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Struggling currently struggling with magical thinking and feeling like I’ll never overcome it. What has worked for you?

I'm so scared that by thinking about things I can make them happen. I know that's a central thing in OCD but I googled it and a lot of people actually say that if you think about stuff you can make it happen. I've been processing a lot of trauma and having intrusive thoughts about it and I'm so scared that if I think about people who hurt me it will make them contact me and it's making me feel really paranoid and scared and panic and I'm just so scared that I'm somehow conjuring bad people to come into my life and that I'm going to somehow get sucked back into my past or that I am somehow calling people close to me who could hurt me or that something bad is going to happen to me because my thoughts have been so scary and triggering. I'm also feeling really dissociated and I'm worried that these thoughts are actually me starting to have some sort of a psychotic break or something. Please help I'm so scared.

I saw a post saying that thinking about something for a while will bring it to you. Now I’m scared and panicking because I think about illnesses and getting a disease almost everyday. What should I do? Im very scared

Hey, I’ve been doing some research on OCD and think I may have it. I’m not 100% sure, but I have a lot of the symptoms. I want to get myself diagnosed, but my parents won’t let me. They agree that it’s very likely that I have OCD, but they think that if I try hard enough, I can get over it. I don’t know what to do anymore or if what I have even is OCD, and I want to be somewhat sure before a I do anything. Right now, I’m a junior in high school, but freshman year was when my “OCD” was the most severe. I think I had (and still do) the symmetry/order subtype and “just right” subtype. I was obsessed with writing things neatly to a point in which I kept forcing myself to erase and rewrite things until all the letters were straight and all the graphs were neatly drawn (typing wasn’t safe either because I use Notability and felt the need to align every text box and make them all the same length). Handwriting was especially a problem in calculus A, and it got to a point in which I couldn’t keep up with the notes, and the homework was taking hours a night because I was obsessed with making my work perfect. Needless to say, I didn’t get a good grade in calculus A and didn’t build a good foundation for future math classes. This makes me really sad because I was previously really good at math and had a bright future in the subject. Eventually, I just stopped trying in calculus A, but by then, I felt burnt out, couldn’t concentrate on anything, kept putting things off, and lost the ability to properly manage my time. I think it may have escalated to executive dysfunction at that point, and it carried over to all my other classes. As someone who was previously pretty productive and good at planning, this was a huge hit on my self-esteem. I was also obsessed with symmetry. If I touched one side of my body, I had to touch the other side in the exact same place. If I was coding something, I would have to evenly distribute touch across each key on the keyboard. It felt like everything was a heatmap, and the colors had to be kept in balance at all times. I also avoided odd numbers because they were considered “asymmetrical”. I was obsessed with routine and had to complete tasks in a certain way, a certain order, and a certain amount of time. Even something as small as combing my hair for five minutes instead of six caused me extreme distress. Writing one word that “sounded off” on an English paper left me unable to keep writing until I fixed it. I had to keep the sound of my phone at a certain volume (6 normally, 10 when exercising, and 12 when cleaning, divide everything by 2 when using a computer) and had to walk a round number (any number that ends in 0) of steps a day. I kid you not when I say that some days I woke up and didn’t want to live anymore. Sophomore year, my mental health improved and I probably seemed overly perfectionistic but not to a point of concern. However, this year, the handwriting issue relapsed in all its glory during physics, and I’m not able to keep up with notes or homework. I feel the same way that I did in calculus A, and I don’t want history to repeat itself. I want to ask my teacher to let me do my homework on paper rather than the iPad (it’s easier for me to write on paper due to increased friction), but I’m scared to ask because I don’t have a formal diagnosis. I don’t know what causes my behavior. I feel like if I can’t do things perfectly, no one will like me. I’ll lose all my friends, and no boy will ever want to go out with me. I know it’s irrational. Literally no one cares what my notes look like or how long I spend on each step of my morning routine or whatever, but I constantly feel like people are judging me and will hate me the second I mess up. There are two more times in my life that I can think of when I displayed symptoms of OCD, contamination OCD when I was 9 and pure/religious/magical thinking/health concern OCD (they all just kind morphed together) when I was 11. I can go into more detail if you wish. As of now, I just want to know my behavior sounds like OCD, and if so, how to more forward. If not, I would love to know what I do have and how to treat it. Thank you so much.

Can thoughts actually become true? Worried ever since I read it on google. My OCD has gotten really bad since I’ve had 4 pregnancies in the last 3 years. I had a miscarriage stillborn healthy baby and now pregnant again. My mind has gone crazy.

im Catholic and ever since starting highschool and started being scared of what people are thinking. I’m scared that I’m evil and that I praise evil because my ocd is a fear of talking to it so my compulsion is to focuse on talking to something or someone else. But, I keep imagining evil like under the ground and now it feels like I know its personality. And I can’t imagine it as truly evil and I can’t even imagine God anymore. Please help

I know this is insane but please, PLEASE hear me out. I just need someone to tell me they relate in some way or something. Does anyone else feel like they have some sort of 'magic' that they accidentally manifested from 'wishing' too hard during a traumatic time and can't feel like you can control it now, which is pretty anxiety inducing since it feels like it would make people be able to feel or see your ocd thoughts? Or use your muscle tensing as part of your ocd? Like if you have an intrusive thought while tensing a muscle, you feel like it's going to come true so you have to 'correct' it by thinking a good thought then tense your muscles again? Because I have both of them. :(

I constantly think that if I don't pray to God to protect everyone everyday that something bad will happen because I didn't ask to be protected. It's tiring and it sucks. ☹️

I pray not to see sixes. Today at the grocery store as she was totalling up my groceries, I asked God to not have it be 6's specifically 3 of them in a row. But really don't want to see any. The bill was 10.66. So I decided to do erp with 6's but all kinds of bad thoughts and other things came up on the search along with 3 6's. I'm so scared. What if I'm cursed with badness from all of these 6's coming up?

I grew up very Catholic, but maybe that doesn’t matter here. How can I untangle from the thought that every coincidence is a “sign” from god or the universe? This has latched onto so many different areas of my life and now it’s on my daughters health/safety. Reading a story and there is a dead kid in it—must be a sign!! Getting a random name in my head and it’s someone who died—a sign of the worst to come!! Signs, jinxing, manifesting, etc. were always reinforced when I was growing up (and today in some cases too)—“it must be a sign!” Any ideas on how I can untangle from this?

I think this is magical thinking but I’m not 100% sure. I get really scared and think all of my loved ones will die in a car accident. Especially if they’re running an errand for me or coming to visit me then it’s like 100% more likely for them to get in a car wreck because it was FOR ME. Or if I’m with my family members and one wants to drive to get food, etc I feel like I HAVE to go WITH them in order to prevent a car crash from happening and them dying. Like if I stay home then I’m ensuring their death? Does this make sense? Anyone else relate? What on earth is it?! It’s constant and automatic and everyday.

I tell people my situation, they say it's nothing big or it's fine, I was a teenager. I still feel awful, magically thinking that the persons going to change their mind and expose me to the world that I'm an awful person even though they said I had no affect on them whatsoever. I feel guilty to admit I've shared it with numerous people, whether a little older or the same age, never younger because I feel uncomfortable talking to younger people. Still, everyone says I did nothing wrong and there's nothing to worry about, but I'm more concerned about the fact I feel like I truly did something horrible, I feel like what if someone's enabling my actions, even though they say they're being honest. I feel awful, and I know I have to sit with discomfort and all that bad stuff, but truly I feel disgusting. I've isolated myself for weeks, and I just don't want to hurt the other person, it's made me question my own intentions too. Does anyone else feel this way? I just feel like my mistakes are worse than anyone else on this app or in the world.

I have the urge to keep repeating the same prayer so that my dad will never get cancer and I have the urge to do it in specific places and It has to be right now and I'm scared the second I got to sleep with urge unfulfilled Im going to regret

Recently I’ve come back to God, specially Christianity. I prayed and wrote to God for a sign concerning a mistake I made, and put within this letter for him to show me a yellow car if everything is going to be ok. Kid you not, same day I see a yellow truck parked while driving. I believe I was answered but my mind keeps nagging me I wasn’t. Do you think this is the devil and ocd trying to downplay what I prayed and wrote to God for? I know you shouldn’t ask for signs and wonders, but I desperately needed one.

Hi, can someone please told me how to dealt with compulsions i been avoiding a lot of music because if i listen to some songs someting bad will happend

Coincidences, signs, omens, jinxing, what do I do when I’m convinced that the universe is warning me that something is going to happen?

Hi is anyone suffering with this subtype of OCD fearing they will become schizophrenic and hear and see things or become possessed. I’m terrified right now. I feel so alone on this one.

Hey all...so I just had this thing happen a couple of days ago. I wrote about it earlier, but have been obsessing and can't sleep. Please help if you can... I have a fear of numbers, mainly 6 which is a religious thing. We were having this fun drawing for picking gifts. 1 to 25 was written on tiny pieces of paper. I was the second to draw. In my head, I kept saying, " please don't be 6" and of course, it was. I drew the freaking number out of the remaining 24. Now I feel as if I am evil or can conjur this bad stuff to manifest. It has reinforced this feeling of evil. I say I'm a believer in Christ but this has scared me so desperately bad. It seems as if there is no relief. With ERP you choose to expose yourself to your triggers. This feels as if it was chosen for me...by something malevolent? Oh God, please help! My mind is out of control...

I was diagnosed with OCD 2 years ago and have struggled with it nearly my whole life. I’m 17 and the thing I struggle most with is thinking other people, mostly people I look up to or famous people are “watching” me or “listening” to my thoughts, specifically my intrusive or embarrassing ones. Although I know it’s not true it really affects my daily life. I believe this falls under magical thinking OCD. when I think of an intrusive thought, I think these people can hear it especially when I’m doing an action so I have to re-do that action over and over until I do it without thinking of that intrusive thought. This also affects things I enjoy doing, I’ve been really wanting to exercise but when I go to do it I get so embarrassed cause I think I’m being watched by a famous person or people I see as above me that I can’t bring myself to do it. I’m sorry if this is lengthy but I was just wondering if anyone else suffers with this and if you do, do you have any tips? Thank you if you read this much.💗

So my theme has revolved around the fear of having schizophrenia for about a year now, many therapist and mental health professionals told me they believe it’s a mix of ocd and hypochondria. Well my main symptom of this disorder is the fear of having delusions, so over the course of this year I’ve had thoughts ranging from “what if my wife is a demon” “what if this song means something” “what if there’s some hidden message in this movie” “what if the government created the world and controls everything” “what if Satan is the true creator of the world” “why did my cat look at me like that, what if he’s a spy created by the government, what if all animals are?” Literally crazy shit but it all feels so real, I’ve thought about this stuff so much that I’ve started to have almost an emotional detachment from the world around me, I’ll have thoughts like, “why should I care, nothings real anyway”. And now it’s starting to feel like my normal line of thinking, like now I genuinely feel like everything is fake or staged in some way, nothing feels real or genuine, it feels like everyone around me, the media, news, politics, all feels like some sort of big act or lie. Feels like there’s something more to reality that I’m missing or something, everything feels “too perfect”. I’ve lost all happiness in everything and I’ve become SO suspicious of every single thing, everything has to have some deeper meaning according to my brain, it sucks. Has anyone ever had the fear of schizophrenia and it got this bad?