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I had some drinks and ate dinner last night and now wake up with anxiety. Sitting up in bed because I can hear my heart rate and am focused on it. I feel so bad!

I struggled with severe ocd since I was in 2nd grade and now I’m turning 19 so I’ve had it basically my whole life, I’ve had it bc my dad abused my mom when I was little all the way up until I was a teenager and it really hurts me and affects my life. I have intrusive thoughts and images of loved ones getting hurt and I constantly overthink about my relationship and it got worst since I became a mother bc I ALWAYS worry about my daughter and I’m scared and it makes me panic I always think that if I listen to certain songs,take showers,get cute,put on certain clothes,or just take care of myself in general that something will happen and it makes my mental health worse and i have severe anxiety I struggled with pyschosis for 2 weeks and addiction to pills I don’t have money to get a therapist or even health insurance please help me how to stop it bc even when I try to let the thoughts pass through it hurts me and makes me freeze and not even be able to breathe bc of it and I can’t even say certain words bc I overthink that something will happen and it makes me want to take my life

How do u stop overly worrying about your health. I have a sinus infection, eye infection, and ear infection and im scared there’s more to it because it doesn’t feel like anything is working

Does anyone have any suggestions for remedies and supplements that help your anxiety that aren’t medication or prescribed? I don’t think I want to go on medication, but I want some options to help calm my mind down and relieve my stress. I currently take vitamin D3 and Magnesium bisglysonate.

I'm having so many racing thoughts after dealing with a very hectic week. I can't fall asleep despite being very tired because of so many thoughts. The thing that is worrying me is that I'm not feeling my usual anxiety that I get when having racing thoughts. Does that me something bad or good? Does it mean I'm managing better? Or have I become numb? am I just too tired? I decided to google racing thoughts but no anxiety and I wish I did not google this because there were so many scary things written about different mental health disorders and now I'm wondering is there something wrong with me besides intrusive thoughts (OCD) maybe it is something worse and more scary: but I have a tiny bit of anxiousness that I feel for a tiny moment but it is nothing close to the anxiety I usually go through. I just don't know what to make of this.

And I dont know how to stop. Every minute on my mind of me trying to make myself feel better about it, hoping there is an afterlife. I keep trying to not think about it but It keeps coming up. I keep trying to imagine it to hope I give myself peace about it or think of possibilities that were in a timeloop and I’ll be born again after the loop. It’s gotten to the point where I keep thinking im about to die. Im hypersensitive to everything about my body and I keep checking my pulse to see if my heart is beating normally. I keep trying to reassurance myself im not gonna die but the thought is scary and I know im not supposed tk seek reassurance but I dont know how im not supposed to seek reassurance about this. I dont know what to do. I just feel like vessel with a brain.

Like clock work my body is trying to tell me I’m having a heart attack I just can’t anymore

So I’ve been suffering with intense health anxiety for a few years now, and just recently I learned it may be caused by OCD. It’s to the point where every time I get a headache I start to freak out, scared that I could be having an aneurysm. I am far too worried about having a stroke or heart attack for being 21. I can’t even enjoy a casual, relaxing hot shower anymore. I have to slowly increase the temperature when getting in and slowly decrease the shower while getting out because I am afraid that any drastic temperature change can give me a heart attack. I know deep down that these fears are illogical, but no matter how often I get them they still feel just as real every time. I try to reason with myself, but every time I feel mild discomfort in my body I can’t help but freak out. I am so tired of checking my face in the mirror for symptoms of stroke every time I get a headache or feel a weird sensation in my body. Every other day of the week I force myself to stay awake for a certain period of time because I’m scared if I go to sleep I won’t wake up. I get hymnic jerks every single night (where you jolt awake when drifting to sleep) because my brain is so occupied with making sure I’m staying alive that it jolts me awake because my body is trying to sleep while my mind stays awake. It’s so difficult for me to pay attention during lectures because I get so caught up in my health anxiety that I’m focusing on grounding techniques in order to keep myself from hyperventilating. I spend more time making sure I can understand the words my professor is saying to make sure I’m not having a stroke than actually paying attention to the lectures. Another thing I struggle with is having to count my medication every time before I take it to make sure I didn’t accidentally take two or more doses, even if I KNOW I only took one. I have to count them anyways otherwise my mind will convince me I overdosed. It will not stop until I count my medication and make sure I didn’t overdose. It’s honestly so tiring, and the sad part is that my health anxiety has actually gotten better. It was even worse before now, and everything I’ve listed is stuff that I still do. Does anyone else have this struggle? Because it feels so isolating and makes me feel like I’m going crazy.

Several people have shown me I’m not very important to them. I don’t know how to cope at times when I’m afraid of being sick and alone. Can you imagine what that would be like, and it’s a real possibility for me. I’m told to accept life on life’s terms, so I should accept that I might be in my own if I need help? I think I’m worth much more than that, but I might not get what I need. Will this life get worse as I get older because I have no family? I shudder to think of my future and no, I will not accept that I’ll be abandoned. I deserve better

I’m here because I’m looking for help. I’ve tried CBT but my therapist isn’t specialized in OCD and I don’t know what else to do. I’m terrified all the time, I wear a mask every day and wash my hands till they are raw. I don’t know what to do, I didn’t have anywhere near the levels of anxiety and depression before the pandemic that I have since the pandemic started, I am terrified of everything, I had Covid once but I am terrified that I’m a ticking time bomb because it does cause long lasting symptoms and can disable or kill you even after one infection and that’s what terrifies me. I’m forced to go into the office with people who don’t mask and don’t care about coughing up a lung and not covering it up. I can’t sleep without feeling like something is wrong with my heart or my body and I am constantly afraid of going out and being around people and crowds. I’m terrified of Covid and getting it again and losing my life and quality of life because of it. I’m also terrified of losing my wife because she doesn’t want a partner who just stays in the house all the time.

i’ve had pretty bad anxiety all day because of what happened last night. basically it made me scared i was getting the stomach bug, but i never threw up. i also ate a pretty good amount of food today. however, all day today i’ve just been so anxious. it’s like one minute i’m completely fine and the next i’m scared that i’m nauseous and don’t feel good. i can’t figure out if i’m okay or not. i feel like it might be me getting scared that i have symptoms which then makes me feel like i have symptoms. it’s a never ending cycle. i can’t bring myself down. i feel like i’m going at 100.

With a little backstory, I've been struggling with physical sleep issues that a medical hospital is trying to to help me with (sleep apnea, TMJ issues, etc.). Anyway, I guess my OCD knows that sleep is a problem, so it's created an obsession around it. I was laying on my two pillows, on my side, and had the thought "Hmm, my shoulder is horizontally up against the pillows, is this squishing the pillows in, bunching them up? Is the level of the pillows now unevenly distributed because of my shoulder against it? How soft/hard is my shoulder pushing against the pillow?" It's ridiculous, because I've slept this way my whole life. But now I'm hyper focused on how my body is laying against the pillows and having to have the pillows perfectly even, without any dents or flaws in them. This sucks because on top of the physical sleep issues, now I'm having OCD sleep issues. Im just so tired. I wish I could ignore it, but OCD gets so strong when I lay on my pillows now. Any advice? Anything to tell myself that could help? Thank you ahead of time.

Hey everyone, I’m not sure if this is super OCD related, but I figured I’d post just to maybe feel less alone. I’m always worried in the back of my mind that I might have cancer, and it’s not for nothing, I have had two types of cancer before I was 10 years old. The fear doesn’t take over my life, but it’s definitely there. I recently got sent to check a large lump that appeared on my thyroid, and all diagnostics coming back so far are ruling out the easy non-cancer options. I’m worried, it’s not an unfounded worry, but it’s starting to interfere with my life in a way that feels like OCD. I’m scared, and if I’m completely honest, I’m extremely sad. The last thing I want to do is get life changing bad news in the middle of an OCD spiral. Anyway, thank you for reading, I think I just needed to get that off my chest ❤️‍🩹

hi ok so. typing this im terrified. 2023 was a really hard year for me. there was this girl at my work who made my life hell. i was 21 she was 29 and she would make shit about me to tell my coworkers. I left that job feb 2023. the next couple months I was unemployed and going in and out of depressive mode and ocd constantly triggered and I could not break my routine. the stress of being broke was an everyday mental game. then I returned to work in October and got hit with shitty sicknesses left and right. I got a stomach bug x2 and covid from my girlfriends parents and got the flu in january and had an ovarian cyst rupture which led to a uti and then the medicine from the uti gave me a yeast infection… not fun. Then bc of the flu I sat and couldn’t shower and got a tailbone cyst bc of excess sitting…. it sucks because I would get sick and then get so panicked about being sick and make it worse and then start to feel better and make myself sick again or just get sick because of like unavoidable things like flu or covid. it caused me to be Hyperaware of my body and feelings and symptoms and it just caused so much stress. I’m trying to tell myself everything ok and I even tried to help it with therapy and I got a therapist (not on here) and tried to tell her about all of this and the health anxiety has just been hypersensitive lately and all she said was, “That’s a lot. Is it an underlying condition you’re unaware of?” why would u say that to me. what the fuck. and I told her I had health ocd/anxiety. I just felt so unheard and not listened to. I’ve been trying to regulate my nervous system to make everything get better but it’s hard when I’ll just be sitting and feel butterflies in my stomach. I just feel like people don’t understand. and I just want to feel less stress so I can stop getting symptoms which make me s*ck. thanks for listening

I’m 54 yrs old and had my first episode at 17. Didn’t know what it was at the time. Intrusive thoughts that made me feel like I had lost my mind. It’s continued off and on since then. But just recently found out I have ocd. I was too stubborn or embarrassed to ever admit or ask for help. Anyway, when this is triggered and I get chronic severe anxiety that lasts months I get these symptoms and wanted to see if anyone else experiences these? Severe memory loss from recent events. Even feeling like I don’t know people. A numbness always on the left side of my face. Extreme ear ringing. Feeling like my head is in a vise, but not a real headache. I was just curious. The memory thing is a real issue for me and makes my anxiety worse. These physical symptoms always go away when my anxiety is gone but it’s concerning to me. Please share any similar experiences. Hope everyone has a great weekend. Jeff

Hi all I was curious how you all think about this situation. I have severe ocd and mainly on cancer, lyme and since recently scabies. Of course something happened and now I don't know how to handle it. My girlfriend went on a trip and possibly slept under a comforter without the lose cover you can wash. So now I am worried that someone who was in the hotelroom before him and slept under that comforter without a cover and had scabies my boyfriend now is infected with scabies. We didn't meet up yet but next week we probably will. And I am terrified that I get scabies also. And it will take months of itching and trying to beat it. On top of it I am scared my son will catch it from me. I can't ask him about it because he wouldn't understand and if he did sleep under the contaminated comforter than damage is already done. How do I cover with this, because there is a change but maybe it's a small one. I just don't want to get it but I also really don't want to lose my boyfriend or not meet up Thanks a lot!!

Let me preface this by saying all three of my cats are alive, well, and healthy. Does anyone else get really distressed by their pets’ mortality? Like I cannot escape thoughts about their health, wondering if they’re happy, if I’m a good caregiver, worrying about when they’ll pass and how hard that will be and that I’ll inevitably feel like I’ve failed them. I feel intensely guilty often for things like leaving for work or not allowing them in the bedroom when I sleep (bc they keep me up) even though logically I know I shouldn’t feel bad. And I have a lot of guilt about not being able to take a past cat while leaving an abusive situation three years ago (she is definitely okay, she’s well cared for, I checked with an old mutual friend). I just love them so much, I want them to be okay.

Someone please give me some advice or at least tell me that this has happened to other people. As of a couple weeks ago i can hardly do anything without feeling lightheaded or like I’m in outer space and i don’t even know my whereabouts or my name. I’ve been doing my best to hide it from People I’m around because i don’t want to seem like anything is wrong. Although i might come off fidgety which will make it seem like something is wrong anyway. And i know I’ve felt this way before but i don’t know how i got through it, i think it just disappeared because of a new fear which was way worse( ex. Brain tumor, cancer, etc). And so the lightheadedness just went away. But now it’s back and i feel like it’s the first time I’m dealing with it which is so scary. And when i tell you i can hardly do anything i mean like anything. The only time I’m truly comfortable is at home sitting on my couch. Like i can’t go to work without panicking. I can’t do my weekly baseball game without panicking and feeling on the verge of passing out. And now i have a game tomorrow and I’m literally picturing myself passing out and now i don’t want to go 😭 and I’ve never passed out for no reason before so now I’m just nervous that one of these times it’s actually going to happen. I can just picture my eyes rolling in the back of my head and being in an ambulance 😭 please tell me other people have felt this way

Does anybody else’s intrusive thoughts come in the form of “delusional thoughts”? I’ve been in a terrible episode of hypochondria or ocd for the past 6 months where I have FULLY convinced myself I am developing schizophrenia, it started with becoming really easily overstimulated and not being able to concentrate and now it has spiraled out of control to where I am constantly getting intrusive thoughts center around demonic stuff, which i have never ever believed before, I have always been a skeptic. But now i get these thoughts all the time like “what if this song has hidden demonic meanings?” “What if your wife is a demon” “what if nobody is real and your just in hell” “what if this political figure is being controlled by the devil”, the typical kind of delusional thoughts you would expect from a schizophrenic. Keep in mind I am a literal atheist and all about facts, science and evidence, I am a skeptic. Not only does the fact that I’m even having these thoughts in the first place scare the life out of me, but I have to constantly battle with these thoughts in my head if I believe them or not. I feel like I have to constantly hold myself back from fully going off the deep end, I feel like I have to constantly disprove these thoughts and stop myself from believing them, but they feel so real and it’s scaring me so much. One part of me is like “why can’t we just stop worrying about this, this is delusional” and another part of me is like “what if I actually do need to worry about if these things are true or not, they FEEL true” and I’m just like “wtffff I shouldn’t have to worry about if things like this are true at all in the first Place!” I feel like I have fully lost my mind, and in no time I’m going to lose this little bit of insight I have. I hate these thoughts so much, I don’t want to think about them, but now that they are here, I feel like I can’t forget them. My dpdr is already making everything feel so off and weird and unreal and I feel like it’s only giving these thoughts more credibility and realness. I feel like this could also be partly a terrible form of existential ocd that’s being thrown into the mix with all these “what if thoughts”. Ugh I just want to be normal again ): but I don’t even know what normal feels like anymore because I’m constantly on the lookout for symptoms that I can’t even be normal anymore. Btw: yes I am seeing 2 therapists and a psychiatrist and all of them do not believe I am developing schizophrenia.

Almost 3 years ago, before my recent OCD flare up, I finally fell in love with running. After years of training for a 5k here and there and hating the whole process it finally stuck, and I LOVED it. Then I started getting some symptoms. Heartburn when I ran. Muscle strains, etc. I was sort of diagnosed with GERD but the doctor never actually did any tests. Fast forward to now, and I’ve healed my GERD, but I haven’t managed to start running again. And quite honestly, it terrifies me. I’ve been to hell and back with OCD since last summer. Thinking I had a breast lump to colon cancer to gallbladder cancer. And I occasionally have this pain/discomfort in my right rib area that now has all my attention. I went to the doctor, had a ton of blood work and tests done, all coming back fine. And the doctor then said “if you’re still having pain, I can schedule a CT, it’s up to you.” Which of course with OCD is the worst. It’s almost like I don’t know if what I’m feeling is even real? Is it normal body noise? It does seem to disappear when I’m distracted…makes me feel like a complete crazy person! Anyway, I was having a chat with a friend and she’s training for her first marathon. We started talking about races and I’ve always wanted to do a triathlon and without realizing it, we both started planning on doing a beginners one together. I’m so so worried that the “pain” I’ve been fixated on will get worse, I’ll start training and have to stop. I just don’t know what to do. I miss running so so much and think that training for something could be so good for me but on the other hand, some days the slightest discomfort in my right side sends me into a panic. I just don’t know what to do 😭 thank you if you’ve read this far.