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working to conquer OCD
An animal in my county tested positive for rabies in my county last night. I’ve been feeling so weird and all that since getting bit by a cat on the 6th I’m actually gonna end it all if I have it. I can’t do this anymore oh my god
i saw a family member post their kid, he is super adorable and funny ive met him before. but ever since seeing that my pocd is telling me i want to hurt him and or do something to him. im really close with his mom i look up to her a lot im scared that u will find out and i will be shunned forever. I don’t want to do anything to him. but these thoughts feel so real and it feels like my body is just gonna get up and commit a crime. she is very spiritual and I go to her for advice a lot, im scared she’s gonna get bad vibes or negative intentions from me I just want to be a good person I don’t want to hurt anyone especially him :( another thing is I had a thought that he looked like my ex and he does and even looks how he looked when HE was a baby but im scared that that means im a p. I hate this :( I get groinal responses and rapid intrusive thoughts it’s so draining :(
I’ve been suffering with pure ocd for the past 8-9 months with ups and downs, which has been impacting everything, I’ve tried my best to convince myself to identify that they’re only thoughts and don’t define me, but the fact their pure and I just have mental compulsions is so draining, I feel like I can’t take this anymore, and the doubt that comes along with it is so bad, I’ve also been on meds which haven’t helped at all, still feeling depressed and anxious all the time. Yesterday, I read how someone having was having thoughts regarding kids, I now fear that I’ll get the same which I really don’t want and now just constantly ruminating over that, im constantly just worried about my future, career and relationships as I’ve always wanted to do a lot of things in life, and the past year has been hell for me, I dunno what to do anymore? I’ve got a month till I’m seeing a private therapist, does this ever get better , I just wanna be myself again without these thoughts bothering me all the time and that feeling of having to be scared of them coming into my mind, and not having to life with the doubts. I also get thoughts of ending it all, but that’s now what I want but I feel so trapped in my own head. Please does anyone have advice, I’ve tried everything, meditation, medication, trying to convince myself it’s just my mind, but I can’t stop the worry and just accept the intrusive thoughts without feeling so distressed.
This is going to be a long post so to anyone who will read it and will share feedback, thank you. I’ve realized I’ve lost all respect for myself. When I was 14 years old I experienced my first ever intrusive thought. I was with my childhood friend whose dad passed away when we were babies. I had a thought that I hope he went to hell and if he were alive, I’d rape him. As a 14 year old kid that really scared me, and the thought still scares me to this day. I’m 22. I researched my symptoms and of course, OCD popped up. I went through many therapy sessions, and I finally got diagnosed with OCD about 2 years ago. I’ve had a really bad confessing problem that whenever I have an intrusive thought, I HAVE to confess it to people, especially if the thought is specifically about them. My childhood friends mom found out I had this thought about her dead husband and basically pushed me out of my friends life to “protect her” that if I were to ever tell her, her mom would make sure her daughter never spoke to me again. This happened about a year ago, and to this day I believe subconsciously it has stuck with me because of the fact that I made someone so uncomfortable that they had to push me out of their life. Especially since they were people who have known me since I was a baby. I’ve started using alcohol and other substances to numb this pain that I endure. My OCD has even started taking over my new relationship. He thinks I’m perfect in every way and I just can’t seem to believe that. I’ve already gotten fears that I’ve cheated on him and or will cheat on him in the future. He’s one of the most precious people I have ever met, and though I have already told him a few of my intrusive thoughts and have explained to him what I go through, I feel as though if he found out about other thoughts I’ve had that he would cut me off completely, just like other people have in the past. I can’t help but feel like a terrible person and friend for all the thoughts I’ve had. I never thought I’d be in this situation where I’m experimenting new substances and getting drunk every weekend. I’ve really failed and not sure what to do at this point. I don’t feel I deserve to be happy or take care of myself. The situation with my friends mother is a prime example.
OCD Journey Stories
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I was screaming for help, and no one listened. My OCD told me that it was all my fault. Believe me when I say that it’s never too late to get the help you deserve.
By Anonymous
Read my Harm OCD story →I feel guilty I’m feeling this way because I know people going through worse stuff than me right now so I can’t speak to them and feel so alone I feel like I’m making it up and putting on “bad mental health” and that I’m actually fine but if that’s the case why am I feeling so drained and struggling to get through the day Constantly having thoughts of s3lf harm again I don’t know what this feeling is anymore and I don’t even know what’s what I feel a mess I can’t explain what’s going on inside my head
I’m almost 4 months post partum and started having terrible OCD centered around going into a psychosis and hurting my family. Today I’ve been obsessing terribly and constantly checking my five senses. I’ve been able to work through this obsession in the past to the point that it was just a passing thought, but last night I walked into my bedroom and smelled weed. Nobody in my house smokes or has been around weed, so now I’m terrified I was hallucinating. Please help me.
I’ve been struggling with intense shame and guilt brought on by obsessions of whether or not I’m a decent friend, a decent person, if I’m doing things right, and whether or not I’m making a positive impact on society. Any time I do something that causes harm or that I perceive may cause harm or if I’m in the room where someone is causing harm I get extremely anxious about the repercussions and what it means for the course of my entire life. I’ve always believed in karma and how people get what energy they put out into the world, and it makes me fear causing anyone unintentional harm, so I go out of my way to be as aware and proactive of reducing harm to people and communities as possible. I’m getting extremely burnt out and almost never have energy or find time to do something that I enjoy, because it feels like I’m doing it at the expense of others. I feel like I’m constantly anticipating bad things to happen and people to be angry at my existence or responses to everything. I’m not terrified of criticism but I am terrified of people viewing me as a bad person, as annoying, as gross, as a disturbed human being, etc. I welcome criticism,but I’m terrified of other people’s perceptions of me and abandoning me because of it. I’m a trans man and it’s all exacerbated by anti-trans rhetoric and stigma against gay men and anything having to do with sexuality. It also manifests as racialized OCD. I am white and very privileged, but I try to be aware and diligent about learning about and acknowledging my biases and privileges and actively working to change them. However, my fears and anxieties about messing up and causing harm often overwhelm me and make it very difficult to make consistent and empathetic efforts without being consumed by anxiety and intrusive thoughts. My brain exhausts me and keeps me from establishing deep and meaningful connections with people of color. I don’t ever want to overwhelm my friends by sharing this intense fear, but not being honest about it probably isn’t helping us understand each other better at all. It makes me so sad and I feel like a failure.
hey:) My name is mai, i‘m 18 years old. I think I‘ve been struggling with OCD almost all my life - eventhough i‘ve only realized it lately, thanks to a friend that made me aware of the fact that the horrifying thoughts and impulses i sometimes experience, are not „just a little stress and insecurity“. When i was a little kid i had very long hair. People always commented on it, sometimes they said things that triggered an unproportional huge amount of anxiety in me. I Never wanted to cut my hair. Someday my sister and a friend told me that if i wasn‘t going to cut it soon, they’d come at night and do it for me when i sleep. I was always a sensible and fragile person that thinks too much and doesn‘t know where to put these thoughts. At that time i didn‘t realize how much these words and fears affected me, but unconsciously i started controlling if my hair was still there every 40-60 seconds. I could not sleep if my hair was not hanging over my right shoulder where i could see and feel it. I always wore it on the right, and checked it - constantly, until one day a doctor told me that my neck was suffering due to the weight and the tense position that my head was always in. Then i decided to end this fear and cut it, so that the pain and fears would stop, reminding myself that i could always regrow it. The fear disappeared, and for some years, in which i struggled with other disorders, the OCD symptoms seemed to be somewhere in the back of my mind. I just finished school, and now i‘m preparing for the TMS (a test in Germany that increases your chances of getting into med school). Since the structure and safety of going to school regularly is missing, and since i don‘t know if I’ll be accepted for one of the subjects i‘d like to study, i feel very much out of control. I feel helpless, at the mercy of strangers and i‘m so afraid of failing the expectations i have for myself. Since this phase of „being out of control and safety“ has started, i suddenly experienced a lot of different anxieties, some of them causing panic attacks on a regular basis. I obsess about my health, i find new symptoms and proofs I could be dead or very Sick in the next few days - every week. I‘ve been to my doctor so often i think he‘s really annoyed because of my ideas. Sometimes i also have psychological fears, like what if i‘m losing my mind.? What if i‘m having a psychosis? What if nothing is even real and everything is just an illusion? Thinking about life and existence frightens me a lot. I can‘t drink alcohol of caffeine anymore because i‘m convinced it will change my perception of reality in a way i couldn‘t handle. Some days i wake up and think that the colour of the socks i choose to wear will determine what kind of day This will become. I often worry that i bother people too much, that i‘m annoying and Just hopeless and that eventually people will realize how exhausting i am, and leave. It’s especially bad in romantic relationships, and it makes everything hard to enjoy. I have now chosen to work on myself, on my real fears - that lay beneath the things i think to fear. I want to educate myself on this disease and get my life back. I‘ll make a list of things that i used to love, and am now too afraid to do. I want my life back from my anxiety and OCD.
I just did ERP in my therapy and I felt completely horrible. I was watching a video of a woman harming her husband or where she harm her husband and that’s what I’m dealing with harm OCD towards my husband while I was watching it. I completely didn’t feel nothing like before watching it I did feel a little scared because I thought I was gonna get ideas but honestly, I feel like at this point I thought everything and every possible way of harming my husband. Recently they killed a guy near me and they shot him and I put myself in the position of if that were to be my husband like how would I feel and I felt super heartbroken super sad like really sad that something like that could happen to him, but when I was watching the ERP exposure I did not feel anything like I started crying because I’ve heard they were talking about the guy that was dead and it’s like I wouldn’t want someone talking like that about my husband but then again like I wouldn’t want it, but then my head is telling me I would want it like I didn’t feel completely nothing while I was watching the video like I did not feel anything. Neither concerned neither scared neither happy like I was just neutral. Then again I’m on medication and it makes me feel numb but then again I do feel sometimes and I just I’m worried that I’m just gonna turn into that person.
Before I was diagnosed with OCD I was certain I was loosing my mind. I convinced myself that I was schizoprenic or going slipping into pyschosis at any moment. It all started one day at work after having a few drinks the night before and chugging one of the most amazing tasting coffees of my life. I had my first panic attack. The best way I can describe it felt like my soul was leaving my body (I became really, really light headed). It was horrifying. This spiraled out of control with more and more panic attacks. I started having intrusive thoughts/what seemed like an intrusive urge to do ridiculous stuff. For example, I remember being in a spiritual development class one day and I had this intrusive urge/thought to smash all of the beautiful crystals. Something i'd never do obviously but the thought horrified me. Since, my OCD theme has jumped around a bit to so many ridiculous things. I had harm OCD for a while where I would see images in my head of stabbing someone or pouring boiling water on them. As ridiculous and silly as it sounds to an outsider, I can not even began to describe the grief and horror this created in my soul. I then had repetitive intrusive thoughts "schizophrenic" and "demon" over and over again gosh probably thousands of times a day. Again, certain I was crazy. I tried CBT which actually made it worse. I was terrified to speak to anyone about what was TRULY going on with me because I was certain i'd end up bakeracted and as a single parent I knew that couldn't happen. Plus I knew at heart I was not schizophrenic it just spiraled into this massive fear. It plagued my life every day for years until I FINALLY talked to another person that has OCD & send me an article about OCD where I began my research into leading to an eventual diagnosis. My compulsions were more mental acts like searching mental illness on Google for hours, avoiding triggers, and saying internal prayers or asking the universe to give me signs i'm not losing it in addition to nervous movements like fixing my hair or putting my hands near my face. I am still healing from OCD and the terror that its' caused in my past but i've learned to love myself and know that I am worth it (having mental health issues has always made me feel like it's my biggest flaw) and it's so beyond my control & despite my issues, i'm still pretty awesome! WE ARE ALL A LITTLE INSANE ANYHOW ARENT WE? Lol. Seriously, it's been an absolute game changer. I still have intrusive thoughts from time to time that create some anxiety but it's decreased so drastically. Most of the time I don't pay them any mind or it's tolerable. I am so beyond grateful for NOCD and understanding everything I can about OCD. My life will never be the same since that day but its still pretty damn good! I just want to add a couple other symptoms I experienced was dreaded fear I was going to start hallucinating at any moment. I'd question if I was really seeing/hearing things or if I was hallucinating, and constantly checking my mental state. Too happy? OMG I'm manic and that's going to cause pyshcosis. Too sad? Vice versa.. I hope this helps! Do the triggers, accept the uncertainly, accept your fear and get your life back.
Hello all, does anyone else understand this. I can be reading something on social media or news source and hear about a woman who killed herself and it becomes a huge trigger for me. I get so upset I try to know more info about the how and why of the story thinking omg what if I did that or became like that person. It gets my mind going whenever I come across these articles and I have to convince myself I’m ok and this isn’t my life but I get so upset and sends me spiraling.. Can anyone relate to this? How do you cope with it? I know I’m okay and wouldn’t do that but the what if aspect scares me 😢
Hi - If any one of you have done ERP on above subtypes and recovered successfully, please ping me. I would like to hear some tips from you. Thanks!
I just reposted this on my TikTok but feel like I need to unrepost it (I do this with every post and it has to feel right and like it’s in the right place) but I started getting thoughts because I know my bf is going to see it like I don’t want him to think it’s about him and I’m getting scared it’s going to hurt his feelings Because obviously I would never shoot a man but it’s making me think does that mean I would and that I’m a bad person for reposting like I’m getting scared that I want to hurt him or something But it’s just a TikTok thing that’s going round about the “man or a bear” But now I feel like a bad person for having an opinion but I never commented on this trend before
How does one overcome POCD when it’s tied into/influenced by actual events in my life? I feel like there is almost a pattern for me :( My events involve researching/googling disturbing things I shouldn’t have out of morbid curiosity (and seeing truly horrible things/images on the internet as a result of this), having thoughts about girls in their late teens sometimes being attractive (it’s happened multiple times that I thought a girl was attractive then learned she was like 17 or something. It always disgusts me, but I feel the need to test to make sure they aren’t attractive to me upon me finding out their ages. This causes even more distress and discomfort). I have certain and uncertain memories about pleasuring myself to things that are morally unacceptable (one of those things being a scene from one of those films on the Disturbing Movie Iceberg that I watched and I’m unsure I may have m*********d to. It involved CSA and was one of the first catalysts for my POCD. I am only about 40-50% confident that this didn’t happen). I’m even going back and remembering a time where I was 12-13 and read fanfics about a 9-year old anime character being shipped with a full adult. However all but the last event happened between the ages of like 20-23 (I’m 24f now and the thing about worrying about finding girls in their late teens attractive is the only current “active” thing going on. Everything else is based on past events). Every time I read about POCD, it always seems like people’s distress revolves around “current” intrusive thoughts (e.g, “Did I find that child attractive?” or “Did I touch that child inappropriately?”). I rarely see things involving past actual events similar to mine, and it makes me think that this isn’t just POCD. I feel like there’s no other explanations for my actions, this feels like a pattern of behavior. I am so afraid that I am a p***. And I’m leaving for a movie soon. Not exactly sure how I’m supposed to pretend I’m ok and act present when the friends I’m going with would likely hate me if they knew all of this. Im so tired.
People don’t understand how much ocd takes over your life, here’s some of my old compulsions through the years, I can laugh about these ones now as I’ve managed to stop them. Although I’m yet to beat false memory ocd. - Checking the knife draw before bed 14 times just to be ‘sure’ the knife’s were all there. - Filming under my bed before I went to sleep to make sure no one was there. - Barricading my door at night as I had a fear I would sleep walk and ‘hurt’ someone. - Video myself doing my nightly compulsions (locking doors, turning lights off, checking everything etc) to make sure it’s done. - running up and down the stairs 44 times before bed to make sure no one dies 😅😂(honestly no clue) - tapping an even number of times on each side of my body. - whenever I made someone else a drink I would have to re-do it about 10 times and video it, as id convinced myself I’d poisoned it🙃lol I mean I could go on forever but here’s some!! I’m hoping this makes someone feel less alone as I’ve stopped this now with a lot of work, it is possible!! False memory ocd is next for me , I’m hoping I can beat this as I have the above.
I don’t know how anyone does it! I’ve tried so hard to face my intrusive thoughts because I’m so tired of my mind telling me to do things over and over or else my mom will die. I know it won’t happen but my mind refuses to let me let it go. I don’t mean to bother anyone who isn’t religious but I just have to also get this off my chest. I’ve never been more ashamed of myself for how I’ve acted today revolving God. I love God more than anything and yet I can never fully put my faith in him because I’m so scared. No matter how many quotes and bible verses I read telling me to let go of my fear, I can’t. I’m terrified to even move at this point. I understand I need to get a job and get outside more. But how can I do that when I too scared to leave my bed because I know what my day will consist of. All I do is sleep because I’m so drained, I’ve completely lost myself. I just keep telling myself others have it worse because it’s true, I just wish these thought would go away because I’m tired of feeling like I’m crazy.
Hello, My son is 22 and started having intrusive thoughts about hurting himself and us his parents. We have tried outpatient therapy, he has seen a physiatrist and has been in therapy all this year. He started with these thoughts after watching a very violent show/video game and kept picturing himself causing harm to his father, then moved to me, then his sister. The guilt he feels for feeling these things and having these thoughts becomes overwhelming at times to the point he thinks of irrational solutions. Such as cutting his hands off so he dont ever put himself or us in any kind of danger. He did really well for a couple months but now his meds don't seem to work. He's not motivated to do anything. He's never driven, he stays home all the time. Is afraid to socialize. Has gained a lot of weight. As a mother I dont sleep, worried about him. I feel like we walk on eggshells around him. Have had to move anything sharp out of the house. Please tell me he cab get better and that there is light at the end of this dark tunnel. We as a family are desperate. I love my son and there is absolutely nothing I wouldn't do for him. But I feel like he's not motivated to help himself and life is passing him by to the point he feels he has no purpose in this life. Please help.
People who weren’t diagnosed and/or didn’t even realize they had OCD until they were older. Are there any stories or memories you look back from when you were younger and now see the OCD gremlin laughing in the background? For me I just recalled the other day how starting in elementary/middle school, and lasting for years, that I refused to allow myself to fall asleep on my back because I was afraid of my tongue falling loose and choking on it while I slept. I even just recently learned how obsessive thoughts about death are common for people with OCD, and I can recall times from when I was even younger of just thinking and ruminating about the afterlife. Not that these are necessarily 100% OCD related but…
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