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I posted this last night(the next paragraph) and i’m still feeling horrible. Sitting with it until it passes rather than ruminating and trying to disprove it feels like a constant feeling of doom and gloom. I’m so depressed. Has anyone else been through this? I feel horrible😪 I developed ocd as postpartum so my ocd has always latched onto my children. It started as harm and stayed harm for years but then when I was finally able to overcome that theme it switched to pocd and it disturbed me so much that my ocd has stuck with that theme. I was finally able to overcome my ocd and it was mostly gone for many years until a recent stressful life event 2 years ago. I’ve had it under control since it came back until a bad flare up last month and I got through that and have been okay for a couple of weeks but it’s starting back up and i’m scared it will get bad again. It switches back and forth between my son and my daughter. I know my only true thoughts and feelings towards them are genuine motherly thoughts and love. They are my world but my ocd twists everything into something horrible or inappropriate. It can feel so real sometimes even though I know it’s not at all real. It’s so painful and upsetting. I don’t understand my brain. If I know the truth why do I get so stuck on these intrusive thoughts and feelings? I just want to go back to looking at, thinking and feeling about my kids the way I actually do and not the way the ocd says I do. I’m really struggling. I know other moms/dads experience this but very few post and it makes me feel so alone. I’m here if anyone needs support and I can only hope to get support also.

**TW** I think my OCD is latching onto this. It feels extremely real and scary. I basically learned about the dark web and a browser name. And now I’m petrified I’m going to get on it and find terrible things. I can’t stop imagining myself do it and I’m scared. I feel like I had already heard and known about it but learning about it this time feels different. Maybe it’s just the OCD. I feel like I’m going to lose control. I wish I would stop learning about these things. I’m so tired :(

in actually scared i dont care about my partner as im supposed to and that i dont like him, i have dificulties with sexual stuff, and im scared i dont like him and that i am lying to myself, im scared. He is a very nice and caring and beautiful man, i love him (or i think i dont lnow) he dosent deserve this , i talked to him about this he knows about my thoughts, some days ago he calmed me down and used some logoc on me and i was good and now im questioning everything i feel bad for posting here i feel like im lying to him and im scared my thoughts are real

So, I'm currently in panic mode. I commented underneath a post on here, just trying to be helpful if I could, but I ended up getting triggered by the messages exchanged with the person? I've blocked them now. I just got scared, and I feel really, really bad about it, but they said they'd interacted with a real offender and said they had behaved inappropriately in front of minors. I still don't really understand what they did, but I felt like since I'd started the conversation, I couldn't just leave them hanging... Ugh. I told them to seek professional help because I didn't feel comfortable trying to give advice if they really did do something horrible, and they said they felt like the only reason they felt guilt is because they didn't want people to label them as... one of those people. I can't even get myself to type the word. I don't want to offer advice to someone who... you know. But, I also wouldn't want to isolate someone who might really be struggling with OCD. I'm just at a loss right now. I feel really scared.

*****TW***** I keep remembering an interaction I had with a person who reached out to give advice on OCD. *****TW***** They ended up dumping the fact that they searched for illegal content to the point where they got arrested months later. This person claimed OCD but I really think there was more to it. I felt horrified when I learned what they did. I really doubt they simply typed into google. They most likely made a lot of effort to find this illegal stuff. I can rationalize that much, but I still feel so scared that this is possibility for me. Sure, I’m impulsive and my compulsions are super hard to resist but I think I have strong morals. I don’t ever want to become that person. Ever. I’m so scared. I’m panicking and maybe it’s the new medicine I’m on but I would really appreciate some support. I think it’s my OCD convincing me I’ll become that person eventually and I’m so petrified. I feel contaminated from ever interacting with such a person. I feel so scared.

I go to sleep and I’m ruminating. I can’t stop it from happening in such a sleepy state. I’m asleep and in my dreams in ruminating. I wake up and I’m already ruminating bc of how tired I am from not sleeping well. I’m so nauseated and overwhelmed. On the verge of tears. This has been happening for so many days. How do I stop this??? Please help

Yesterday I seized the opportunity to take a big step forward in my own ocd and personal journey. I have been going through a ton of inner turmoil over the past couple of months involving romantic feelings I have for a friend. OCD uses those feelings as evidence that I am a horrible, evil person and I am left feeling very alone. I wanted my feelings for this friend to go away. OCD says I can’t tell anyone about what I’m feeling because they would find out how awful I am. And if that happened everyone in my life would find out and I would be left alone and irredeemable. I’m steering into the abyss that ocd wants me to avoid. I started by confiding in friends and family removed from the situation. I only told them what I was feeling. No asking for reassurance. No trying to get them to say something that would counteract my anxiety. Just presenting them with what I am going through and giving up control of how I am perceived. It was agonizing but I was able to get through it. Last night I decided to tell my roommate, who is also in my friend group with this crush, about my feelings for our friend. It was very difficult to get the words out and he had a mixed response to the news. I made an effort to not seek reassurance or try to confess my perceived “misdeeds” in this situation. Just practicing relinquishing control. We were able to talk through it more. He is one of my best friends and he made me feel accepted regardless of whatever I felt, feel, decide to act/not act on. It was a very big moment for me. Not only in defying the rules ocd has set for me, but also with being more aligned with my own values and connecting with those who are important to me. Whether or not things do or don’t end up working out with this crush is separate from the issue I am attacking here. I don’t know what’s going to happen there, but I do know that if I pursue the values that are important to me and put in work to be the person I want to be, I am one step closer to finding the person I’m looking for.

My therapist told me today that if I get intrusive thoughts of other people: friends/randoms/children/pets, to put them in the corner of the room. I can try that but I feel like I’ll still be focusing a lot on the intrusive thoughts during such a vulnerable time. It makes me feel like if I focus on intrusive thoughts, and I reach a point where I am feeling good physically, I’m scared I’ll associate those thoughts with feeling good or feel like I “got off” to them. ***TW*** Apart from that I have creative intrusive thoughts like imagining my bf isn’t a grown man which repulses me to even type. Or that he’s a family member. Those drives me absolutely insane. Those I don’t know how to handle. How would you handle this? How do y’all handle this?

I’m really struggling right now. My mind is racing and I’m panicking about the content that I watched in the past because I don’t have a way to ‘prove’ that it was safe and consensual. I stupidly caved in and googled “what happens if an accidentally saw illegal porn” and I ended up making my anxiety so much worse. What if the images I saw in the past had underage people in them? Am I going to jail? Will my ip address be tracked? My brain is making all sorts of scenarios up and they feel so real. At this point I don’t know if I’m a bad person or not, I just feel like something terrible is about to happen. Although I know I’d never intentionally look for that kind of stuff there’s still a chance that I could have seen things without realising, and I actually don’t know what to do. I’m in total panic mode

I went to bed one night in November, and I can't quite say what happened, but I believed that I had a "memory" from childhood. I won't discuss what, but I had "remembered" doing something sickeningly awful. This thing came to me almost as clear as a real memory. I remember thinking something along the lines of 'How could I forget doing something like that?' followed by a feeling of complete horror and terror. I have moments of "clarity" where I can't believe that I'm questioning doing this thing, and it appears obvious that it's false. But now, I'm more than often believing that I did. I am spending 24/7 fighting my head, and it's taking me to dark places. I know this is the worst thing to do, but you don't understand, if this is real then I am a monster and I can't just adopt the 'maybe I did, maybe I didn't approach'. I just can't. I have to know. I'm so scared. My entire life is on the line. I don't have anyone to talk to about this. Literally no one. I feel like I'm insane, like I'm a monster, like I'm hiding my true identity from everyone I love. Does this sound like False Memory? Or am I in denial, trying to convince myself this didn't happen? Why does it feel so real? And why do I have moments of clarity? I also had my first nightmare about it last night. Please someone help me.

I’ll cut a long story short… SOCD/ HOCD was one of the first themes I got when I was a teenager. The first one was health but I didn’t know that was OCD at the time. Anyway, I have had SOCD for 11 years. Sometimes it leaves me alone and it feels like I’m my own self again! Don’t get me wrong it lingers but I manage. But… IT IS BACK!!! My head is telling me that I am a lesbian and that I need to just admit it. I hate it. I have a boyfriend who I love unconditionally and this has just sprung out of a dream I had -.- I don’t want to be a lesbian! The groinal responses have always been the worst. It started when I was around 16, I woke up one morning and my brain just said ‘you’re a lesbian’, as you can imagine I freaked out, panic attack and cried. Then, my brain starts looking into my childhood… well it’s had a field day. When I was around 9 my friend showed me girls kissing on YouTube and then I suppose I got addicted to it. I then used to play on Habbo and walk up to girls and say ‘kisses’ etc. my brain is now saying that this is evidence that I’m gay. I DONT WANT TO BE A LESBIAN!!! I have no issues with gay people, I just don’t want to be gay myself. Sometimes, when the thoughts come in I don’t seem to get anxious but I get groinals and that freaks me out! I just want peace. I hate this. I get so many different themes. Now it’s this one and I just want to crawl under my duvet, sleep until they’re gone but then I end up dreaming about it!!!

Does anyone else experience this? Like it feels like 1 second after something has happened you question everything. Your intentions especially? Then you can’t remember anything clearly. I can’t tell if my intentions were bad, I had neutral intentions and an intrusive thought came in during it, or I’m making up an excuse for my behavior. Anyone? I feel very frightened.

I’ll cut a long story short… SOCD/ HOCD was one of the first themes I got when I was a teenager. The first one was health but I didn’t know that was OCD at the time. Anyway, I have had SOCD for 11 years. Sometimes it leaves me alone and it feels like I’m my own self again! Don’t get me wrong it lingers but I manage. But… IT IS BACK!!! My head is telling me that I am a lesbian and that I need to just admit it. I hate it. I have a boyfriend who I love unconditionally and this has just sprung out of a dream I had -.- I don’t want to be a lesbian! The groinal responses have always been the worst. It started when I was around 16, I woke up one morning and my brain just said ‘you’re a lesbian’, as you can imagine I freaked out, panic attack and cried. Then, my brain starts looking into my childhood… well it’s had a field day. When I was around 9 my friend showed me girls kissing on YouTube and then I suppose I got addicted to it. I then used to play on Habbo and walk up to girls and say ‘kisses’ etc. my brain is now saying that this is evidence that I’m gay. I DONT WANT TO BE A LESBIAN!!! I have no issues with gay people, I just don’t want to be gay myself. Sometimes, when the thoughts come in I don’t seem to get anxious but I get groinals and that freaks me out! I just want peace. I hate this. I get so many different themes. Now it’s this one and I just want to crawl under my duvet, sleep until they’re gone but then I end up dreaming about it!!!

Hi everyone, I’ve been struggling a lot with my thoughts and feelings about my boyfriend. He’s an amazing person—kind, loving, and supportive—but I constantly feel like I’m faking everything. It’s like I’m a liar pretending to love him, and deep down, I don’t actually want to be with him. Whenever he tells me he loves me or shows affection, I feel guilty because I think, What if I don’t love him back? It feels so real, like the truth is staring me in the face and I’m just refusing to accept it. I keep asking myself: Am I just staying with him because I’m used to him? What if I’ve never truly loved him? What if I’m a bad person for stringing him along? I don’t feel anything when we kiss or when he’s sweet to me, and that terrifies me. Sometimes I even feel irritated by him or like I don’t want to be around him, and then the guilt becomes unbearable because I know he doesn’t deserve that. This constant analyzing is taking over my life. I can’t even tell what’s real anymore. Am I lying to myself because I’m scared to face the truth? Or is this just my anxiety distorting everything? I feel like such a horrible person for even having these thoughts. If anyone has felt like this, please let me know how you managed to deal with it. I’m exhausted and just want to feel like myself again. he is also at my house amd i feel numb he tries to make me understand that i do like him and i feel so bad.

18+ please When I was 18, I started to talk to people on Instagram, and used to use the hashtags to meet new people. Well, I also deal with histrionic personality disorder, and I used to send nvde to people. My first person I sent a nvde to was 14. That person lived in another country, and he said that he’d get me in trouble, but he only said that when I set my boundaries and said I can’t continue talking to him. He never got me in trouble. Then gradually as I got older, I still continued to talk to people who’d just give me any sort of attention as a young adult. From 19, I started talking to a 16 year old, but not because I’m attracted to young people at all but because on Instagram, there was people who could lie about their age at any point, and I was stupid and made poor life decisions at this point. Then from 20, I started talking to a 17 year old, and then I told them I cannot continue talking to them. I feel so disgusting. Some of these people have pictures of my face and my name, I’m scared to ever remember telling them my last name, I just can’t remember. I even remember sending nvdes to random people that I never talked to, just because. This is a part of my past OCD that I think about every waking day of my life, it’s something unforgivable, and I’m ashamed. I am currently 27 years old and I no longer do those things, I feel so ashamed and mad at myself looking back. I feel like I completely ruined my future. I told my partner who is 28 about everything I just admitted not too long ago, and he said everybody makes mistakes. I just feel as if it’s something unforgivable, as I’m scared and ashamed that people know who I am, or still have pictures saved of me. I need help, or similar experiences that someone has had before?

I’ve been dealing with intrusive thoughts as long as I can remember. I’ve had several different themes that always come up at the worst times. Example In 2009 I married my high school sweetheart. Before that time my theme always revolved around health concerns. After we got home from our honeymoon someone at work said “nice ring, looks gay on you”. That statement alone sent me into a spiral of questioning my sexuality which I’ve never done before. That theme lasted a while and I can now burst out laughing about how ridiculous it was. Fast forward several years. I’m dealing with harm and any thought that my mind labels as intrusive. It’s very difficult because I have two kids that my OCD loves to attack. My family is my whole world but my intrusive automatic thoughts make me doubt everything. Do you sometimes check your feelings and notice that you are numb? I’ve even started being stuck on the idea that maybe I’m bipolar which terrifies me. Does anyone fall in the trap of reading symptoms and now you think you have them? OCD is a terrible thing. Just looking for someone who can relate. Knowing someone can relate is a big help. Stay Strong out there my OCD friends.

So, I've gotten to a point where I don't feel overbearing anxiety, but it's still there? The best way to describe it is this "unsettled" feeling in the pit of my stomach at all points of the day. I've also noticed myself "checking" if I still have a fear or reaction towards certain memories of intrusive thoughts I'd had in the past, which I know isn't great, but it kind of just happens automatically. I'm at an odd point in recovery because I don't necessarily feel I'm in major distress over these intrusive thoughts or the memories that have been causing feelings of guilt and shame... I just feel unsettled and a bit annoyed? I'm annoyed that I can't just exist without this like other people can. Like, I wish my brain would move on from this already. I've been doing a lot better compared to a few months ago, but moments where I'm not doing much, I can feel this anxiety begin to creep over me. I'm constantly aware that I'm just a trigger away from being sucked back into that horrible cycle of rumination, reviewing, compulsions, etc... Has anyone had a similar experience? If so, any advice to offer that helped you get through this?

I keep posting, but it’s a tough day. Does anyone else experience this odd looping? Like you’re resisting a confession compulsions and it’s like your brain starts chanting the exact sentence you could say. It feels like it’s only a matter of blurting it out loud. Same thing with intrusive thoughts of blurting out something bad, it’s like a song stuck in your head? Maybe it’s just me, I have a feeling ADHD makes it much worse. It makes it so much harder to focus on the present when it feels like the bad thing is chanting in your ear. It’s like a hellish broken record.

I don’t know how to stop confessing. It’s driving me insane. I confess every little thing to my boyfriend. I confessed that I liked attention (this is so obviously human), that I liked it when people found me pretty (also very human??) I confessed about a million other things and I feel out of control. I felt so safe with him last night that it just started pouring out of me. I felt guilty and awful and I just needed release, I couldn’t breathe I felt like I was dying. I’m stuck in a confessing loop and I know I’m only making things worse. Has anyone experienced this and been able to overcome it? It feels absolutely horrible and impossible. I tried to ERP this and I genuinely feel like I am suffocating if I hold off. I feel so disappointed in myself, but I can’t seem to stop. I even had a dream where I confessed to him and woke up needed to confess that. I’m scared I’ll start sharing my worst intrusive thoughts I’ve had if I feel too safe around my bf. Help please :(

I’ve been trying my best with ERP and just everything that’s going on. I have severe OCD, GAD, PMDD, panic disorder, recently diagnosed ADHD, and currently experiencing a major depressive episode. Apparently. I was taking a break from this app but I really need support right now. My family is honestly really mean and not understanding of what I’m going through. Right now it’s gotten bad to the point I had to withdrawal from my last semester of university. My only support is my boyfriend and he’s now planning to join the military. I won’t be able to talk to him for 3 months and I feel really scared of being alone with all of this. I know I shouldn’t depend on him to begin with but right now I’m at an extremely low point and I feel like I won’t make it alone. There hasn’t been a single day we haven’t texted and talked in 4 years. I feel really scared, but I don’t want to hold him back. You guys, I feel so sad and terrified right now. I don’t want him to go, he’s all I have.