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Guys i feel like struggling with this on and off for 6 years makes me actually believe that this is not OCD and im just going through sexuality crisis or discovery phase😔

I have ROCD. Right now I’m been in my head for a while. It has really kicked in now that we are going to talk to a lawyer about setting a will and trust up for us. I’m 60 years old. I am battling with the thoughts that do I really love my wife and should I leave. I picture myself trying to tell her and I break down into tears. I go back and forth with should I leave or go. In the past I used to look forward to seeing her come home from work or talk on the phone with her. Now at times I get triggered by it. At times I feel like running. Especially now. Does ROCD do this to you? Can it really make you think and feel that you don’t love your spouse?

Good afternoon, Background: I am a 34 year old male who has a wife and two kids, four and one. I have had anxiety since I was in elementary school. In the third grade, I would go to the nurse every school day because I thought I was sick. I also struggled with thoughts about burglars entering the house, my family getting hurt, etc. I got "passed this" (not really), but then I became obsessed with rituals when I played sports or was in high tense situations and felt tremendous anxiety when I didn't do them. I graduated high school and moved to college. While at college, I was officially diagnosed with OCD. What brought this on was I couldn't walk past a certain crack in the sidewalk without thinking an intrusive thought. This repeating helped take away the pain and sadness of the thought. After talking with the licensed school counselor, I started taking Sertraline and continued to deal with repeating. However, I was able to live my life and came to the understanding that repeating would just be part of it. At that time, I thought "I would much rather have anxious thoughts, repeat, and move on then try to face them." What Led Me Here: I had ups and downs regarding my mental health in adulthood, but I never really put much thought into it. COVID 19 happened and my son was born in 2020. I found an OCD therapist that helped me deal with intrusive thoughts about my newborn son. I would ruminate and think about whether my son would get hurt or die. I didn't feel bodily anxiety in this situation, because I would just repeat and the thought would go away. I worked with my therapist until the negative feelings went away. It seemed like everything was fine, until 2024. This past winter, I began to feel bodily sensations related to anxiety. I reached back out to my OCD therapist in January and started working with her again. At the end of February, I had an anxiety attack for the first time in my life. The feeling of anxiety I had never felt before lasted for a week and a half and it was extremely difficult. I was always proud of myself when I told people, "My OCD has never affected my ability to complete tasks or do important things." This wasn't the case anymore. I had to take a mental health day for the first time ever. I was able to get through that experience. Two weeks later, it came back. It lasted for about two weeks and my therapist helped me get passed those feelings. Instead of working with her every week, we moved to every other week. Fast forward to my current situation. I had not felt that bodily anxiety sensation for a while, but it came back when I got home from a five-day golf trip. Intrusive thoughts about not wanting to be a father or husband filled my body when I got home. The anxiety feeling returned and now I am here. **If you have read this far, thank you. I feel like it is important to know my story. These three encounters with anxiety and OCD has shown me that I have not been doing my part in getting myself better. I am always looking for short cuts and ways to barter with my anxiety and mental health. Now, I am attempting to not argue with my OCD and let intrusive thoughts in. My therapist and I are working on I-CBT (Inference Based Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) and I wasn't following through with the plan my therapist and I came up with together. Why I Am Writing this Novel I am trying to be positive and believe my core values (wanting to be happy, be a dad, be a husband, etc.), but I no longer have repeating to fall back on. Now, it is just rumination, obsession, and assurance seeking - the battle within. These past couple days, I have struggled mightily with my happiness. It is constant negativity in my head: - "Why bother? You will never be happy" - "You are a horrible parent. You would rather watch TV then be with your kids." - "You are a horrible husband. You are putting your wife through all of this." - "OCD will always win and dictate the life you have." - "See! You are feeling anxiety, so all of your work is worthless." I know the answers to my obsessions. I know the tools I need to use. I am just very afraid that I will not get better. My son, daughter, and wife deserve a present family member. I simply cannot live life like this. It is not a life full of happiness. It is just a life of continuous worry. I mean, I am already feeling dread about my kids growing up and graduating and they are four and one! Again, thank you for reading this. I just want to be better.

do I have any Christ followers with ocd that can talk ?

My intrusive thoughts about ending my life have been so active today just constantly going and going and going. It's been exhausting. My brain just constantly makes me doubt it's OCD with thoughts like "are you sure you love your life" "what if you actually wanna die" and I just been so sad all day because I've had a really good week and now this happens again out of nowhere.... I'm feeling so discouraged and so scared. Then when I'm actually enjoying life laughing ect I get the thought "don't be happy because people are always happy before they do it" and that sends me spiraling... Please send me some encouragement or any tips to help I would greatly appreciate it 🥺 thank you in advance. 🤍 sending hugs...

for so long now i have felt alone in my OCD symptoms. it feels like it’s never ending. one of the many parts is my physical urges that hurt. i push down on my fingers, usually the middle and thumb, so much that they hurt and bruise. i’ve recently pushed down on and grinded my teeth so hard they became loose and my gums inflamed. it’s exhausting but the urges never stop. i’ve tried resisting them so much, it just never sticks

Even tho I still experience symptoms from time to time, my ability to handle them, and use strategies learned both from here at NOCD and my own readings of books has drastically changed how I respond to them and how I can accept them. I want to also share how important it is to feel comfortable about sharing what your OCD is about, I suffered from real event OCD and I struggled with talking about it (kinda part of the theme right?) but nobody here is going to judge you or “report” you. They are here to help.

So this is more of a rant and I’ll try not to seek reassurance but it’s really tough right now. I got diagnosed later (when I was 30) when I had a pretty big suicidal ocd onset after I had several family losses including ( one close one and one family friend to suicide which wrecked me) so needless to say I had a breakdown and felt like a baby and couldn’t be away from my mom or brother, I literally drove up to their house cause I couldn’t handle the thoughts and spent two months there before I went into erp which helped a lot. A big hang up I had was I considered my cousin and I very similar and close but he didn’t want help and I didn’t understand him so I have a lot of regrets regarding how we approached it but we didn’t know either. So fast forward to now I’ve had erp and I-cbt and trauma work and the anniversary of his passing happened a week ago. I thought I was fine, it’s been a long time since it happened and I was so proud of myself for conquering the suicide theme as it didn’t affect me any more and I was confident in my ability to deal with it. But then I had SO-OCD show up something that has popped in here and there but never this strong, so I have been dealing with that and now that that’s gone the suicidal ocd is back and it’s so upsetting to me and I don’t feel confident anymore. I will say after reading some posts I do have a fear I realize of not being able to manage my mental health so any time I start feeling negative feelings I can start to worry and go down that rabbit hole. Idk if that is what happened. Lately I’ve been struggling with and being frustrated with finding a job I like and dating ( has always been a struggle) and I moved to a different city and live with my family again ( after my first onset I did leave my families house and go home for a few yrs and did my erp but after i was in remission I just wanted a change and needed a safe space to start over as I didn’t see myself in my old city anymore just scrapping by). I’m glad I made the change and I’ve had positive things happen for me where I’ve been slowly overcoming my dating fears and my ocd themes and found an area of work I liked and pursued… but nothing has happened and I’m frustrated I thought it would all be an uphill swing as long as I just intentionally tried and I feel like it just hasn’t landed. And I’m also realizing sometimes that happens but my perfectionism can really start working its magic in me to beat myself up about not doing or being enough. I’ve always had this fear that I’m just gonna end up a bum and this past weekend I was down and just tried to let myself feel down despite fears of depresssion because I was just looking at the trend of my life and I feel like the outlook doesn’t look great despite me trying I even logically know I’ve done way more and come a lot farther that I “ feel” I have big feelings can trick you I’ve learned especially when you have ocd about not being able to handle them. Anyways I’m in a state of just like really because last night i was down and teared up about the changes happening with my friends starting families and I was trying not to be down but then kept having thoughts of what’s the point in trying you’re not gonna get the things you want, your never gonna stop feeling bad or confused about your emotions, what if you’re actually depressed and want to die and then I would have no emotional reaction to it cause I just feel like numb to it or apathetic at this point. I know I know I don’t want that but it’s liek my lack of feelings toward it is trying to convince me otherwise. Then I went to bed in a foul mood and mad and Ofcourse had the suicidal thoughts pop up and trying not to pick it apart or test if I wanted it there ( but I did give in to the testing a few times and felt nothing) I was liek just go to sleep you’ll feel better tomorrow your ocd is just fucking with you. Then I had a dream that I was super sad and emotional everyone else was happy and doing things with their life and starting families ( which I again don’t get I don’t want to start a family right now I’m just trying to get into dating and maybe finding a partner) and here I was not ready but feeling left behind liek I didn’t get the memo and in my emotional state in the dream I said I wanted to die and I remember feeling liek no this can’t be true but it felt like real and out of my control. Almost all my friends are getting pregnant and as a woman in their 30s this has gotten to me ( I never thought it would). And so I woke up this morning feeling that intense sadness left over from the dream and not wanting to get out of bed and trying to talk myself out of the dream like it wasn’t real and is again my ocd just fucking with me. I think I should also mention that I’m about to start menstruating and have pms/pmdd sometimes. I guess I just wanna know if there are others out there that experience this liek you’ve conquered themes but then they back door through a new theme. And I honestly just feel like it’s stupid af but my ocd is liek but it could actually be you’re depressed and suicidal and I just feel like all my work is gone. Is ocd more likely to strike when you’re frustrated with certain aspects of your life, does it make you more vulnerable to it. I know my cousins anniversary is a potential trigger but I thought I was okay but maybe it was just there in the background. Idk. Looking for support and ppl who have gone through it too and I know we can come out of it and conquer it even if sometimes you really don’t want to cause it’s tiring.

I am really curious to try the GeneSight test because I think that it would help me understand what medication will work better for me. I spoke with multiple different people about this, and it was brought to my attention by my hairstylist and my therapist. They both think it would be really good for me, and I’m willing to try it if my insurance will cover it. I then texted my psychiatrist and she seemed very unsure about the testing. Part of me thinks that she just wants more money so she is not willing to help me find what medication works best for me, the other part of me wonders if it is not a good idea and a waste of money to do the testing. I want to see the best in my psychiatrist, but she tends to not listen to me anyways, so I don’t really have a reason to listen to her in this situation. I’m curious to know if anybody else has tried the Genesight testing and how it worked for you. Or if you have medication recommendations? I know that is more tricky, because it’s different for everyone.

What makes my situation different than someone discovering their sexual orientation later in life? How can I still be my identified sexual orientation when I have these thoughts, images and urges? Am I just using OCD as an excuse? I’ve both seen these thoughts, and have had them myself or some similar, especially the last one. Usually OCD loves to add some guilt to it to, after all when that random person whose story you read about online, who definitely told the whole story and was 100% truthful, shared their story, they accepted these thoughts. What gives you the right to deny them? What if one of your children is gay? How can you support them if you denied acting on those exact same thoughts and feelings they’re totally having? Etc. That am I using OCD as an excuse question still gets me a little bit, but nowhere near as much as before and the reason why has been learning to accept that I am different from all those people because I do have OCD! So are we using OCD as an excuse? Maybe. Maybe Not. But you and I do have this terrible illness that creates this intense doubt and extreme thoughts that our brains struggle to just move past. We’ll never know what number on the sexual spectrum we are, but we don’t need to figure it out. We are okay living the life we want whomever that is with.

Yesterday was such a bad day for me,it felt like I was stuck in this chamber with my mind and I just cried and stayed in my room. Today I went out to make an effort at being productive but I just don't feel present and I feel so tired. I'm sitting outside the store cause I got dizzy and everything just felt weird while doing shopping withmy family. I feel hopeless. I knew death was a thing before this flare up and I was fine,I've had problems with this ocd years ago but I don't feel strong enough to endure. Now my mind just wants to ruminate, "maybe you forgot about death and now you're remembering it again and this is how it will be forever". The fact that I will die makes it so hard to stay "uncertain" with this OCD. It's making it so hard to do anything and enjoy life. I know it's my brain causing this anxiety,but when the thoughts overwhelm me it's hard. I'm gonna cook something today and make the effort to enjoy it.

I’ve had some traumatic experiences with my fiancée whom I love very much, although this was earlier in the relationship. He moved out too soon and struggled for months to get a job. I had to pay his rent several times and help him with other expenses as well. I became obsessed with helping him find a job, and making sure he was okay. He struggled severely as well with anxiety. He has a job now, although he is not through the probation period and he hates working nights and wants to switch back to day or find another job. In the meantime he’s also learning how to budget his own money. Suddenly he’s not so helpless, and yet I find myself unable to believe he can take care of himself or that I can trust him to keep a job or pay his own bills since it was such a long period of time beforehand. He has every intention of becoming wise and independent, and reassured me of this constantly, but my intrusive thoughts attack me and I find myself unable to relax or focus, and my love for him or anything becomes suffocated. He encouraged me to do some research and that’s how I found this app. I’m afraid but I also desperately want to change. Thank you for reading ❤️

I got diagnozed with OCD two years ago. Since my teenage years, I suffered from recurrent depressive episodes and also OCD related themes. I am currently doing ERP with NOCD but I feel I need to address my depressive moods as well. Is anyone doing ERP and CBT or talk therapy or anything else in parallel or has experience in treating both in parallel?

Hello, does anyone have any advice on trying to stop doing rituals? My top ones have a lot to do with counting and anxiety over certain things. •the main one that bothers me SOO much is my bedtime alarm routine. I set all my alarms and then turn my ringer on and off 6 times. Then proceed to make sure my charger is plugged in twice. Then open and close my phone 3-5 times checking that my alarm is set. Once I put my phone down I checking the outlet one more time and the alarm one more time. •when I close at work I have to check the air is off at least twice. Then check the candle is out even though we never light it. After I look the door I pull on it 5 times These are just some examples. can someone please help on how to stop or at least lessen these!!??

My first post on this forum. I just need to vent a bit. I have been dealing with OCD for about 10 years. I probably relapsed about 20 times now. Most recently 2 months ago for no particular reason other than becoming a father a month earlier which i guess was some kind of positive stress that triggered me. And this time our friend is really having a go with me. Especially now i am on vacation and have nothing much to do in the mornings which causes anxiety so severe i threw up in the first hour of waking up 2 days in a row now. I'm doubting every last od my positive feelings. Am i suicidal, how is my family going to feel if i kill myself, is it ever going to be better, how can i take care of my kid if i'm like this, am i going to throw up every day now? I started going to CBT last month in adsition to my 100 mg of SSRI . Hope it gets better soon ffs 😮‍💨

Went to a smoothie shop for my ERP today. I expected it to go well. But the noise was too much 😞it took me like 30 minutes to reach a calm-ish state. But even being back at home now my intrusive thoughts are so loud and I feel discouraged and very panicky and fearful. I’m so disappointed in myself and I’m afraid I’m going backwards . This is so hard

Hi I know I’ve ranted about this a few times and I know I shouldn’t but I’m panicking idk what to do. Just saw this Tik Tok and the comments were saying that my relationship (year 12 girl and y11 boy with year and a half age difference is not okay). We’ve been dating nearly four months, two months before his 16th which I told myself “the age difference isn’t gonna change, as long you do nothing sexual its neither legally or morally wrong” and now the worry has switched to “it’s not legally wrong but is it morally wrong?” especially after seeing this Tik Tok. It talked about how girls mature faster than boys as well but I thought that was kinda a myth tbh (apparently it’s not although it fluctuates with exceptions). And before I started dating him I checked with basically everyone in my life that they thought the age gap was normal which they said it was and that it was nothing. We’ve been best friends for a while btw so the feelings developed naturally, I took the risk of my OCD flaring up because I loved him but then at times like this comes the worry that I’m hurting him, an idea that terrifies me. There’s no noticeable maturity difference between us at all and we work together doing drama and film stuff all the time (we’re both actors). Any opinions? I don’t want to give up something that’s both making us happy over something that could be the result of a chronically online opinion.

This post largely revolves around my current themes of SOOCD and ROCD. I began my OCD recovery journey this year in late February. Just a few weeks ago I received my conquers badge and felt on top of the world but with a forced change of therapists and becoming a little lax on my ERP’s I have had a tougher few days, but nowhere near as bad as it was (although I have stood on the edge of that hole wanting to jump down) This journey has seen me learn many things, some of which have helped me prevent other themes from riding back up. One recent one was actually after taking a test at work. My top strengths largely revolve around execution. In summary, seeing a problem, figuring out what is wrong, what needs to be done, and fixing it. Guess what has no fix though? While I have gotten better at accepting that I do have this terrible disease that causes unnecessary doubt, it’s also hard as this involves putting my best strengths to the side, but that I also need to. Other things I have learned include: - Not basing judgements off of a feeling because feelings aren’t reliable and constant - That I lack self compassion and don’t let myself be a human a lot of the times - That I crave control, but only for myself and that a lot of my fears, OCD related or not, are things I don’t have control over. Ex. My orientation, if I might die tomorrow, if the world around me is a simulation, even my fear of flying is because if we crash I can’t do anything about it. In my recovery though I still have a fair share of repetitive thoughts, in relation to SOOCD and ROCD. If you have read this far, and have any advice or see how I may be going the wrong way about something, I do greatly appreciate any feedback - Am I just using OCD as an excuse? - Do I even have OCD? - That dude over there is good looking, that means I’m gay - My mind changing a woman in a daydream or when I’m laying with my wife to a man - Wishing to go back to how I was - And more Largely when these thoughts pop up, I try to accept them as much as I can or give an answer OCD doesn’t like. Am I using OCD as an excuse? Maybe. Do I even have OCD? Probably not. Will I go back to how I was? Probably Not. I still have a lot of progress to be made, and it definitely sucks in the meantime being someone that wants to cross something off his list as soon as possible, but I do know I can make it through it, even if I had a twinge of doubt while writing that. I also wanted to include some tips I have learned for others dealing with a theme of SOOCD and ROCD that may be able to help them - If you’ve read stories or questions about how do I know if I’m gay? And have seen responses from people with vague answers like, if you get this feeling in your stomach when you see x person it means you’re y orientation, or I didn’t realize I was x orientation originally but looking back I had thoughts about y persons. These are not helpful responses for someone with OCD because you have OCD and they don’t. As you’ve probably heard everybody has intrusive thoughts, and we all process information differently and what works for someone without OCD will not work for someone with OCD. They can make those decisions and have those thoughts and go about their day, we cannot. Even if in the moment you can, like an annoying fly it will buzz by again. - If you look back and think, why didn’t I react this way when I had this thought? You just didn’t. You processed and handled a thought in a way you want to and only OCD wants you to figure out the meaning behind why then and not now - Someone dealing with SOOCD isn’t afraid of being a different orientation, they’re just afraid of…. When I was in a really bad spot, this statement terrified me because I was afraid of being gay. Through time I have learned that I’m not afraid of being gay, honestly if I was I wish I had known in grade school. It took a while to see but during your recovery I bet you too come to see that you’re not afraid of being a different orientation, just something else to what you have known, and know yourself to be - Last one is that everyone’s OCD is different and that OCD can do anything. If you feel the urge to ask, does anybody else experience… If no one responds to your question, it means absolutely nothing. Even if someone else hasn’t experienced that, it does not mean OCD can’t do that because OCD can do anything and will target everyone different. OCD just wants you to feel like you’re the exception to the rule and wants to find that one bit to latch onto to sew that doubt.

Im so sick and tired of wasting my life on pointless intrusive thoughts and obsessions this stuff is stupid borderline ridiculous. I have an obsession about trash on the ground can you believe that nonsense this is time wasted that can be for spending time with family and friends living !! I refuse to waste anymore time. I know this isnt going away right away but imma fight it with all my might !!

I became concious of my OCD when experimenting with hallucenagenic drugs back in 2020 during covid and the lockdown (yeah, horrible idea). My anxiety spiked for what seemed like the entire year and I developed a panic disorder. I didn't know it was OCD at the time. I went to a psychiatrist and got diagnosed only with panic disorder. Eventually, I saw a therapist and was diagnosed with OCD, but I couldn't afford to continue seeing him. I also wasn't sure yet that it was true that I had it, or perhaps wasn't willing to accept it yet. My method of managing it for the past few years became to keep myself busy and not think about it. This year, I realized I was running from the fear when it brought me to my knees and made me feel the way I did in 2020. Now I'm here and ready to tackle this once and for all.