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should i be doing erp instead of repeating again and again "none of that shits real. none of that shits real. none of that shits real" ? i can’t tell if it makes it better or not

So yesterday night I did the Nazi salute to compare it to the roman salute, at first I was arguing with myself that what elon musk did wasn't a roman salute so I displayed what I thought was a roman salute looked like. Then after that I did the Nazi salute, I never done it in my life and ever since I started learning history last year my minds been telling me to do it as an intrusive thought, but I never actually did it until now. I don't know why I did it and I feel horrible for doing it, the second after I did it, I felt horrible, I felt immediately guilty , someone pls help

Lately, I’ve been feeling like my relationship isn’t real. I keep thinking: • Why am I even with him? • Do I actually like him, or am I just used to him? • What if I’m just convincing myself that I like him? I feel numb, disconnected, and nothing I tell myself reassures me. Sometimes, I get really irritable when we talk, I don’t feel joy, and I start overanalyzing everything. It makes me feel like the absolute truth is that I don’t like him, and I’m just in denial. I also heard that when you don’t like someone, there’s no anxiety—just relief. But I have moments where the thought “I don’t want to be with him” crosses my mind, and I don’t feel anything at all. And because I don’t panic immediately, I start thinking “Maybe this means it’s true.” I’ve read that love isn’t about feeling excitement 24/7, but my mind keeps telling me that if I don’t feel connected, if I have to search for reasons why I like him, that must mean I don’t. I feel like I’m losing touch with my emotions, and no matter what I do, I can’t seem to feel love or happiness the way I used to. It’s like I keep waiting for some proof that I truly want to be with him, but I never find it. Has anyone else felt this way? I feel like I’m trapped in this endless doubt, and I don’t know what’s real anymore.

Hello, I am experiencing Intrusive thoughts, Disgust, Mental movies, Repetitive Questions and answers are not making sense. It makes me Anxious, I feel like I am loosing my mind. I am here to make sense of it all. I am frustrated that it took so long for me to seek the right help. I didn’t know what was going on with me. I am here to learn how to better myself and life.

Oh my god, where do I start? Trauma related OCD is the worst crap I've ever experienced in my life, hands down. It develops in some people after a traumatic experience. You can have both trauma related OCD and PTSD together or develop it after PTSD. Mine was like a transitionary phase and developed it after PTSD. I had every symptom of PTSD prior to this from witnessing a traumatic event which I will not go into detail about. But I will tell you how I went from PTSD to OCD and what I've experienced with all of this as some guy in their late 20s.  So, right after the traumatic event I developed poor concentration, reoccuring nightmares, fear, insomnia, restlessness, irritation, reoccurring thoughts about the event, forgetfulness and a faulty fight or flight response triggered by the thoughts. The freaking insomnia killed me for a year straight. Imagine going to sleep at 3 am and getting up at 7 am with a faulty fight or flight response kicking in right away for that whole entire day now. It felt like my body was boiling and radiating with the hottest energy you can imagine from my legs all the way up to my head. And I also felt weak, drunk and terribly lightheaded every single day. Rinse and repeat all of that for 1 year straight. Thank god that's over now. It was a damn nightmare of nightmares.  Most of those PTSD symptoms eventually disappeared but not all of them. I just found the will and mental strength in myself to let most of that PTSD crap go. But you know what happened pretty damn soon after that? It was all eventually replaced with trauma related OCD. It's like the PTSD evolved and didn't want me getting away so easily. For me, it's a mix of handwashing OCD and really bad somatic or sensorimotor OCD but that's not all. I also have distorted senses, bad forgetfulness, terrible concentration abilities, tension headaches and irritation every single day.  Here are some examples of what I go through; I'll turn the lights off, but my brain imagines the lights are on still. I'll stand there trying to process that the lights are off while fighting the distorted sense perception from my brain. So, I keep 'checking' to make sure the lights are indeed off. Not a good situation to be in. I have pretty much every somatic OCD symptom of breathing, swallowing, blinking, eye movements and most bodily functions. My brain's like telling me if you don't do it the 'right way' then I have to keep doing it until I feel like I did it the 'right way.' It's a 'feeling' issue, a really bad one I should say. All of this crap causes my fight or flight response to kick in, gives me some loss of sleep, irritation and mental agony. Also, if I 'feel' like I forgot to do something even though deep down I already know I did said thing, I feel compelled to do it again until that feeling subsides. It's like this, "I know I just did that but my brain wants me to feel like I didn't do it. Therefore, let's do it again." The handwashing is bad too. But I normally do it to 'feel good' about something in my head. Hence, the obsessive handwashing. The dfference between this OCD stuff and PTSD is that PTSD has you focused solely on the traumatic event while this OCD has me focused on many, many different compulsions which is much worse. One thing vs many compulsions? The latter is by far worse, trust me. Focusing on the compulsions screws up my ability to focus and think about what I'm doing at hand. If I ignore them, just imagine a tension headache with a really irritated hot spot forming in your head somewhere and coming in hard and fast. Now, I've successfully ignored many urges but... new ones just keep coming and forming. It's a constant battle. Every freaking day is a terrible battle with this stuff. If I slip up and let something become a compulsion and get out of hand, I fight it like fighting to the death and it then takes a while for me to climb back up out the hole I fell into. Once I'm out of the hole, the incessant battle of resisting continues. ​Here's some more weird things I do for example; basically, if I'm desperate to keep a compulsion away, I have to do other unrelated things a certain way or else I get the urge to go right back to doing said compulsion. And sometimes weird sensations, strain or pain I might feel while doing something throughout the day will alone trigger me to do an earlier compulsion. I also have to get a good night sleep after a battle with a compulsion. If I don't, that compulsion comes right back and I have to fight it the next day. It's a vicious cycle. I know, it's very screwed up. You don't have to tell me. I sometimes repeat myself over and over again out loud to make my brain "click" with what I'm saying. Now, this one started with the PTSD and I'm not sure if it's a cognitive and concentration issue or an OCD issue but it did actually get better over time thankfully. I hated that anyway. ​This is a glimpse of what I go through on a daily basis. And yeah, I do ERT all the time and it's not like a magic wand you can wave in the air and then everything's gone and back to normal. In my experience, it has worked for some things but other things, not so much. I've taken saffron, NAC, valerian root, passion flower, other supplements and other stuff to see if it would all help in some way. Saffron is touted as an SSRI equivalent but it did nothing for my OCD surprisingly except make me tired. I took it for a couple months and just hated the tired and drowsy feeling I got from it. The thing that actually worked somewhat for me is NAC. I took it for several months straight at a high dose and it actually altered my OCD behavior a little bit. I did 2600 MG of it everyday for several months. I stopped after a while because it really got my libido going. Yeah, won't go into that part. ​Anyway, I felt like I should share my story. As someone who's had the unfortunate pleasure of experiencing both PTSD and trauma related OCD, people truly do underestimate the terrible suffering that OCD can inflict on its victims. I don't believe an SSRI or any cognitive supplement will "fix" your OCD but I believe one can be liberated from it if they do resist the compulsions long enough to where their brain sort of very slowly recalibrates itself to be less OCD about things in the future. But it will take a lot of mental strength, will power and most of all, time. Distracting yourself and focusing on what makes you happy is very beneficial too and is honestly what helped me the most out of anything. Everyone's OCD is unique to themselves. What works for me might not work for you. What you are experiencing may not necessarily be the same as what I'm experiencing. For example, some people have terrible harm OCD where they are afraid of acting out on their thoughts. I cannot relate to that. But if any of you can relate to some degree with what I have, feel free to share. I'll give you some tips that I learned from my experience with all of this that helped me. But just remember, what works for me might not necessarily work for you. - Try to adopt an 'I don't care mentality' for your ocd rituals: Try to treat it as something that you refuse to have define you as a person and as if it's just nonsense that means nothing in the end. - Stop it in the initial stages: If you feel a compulsion coming on, I've found that ignoring it right then and there works the best. Even if you act on the compulsion once when it just starts, you have enough time to stop it right then and there still by ignoring it. My brain thinks that the compulsion was therefore not a compulsion and moves on to find sonething else to focus in on. Just rinse and repeat at that point then. - Distract yourself immediately: This is probably one of the best things I ever did to get control of my OCD. If your brain starts up right then and there about something OCD related, just immediately focus on something you like to do. - My 'leave it behind' method: Move away from the area where the compulsions are occurring and go to a different room. It helped me sort of refresh my mind and brain by going to a different area and I found that a lot of my compulsions no longer 'follow me' to that different room. I can then later return to the same room where it started and be fine again. - Go work out: Another great thing to boost your mental health and possibly rid your mind of OCD is working out whether that be hiking, the gym, jogging or simply taking a walk. It's really great for overall mental well being. It helped me a lot. I never was one to give up. I've been through hell for a while now. My conscience use to be stuck in this blackest of blackness, sort of like nothingness. But eventually it started becoming more clear and I was able to start seeing through and beyond this blackness. It's like pulling a large black curtain away which was obstructing your field of vision completely and seeing something on the other side. That's where I'm at right now. I see something but it's faint. I'm just glad that it's something though. I'm thankful for that. Peace.

I always had this dream of becoming a singer since I was young but got bully by family that my voice wasn’t good because when I was in the six grade I uploaded a video to my mom facebook page of me singing although other people commented that it’s was good just need improvement but my family made funny of me not knowing this is a career I want do in life so never really sing around ever because that still make a joke because my mom think my voice is good and so does my best friend, boyfriend and brother. I want make music but don’t know how get start at all then own top that I discourage I feel old I am 24 it’s too late now but I wish someone help accomplished that dream

I have been struggling today, most likely due to lack of sleep. I had a thought that I would consider intrusive, but what really unsettled me was that I felt like I liked it, **not just in the sense that I lacked anxiety over it, but that I genuinely felt like I wanted it.** It left me feeling really confused. It happened during intimacy, which makes it even more unsettling. The thought was incestuous, I found myself imagining and comparing the moment with my boyfriend to my father :/, and what really alarms me is that I felt like I wanted it there, both mentally and physically. I was having a really nice time, so maybe the physical sensations got mixed in somehow, but it still worries me. I did my best not to ruminate in the moment and avoided checking. I tried to move on, but the feeling of genuinely liking the thought was so clear that it is hard to shake off. Has anyone else experienced something similar? This is one of the first times it has ever happened to this extent.

Tmi warning I was being intimate with my bf and I kept getting the name of someone else pop up, but I didn’t feel anxious. Afterwards, as much as I tried to delay confessing, I couldn’t help it. I confessed. My bf was fine he said I probably didn’t feel anxious because I’ve gotten used to the anxiety and it’s okay, it doesn’t define me any more than it would if I was anxious. A few minutes later, he got upset and said that the confession kinda ruined a blissful moment. I’m so upset that my head feels so turbulent I didn’t even notice it was a blissful moment for him and could’ve been for me. I feel so awful. I haven’t slept in a day, I can’t stop crying. My bf is afraid that because this specific name keeps popping up, it might mean something and he feels less than sometimes because of it. I know I shouldn’t have confessed but I felt so safe that it was like a dam broke loose. I feel so awful. What’s worse is that I’m still scared it means something, I’m scared that my boyfriend’s fear is right. He’s very understanding of OCD and how it manifests in me and everything, I think I just kinda messed up a sacred moment and I feel so much guilt and confusion and just horrendous. I’m not even fully anxious. I don’t know what to do. I apologized a lot but I feel like I don’t deserve him and so selfish

Last night I was closing the store just like every other night. It was really late and I take public transportation, and I’m not comfortable taking the train alone as a young female late at night, so I take the bus. This bus comes just after my shift ends and whenever I ask to leave a bit early for my safety all the other managers say it’s okay. Except last night apparently. The manager I had was picking apart everything I did that day and giving me so much disrespect and attitude. I take it every time because I can’t afford to stick up for myself. She gave me permission to leave early and when I was about to step out she told me I needed to do more shit because I didn’t do enough during the day(I did my best). I stared tearing up because I got really bad images of me getting assaulted on the train or like me getting stabbed or something like that.(I live in a big city and crime on trains is too often). I even stared thinking of what to say to doctors and nurses about what happened and why I got hurt. To top it off she took away the days I was supposed to work this week. I hate retail. One day I’ll be able to afford school and work for respect in a field I love.

i feel like I can’t even enjoy time with my boyfriend anymore. No matter what we do, I’m constantly analyzing, checking, and questioning if I love him, if I feel anything, if I even want to be with him. It’s exhausting. I don’t feel happy, I don’t feel present, and I don’t know how to fix it. I’ve read about ERP, and I know it’s supposed to help, but I don’t know how to start. I feel like my fears are too real, like maybe this isn’t just ROCD—maybe I actually don’t love him, and I’m just scared to accept it. It feels like I’m lying to myself. I know my compulsions: I constantly check my feelings, analyze past memories, compare my relationship to others, and seek reassurance. I know I’m supposed to stop doing these things, but what do I do instead? What do I do when the thoughts hit me with full force and I feel completely numb? I’m scared to sit with the uncertainty. I’m scared that if I stop checking, I’ll realize I don’t love him. I want to do ERP, but I don’t even know where to begin. Has anyone successfully gone through this? How do you deal with the fear when it feels so real?

I just had a panic attack. It feels too real. It feels like I don’t have feelings for him anymore. Why is this happening? Why don’t I feel anything? Why don’t I love him? Why am I even questioning whether I ever loved him in the first place? I’ve been stuck in this for so long that I’m starting to believe it’s the truth. What if I feel this way because I just don’t want to accept that I don’t like him? What if I led him on this entire time? When I talk to him, I feel nothing. I’m not interested in anything. I can’t have conversations with him, I can’t kiss him, I just feel numb and fake. I feel horrible. What is happening to me? How did I get here? Why don’t I feel okay? I don’t understand what I feel. I feel like I’m lying to myself, like I’m stuck in this terrifying loop. I also feel like I don’t even care that I’m hurting him. I know he’s upset, and I know this is affecting him too, but I feel nothing about it. I don’t know why. It’s like something is blocking me from feeling anything. I know I should care. I know I love him. So why do I feel like I don’t? I feel so lost. I feel like I’ve changed. I don’t recognize myself anymore. What if this is real? I just want to feel normal again. i dont understand what is happening. i fear i didn’t love him ever because these thoughts started in the 4th month of us being together. in two months we make 2 years. am i leading him on? im a horrible person. i dont understand .

I feel like the thoughts are telling me, "You want this, you want to be attracted to kids" when I know that's not the case. I've been stuck ruminating for the past couple of days and I'm so worried about this disorder convincing me that I'm something I've never been. I try not to fight it, but when I don't it feels like I'm giving into it like it's true. The meds I'm on keep me from being super depressed, but it's still there. I feel like I'm going to act on my thoughts one day and it worries me. I don't feel like myself anymore and I don't know if this is progress or a relapse. Even when having intercourse with my partner, I had to thought block because the thoughts were images while in the middle of it. Then afterwards, they came flooding in saying that I was doing it as a distraction. I don't know what else to do. I try to pinpoint all of my triggers, but sometimes I don't think I even have any. I feel like a monster. I'm honestly scared.

Im so fucking terrified by my own thoughts. Idk how much longer I can go on like this. Just every single thing my brain produces feels either distorted by OCD or like I've literally done the most deplorable thing any person could do. Can't reach out to a specialist because I don't have the money and too scared too share. So scared that it's real

I just got off what felt like the longest shift ever, and now that I look back this whole thing might have started because I was tired. But anyway, as I was cashing out a huge line of customers I felt this tingling itch in my nose. Like uncomfortably itchy. I couldn’t rub my nose because of my makeup and people being infront of so many people so of course my brain took this itch and went wild. I all of a sudden got this awful image in my head of my nose cracking like a crack in the cement. It was so gross seeing my flesh rip. In the moment I was convinced that was happening to my face and I started to panic and kept my head down as I checked people out because I felt like my nose was falling apart. I was so scared that this was actually happening because the image in my head was so realistic and nasty. I escaped to the bathroom and when I looked in the mirror my nose was completely fine. I laughed off the entire situation and it was obviously my brain fucking with me but I find myself checking my nose just to make sure. I guess that’s part that’s bothering me the most. Please, have a cat smooch.

I have barely slept in three days, maybe two hours a night. I feel so overwhelmed and uncomfortable right now. I cannot, for the life of me, stop confessing. I feel absolutely unforgivable, like no matter what it is, I am irredeemable. These waves of guilt and dread keep hitting me so hard. Every time I sleep, all I do is dream-ruminate. I analyze every tiny detail of whatever I am obsessing over, even in my sleep. It almost feels easier to stay awake, not that I have been able to do anything else. I feel so drained. I am scared to sleep. I hate my brain. I feel so anxious.

I just recently turned 51 and take medication for ocd but STILLhave major issues--i need some hope--🥰

i saw a tik tok with a guy reading notes about how others relationships ended, or new it ended something like that. One of them was “ when i wasnt excited to see her anymore and it felt like a chore, i wasnt happy anymore and i felt like that for over a year but i couldn’t tell her” i feel horible bc i think i have rocd and for over a year i obbses with me not loving him anymore. i feel awful. what if im in the same position as that guy. what if i dont love him. he is at my house rn and i feel si bad, i feel like i have no feelings. i feel horible i font understand what is happening. i dont want this to happen . This video made me want to cry. what if i cant accept the fact that i dont like him anymore. when he kisses me i think that i dont want him. i feel like a liar.

Lemme explain, so quite often if I’m retelling something that happened I will lie about random details because I constantly think that if whatever I’m saying isn’t interesting enough or if it makes me seem like a bad person then the listener will absolutely hate me or think I’m boring and not want to talk to me anymore. I don’t know if that could potentially be based on ocd or if maybe it’s more like pathological lying ? Sometimes I’ll even take it as far as repetitively memorizing the lie details to the point where I actually feel like I remember it happening that way (like I almost gaslight myself into believing my own lies if that makes sense?)

Ohhh here we go again. So I have an obsession that I am the devil? So annoying. The delusions are getting ridiculous. But I am concerned I have schizo-obsessive.

I am so tired of this. I feel ashamed of myself. I waited until it was late to post this because I can’t take it anymore. My boyfriend is at my house right now. We saw each other today—he brought me a bouquet of flowers, we went out, and then came back home. But I just couldn’t stop thinking that he was annoying me or that I couldn’t stand him, even though he wasn’t doing anything wrong. I felt irritated and distant the entire time. And when we got home, it got even worse. We ended up arguing because of how distant I was, but I couldn’t help it. All I could think about was that I don’t love him, that I don’t like him, that I’m a liar, and that I’m just pretending when I’m with him. I kept thinking that I’m only with him because I’m used to him and that I just don’t want to accept the truth that I don’t love him. When he hugged me, I couldn’t be present. When we kissed, I felt absolutely nothing. Nothing. He kissed me, and I couldn’t even focus or try to connect with what was happening—I just wanted to cry. I feel like a liar who refuses to accept the truth. I started going to therapy, but I’ve only had one session. My psychologist told me to write in a journal, to reflect on what role fear plays in my life and why I feel so unsettled. I wrote, “The possibility that my thoughts might be true.” But now I just think I’m lying—to myself, to my boyfriend, even to my psychologist—because I want to believe I love him, but my mind tells me I don’t feel anything. I couldn’t even sit comfortably with him, I couldn’t enjoy being in his arms—I just felt sad. I’m so scared that this is real. It feels real. I don’t understand what’s happening to me. I feel like I’m lying to everyone. Like I’m in denial. I don’t know how to do this anymore.