- Date posted
- 2y
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working to conquer OCD
So, I’ve been with my man for 10.5 years. But the doubts have been around for awhile. 3 years in I obsessed over a psychic who said he wasn’t the one, even though I wanted him to be the one. She said “that’s the problem. He either is or isn’t, and deep down you know that, there is no want him to be. “ that was really hard to hear, cried a lot and called my bf who said it’s nonsense. 2 years later I started going to regular therapy as the thoughts created great anxiety and no sleep. That made it worse as it was 2 years of reassurance thinking. I’ve had it bad on and off. But had two children and things have been honestly great during both pregnancies. (Hormones maybe?! ) Now, 6 months post partum, I’m going crazy. My dreams have been consumed of “he’s not the one” “let him go, it’s not fair to him” during the day I’m finding signs in the music playing on the radio, or “let him go” videos on TikTok. And now, I’m obsessing about the future, how I he isn’t going to be in it. My thoughts consume me. I could be teaching a lesson in school (I’m a teacher) and talking to the kids, but my mind is taking its own route throwing my intrusive thoughts into my face. I get light headed and quesy from the thought of it. I feel like I’m fighting divine intervention and I’m losing greatly. I keep trying to tell myself, this is 10 years worth of compulsions. I enjoy my time with him and our family. I think of him as my best friend. I keep telling myself, love is a choice. But I feel like I’m losing. The dreams are the worst part too. I tell myself those are signs too. It doesn’t help he dreams about me cheating too. I just need help with exposures. My body tells me it’s not Rocd and not to waste money on a therapist. But the amount it consumes me I should talk to someone. Plenty of people stay in unhappy relationships all the time. If this was truly me unhappy, I don’t think I would obsess.
I keep seeing things on the side of my eye and when I look fast it’s nothing but a tree or a chair depending on where I’m at but my mind imagines it’s something worse like a person and when I look it’s not has anyone ever delt with this I have a huge fear of losing my mind I been very hyper aware of my vision lately and eye floaters I think about what if I see something all day constant state of panic please tell me I’m not hallucinating
Obsessions - You don’t like your daughter - You will never be happy again - It’s not ocd… you have lost the feeling of wanting to live.. - You know its real… stop acting like it is not.. - Get a thought/feeling like i can’t/wont fight anymore.. - You want to die, but just don’t wanna disappoint your family - Just feel so real in body and mind… But everytime it happens, i just want to know that its the ocd and not real
One of my biggest problems is ruminating over situations that stress me out. The closest I can compare it to is real event OCD. At work, if someone dislikes me or I think they dislike me it stresses me out a lot. Before I connected it to my OCD, I thought it was social anxiety, but my fear is that people disliking me could harm my job, my well being or even harm my family at some point if I get a bad enough reputation. If someone is rude to me I constantly go over the situation in my mind and think of future situations dealing with the person in order to figure out how to resolve it. For example, if they said something rude confronting them in hopes they’ll change their behavior. (I don’t actually do any confrontation at work, I just try to be as polite as possible.) It’s really stressful and what stresses me out more is dealing with further interactions as it will just further my rumination. I also worry that if I don’t figure out how to resolve someone disliking me that the situation will escalate and result in a horrible work environment or being fired. I don’t really socialize much at all anymore because it doesn’t feel worth the anxiety. I just ruminate about having a run in with someone who dislikes me or is rude and having to resolve it. At this point I don’t even have much contact with family as interacting at all just stresses me out. I’m trying to study but I can’t focus because I keep ruminating about work. Which is another stressor as I want to get out of my current field. This isn’t my only obsession but it’s what causes me the most distress because it affects my work and social life. I want to start ERP but I don’t know where to start. (I can’t do therapy on here as I’m not located in a country where it’s available.) I used to take fluvoxamine but I haven’t been to the doctor in a while. If you have similar obsessions or advice let me know. I’ve read Michael Greenbergs stuff on stopping rumination, but it’s hard not to justify as I’m obsession about something happening in real life. Thank you for reading if you managed to get through this screed.
Right now I'm dealing with Pocd, and my main obsession is like age checking ? Whenever I see someone somewhat attractive I always have a thought saying "what if they were underage and you found them attractive " do I just dismiss the thought? Because it really does bother me but at the same time I'd like to know. Or one time some girl appeared on social media to look older and I found her attractive but once I saw her age I freaked out & felt so uneasy and uncomfy.
I get exhausted dealing with gross thoughts. I don’t want them, they can interrupt me in prayer or at inconvenient times. I know they’re nonsense and try to block them out with an image. I find myself saying a quick prayer for forgiveness. If I don’t do it I will get restless. I often obsess if a coworker approves of me or not. I used to triple check things A LOT. Also asking reassuring questions has become less frequent, but I have to fight it in my mind. I feel as if my brain has Tourette’s. Often my biggest relief is just becoming aggressively careless “screw it!” Lol
My wife and I have been married for 5 years. We have 2 beautiful kids. She has autism and adhd but we are thinking she might have OCD as well. She has a history of abuse and is seeing a neurodivergent affirming therapist who has been doing parts therapy with her. I have ROCD. But thankfully through NOCD, I have been doing ERP and it’s really helped my ROCD. One of my fears that I’ve been working on is my wife being in love with her ex and leaving me. Well… guess what came up in her parts therapy… she learned some more abuse that had happened in her childhood and she realized she is still in love with her ex. To the point that she believed he and her were communicating through Spotify without sending each other music. Like she believes that he is adding specific songs to his playlists and thinking she will listen to it. She says it doesn’t make sense which she says is her autism. There are other delusions she’s believing too. She also was thinking of suicide so she is currently at an inpatient hospital. But we are wondering if that’s OCD. Like maybe that’s her ROCD and it’s to the point of her believing delusions. Or is that a trauma response? I’ve heard of trauma bonding relationships and I know they did bond over there trauma when they were together. I’m wondering if that’s coming up now since she is working on her trauma. As you can imagine, this is super hard for me. I love her so much. It’s so hard to be helping support her and her be unsure of being married to me. Any advice you have, please send it my way.
Hi guys Does anyone get intrusive thought like “you’re going to get intrusive thought every time you see this” and then it happens but not all the time.
Hi guys, Has anyones rOCD been caused/gotten worse because of how complicated in the past your relationship has been with your current partner? Sometimes I feel so lonely and isolated because I think it’s only me that’s had a rough start to my relationship with my current partner - rOCD and RA stories online usually talk about how it’s usually people with stable relationships from the beginning that experience this type of anxiety and obsession
Has anyone ever received ketamine infusions to help with ocd?
Hello all. Is it really worth it seeing a therapist here? I have struggled a lot with health anxiety and OCD and I feel like there is nothing will stop this and I will live all my life this way.
I’ve been struggling with health/allergy OCD lately. I’d love to hear some stories from everyone to help me cope and move through this.
Hi my ocd is constant worrying I feel like I have to worry about something in my mind until It’s clear in my mind. For example if I have worry’s in my mind before I go on a plane If I don’t think the thoughts through so that it’s clear in my mind I feel that it will make the plane crash. Hope this makes sense what I’m asking is what erp can I do to stop this
Hello! I’ve been with this guy for about a year and a half. He has OCD. I very recently found out that I do too. My compulsions are largely hidden, so he never suspected and has no idea how my OCD manifests. I’m still figuring that out for myself as well Is anyone else on here with a relationship like this? I’m open to any and all helpful advice or resources to help us navigate this together.
I started lexapro a week ago and I feel that it’s making my anxiety worse. Does anyone have experience taking lexapro? Did you notice the same? Thanks!
Hi there, I’ve been dealing with OCD (harm) most of my life but was just diagnosed at 30 years old.. I am now a mom of an amazing 2 year old so when my OCD flares up it’s a bit more disturbing to me than it was in my past.. news stories have always triggered me. And most recently there was the story of the nurse mom who strangled her 3 kids and tried to kill herself. I’m obsessing over it, comparing myself to her trying to convince myself I would never do that, looking into the story on the internet, the whole 5 yards… I just can’t stop thinking of this woman and I’m so disturbed and scared, it’s making my OCD so much worse. I just started treatment last week and I can’t wait to learn the tools I need to help. But I wanted your guys opinion as well. And was curious if there’s any other moms on here that struggle and how they cope ♥️
Any automotive techs here with OCD?
My husband aged 39 died to suicide in September last year, leaving me alone with 5 children. We'd been together 20 years since teenagers. He developed an addiction to cocaine and prescription drugs after 13 years together when he was in his 30s. Really random as he was tea total before. Anyway my grief has been horrendous lately, the realisation he isn't coming back. He was my best friend and sole mate. I don't agree with drugs, so kicked him out hoping he'd change. Our relationship turned toxic in 2018 due to all the fights about him lying regarding drugs. I threw a mug at him and he left me calling me a psycho, he randomly added loads of girls on Facebook telling them they were attractive. He invited himself round to ones house and basically ran me down to her and she said he was off his face and made him leave. A counsellor told me drug addicts do all kinds of things in the grips of addiction they seek solace and support all over the place and told me to see it as part of a bigger problem ( drugs) in which he needed help. I stool by his side and he did get better for the next 4 years, he went to AA and had periods of sobriety. He returned to his lovely self, and was ashamed of everything he'd done in the past. He was always a great husband and father prior to addiction. He text me the night he died, saying to remember whatever happened to know he loved me and the kids more than anything. It was too late by the time I got help. Now I'm trying to process everything, people keep saying to remember the person before addiction. I have ocd and for some reason I've developed the thought he could have cheated on me in the past before addiction. Although I have absolutely no evidence. A girl I disliked years ago told my friend she didn't know what my husband seen in me as he was so good looking and I was irritating. So I blanked her next time she tried to speak. She then told me she seen my husband in our car with a girl with dark hair. I confronted my husband over this at the time and he phoned her to ask why she was lying. She said she wasn't sure it was definitely him but seen our baby on board sticker on the car window. Anyway he looked like he was telling the truth. And later she accused another friends husband of sexual assault. On my hen night walking home my niece took my bride to be sash off me and wore it. My sister said a group of girls walked past and said I've slept with the brides husband. We were all drunk so I never thought about it. Plus I trusted my husband impeccably. I thought my sister could have misheard, it could be my niece, they could have been joking. Basically all these things happened 17 and 14 years ago. My husband rarely went out, I would check his phone and all he used to look up was sport. He didn't ever act guilty or nothing to indicate an affair. All his friends said he was a proper family man. I always think cheating comes out in the end anyway and we live in a small town. A lot of people say I'm doing this to try and stop the grief by painting him out to be an adulterer. I'm so upset with it all. I want to be able to grieve but now I have this in my mind it's making it hard. My ocd is making me phone family and friends to ask if they think he cheated, everyone has said no. He loved me too much and wasn't that type of person. But as soon as I feel reassured my head starts thinking that I'm being stupid there is two clear cases of evidence and I dismissed them over the years. My therapist said there's no evidence as it's both hearsay and hearsay isn't evidence. I really don't think he would ever have cheated before I remembered these two stupid things. I'd like to think I'd have trusted my gut, my gut at the time would never suspected him. Help please.
I am struggling with living and trying to function in a normal life. I am married, have a great house, no children but three dogs who are everything to me, and work part time while finishing my doctorate degree. I struggle with obsessing that something terrible will happen to my dogs every time I leave the house. Because of the fact that we never had children, my dogs are everything to me in the thought of some thing happening to one of them is so overwhelming that I have a hard time coping when it comes to leaving them, even if it’s just for a short time. I had a traumatic experience from the loss of one of our dogs seven years ago, due to negligence of a veterinarian neurosurgeon who made a mistake and caused the death of my dog. I blame myself for this every single day and I probably will for the rest of my life. I also have a lot of anxiety, which started when I was probably around five or six years old. My parents would travel a lot and I was constantly afraid they would die in a car crash or plane crash. I am terrified to fly or take a train. I have to drive all the time and sometimes it becomes exhausting. Every time I leave my house I have the check, check again, and re-check again to make sure everything is “OK.“ I check to make sure every door is locked, I make sure the knobs on the stove are off, And when I lock that front door and leave I jiggle the handle several times “just to make sure it’s locked“ even though I know it is. While I’m at work I’m constantly worried that something will happen to my dogs or at my house. If my husband comes home a few minutes late I panic that he was in an accident. It causes a strain on my marriage because it takes me so long to actually get out the door, it constantly makes myself or my husband and I late for any event. I’m not doing it on purpose I just can’t feel calm until I complete all these “rituals.“ I would not wish this on my worst enemy.
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