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Guys I feel a bit bothered. I fear I liked a thought bc my sister was showing me this video about a robbery and right before she was going to show me I was thinking "no... tsk this is not what I want to see. Dont think of anything." But i had to watch bc my sister was already playing the video. I tried to not pay as much attention. I hate watching videos that have stuff related to harm bc ocd loves to latch on. I got so many thoughts. But when I saw the person pull out a weapon and the cashier jump extremely high, I felt like laughing??? But not bc of what was going on but bc "why did he jump like that? It was so high! You know what? I would've jumped liked this too. That's scary!" And then I felt angry for the cashier bc why do evil people commit such things? How the heck? But ocd says i laughed bc I felt a sense of superiority and liked seeing people scared and want to feel a distorted sense of power. Like.. no? I knew I felt like laughing bc I didn't expect him to jump so high and I wanted to point it out but decided not to bc the video is serious, and it's not a movie. But I feel kinda guilty like why tf did I feel like laughing. I didn't even smile or actually laugh irl but it's bothering me. Then my sister showed me some other video and explained a specific weapon and I kept getting thoughts like "ohhh i want that! I wanna scare people too! I want to test the thoughts to double check if i actually like them" And it gave me an image of me doing something crazy like robbing a store as well! AND IT FELT REAL! I WASNT EVEN WANTING TO THINK THIS! Im worried this means its real or that i enjoyed the thought and fantasized, but at the same time ik im not actually interested nor do I have plans but what if I WANTED to for those few seconds?! Bc why did it FEEL like I enjoyed it??? I know I wouldn't, i dont have plans to nor do i want to think about making plans and I'm genuinely not interested but WHAT IF??? Did i enjoy this thought?! It felt like I wanted to bc I didn't immediately reject it like usual and for some reason felt "happy" (i didnt smile or anything but it FELT like i was happy???) Literally right after the thought came i was thinking to myself "OMG is that true?" And couldn't focus on anything else! How do I know I didnt genuinely enjoy and dont have some weird sense of power??? It's been bothering me so much, this happened a couple hours ago and I managed to fall asleep in the middle of my compulsion of mentally reviewing how I reacted to my thoughts.
Guys for the past couple of hours ive been spiraling! I wad researching and came across this harm ocd article question that has been worrying me. The title was "im scared of hurting someone when I'm mad. Can i trust myself?" And I was thinking "hey that's what ive been worried about for the past several months!" I even AVOID being angry. Im scared of it bc I get a lot of thoughts and I'm hyperaware of my hands and feel them tingly! Last time i tensed so hard to stay still as possible bc I was so so nervous from my thoughts and my hand twitched which made me SPIRAL. I never want to cause harm! And i always start crying after an argument bc the thoughts are so so scary! Anyway I got afraid bc the article said "research has shown that people with ocd don't struggle with impulse control- so if you find yourself intensely worried you could do harm based on the intrusive thoughts or urges you have, it's likely something else is going on." THAT SENTENCE HAS LEFT ME WITH A TON OF ANXIETY! Its so bad, my appetite is gone! I'm scared does this mean I don't have ocd and should be seriously concerned?!
I’m new to treatment and only realized I have OCD a few months ago. I went through a tough and abusive marriage and ended up getting divorced. I had my first panic attack several years ago and ended up needing to go on Lexapro. This helped me significantly and allowed me to leave my partner. Several years later and I decided to stop Lexapro because I thought I was good to go. I’m in a very healthy relationship, have a great job, friends/family, go to the gym and have a wonderful life. It’s been about a year off the meds and I’ve had some panic, but I’ve been able to manage it. For some reason, the last three weeks has been really difficult for me. I have different spirals and different thought processes: what if I’m schizophrenic? What if I have a deeper mental disorder? What if I hurt someone? What if I need to leave my partner? What if I end up becoming so depressed that I end up hurting myself? My brain just goes from one what if to the next and once I conquer one, the next one pops up with even more intensity. I started taking NAC and inositol and I’m taking saffron during the day because I really don’t wanna go on back on medication but sometimes my thoughts scare me and I’m convinced that I’m not gonna get better and I know that’s just the OCD loop, but I’m wondering if this resonates with anyone else!
Let me start by prefacing that I developed ocd as postpartum ocd after having my first child. I had harm and pocd. I had it on and off for years and then it just eventually went away completely for many years until recently after a stressful life event. Now that it’s back it again targets my children but now my grandchildren also. It’s been horrible and makes me pull away from them. Last night my 6 year old granddaughter threw up in the car when my daughter was about to take her home so my daughter brought her back in the house and asked me to clean her up while she cleaned her car. I had some anxiety about it because of my ocd but I couldn’t say no to helping so I opened the bathroom door and my granddaughter was standing in her underwear waiting for me to clean and dress her. Everything was fine and normal but then for some reason, I have no idea why, I looked down at her chest area. I immediately got so upset and didn’t know why I looked there and now my ocd is saying it’s because i’m a monster. I tried to tell myself it’s just normal human behavior when someone is standing there naked that you look where you shouldn’t simply because it’s just there in front of you but I feel horrible. I don’t feel any inappropriate way about her or any child but my ocd is saying it was inappropriate. Has anyone else been through this?
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Read my Harm OCD story →I'm in college and about an hour ago i had class. I like to sit alone bc I get a bunch of stupid intrusive harm thoughts. Anyway I couldn't focus AT ALL today. This girl decided to sit next to me and I wanted to ESCAPE. Like i desperately wanted to get up and leave to the bathroom and wait till class was over. I took a deep breath and stayed anyways and tried to focus on lecture but i kept getting so many thoughts and I kept hyperfocusing on my right hand (which was next to her) and my hand felt so weird! Like tingly?? I was like "omg why is my hand feel so weird?? Does that mean i want to do something?!" And it kept imagining me grabbing at her or grabbing my drink and throwing it on her while i was trying to take a sip. I tried eating my breakfast to distract myself but i was holding a fork and got another thought. I realized i was tensing my hands (as a compulsion... i try to keep them as still as possible and as close to me as possible bc the thoughts feel so distressing and the "what if i act out " is playing in my head) And I was internally panicking and now im at the library feeling sad and i feel like I need to solve this. I spent the past hour just mentally reviewing the whole class time rn. The whole class time I was at the edge of the table trying to stay as far as i could and i would get relieved whenever she would stand up to leave the class for something. I managed to make it through the whole class without leaving though but the question in my mind is bothering me so much, "how do I know that these thoughts aren't genuine or are thoughts I want to carry out and why was my hand feeling so weird?" I feel stressed at the library and i want to figure this out 😞
i’m struggling. so i’m a nanny and i had an intrusive thought to like do something bad to him so i was very upset crying saying i don’t want to do it but as i was changing him i got closer to it to see if i would actually do it and i got grossed out. now im feel extremely guilty i even got closer.
I’ve struggled with necrophilic intrusive thoughts for a while. Every time I hear that someone passed, especially if it’s someone I know, my brain will be like “you want to r*** their dead body”. It’s really disturbing and makes me feel horrible. I feel like I need to tell everyone so they know the “real” me and I fear they wouldn’t like me anymore. A friend of mine, her friend passed away recently and I got the same thought about her. I want to confess to her but I know I can’t. Does anyone relate?
I think I know what honestly is what caused my OCD. I’ve never told anyone this but I have to if I want help. When I was either 10 or 11, I think 10 I was at my family’s thanksgiving dinner. Around this time I discovered porn and got addicted. I would watch porn and read erotica. Because of this I guess I wanted to experiment. I feel absolutely horrible just thinking about this but I was playing around with my little cousin, he was around 7 I think and I remember we were playing chase or hide and seek, and I grabbed him and hugged him (something I never done before), and got a boner. I did this for pleasure. That’s all I did that was sexual but I feel so horrible. I try to give myself grace as I was only 10 and didn’t know the consequences of something so disgusting. I keep thinking “what if I went farther and hurt him?”. I talk to him sometimes and he seems comfortable with me and I think he doesn’t even remember this ever happened and just thought I hugged him for some reason all those years ago. I am NOT attracted to him at all but I think this incident and remembering it when I was 14 has caused my OCD such as POCD for all these years. I am 18 now but I feel absolutely horrible. And now it’s even worse because I have been invited to his 15th birthday party in Mexico. I’m traveling all the way to another country just to be near him! Obviously I know I won’t touch him or be innopropriate with him. But what if he has felt uncomfortable with me all this time? He seems fine with me and not uncomfortable around me but still. If I feel as if I go to this trip, I am a horrible person. I don’t know what to do. Am I a horrible person for what I did and continuing to be around him? I remember reading Reddit and Quora stories of similar people who felt horrible and people told them to not feel bad as they were only children and they learned and now know that was wrong and that to not tell anyone as it could only make things extremely awkward.Please help. I know COCSA is a very serious topic that harms people and I feel like a horrible perpetrator now.
Can someone talk with me? I know I posted a lot about this and I want to stop.I know only a therapist will tell me what to do..But please..can someone give me some advice? I am scared I did something horrible.I didnt help a kid 3 years ago.I feel like I left them in danger.I am so sorry.The worst is I didnt helped in all these years.I want to tell the kid I am sorry but I dont want to make them remember.I got terrible thoughts and I still have them and I feel like I betrayed them and still betray them.Bcs I didnt help and bcs of the thoughts.I dont know but I think about what happened.and how terrible it was..especially because they told me and I didnt help.I dont know why I think that but I feel like a monster.I met with them today and with their parents (which I feel like I betrayed them too) and I talked with them.but i was very anxious and I am scared their parents judge me .I want to help now..but idk how.Is it too late? I am scared I want to help just because I feel guilty.I want to live in the present and do something now but my mind makes me think of the past..Any advice? Thank you
Hey everyone, I just wanted to share something I’ve been struggling with, especially around making decisions. It’s really hard for me to feel confident in the choices I make, even when I know what the right thing is. I constantly find myself needing validation from others—whether it’s about something small or something really important. For example, at my job, I might know exactly what I’m doing and have done it right a bunch of times, but I still feel the need to double-check with someone or ask if it’s okay. It’s like this fear kicks in, and I start imagining worst-case scenarios—like what if I mess up and someone gets hurt, and then I get blamed or even end up in jail or prison. I know that sounds extreme, but these thoughts just come automatically, and they feel so real in the moment. This has been going on for maybe a year or two now. Even outside of work, the same thing happens. Like recently, I’ve been trying to figure out a gym schedule—my girlfriend wants to go with me, and I’m trying to plan the times and make it all work. But instead of just choosing what works best for me, I overthink it. I go back and forth in my head, and I ask other people what they think, even though deep down I know this is something I should be deciding for myself. It’s my life, but I still need that reassurance from others, and I don’t really know why. It’s exhausting to always doubt myself and to feel like one wrong choice could lead to something terrible. I’m trying to work through it, but I just wanted to put it out there and see if anyone else deals with this or has advice. Thanks for reading.
Hi, the last few days I have again really struggled with my pocd however it has only been focussed on one child. I am afraid I might think something so bad that if the parents would know they would hate me forever and I won’t be allowed to come there anymore. I constantly feel the need to check if I can think of these horrible things and the find out I can, my thoughts get more disturbing everytime because I constantly fear I will think of something more disturbing. I really feel the need to confess because I just can’t believe the parent would ever want to see me again if they knew and therefore I am obligated to tell them. I feel I can never become a good person if I don’t confess this to them. I am also really trying to not confess within this post as I know it will only make things worse. Is there anyone that can relate to this and is it really possible to heal without confessing this? And also are there any tips of how I can get myself to sleep I am so sleep deprived I cannot even go to school anymore. I am in the process of seeking professional help however this process goes awfully slow and I really do not know what to do hence this post. So to summarise is it really possible to heal from pocd without confessing to the people I am hurting with the absolutely disturbing thoughts that I have, there not just thoughts a pedophile would have they are way worse.
I’ve always struggled with maladaptive daydreaming I’ve stopped but I have harm ocd and my brain would hook onto a true crime story and I’d pretend to be a family member/loved one/victim of a k*ller and would make up elaborate stories abt it. That feels so disgusting I’m so scared this shows in a horrible person doesn’t it? And now my brain is telling me I have found k*llers attractive in the past I don’t think I ever did but what if I did I’m scared
Helloooo everyone on this app on my phone, I wanted to write down things i was thinking to get started with dealing with my harm ocd, and fear of talking about it. I have always had ocd as long as i can remember since i was a small lad, I would obsess over various unimportant things, scratches on toys and such, and if they were “like new” constantly. my compulsion would be getting my mother to check my toys to check id they were good or not I wouldn’t trust how I felt about it. In middle school was the period it was worst for me, I remember the onset moment of harm OCD like it was yesterday. i was in robotics with one of my friends when i heard about a major school shooting in 2017. i was broken, i always assumed schools were safe and never eveb considered they werent. this was the first year i had access to a phone so i spent time online reading stuff. This event set in motion severe anxiety and ocd over the event, anxiety that something like this would happen at my school, and harm ocd that what if i perpetrated such an event. the thoughts disgusted me so much i was in the lowest point of my life for sure. I would never do something like this but to even picture the idea of me in those shoes was so disgusting. i was battling two things here. constantly doing compulsions to get it out of my head. pushing the ideas with clean pure thoughts and honestly i cant remember the whole situation perfectly i just remember it was rough. I remember the shootings ocd moved on to worrying i was going to commit harm in general, especially with loved ones involved. i got so worked up i hid all of my pocket knives, knife block was put away and i would just sit in bed and cry, watching travel blogs to distract myself. I had no idea what was wrong with me, I didnt know what ocd was, i just thought i was actually just a bad person and was disgusted with myself. my mom however, (love her so much) spent hours researching and found something on youtube she felt seemed like me. Natasha Daniels on youtube talking about something called moral ocd. It fit perfectly. moral ocd i eventually just moved to calling harm ocd. same thing i assume. we started watching the videos together and it felt more and more like what i was going through. i started feeling better when i could recognize thoughts and ignore them by calling them out in my head. this helped and eventually moving into covid i found distractions what i was worrying about slowly subsided. My harm ocd was suppressed for a long time and after switching healthcare providers and moving into high school i never went back to therapy and kinda was alright. i still experienced ocd, especially relating to my health, and then in senior year my first ever relationship i experienced relationship ocd really bad. health ocd however being the worse of the two. my harm OCD would occasionally pop up but nothing like it had before. just the occasional disturbing image in my head usually when hanging out with loved ones and i learned to while being disgusted move on and forget about it. up until these last few months it wasn’t that bad. until i went to monterey two weeks ago, and while i was outside on my own exploring the down town, i experienced very disturbing intrustive thoughts, (most of my intrusive thoughts center around rhat i carry a box cutter for work, i work stocking in retail). however i wasnt super disgusted like i had been before because i’ve experienced these thoughts before, i just assumed id move on. however ocd had a different target this time. my morals. it attacked the idea “hey you arent acting disgusted to these thoughts, that must mean you want to do them and are a bad person” and i was so hurt, but still not disgusted because ive just been so tired and stressed out from work and college and life overall. once i got back into the group with my family in the hotel it wasnt as bad and i moved on for the most of the night and the next weeks forgetting about it due to distractions. however. yesterday at my families easter brunch it showed up again, however this time i kept obsessing and trying to push the thoughts out and looking up stuff online to try and make me feel better, even talking to a coworker i trust about it. im just so sick and tired of my brain giving me harm ocd thoughts. i thought health ocd and relationship ocd was bad. this is the worst. the mere idea or thought of doing these things is so out of character and disturbing to me, maybe im more desensitized to violence due to videogames and media, and what happens in the world, and simply being an american. i dont know whats wrong with me. i hope to work through this though and what i do have is the confidence of that due to my ability to work past this before. i want to thank my friends and family for being so supportive even when it was hard for them and im so grateful to still be here today to work through this. anyway i just wanted to share my story to see if anyone relates or just hear from yall. hope everyone is doing well 🫶🏻🫶🏻
I had the biggest emotional breakdown of my life. I don't even understand why, but because of something that bothered me the slightest bit, i started yelling SOO loudly and bad at my parents: "YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT ME!" I threw some things, i even ran, tried to leave the house, and i ran to my room, i hit my head and i got a bump and some really bad scratches. Afterwards i felt super guilty, i feel horrible for having made my parents feel this way, and how was it possible that I hurt myself like this? I don't understand why i reacted that way, it's so, soo bad. They hugged me and we cried for a while, but i don't understand, am i crazy?
I had blood work done for a test I was having a couple weeks ago. The phlebotomist hit my vein weird, my arm bled a lot, but eventually stopped. My arm is still sore several days later. The following week I had my bronchoscopy. The nurse used the same arm that was already sore to put in the IV for the meds. My arm started hurting, swelling and burning. I told her it hurt really bad but she ignored me; then I was out. It’s been a week and my arm still hurts, and my veins are tight and hard. Couple that with the white stuff all over my face, that nobody from the care team bothered to wipe off- which I didn’t know about until my husband asked me what it was, I got harm from my OCD! At first I chalked it up to the white stuff on my face was bad bedside manners. Now, I keep thinking that my doctors and everyone associated with the clinics are trying to harm me. This morning I had an incident with the fryer oven while toasting my bagel. I asked my husband about it and he says he didn’t notice anything. I was down to the last few bites of my bagel, and suddenly started feeling loopy. I spit it out and threw the rest away. After sitting awhile thinking of the doctors and phlebotomist etc… it dawned on me that it was my OCD telling me people were trying to harm me. I don’t know how to get over the fact that my arm hurts really bad and my doctor completely ignores my health concerns. I’ve been nauseous for the past two weeks or so - there is definitely something wrong! I think when they find out that you have OCD and/or Anxiety, they treat you differently, as if you’re making up the symptoms. I most certainly haven’t felt heard! My husband always says, what’s wrong now? It’s such a horrible feeling to hear him say that. Is this what you call Harm? Or is it associated with Harm? I’m not sure if this is triggering or not. I hope not.
My POCD has spiraled out of control based on me thinking I wanted to cause harm to my child when I moved my elbow based upon the thought to move it. I can't stop feeling guilty about it. I don't want to be taken from her. I need help. I have a therapist but myself next session isn't for a while
Does anyone experience ocd really bad with posts they see online? I just saw a post just now about someone who said they’ve come to terms with dying in their early twenties, and it popped up on my Instagram for you page and i panicked. I’m 20 myself and posts like this genuinely scare me because I always think “It’s a sign or there is a reason it’s popping up on my page.” Has anyone dealt with this before or had an instance like this? Especially with those posts that say if you don’t share or like it something bad will happen, it genuinely freaks me out and I love instagram.
my ocd has severely flared up the past 2 weeks while I’ve been on spring break, probably because I’ve had nothing to do and I’ve been bored and boredom is a big trigger for my ocd/anxiety. I usually go every other week for therapy but the past two weeks I feel so lost and confused on my own and feel like I need to go every week but my therapist is booked and can’t get me in until 2 more weeks. My ocd hasn’t been this bad in years, and it’s been so isolating and I feel so alone at home with my thoughts. Every 2-3 days my obsession changes, first it was health ocd after I got really bad allergies I convinced myself I was dying. After that it was harm ocd and I feared I would hurt myself, then it changed to me fearing harming others and I’ve felt scared to be around others even family. I’ve stayed up sobbing because I’ve felt so bad, so terrible. My therapist told me even though she can’t get me in, that if I really need to come in I should call her office and see if she has anything, but I feel like that would be pointless since she quite literally is booked- I’ve been clinging onto the few things I have from my last 2 therapy sessions but feel like it’s not enough. does anyone have any techniques to deal with specifically harm OCD that I can use for the next two weeks?
Hey, I suffer from harm ocd and I feel as if it’s non stop everything I do everyday I believe I killed someone I believe it’s harm ocd and false memory but like today I went to the store and saw a older lady and my head thinks of images of me pushing them or killing then and right after that thought I feel as if I done it then the rest of the day I ruminate replaying everything. I know erp and I should just accept the thought and let it go but it’s not easy and I feel as if i really hurt or killed someone and I don’t want to go to jail for something I don’t want to do . Any tips would be appreciated I don’t know how to accept and move on when it feels so real that I did something!
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