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I was raised Mormon and was very unhappy. I'm 17 and believe in God etc. but I don't want to be affiliated with a religion. And I feel like there's something wrong with that. I need advice.

Advice needed 8 years ago I had the worst experience ever with intrusive images. They were flashing like crazy. They felt immersive. They felt real. My first worry was “what if these are from god” and I found that other people experience that I proved this wrong… however it’s resurfaced Now it’s “your images look weird… nobody else’s images look like this” So I check my memory But god, it’s difficult to know what’s accurate and what’s not How do I prove it’s not supernatural? Not from god? Not from something else? Not something more than OcD? I’m afraid there’s a message - something telling me to do something bad I just want my old head back and not being in this space Please help

I have this issue that I need help with and I would like to hear if anyone else has gone through something like this along with any tips. A few months back I had what was arguably my worst OCD episode in my whole life, it lasted a whole week, in this week I felt nothing but constant anxiety and obsession over this thought, it was like nothing in life mattered except this thought and that lead me to really become disconnected from what’s around me and become so occupied in my own head. After this week, I felt extremely numb and disconnected from myself and my identity which lead me to go down a spiral of disconnection and I had a lot of nostalgic sadness due to thinking “I miss the old days when things were so simple and I didn’t have severe ocd” and this caused me to become very sick of ocd thoughts to the point of suppressing them. Now it’s been quite some time and I have become much calmer but I still feel 2 main things from this extremely bad OCD episode that have stuck with me. 1) I feel extremely disconnected from my identity, my thoughts and emotions, I cannot name my emotions nor embrace them anymore and I can’t think straight (brain fog). 2) that sense of continuous background anxiety that I experienced in that week in my bad OCD episode has stuck with me and now I feel that anxiety all the time for no particular reason along with feeling dull, sad and disconnected. I feel like I have unresolved emotions and experiences from all this but at the same time I feel like I can’t point out anything specific that is causing me to feel this way. I have searched up symptoms for generalised anxiety disorder because of my continuous anxiety but I do not seem to match any of the symptoms, in fact I currently never feel anxious about anything except things related to my bad OCD episode. Please do not hesitate to leave any helpful comments if you have any :) and thank you in advance.

I don’t even know what to think or do anymore. I just think my fears are true and I’m in denial about it. I’ve been struggling with school and motivation for awhile now. My parents and family are amazing and have been paying for my education and I keep messing up. I am super lazy and I miss lectures, and I keep always telling myself I’m going to do better and end up barely passing at the end of the semester. I know we aren’t our thoughts but we are our actions and I feel like I choose to live content with being a burden and selfish. The fact that I choose to listen to the thoughts in my head and do compulsions shows that I really don’t care about being better because if I did I would just do it. I always keep thinking at this point that the morals that I had before OCD 3 years ago are gone. I keep questioning if I am not acting on the thoughts because that is my values and who I am or if I am just not acting on them because of luck. I don’t know if I am not acting on them because of how I feel rather than how acting on them would harm others. I am just so weak, and I don’t know if I deserve to live the rest of my life. And I feel so fucking guilty for saying this but there are times where I think about all of this and it doesn’t motivate me to change at all and I just can’t stand myself for that. I just feel like a sociopath who is constantly whining and complaining and screwing up. I used to feel like I did compulsions because I cared about protecting people and now I just think my compulsions are centered around my own selfishness and anxiety. It’s like there are times where I’m not trying to prevent myself from doing something wrong or trying to make sure that I don’t have bad intentions which is so messed up with the thoughts that I have.

Does anyone else suffer from the lack of motivation to do anything but obsess, that they lack the initiative or desire to take care of themselves. Such as proper bathing, etc. I always thought OCD was cleanliness and order, but my life is chaos, anxiety and misunderstandings and conflict in my home life. They think I initiate the conflict, but I only react to how I'm being treated to due to my OCD/anxiety, but they treat me as if nothing is wrong with me and are not supportive at all. Every day is a repeat of the day before. A never ending downward spiral. I'm convinced at times, I've seriously somehow unleashed demons that are oppressing my life and my especially my mind, and it scares me to death. I feel like I'm spiraling towards an abyss and once I plummet into it, I will be lost to true insanity. I used to take such pride in taking care of myself and things. I was constantly tidying, arranging, straightening things out of order. Now it's like, I'm exhausted from being in fight or flight, but I still suffer from the crippling anxiety attacks. Highly agoraphobia, so I leave the house only for doctors appointments and the like. I have no friends. It's a very miserable life. I've lost all hope. I posted a short, yet rambling bio as my first post. Hopefully, someone can relate to it and this post! Hugs to you all, Liz

I’m really struggling these past couple days. I had a thought like “what if my anxiety turn into happiness? Or what if this isn’t anxiety what I’m feeling? Like whose to say what anxiety is? What if this feeling I’m having towards harmful intrusive thoughts is happiness, thus meaning I like the thoughts or want to act?” Idk I feel really deep in the rabbit hole. Like I’ve thought myself to no return. Constantly checking and thinking about my feelings. I’m numb. Can’t remember coping skills. I feel very confused. I’m having obvious distress and anxiety but I keep thinking what if I think that’s a good feeling or happy feeling? Because like my brain is all twisted up. Idk. It doesn’t make sense

I ruminate or spiral about my current job and career. Should I stay in my job? Should I leave? Do I even deserve this job? Is this job helping me grow? I constantly think about past job failings or times I felt I was treated unfairly or not respected. I always constantly question if I want to stay in this career at all. What I should study next? Will it even be worth it? Etc... Does this sound like OCD? I end up studying something new but then spiraling and rumination prevent me from putting all my eggs in one basket to follow through. The entire time I was in college...I cried everyday and questioned my career. Before I entered college I spent over 2 years obsessing over what career to choose. What is this???

I feel like I am doomed and I am so afraid of the next bad thing coming to me. I feel like I’ve been through so much trauma in life already and I don’t want more of it but I know that it will still come. That is life. I feel so overwhelmed right now. I want a break. I tried all weekend to make myself feel safe but today has sucked mentally. Now I have to jump back into the workweek tomorrow and put a smile on my face and pretend like I am “normal” when inside I am crying like a baby and scared of what bad stuff is going to come to me next.

I'm kind of a techie person and I've got a PSVR2 headset and controllers. I like playing games with stories to progress as opposed to those VR "experiences" that are more like a playground for playing with the engine's physics and things like that. I find storied games more immersive and easier to lose yourself in I've noticed when I'm feeling really anxious or intrusive thoughts are bothering me a lot, I'll play VR to distract myself. I don't know if it's an avoidance compulsion to try to shut out the intrusive thoughts and anxiety they bring Does anyone else have any escapism habits like this?

I feel like I am at the top of the age bracket here. I have lived so long with OCD and finally getting targeted help. It fascinates and frightens me. I wish I had this earlier in my life.

i am really really struggling. recently people haven't been answering me on here and i feel insane. i am at 150 mg of sertraline and i technically feel better but it's freaking me out. im scared because my obsessions are lessened so does that mean i don't care anymore?!? im really scared of going insane, cheating, being a bad person. the obsessions of these ideas are causing me to actually get upset outwardly which makes it seem even more real. i also have been thinking i may have bpd and that's consuming and im scared and idk why. please help me please

Is anyone else on here who is a Christian, struggling with the back and forth of letting the thoughts pass, but also feeling the constant NEED to fight them because were supposed to “take our thoughts captive” and I don’t want to feel like I’m accepting the thoughts and feelings as truth. Sometimes what people advise to do in the church can seem Contradictory to the practices of ERP I feel like it’s a vicious cycle and trap for my mind of how to actually healthily cope with all of this crap. Like I know there’s a healthy balance and combination and validity in the fact that just not fighting it so hard doesn’t mean your accepting it as truth. Like I can think logically about it but then still feel stuck like it’s impossible and I don’t know which way is the right way.

Does anybody else’s intrusive thoughts come in the form of “delusional thoughts”? I’ve been in a terrible episode of hypochondria or ocd for the past 6 months where I have FULLY convinced myself I am developing schizophrenia, it started with becoming really easily overstimulated and not being able to concentrate and now it has spiraled out of control to where I am constantly getting intrusive thoughts center around demonic stuff, which i have never ever believed before, I have always been a skeptic. But now i get these thoughts all the time like “what if this song has hidden demonic meanings?” “What if your wife is a demon” “what if nobody is real and your just in hell” “what if this political figure is being controlled by the devil”, the typical kind of delusional thoughts you would expect from a schizophrenic. Keep in mind I am a literal atheist and all about facts, science and evidence, I am a skeptic. Not only does the fact that I’m even having these thoughts in the first place scare the life out of me, but I have to constantly battle with these thoughts in my head if I believe them or not. I feel like I have to constantly hold myself back from fully going off the deep end, I feel like I have to constantly disprove these thoughts and stop myself from believing them, but they feel so real and it’s scaring me so much. One part of me is like “why can’t we just stop worrying about this, this is delusional” and another part of me is like “what if I actually do need to worry about if these things are true or not, they FEEL true” and I’m just like “wtffff I shouldn’t have to worry about if things like this are true at all in the first Place!” I feel like I have fully lost my mind, and in no time I’m going to lose this little bit of insight I have. I hate these thoughts so much, I don’t want to think about them, but now that they are here, I feel like I can’t forget them. My dpdr is already making everything feel so off and weird and unreal and I feel like it’s only giving these thoughts more credibility and realness. I feel like this could also be partly a terrible form of existential ocd that’s being thrown into the mix with all these “what if thoughts”. Ugh I just want to be normal again ): but I don’t even know what normal feels like anymore because I’m constantly on the lookout for symptoms that I can’t even be normal anymore. Btw: yes I am seeing 2 therapists and a psychiatrist and all of them do not believe I am developing schizophrenia.

I just am so sick of constantly battling my mind it’s so fucking annoying like what’s even the point of spending anymore time on earth if non existence is preferable to existence. I’ve been diagnosed with OCD but more obsessions than compulsions it’s really more of a mental fight than anything psychical although I do have a bit of that contamination OCD. I’ve tried the SSRIs and I would 100% reccomend them to anyone who has OCD but it feels like there are too many triggers that force me back into that intrusive thought loop which is just hellish. Its really hard to imagine any sort of torture that could be worse than those thought loops genuinely hard to conceive of any torture even physically that could be worse than that. I have actually been doing much better recently but I really just can’t conceive of going back into another one of those fucking miserable intrusive thought loops again like I see the symptoms coming back and the feeling that I get before the intrusive thoughts start really really piling in has come back again. Idk just thought I should share my experience like anyone else who has this mental condition I feel really sorry for. Here’s something that I read I feel like was really important that I wanted to share with anyone else who has OCD “You are a sensitive person, so altruistic that you get worried by even having bad thoughts. Learn to be a bit more selfish, and fight for your own happiness. You truly deserve it!”

Does anybody else’s intrusive thoughts come in the form of “delusional thoughts”? I’ve been in a terrible episode of hypochondria or ocd for the past 6 months where I have FULLY convinced myself I am developing schizophrenia, it started with becoming really easily overstimulated and not being able to concentrate and now it has spiraled out of control to where I am constantly getting intrusive thoughts center around demonic stuff, which i have never ever believed before, I have always been skeptic. But now i get these thoughts all the time like “what if this song has hidden demonic meanings?” “What if your wife is a demon” “what if nobody is real and your just in hell” “what if this political figure if just being controlled by the devil”, the typical kind of delusional thoughts you would expect from a schizophrenic. Not only does the fact that I’m even having these thoughts in the first place scare the life out of me, but I have to constantly battle with these thoughts in my head if I believe them or not. I feel like I have to constantly hold myself back from fully going off the deep end, I feel like I have to constantly disprove these thoughts and stop myself from believing them, but they feel so real and it’s scaring me so much. One part of me is like “why can’t we just stop worrying about this, this is delusional” and another part of me is like “what if I actually do need to worry about if these things are true or not, they FEEL true” and I’m just like “wtffff I shouldn’t have to worry about if things like this are true at all in the first Place!” I feel like I have fully lost my mind, and in no time I’m going to lost this little bit of insight I have. Btw: yes I am seeing 2 therapists and a psychiatrist and all of them do not believe I am developing schizophrenia.

I did a pretty intense workout with an empty stomach and I felt shaky and anxious right after. I hate this feeling. I ate and Im laying here for the shakiness to wear off. My anxiety is high and I’m having ugly thoughts like “am I going to go crazy” am I going to feel this forever” and it’s making me sad. Can someone talk to me. This feeling sucks.

ever since my medication stopped working, I haven’t felt right…it’s like “I don’t know what’s wrong, I just don’t feel the same.” I wish I knew. Idk if it’s the OCD because I’m not sure that I’m obsessing about anything…at least, I can’t pinpoint any particular obsessions. I just feel so alone and scared and confused. maybe i’m hyperfocusing or obsessing over how I feel? maybe that’s the obsession?

So with my ocd I have realized that over the years my obsessions switch out like one week I’ll obsess over this and the next week I’ll obsess over that. I have one obsession that really scares me and it’s zombies because I’m severely terrified of them. I know it sounds childish but it’s making it hard for me. I feel embarrassed being scared of them. I’m currently obsessing about them now. I’m so scared of them and the walking dead show. A couple years ago I watched it till season 4 and I was fine the entire time. Then I realized how terrified I was getting so I stopped. Now it’s just a cycle that I can’t get to go away. And I have this cycle with many other obsessions too. I just wanted to talk about it to let it off my chest. I think it scares me because I also obsess over death and sounds like alarms. Alarms scare me as well. It’s just really taking a tool on me so I wanted to share. :)

I can’t find anyone that can help me and I feel hopeless

Hi, I'm writing this just to see if someone else can relate. I've always been very confused by the difference between regular therapy and ocd therapy. What I mean is that, at least in my limited experience, regular therapy involved examining your feelings and thoughts (why you had them) and I was told that you can only process something by getting to the root of it. However, since I developed ocd and was diagnosed with it, therapy has been about tolerating anxiety, guilt, fear, sadness, etc., while forcing myself to not analyse the thoughts and feelings that I have. I feel very weird about this. It's like I went from "everything you think and feel has a reason (i am not talking here about fleeting thoughts and emotions, I am talking about recurrent and persistent ones) to "whatever feeling or thought you are having is not who you are and you should just observe it and not get involved with it". Am I the only one who is so confused by this? Also, if I am not my thoughts, and I am not my feelings, and I am not my sensations, who am I then? I mean, what is supposed to define me? I know some people say "your values" in response to this, but values are thoughts as well, and they can change over time, so, I don't think that this makes anything any clearer. Others say that it is our actions that define us. I can agree with that, but aren't our actions based on our thoughts and feelings? Anyway, I am not saying that therapy for ocd is ineffective, I am actually finding it very helpful, however I am still very confused about many aspects of it. I hoped that some of you could help me understand it better. Thanks. I wish you all a good day.