I feel like that is understandable, they are dirty people and everything in my house became disgusting after their arrival. That was about five years ago, I moved out a few days ago. After awhile of them being at that house, I often found myself worrying about the toilet seats and shower and so I would stand to pee (I’m female), cover the seat with toilet paper when I had to go #2, and wear shoes in the shower. Failing to do any would cause me to obsess over thinking I got an STD. After some more time it got worse, I wouldn’t touch my mom, doorknobs, handles, or anything in the house without a paper towel or something to protect my skin. Even if I was running late, I had to find something to open the door so my skin wasn’t contaminated. The anxiety spread to the outside world as well. I don’t touch doors or anything many people have including money. If I have to touch it my fingers start tingling and feel dirty until I get to wash my hands. As I mentioned earlier, I moved. I turned 18 on the 19th of October and really want to get better. I’m unsure how to get over my fear of STDs, it feels like anything I listed could result in catching an STD if I touch a dirty door and then go to the bathroom I feel I could get one. It’s exhausting and I wish I didn’t, does anyone else deal with this? Any advice? Please help😭

Hello all. I have been doing really well with my contamination OCD but an event from my past stuck in my head yesterday and last night and made me miss sleep so I thought I would share my story because people have helped me in the past after I have posted. I coached my child's sports team and they finished in first place for the regular season for two years in a row. In the second season there was an injury late in the season and we didn't make it to the championship game but I am pretty okay with that cuz I don't feel responsible in any way. The first season we lost a double elimination championship game. We had The Bases Loaded in the bottom of the last inning and didn't score and then lost an extra innings. I started to remember how bad I felt and how I felt responsible for the loss even though there was no direct decision that I made that caused the loss. I then started to reassure myself that everyone's disappointment is dealt with and ends eventually. I then started to think that the loss will never leave them cuz it'll stay with their soul even after they pass away. I don't often think of this but something yesterday triggered it for me. Any feedback would be appreciated especially for those who feel something happened that they can't make right and get past in their own head.

I’m losing it completely, I’ve never had a flare up like this with contamination. I’m so burnt out seriously , I feel like I’m going insane. My hands are cracking and bleeding from washing them and my family’s getting very tired of me , they think I should go stay in a hospital or something for a while because of how bad it is. OCD as taken away my relationships with people , I can’t sit on the couch anymore with my family , I can’t hug my dog anymore , I can’t relax ever. I just needed to write this down as I really can’t process my feelings right now as I have too many thoughts , any advice?

Good evening, Does anyone has good tips on how to manage the handwashing because I try some many ways but I still manage to backfired. My problem is I don’t count right so I have to constantly start over

Please no nastiness. Myself and my boyfriend have known each other since I was 14. I met him because he and my sister were best friends. Anyway, I grew up and thought he was attractive. We tried getting together when I was 18 but I ran off. Anyway, we didn’t speak for over 10 years. I knew my sister and him kissed and had an incline they slept together but neither of them told me and my boyfriend said possibly but I don’t remember. Anyway, we have been together 10 months and my sister told my mum. My sister is telling me to leave him because he ‘lied to me’ but I don’t want to leave him. Then, she told me that in 2019 they exchanged texts but I was in another relationship at that point a long term one at that, so again my current partner wasn’t my concern. She then randomly stated that my boyfriend grabbed her bum when me and him met up again when we first got together (I don’t believe this for a second) I have also confronted my partner and he said absolutely not. When I had the incline that they slept together I said to my partner that I didn’t care, however it has come out now and naturally I feel a bit grossed out BUT he is very loyal to me, I trust him and ultimately I love him. Obviously I have mental images running through my heads and what ifs and makes me feel sick.

Just needed to tell someone about this because I have no one tell it to. I've been keeping this to myself for so much time now. Everyday when I wake up and my mind gets fully concisous I start thinking and keeping tracks of whatever stuff I thought was important. I don't intentional think about an important thought but somehow random thoughts like having conversation with someone, watching TV, etc. leads to chain of thought which turns out to be something important. Something that would have impact on my life. No matter what I do somehow random thoughts in my mind will lead to a very important thought. So considering the importance of such thoughts I start making list as the day passes because I fear that I might forget such important thoughs. The list usually goes from 10 to 30 thoughts per day. Before going to bed, I try remembering all these thoughts. Everyday there's a new list of thoughts and I start saving such lists of thoughts in my mind for every passing day including those days which have passed. You can imagine how many thoughts they become with each passing day. When brain gets so full that it can not save such list of thoughts I get them jotted down in my phone. My mind feel relaxed but then from the next day the lists starts again then my mind reaches its limit again. I jot them down and the cycle keeps going on. Because of this I've stopped thinking in a normal way. I fear doing anything like even watching TV or gaming because I fear it will eventually lead to a new important thought being added to the list. I try doing nothing. I even fear using phone because of this. I try isolating myself. I sometimes feel that because this cycle of saving list of thoughts I'm not actually taking action on any of those very thoughts. I stay lost most of the time. My parents think I have my own some sort of a world in which I live. I know this is not normal but I have no choice but to do it again n' again. Other than this, I suffer from severe somatic ocd and moderate cleaning ocd. Cleaning ocd was severe but ever since thinking ocd got hyped up it became moderate.

ever since last year when i was in my senior year of high school, i started to wipe down things when i’d return back from school. sometimes it would be my iPad (school issued), because i had touched it with greasy hands or when i had placed it somewhere “unsanitary”. i’d only do it once a week, or whenever i felt it was truly dirty in my mind. then i started cleaning my phone, when i saw dust or something get it on after returning to school. honestly, i don’t remember much after that so let’s fast forward. fast forward to around the beginnings of may, we had exams coming up and my best friend was coming over to stay the night and so we could study for exams. i remember that day i cleaned my room from top to bottom, and even when they had arrived i still continued to. i cleaned my phone off, and even their stuff a little. i even had to shower right after waking up, with them still at my house. i also remember prior a couple months to this i had started cleaning things around in my room because i hadn’t properly had my own room up until this year in january. a little later in may came my graduation, i was perfectly fine with people (this line is mostly referring to my parents) touching me, as i let my mother put a necklace on me that day. but, after i was graduated i was kind of stuck at home. so i cleaned stuff more regularly. i got a desk for my room, i built it, and i had to triple clean it in order for it to be clean to me. every month gradually got worse, and i found myself cleaning almost all the time. clorox wipes had become my best friend. and i found myself thinking that my own parents were contaminated. right now, i wish i could go back to may. may was way better, or i’d even go back to june, july, august, and maybe even september. right now i’ve been stuck at home for almost two months without leaving and leaving my thoughts to twirl around in my head. i have online college, and you would think that to distract me from my compulsions. but right now the situation got worse. last week i could go downstairs and sit on the couch (after cleaning it) and eat (then brush my teeth and clean my mouth) and be on my laptop and phone with no worries at all. now i find myself in my bed most hours of the day staying up until sunrise and not leaving to even go to the bathroom, or eat, until it is past 6pm. everything is dirty to me now, my room, my desk, my bed, my sheets, my parents, myself. even after showering, and scrubbing a million times, i’m never clean enough. i’m so scared, and sick of this feeling. and i have a very special event coming up this weekend that i don’t want to miss for anything in the world, i just don’t want to not feel clean for it. i just want my life back, my parents, my friends, my partner. me. i’m too young to have this horrible monster taking control of me, but i just can’t seem to ever find a way out.

as of this year, i’ve started to worry about getting an std or getting pregnant. i only have one partner, both of us are clean, and i would never be exposed directly to an std. but it gets triggered when i try on clothing, or touching a surface and then later on i lick my fingers after eating. it’s insane, i know, but for some reason it eats me up inside with the knowledge that stds only happen with skin to skin contact and you can’t get it from trying on clothing. does anyone else go through this?

Hi guys! My name is Tessa and I just got on this app and wanted to share my story because reading other people’s story’s so far have brought some comfort to me so hopefully this will help some other people not feel alone. First things first I have Emetaphobia at the most severe level there is. As a kid I was never really scared of it ever until one day in 3rd grade kid had thrown up on my bus. I had never had a panic attack or anxiety attack ever untill that day and I didn’t even know what those words meant at the time. I was on that bus and I immidiatly grabbed my earbuds out of my bag while shaking and put them in my ears and played music as loud as I could while pushing them into my ears as hard as I could so I wouldn’t hear him doing it or hear anyone talking about it while scrunching my eyes shut as hard as I could so I wouldn’t see anything at all. I then started crying by myself in my bus seat and shaking super hard and one of the kids on my bus saw and came and sat next to me and comforted me all the way home. I got off the bus and had to go home and I laid on the couch with a bowl because I was so scared that since that kid threw up that for some reason I was gonna throw up. Since then I have had a crippling fear of getting sick to my stomach. It started out not so bad but got worse and worse as the years went on. By the time middle school hit I would start to begin the compulsion of not burping because I was afraid that if I burped a little stuff would come up or I would be scared that one of the times it wasn’t gonna be a burp. So I forced myself to never burp then eventually I couldn’t burp at all even if I felt it and tried to get it out. I couldn’t burp all the way into highschool untill sophomore year when I had to train myself how to burp again. That took a while and I have it back for the most part but I still have complications doing it and it causes me problems now like if I can’t get a burp out for a few hours and it’s stuck it will cause I digestion then make me feel nauseated untill I burp. And that’s gotten in the way of so so so many thing because then I feel nauseous and have panic attacks all the time that are super severe and even had to go to the ER one time bc now my anxiaty/panic attacks have gotten so severe that they mimic having a stroke without having a stroke. My fear has prevented me from doing anything I want in my life and enjoying it. It controls what I eat, when I eat, what I eat, how much I eat, and if I eat. It controls what I do on the daily. It controls where I go and at what times for example I have really bad anxiaty and going to the fair and going on rides bc I’m afraid that I will get sick or mostly someone else on that ride will get sick while I’m on it. I overthink everything I do befor I do it so I can create a complete thought out strategy to avoid anything to do with me or someone else getting sick to the stomach. It’s getting even worse now and it’s getting more and more noticable to myself because now I can’t leave my house without a small bottle of medical grade hand sanitizer that I use after touching anything someone else has touched repeatedly so I don’t get sick. I started sleeping with a towel at the side of my bed laid on the ground just in case for some reason if I ever threw up while in my room i wouldn’t have to clean it up or anything and it would just land in the towel and I could take it outside or something. It’s horrible. And I bring tums everywhere with me. If anyone else has this fear that turned into OCD please tell me about it or if you have overcome it please share❤️

I didn't tell anyone this because I was so ashamed, but when my grandpa was alive, he used to be in and out of hospital a lot because he had many problems, and for some reason I always kept telling myself in my head, "If you don't do this or you're not able to do this then grandpa will die." I did this for a while and felt like I had no control over these thoughts. I actually forgot this even happened because he died in 2019, but when I remembered it triggered me. And after years of still having these thoughts leading up to his death and carrying out these activities, one morning, my dad got a call and I heard him saying "oh no", in a very kind of sad disappointed way and I knew exactly what had happened and I started to cry in bed. When I finally managed to pull myself together, I went downstairs, still sad but played it off with my mum and acted like nothing had happened. A few hours later my dad was speaking with my mum privately and my dad told me and my sister that my grandpa had died. These thoughts made me think I was a really horrible person for ages because I never felt normal, but I didn't seem to think much about how I thought my thoughts made it happen, but days and weeks later, I felt like it was my fault because I didn't do all of these activities right. To this day, I haven't really had any of these, "this person will die if you don't do this" thoughts because I feel like it's only when the person is ill that I think that but I'm not sure how my brain works. Sometimes I feel like I'm making all of this up even though I can tell that I'm genuinely struggling, but a lot of the time It's hard to know how I feel. I used to be able to touch things back then though, and now one of the things I really struggle with sometimes is touching things. It doesn't matter if it looks clean in some cases, I honestly don't understand it half of the time. I sometimes have to roll my sleeves down to touch things, then sometimes I have to rub my sleeves together to make it feel like it's gone away but I know that it hasn't. A lot of the time it's when things look or smell dirty or my mind seems to think it's dirty. It can make me feel really uncomfortable and my chest sinks and feels tingly when it gets triggering. I get told sometimes that I'm being overdramatic, silly or even mental for acting this way.

I wanted to share a huge win in the hopes of inspiring y'all to see every situation as an ERP opportunity. My partner started weekly injections for health reasons, and self-administers them at home. I've observed and almost tried once, but chickened out at the last minute - it just wigged me out too much. Yesterday morning I committed to trying my darndest. Last night, we took it nice and slow, I almost bailed 3x, each time I asked for a minute to breathe and encourage myself and I was able to get it done! The biggest trap I kept falling into was "why does this bother me, this shouldn't bother me! I'm not afraid of this!" Instead I used my NER tools by acknowledging "this bothers me, this is hard, I feel anxious and uncomfortable, AND I want to do it. I believe I can do this. I'll be proud when I'm done. Let's keep going." HOORAY!

So for basically half my life, ever since I was a teenager I've struggled with sex addiction and it has effected me in many different ways. I'm convinced that I have trauma that goes back to my teenage years due to being exposed to pornography with basically no knowledge of anything on the topic of sex. This also lead me to inappropriate activities with people online relating to sex and I have a lot of anxiety and guilt about this. It also desensitized my immature brain to seeking very inappropriate, disturbing content that I didn't think much of at the time and it bothers me that I was put through that when I didn't know better. Nowadays, this is all still a problem for me. There have been times where I have some reckless things just to get a high from pleasure. A year ago this happened, and now ever since I've been worrying about my health since. I've been worried for so long that I have some kind of infection, an STI, or that I've damage my body because of this addiction. I haven't told anyone about this because I'm too embarrassed too and I'm just worried about how my family will react to it. They know nothing about this part of my life at all. I've always worried about them finding out and not being able to handle the embarrassment and shame of it all. I've only told my therapist pieces of all of this, but I haven't opened up about wanting to get checked out for any kind of infections I've given myself because I was just so addicted to finding ways to get that high. Oddly enough, being reminding of the acting out just makes me want to go back to chasing the high all over again just to escape so I don't have to worry about it, but that only makes me feel worse. I don't know what to do.