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I constantly think that if I do something wrong or choose the wrong thing that someone I love will be in a horrible accident or die. The wrong fork, the wrong sock. It makes me so angry.

Hello everybody! I know Valentine’s Day was yesterday but hear me out haha… Ever since my first boyfriend left me 3 years ago (along with the embarrassment of never having been able to get into another long term relationship…), Valentine’s Day has always been a stressful and depressing holiday for me. Being 23 and seeing many of the people I went to high school with getting married or even starting families makes me so unbelievably depressed. Don’t get me wrong! I’m so happy for these people, I just wish I could experience what they’re having too… My OCD loves to focus back onto my ex whom I haven’t spoken to or even seen in a little over 3 years (except recently when a childhood friend of mine posted a picture with him skiing). It frequently obsesses and conjures up very distressing and painful scenarios about him starting a family and getting married while I remain alone for the rest of my life. I still love him and always hoped I would’ve started a family with him. I know…it’s incredibly far-fetched and naïve thinking. I have gone on several dates and even got decently far in one relationship, but it only lasted for a few months due to some life changes. But nothing ever came close to my first relationship. In the spring of 2023, I had an incredibly bad crash out that left me an emotional and physical disaster. My health started to decline, I couldn’t keep up in university and had to drop out and move back in with my parents, and my mental health completely shattered after I found out my first boyfriend had moved on with someone else. So many things started to fall apart in my life that I contemplated taking my own life. I gave myself a year to fix everything, and if I failed, I planned to buy a gun and shoot myself in my car. While I managed to overcome most of my failings, there was still so much that was affected by my breakdown. I used to be pretty active (I was a runner and a weight lifter), and now I’m very sedentary. I find no joy in the things I used to love doing, I often feel tired and unmotivated. I do nothing all day, and I’m ashamed. Some days it’s even hard to want to bathe myself. All I do is sleep and engage in compulsive stimming (rocking back and forth in a chair and maladaptive daydreaming). I also have autism, so that plays a portion with the stimming. Rocking has always been a major problem for me, it overtakes my whole life; I spend hours engaging in this behavior and nothing has helped…. I finally got accepted into nursing school yet I feel no joy, it’s a private school so I’ll be shelling out a shit ton of money which scares me. I love being a nursing assistant, so this has nothing to do with not having passion. Helping people, even on here; reassuring people when I can, is the only joy I get nowadays. I know this is my calling, I’m just not happy in my life right now. I miss being active and being in university…I feel so isolated and lazy (lowkey a hermit) nowadays. And it scares me because I find myself not caring sometimes. I’ve never been so sedentary before…I’ve always been somewhat of a homebody but never to this extent. I don’t even like driving anymore or going outside. I feel so ashamed and unhappy…I don’t make a lot of money right now even though I live with my parents so it feels even more isolating. I just feel like a failure and I’m afraid I’ll never be able to get out of this rut. There’s so many things I want to do in my life yet I have no motivation and I’m too broke to go anywhere or sign up for anything…it’s genuinely frustrating. Anyways…thank you for hearing me out!! 🫶

Whenever I see a picture of someone—whether they have attractive features or even if there’s no clear reason—I sometimes get this intrusive thought that feels like there’s a man in my head moaning or saying something sexual. It’s not always tied to someone being attractive; it can be triggered by seeing a child, a family member, or just about anyone. When this happens, I get a sinking feeling in my stomach. I wonder if I’m confusing that feeling with arousal, but it scares me because the experience feels so real. I know it sounds strange, but it genuinely feels like there’s someone else in my head making these noises or comments. This is especially confusing because I can acknowledge when someone is attractive, when a family member has nice features, or when a child is beautiful without any inappropriate intentions. But then I get stuck on the thought, and I start feeling like that “man” inside my head is actually me, which makes me feel even more unsettled. I don’t really know how to explain it better, but that’s how it feels. It’s immediate and intense. I don’t know if OCD can do this but it feels like real arousal. I am scared. Please help

Okay so I’ve dealt with harm OCD from the beginning. Started off with harming my kids, going to jail and then harming myself. The harm to myself stuck around for a long time. Then it went away and other themes picked up but it keeps coming back. This is like the third time it’s come back and every single time it comes back it feels worse. It feels like this is the time something is going to happen. Has anyone ever dealt with this? With old themes constantly coming back and feeling more real? Please any advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks

Does anyone else feel that the feeling of anxiety that they associate with OCD is different from normal anxiety? For me, it’s like a distinct sense of dread and fear that starts in my stomach and makes me feel so dissociated from reality and trapped. I don’t know how else to explain it other than it’s very intense and distinct for me. Because of OCD I associate this feeling with feeling dangerous (like I will go crazy or hurt others). Occasionally (usually in moments of high anxiety due to personal relationships having difficulties), I get this feeling unrelated to OCD and it makes me completely spiral. I have intrusive thoughts, but I also just drown in the emotions of the feeling. I completely panic and break down and feel hopeless and powerless. It is so painful and it feels impossible to bear and like there is nothing I or anyone else can do to make this feeling go away and all I want to do is get it out. I will obsess over it and therefore always feel it which makes me horrible and completely relapse. I never know how to let it go even though I know there is nothing in particular “wrong”. It just makes me feel like me/the world is wrong, but in a vague way that just feels insurmountable and terrifying. Even once I start to feel the feeling less intensely I sometimes just remain trapped in thoughts and fears that don’t allow me to let it go. My girlfriend and I recently have had some tough conversations and I have been experience this anxious feeling recently as a result and I don’t know how to cope with it. It feels so overwhelming and insurmountable. When I feel like this I feel so hopeless. And it also makes me feel like I’m going “crazy” because there’s nothing I can do to make it better and I just want to get it to go OUT if that makes sense. Sorry for this ramble, but I’d really like to know if anyone has ever felt this way because I never hear people talk about an “OCD feeling” and I never feel like therapists understand. Of course, advice is welcome as well (please)!!!

The Healthcare system is so dissapointing and my emotions literally can't handle it. They keep making plans that give me a twinge of hope then suddenly changing them and leaving me crashing. They're not calling, not giving updates, it's almost like they want me to die. Like I was already a wreck and attempted three times and yet they just think they can leave me at home to rot and not expect me to end up back in the hospital. I want help and I have asked for it but they are not giving it to me!!! There must be something about me that makes them think I'm just some overdramaric teenage girl because I told the psychiatrist at the mental health unit that I can't keep myself safe and he told me to have faith and then I went home attempted again and then came back and he's like "welcome back"??? I wouldn't have had to come back if u had just listened to.me when I said I was overwhelmed.

I used to be such a rude person, and now it feels like it’s all coming back to me. I don’t really know how to explain it, but there was a time when I wanted so badly to be seen as a bad person. Because of that, I would say awful things to random people online, even telling them to kill themselves. I know now how harmful and disgusting that was, and I would never do it again, but I can’t stop overthinking the possibility that someone actually listened to me. Maybe they were already struggling, and maybe what I said pushed them over the edge. The worst part is that these were completely random people—I’ll never know if they’re okay or not. If I could go back and undo it, I promise I would. I know this is my karma for saying such horrible things, and I feel genuine regret. But regret feels meaningless if someone actually ended up taking their own life because of me. I get that I have to sit with the uncertainty, but my mind keeps fighting that, telling me, Why should you just accept the unknown when you might have been the reason someone took their own life? Maybe this feeling is exactly what I deserve for being so cruel in the past. I feel awful for all the people I hurt.

Can OCD mimic depression? With this theme I’m always wondering if I have OCD or depression. It first started out as harm OCD and now this. Today I told myself if I did have depression then it’s treatable and I would work on it. Then I started to feel depressed and emotional and like had an urge to google the difference. When I did this I just broke down because I felt like I related to them, it made me worse. However when I look up OCD symptoms it makes me feel better. So now I’m unsure. Almost like OCD wants me to believe it’s depression

Hi, I'm 17,about to be 18. I've been struggling with these thoughts for the past 8 months. I was wondering if someone experienced ever the same because I feel im "different". BACKGROUND: (I'm not diagnosed with Ocd but seeing a local counselor) About 9 months ago I cheated on my boyfriend with this guy S (who blackmailed, manipulated and molested me). Since then when I realized that what i did was very WRONG and so I started ruminating picking apart every single interaction and telling my boyfriend, i tried to remember every single detail because otherwise I felt like i was being a fraud and hiding things to save myself, i had many crisis about it because I had also what i think was false memory ocd. My boyfriend forgave me idk how tbh I still wonder. CURRENT STRUGGLE: Months ago I was sure I didn't wanna S in any way and i was sure even when everything happened. For the past 2 months tho I've been having thoughts like " Do I love S?" "I love S" "S is hot" "Would S find me hot?" "What if I want S?" " What if I don't love my boyfriend enough?" "What if I secretly want S?" "What if I see my boyfriend as a friend only?Do I?" And I tried testing my reaction to intimate scenarios with S, I'm scared I like it i dont really wanna love S or have any secret attraction, I wish I didn't have any of this and I want to be sure of my feelings for my boyfriend because I know I wanna be with him and I see a future with him like he brings me comfort. But a part of me keeps trying to convince me otherwise. Sometimes I think I'd rather die than have these thoughts. Im so scared of not being able to control my feelings, im scared I can't resist S and its giving me anxiety and making me cry. Sometimes when i think of those sexual scenarios with S or I get those thoughts my mind tells me to smile because i like it because I find it funny. It makes me doubt myself all over again. Like I'm always like I need to test if I'd feel aroused to intimate scenarios with S, lately im trying to fight this urge to test and test but my mind is like "just do it this once so you can be sure. I can never watch anything romantic or sexual or whatever because my mind would be like "you and S" or sometimes I'm just enjoying time with my bf and im like " yes we can just have a sneaky cheating thing thats ok" and it makes me want to figure it out to find an answer a solution because idk it just does like I need to find the meaning of it if it means the truth and all. Is this ocd ? Im worried im just an awful person and these thoughts just ruin my quality of life Today i had a crisis where i ended up doinf swlf harm, I'm so scared of finding someone that's not my boyfriend desirable or sexual appealing or whatever it is, I also have bodily reactions when I try to imagine and test my reaction to scenarios. Does someone experience the same thoughts? Am I alone in this? Is this ROCD? Can someone help me ?because I'm really hopeless. I csnt afford any help sincr im a minor and I need support

Hi, I'm 17,about to be 18. I've been struggling with these thoughts for the past 8 months. I was wondering if someone experienced ever the same because I feel im "different". BACKGROUND: (I'm not diagnosed with Ocd but seeing a local counselor) About 9 months ago I cheated on my boyfriend with this guy S (who blackmailed, manipulated and molested me). Since then when I realized that what i did was very WRONG and so I started ruminating picking apart every single interaction and telling my boyfriend, i tried to remember every single detail because otherwise I felt like i was being a fraud and hiding things to save myself, i had many crisis about it because I had also what i think was false memory ocd. My boyfriend forgave me idk how tbh I still wonder. CURRENT STRUGGLE: Months ago I was sure I didn't wanna S in any way and i was sure even when everything happened. For the past 2 months tho I've been having thoughts like " Do I love S?" "I love S" "S is hot" "Would S find me hot?" "What if I want S?" " What if I don't love my boyfriend enough?" "What if I secretly want S?" "What if I see my boyfriend as a friend only?Do I?" And I tried testing my reaction to intimate scenarios with S, I'm scared I like it i dont really wanna love S or have any secret attraction, I wish I didn't have any of this and I want to be sure of my feelings for my boyfriend because I know I wanna be with him and I see a future with him like he brings me comfort. But a part of me keeps trying to convince me otherwise. Sometimes I think I'd rather die than have these thoughts. Im so scared of not being able to control my feelings, im scared I can't resist S and its giving me anxiety and making me cry. Sometimes when i think of those sexual scenarios with S or I get those thoughts my mind tells me to smile because i like it because I find it funny. It makes me doubt myself all over again. Like I'm always like I need to test if I'd feel aroused to intimate scenarios with S, lately im trying to fight this urge to test and test but my mind is like "just do it this once so you can be sure. I can never watch anything romantic or sexual or whatever because my mind would be like "you and S" or sometimes I'm just enjoying time with my bf and im like " yes we can just have a sneaky cheating thing thats ok" and it makes me want to figure it out to find an answer a solution because idk it just does like I need to find the meaning of it if it means the truth and all. Is this ocd ? Im worried im just an awful person and these thoughts just ruin my quality of life Today i had a crisis where i ended up doinf swlf harm, I'm so scared of finding someone that's not my boyfriend desirable or sexual appealing or whatever it is, I also have bodily reactions when I try to imagine and test my reaction to scenarios. Does someone experience the same thoughts? Am I alone in this? Is this ROCD? Can someone help me ?because I'm really hopeless. I csnt afford any help sincr im a minor and I need support

Since I read that it's symptoms of schizophrenia voices in head who order to do bad things Usually I can deal with it but when I'm highly stressed I start to panic and idk if I believe voices and then I imagine living with it 24/7 it's horrible Im like it's unblerable part to feel pot in my stomach .. Am I in psychosis guys My psy is on vacation help ..I feel hopeless 🥺 Every time I read an symptoms on internet my mind manifest it but it's been a while my mind imitate voices because it's what scare me the most 🥺🥺🥺 A side note : I can attest that before reading symptoms it never even happened to me in my whole life

okay so i have had hocd for almost my whole life to a point where i have acted on urges. every time i would be disgusted and anxious because i know that’s not me. does anyone have any similar experiences or tips? i love my boyfriend now and rocd and hocd just came back with MOUNDS of evidence. it’s heartbreaking. all i want to do is marry my boyfriend and not have these fears!

Hi! For context: I was diagnosed with OCD late last October, I’ve had it for my entire life. At the same time I started Sertraline medication. I’m turning 22 this year, I’m finally with my long distance partner again and we are starting a new chapter. So safe to say going through a lot of changes, my family and friends are across the world from me. I’ve had so many good things happen to me after my OCD diagnosis (I’ve gone through a lot of trauma so I’m not used to good things happening to me like this) and I’m not used to feeling good. I’m constantly worried that something bad will happen and I cant stop worrying about it, even though there is no use.. Current world events are on my mind as well though I’ve decided to limit my news intake for now and focus on myself. I’m going through so many big changes right now, my body is getting used to my medication and my frontal lobe is developing so my hormones are just crazy (and I also suffer from PMDD before my periods). I just feel so different every single day and at times it feels like I dont know who I am anymore and it’s extremely strange and my ocd tries to cling onto that and tell me that something is wrong or something is about to go wrong. Does anyone have a similar experience? I feel like I’m completely alone in this

I usually don’t post on here but today has just been something else. my normal 20 minute drive to work took me 50 minutes, and my way home from work took me another 50 minutes, and then getting back in my car to drive back and forth around for like another hour. allll because of hit and run ocd. i’ve been conquering ocd now for quite some time and i was doing so great, all of a sudden the intrusive thoughts/images are like a level 10 anxiety. today when i drove around again to check the roads i went on, the compulsion barely even worked to ease my anxiety momentarily since my brain would come up with a new one the moment i got to the street. at some point i had to be like ok this is out of control im going home. now i sit at home dwelling on my whole drive! mentally reviewing (my go to compulsion with this theme) is not working either, cause my brain won’t let me like fully see the memory. it keeps giving me what ifs and blurry confusing memories. just looking to see if anyone relates as this is one of the most lonely themes ever for me :’) and it feels embarrassing for me when the people around me are witnessing it!

Last night I had a fucked up intrusive thought/urge about harming my partner and I'm spinning out today. I let them know I had an intrusive thought and was struggling with compulsions around it and future repercussions, but did not tell them exactly what the thought/urge was, which they accepted. Do y'all share details with your partners about harm ocd? How can we healthily ask for support from people we are having horrible thoughts about?

Hey all. I’ve been on NOCD for maybe two months, or three? and I’m still struggling. My episode of “OCD” started at the end of September last year, and ever since it’s been hell. The first month was what I can only describe as torture. I was crying every day, vomiting from anxiety, and the moment I woke up I was seized by panic in my chest and fear of the day to come.My favorite part of the day was nighttime because I knew I could go to sleep and have the briefest respite from the constant stream of intrusive thoughts. The very first thought I had was one of POCD, and it terrorized me for days on end before I finally told my mom and boyfriend out of feeling the need that if they knew and knew how scared I was, they would be able to help me and stop me from doing anything. It felt good to know that they were still there for me despite what I was thinking, but that relief didn’t last very long. Soon nothing they could say was enough to calm me down, and I was put on 50 mg of sertraline. I barely ate and found that one of the few things that brought me comfort was researching my symptoms online. I came across OCD and then NOCD, and to this day am fairly convinced I have “pure” OCD. The three psychologists I’ve visited say, though, that I’m not showing any compulsions like magical thinking or counting, and that then it’s not OCD and I’m suffering from a severe depressive/ anxious episode. I’m struggling a lot with this because it’s almost as if I need to have OCD, because then that means I have a condition that’s been studied and that I can be helped. Then I feel as if I’m trying to manipulate my psychologists into diagnosing me with it. My current psychologist recognizes that I’m dealing with obsessive thoughts, but since I haven’t told her about any conducts she believes that my intrusive thoughts are a result of depression or some trauma that I haven’t fully processed yet. I’ve lived through some stuff, but I struggle to understand exactly which one of them was so bad and harmful to me that it’s destroyed me like this. I’ve always kind of moved on from things and thought that I’ve healed from them, because nothing has ever hurt me like this. As such I’m feeling extremely hopeless because no matter which name is tied to my condition, I get the idea that I’m going to continue thinking about it every day for the rest of my life because I’ll never forget I thought of such horrible things. That makes me feel like I don’t want to live anymore. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to kill myself, I desperately want to live and be happy again and accomplish all my goals. But the idea of dragging this with me for days upon days upon days is so tiring, that I wish my conscience could just cease to exist. I’ve thought of hurting myself just to show everyone how bad I’m hurting, and how desperate I am. That would bring no good and I can only imagine how that could hurt my parents. So I’m living each day and holding on. Sometimes it gets better, and sometimes it gets worse. Today is the latter and I just felt like I needed to vent. Thank you if you read up to here. I wish you all the best :)

so i was on instagram and it came up with other signs of ocd then someone commented this doesn’t mean you have ocd now im stressed that its not ocd background - i had so-ocd for a few years then got treatment for it but am now on the waiting list for further treatment for other stuff but i dont have another theme which makes me feel like its not ocd my day to day life consists of touching the door handle every time you go past it or someone will die, and inability to send emails without re reading loads of times and getting other people to check because im scared i wrote something bad but the what if it’s not ocd thought is triggering me now and i don’t know what do

i don't think i ever felt this bad before. ive had ocd since i was 14 or so, almost a decade, but now it's truly the worst it's ever been. i can't even enjoy being with the love of my life anymore, everything about our intimacy triggers me, im costantly afraid that i abused her in some way and that she doesn't remember because she's in denial, or im always terrified im having some horrible intentions towards her and that i always end up forgetting them. it's so deeply confusing, she seems so happy being with me she says she loves me so much and i can see it in how she looks at me, but i feel like a monster. most of the time i wish she could find someone better, if she asked me j would break up with her and do anything in my power to make her have the life she deserves. i don't know what to do anymore im exhausted. therapy is not helping at all, i Just get told constantly that i shouldnt think about these things, that its illogical, and it does nothing for me.

I’m 18 and very new to my diagnosis, I’ve had symptoms my whole life but it’s gotten significantly worse within the last few years. I’m honestly just looking for advice. My days feel impossible, I wake up and have to convince myself I’m real, and I continue with that battle my entire day. Sometimes this battle happens and i start worrying that I can’t breathe. When I eat I get worried there’s fentanyl in my food that I will overdose from. My life feels impossible and I can’t see how this will get better or when it will. I’m on medication, and am in conversational therapy but I’m still learning about myself and my triggers etc so it’s hard to know what to talk about, how to explain it best and what can help me overcome my struggles. Anyhoo any advice would be so insanely appreciated. I don’t have a very supportive community around me. they try to be supportive but I don’t think they understand what OCD is or how mine works.

Hey guys, so since I started taking Wellbutrin about a week ago or so, my OCD has become so much worse. I keep getting intrusive thoughts about my dog dying. He is 12 years old and shows no signs of slowing down as he is tiny and still runs around like a puppy. I get constant intrusive thoughts that he will die soon and it hurts so bad that every time I think about it tears come to my eyes. I worry that I will never enjoy playing with him or cuddling him again because I’m so afraid of him dying and feel horrible sadness and anxiety whenever I see his cute lively little gray face. How can I be comfortable with these thoughts? I love my baby more than anything in the world and I would like some support or some comfort. I’m stopping Wellbutrin because I think that’s causing my OCD to worsen the worst it’s been in a very long time. Here’s a picture of him so you guys can see how cute he is :)