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If anyone knows a lot about full metal alchemist brotherhood please reply!! I used to love full metal alchemist brotherhood but ever since I started having thoughts about liking pride it triggers me. Especially cause his character is a homunculus which need a disguise/host/container to be able to move around. Cause Pride is a humanoid shadow monster/villian created by a god with alchemy. And he’s supposed to be a child!! But then they say Pride is 300+ years old which triggers it for me because people say you can’t be physically attracted to characters who are demons or adults who look like literal children!! Like I don’t want to be attracted to pride if he’s an actual child!! Especially (SPOILER) when Edward recreates pride into a normal child cause he killed/removed pride “the shadow.” Shows that he’s a child!!! And I don’t want to be attracted to that at all!!!! I’m so confused and scared!!

I struggle with ROCD - specifically anything which can trigger a fear of abandonment. So themes have been / usually are: - I’m not enough (therefore he’ll leave) - He’s only with me because he feels sorry for me - We’ll never get married (except now we’re married, so this has now morphed into ‘we’ll never make it a year married’ - of course! 😂) It’s very painful to experience these thoughts. Since we got married, my ocd has shifted to - He’s lying to me / cheating on me / gaslighting me My urges are to check his phone for ‘evidence of cheating’ / ‘reassurance that he hasn’t cheated’. I’ve been fighting again these compulsions because they don’t align with my values / the kind of wife I want to be. And I don’t want to feed ocd of course.! I’ve largely been able to resist - I’ve messed up twice in the last few months, but as our 1 year anniversary approaches my ocd thoughts have gone utterly haywire, it’s painful to not check. It feels like I’m fighting urges every few hours. (I realise I am fortunate that I do go hours between urges, & my heart goes out to you all that have all-the-time urges). At night with his phone within arms reach it’s the worst for me. I’m losing hours and hours of sleep in resisting urges / riding the waves. Laying there feeling all the pain and distress and not reaching across him to get ‘the answers’. Nightmares also aren’t helping! 🫠 constant nightmares every night. I’m resisting 💪, but my god it’s difficult. It truly feels like I’m ‘deluding myself’ and ‘prolonging my suffering’ to not check if he’s cheating - (though I know this is ocd talking). This is one of the most challenging times I’ve faced, and I’ve only really just begun my ERP work. I’m mostly piecing together the instructions from online sources on how to do ERP, and I guess I’m just going to have to assume I’m doing the steps reasonably well. It’s just very tough.! I often feel so lonely in this fight against OCD. I’m also trying not to talk to my partner or friends about my fears - because I don’t want reassurance from them, I don’t want to feed OCD. But the loneliness of not talking about the struggle is pretty hard.! 😕 So I’ve come here to let that out a bit, it’s lonely, it’s difficult, it’s painful, and I’m not giving up. And it helps when I remind myself that all you lot are in the same boat as me, we’re all fighting our invisible battles alongside each other. ⚔️

Hello I need some help on how to keep accountability with myself on ERP homework and therapy. I understand at this point I have no motivation so I just gotta do it with the intent to just do it. I mean I have motivation but the drive to make me do it has been very hard to work towards. I have tried writing ERP, digital writing ERP, just thinking ERP and trying to do in the morning ERP I even tried phone alarm to remind me to do ERP but nothing was the right way to help me do practice consistently. Ever time I miss I feel more and more disappointed with myself and when I end up doing one I just feel like its not enough. Does anyone have any tips or advice on other ways to organize ERP homework to keep accountability or another method to try to keep at it. At this point its been a while since I’ve been in OCD therapy and while I can happily say I am much better than before I feel like I could have been better or at least feel more proud of myself if I perform better in my practices. I want to change right now I realize what I am doing now is not sustainable or helpful to me. But im not sure what else to try. thank you :3

my job causes a lot of anxiety because I feel very trapped. if anyone doesn’t mind commenting, interaction really helps. I find it easier to distract myself with conversation rather than trying to internalize it. Thanks everyone.

it feels like a monster crawling into my skin. like this unwanted feeling & thought. anytime I see a trigger, my brain does the honor to torture me. it’s like I’m trapped. locked in place. and you can’t do anything about it when it comes. you want it to go away but it eats at you. you’re sure you aren’t what you fear. but each exposure makes you rethink. and the cycle begins. what the fuck even is real or fake??? shit feels real to me. I hate it. it causes so much stress. shame. it’s like my brain forces me to. I don’t want it anymore. I want to go back to the way I was. before all of this took over. I want to rest.

Pls pls help me…and if you have even 5 mins give it a read maybe.., i am posting after a while as life came hard and fast to me so i have been dealing with ocd for about 5 years now with different subtypes from health to suicidal to homosexual seen quite a lot and now idk if this is rocd or not but i need a little help… so i was on and off with this one guy for a long time lets say 2 years and never was in a relationship though and had intense feelings for him but he never committed as such so it never happened and i thought of him to be my TWIN FLAME.. cause he always came back and left and came back again but nothing happened still and i changed cities for my higher education and finally met a great guy and someone who i could finally open up to and fell hard for while this other guy started to fade away always knew the soft spot would remain but rest faded because i love someone else now and my recent guy has a girl bestfriend he is close to and they never did anything but he told me before he met me and after his breakup with his ex he thought his bestie and he could have something but he shut them down completely when we got serious. Yesterday this guy i thought of as my twin flame or whatever came back after 4 months of no contact and i handled the situation well and told him i was with someone else and everything and that i was happy as well but a part of me was sad he didn’t do what he is now maybe a few months ago cause then we could be together but nevertheless i am happy where i am now since then my brain has been thinking a few things like my how i dont want to do anything but my current boyfriend what if he went with his bestie behind my back and i left him and went to this other guy to see if there’s a chance but then if i am even thinking so means i want it and i am being selfish and its not like rocd intrusive thoughts cause doesn’t feel so but actually wanting to do it otherwise why would i consider it and be thinking about it so much and maybe even lie to my boyfriend about it? He leaves me first so i dont have to but if i think like that means i want and i am combating guilt and regret and being selfish but if i am okay with him leaving cause then i think i get to be with this other guy means i do and i am lying to him and if thats what i want what am i doing and if its playing in my head thats not okay and i am with him cause selfish and i am scared he would leave but okay with him fucking up and leaving so that i get that chance but if i want it at all means i want him and this is a safety option and not what i truly want and i am lying to my boyfriend? if i am okay with him leaving and would go to kar that means it already in my head and what i want i just want him to do that so i go without regret thats toxic and selfish and if i already feel like this that means its true and i feel nothing for my boyfriend? what am i doing with him and then just there until he fucks up and i leave and if thats what i want then i already dont want him or know so and not like intrusive ocd thinking but actually thinking and possibility and if i am okay with that that means no feelings for the current guy i am selfish and toxic and just not a good person but not saying truth cause also scared and want to keep around but thats not okay and not ocd and just i know not ocd just thinking and if hoping for it even tiniest thats pathetic he loves me and i love him so why do i think so and do i even love him of one ex coming back can make me think this and question and will be okay even the tiniest bit with what i thought?!? Idk if i am even anxious i am writing this normally so its true thoughts and not ocd and i know so so its cant be also which means i am wrong and selfish and not right?

I'm going to share some info I just read on Instagram and I think it's very helpful to understand the difference between intrusive thoughts and 'on purpose' thoughts Understanding Key Terms: What's ruminating? Ruminating is any passive or active mental engagement with your OCD question. This includes trying to answer the question, monitoring thoughts, scanning for triggers, avoiding them and suppressing thoughts. What's my OCD question? At the heart of every OCD theme is a feared question. It might be about relationships ("is this the one?") health ("What if I have cancer?") or identity ("What if I'm the type of person who would intentionally hurt others?"). These questions spark intensive anxiety because they suggest a potential negative reality about you and your future. To escape this discomfort and sense of lack of control, you ruminate, seeking a definitive answer. Why is Ruminating So Hard to Stop? Ruminating feels essential because it appears to be necessary for resolving your OCD question, making it incredibly hard to stop. However rumina is counterproductive because your OCD question is UNANSWERABLE. The more you try to resolve it, the more confusion and frustration you feel, creating a cycle of hopelessness and helplessness. This only intensifies the urge to ruminate. Why Ruminating is Within Your Control The Reality of Intrusive Thoughts: Most believe the thoughts are uncontrollable, but most "intrusive thoughts" are actually created by you in an attempt to answer your OCD question. Ruminating Fuels OCD by: -keeping your OCD question stuck in a mental loop. -fueling your anxiety,anger, shame, etc. Illustrating the Concept: Imagine a woman struggling with ROCD. A thought about her co-worker's attractiveness pops into her head, contradicting her all-or-nothing beliefs about love, such as "I should find my husband the most attractive" this triggers shame and fear. She starts questioning herself: "Does this mean I no longer love my husband?" "What if I cheat on him with my co-worker?" She then imagines cheating to assess her emotional reaction, trying to uncover a hidden desire. This woman feels trapped in a cycle of Intrusive thoughts, unaware that most of her thoughts are actually mental analysis she's generating to figure out if she no longer loves her husband and will cheat on him. Recognizing that the initial intrusive thought triggers a series of intentional mental rumination is crucial. These actions perpetuate her distress. The implications for YOUR HEALING: Realizing that most of your thoughts are self-generated in an effort to resolve your OCD question means you can choose to stop trying to figure it out. This knowledge can help you break the OCD/anxiety cycle.

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.

Everything I’ve ever used to tell myself that there’s no intent, is now backfiring on me. Today it felt like my brain was fantasizing and enjoying the thoughts of murder I now have towards loved ones on a daily basis. What is the difference between HI and this?

I experience a few different sup-types… I would say introspectively the most noticeable is Somatic OCD followed by Harm and Contamination. I have been in therapy for 11/12 years… pretty consistently. I heard about this app through some ads, and some friends and family started suggesting I try it. This is my first time using it. I previously did not realize I had OCD. At some point when I was around 16 I thought OCD could be the thing I was experiencing. The understanding of OCD in my general circle of people was limited. When I introduced the possibility of having OCD to others, I was met with the idea that I could not have OCD because I had always been disorganized and “messy”. Otherwise, I was introduced to the concept of “Pure” OCD- which wasn’t entirely fitting for me. I didn’t know, until today, that Somatic OCD was the word for what I was experiencing… along with a few other subtypes that I learned about today. Within the past couple of years I’ve come to realize that I experience symptoms of OCD. I have also come to realize that there is a strong pattern of a variety of OCD subtypes on the paternal side of my family. On the maternal side there is (sparse, compared to paternal side) history of Hoarding Disorder- which I know the DSM now classifies as its own condition within the OCD spectrum. TW: This is the part where I discuss personal symptoms, memories, and behaviors with some detail. Today while filling out the questions for this app— it really ‘sunk-in’ for me that I have been experiencing Somatic OCD for as long as I remember. I can’t say I can pin-point where it started… but I can say one of my earliest, seemingly-random, memories is being 5 years old- In Kindergarten Music Class. We were watching a movie and I suddenly became aware of my breathing. I felt like I wasn’t breathing, but I was getting oxygen… because I wasn’t feeling out of breath. I was very anxious as a child so I cannot recall if in this moment breathing awareness caused anxiety. I do remember thinking (with the vocabulary I had at the time) that it was maybe a cool thing? To breathe without breathing- is this something everyone can do? I’ve always experienced Magical Thinking as well. I also remember being anxious, as a young child, after I learned that we expel CO2 when we breathe out. I was very anxious to breathe in “stale-air” thinking it could harm me. This interacted with Harm symptoms where I obsessively worried about intentionally suffocating myself although I didn’t desire to. As I think back, I remember some of my earliest memories are of me trying to “even-out” some of my body-feelings. If I was playing with a textured toy for a few seconds in one hand, I’d have to switch it to the other until the feeling was the same in both hands. Many times this lead to me counting seconds while holding things, and continuing the ritual until I was inevitably distracted or re-directed. Other early memories of mine include me thinking I could control the weather with my mind. I was very worried that I would accidentally summon a tornado by wishing for it with a passing thought. I would spend hours staring out the window thinking “I don’t, I don’t, I don’t…” hoping that if I accidentally made the wish it would be preceded by negating it. I’m sharing this to cope with the “sinking-in” of it all. I’m looking back at these experiences with a “neutral” lens in the sense that I’m trying to be mindful of feeling triggered, and allow myself to sit with feelings that come up and observe them without trying to push feelings and thoughts away. Obviously it’s a balancing act because I don’t want sitting with my feelings to turn into sitting “in” my feelings and ruminating. Typing things out is helpful for me- I understand my thoughts and feelings better when I hear or read them back. A lot of feelings have come up for me in a short time since downloading this app and filling out the survey. I feel sad for my current, moreover my former and child-self. I feel bummed in general that our understanding of mental-health is/has been limited— I feel bummed that OCD is sneaky like that… Nearly 12 years of therapy, and the reality of experiencing OCD was just so normal to me that I didn’t notice it enough to share. I feel bummed that I didn’t previously have the vocabulary or the skills to be honest and speak about what I was experiencing with consistent detail. I feel sad for my parents and their parents and siblings who experienced similar things. It’s hard sometimes to allow myself to identify “feelings” (emotions) without thinking I’m over-processing it. Like I said, fine line. I do struggle to identify and sit *with* the feelings so it is something I inevitably have to do. So yeah. It’s just kind of wild to think this has been going in for SO LONG. I feel a relieved, having processed it a bit. So I’ll close out and re-direct myself now as this has been a long reflection moment.

So something that kinda pops up with my anxiety is about a year or so ago i ate an edible gummy after not doing anything for a while and i tripped out really bad… for example i thought i was gonna overdose and die, and that i was already dead.. that is the most fear i have felt in my entire life, and even though its over and has been over i have this constant fear in my mind “what if your still high and this is all a dream” or “your gonna wake up and it will still be that night” i never wanna feel that way again. i can’t even go around the smell of weed with out freaking out. i can’t take pills, or vitamin gummies because “what if it will make me high” when it comes to sleeping i wanna try this dr teals sleep blend but i struggle so much with it because of my mind saying “it will make you feel high”.. even when i feel tired i feel scared cause it reminds me of feeling high.. its just i feel so stuck with the same reaccrujng thought “this could be the time you wake up and it was all just a dream” “you could wake up from coma and this was all imagined” i don’t know what else to do, its my own mind no one can help me and that sucks i don’t know how to win the battle when it’s such a deep rooted fear. i feel like im pushing my family away. i feel so numb.

I keep feeling bad that I didn’t find my partner that cute at first. I didn’t think he was unattractive but when I first met him it was at work and him and this other guy were new. I thought the other guy was more attractive at the time. I even vocalized it to a friend. NOW my boyfriend is my whole world and I think he’s the most handsome man ever. Even more handsome than the guy I originally thought was cute. I don’t have a problem with his appearance or anything. I just feel guilty over not finding him more attractive than the other guy. It feels wrong and of course my thoughts are saying I should tell him this but I know it’ll just hurt his feelings.

Hello! I'm new here and new to OCD. My therapist suggested I might have OCD due to my tendency to ruminate endlessly on doubts and fears. These thoughts are indeed intrusive and I can't seem to stop them. The thing I'm kind of stuck on is that I can't see where the compulsions come in. Unless the thoughts themselves are compulsions. Can anyone relate to this?

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. :(

does anyone else has adrenaline rushes when triggered?

It hurts I hurt a lot of people and the guilt is killing me like actually eating me alive and I can’t even get help my parents are kinda abusive and don’t want me going to therapy cause their afraid they or I will go to jail but I idk if I can go on When I started highschool at 14(currently 15 rn) I had a weird mentality that everything was sexual and that I could date anyone by just telling them I liked them and being honestly creepy. Idk what’s wrong with me I feel so weird like I don’t have crushes it’s just me wanting to have sx with people I find attractive and it’s so horrible. But before I realized how bad this was I hurt people I had 4 friends they all don’t talk to me anymore because I was so sexual with everything I made sexual jokes made everything sexual and just sexualized myself at every turn even when they told me to stop I wouldn’t listen. It’s sick. When I realized this was wrong it was too late. One of them stopped talking to me and doesn’t even want to look at me or wants me saying his name.and one of them says they don’t care but idk I think they do.and I was honestly in a horrible mental state and tried a few times and my other friend had enough of it and just stopped talking to me. I have a best friend who I met online she was so nice to me we used to date but we broke up. And we get close but I betrayed her trust when I sent her explicit butt pics to this 17yr old I wanted pics from and he said he wouldn’t mind me sending them (my best friend was 15) and I was begging this 17yr old for pictures when he declined a lot then the 17 yr old said he was manipulating me and how he was keeping me in a loop of mystery. My best friend found out about the picture thing and she was sick but forgave me cause she didn’t want me self harming IMFEEL sick because of that she put my feelings above hers when I was in the wrong and she said she doesn’t want to lose me as a friend but idk she said she forgives me cauee she knows I’m broken ig but that makes me feel worse. And I also begged this 16 yr old for pics when I was either 13/14 and I feel sick I begged for pics when he declined but my best friend says not to feel bad cause he was grooming her kinda but idk I wanan apologize to him. Lately I’ve been thinking of how I think I s@d someone from my school someone I one or my baby cousins or my little brother and it feels real like it happened and I feel like a pedo and a s*x offender and Ik no one can forgive me idk if I want to go on it feels like death is the only way to atone for what I did . When I told my 4th friend about why my other friends don’t talk to me anymore he didn’t respond I think that cemented how bad I really am how sick I am I’m no different than a child pred or sx offender. My parents don’t even like me they always remind me how I treat them bad or how I’m a bad person. I feel horrible. Maybe I should just be locked up

hello all! i am relatively new to nocd and kinda interested in finding a support person on this app. i am 22 years old, struggling with many forms of ocd, anxiety and depression. i have friends, but at the end of the day they truly don’t understand what’s going on in my brain. with this post, i am hoping to find someone similar to my age range and what not so we can have eachother to lean on for support. thanks for reading!

For the first time in my life, I feel calm. I have never known what it felt like to be relaxed and not anxious. Exposure and response therapy combined with the right anxiety medication for me has changed my whole life. I am doing things I never thought I’d be able to do. I am able to relax finally and when the anxiety comes, I work through it. I never knew life could be like this, but I am so grateful. The obsessions still come, and they likely always will, but being able to work through them in the moment instead of falling into a seemingly endless cycle of compulsions feels like such an achievement.

Hey y'all, I've been noticing a lot of people on here are religious. It's been years since I've been religious myself, and I'm just curious as to whether it helps and how it helps with OCD.