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Is it worth being here if I’m so unhappy and struggling with my self and everything in my life? When I’m this hateful scum? I just feel awful and wish I didn’t have to put up with this, or myself. I’m sorry

Yesterday was one of the most challenging days since I was 15. I fell into a rabbit hole and did all the mental compulsions and sought reassurance in various forms. I completely broke down and cried and showered two times and felt alone. I talked to my sister yesterday and shared all my thoughts and what if’s. I needed comfort to know I’m not alone. At the end I asked her one of the greatest ways she can support me is to not reassure me. I was crying when I asked her, afraid that I wouldn’t be a reassured from a loved one anymore. I have dealt with SO-OCD since 15, it was through ERP and medication it became tolerable. Since then I’ve dealt with different themes from POCD, Health, Harm, Death and others. But SO-OCD is always the strongest. The days feel long and the nighttime feels like a battle. But last night I chose to practice mindfulness and to breathe. To not be afraid of my thoughts and what if’s and let them pass by. SO-OCD can feel so isolating, it feels like I’m denying or lying to myself even though I don’t see myself growing old with a woman. My mind twists that I have internalized homophobia or biphobia. And it’s just so tricky. Two weeks ago I was obsessing over a guy crush. And it feels like all my experiences with guys are false and has distorted normal interactions with women as signs. Not seeking reassurance in this section. I even went a long period without using NOCD. I know I’m not alone in this, we will get through this. We need to take it one day at a time. We will get through this. Sending strength and courage to all of you.

I’ve been dealing with intrusive thoughts and groinals for over a year and a half now, and the problem has only grown worse and worse. It began with just passing thoughts, and then I started developing groinals a few months in. It is genuinely with everything I love- mostly my family, but also my dogs, the toddler I babysit- and I am suffering so so so much. Eventually, it got to the point where the thoughts didn’t just pass- they would turn into a MINDSET for me and cloud my judgement for seconds to minutes. I feel like I’m in the backseat of my mind, and whatever disgusting irrational monster exists in their is taking the wheel. This still sometimes happens to me, and after it passes I look back on it and genuinely don’t want to live because of how horrible and disgusting I feel. I’m writing this because I just had a really bad moment having to do with my sibling (although things like that happen almost every day to me). No normal human is built for this, and I genuinely can’t do this anymore. I’m not expecting anyone to do anything, as I’m already getting help, but I just needed to get this out. Also, I’m not sure if this happens to anyone else, but I’ll have the WORST and most awful intrusive moments, and then after a bit of time passes I can barely remember how I felt in that moment. It is so hard to feel okay with myself. If anyone even sees this, know that I am wishing for all your happiness and recovery.

So I’ve been trying to no longer desensitize myself from animal cruelty (That being said I understand this is privileged and some people only can afford/eat meat for whatever reason) BUT I grew up NEVER eating meat or fish or whatever I had dairy and eggs sometimes but my mom had ethical issues with eating dead animals and so she passed down those values to me Now that I know cheese and eggs come from the moms of those who are killed at slaughter houses I don’t know if I should be a full on vegan or not BUT mainly right now my OCD brain is telling me kill my own dogs since their food has meat in it and so for the greater good to save more animal lives I need to kill them And it also got worse for a second and said to hurt my mom as well since she feeds them I don’t want to hurt anyone I don’t want to contribute to the meat industry I WANT TO SLEEEEEEP any advice?

So anyone have these opposite thoughts or thoughts that go against what your values and it sounds like you actually want to support such horrific, disturbing things even though you haven't and will never to this day? Its like you're inner dialogue is saying you support such things even though you know you really dont want to and the subject disgusts you and its like opposite thoughts. It's disturbing and honestly I'm a little shaken and it's been along the line of my core theme? Would anyone have any advice or have any knowledge on what this is?

I did think about the past, where i was and where i am now, and im happy that God helped me through this journey. While i was doing this i just remembered about the times when i felt really low and i was tired of ocd and that i cant live my life, and i was like i cant do this. I had enough. I think many deals with this and its okay to let it out cause if you keep stuck in you it will be worse. So i view that now as things got hard and i couldnt handle everything so i let that out. But that was followed by suicidal thoughts. I didnt wanted to do it but sometimed when i was so tired i didnt felt that anxiety or a specific feeling that i interpreted it as a sign that i dont want these thoughts, so it felt real. Now i know this is part of ocd too. But i have other problems now. Everytime when you hear someone talking aboit suicidal thoughts and their battle with them, you hear it as things got hard and they had suicidal thoughts cause they were tired of living like that. Or there is a thing people say that "i didnt wanted to die, i just didnt wanted to live like that". And i remember in the past too this triggered me, cause its the same i felt. If you think about it, we experience the same, i was tired that my life sucks, that i cant enjoy it, i felt really sad and it was unfair, felt hopeless at that time, and then the suicidal thoughts came... if you tell this to someone this sounds like someone who deals with suicidal thoughts and its on danger. I even read about people who had suicidal thoughts but hated them and felt depressed about them, and i compared myself to them, cause it was the same, i felt shame and sad about the thoughts of suicide in my head. So till this day i dont really understand whats the difference, and sometimes i get triggered cause im afraid i actually dealt with that... its also annoying that when people talk about suicidal ocd, the thoughts you hear about is just random pop up what if thoughts, but noone mentions these kind of thoights, and you only hear about them in videos where people are real suicidsl people... so someone who got through this, how you can tell the difference when dealing with suicidal thoughts sounds the same as ocd? Expecially in times when we really feel low and feel tired about our life? Cause i say again, the symptoms sounds the same, tired about the current situation, wanting to get out of pain, wanting to stop the suffering, like everyone who feel tired wants to avoid the pain...

I feel disgusting and ashamed!!!! My mom texted my sibling and got mad at them because she thought they don’t know to take care of themself and then she said “I’m so exhausted between you and Ishil”. I can’t. I can’t do this. My mom keeps making me believe things SHE thinks about! What if I don’t know how to care of myself?! I try so hard! But then what if I’m not?! I already feel self doubt and she’s triggering me to an extent that I might do self harm and start bleeding!!

So I’ve been having suicidal thoughts and thoughts of self harm because of incredibly bad depression and self loathing. While I know I probably won’t commit suicide, because I love my family and friends too much to hurt them like that, I also acknowledge that my mentality is incredibly fragile and I could probably change my mind and go through with if faced with any other major problem or challenge. I feel like I’m slowly losing my mind, dissociating, and losing connection with reality. I’m tired of feeling this way, and I feel like I’m losing my grip on my emotions. I feel like I’m losing myself, or I’ve already lost myself. And I keep thinking my parents probably don’t love me anymore for not being so funloving and happy as I used to be. I know this probably isn’t true but I’m just waiting for any implication they don’t love me anymore so I can go through with it. I’m hanging on for them and for the hope I can get better, but it’s hard. At one point I even thought about committing suicide after the holidays were over, so I could spend one last holiday with them. But I know things will probably get better and I’d probably regret it more than anything if I tried to go through with it. I’m holding on for dear life and I don’t know if I should tell them. I don’t want to ruin their happiness anymore than I have. I don’t want to cause any distress or pain but I just feel like I have no one else to go to. I don’t have a therapist at the moment, and I won’t talk to my friends about my mental health issues because I’m afraid they’ll pull away. But I’ve already been to the mental hospital twice in the past and it cost a lot of money and caused a lot of stress and sadness in my family. I don’t want to put them through that again. I feel like if I tell them it’ll make them resent me. I just want this all to stop and go back to the way it was years ago when I was happy and healthy. I have things I want to do, even if it’s only minor, and places I want to see. But I also feel like a failure and a disappointment and I can barely look myself in the mirror because I think I’m so ugly. A part of me just wants to give up but I’m doing my best to hang on. Should I tell them? Or should I just keep it to myself and hope it passes soon?

I don't think I've checked in here the entire month of December. How is everyone doing? The holidays are usually a wonderful joyful time for me but not this year. I've had nearly 2 months of setbacks from November 4th when I had a panic attack till now. Recently a little boy I knew who was close to my son died by the S word and my world has been in shambles. I called 911 Sunday morning for a breakdown because I woke up shaking and gasping for air and my mom and I weren't speaking all of Saturday because we got into a huge fight on Friday night because she said I needed to get over his death even though it only happened a week prior. When the fire department came this one dude was particularly a dick to me saying a need a psychiatrist. I can't get a recent appointment with one anywhere to save my life. The place I do thearpy at the psyche nurse doesn't have an appointment till the end of January and when I called her last month she didn't have any appointments till the end of December. It's literally easier to get a thearpy appointment then it is to get a psychiatrist appointment and it's usually the other way around. The fire department guys kept telling me it wasn't an emergency and asked if I could drive myself to the hospital. I haven't driven since July 2022 since I had a panic attack except around the area around my neighborhood and even then my anxiety and panic had gotten so bad that I don't even really leave the house much due to agoraphobia. Plus I have binocular vision disfunction and I have prism glasses but they don't help. When I try and drive I get lightheaded, panicky and shakey but was never like that before. Drobe 16 years just fine. I find it increasingly irresponsible for someone who is supposed to be there for someone in crisis to ask themselves to drive to the hospital in the middle of a panic attack. Then he asks if anyone else can drive me I said "no, my family isnt speaking to me" not to mention I have a hard time leaving the house due to the fear of panic so going in an ambulance was the best thing for me. I told them I lost a friend to S**cide and I didn't even wanna be here anymore and that's when they shut their mouth. When the paramedics got there they were a lot nicer to me but I literally had to walk into the ambulance and the whole experience was just demeaning. One of the paramedics offered me his church on YouTube I gladly accepted. He said his wife was dealing with panic attacks then went back to church and they stopped. I told him I do my bible app and pray. The ER did nothing for me but took labs and gave me a fricken hydroxizine. I could have taken one of those at home. When they tried to release me I had a panic attack from acute stress. I told them my home life is chaotic. I'm 35 living at home and have no bedroom of my own and there is constant jet noise, loud stereos of people that drive by, my brother on his computer day and night yelling at his video games, loud neighbors who party all night ect....and I just snapped and said I was having bad thoughts. They gave me an ativan (which idk why they didn't before) and just sent me home. Even still I have xanax at home. The way the ER and the fire department treats people having mental crisis is unacceptable. I won't be calling anymore when I am triggered I'll just drug myself up at home or call crisis for a ride to the mental hospital like I did last time. Anyway since then I've had super high anxiety, my doctor increased my buspar 5mg because I asked her too and she was a dick about that too so I'm firing her and getting a new doctor because I dont wanna take zoloft. I've had severe intrusive thoughts and dp/dr. I'm just trying to make it through the holidays and hope for the better. My son flys in on Tuesday and I just wish he was able to come out last year when things were much better and I wasn't sick like this. I wish nocd would accept my insurance (medicaid) I've been waiting since early 2020 and I'm poor I don't work because of my mental illness and can't afford 210 a session. Anyway I hope everyone is okay, just sending so much love because this shit is super scary and debilitating and just know you're not alone, we will get through this.

Okay.. let me start by saying I’m in a VERY committed relationship of 11 years.. and I’m Absolutely not interested in another person. But at a my job, I sell some rocks that I paint.. and this guy expressed interest in buying a custom item I make and asked if we could get coffee discussing what he wants.. eagerly, I said yes, wanting to sell my art, with it going right over my head that this man is asking me out, so I gave him my number eagerly wanting to sell my art, but as I did, I realized that I shouldn’t be and immediately regretted it.. couple days later he texted me, and I informed him that I’m in a very committed relationship ship and wouldn’t be interested in anything romantic, he said that he wasnt either and is only interested In a friendship… great, I thought… not great.. he’s been texting me relentlessly, and showing up to my job almost everyday, and it’s making me very uncomfortable.. I don’t know what to do. I’m so afraid that I was wrong to my boyfriend, or just scared that im leading this man on, even though I made it clear I wasn’t Interested, or afraid he’s going to attack me in someway.. If I would have just had the freaking balls to say no to giving him my number, I wouldn’t be in this situation. I’m so afraid, I want to change my number and quit my job.. how should I handle this??

After trauma I developed harm ocd with the worst kind of thoughts and I am in an existential crisis, its been 1.5 half years like hell for the first year, now I can read books and do sport but the thought doesn’t leave me and I can’t find the strength to just accept it because it’s awful. It’s hard for me to meet friends and act nonchalantly. When I am not reading I feel just depressed and that I don’t want to live anymore. It’s a hard daily fight what can I do more?

Hey everyone! I’m new here and thought that it might help to get my OCD story off my chest. My intrusive thoughts are so bad that I never want to talk about them to anyone so maybe that’s why I’m here. When I was 13 my grandma was in the hospital. She was my best friend in the whole world. I imagined so much life with her. I remember pulling into the hospital one day with my Dad and immediately knocking on “wood” (the car door) to help put me at ease about my grandmas health before going in. I knocked on wood because everyone knows that’s what you do when you don’t want something to happen. I didn’t want anything bad to happen to her so bad that all I could think about in that moment was something bad happening. So I knocked on wood. It made me feel better so I kept doing it whenever I had bad thoughts. But then it going confusing. If this was helping ease these thoughts, why was I starting to have these thoughts more frequently? 13 year old me didn’t understand what I was doing or why these bad thoughts started. It had got so bad that I was knocking on wood every second of the day, every surface I came across that felt right, and if I didn’t I would force myself to turn around and touch that surface. I would have to knock on wood 8 times every single time but the 7 would have two knocks because the word 7 have two syllables. But then the 8 times wouldn’t be enough, I still wouldn’t feel satisfied so I would do it again and again and again until my entire day was overpowered by intrusive thoughts or knocking on wood. My family and friends started to notice, asking why I do it. I would always avoid the question or make a joke out of it because I couldn’t tell them these terrible thoughts I was having. I was so deeply afraid of something bad happening to the people I love the most or myself that it was debilitating. A couple years later I noticed how bad it had gotten and wanted a change. So I forced myself to stop knocking. I would tell myself angrily that nothing bad would happen if I don’t knock. It took me a lot of convincing and small steps to realize this, but it worked. I got better. I went to the doctors office at about 15 and told them everything. How I did this but how I solved this. They told me it takes great mental strength to be able to fight something in your brain like that. I have always been so mentally strong but hearing them say that made me feel so much better. And I was better. For years. Yea I went through times when it was bad again but it was so much better. The past couple years it has gotten worse again. I noticed that it gets worse when my anxiety about things is higher. New changes, new people, new things. Now, at 21 I won’t let myself get back to the point I was when I was 13, but recently I can’t seem to keep the intrusive thoughts out. I am so terrified of myself or someone else getting hurt of getting older that I put the whole toll on myself. I am so so so happy with my life right now that I don’t want anything to change. That is why it’s been so bad recently. Life is amazing which is why I only want it to get better and I’m so scared something might get in the way of that. I realized after talking to my friends that I never want to say my intrusive thoughts out-loud because I believe strongly in speaking things into existence so I only speak good things out loud. That’s how I’ve always been. But when I talked with my friend she said she’s the opposite, she says the bad things out loud because then you jinx them and they won’t happen. Her saying that gave me a little peace because it made me realize that it’s okay to get these things off my chest and that saying these things out loud isn’t so serious, it’s not life or death like I thought it was. Honestly, the weight of getting my story off my chest has already helped me feel a little lighter of a load on myself.

Is it normal for someone to end up questioning their wants when they have vivid harm thoughts?

TW for emotional abuse My ex partner was verbally and emotionally abusive. It’s taken a long time for me to admit that to myself, and I still sometimes struggle with feeling like it “wasn’t that bad” even though it still deeply affects me two years later. I’m in a relationship now with the sweetest guy in the world. He communicates well, we agree on almost everything and we resolve conflicts respectfully. We have a near-perfect relationship… and it freaks me out. My current OCD theme is the fear that I am unknowingly abusing my boyfriend the way my ex abused me. I’m terrified that I’m actually an awful person and I deserve to be alone forever. Sometimes I think about just ghosting all of the people I’m closest to because I feel like staying in their lives is going to inevitably lead to me hurting them. The worst part is I feel like expressing any of this to my loved ones is ALSO an act that is hurting them. My main compulsions are rumination, googling things and other types of reassurance seeking. Has anybody else dealt with this specific theme? I feel like it would qualify as some combination of ROCD and HOCD, but I’ve never been able to find any resources about the fear of being abusive. If anyone has had this as a theme, how did you go about treating it?

So, I’m absolutely done for. It’s 2am and I just scratched my back/butt and I felt something, it felt like how dried sweat can feel like little packets of water or something. So I just had to scratch it to hell till the skin felt normal. Then, I just had to smell my fingers cuz I needed to know what it smelt like and it smelt weird ish, but then I was like now I got to look at it. So I’m trying not to blind my partner or wake him. And I see this bloody looking sight. It’s freaking ring worm at least I truly believe so after my thorough search. I couldn’t handle the thought and I didn’t know how to handle ringworm. My friend got it way back in elementary school and it looked rough. So in a panicked state I get up and stop petting my cat, which good lord. I scurry to the kitchen to then wash my hands, which I’m so glad I did. Then, I proceeded to attempt to take a picture to google search it through my camera, which is embarrassing bc it’s me bum. And it’s like could be exema which I do kinda have but it only shows up on my finger really. Or it’s definitely ringworm. And it’s round and it’s prolly bc I’ve been having night sweats, but jeez I still shower. It makes me feel gross, but also GrEaT because now I don’t know how I’m even gonna sleep. How many areas of my body did I touch? How many things might I have touched, is my boyfriend gonna get it now, like it’s a lisssst. And now I’m tryna figure out how do I sleep with this, and like the best thing to do is to not wear tight clothing or bandage the sight bc it could make it way worse. On top of everything there’s no way I could see a doctor bc I’m traumatized, and so I really hope some topical medication and stuff is gonna get me thru this. I’ll be praying like a mad man for God to help me cuz I really don’t do well with something like this. It’s contagious man. And all of this has to happen at 2 am bc I couldn’t sleep. I’m so done for. Like all I can do is laugh bc that’s all I can do man otherwise it’s full meltdown and it’s 2am and everyone is asleep in the house. I have no one to talk to about it and I’m low key still freaking out. So, ig I’m gonna sit somewhere and watch Hulu and YouTube till I figure something out or some safe way to sleep. Like I really don’t want to spread it. I guess I could whip out clean sheets and sleep on the leather couch and pray. Oh jeez, if anyone’s out there pls pray for my peace of mind. This is tough and btw I’m on my period too so hormones. This really sucks. Idk I hope this made someone laugh a little. Ig it’s not really funny but it just seems so funny to me at the same time. The whole adventure to finding out what was on my bum. This is just like the worst. And I swear if I passed it to my cat… or got it from her?! I hope she doesn’t have it, guess it’s vet time. Which is what sucks too like am I overthinking everything? But it said you can get it from animals and normally it’ll look like a missing patch of hair, which! I noticed after her last vet visit (she’s a kitten) and I thought maybe they just shaved her down or something, but honestly the hair hasn’t really come back. Dear goodness folks.

I have harm ocd and my friend has been self harming and I want to be there for them but I am not sure how to. Any advice?

Does anyone else experience feeling of dread or just wanting to quit life and give up. I notice I get like this after intrusive thoughts. Last night I had a bad one. I was up until 3am I couldn’t sleep because I was obsessing over the thought. I have harm OCD and it makes me fear that I could harm my husband. It’s awful he’s the best thing in my world and I just want all of this to stop😭😭 How do you guys deal with feelings like these. Do you experience dread? Also is night time worst for you?

hey, i saw this on tiktok and i’ve been struggling really bad my whole life. i’ve never been diagnosed but im too scared that people will tell me im being dramatic or im making it up to get help. i think it started when i was in 1st or 2nd grade, i would come home everyday and confess things to my mom. like not taking my usual routes in the hallways and not returning a pencil to anyone. i dont know why it has to be her but i still do this. it’s like she’s my only comfort person and sometimes it feels like im just bothering her with it. i dont know who to talk to or what to do to fix it. everyone has told me that getting on medicine will only make it worse because if i come off of it it will be a whole lot worse. as i got older, it kind of left me for a while until earlier this year. i’ve always been told that having an extreme conscience was a good thing, but this feels awful. i turned to God which i still believe it but i don’t think it was the right way. i was overly paranoid that the end times were coming so much that i couldn’t do my daily routines. my sister has 2 babies and when i turned to Jesus it was also because i was having insane intrusive and embarrassing of doing horrible things to them. i didn’t even know who i was. i love both of those babies like they’re my own, i constantly come over to see them, bring gifts, etc and i could never intentionally hurt them but when i have these thoughts it’s like seeing yourself in a different perspective. when i signed up for this app a few minutes ago i think it said that was POCD. i would never do anything to hurt anyone, ive always been a very gentle and caring person so it’s kind of hard to argue with yourself. i was also at the time hitting an extreme point of paranoia about my health, constantly obsessing over everything because i thought i was dying. it left me again for a few months but now it’s back and i don’t know what else to do. i don’t know if this is ocd or if im straight out just a terrible person. any advice, comments, or anything is welcome!

This is my first post on this forum and I want to share my experience with OCD so far. I was diagnosed with OCD, specifically Harm OCD about 2 months ago. However, my OCD reached new heights at the beginning of 2023. My OCD began to manifest as extreme anxiety about my health, specifically my appendix and my heart. I was obsessed with a “made up” pain in my stomach and I constantly pushed on my stomach to the point that I bruised it. I ended up going to the hospital, spending thousands of dollars just for a doctor to tell me everything was fine. 15 minutes after leaving the hospital, the reassurance was gone and I was still worried. As that obsession fizzled out, I began to obsess over my heart and I had terrible panic attacks to the point that I could not breathe, I had physical pain in my chest, tightness, and pain in my left arm. I was convinced I was having a heart attack. Back to the hospital… and guess what? Thousands spent and the doctor said nothing was wrong. So I went and started doing traditional talk therapy and I did not follow the guidance and sort of faked my way through therapy and then my OCD reached an all new height and ventured into a very dark place: Harm OCD. It started while I was laying in bed and the thought was harm yourself, there were many ways that popped into my head constantly and I had to wake up my Dad to have a talk and get a plan. We scheduled an appointment for my therapist and at this point ultimately ended up scheduling with an OCD therapist. Shortly after the self harm ocd spiked, my ocd began changing themes to harming others. It seems ways to harm will just pop in, regardless of a trigger, and I started Zoloft which has calmed my anxiety and panic attacks, but I feel so numb it’s terrifying. Has anyone ever questioned their wants when dealing with with vivid harm thoughts that don’t go away? Do you question if these thoughts really bother you?

Months ago I made a mistake at work and I havent brought it up. Im a grad student and part of my work is in the lab. I took some things out of the lab and into a different lab where there's more potential for cross contamination and I'm worried I may have contaminated them and someones lab work will be messed up but because I didn't say anything they'll never know. I feel like I need to announce what happened but it's been months, and I dont actually know if I did contaminate anything and Im embarrassed so I'd rather not. But it keeps popping up and haunting me. I know my OCD is at play right now, I'm not sure if this is a real fear or not...but I also think what I did was wrong, like there's a pretty common protocol to not take that stuff out of the lab, I just didn't think about it at the time. I could tell my advisor on Wednesday and see what she thinks I guess, but in the meantime I'm feeling consumed with guilt and it's hard to work. I know this is possibly an urge to confess so maybe it's good for me to wait? Any thoughts??