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So I was fantasizing about my crush and when I was into my brother pops up or something and it makes me think I was turned on by him like I’m upset about that now

TW: SO-OCD. I have been a part of the NOCD community for around 4 years now. I am seeing more and more posts, but I am very rarely seeing people actually commenting, reposting and engaging back. I think I have always had obsessive thoughts, but never knew it was a thing until around 5 years ago. I believe my first theme was Harm OCD, when my little brother was first born in 2007. I used to scream at night as I was so worried he was going to be kidnapped, or he may d*e. I would avoid sleeping at friends house's, my dad's (as my parents had split) as I thought if I wasn't there to protect him then something bad would happen. My mum said she would wake up and I would be asleep net to his cot in the morning (I was only 10 at the time). Fast forward to 2017, where me and my high school boyfriend split up, I convinced myself I may be gay as I no longer wanted to have sex with him (almost found it a chore). I was 16/17. We split up and I lived my 'single' life. Spent my time dating males etc and then myself and my ex got back together in 2018. My intrusive thoughts took a turn for the worst in lockdown, when again may libido decreased significantly, and I didn't feel and ;urge' with my boyfriend sStill current partner). I remember one day, bursting into tears, had a panic attack and cried for hours with the most excruciating anxiety chest pains. I told him and my mum about my thoughts. They are both incredibly supportive and my mu actually told me that she had these thoughts too when she was round 19 and still does now (I also didn't know that COD can be inherited). After about 18 months of the worst mental health, significant weight loss, social thoughts and almost ending my relationship, I started to see light at the end of the tunnel. 2022, things started to get better. My partner and I were in the best place we could have EVER been! Sex life was AMAZING (quality of quantity I mean) and I honestly thought, this was the end. March 2024 I fell pregnant. Again, I had a great pregnancy, sec life was great, was so excited for our future. I have never been one to be bothered about marriage, but kept having this lovely vision of us getting married and our little girl walking down the aisle. Baby girls born in November 2024 and BAM, SO-OCD and ROCD have kicked in. I am now questioning my sexuality again, if I am in the right relationship, am I just 'settling'?, does he deserve me?, am I in denial?, what if we get married and then it turns out I am gay?, I don't want him to propose as I am scared etc. Just relentless every single day. I even question, if any of the conversations I have had with family and friends where they have related to me, were even real or if I made them up for my own comfort, so that I do't feel alone?! I am constantly reviewing past events, as I worry that I wanted to explore my sexuality in university, as I remember having an amazing friendship with a lesbian (who was, I am not afraid to admit, very 'handsome'), and we did flirt, as she did with everyone!! But we never took it any further, it never crossed my mind! I almost don't even get the 'anxiety/'sick' feeling anymore because I am SO used to the thoughts. I don't have an urge to act on my thoughts, but they are also no longer debilitating for me. I just feel exhausted with them. They are ALWAYS there. I have gone down the rabbit hole of avoiding meeting new women friends incase 'I find them attractive', if there is a same sex couple on a program I watch, I automatically avoid. I compare my relationship to others. I saw an insta reel yesterday of a women in her 30's that said 'when you're lay in bed with your husband, searching 'Am I Gay' questionnaires and you decide to divorce and follow your heart' and it was a page dedicated to her helping other mid life adults cope with coming out as gay! It really really really triggered me. I am just exhausted. If anybody else wants to share there story, comment below. It doesn't have to be the same sub types, but just an opportunity to vent!

I don’t even know where to start because there’s so much going on in my head and it feels like there’s so much evidence for every thought. Like my ocd feels like it doesn’t just have one specific theme it’s honestly every theme and it just switches throughout the day depending on the thoughts I have. This started all about a month ago, this whole ocd flare up. I’ve been diagnosed with ocd for about 3 years now and looking back on my childhood, I feel like I’ve had it for probably my entire life. My grandpa just recently died back in February and I feel like this whole ocd spiral is a result of dealing with grief especially because it didn’t even hit me for the whole month of April for some reason and things felt “normal”. But since this ocd flare up has started I’ve been constantly reviewing and revisiting my past, all my childhood memories and so many of them are terrifying which is weird because I never had a traumatic event hppen to me as a child. I feel like it’s always been “self-inflicted” trauma if that makes sense? My mind is telling me so many things related to so many topics like maybe I liked my family member as a kid and have just hid it to fit in with society? That my anxiety as a kid has caught up with me and I’m turning into a psychopath? That I’ve always been a creep and enjoyed looking at peoples privates or chests, etc but just ignored or allowed the thought this whole time. Also before this whole flare up I remember always feeling on autopilot and not really alive like everything I did I just felt numb about it. Which aids my ocd to tell me that these feelings are real and the thoughts are true and that I’m “waking up” or realizing or something. I haven’t felt such intense anxiety and distress since I was a kid and I didn’t even understand my own thoughts. It’s like I’m either hyper aware or totally unaware of what’s going on around me and it gets me thinking about my existence, personality, what my role in life is and like genuinely what I’m even doing in the moment like what’s the reason behind everything. I’m constantly questioning my intentions because I don’t know if they’re true or not and it’s like my ocd doesn’t even allow me to consider the thought it just jumps to conclusion. Like telling me I’m guilty before proven innocent. It honestly feels like so much at once to even simply call it ocd or anxiety because it feels like a crisis and any moment I could spiral and breakdown completely. Going to school everyday feeling like anytbing could trigger a panic attack at any moment makes me feel like I can’t be left alone with my thoughts. And like overall since I got down this rabbit hole, my first obsession was harm to myself, then it was harm to others specifically my family, then it was being a pervert or pedo, or being attracted or someone or something I shouldn’t be, which then makes me question my existence and who I am along with also being hyper aware of my facial movements like my eyebrows, nose, etc. Like why does ocd have to involve itself in every aspect of my life? It feels like there’s always something wrong that I need to fix.

It’s like my brain is doing everything in its power to convince myself and also justify an attraction to teenagers. I hate myself. I don’t want to be this person, but what if I don’t have a choice. How do I get these thoughts out of my head permanently. I feel like my life will never be the same if they don’t leave forever. I can’t tell what is a real desire and what OCD is trying to convince me is a real desire. I can’t do this every day for the rest of my life. I don’t want to hurt anyone, or I don’t think I do but how do I even tell anymore. This might not even be OCD at this point, I can’t separate my thoughts from OCD thoughts I think because I’ve had OCD for so long so it all just feels like me. Maybe it is me. TMI but I haven’t pleasured myself in like a week because my libido is so low now, I don’t want to do it with these thoughts.

Has false memory OCD affected you so badly that you feel that a lot of your memories period are unclear, vague, fuzzy and can’t recall correctly?

I can't even look at myself in the mirror. I've spent the morning crying, and I feel like I don't deserve to. I feel like I'm a horrible person or a... you know. I'm so sick of this. I'm just so tired of everything. I don't see my psychiatrist until two weeks from now. How am I going to make it till then? :( Even writing this post, I feel like I'm deceiving everyone and that I'm actually a monster. I'm so convinced of this right now. I don't know what to do. I was literally okay a few days ago. I don't even know what's real and what's not, like... I think I do? But everything is so distorted. I can't stop replaying memories trying to figure things out. I really need my psychiatrist right now. I feel like I need to confess, like I've been trying so hard not to, but every person I see, I just keep thinking about how badly I want to ask them if I'm a bad person or not, and that makes me feel worse. A good person wouldn't feel the need to ask that over and over again, would they? What if I'm just seeking validation because I can't accept that?

I tried checking if I like gay stuff and it’s genuinely disgusting to me. I can tell whether or not a man is attractive and when they are it does scare me and makes me question myself yet, it’s always the same response, I don’t get how you can do that with another man. Doing anything sexual just feels so gross and wrong. I don’t think that I am magically turning gay. I don’t think my orientation is changing or hasn’t been explored. I simply find that stuff gross. I have never had anything wrong with gay people and I am a true believer that people have choices they can make with free will so it’s not that I’m homophobic, just keep that stuff away from me lol. Saying so, I don’t get why I am getting these thoughts. These images in my head, constant need of checking if I fall in the spectrum, constant checking whether I like someone of any gender, constant checking whether or not I am getting groinal responses. No matter what answer I get, my mind still wants an answer, an answer to the next question that it’ll create after answering the one before it. I have always liked girls and always been so proud of it, I am in a relationship right now with a beautiful girl I’ve had a crush on since 2nd grade. (I am 19) Whatever mental illness I have has ruined our relationship. Everything feels forced on my side, I don’t remember the joy I had before this but I have glimpse throughout the days of the things we’ve done together that makes me happy and look forward to life. I am constantly checking to see if my attraction is still there for her and the scary part is, when I am stuck in my head, I am not but, to alter that, when I get that freedom and feel like my normal self, I get a hyper amount of love for her and it feels so nice. These thoughts all began after me and my girlfriend had an argument, 5 months ago we got in an argument over her not giving me enough space. She always wanted to be a part of a plan with my male friends. I never minded her when it was just us two so it’s not that I hated being with her, it was just that I had no time to be independent. ( I also had no job and nothing going for myself. ) One odd day after spending so much time stuck in the house due to weather, I had random thought on whether or not I truly loved her. We were only 4 months into the relationship so I didn’t have an answer and since it felt like I needed an answer, it became obsessive, I couldn’t stop checking. After hours with that thought, I started to wonder whether or not I was interested in other things like K I D S. This thought was an automatic no and I began to fight it. I wasn’t going to accept that, each day felt like a living hell. The questions would change each day, do I miss my ex, was my ex better, do I like my M O M, do I want to K I L L so and so, do I want to kill myself. One day I woke up and had it all in control, felt like magic, after I watched a video on ROCD and realized, oh, I am not the only one but, this is where my compulsions got even worse. I couldn’t stop checking the internet, seeing if I relate to others, watching more videos. I regret this everyday because this compulsion created so many new thoughts and questions for me to answer. About 2-3 weeks went by and a thought passed by that has been stuck with me since along with other thoughts. I thought back to what I did as kid and in the past. I remembered a traumatic event where my brother touched me (5yr old M) inappropriately. This made me question whether or not I liked it and I couldn’t find an answer, couple years (10yr old M) after that I unfortunately did the same to my cousin (8yr old M). I feel so much shame and guilt for it. My mind turned black and white, “Maybe this isn’t a do you like your girl or not but instead, maybe you just like boys I mean, you obviously never asked yourself if you like what you did so”. This question was terrifying for me because it meant that I could no longer love my girl, my whole life till now has been a lie. So I began to question everything in my past up to date to find an answer. No matter what answer I fed my mind, it would not be satisfied and simply create more questions. It felt like my mind was forcing me to be gay, whether or not I liked it. 4 months has passed and the questions have just gotten worse, something I was initially so afraid of. I am in constant fight or flight mode, I am always anxious and I can’t feel nothing. I get times of relief when I am reminded of my past, when my gf turns me on, or when I find an answer to question my mind conjured up. I started to go to church but it’s always been a struggle for me to believe. I can’t go to the gym anymore because everywhere I look I am questioning myself. My porn addiction has went away but mostly because I can’t find anything attractive anymore. I can only find comfort and discomfort. Something that was once so easy for me would 1 day be nonexistent and hard to live without. I don’t know what the truth is anymore. My life feels like a made-up lie. Though I have always loved women, fantasized about them, get extremely nervous around them, pray for them, romanticize them, etc. I now have no idea what it feels like to be in love, interested, or even happy for a woman. My attraction hasn’t vanished completely, I still can look a girl and be stunned, l simply just can’t destroy the feeling it gives me. I get so anxious and begin to question everything about the women, the feeling, myself. I am having a crisis.

(21+ ONLY: TRIGGER WARNING) I’ve been increasingly worried that I’m a zoophile (among other things) and that I’m attracted to my family dog. I love him and I take care of him—I take him out to poop and pee, I play with him, and I feed and water him. But I get nervous when I have to be around him for a long time—I get these thoughts and they just won’t stop. I’ll find myself looking at my dog’s privates and having these strange urges. I feel horrible—like I could’ve done something to him or touched him inappropriately and conveniently don’t remember. I don’t know what to do…

okay u started taking zoloft for my ocd, and everything with thr intrusive thoughts. well ivr had really bad false attraction. and my mind is trying to tell me i should feel guilty for not solving the issues on my own. and using medication is me not getting rid of it, its just temporary. and i cant solve the false attraction/intrusive feelings on my own, like why is it doing this

Hey guys I'm 17 years old I had experience with OCD I looked trans pornography and femboy stuff I'm straight I didn't jerk off to it I was really only looking at it in the past I have but for some reason I just felt like looking at it and when I did I did experience arousal not only that while I had a boner I simultaneously was thinking of memories and bad actions I had in 4th grade with another boy I myself not a homosexual I was a kid I did something with another boy I regret it I had that thought in my head lingering there in my head but I noticed pre ejaculation and now I feel anxiety because now it feels like I was intrigued by the thought it feels like it is it was probably to the video visual stimulus but it's hard I didn't jerk off to it at all I was really just looking idk what to do it feels like I did experience it to the video but also my thoughts say to the thought idk what to do can someone shed light on this

PLEASE HELP ANY ANSWER WILL DO So I moved to a big city a few months earlier and it was summer, so it was hot. I slept with my window and balcony door open for air. One night, whilst i was trying to sleep, i heard what seemed to be a woman m*aning at times. At first it was annoying and was like omg stfu but it's embarrassing but soon I felt a bit aroused by it. Then, so many months later, I got a thought, what if it wasn't a woman but a child crying? And I got so terrified and I began trying to remember the memory again to remember exactly what I heard, then began looking on youtube what children sound like when they cry to make sure it wasn't what I heard. I'm absolutely terrified. I can't even check to make sure. I need help

Not necessarily asking for reassurance and I know I’ve mentioned this here before but my OCD has been affecting my cognition seemingly. I’ll forget small things or put things in odd places sometimes, or mix up words - things like that. Obviously this triggers me to be like “Alzheimers/dementia.” Can anyone relate? And if you recovered what did you do for it?

I’m feeling really scared I’ve been left in the lurch by my therapist today as she said she doesn’t feel comfortable doing anymore therapy with me unless I increase my mirtazipine (Remeron) as my OCD has spiked a lot since I started with her and I’m only just at the beginning, but I’m not sure increasing my meds is the right thing to do so much as what she’s doing is causing it …….. basically my OCD theme is it tells me I’ve done horrendous things like I’ve harmed people, it’s in the affirmative tense not the “what if?” anymore, I guess it’s a bit like it tries to give me false memories but isn’t quite the same,and I just feel so unarmed how to deal with it and I’m really scared I’m going to end up in a very very dark place again 😭

I got pure o. I don't think that's really the correct term but you get what i'm talking about. I would say that i have it because my ocd just picks and chooses what subtype it wants to bother with me today. Right now, i'm suffering with real event ocd and, hopefully, false memories. But i think i might have cracked the code on it. So my real events and false memories are pretty much private related, which makes it worse because there's no evidence or proof. There are some memories (real events) i can think about and accept that they happened. I still feel guilt and shame but i have closure from it. And there's the other memories (hopefully false memories) that i look at and just cannot wrap my head around. They feel so real like they actually happened and it gives me so much stress, but i sit there and think and think and think on it to see if it actually happened. Btw, these false memories come from my real events but in different situations and times. Like if it was true, i would accept it. Whether or not it made me feel guilt or shame, i would still accept it happened. This is what i think i figured out. I can look at a memory and know for certain it happened. I don't need evidence or nothing. The false memories make me question myself if it did happen. It's still very vivid and looks so real like a real memory, but i just can't be for certain if i did that. It makes me feel like i'm in denial of my past. Sometimes they both work together. A real event can happen but false memories can use its work to detail out the event, tryna make it much worse than it was. Or you can be thinking of a false memory but real events can try linking with that false memory to making you think you did do that. If this makes any sense or if what i’m saying is correct or i’m just crazy, please tell me. All advice is welcome. Thank you

Hi All, just wondering if anyone here has any tips with dealing with uncertainty? My OCD centres on my being worried that I have committed a crime and can’t remember doing so, I was out last weekend and my mind is telling me I attacked somebody as I got an intrusive thought to do so when passing them in a bar, my therapist says I need to sit with the uncertainty that maybe I did and maybe I didn’t and have to be ok with that But if the answer is yes then how can I be ok with committing a crime and going to jail??, it’s affecting my relationship and I’m going on holiday on Friday and I’m worried it will ruin that, any tips would be greatly appreciated.

I keep asking for reassurance( which I know I should not do) and when I get the reassurance I want I don’t believe them and I keep asking again and again and again Basically I thought I did something today and my sister was there and I asked her and she said no but I keep asking her because I keep thinking I did this thing. She said she was right there and she saw and nothing happened but I seem to think that maybe she missed something and blah blah blah. My anxiety is even worse now about this topic

I suffer from religious ocd. My only goal in life is to live in God's will and to serve Him - to live and enjoy His eternal purposes & His presence. Jesus Christ is my life. That is my only desire on this earth, this short trip into eternity, and it's being stripped by ocd thoughts and intrusive thoughts 24-7. I have read many times that ocd can 'feel real', and this is true, our minds lie to us because of fear and anxiety we can't and were never meant to carry. I have begged and tormented myself in every way to find an answer from God. I think His answer may be that this is OCD, but I'm not sure. I started therapy again because I am so exhausted and this had stolen so much of my life in a spiral of negativity, depression, and constant anxiety & intrusive thoughts. I have spent about 2 years trying to figure out if my thoughts are real or not, especially with ocd it can deceive so easily as a spiritual matter when in reality it is just a thought, which is confusing and scary to say the least. Can anyone share their experiences with this sensation? No matter what the theme is... Thank you & Praying for your comfort

I suffer with a constant worry of what if I’ve cheated. You name it I’ve thought I’ve done it. I’m quite flirty at nature and also insecure. Sometimes hand in hand I don’t think they balance each other out as the constant need for attention to validate myself can backfire. Although I have the best partner ever and she makes me feel nothing less than beautiful I still crave validation from others. That being said someone I used to work with left over half a year ago and when they worked at my current place of work we were very close. Text everyday, phone calls you name it. However looking back I was extra flirty as I wanted him to fancy me. I wanted the power to turn him down to make myself feel better. Awful I know. Now all I can think about is what if I’ve done something. What if I kissed him. What if I’ve slept with him etc. I’ve kept our whole conversations from the minute I got his personal number. I constantly search key words to see if my intrusive thoughts are real. I can except the uncertainty my therapist tells me about as if I have done the worst and cheated I would loose my partner and our 10 year relationship. I love her so much she is my life but I can’t stop thinking what if I’ve cheated. Does anyone else suffer with the same theme? If so how do you cope?

Just curious, how does the false attraction feel to you? I believe people say they are different. I’m not reassuring, just interested in other peoples experiences. Mine feels like my chest is crushed with anxiety, when I notice a good looking male, it feels like I’ve just missed being hit in the car (that fear sensation). I feel sick after the thoughts. I also feel my face screw up which may be a compulsion which I’m trying to stop.

so, my intrusive feelings started over a thought about a guys arms being attractive, and i still think big arks are attractive, but i hate his face? and his personality, so would it still be false attraction? if i like his body but not his face or personality because i have every single false attraction sign, but i just like his arms/body. someone please lmk!!