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Anyone have a fear of high blood pressure and having a stroke/heart attack? My BP usually is great. But over the past week or so it’s been up. My “high” readings have been 141/91 and 132/94. I am currently taking clonidine. Once in the morning and once at night. Anybody else have these readings?

Anyone else feel air hunger? Like no matter how hard you try to get a “satisfying” deep breath, it just doesn’t work. It’s been happening to me for about a week now. It’s really freaking me out. I’ve had my heart checked, chest X-rays, blood work.. all the things. I am overweight which probably contributes. But could it just be from anxiety? Sometimes I don’t even feel anxious but it still happens.

I genuinely don’t know what to do anymore. I keep getting weird coincidences and I will sit through the uncertainty of them but it will just be one after another. Like I work at a summer camp and we were on the bus and I was listening to a song and thought like what if this song accidentally played out loud and people heard it and literally right after my coworker started singing it. It’s not a super popular song either. I have a theme like what if people are reading my mind or messing with me or whatever and it just felt like blatant. I also had a dream about a knife in csgo and the next day both of my friends get csgo knives, which is rare asf. Like it feels like I can’t trust people anymore. Idk what to do. Stuff also keeps happening right at 12:12. Like my friend texted me at 12:12 and literally the next day I text him on accident at 12:12. Then 3 days in a row my brother comes and talks to me out of nowhere at 12:12. Then at 12:12 I see “real life Truman show” on YouTube . Like wtf. I also have a fear of schizophrenia so it’s not a great mix. Thought I was making progress but this one is just absurd. wtf .

I feel like for a while I haven’t really felt truly happy or very excited for anything. Every day feels like an uphill climb dealing with this OCD problem of mine and trying as hard as I can to solve it, seek advice, etc… It often feels hopeless for me and that I should just be discarded, like I’m too far gone and I can’t get rid of it. Anyway, the pint is I haven’t really felt happy enough to actually just be smiling in a long time. I can’t rember the last time I actually smiled because I didn’t think about it and just naturally smiled because I was happy. Feels like I’m at war with my head everyday. I feel numb. I feel like I can’t feel emotions strongly like I used to. I can’t feel strongly about something where I’m motivated to ACT on something, to DO something, to try something new or break a routine or even feel like I am taking a risk or having fun. It’s like I have forgotten what FUN is like. Actual fun, not trying to have fun, but having fun. As a side note, maybe it’s too far fetched or not true but the medication I am on for my OCD (Sertraline, 25 mg dosage) , I am suspicious is making me numb like this. Sometimes I feel one if maybe this, small yet somewhat effective dosage of this medication is making me like this. I remember when I went off of it for a brief period last summer I could feel a lot more than I am feeling right now. But unfortunately my OCD was sooo bad as a result. So bad I couldn’t face it and I would be pretty much having a straight panic attack all day. So I’m not sure if coming off of that is the right move. After all I went back on it because wow I was having trouble dealing with myself. But like I said, that is just an afterthought. This is often how I trudge through the day…

I put so much pressure on myself to be positive and happy. I hold myself to higher standards then I do others because I wanna be perfect, then break down at my every mistake. I'm horrible at setting boundaries but in a way I've dug myself a grave. At this point it feels like people assume I'm happy all the time and don't bother to ask if I'm okay. Or if I seem quiet they leave me be. At first I liked this now I do not. Any time I try to set a boundary with ANYONE, I'll be like hey when ya talk about that it makes me anxious or could you no do this it hurts my feelings or just plain please stop, people say okay and their sorry but it never seems to stick. The most I've done is say it again but it's frustrating. Feels like people just walk all over me and or barely listen Slash hear a word I say. I'm tired of some things I have made very clear not to do when I'm really anxious. They try to help and they will do certain things that make it worse, and I express this then they do it again. I find people belittle what I got through saying the thoughts I experience are clearly OCD, and easy to differentiate from typical worries or average thoughts. But they don't realize how stuck I feel bo matter how much I tell them. My brain doesn't have an off switch, I can't turn it off just like that and feel at easy. And even if the thought seems stupid and illogical, to them or even me it still hurts and bothers me deeply. There have been times where I do compulsions and people get mad and say it's excuses and I gotta stop and I try to explain and or try not to do it and end up feeling guilty. I want people to listen and actually care. I don't like the feeling I get when I'm worried. A weird tingle in my chest that grows and stretches throughout my body depending on how bad of a worry. Those "silly, stupid, ridiculous, crazy, nonsense" worries I get, wheather or not I know those claims are true, cut deep and it feels like I can't escape. My chest feeling gets stronger, I get alot of energy in my arms and legs and or they feel shakey, it feels like I can't breathe, I wanna burst out crying but depending on where I am that may not be an option, I'm tired of staying quiet due to the fear of upsetting someone without intention, and I hate hyperventilating or tossing and turning when trying to sleep and these thoughts hit me like a ton of bricks over and over. OCD is not my fault I know that. But part of me wonders why me of all people have to have it, although I don't wish it on anyone. If it meant nobody else would ever have to experience my OCD or OCD in general I would take all the power of everyone's OCD and take it myself. I like to think OCD gave me empathy, the one perk it came with in my eyes. One day I hope to be a therapist who can help people. And the little kids with OCD who wanna understand and get help, like I once was. I wanna be taken seriously, I don't wanna be a doormat, I don't wanna be a puppet on my OCD's strings, I want people to understand more then they do or atleast listen to me more then they do. I wanna be calm for more then minutes, and without intense stress when I realize how long I've been relaxed and how odd that is. I feel bad for my younger self. Ik she wanted to grow up and be okay. But I'm not. I have made progress. When I was little I constantly thought I was dying. And then I said in middle school that I'd be dead by highschool. But I'm about to start grade 12

i'm going to lose my life one day to this illness i never asked for. it could've been beautiful.

Hey everyone, I hope you are all doing well . I am not sadly. Idk what to do at this point in my life and it’s really scary. My family seems to not get it really but idk how to explain what I’m going through . So basically I had an uncle and I have many cousins with schizophrenia. All of them don’t take meds and have went off the grid with my family or have passed . I am so unbelievably scared of getting it that I can’t live my life without being scared everyday. I have had so many thoughts and dreams and a lot of come true(no joke) and I’m like oh shit that means I’m delusional and I’m having delusional thoughts and now it’s taking over my dreams and it just doesn’t make sense to me. I am very scattered brain 24:7 I feel I can’t talk or speak right, I keep going through not feeling real or right and I’ll be talking to my family and my brain will be like “ what if this is a hallucination and you’re talking to yourself”. I’m EXHAUSTED to the max and most I’ve ever been. Idk what’s going on with me. I’ve also always been a superstitious person because weird shit was always happening or strangely a “coincidence” that even my family would be like wtf is going on with that. And I never understood it as a child, but I’m so so so sooo scared bc of that and what I deal with now that I’m developing it. And I need help.

I’m literally shaking panicking that I’m paychosis, sometimes I feel so weird very weird feeling and ugh I know it’s ocd but I’m scared of not remembering who my husband is or like acting crazy or having to go to a mental hospital like I don’t want that and like psychosis and ocd have very similar symptoms. I was diagnosed with OCD but I’m scared I have that and I don’t want to I’m like ugh sometimes I feel so out of myself I wake up feeling weird I feel very weird symptoms in my body I wanna be fucking normal I thought I was okay but ugh I feel so horrible right now and it also doesn’t help that I’m on my period but I just saw the word psychosis and decided to search it up and now I’m scared I have it.

Exactly a year ago, I was in a plane and we hit turbulence. People were scared and I was hoping for the plane to crash because I didn’t want to live anymore. I thought about suicide but was scared to do it because “what if I regret it last second” so I was hoping to get in some kind of accident so I wouldn’t have to make a decision and my family wouldn’t have to live with the guilt of me committing suicide and them thinking they could’ve done something about it. I was struggling bad with all kinds of OCD themes but the main one was SOCD. It started in my 30’s – hindsight I had OCD tendencies growing up (never about my sexuality), but they would come and go and they were manageable. The SOCD turned into fear of going crazy because my thoughts wouldn’t make sense. I kept trying to figure it out by googling, reviewing memories with past girlfriends and girls I hooked up with to see if I was pretending, if what happened was real genuine feelings of mine. I would find relief knowing they were and be back to myself but as we know, I just kept feeding the monster. I required more digging mentally, the same reviews wouldn’t scratch the itch. It got to the point where I would review memories and google 24/7. I was sleeping 2-3 hours a day, I was in the verge of quitting my job because I couldn’t think of anything else. I was avoiding. I couldn’t watch TV or sports or hangout with my friends. I couldn’t be around people. Even male cartoons in video games would trigger me, so stopped playing them. I would only leave my house to go grocery shopping basically. If I had to do something social, I’d rely on a specific drug and developed substance abuse. Because my thoughts wouldn’t make sense and couldn’t figure out if I was turning gay or not and if my entire life had been a lie then I thought I was going crazy, which triggered other type of compulsions around my health. I also got diagnosed with Crohns right around the time my OCD ramped up. Then I thought I had a demon, even though I drifted away from religion many years ago, because I couldn’t explain or find out what was happening to me. The spiritual contamination triggered another wave of compulsions. Long story short, I was home bound, constantly longing for a previous version of myself and contemplating suicide, doing tons of compulsions just to get back at that old me, just to go back to a time where those thoughts didn’t exist. I was having numerous panic attacks where I thought I was going to die. It was hell. Luckily, I found NOCD through all my research (the one time it actually paid off). When I read the SOCD article on the NOCD site, I couldn’t believe it. It was almost as if I wrote the article. Then I started ERP, I was so excited I had found a ”cure.” Yeah, right, that shit was so scary. I thought ERP would turn me gay. (I can’t believe I’m typing the word GAY without a panic attack!). ERP was extremely difficult but worth every penny. It’s the most important thing I’ve ever done for myself. I’m still working on it. It’s not easy, but I have my life back! I have anxiety from time to time, but it’s nowhere close to what it was. I allow my to be anxious. I don’t run from it. I let it be and it hues away. I now have more positive experiences in my life now, before the net was negative. Overtime was that balance shifted into, “Hey, I actually enjoy living.” Will I continue to get better? Maybe, maybe not. Will I turn gay? Maybe maybe not. It’s not that scary now. I wouldn’t like to turn gay but if it did happen, I’ve also worked on unconditional acceptance. If “my worst case scenario” came true, I’d still love myself and most of the close people around me would love me too. And if they didn’t, I wouldn’t want to be close to them anyway for being homophobic. I realized ERP also helped me break down a lot of homophobia I had from societal and cultural influences growing up. I’m very happy now with my life. I get weird thoughts every now and then, but I just don’t figure them out and I show them irrelevancy by exposing myself to my “fear.” So yeah, you can do it! You can get better! P.S. GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY

TW for mental health issues, death, ptsd, ED i guess ill just start off by saying that i have struggled since i was young with severe anxiety and panic attacks since i was about five but an onslaught of CPTSD worsened a lot of things for me. i developed an eating disorder in my teens and was hospitalized for it. i’ve been in and out of therapy since i was ten and while i do my best without medication to live my life to the fullest, i often feel like i don’t deserve the successes and support i’ve received in the last few years b/c i feel like i don’t deserve to be happy at all. i saw a video recently of a girl talking about her obsessive hypochondriac thoughts that i resonated with and when i read the comments, a lot of people pointed out that it might be ocd. it hasn’t ever been a thought that crossed my mind and now im wondering if im twisting that video into some sort of self diagnosis for myself. im wondering if it’s just my high anxiety that’s causing these severely intrusive thoughts. for example, i have had a really hard time sleeping recently because the thought that i or my partner might die in my sleep keeps me up. if i have an aneurysm or a heart attack in the middle of the night and die, or worse, if my partner has an aneurysm or heart attack, is it because i don’t deserve to be happy with him? i don’t deserve a wonderful relationship? another thought i have is when i drive with us both in the car, im going to crash and severely injure both of us or kill us both. i have never once crashed my car or gotten into an accident btw, but for some reason i just get this extremely morbid thought that im going to crash and it’ll be the end. i had a weirdly spiritual experience/revelation in 2020/21 about the multiverse and i keep thinking that every night i actually die or that i get into accidents or something morbid happens and im somehow timeline jumping and going to a different multiverse and that’s been my odd way of coping with these thoughts. i guess im just trying to figure out if this is even remotely similar to OCD or if im just over analyzing it bc of my anxiety/hypochondria i guess?? i dont know i just want help. if this isn’t OCD, please tell me and i will delete this post and app and ill sincerely apologize to everyone who actually suffers. 🙏

My brain is obsessed with the idea that my dad could get cancer so I keep praying that he won't. This is what my prayer looks like: - 'finish praying within 15 minutes, or else ur dad will die' (this I think on purpose because it used to twke 3 hours) - then i begin the same prayer I do every night - then I reach the 'god please help my dad not to do develop cancer bit' and I realize I need to go down and pray 60 times that he won't because earlier I did this and got distracted so I need to go down again and did it properly. I ended up doing it like 300 times because I lost my train of thought - then I come back up and all of a sudden I'm convinced that this is the night where God will help my dad to never develop cancer - so I pray well and I go to the symbol of God in my brother's room and my brain thinks 'pray another 4 ti s here, and only 4 times on your dad's life' because otherwiee it would be like 300 again. I get really scared I'm about to do it more than 4 so I rush the last 2 and come back feelinf super guilty that it's rushed and I come back trying to redo it -when I finally come back to my room I tell myself to pray the next 4 slowly so God knows I am devoted to him. My brain starts wondering to a movie I watched- a literal romantic one on purpose and it keeps disrupting my prayer and when I think of what will feel right to fix it, it's another 60 times of doing the prayer slowly- not even rushed like downstairs. I've done it slowly but still got distracted so now I need to do it another 100 times. Even this post my brain convinced me that if I reach for help when they scan my dad on his appointment it will come up with cancer instead of something non life threatening so I better just do everything properly until his appointment. It's flared up so much and I don't know what to do- I don't even know if I have OCD Also this is a really long post so I am sorry if you had to read all of that

Has anyone who has successfully treated their ocd with meds, did it spike your symptoms first before it helped. Encouraging words only! Please don’t tell me how meds didn’t work for you, I’m looking for some encouragement to help me stay strong on the meds i recently started.

I dont want to put this on the suicidal ocd subtype cause it might not be that idk... this whole 2 years i felt really good, i could say that these were almost my best years, i was viewing all this as ocd and i was avoiding the fear so it didnt beaten me down. I didnt realized all this was compulsion tho, i was compulsively avoiding my emotions and intrusive thoughts. I did acknowledged them but i avoided to work with them or think about them, or let then fully be cause then it wouldve make me stuck. However life happens, and i got depressed because of an event that happened. I accepted it. The sadness wasnt a problem, i had problem with stress and physical symptoms that made me feel afraid that somrthing wrong will happen to my health. After time it crushed me and i developed panic attacks. Today i struggled. But i let all be. I let all the thoughts and feelings be. And then i started having thoughts that i really dont like. Just randomly a thought popped up "the world is bad" that made me depressed. I dont want to accept that this is what i believe, cause its just popped up when i felt low... But i accepted it and the more i accepted the bad thoughts to come, the more it lead me to the suicidal intrusive thoughts. These arent thoughts that i want, i experience great distress and panic that i will act on them. This is why i dont want to deal with these. Im so afraid that i will act on them. In the past i know i had them so agressively that i thought its just moments and i will act on it cause of the high emotions(not like wanted to,like losing control). This is so hard to deal with...its not ocd but also im afraid of them and i cant face them... But bc its not ocd im questioning if i will need someone to stay with me when im facing these problems cause i will be dangerous... also i did had killing thoughts too that i was so afraid of. And these thought made feel so much shame that it streghtened the suicidal thoughts, which made me also afraid that im in danger of hurting myself. This will be really hard to face with. The feelings and the thoughts too. Just facing all the depressive thoughts that i had and thinking "where it comes from" scares me cause im afraid it will lead me to a place where im actually want to kms... so if you have time please pray for me. I want to get better. This is really scary to me, i will need support. I just cant put this on the s-ocd group, but i wouldnt want to say that im suicidal either cause these thoughts are intrusive to me. I dont know where to put this cause every doctor says people with ideation want the thoughts and dont feel scared by them. So i will just be in the middle relating to neither... Im also not accepting that im suicidal, maybe its a compulsion but i dont want to... Thanks for reading this.

Hi all I’m having HIV phibia. Can’t get it out of my mind. I come here to find people to help me overcome it and take my life back to normal state…

Hey guys, So I'm not entirely sure if it's my ocd or if I'm just a stickler for rules. A doctor once told me that drinking and meds is a no go. Now I avoid alcohol, being on 3 different meds out of fear that an interaction will occur. My problem is this. If it is infact OCD than my ocd brain is blowing its importance out of proportion and I am displaying avoidance behaviour out of fear. Everyone I know says "live a little,it's fine, people drink on crazy meds all the time" this reassurance does not help and often makes me feel badly that I can't get past the fear that it will somehow mess with my chemistry due to them both being drugs essentially. And so the way to face it would be to have a drink or two and face the fear. BUT.. But if it is actually unsafe than am I doing right by avoiding? I'm not sure how to handle this situation theraputically in terms of moving forward. Any guidance is appreciated.

Does anyone struggle with their breathing, I have been obsessing over it for a couple days now and every time I breathe I feel like I am not taking in enough air and when I try to take deep breaths it makes me panic even more because I feel like I can’t take one. It’s scaring me because it makes me obsess about my health and my heart , like maybe I’m breathing this way because of a heart condition that’s undiagnosed. It makes me feel so winded and I get scared to do anything that could possibly make me out of breath. It happens after the smallest of things too which is why my brain goes straight to heart condition. Does anyone have any advice?

Hi, I’ve never shared on here before so please forgive me if this is too much or is upsetting. I’m currently struggling and don’t know what to do/need to vent. Since I was a kid, I can remember asking my mom things like “if I touch this and then touch my mouth, will I get sick?” Or the same question but with “will I die?” at the end. I’ve been afraid of illness, especially stomach illnesses for pretty much my whole life. I’ve gotten very sick in the past after not properly washing my hands and then eating, and it has scared me ever since. Now I’m 25 and constantly wash my hands and use hand sanitizer. If I’m at home I’ll wash my hands in the bathroom, then wash my hands in the kitchen, and then use hand sanitizer. This cycle is driving me insane, but if I don’t do it I’ll have panic attacks, convinced that I’ll get sick. Today, when I was getting up to get ready for work I opened my trash can and saw maggots. I’m home alone right now and had to do all the clean up myself. I’m very afraid of getting sick from this, and called my boyfriend sobbing because of how gross the situation was, and because I was so afraid. He assured me that this happens when flies get in the house in the summer time, but I still can’t get past it. I’m so stressed out about cleaning the entire house. I’ve already showered once and washed my hair, but can’t bring myself to eat or drink because I’m afraid something bad will happen. I’ve been dealing with health anxiety for almost 20 years, and the fact that I spend almost every second of every day worrying about getting sick or dying is a painful reality. I have a difficult time being social, going to work, and being intimate. I don’t know what to do anymore. I feel completely hopeless and trapped in my mind. Has anyone dealt with this before? I really need to get help, but I don’t have health insurance right now and am trying to avoid going to the hospital (even though I think I might need to).

Hi im 15 and my name is Asia and I have a really bad fear of drugs I think their everywhere and on everything and I keep convincing myself I did them and I always tell myself I took something dangerous like cocaine or worse it happens everyday when I eat or drink something when I’m around certain people or places I get these thoughts and when I get the thought I took something I start to feel “weird” like my body starts reacting and I automatically think “I’m dying” so I call 911 and I feel like I HAVE to call or else something horrible is gonna happen if I don’t my whole perspective on life is miserable and scary because of this I wanna feel like myself again and not get these scary thoughts it’s literally ruining everything for me I don’t like hearing ppl talk abt drugs or anything that has to do with it or I start telling myself it’s happening to me or that I took something

I recently went to my PCP for routine bloodwork, that I wanted, just to ease my mind and make sure there weren't any issues that needed attention. When they called with the results, I couldn't answer the phone. I felt an immediate sense of doom, my hands got tingley, and I just couldn't answer. It took 45 mins of crying, pacing around, and convincing myself that everything was going to be alright, to finally be able to call back. I had this done on my own, I requested this so I could try to stay on top of my health, I had NO real reason to be scared of any results.. My health anxiety seems to be different than the majority of fellow sufferers. Most people will run to the Dr for any and everything. I am the opposite. I don't want to know. I'm terrified. I've been this way since I was a kid.... I want to know that I'm healthy, but actually going to the appointments and having the tests that can tell me that...is like a nightmare for me. Does anyone else have this type of health anxiety? Has anyone found a way to ease the fear? My logical brain tells me that if there ever is something wrong, I'd want to know as soon as possible, so I could get treatment immediately. But my panicky, overthinking brain, is more powerful and won't let me do that in peace. It's exhausting wanting to be healthy and keep on top of things when you can't muster up the courage to go to the doctor like a normal adult. UGH

Im currently having problems with dealing with my emotions and body symptoms such as stomach problems, nausea, not having appetite, im just stressing myself over it. I never learned how to accept emotions and right now it feels hard to do and i dont feel like its actually helping me to go through this. I accept everything, even that i worry and i feed the emotions sometimes cause its automatic and i have to learn alot but im just there,.it feels like im letting myself go on to the rabbit hole and im not doing anything about it. And if i try i feel worse cause the thoughts gets louder and then im more afraid and the symptoms of stress are higher then if i accept it i sit with that and it gets worse and worse bc of automatic thoughts and judgement(and i cant judge them either cause thats judgement too) or if i want to stop doing it i start to repress the experience... Im okay with feeling sadness, im okay with grief, but the stress the nausea the dizzyness,stomach issues, feeding the fear and panic makes it worse, and i dont know how acceptance works... I understand that i accept the feelings that comes up but the automatic judgementd come too bc of past experience, but i still have to accept that too and theres the problem cause i dont see the progress there its either i accept it and it keeps feeding or i accept it but i dont want to feed it or think about it which then makes it a fight and it makes it worse... For me how it seems like its that acceptance would seem like accept i how i feel, everything i feel, that i might get hospitalize cause i cant handle it, that i might turn really bad, that i might put me in bed cause i will be so sick and mentally off, and just be okay with it, but thats doesnt help for me, its accepting catastrophizing thoughts just makes me depressed... I know i wont figure it out all at once, it will be time, but i struggle with acceptance and what to do then which doesnt helps me move. I understand i accept whatever i feel but then what? The automatic judgements comes which makes the experience worse, and whoever was in this situation knows that the judgements has more judgments in them so its a never ending pain. Theres the problem, what to do then? You cant fight the judgements cause it just make it worse. People say acceptance its not giving up, but i do feel like its that what they telling me cause letting all these things be and just be there its sounds giving up for me, I give my fate to the experience i have, its no more what i can do, its where these things will lead me. I dont know how to face this cause i either drown in the pain or i try to fight with it. And many times i feel guilt cause im not actually deal with grief, im not feeling sad over the thing i lost, im being worked up by the experience i have and the fear i have... I know i need time and i wont figure out everything but i need help in this to move forward. Whoever read it all thank you for your time. The remaining months in this year will be about grief...