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I’ve got a friend who has been diagnosed with OCD for nearly 15 years now, and I suppose I just sort of assumed OCD is just one of those things you have always had since childhood. It sounds quite daft but I never considered it suddenly onsetting in someone’s life until I was telling my friend how I was feeling/the skin picking. I stopped in the middle of a sentence and said, “I think it’s possible I may have OCD.” She just said, “Yeah, I think so too. Let me send you some resources and info on how to find a doctor who is specially trained in this.” I’ve been picking at my skin for a handful of years now, but lately I’ve been so stressed I’ve started to pick at my scalp for dry patches that aren’t there. Sometimes I’ll draw blood with my persistence. I’ve been considering that I might be trans for about a year and a half now, but I’m worried that I’m just cosplaying as being trans and that I’m an imposter who is wrong. I dress like a boy, I bind/pack, I’ve cut my hair short, and I’ve told a handful of people my chosen name and pronouns. All of those things feel good. I know I don’t actually pass but those things feel more comfortable than when I tried to perform hyper-femininity. I used to get really bad retroactive jealousy about partners anytime I was in a relationship. It was intense and completely inappropriate. I used to obsess over his tone and cadence and always worried he was mad at me. When I’m at work I have to completely reorganize my work station if I’ve been rotated, even if it’s just for the day. I can’t cope in someone else’s set up, and I have to wipe the surface down with disinfectant or else I feel the need to constantly wash my hands and use hand sanitizer. I wipe my phone down with bleach anytime I think it may have touched an unclean surface on public transportation or at work. Anytime I see a bug in my flat I have this overwhelming urge to bleach my floors and all of the surfaces. My skin feels itchy and I simply must bleach the floors to feel clean again. I didn’t always do all of these things. I don’t know when exactly it happened, it just sort of did. I don’t even know why. Now I think I recognize it for the part it’s played in my life these last few years, and I feel defeated and exhausted. I’ve been fighting with myself over a battle I didn’t realize I was engaged in. TLDR; I didn’t realize someone could develop OCD/OCD symptoms at any point in their life. I feel a bit blindsided by the possibility that I have OCD, and I don’t know how to respond to it.

There’s this woman that I think is very beautiful and she is my type. I’m not a priority in her life which is fine because I really need to put my education first (and I need to fix whatever is wrong with me before I can be with someone) and I understand because we don’t know each other enough to really care about each other. She barely responds to me, like leaves me on delivered for weeks. Thing is I can’t stop thinking about her and I get excited when she finally does text me even if it’s boring. But I know that she doesn’t think of me like that cause why would she we don’t know each other. It has me worried that I can’t stop thinking about her and imagining what if of what our relationship could be like. Logically I know nothing will come of it and it’s best to stop talking to her if it’s boring but there’s like a nagging in my head that keeps me thinking and replying to her. It’s hard to let go and I feel trapped. Is this another OCD thing and if so how do I help myself?

Hi! So like I'm pretty sure it is like a "compulsion" of mine to re-read, re-think, or double check a lot. Like I had to write a few emails out for my boss, and all of them essentially said the same thing but like I kept re-reading them at one point over and over. Then there is the fact I got some information I needed for each email from a spreadsheet, so, at one point, I ended up going back and rechecking the information I wrote to make sure I ain't mess up anything. Then, I'm overthinking whether or not I should be even sending these emails out now because my boss didn't tell me a specific date she wants me to send the emails by. Even though I had her look at an original draft I wrote to make sure it sounds okay (minus the spreadsheet info). So like she EXPECTS me to do this for her sooner or later. I even CCed her on the email. I shouldn't be overthinking that fact but I WAS. I asked someone to reassure me it was okay to send them. I ended up sending the emails after taking way longer than necessary when I had them already written out. I'm okay now. What I'm trying to ask is, how do I stop myself from the "compulsion?" The need to re-check everything even when I know the answer, when it's not a big deal to mess up, when I have already been spending so much time making sure it's PERFECT. I know I gotta just resist or in this case, just send the damn emails without thinking, but like HOW??? Is this even OCD or am I just overthinking this whole thing too? I'm new to this thing. Just got diagnosed.

TLDR: I have harm ocd and intrusive thoughts that center around a fear of hurting my loved ones. I haven’t shared this with my partner of two years and my NOCD therapist thinks it might be worth bringing her into a session and sharing about it with her so that my girlfriend can help participate in exposures. I feel really apprehensive and don’t know what to do. I’ve been with my current partner for over 2 years. I love her so much, we moved in together about 7 months ago, we have a cat together. I’ve had OCD my whole life, and it’s almost always been centered on themes around harm. I have a deep fear of losing control and harming someone, going crazy/ going into psychosis and causing harm, constantly scanning myself to see if I have intent, etc. Obsessions about harming myself as well. It was hell in my young adult life throughout high school, even had a freak out while driving on the road once that I was driving (when I was 17). When I went to college, I started on lexapro and my symptoms became very manageable. I still went to therapy for other reasons related to trauma, but I almost never talked about OCD in my sessions. It was just like white noise in the background, sometimes popping up but never anything severe. I met my partner my senior year of college. In the time we have been together, my OCD had been relatively quiet. That is, until about two months ago when a combination of triggering news events (the Lindsey Clancy trial), stopping therapy and not taking my meds sent me into the worst OCD spiral I’ve had in years. I was having terrible intrusive thoughts about what if I caused harm to my cat or my girlfriend. It felt awful. I started having severe panic attacks, I felt unsafe to be in the house, I was avoiding daily activities, feeling suicidal. I have gotten myself a bit back together, back on better meds and therapy routine, and stuff still feels harder and scarier than it used to, but I’m getting back to my life slowly. But now that I’ve started working on exposures with my therapist, my therapist wants my girlfriend to help me in doing exposures because a lot of my fears revolve around hurting either her or my cat. My therapist said that my girlfriend could join a session so that my therapist could help provide psycho education. But I feel so scared to share about what I’ve been experiencing. Obviously since I live with my partner, she knows that I have been going through a mental health crisis, but I haven’t shared much about the content of my thoughts, just that I have extreme anxiety and dark thoughts that cause me distress. I feel so scared that if I share this with my partner, that she will be terrified of me, that our relationship might never be the same. At the same time, I feel so guilty feeling like I’m keeping this massive secret from her - we are so in love and share everything. It’s made me feel disconnected from her. But I’ve never shared the content of my thoughts with ANYONE besides my parents and my therapists. I feel like sharing about my thoughts could ruin everything - a two year relationship, our shared apartment, our shared cat, our shared friends. But it could also be bad to not share it, and for her to find out later - I guess it’s better to give her an out now if this information scares her. What would you do if you were me?

Is it possible for ROCD to show up super late in a relationship? Like... 11 years? I'm pissed off. I love my girlfriend. She's my best friend in the world. I have BPD and I have had a very dependent relationship with her for a long time (me being the unhealthily dependent one). Now I am working on healing this, and our relationship feels a bit destabilized and off even though not too much has changed. I want to be with her so bad, but I'm always so scared I'm lying to myself or I'm in denial because I've been with her my whole adult life and I'm super attached to her... BUT I KNOW I'M NOT GOING ANYWHERE? When I have moments of clarity, it's always the same realization that I am so lucky and grateful to be with my best friend in the world. But also, there will be times where she does something cute, then I smile to myself, then I worry because the smile felt "forced" because I just wanted to see the good in that moment. I have this huge fear of "what if I just want to want this but I don't actually deep down and that's why I feel this way?" My therapist says that if I want to want something... That means that I want it. My therapist thinks I have OCD, but also that my BPD and childhood parental relationship trauma play a big part in me hyperfocusing on my relationship. I don't have that much of an identity outside of my relationship (and the identity I used to have was pretty rotten, so bow that I am fixing myself it's like there isn't much left). IDK if this makes sense. I would love to be able to allow myself to feel safe. I miss that consuming feeling of connection, I hate the weird feelings of uneasiness and fear that my "gut" is trying to tell me something. That I don't have free will, that I'm struggling because I'm going against my truth or some kind of destiny. So I suffer, but at the same time, I know I'm not going anywhere. I just don't know how to feel better, and that's all I want. Anyone relate?

The 'what if I'm actually trans' came back after a while

i feel pretty awful and stressed... (Sorry for my English , English is not my first language) I'm little stressed writing it because I'm worried my vent/post can be taken as offensive towards trans people (because my vent is about my fear " what if I'm trans person in denial" ) so i wanted to to say I'm NOT fearing being trans because I'm transphobic (I'm not, I'm ally and i always will be), my fear is about my OCD making me unsure about my gender identity, doubting my feelings and making new fake memories or changing meaning of my memory I'm cis woman but my OCD makes me doubt if i like being a woman and maybe "I'm just in denial that I'm trans". Like my OCD is looking for proof in past memories that I'm trans. Like yeah in past few times i thought about "am i trans?" not as ocd but just curiously + i was brainwashed that women can only be feminine etc. and now my OCD takes that memory and give it new meaning that makes me doubt everything, making me feel like i don't even know myself anymore 🥹 I think i always liked being a women but i like feminine and masculine clothes eixsxisjs i know it's sound stupid but the things i like which are "masculine" are treated by my OCD as another proof Proof that I'm lying to myself also my OCD is triggered when people say "no cis person question what gender they are" - that makes me feel more anxiety and panic 🥹 My compulsions were (still are but little less) reading a ton of posts written by trans people (especially trans masc) in which they wrote what were the signs that they were trans and I compared their experience to mine cheekcing if i done the same thing and if so, I panic more looking for more stories of this type. I also read a lot about how to recognize the real questioning of one's gender identity and gender OCD and what is diffrence. I obsessively observe what kind of Pronouns others uses to address me. I also felt big need to ask my loved ones for reassurance or to ask my trans friendly how they know they are trans. and I did gooo many tests on the internet where test guessed what gender I'm. My OCD It literally made me feel discomfort in my body for a moment that I had never felt before, and in general it makes me feel uncomfortable saying I'm cis woman (because of course I must be lying and be in denial ) it's scary that intrusive thoughts really can gaslight me that I'm "feeling" bad or uncomfortable. I'm so stressed about it, before that I had sexual orientation OCD (I'm pansexual and my OCD was telling me I'm just hetero or aromantic) - it's feels like my OCD is trying to question all my values and trying to take away my identity that I felt was an important part of me Even if I don't perform compulsions, this uncertainty hurts me terribly that I start crying uhhh i just want to feel okay btw I'm sending hugs for every person who also have Gender OCD, no matter if you turn out to be trans or cis you are important and valuable person. i also try to tell that myself because i know in the end it doesn't matter what gender I'm - it's just feeling anxious because of uncertainty :")

my thoughts used to give me company. they kept my head busy. i was never alone. now they’re quieter and i almost feel abandoned; it’s almost as if i just have to accept that im truly alone to feel what i feel. and as i recover from ocd, there’s nothing to distract me from this pit i’ve just been carrying around my whole life. it’s lonely, it feels so lonely to have nothing to hear; no static, no noise, and i wish it was peaceful. i thought it would be when i started therapy. i thought that i’d find a satiable peace. recently i can only feel anger and bitterness and frustration and annoyance and under all of that is sadness and exhaustion beyond that is just an empty loneliness. these feelings help me understand why i coped the way i did as a kid. when i realize the relationship between my childhood, my feelings, and my current self, my therapist calls these realizations “throughlines.” and in this moment, via the throughlines, it kind of seems like i can identify the way ocd brought me comfort, why i developed certain compulsions, etc. so now that i can tolerate all of the things that became intolerable, im left with the most intolerable feeling— loneliness. the heart of all my avoidance, grief, fears, everything. my biggest fear is to be alone. my ocd taught me how to not feel alone. now i’m recovering from ocd. now im lonely again. deeply and in the most familiar way. healing feels like i’m accepting the loneliness and acceptance feels depressing and defeating. im losing my sense of hope that recovery is worth it. i feel so bitter because im trying so hard to do everything right to recover from ocd. anyways. i’m going to stop ruminating now 👾 i just… wanted to know mostly if anybody else feels this way? or felt this way while recovering?

Grad school has been a really rough road so far. I’ve been in the care of a therapist for almost the entire time (more than 3 years, with 1.5 left to go) and started NOCD earlier this year. I’ve responded really well and am making progress, but there are still so many unanswered questions about other struggles I am having. After months of waiting for an appointment, today I finally had a consultation with a new psychiatry clinic to see if we could get a better picture of what is going on. Over the years, different providers have suggested so many conditions it is hard to keep track of them all. After today, I still have no new answers. Just OCD, GAD, and specific phobia, which I’ve had diagnoses for since I was a kid. I’m getting referred out for more tests to check for autism (which would honestly probably be neuroaffirming at this point), but those assessments often book a year out. In the meantime, I will probably be starting either Zoloft or Prozac. I’ve never been on an SSRI before. The only psychiatric medication I’ve tried was a low dose of a stimulant when a different psychiatrist suspected ADHD this summer, but it went horribly wrong with side effects and worsening my OCD - so, I’m nervous to try something new again. Any suggestions for persevering through lengthy diagnostic processes? Or for starting an SSRI?

Hey guys, I’m new to dating, and I keep worrying that I won’t feel attracted enough to the person I’m dating (I’m not dating anyone right now btw 😭). Like, what if I don’t get wet enough or just don’t get turned on? Whenever I see someone cute on a dating app, I start imagining having sex with them to “test” if I’d be attracted to them, and it’s so frustrating because I just don’t know. 😔 Does anyone have advice? I just wanna enjoy dating without overthinking all of this.

I am not sure if this is caused by my ocd. But I am not sure what sexuality I am and well at first everyone would call me a stud saying I’m gay but in reality it’s only because I don’t have a feminine face or a feminine body & I’m flat both front and back. And well at first i identify with being nonbinary then I went as transgender but now i identify with my gender as a biological girl. But I also never dated and you can say I am unattractive I’m ugly which is why I can never see myself in a relationship both romantic and sexual because of my body my face my everything. And I have only been asked out like twice, and from what I know only 3 people have had a crush on me before. And well the first time was my online friend but I rejected and still wanted to be friends, while I was in 5th grade my classmate kept bugging me that my friend liked me I was so disgusting I was so rude to him to the point he stopped liking me, and after three years we began into good friends. Another time was when my trans friend told a girl she liked me and that friend told me I was so confused and well me and that friend was also kinda going distance so I was weirded out but not really. While recently a guy confessed and I rejected I gagged and didn’t sleep the whole night because I was so disgusted. I rejected him pretty harshly and blocked him after. And lowkey full offense those guys were kinda chopped but so am I. And I have only ever loved one guy in my life I can say love or like because I just knew it. While for girls I mean I never had a crush like that before but every time I see a pretty girl I think to myself wow she’s so skinny or wow she’s so pretty and I sometimes feel like I am no better than a man. But I also think about guys like that like wow he’s so fine n stuff. But I can never imagine myself being with someone let alone someone way more attractive than me. I can also never flirt like that it’s so cheesy. But I do read yaoi but no yuri huh. And I’ll just be honest here I also do touch myself to m girls and sometimes both girls that are on the hub so that’s why I’m confused on what I like. I’d also be super scared to give my virginity to a dude like what if they cheat on me which so why if I ever do it will be someone I will marry so that if he does cheat atleast we promised each other idk. I did take a test and I thought I was going to be lesbian but it turns out I was ace sexual but idk I feel like I can be with a pretty girl but not a pretty boy, the guy I liked was pretty skinny and like a twink but wasn’t gay. Not sure I hope someone can help me with these questions.

Hey, not sure if this is ocd related but I don't have many other places to talk about this and I need a neutral perspective and advise. In this instance I have a friend who has a brother who've i met before but haven't known much. Recently we all went to a bar and I invited my bestie together. It was a nice lgbtq event and everyone was super chatty and friendly. We exchanged contacts, yapped and all that. In a couple of day my friend tells me that her brother has a massive crush on my bestie. This is where it becomes complex - i kinda like that brother. (On top of that bestie not very much into dating rn). Anyway it's a week later and I learnt they're texting. Not anything crazy from what I know just viking. Brother studies something my bestie is interested in but he might like him too idk. So now I'm in an awkward position kinda wingmaning my bestie and him together with his sister and idk whomst to tell or if I even should. The ocd part is that I can't stop thinking about him. He even appeared in my dreams and it's becoming annoying. I have issues moving on and get attached fast so finding a new crush will only do damage. For now I'm keeping myself distracted or trying but it still gets to me. EXTRA INFO. I told bestie someone we met at the bar likes him to see if he's interested. He seemed puzzled and unsure and said he'd need to think. I did also tell him I liked that person kinda. Idk if important. Oh and I'm wingmaning bc I feel bad and awkward not to bc I'm like the in-between connection who knows both sides and it'd be awkward to say no?! Idk boundaries are weird. :[ So how do I act? What do I do? Help?

I've started talking to my ex again and she is wonderful. She likes to chat and she's better with communicating her thoughts and feelings and everything is good. None of it feels good, though. Everything she does annoys me, even things that don't regularly annoy me? She often acts playful but I see it as childlike and I just want her to stop doing it. She calls me petnames I've told her she can call me but now I hate them. I don't know why. I thought that this is some issue unrelated to ocd at first but... everytime I have these thoughts, it sends me into a spiral of how bad of a person I am to be thinking these things. A similar thing has happened to me in all of my past relationships. Once I broke up with that person, all my bad thoughts for them went away and I wondered why I even broke up with them in the first place. But, to be honest, I don't really care if I regret it or not. I am starting to hate being in relationships because it makes this cycle spike up again. Relationship ocd is so different from others because it has a clear, direct cause. It still has its moments even with my friends and family but nothing compared to this. Should I just break up with her?

So for a couple years my mom and I were living with my (now) „ex stepdad“ and he owns a house with two apartments so they were living in the top apartment and I got the bottom one but I always felt so uncomfortable and never knew why because back then I didn’t know I had OCD yet and the reason for the uncomfortableness was that like 80% of the stuff there was his and my mom‘s shit and it was so damn chaotic because my mom’s (now) ex basically does not know what cleaning is and he keeps any shit he owns regardless if he needs it or not so I spent most of the time at my grandparents place because they on the other hand are clean freaks making it much more comfortable for me Now a few weeks ago my mom broke up with him (FINALLY) after they were dating for like 5 years and have a 3 years old child together (his fault cuz he was being an ass to both my mom and my half sister and he cheated) but the problem is that my mom is broke and can’t find a job at the moment so we‘re stuck at that guy‘s place until my mom has money which is bad enough because unlike my mom I can’t pretend that all is sunshine and rainbows because I already hated that guy before and now that I know he cheated on my mom I just can’t pretend that all is well so being around him just makes me sick so I decided to spend most of my time at my grandparents place and only go „home“ when I’m working on my freelancing career but now another burden came along and it’s that my mom can’t take living with him anymore so she wants us to share the bottom apartment which in itself isn’t bad but she just decided to completely renovate because since I’m not there that often she wants my bed and I get the couch but the living room is much smaller than my room shelve the renovation cuz some of the stuff needs to go into my room and when she sent me a video of all that my OCD was already going crazy so now I’m just really damn terrified of ever going there again because even if she’s done with the renovation it will look different and I just can’t take that but even if I’m staying at my grandparents until we move out (which probably won’t work anyway cuz like I said I wanna work on my career and there’s no privacy there since the guest room is also the dining room and there’s one of those moving glass doors instead of an actual door) I‘d still have to go back to my mom‘s ex‘s place at one point to pack up all my stuff so it’s pretty much inevitable So excuse the oversharing but if anyone who has order & symmetry OCD as well has any experience with that kinda stuff I’d really love to know how yall deal with that

Okay I’m reading this story on Reddit and looking through the comments and now I’m nervous. The story was that this girl dated this guy for 3 years and really liked him. But they broke up because they went to different colleges. She then met a different guy and was dating him. But then she gets invited to a wedding as the made of honor and this ex (who she had not seen in 3 years) is gonna be there as the best man. They have to walk down the aisle together, have a first dance, and then take photos. If I was in that situation with my girlfriend and I watched her dance with her ex (the only part that bothers me) at a wedding I would feel very uncomfortable. I read some of the comments and a lot of people are saying that makes me insecure. I have ROCD and I can definitely obsess about future situations where I feel betrayed by my girlfriend. I would like to emphasize other then the ocd I’m pretty secure, don’t believe she cheating on me, don’t control her, and we’re are doing very well. So I’m not looking for advice on my relationship. my fear right now is that if I brought this to my girlfriend she would say I’m insecure and controlling and hate me. That this exact situation will happen to us and she will pick dancing with the ex over my feelings and it will hurt really bad. I’m also feeling like it’s not ocd and I’m just a horrible and insecure person. I can’t stop thinking about these scenarios. Typically it just spirals into worse scenarios in my head and I have to try really hard not to go to my girlfriend for reassurance. Because going to her for reassurance usually just makes things worse and puts strain on our relationship. Especially since I’m pretty sure I’m being irrational right now, but it feels very rational and very real and I just need her to tell me in perfect words that it would never happen. But if she does do that I just move on to the next worse scenario and I don’t feel better and it never ends. I didn’t ask her for reassurance the last couple times but it’s hard, I feel like I need to prepare for when it does inevitably happen and she betrays me. I guess I’m just wondering if anyone relates and has a similar story? Also is feeling some type of way about the ex real or ocd? Also any tips to not tell my girlfriend this because I realllllly want to but I know there is not point in bothering her about hypotheticals.

my partner of five years and i had been fighting a lot recently and we FINALLY had the good restorative conversation we needed. we had a few actually. i asked her to please be more patient with my ocd symptoms and she asked me to give her more grace. we both agreed and talked about what that looks like, amazing. she is very supportive of my ocd and she actually has started listening to a podcast called “your anxiety toolkit” to help understand my ocd better. i really appreciate her taking those steps to understand me better and i want everything to be fine now… i don’t want to keep feeling uncomfortable. i want us to go back to how we normally are but i still feel triggered. i know it’s relationship ocd but i can’t stop hearing in my head all the things she said while we were fighting. it’s triggered me to legitimately feel like i’m 14 years old again, living with my parents, rather than an adult. i feel moody, i feel angry when she tries to touch me or sometimes is just in the same room as me. after a year of therapy, i’ve learned that this is how i act when im scared. i feel scared of her but not because she’s scary but because i’m just stuck. i don’t feel like i can act like myself around her anymore even though i know it’s not true. i can’t even remember what “acting myself” even means because my little fundamental belief that im annoying, a burden, difficult to be around, selfish, wasteful, entitled etc. all of those beliefs got triggered while we were fighting and the confirmation bias built up so high. now i just feel stuck. how can i be myself again with my partner? i don’t want to ruminate this at her, there isn’t anything more to talk about, i know these feelings are ocd and not reality, but it’s been 2 weeks of being “uncomfortable” and ive tried every healthy exposure i know to do. ugh.

i feel so irrational and logical at the same time. i feel like with other people it’s so easy to help. i have knowledge from my therapy course but i’m still depressed and terrified of what i feel currently. i know a lot of people feel like their ocd is unique but i really feel like no one talks about what i am struggling with which makes it feel more real. i don’t know if it’s ROCD or SOOCD or if im just ashamed and in some kind of denial. im terrified i cannot fall in love or feel romantic attraction. i am scared there is just something broken in me and i’ll never be able to have a long term romantic relationship. i so badly want to fall in love and meet someone i like but it feels dangerous. i feel like im leading people on by dating because i know i can never love them and even if i like someone it won’t last because the feelings disappear. i hear about people losing feelings in relationships, questioning if they love their partner, if they’re gay or still attracted but i’m too scared to even date. whenever i talk to people romantically i feel like i shut down & i never make it even close to a relationship. i have avoided any form of dating for three years and i haven’t liked anyone for so long. i worry that i just want to be normal and feeling so abnormal is why i cannot accept myself. i imagine romance and it feels so nice but im scared that in real life it’ll feel like nothing. i pretty much have no experience so i can’t even say i just want to fall in love again or i want to love my partner again. i’ve never been in love so you can imagine that makes it worse. then on reddit there are countless people who are aromantic and it terrifies me. i thought surely that means you don’t care or crave romantic attraction but there are people just like me who want love and just cannot feel it. who feel it and lose it and it makes me feel so ill and depressed. i want to fall in love one day and i want to know what it’s like. i’ve never been one of those people who needs a relationship but i always thought id love someone at some point but i feel so certain its not going to happen makes any motivation for life disappear.

i feel like such a failure. i went to therapy last year via the nhs and it helped massively like genuinely my pocd and gender ocd and other taboo obsessions have genuinely gotten better and i feel like i can cope with them but with sexual orientation i feel so stuck. that has not improved. i don’t know if it’s because we didn’t give it as much attention or if it’s just because this fear is real. i don’t know what to do at this point. it sounds crazy to say because like pocd was the scariest theme i’ve ever had but this one is breaking me and i feel like it shouldn’t be? i want to go back in to therapy i feel like i cannot live like this but i just feel like the biggest failure because i know what to do. i know im supposed to do ERP & i know how this works but i have never been more stuck. i keep sinking back in to the same compulsions. i believe the fear is real and im just using ocd as a way to put off accepting it. i cannot afford a good weekly therapist. im a broke student. if i go to the GP what will happen will i get put back in talking therapy? will they even take me because ive been through it. will it even help? i feel like i know what to do and im still not getting better. i feel so hopeless i literally am depressed and ruminating all day. it’s all consuming. has anyone ever been back to talking therapy in the uk?

I've been dealing with intense paranoia around my family's safety for as long as I can remember. I vividly recall having an intense panic attack as a kid because I was so convinced my sleeping away from home meant my mom and sister were going to be killed in their sleep by a home invader. And I've continued to experience these gutteral fears well into my adulthood. I'm now 29. Just a bit ago I had a panic attack after getting home super late from work, aware my mom already went to bed, and her velcro-dog decided she wanted to sleep in my bed. We have 5 dogs, one of which is my own velcro-dog, but then another came in to sleep with me. And then another, until I had 4 of our 5 dogs passed out around me and the panic set in so intensely I couldn't move and kept asking my mom's dog "Is mom okay?", hoping she would give a reaction to the question as if she understood. I shook and cried and couldn't bring myelf to get out of bed for over half an hour until I finally shot up and went to listen outside her door. I didn't want to wake her but I also really wanted to just say "mom" and hear a sleepy grunt to quell the fear. When I didn't here a snore or a cough like I feel I hear so often, I went into her doorway with my phone flash on and watched her breathe while asleep until I could calm down. I spent over an hour in panic and have been beating myself up for it after calming down, but there was no dissipating the thought naturally. I would say in my head, "She's not dead." "She's okay." "She'll be awake when you get up, just go to sleep." There was no shutting up that voice. Has anyone else dealt with this? Any advice?

My OCD is pushing people away. I had the worst crisis this week. It's been 5 years since that happened, and my boyfriend never saw me like that. He struggles with depression and has a very complicated life. I ended up just adding to all of the chaos. I don't know if anyone else has this, but when my OCD kicks in really hard, I start dissociating and enter a state of derealization. It's like I'm hallucinating. Anyway, I'm trying to get better. I'm back on medication and seeing a psychiatrist, but I feel like he is very scared of all of this, sad, and distant. I'm really afraid he's going to break up with me. I don't want to feed this thought too much, because I know that if I give it too much attention, it will become an obsession and make everything worse. But I'm so scared. I feel so different and alone.