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I was so confident that I was straight 3 weeks ago and now all of a sudden it feels like I have become a lesbian! That doesn’t make any sense 😭

I feel like for a while I haven’t really felt truly happy or very excited for anything. Every day feels like an uphill climb dealing with this OCD problem of mine and trying as hard as I can to solve it, seek advice, etc… It often feels hopeless for me and that I should just be discarded, like I’m too far gone and I can’t get rid of it. Anyway, the pint is I haven’t really felt happy enough to actually just be smiling in a long time. I can’t rember the last time I actually smiled because I didn’t think about it and just naturally smiled because I was happy. Feels like I’m at war with my head everyday. I feel numb. I feel like I can’t feel emotions strongly like I used to. I can’t feel strongly about something where I’m motivated to ACT on something, to DO something, to try something new or break a routine or even feel like I am taking a risk or having fun. It’s like I have forgotten what FUN is like. Actual fun, not trying to have fun, but having fun. As a side note, maybe it’s too far fetched or not true but the medication I am on for my OCD (Sertraline, 25 mg dosage) , I am suspicious is making me numb like this. Sometimes I feel one if maybe this, small yet somewhat effective dosage of this medication is making me like this. I remember when I went off of it for a brief period last summer I could feel a lot more than I am feeling right now. But unfortunately my OCD was sooo bad as a result. So bad I couldn’t face it and I would be pretty much having a straight panic attack all day. So I’m not sure if coming off of that is the right move. After all I went back on it because wow I was having trouble dealing with myself. But like I said, that is just an afterthought. This is often how I trudge through the day…

OCD makes me feel like i am the scum of the earth and i believe it is true. i’ve done horrible things in the past when i was younger that i am not proud of. i know people say that we have to forgive ourselves for our past mistakes/know that our mistakes don’t define us or what not, but i feel like what i’ve done is irredeemable. although i was young back then, it dosent make it an excuse bc i am old enough to know it was wrong. why would i do that?? i’ve tried to forgive myself, but i keep going back in a loop bc of my OCD. what if i am using my OCD as an excuse? i don’t know what to do, please help.

anyone else feel like theyve made too many mistakes in their short time being alive, to the point you just feel like *you* are the mistake? i sit and obsess all the time about the mistakes ive made growing up (im only 20, suffered with ocd since i was 15). i just feel like i used to always make these mistakes and i know most of them came from ignorance as a child but it makes me question everything about myself. it often makes me feel suicidal, that the world is better off without me. i come on here to try and make people feel better and offer support and advice when in reality, i have no grasp on my own ocd. i sit and obsess 24/7, i struggle with mindfulness, and my head is the worst place to live. its just the idea that my mistakes have impacted people, any lies i came up with, how thats impacted people (its probably not even a lot but the possibility is terrifying). ever since i was diagnosed, i have a thing for responsibility, i take on so much of it, and punish myself excessively. im very tired of fighting with myself. im tired of obsessing and doing compulsions to stop the anxiety. i just want it to stop.

I put so much pressure on myself to be positive and happy. I hold myself to higher standards then I do others because I wanna be perfect, then break down at my every mistake. I'm horrible at setting boundaries but in a way I've dug myself a grave. At this point it feels like people assume I'm happy all the time and don't bother to ask if I'm okay. Or if I seem quiet they leave me be. At first I liked this now I do not. Any time I try to set a boundary with ANYONE, I'll be like hey when ya talk about that it makes me anxious or could you no do this it hurts my feelings or just plain please stop, people say okay and their sorry but it never seems to stick. The most I've done is say it again but it's frustrating. Feels like people just walk all over me and or barely listen Slash hear a word I say. I'm tired of some things I have made very clear not to do when I'm really anxious. They try to help and they will do certain things that make it worse, and I express this then they do it again. I find people belittle what I got through saying the thoughts I experience are clearly OCD, and easy to differentiate from typical worries or average thoughts. But they don't realize how stuck I feel bo matter how much I tell them. My brain doesn't have an off switch, I can't turn it off just like that and feel at easy. And even if the thought seems stupid and illogical, to them or even me it still hurts and bothers me deeply. There have been times where I do compulsions and people get mad and say it's excuses and I gotta stop and I try to explain and or try not to do it and end up feeling guilty. I want people to listen and actually care. I don't like the feeling I get when I'm worried. A weird tingle in my chest that grows and stretches throughout my body depending on how bad of a worry. Those "silly, stupid, ridiculous, crazy, nonsense" worries I get, wheather or not I know those claims are true, cut deep and it feels like I can't escape. My chest feeling gets stronger, I get alot of energy in my arms and legs and or they feel shakey, it feels like I can't breathe, I wanna burst out crying but depending on where I am that may not be an option, I'm tired of staying quiet due to the fear of upsetting someone without intention, and I hate hyperventilating or tossing and turning when trying to sleep and these thoughts hit me like a ton of bricks over and over. OCD is not my fault I know that. But part of me wonders why me of all people have to have it, although I don't wish it on anyone. If it meant nobody else would ever have to experience my OCD or OCD in general I would take all the power of everyone's OCD and take it myself. I like to think OCD gave me empathy, the one perk it came with in my eyes. One day I hope to be a therapist who can help people. And the little kids with OCD who wanna understand and get help, like I once was. I wanna be taken seriously, I don't wanna be a doormat, I don't wanna be a puppet on my OCD's strings, I want people to understand more then they do or atleast listen to me more then they do. I wanna be calm for more then minutes, and without intense stress when I realize how long I've been relaxed and how odd that is. I feel bad for my younger self. Ik she wanted to grow up and be okay. But I'm not. I have made progress. When I was little I constantly thought I was dying. And then I said in middle school that I'd be dead by highschool. But I'm about to start grade 12

I’ve been struggling with intrusive thoughts about pedophilia, I was highly addicted to porn for 2 years or more, I even masturbated a couple times to someone younger but when I did that my ocd didn’t trigger or nothing till months after thinking what if I am a pedophile, after that is when I decided to quit porn indefinitely I realized I was going too far,I always thought I was a decent person, I have never hurt anyone, I always had this idea that I could become someone people can look up to or just become someone everyone respected, I’ve always loved sports, my family and video games, but lately I haven’t been able to enjoy any of that it’s like my ocd is making me think I’ve always been like this and all my actual beliefs weren’t real that I’ve always been this horrible person, at first I would get panic attacks and disgust but now I feel kinda numb and I don’t want to feel like that cause it’s making me think that maybe I am one and my mind is getting used to it, I even feel uncomfortable talking about kids or just being around them and I have never been like that . I am a heavy nicotine and weed smoker (I’ve tried to stop since it seems to make them worse). Now it feels like I am a completely different person, I also have a girlfriend who before this i would love with everything in me, and would be afraid to lose her every time we would argue, I would even think about a child with her in the future, but now I don’t even feel love or any attraction or any of the previous feelings I would feel towards my future and I just feel it makes it even worse cause if I’m not attracted to her and all my previous beliefs feel like lies then what can I believe in? Any advice or tips? I’ll be starting therapy this week so I pray there’s light at the end of the tunnel.

I’ll have a huge wave of thoughts rushing to me all at the same time, leaving me panicked and drained, and I can’t even tell if I like these thoughts or not which scares me even more. Then i’ll come to the conclusion that maybe I don’t have OCD and everything is real, but I don’t want it to be real. I don’t want to be a monster like that. I don’t want to cheat on my partner, be a zphile, a pdphile, a psychopath, all those crazy immoral things. I just want to be a girl living a normal happy life but I feel like i’m being punished by this OCD monster because of past events I regret. Man i’m just so tired, I don’t even know whats real or not anymore, I just want to be set free from this guilt and torment. I feel like a fault in the system, a cog that doesn’t function properly and deserves to be removed from the gift of life incase I hurt any more people around me. Im sorry if this has gotten really depressing, I just needed to rant. I saw a post online differentiating GAD and OCD, and it said that people with OCD preform constant compulsions whereas people with GAD do not, but because i’m actively trying not to engage in compulsions (like searching things up) it made me feel like I don’t actually have OCD which was a big trigger for me and I went into a spiral of feeling like an imposter. Sorry if this is a bit much to read.

i'm going to lose my life one day to this illness i never asked for. it could've been beautiful.

Hey everyone, I hope you are all doing well . I am not sadly. Idk what to do at this point in my life and it’s really scary. My family seems to not get it really but idk how to explain what I’m going through . So basically I had an uncle and I have many cousins with schizophrenia. All of them don’t take meds and have went off the grid with my family or have passed . I am so unbelievably scared of getting it that I can’t live my life without being scared everyday. I have had so many thoughts and dreams and a lot of come true(no joke) and I’m like oh shit that means I’m delusional and I’m having delusional thoughts and now it’s taking over my dreams and it just doesn’t make sense to me. I am very scattered brain 24:7 I feel I can’t talk or speak right, I keep going through not feeling real or right and I’ll be talking to my family and my brain will be like “ what if this is a hallucination and you’re talking to yourself”. I’m EXHAUSTED to the max and most I’ve ever been. Idk what’s going on with me. I’ve also always been a superstitious person because weird shit was always happening or strangely a “coincidence” that even my family would be like wtf is going on with that. And I never understood it as a child, but I’m so so so sooo scared bc of that and what I deal with now that I’m developing it. And I need help.

I am uncertain where to start, as I’ve only self-diagnosed myself with having OCD tendencies. I can look back into my childhood, adolescence, young adulthood and now, and I see pockets of when OCD was alive and well. I have been learning about somatic healing the last few years because I’ve been wanting to connect with my body to understand. I want to feel more grounded. During this process of wellness, I’ve learned that I have OCD and ADHD qualities that I’ve lived with my entire life. Could that be true? Was I good at hiding it all, or making it appear as part of my personality? Was I masking? I think that’s a term that’s used these days. Here’s a story that involves what may be OCD. My sister and I, aged 14 and 16 at the time, just took our first flight together to visit our aunt and uncle in Seattle. While there, intrusive thoughts kept popping into my head that something was going to happen to my dad. Where were these thoughts randomly come from? Was I thinking them, did they magically appear, was it my intuition? It was an unsettling feeling and I had frequent thoughts that my dad was going to die. At that time, my life felt so beautiful. It felt so full of love and happiness. I loved my family. I had my very first boyfriend. It was summertime and as I was taking a walk down the ocean shore, I wondered if life is supposed to feel that happy. I just genuinely felt full of light and love and all the good stuff. And thoughts kept coming about what I could possibly learn in this lifetime if I haven’t experienced pain. Why was I having such an existential crisis at age 14, on a summer vacation with my sister? It was just two days later when we tried calling our dad and he wasn’t answering. I had a gut feeling that something happened. It wasn’t until my dad’s sister answered my home phone that I knew. My sister and I held hands and collapsed to the floor in pure shock. My dad died of a heart attack. It was such a blur of a time, as my developing brain couldn’t process it at all. Anyway, fast forward to me being 36 years old, I still fear that my thoughts could have caused his death. It plays in my head when I get to thinking about that summer vacation. So now, as a mother of three beautiful children, I get intrusive thoughts and worries about anything happening to them. My heart starts to race, my eyes fill up with tears and I just can’t imagine it. Is it OCD? Is the fear causing these OCD thoughts? I have nightmares sometimes of these terrible things happening to my loved ones. I guess what I’m asking is, could this be OCD. What type of OCD? I also have this repetitive string of things I say in my head when I get intrusive worries. It’s along the lines of “God please protect my loved ones. Keep them safe. Surround them with love, protection, health.” And the ADHD symptoms are a whole other part of my life. I have felt this thing inside of me forever thinking something is wrong with me, not knowing what. But seeing peers living their lives so freely and doing things that feel harder for me have left me feeling crippled. And nobody would know this about me. If you saw me from the outside you’d think I have it all together- a husband, three kids, etc. But truly I have felt so alone and unable to fully live at my core. And I just need to know why or what or how. I just want answers so I can truly heal.

people here say that their ocd isn’t completely gone but it’s not ruling them and it’s in the back of their mind still but not ruling them. but i don’t want it on the back of my mind. i want clarity about what i believe and who i am again. i don’t want a shred of doubt. i want to be freed. i feel like this is impossible.. like the ocd doubts are apart of me now.. i don’t understand why this happened to me.

I’m literally shaking panicking that I’m paychosis, sometimes I feel so weird very weird feeling and ugh I know it’s ocd but I’m scared of not remembering who my husband is or like acting crazy or having to go to a mental hospital like I don’t want that and like psychosis and ocd have very similar symptoms. I was diagnosed with OCD but I’m scared I have that and I don’t want to I’m like ugh sometimes I feel so out of myself I wake up feeling weird I feel very weird symptoms in my body I wanna be fucking normal I thought I was okay but ugh I feel so horrible right now and it also doesn’t help that I’m on my period but I just saw the word psychosis and decided to search it up and now I’m scared I have it.

it’s always like this. I get to talk to someone, we chat, then stop chatting or get very slow replies. but I can’t complain when I said that if I don’t reply, I’m busy or dealing with stuff. everyone has their life & no one is obligated to reply to me. I have learned that I really am just alone. I don’t want to force anyone or be obsessed. this goes for online friends. I only have 4. but they haven’t replied to me in days/weeks/months maybe. honestly, this has helped me not becoming dependent and wait for a reply like I used to. I would go on worrying for a while if someone wouldn’t reply for a certain time. I wouldn’t tell them ofc but I would become anxious. as for real life, I guess I can say 1. maybe 2 but one of them was a friend from elementary and we only met up once after sophomore year of high school. we’re now in college (actually, she graduated already) & have met up with her that day. we updated each other on our lives. it was nice, but I don’t think it was the same ‘best friend’ friendship we had as kids/teens. we don’t talk anymore. (only if I view her stories on instagram and say something) the other one I could say is half online/half real life. I met him online and we met irl a month in. he’s a good guy and honestly the first person that I like as a friend. someone I can trust, I guess. not fully, but definitely can be a lot of myself around. he’s been busy with life as well. he’s not obligated to reply to me. this one, I rlly like talking to but again, life happens. so I stopped being ‘excited’ for a response. in the end, it’s just me. my pain and myself. if I can’t make any friends irl (or maybe new friends online)(don’t get me wrong, I like the 4 online friends I have. they’re dear to me. they are just busy) at the end of this year during school, I will just give up. I tried before in my previous semester but it never happened. I am just going to accept my solitude. all I want now is either to not be here (sometimes), get a bike and ride by myself, or I don’t know. I don’t find anything appealing at the moment. sometimes there will be a spark but it goes out quickly. I genuinely do not see a happy life in the future. even after I told my dad of a ‘plan’ I had to retire early and keep learning in college to feed my curiosity, I just think maybe I’m not fit for living. I’m just tired. I try. I don’t find joy in many things anymore. it’s just not interesting. I just want to crawl up in my bed (as I am now) and move to a different place. I just want peace. will it be death that I find peace? or maybe living by a lake? who knows. life needs to let me rest.

Hi guys, how are you doing? So in the last months I’ve been feeling really great, coping and doing well. But my husband started traveling every week for work, he’s gone for 3 days each week. It was the trigger to the most unwanted scary thoughts and my anxiety is sky high. The thoughts I have are really bizarre and they scare me so much. For example “what if life isn’t real and everything is just inside my head/brain and I am completely alone? And thinking this thought makes me feel psychotic because no one normal thinks things like that. It is the dread of being utterly alone, disconnected from reality and others, leading to a profound sense of isolation. And the thing is: everything is doing ok and even very good on my circumstances. I fear losing my grip on reality, fear of being trapped in in my own mind, without escape. I question the meaning of life and if I am a threat to others by thinking like that, or that I won’t be able to take care of my life and responsibilities (my work, my marriage and my dog). I really feel hopeless, so I’ve just been panicking 💔

TW for mental health issues, death, ptsd, ED i guess ill just start off by saying that i have struggled since i was young with severe anxiety and panic attacks since i was about five but an onslaught of CPTSD worsened a lot of things for me. i developed an eating disorder in my teens and was hospitalized for it. i’ve been in and out of therapy since i was ten and while i do my best without medication to live my life to the fullest, i often feel like i don’t deserve the successes and support i’ve received in the last few years b/c i feel like i don’t deserve to be happy at all. i saw a video recently of a girl talking about her obsessive hypochondriac thoughts that i resonated with and when i read the comments, a lot of people pointed out that it might be ocd. it hasn’t ever been a thought that crossed my mind and now im wondering if im twisting that video into some sort of self diagnosis for myself. im wondering if it’s just my high anxiety that’s causing these severely intrusive thoughts. for example, i have had a really hard time sleeping recently because the thought that i or my partner might die in my sleep keeps me up. if i have an aneurysm or a heart attack in the middle of the night and die, or worse, if my partner has an aneurysm or heart attack, is it because i don’t deserve to be happy with him? i don’t deserve a wonderful relationship? another thought i have is when i drive with us both in the car, im going to crash and severely injure both of us or kill us both. i have never once crashed my car or gotten into an accident btw, but for some reason i just get this extremely morbid thought that im going to crash and it’ll be the end. i had a weirdly spiritual experience/revelation in 2020/21 about the multiverse and i keep thinking that every night i actually die or that i get into accidents or something morbid happens and im somehow timeline jumping and going to a different multiverse and that’s been my odd way of coping with these thoughts. i guess im just trying to figure out if this is even remotely similar to OCD or if im just over analyzing it bc of my anxiety/hypochondria i guess?? i dont know i just want help. if this isn’t OCD, please tell me and i will delete this post and app and ill sincerely apologize to everyone who actually suffers. 🙏

Hi everyone, I’m currently on vacation and dealing with a relapse in symptoms. This started a couple of days before leaving, and it’s super frustrating to still be experiencing it. More so of “existential” OCD, and it’s really making it hard for me to enjoy things. I’m so upset because I had a few months of minimal ocd, but now this uptick in symptoms really is throwing me off and making me feel defeated. I’m trying my best to push through and not engage with the thinking, but at times it’s so hard. I feel like I’m back at square one which is terrifying. If anyone has any insight or support, please feel free to share. Thank you!

Hey everyone. My mental health journey started last year when I developed OCD which I believe started in childhood. I have suicidal ocd with some relationship and existential mixed in. Last night I experienced my last bad panic attack due to derealization. I don’t have depression- I want to be here. But I’m so so tired of dealing with this. I’m scared that I’m “too far gone”. I don’t want to give up. I start IOP next week. Is there hope for me? need some positive thoughts

i wake up constantly in the middle of the night, and i just woke up and i feel so weird i genuinely can’t explain the feeling. i feel like im still sleeping and dreaming and that nobody will be able to see me or hear me, i feel like ive completely lost myself like i am not me and that im in someone else’s brain/body. i feel like nothing is real, i do experience a lot of dissociating but this doesn’t feel like that. i have thoughts that i leave my body and go to someone else’s, specifically that im my dad because my dad has a lot of mental health issues, and a lot of issues from doing so many drugs in the past, and he’ll go into phases randomly where he goes completely insane and says he hallucinates, he’ll say/do random stuff that doesn’t make sense to anyone else but to him he’s making perfect sense and i am terrified ill end up like him. or that i am him and ik this sounds so crazy. i feel like this isn’t even ocd anymore, it’s so exhausting and it’s a new feeling everyday that’s even scarier. all i can do is cry and sit here because i am genuinely so tired of this, i don’t even see a point anymore. i feel like ill never live a normal life ever, i can’t make friends, i have no friends to me honest, i can’t even feel close to my boyfriend because of all this, i don’t feel close to my family either. i don’t know what to do anymore but i am so tired of this.

man idk I have been suffering all summer I have been getting really bad thoughts about the TRIGGER WARNING devil and God and how I don't believe in it but the thoughts are so bad. I just hate them. I also don't feel like I could go to heaven when I think like this and all I keep doing is worrying and worrying about the people I love. I'm so terrified of the thoughts I keep getting and everytime I pray to god somethings always interrupts my prayer. its like what should I do then? also I feel ugly and fat because I have been eating a lot and I normally starve but this summer my family has been making so much good food that I have just been eating and now I have a belly bump that makes me feel super fat and ugly also I gained a lot of face fat. I also keep feeling useless cause I just play games all day but idk what I should be doing because I cant find a job (I'm not a adult btw) and I feel like a low life and also nobody wants to hire me idk why but because of that I'm really suffering and very scared to go back to school because my family cant afford to buy me new clothes so I have probably just 1 outfit. I feel like I'm rotting. I feel like its in my head and showing through my body as well. I really just wanna stop these intrusive thoughts aka religious ocd worrying ocd and others. I wanna go back to being like a normal kid with normal thoughts but I cant. also I don't know what this is but everytime I look in the I start freaking out because I start focusing on all the light and weird particles that are in the dark when you close you eyes and I start freaking out because I would feel like they wouldn't go away and if I looked at somebody with those articles I'm still focusing on they could die.

i could be fine one day and then all of a sudden go into this long period that lasts a few days, sometimes even weeks where i feel so disconnected from everyone and everything. i will be talking to my boyfriend and think to myself “ is this really my boyfriend do i even like him “ or i’ll look at my family and be like “ is this really my family “, i feel so out of touch with reality and it is so scary. things look distorted, i feel like i am behind myself 24/7, like i am watching myself through a movie or something. it is so scary and i feel like there’s something wrong with me, and what sucks is i cant even explain what i feel, and i feel extremely alone. my birthday is coming up and i feel like i wont even be able to have fun because i will feel so weird and not present at all, i dont know what to do and i will feel this way out of nowhere. some days its worse than others, idk i feel like im genuinely losing my mind or that im gonna lose my mind and go crazy. is this normal?